Are the Toronto Maple Leafs in the easiest division? Is their record somehow tainted by easy competition? No, and definitely not. The Leafs do not play in the weakest division, and the parity of the NHL is such that it probably wouldn’t make that much of a difference if they did anyways.
Still, in order to find out for sure, we went through each division and looked at the strength of their makeup.
West Division
The West Division is perhaps the most lopsided division of the four NHL divisions.
The top of the division has three legitimate Cup threats with Vegas Golden Knights, St. Louis Blues and Colorado Avalanche as three clear playoff teams. There is a massive drop off from there, with all due respect to the Minnesota Wild, who have taken a large step forward this year. The Wild seem to be right up there with the big boys, however, upon closer inspection you see that 10 of Minnesota’s 12 wins have come against the three lowly California teams. ( stats via NHL.com )
Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings are three of the worst teams in the NHL. Last season these three California teams were the only three teams in the Western Conference that were left out of the play-in rounds. They continue to be consistent in that regard, although the Kings have managed more points than San Jose and Anaheim. Arizona Coyotes find themselves just below the Kings, which is more of an indication of how bad the Coyotes have been this year than it is about Los Angeles being much improved.
As far as quality of competition goes this division is far behind the other three. Nathan MacKinnon is clearly a superstar, and players like Mark Stone, Ryan O’Reilly and Anze Kopitar will again be in Selke Trophy conversations this season.
The presence of a Drew Doughty or Cale Makar would obviously make any team better, and Marc-Andre Fleury may still be a top ten goalie in the NHL. Overall, the individual talent is few and far in between for this West Division and they must be seen as the “weakest” of the four divisions.