Way Too Soon NHL Power Rankings for the Metropolitan Division

We’ve been seeing this for years, this is a pure John Tortorella team, no number one star and a bunch of young, hungry and scrappy players. However, not having a bona fide star is what I believe is holding this team back.

Cam Atkinson, Nick Foligno, Boone Jenner, Riley Nash, Seth Jones, David Savard,  and everybody else up and down the lineup has completely bought into Tortorella’s system and plays it very well. They found their new Lord and Savior in the Latvian Elvis in goaltender Elvis Merzlikins , but I just wonder if this might be the line before a lot of these guys come off the books next year.

As a Yinzer, it hurts to put my boys this low, but I had to take a step back and take my black and gold glasses off. This team was able to shed Jack Johnson in a buyout, Matt Murray was shipped off to Canada, and it seems like they are making a genuine attempt to get younger and faster. I’m just not sure if that’s enough to keep pace in a very competitive Metropolitan Division. Young talent like Teddy Blueger, Sam Lafferty, Jason Zucker will help, and hopefully Brandon Tanev has the same type of year he had before everything shut down.

However, the defense scares me. Cody Ceci is a very risky signing, Mike Matheson I’m not convinced was a good move, John Marino hopefully doesn’t have a sophomore slump and it will be the Tristan Jarry show next year. There are far too many question marks with my squad to put them any higher than a wild-card team.