Shakeup in the East/ Final Playoff Predictions

Today the Islanders went all in on making the playoffs this year, trading for defencemen Nick Leddy and Johnny Boychuk. This trade will send ripples throughout the Eastern Conference as the Islanders continue to muddy the waters in the Metro division and the Bruins look even more vulnerable in the Atlantic.


Lets start by looking at the impact in the Metro, if you don't care and only want to see the impact on the Red Wings playoff hopes then feel free to skip this paragraph. Before either of these trades my rough calculations put the Islanders at about 98 points next year, mostly due to the massive upgrade in net. That seemed a bit generous in my opinion, but they were solidly on the playoff bubble coming into the season. However these trades address their only major weakness, adding two potential top-4 dmen and they seem to be solidly in the playoff picture. This means the competition will be even more heated for the rest of the Metro teams, any stretch of bad luck could see teams falling too far to catch up. For my prediction I still see Pittsburgh as the clear #1, they may struggle early as they adjust to the new system but they are simply too talented to not rise above the rest. After Pitt it becomes very complicated, but I still have the Rangers as the #2 team. While they lost a lot of players after their cup run, youth and some good signing should improve the forward depth and they still have King Henrik between the pipes. Next will be the Islanders, they seem to have a bit of everything you need to be a playoff team. Solid goaltending and defense, good forward depth to go with an elite game changer. People often forget they gave the Pens all they could handle two years ago and were the trendy team to make a run last season before Tavares went down. In the Wild Card spot I see either the Devils or the Blue Jackets, for now I have the Devil's penciled in, although it remains to be seen how their older players hold up. Columbus really needs Ryan Johansen to sign and be the player he was last year or they will lack that game breaking offensive ability that separates them from the Devils. Looking further outside the playoffs I have the Capitals, followed by the Flyers and the Hurricanes. The Hurricanes seemed doomed with the injury to Jordan Staal, I can't seem them overcoming the injury with all the competition. The Capitals should be improved with the changes but I am not a fan of their forward group outside of 19/8 and they will most likely give too much ice time to Orpik to justify his contract. I really like some of the Flyer's pieces up front, but the d core is just so bad and I see Mason having a big time regression season. They will have to be all offense all the time as I see this team bleeding goals all year.

Despite losing Iginila and the improvement of Tampa Bay, the Bruins were still my favorite to win the Atlantic. After this trade I will still stick with that prediction but I would be slightly nervous if I was a B's fan. While the big talk around Boston was the 9 NHL defenseman the Bruins had at camp, I am not a big fan of their depth on the back end. Chara is getting older and seems to be wearing down and Im not sure the kids are truly ready to take on those tough minutes just yet. I will still have Boston #1 and TB #2, if Ben Bishop is the real deal and doesn't suffer from the regression I assume is coming, I could easily see TB overtaking the Bruins atop the Atlantic. While this may be a bit of favoritism, I have the Red Wing's in the 3 spot for all the obvious reasons. A (mostly) full season of 12/40/90 as well as a bounce back year for Howard should put them back in the playoffs comfortably. After the Wings I have the Habs, although I could easily see the Habs jumping into the 3 spot. After the top 4 I'm not really sure any of the other teams can really compete for a playoff spot. Toronto and Ottawa will be competitive, and I see Florida taking a big jump forward but they are still not really in the mix for the playoffs yet. Buffalo is safe in the McDavid sweepstakes.

Playoff Prediction
#1M Pittsburgh- 110
#1A Boston- 107
#2A Tampa Bay-105
#2M New York Rangers-100
#3A Detroit-99
#WC1 Montreal-98
#3M New York Islanders-97
#WC2 New Jersey Devils-93

#9 Columbus-92
#10 Washington-86
#11 Toronto-85
#12 Ottawa-85
#13 Florida-80
#14 Philadelphia-78
#15 Carolina-68
#16 Buffalo-60