The interminable offseason comes to an end at last!

Top 10 Vegas odds for the Stanley Cup:
Pittsburgh Penguins 6-1
Edmonton Oilers 9-1
Tampa Bay Lightning 12-1
Washington Capitals 12-1
Chicago Blackhawks 12-1
Minnesota Wild 12-1
Toronto Maple Leafs 14-1
Nashville Predators 14-1
Dallas Stars 14-1
Anaheim Ducks 14-1

In honor of the league's youth movement, let's see the league's stars when they were REALLY young.

The contenders:

Penguins


Led by Timbit allstar Sidney Crosby, the two time defending champs lose their co-#1 goalie to Vegas, but get their actual #1 defenseman Kris Letang back. Does it make sense to bet against them?


Edmonton Oilers


Will this be the year this smiling Canadian boy brings the Cup back to it's home at last? Questions on defence remain, and can Talbot play every night again? And why is an actual smurf making the team out of camp?

Tampa Bay Lightning


After spending most of last year on the shelf, Stamkos returns to a team that missed the playoffs by the narrowest of margins last year. The real star of the team is not really Stamkos - it's either 23yr old 85 point scorer Nikita Kucherov or stud D-man Victor Hedman, but come on - look at that smile and that blonde hair!

Washington Capitals


Notorious goal scorer/playoff choker/Olympic wannabe Alex Ovechkin leads another stacked team forward. His window in Washington is closing fast, can this be the year?

Chicago Blackhawks


You get swept ONE time in the playoffs and suddenly the experts have you going from a league powerhouse to being projected to have to fight for the playoffs. Despite monstrous cap issues, they still have Kane, Toews, Keith, and Crawford, and you don't need that much more than that.

Minnesota Wild


I always thought every kid who plays hockey was probably a big jock - Devan Dubnyk must be the exception to prove the rule. The Wild will continue fight against their perception of the Capitals of the West - regular season powerhouse, playoff milquetoast.

Toronto Maple Leafs


Well if I had to play in Toronto, my hairline would start receding at age 6 too. Auston Matthews joins a bunch of other kids, their cap annihilating grandpa Marleau, and the fake injured Lupul as the second Canadian team making a push for the Cup.

Nashville Predators


Stanley Cup runners up, analytics darlings, party town - what could go wrong for PK and the Preds? Well, let's keep in mind they did just barely make the playoffs, and Pekka Rinne seems to alternate good years with bad. Last year was good.

Dallas Stars


Shown here practicing his Tinder poses, Tyler Seguin seems ready to take the run and gun Stars back to the top. In reality, it will come down to whether or not Ben Bishop and Marc Methot can make a serious difference in the goals against, where only Colorado gave up more last year.

Anaheim Ducks


The cheating and immoral Ducks, led by their cheating and immoral captain Ryan Getzlaf, cheated and immoralled their way past the Oilers in the playoffs before their cheating and immoral run ended in the next round. They are cheaters and immoral.

And finally, he has no shot at the Cup, but you can never get enough Jaromir Jagr - obviously, his kid picture has to be black & white.



Assorted Hot Takes

Connor McDavid will win the Hart Trophy.

Jack Eichel will win the Art Ross Trophy.

Victor Hedman will win the Norris Trophy.

Charlie McAvoy will win the Calder Trophy.

Minnesota Wild will win the President's Trophy.

West Playoff teams: Blackhawks, Stars, Wild, Blues, Oilers, Flames, Ducks, Jets.

East Playoff teams: Bruins, Canadiens, Lightning, Maple Leafs, Islanders, Rangers, Penguins, Capitals.

Solid OP. In for some hockey!!

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Nice OP, in.

Hehe Jagr black-n-white, hope he still can bring something. Maybe on PP? Please don´t make him try to skate with Gaudreau. Do think calgary has a half-chance with that D.

Too many bright-foreheaded NA-kids, Ovie at least with some swag. Oh and not sure were the Minny vote choice comes from, saw last season quite a bit of stuff saying they play defensive. They generate shots well enough (10th) and 2nd in GF last season. 13 ahead of Tor and 20 of Eddie. Hot takes not nearly hot enough, quite sensible! Think I need to watch the Finnish TV pre-season show for those, two years ago someone asked "Jussi Jokinen...30 goals or und..." and the other guy snap-called "Over!". Last year Ville Nieminen was of course convinced that Colorado was gonna explode for a big season, got no disagreement.

Since we already know that the Rangers are gonna win, why don't they change up the season format? Maybe play a playoff game, then play few regular season games, then go back for some playoffs. Etc.

It'll be like the flashback scenes from Lost and it'll really spice up the viewing experience.

Nice OP, in

Major WTF at the Matthews hairline

In for more Leafs optimism

Hey guys!

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Now is your last chance. It would really be appreciated to keep such an awesome league going!

Also nice op.

Hot take: Bruins will win the Atlantic. Tampa the cup.

In! At least this year I won't be disappointed in the Caps. I fully expect them to suck. Trotz fired by Christmas, Troy Mann (aka Dale Hunter II) to be named next coach, Ovechkin retires in time to play for Mother Russia in Korea.

OP's ok. Jets. Concerned about the goalie situation. Concerned about when and if they bring up the young guys. Concerned if the old guys fall off, I thought their one chance was the playoff year, but only Ladd has waned. Concerned if Enstrom falls off. Concerned if Enstrom can survive in the playoffs better than he did against Getzlaf and Perry. Concerned if Morrissey will have similar trouble [maybe it was poor scheme]. A Little concern about durability.

Perreault-Scheifele-Wheeler - That's ok, shouldn't Scheifele play with the young guys?
Laine-Little-Ehlers - That's two wicked shots, two fast guys, two playmakers.
Tanev-Lowry-Armia - First I thought Lowry was a 2C, then thought shutdown, not sure now.
Petan-Matthias-Dano - OK. What kind of line is this?

Connor not on 3rd line because they want to slot him in the top 6 when he can play there.

Morrissey-Trouba - There's your minutes buddy, sign here.
Enstrom-Byfuglien - I thought it was Enstrom-Myers on the 3rd pair.
Kulikov-Myers - This is what a 29 million dollar defence looks like. How likely is Kulikov to be a bust?

Chiarot-Poolman We've seen Chiarot play well on the first pair with Buff. Poolman makes 8.

Mason - They already had sweaters.
Hellebuyck - Watch the sun set on the Hellebuyck Hope Era. We should see a short Mason Hope Era. Long live Comrie.

Nice op

Strapping in for another year of the KANGZ preaching offence all year while only doing defence wins champiuonships

My - "one time"....... Can you Jackets please win a playoff series......?

Lotta words about the forwards and the defence - Jets issue is just like Dallas. Goaltending. You're winning nothing with a 0.900 save percentage. Get that up to .915 and you save 38 goals per year and I'm pretty sure you're solidly in the playoffs.

youth will be served huh? kool kool kool



blaming the goalies is easy, but the Jets' top 2 issues are the same as they've been like since the team returned to Winnipeg

1. they take way too many penalties
2. they're really bad at killing penalties
(like you're not gonna believe this, but goalies' sv% drops a lot while on the PK all of the time)

would put goaltending and a lack of quality depth after those

if Maurice can't solve the penalty/PK problem and get that team into the playoffs with all the talent they have, then it's time to clean house

I'm just hoping the Kangz are good enough that I don't fall asleep during the 2nd period every game.

And I might be adopting the Hurricanes as my East Coast team. Tbd.

vegas vs. anaheim will be an entertaining western conference final, looking forward to it.

Arturs Irbe is not walking through that door

The Eichel Tower gets 8 years, $80mil extension

Ironically, these are also Dallas's two other major issues. How does a team have a season where they only have 73.9% on the PK?

I have money on VGK under 70 points, that number is long gone now.

Tonight! I can hardly wait.

Toronto Sun, "After being swept in four games by the Anaheim Ducks in April of 2015, the Jets made an organizational decision to get younger and add skill..."

I think they are six years into their five-year plan.

So I am travelling to Montreal this November and want to see at least a game in the Bell Centre. MTL is playing a series of homegames during that time. The question is: There are seats available on Club Desjardins A parallel to the goal (the side where the Canadians would attack twice) for 224$ or White Centre for 111$. Are the former ones so much better to justify the price? There are also seats available in the blue section but these are below the roof and probably to far away. Anyone of the Habs fans who know the arena and can give me some advice?

7 years 42 mill for Ehlers. Have him and Scheifele on absolute sweetheart deals. Right behind the benches tonight, think it will be a good season.

Only confident Minnesota will be better than Winnipeg in the Central. Think Dallas likely will, but not confident. See a big drop off coming for both Nashville and Chicago.