1. Los Angeles Kings - 64.29%
2. Vancouver Canucks - 58.82%
3. St. Louis Blues - 90.91%
4. Chicago Blackhawks - 57.14%
5. San Jose Sharks - 30.00% (Tied with the Wild, but I let Trollinen pick the leader as he was neutral between the San Jose/Minnesota camp)
6. Minnesota Wild - 61.11%
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Going Dallas here. Fringe playoff team last year, and they added three great offensive pieces while only losing one. Plus, Benn will continue to develop and will put up crazy ridiculous numbers this year. They've basically got Morrow on their third line, that alone is good enough to put them at 7th IMO.
As far as Nashville goes, I'll always root for them, but this isn't about who I like this is about who I think will do well. Basically they lost a top 15 defenseman in the league and their best forward. If you look at their roster it's just not impressive, even with Rinne in the net.
I'd be interested in hearing why specifically you think Nashville will be better Dallas, unless it really is "Pekka Rinne." I think he'd have to have a record breaking season for Nashville to do anything in the West. Meanwhile, Dallas's goaltending situation is solid with Lehtonen/Bachmann, and overall their roster is better top to bottom.
If we have Detroit outside of the playoffs and Nashville in, then for some reason we're respecting Nashville as a franchise more than Detroit.
Lidstrom was extremely good and Detroit will be worse, but Nashville was a genuinely awful team (even *with* Ryan Suter) who had stellar goaltending. This year they will be, by far, the worst team in the league.
Went with Anaheim over Dallas by a weeeee bit. I think their defense will be slightly better with Allen. Smith-Pelley will show improvement and put up ~30 points, and a year of Boudreau laying profanity in the ears of Ryan, Perry, Getzlaf, etc. will get them in.
