The Toronto Maple Leafs are among five league-wide locks to make the playoffs.
How do I know? Because I made them Smooth Jimmy Apollo’s Shoe-In of the Week, that’s how. Also I looked at the stats, the recent past history, and what team’s did this summer. Then I concluded that the Toronto Maple Leafs, along with the Lightning, Avalanche, Wild and Oilers are the five best teams in hockey, the five teams guaranteed to make the playoffs.
And here I talked about which teams from the East I thought would miss the playoffs. Spoiler alert: The Senators still stink. Don’t think we haven’t watched with amusement as Pierre Dorian’s reputation takes an unexpected and (you better believe) temporary upturn.
So today we do the west.
Best in the West (This Year, Buy Her English Muffins)
The Wild and the Oilers, along with the reining champs, are the class of the west. Unlike how it has been for most of our lives, the West is the weaker conference lately, and that should continue this season.
Many of the NHL’s worst teams reside in the west.
There is the Sharks, the absolutely disgraceful Blackhawks and who can forget the NHL’s longest running joke – The Phoenix Coyotes.
The Jets would be terrible if not for having one of the world’s best goalies.
Along with the four terrible teams, the west has several very average teams in Dallas, Nashville, Calgary, Anaheim and LA. The latter two are worth watching for their rising stars, but the other three lack the star power to contend, but are decent enough they could, if everything goes right.
People ranking Calgary as the NHL’s best Canadian team has to be the dumbest hockey take since people wanted Jake Gardiner to be a forward, but I digress.
When in doubt, bet on the team with the best goalie, so I’ll give Nashville the 3rd slot in the Central, while St. Louis has Binnington and he should, though isn’t guaranteed to, make them a playoff team without too much trouble.
In the Pacific, only Edmonton is a lock, but Calgary and Vegas should make it without too much drama. The Knights don’t have a goalie, really, but who cares? Those guys are random, and I still think their Eichel/Stone/ Theodore/Pietrangelo combo is enough on its own to make them a contender.
For the final team, I’m calling Seattle. People forget how random goalies are, so Phillipp Grubauer is still just as good as he was two years ago. They added the should have been first-overall pick and with Schwartz, Burukovsky, Bjorkstrand….they have the best “sneaky-good” roster in the NHL and will surprise a lot of people.
That means these are your Western Conference Losers are: Dallas, Winnipeg, Chicago, Phoenix, LA, Vancouver, San Jose and Anaheim.