If the Canes (or even the Isles) maybe five teams make the playoffs from the Metro.
Tampa, Leafs, Boston, Sens, Montreal, Buffalo, Florida,Detroit is my pre season prediction. To me only Tampa and Detroit are locks. Leafs, Boston, Pens, Montreal and Buffalo could all be as high as second or miss the playoffs.

Wow no Boston...which division are we going to?

Montreal will struggle because Price can't carry the whole team. They will struggle to score goals. Good top line, but after that not much. Other teams shut down the top line, Habs in trouble.

Leafs: Besides the talent they have, I can't believe no one sees how lucky they were to stay freakishly healthy last year. Look at all the players going down already. It WILL happen to the Leafs eventually, and I think it will happen this year. Plus the fact that opposing teams now know they can't take them easy, opponents will be harder to play against. Plus some of the kids having great years as rookies will fall back a bit, not all, but 1 will, so then that can make a difference between a few wins over the course of the year.

Plus the fact that Andersen is not as good as people think, neither is the D. Leafs will struggle to make playoffs and may squeak in on a wildcard, but not top 3 in Atlantic.

Ottawa will miss Karlsson the first few weeks and have a bad start and make it hard to catch up to the top 2. Buffalo is getting better but still VERY inexperienced.

Bruins will have a GREAT mix of veterans and youth. and it's the youth that will surprise everyone.

Tampa
Boston
Ottawa
Toronto
Buffalo
Montreal
Florida
Detroit

Of course you have Boston at 2

Tampa is the clear cut #1 IMO. they truly have a great mix of youth and experience.
Leafs have Arguable the best offence in this Division with great depth. Freddy is a great goalie. He plays a consistent game.
Boston have many holes. There defence is questionable. Their bottom 6 has a lot of question marks. Top 6 is their strength. But IDK if Marchand will repeat what he did last year

Of course you have Boston at 2

Tampa is the clear cut #1 IMO. they truly have a great mix of youth and experience.
Leafs have Arguable the best offence in this Division with great depth. Freddy is a great goalie. He plays a consistent game.
Boston have many holes. There defence is questionable. Their bottom 6 has a lot of question marks. Top 6 is their strength. But IDK if Marchand will repeat what he did last year

Leafs won't match the offensive output they had last year. They will slide, plus the injury bug will hit, which it didn't last year. "Freddy" is NOT great! He will come back to earth as well.
Bruins have NO holes! Defence is one of the best in the league, check the stats! Not overwhelming offensively, but that's not what they are there for. They are there to DEFEND!!!!! Bottom 6 depth increases this year with several rookies playing (like the Leafs), fast and productive!! This will allow guys like Backes and Belsekey to move down in the list to make them defensively sound and checking other teams top lines, and allowing the top 6 to "free-wheel"!!

Nobobdy WANTS to believe it, but everyone will witness it!!

Well yes, and where do you have Washington in the Metro? When clearly they are on a downhill slide!!!!???

Leafs won't match the offensive output they had last year. They will slide, plus the injury bug will hit, which it didn't last year. "Freddy" is NOT great! He will come back to earth as well.
Bruins have NO holes! Defence is one of the best in the league, check the stats! Not overwhelming offensively, but that's not what they are there for. They are there to DEFEND!!!!! Bottom 6 depth increases this year with several rookies playing (like the Leafs), fast and productive!! This will allow guys like Backes and Belsekey to move down in the list to make them defensively sound and checking other teams top lines, and allowing the top 6 to "free-wheel"!!

Nobobdy WANTS to believe it, but everyone will witness it!!

All you say about the Leafs is "they will slide" and "the injury bug will hit". Is it expected that the injury bug hits more than last year? Of course. But the team only got better during the offseason, and the young guys are going to keep developing. Andersen should be better with a better team in front of him and a year of experience with the team under his belt.

Don't even compare the Bruins incoming rookies to what the Leafs had last year. Bjork and JFK are nowhere near on the same level as Matthews, Marner and Nylander.

You take into account the Bruins gameplan, but not other teams. Ridiculous Paul

Leafs won't match the offensive output they had last year. They will slide, plus the injury bug will hit, which it didn't last year. "Freddy" is NOT great! He will come back to earth as well.
Bruins have NO holes! Defence is one of the best in the league, check the stats! Not overwhelming offensively, but that's not what they are there for. They are there to DEFEND!!!!! Bottom 6 depth increases this year with several rookies playing (like the Leafs), fast and productive!! This will allow guys like Backes and Belsekey to move down in the list to make them defensively sound and checking other teams top lines, and allowing the top 6 to "free-wheel"!!

Nobobdy WANTS to believe it, but everyone will witness it!!

There is such a thing as a "sophomore slump". I just chosen to believe it will hit the Leafs this year - as have some pundits on sports network TV. Still will be a decent team, don't make it sound like I said they will be terrible!!!! Friggin drama you bring.....

Why should Andersen be better? Where did D get better? You're just saying the opposite things that I did with no reasoning, where is your reasoning?

I was not comparing the groups of rookies - your drama again! But Bruin veteran corp in the top 6 is much better than the Leafs corp, which allow some veteran FWDS like Bels and Backes to move down to 3rd and 4th lines to solidify their defensive game and maybe add some offensive punch!!

I'm just saying how the Bruins have become better, not sure the Leafs have. Ridiculous Krak!

Okay, I'm going to have to stop you right there. Obviously Andersen is not an elite goaltender with the likes of Holtby, Price, Schneider, etc. but he is a very good goaltender. You say he'll "come back down to earth"...what does that look like to you? He has a career SV% of .918 and that was his exact SV% last season. He played the most games of his career last year (66 GP), and still put up a very respectable .918. So I'd say he's playing right where he should be. Not to mention he put up those numbers behind a pretty weak defense. I understand the qualms you have with their young forwards and how they had an unusually high bill of health last season, but I don't see Andersen as being a problem this season.

Toronto's young defensemen (Rielly, Gardiner, Zaitsev, Carrick) are all getting better, and they added Hainsey. That's an improvement. The Leafs brought in Patrick Marleau, and lost no significant forwards. Players as good as Matthews, Marner and Nylander won't slump. We'll probably see Brown and Hyman regress, but you can't expect the big three to regress

2015 NHL Draft (ppg)
McDavid : 48/45 ; 100/82
Eichel : 56/81 ; 57/61
Rantanan : 0/9 ; 38/75

2014 NHL Draft
Reinhart : 1/9 ; 42/79 ; 47/49
Draisatil : 9/37 ; 51/77 ; 77/82
Bennett : 1/1 ; 36/77 ; 26/81
Ehlers : 38/72 ; 64/82
Ritchie : 4/33 ; 28/77
Larkin : 45/80 ; 32/80
Fabbri : 37/72 ; 29/51
Pastrnak : 27/46 ; 26/51 ; 70/75
Arvidsson : 0/6 ; 16/56 ; 61/80

Not too many regressions...

Good one. Notice there is not one example here of 3 young players from 1 team, let alone only a couple with 2.

Also, look at the games played below of the top offensive guys. No way they can keep that up. That will cost a few wins alone!!!

Matthews - 82
JVR - 82
Kadri - 82
Nylander - 81
Marner - 77
Bozak - 78
Gardiner - 82
Brown - 82
Zaitsev - 82
Komarov - 82
Hyman - 82
Reilly - 76

That's a total of 16 man games lost amongst your top 12 players!!!!!! You tell me that's going to happen again?? Try a top 12 comparison to any or ALL other teams in the league. It does not happen!!!

I really don't understand your argument. You're saying the Leafs will be worse because they can't stay as healthy as they were last season and all of the rookies will have a sophmore slump? So 75% of the team will be on a full season sophmore slump and will get injured? I highly doubt that.
And to add, Leafs have more depth on offence than they did last year. Added Marleau to the top line and added a depth signing with Moore. They now dont have to worry about looking for the 4th line center by swapping Ben Smith and Freddy Gauthier (Big improvement)
Also for defence, Leafs waived Marchenko who was no better than an AHL D. They added Hainsey who is a veteran defensive D; which they clearly needed, instead of young offensive minded D. And in addition, Marincin most likely will be sent to the Marlies and Dermott/Rosen/Borgman will be the 3rd pair D. And you would have to think players like Reilly and Gardiner will get better as they are starting to hit their prime years.

Again, it's likely they will have more injuries than last season. However, as I pointed out above, they're much deeper than last season. I don't think they will have any problems filling holes of a player gets injured.

"Young" (inexperienced) D are somewhat suspect defensively and that's where you lose it. I know, I know, everyone here is focused on offensive production, no one gives actual "Defense" any credit, but Reilly is ok defensively, Gardiner is terrible and Zaitsev and Carrick are so young that more mistakes will happen. Hanisey helps settle them a bit, but they are NOT better defensively this year than they were last year overall. Ad much as everyone here hammers Bruins D, It's because McQuaid/Miller/Chara (even Carlo) don't contribute offensively, but when those 4 play their own game well, its a relatively easy game for Rask and rarely allows more than 2 goals when that happens.

Marleau is a good add. Matthews, Marner and Nylander won't all slump no. But there will be regression a little bit in their numbers as other teams top checking lines start paying a lot of attention to them and little guys like Marner and Nylander start getting manhandled a bit more.

A regression doesn't have to be a big one to make the difference in a couple wins over the course of the year. They were already a bubble team, you can't afford to regress at all!!

We agree to disagree on how Leafs will perform this year.

How are they going to be worse defensively? Rielly, Carrick, and Zaitsev all gain a year of experience which should improve their defense, no? You say so yourself that Hainsey adds stability. Gardiner is not "terrible" as you say; he's not a shutdown machine, but he's solid when it comes to shot suppression. You make the argument that young defensemen are more suspect defensively, but with each young d-man becoming older, how does this make their defense worse? If anything they become better because they lose Hunwick and Polak.