Who will be the most improved this year?

Which team do you feel will have the biggest turn around season of the bottom five teams?

Only because they made the most moves, and really they were last place so i mean they really can't do much worse... LOL

I think St. Louis is going to surprise this season...

shabbs wrote:I think St. Louis is going to surprise this season...

yeah they had a huge blow on defence though... i don't know if they'll recover from that...

I chose LA, because they have a slew of young talent with more scoring...and this was just a hard question to answer...Tampa, no D...NYI, hell's no, St. Louis I don't know very well. Atlanta is Atlanta, I can't see how they will ever improve, after this year, Kovy's probably gone..so they're in for A. Losing their team, or B. Continuing to suck for the rest of time.

SensGirl11 wrote:I chose LA, because they have a slew of young talent with more scoring...and this was just a hard question to answer...Tampa, no D...NYI, hell's no, St. Louis I don't know very well. Atlanta is Atlanta, I can't see how they will ever improve, after this year, Kovy's probably gone..so they're in for A. Losing their team, or B. Continuing to suck for the rest of time.

LA could surprise for sure... Especially if they go and scoop up Khabby!

They aren't on the list, but I think Chicago will be much improved this season providing they stay reasonably healthy (disregarding Havlat). Toews and Kane should be better this season, Campbell, despite the overpayment, will help that blue-line a lot, and Niemi and Huet should solidify the goaltending situation.

Out of those teams, I think you have to go with Tampa, because LA's goaltending isn't getting better/they have almost no experience on the blue-line (although Tampa doesn't really either) and are in a very, very strong division. Atlanta has no one to support Kovalchuk other than Slava Kozlov and Jason Williams, and I don't think Okposo is ready to turn the Isles around. Not to mention St. Louis just lost their franchise player for the entire season.

SensGirl11 wrote:I chose LA, because they have a slew of young talent with more scoring...and this was just a hard question to answer...Tampa, no D...NYI, hell's no, St. Louis I don't know very well. Atlanta is Atlanta, I can't see how they will ever improve, after this year, Kovy's probably gone..so they're in for A. Losing their team, or B. Continuing to suck for the rest of time.

The problem with LA IMO is that they still don't have any goaltending and now they have to face not only the Sharks, Ducks and Stars who are three of the top 8 teams in the NHL IMO but also the Phoenix Coyotes with the additions of Olli Jokinen and Kyle Turris/a full season of Bryzgalov (who some may recall I was desperately calling for the Sens to acquire in the off-season before the '07-'08 season.

The Kings also like Tampa don't have any experience on the blue-line.

asq2 wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:I chose LA, because they have a slew of young talent with more scoring...and this was just a hard question to answer...Tampa, no D...NYI, hell's no, St. Louis I don't know very well. Atlanta is Atlanta, I can't see how they will ever improve, after this year, Kovy's probably gone..so they're in for A. Losing their team, or B. Continuing to suck for the rest of time.

The problem with LA IMO is that they still don't have any goaltending and now they have to face not only the Sharks, Ducks and Stars who are three of the top 8 teams in the NHL IMO but also the Phoenix Coyotes with the additions of Olli Jokinen and Kyle Turris/a full season of Bryzgalov (who some may recall I was desperately calling for the Sens to acquire in the off-season before the '07-'08 season.

The Kings also like Tampa don't have any experience on the blue-line.

You have some good points for sure, I just thought of the teams listed there, they were probably going to be the most improved. However, I didn't realize who was in their division...that's really, really rough! Wow! It's like Toronto in our division basically, except, LA are much better as a whole.

We definitely could've used Bryzgalov, but, who could've known that Ray would've been as bad as he was and as much of an Donkey as he was last year? He really should've been number 1...and Bryzgalov is a definite starter...tough one here for sure (would've helped us a lot).

SensGirl11 wrote:You have some good points for sure, I just thought of the teams listed there, they were probably going to be the most improved. However, I didn't realize who was in their division...that's really, really rough! Wow! It's like Toronto in our division basically, except, LA are much better as a whole.

We definitely could've used Bryzgalov, but, who could've known that Ray would've been as bad as he was and as much of an Donkey as he was last year? He really should've been number 1...and Bryzgalov is a definite starter...tough one here for sure (would've helped us a lot).

Well, I suppose the division they play in is irrelevant if you're not basing it on the differential in points this season. And I do believe they've gone back to the 6 games against division rivals per season...

As for Bryzgalov, I can't really claim that I expected him to play as well as he did, I was just worried that Ray would want too much money (and the contract he got didn't seem like too much at the time). It's the same with Brad Stuart at the deadline, I moaned that we should have acquired him but I had no idea he would play as well as he did.

asq2 wrote:

SensGirl11 wrote:You have some good points for sure, I just thought of the teams listed there, they were probably going to be the most improved. However, I didn't realize who was in their division...that's really, really rough! Wow! It's like Toronto in our division basically, except, LA are much better as a whole.

We definitely could've used Bryzgalov, but, who could've known that Ray would've been as bad as he was and as much of an Donkey as he was last year? He really should've been number 1...and Bryzgalov is a definite starter...tough one here for sure (would've helped us a lot).

Well, I suppose the division they play in is irrelevant if you're not basing it on the differential in points this season. And I do believe they've gone back to the 6 games against division rivals per season...

As for Bryzgalov, I can't really claim that I expected him to play as well as he did, I was just worried that Ray would want too much money (and the contract he got didn't seem like too much at the time). It's the same with Brad Stuart at the deadline, I moaned that we should have acquired him but I had no idea he would play as well as he did.

That's the thing with some of these players...especially defensemen and goalies. Unless their names are Lidstrom or Brodeur...you just don't know from one year to the next how good they will be.

I picked Tampa because it would be really hard to finish worse than last overall.

Brilliant arguments for and against in this section.

I'll take a different route and say St.Louis like Smash. EJ being out for the year hurts, but I think they'll improve enough this year to make some teams in the West squirm.

McDonald got traded at Christmas time last year, how long does it take to recover from that? I think he's fresh and ready this year - and he's poised to be Kariya and Boyes' set up man.

I love Pat Berglund and TJ Oshie, they'll bring it.

I don't know where Asq and I had a good convo about these guys, but we both thought that although they had a lot of question marks - they could be fun to watch.