Headed Up Or Down
from Justin Bourne of Sportsnet,
Predicting this coming season is like predicting magic eight-ball outcomes, but we can at least go over some teams who appear to have made positive and negative strides....
Three Up
Los Angeles Kings
The thing about doing a full rebuild is that the literal rebuilding is hard. Like, give me the time and some tools and I can demolish just about anything, and GMs seem pretty good at doing that, too. But I struggle to build a children’s fort, let alone a structure of consequence.
The Oilers tore it down and have struggled to reach meaningful heights. The Leafs are stuck in the first round after their fresh start. And there are far more dire examples. The Sabres are on rebuild number…god I don’t even know. I wrote about this a week ago.
The Kings are trying to head the other direction though, and I think they’re ready to make strides. Quinton Byfield should get into the lineup regularly and be impactful, and they made a trade for a player I really like in Viktor Arvidsson. He may not be the guy who scored around 30 goals three straight years anymore, but he’s only 28 and a healthy Arvidsson is surely good for 20-plus.
They also signed Danault, who has cemented his reputation as one of the NHL’s elite defensive centres. There are still holes, namely at D, where they’re hoping a 35-year-old Alex Edler can help solidify things. But if Cal Petersen looks like he did last year, and the division is as soft as expected, the Kings should be closer to the wild card race than the league’s basement.
New Jersey Devils
more, on the up the Vancouver Canucks are listed, on the down are the Coyotes, Sharks and Lightning......
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