2016-17 NHL Pacific Division Predictions

The summer is long over and the new 2016-17 NHL season starts today and we here at CaliSports News are acting accordingly by putting out the call and re-assembling all members of our NHL department team together, locking them in a room here at CaliSports New’s headquarters (well except for Mike Walters, as he’s been locked in the NFL department room here at the offices), and having them predict how the battle for the Pacific Division will play out. For fun, each writer will also predict who will make and win the Stanley Cup final this year.  So without further delay, here .. we .. go!

Lori Hultin

Last season, I started my Pacific Division predictions by stating that the West had already proven it was the best given the LA Kings and Chicago Blackhawks had, between them, won the past four Stanley Cups.  Welp, in a season of upsets with both the Kings and Blackhawks exiting the playoffs early on, the Pittsburgh Penguins were crowned the Stanley Cup champs and the East Coast regained a foothold in NHL supremacy.

So where does that leave the West and the Pacific Division?

Still in a pretty darn good place, actually.

Here are a few predictions for the Pacific Division’s 2016-2017 season:

• Arizona Coyotes: I predicted they’d stay in last place last season and while they gave their fans a reason to hope last year with some temporary placements at the top and some young guns who could skate and put the puck in the net, ultimately, they couldn’t sustain it. I’m going to predict the same for this year: I just don’t think they’ll have what it takes to get into playoff position.

• Edmonton Oilers: Last season, I predicted the Oilers would be the surprise of the season and would make the playoffs. What I didn’t predict was Connor McDavid being injured for half the season. Newly bolstered by the acquisition of – and it pains me to write this – Milan Lucic, fresh out of the LA Kings, perhaps, this year will be the Oilers year. I’m going to take that leap of faith and say that they make it in.

• Calgary Flames: Oh, Calgary! Your fans had such high hopes after witnessing a return to the playoffs in the 2014-2015 season. Young guns like Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan showed speed and skill and caused me to believe that last season you would easily make the playoffs.  But it wasn’t to be. The Flames had a disappointing season and sat out of last season’s playoffs.  Over the summer, they did acquire goalie Brian Elliot from the St. Louis Blues and he has to be a nice upgrade in goal for them. But I don’t think Elliot alone will change their fortunes. For that reason – and the fact that they had minimal changes in the off-season, I’m going to predict that they miss again this season.

• Vancouver Canucks: I feel for the Sedin twins (and not just because I’m a Swede by marriage). They are so talented, but they come as a package deal, and therefore, they’re likely to be stuck in Vancouver for the rest of their hockey careers. I predicted they’d sit out the playoffs last season and I got that one right. I felt they lacked the mental fortitude to get there and nothing shows me that this is going to change this season. If they’d acquired Lucic, their native son, I might feel differently, but they couldn’t make that happen, the Oilers got him instead and Vancouver is still waiting for a franchise-changing deal. So is fellow Swede, Loui Eriksson, that guy? He certainly demonstrated that he can fit in nicely with the Sedin twins during the Swede’s World Cup play and they will definitely do some damage together. But I have a hard time seeing the Kings, Sharks and Ducks not making the playoffs and if there’s room for one more Wild Card, I have to believe it’s going to be the Oilers – or someone from the Central Division, as was the case last year with the Predators. I say the Canucks have at least another year to sit out the big show and sadly, the Sedin twins have another year of not getting a Stanley Cup.

• San Jose Sharks: The Sharks certainly crushed the Kings (and the hearts of all Kings’ fans) last season when they eliminated them in five games in the first round of the playoffs. No one expected this and that may have been part of the problem. The Kings don’t seem to thrive when they’re on top or when they’re the favorites – particularly when they’re the favorites of many an NHL expert. While their regular season was amazing, they faltered at the end, lost top defenseman, Alec Martinez to injury, and made a fast exit from Cup contention. The Sharks, led by newly-appointed Captain, Joe Pavelski, showed their fans the playoffs they’d been waiting to see. Beating the Kings, Predators and Blues, they made it to their first Stanley Cup final…but hey, us Kings fans could have told them they weren’t going to win the Cup on their first trip to the big time. Despite all of this, the Sharks remain pretty much the same team they were last season. Last year I boldly predicted they’d miss the playoffs and I suppose they showed me. So I guess I’ll have to concede that with the same players and the fabulous goaltending of Martin Jones, they’ll probably slide in again.

• Anaheim Ducks: I hate predictions for the Ducks because it forces me to acknowledge that when it comes to the regular season and making the playoffs…well, they make it seem easy. Of course, last season they had, perhaps, the worst start in recent history and drifted at the bottom of the Division for a lengthy period of time.  If only they’d stayed there. Instead, they came roaring back to win the Division title, only to once again tank in the playoffs. As a result, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry went home empty-handed and Bruce Boudreau got fired.  The Ducks traded away Frederik Anderson (to the Maple Leafs in exchange for ex-King goalie, Jonathan Bernier) and have yet to re-sign two of their top, young Swedish defensemen, Rickard Rakell and Hampus Lindholm. While they retain young John Gibson in-goal and powerhouse players, Getzlaf, Perry and Kelser, they haven’t done much else to improve the team and if they can’t re-sign the two young defensemen, I think they’ll be sorry. On top of this, they have a familiar, but new face in the head coaching job as Randy Carlyle returned to the team. Do they make the playoffs? I can’t – much as I’d love to – predict that they won’t, but it will be tough and I think they’ll tank again in the first or second round.

• Los Angeles Kings: As an admittedly biased Kings fan, what can I say? I predicted we’d go all the way last year because it was impossible not to. In truth, like many other NHL experts, I truly believed the Kings would meet the Washington Capitals in the Stanley Cup Final and on both counts, I was wrong. This season looks like a slight rebuilding season to me. There are many “x” factors that could shape the season: How will Dustin Brown perform now that he has been stripped of the captaincy? Do we have an adequate back-up goalie on board? Will potential call-ups from the AHL like Michael Mersch, Nic Dowd, Derek Forbort and Kevin Gravel be able to step up and help the Kings this season? Will Marian Gaborik, after sustaining a foot injury in the semi-final of the World Cup get back in time to resume his scoring streak that he was enjoying at the World Cup and most importantly, will he stay healthy? There are so many questions and just one of these answers could greatly affect the Kings’ season. The losses accumulated in the Summer (Lucic, Versteeg, LeCavalier) were substantial and the acquisitions (Latta, Purcell, Zatkoff, Gilbert) lackluster. So do the Kings make the playoffs? Of course, I will say yes. After the huge expectations of last season, the Kings will return to being an underdog which is exactly when they play their grittiest hockey. The questions surrounding them will help them get back to that underdog mindset that has resulted in two Stanley Cups in the past five years. They won’t be first or even second in the division this year, but they’ll be there.

In summary, here’s how I expect the Pacific Division to look at season’s end:

• Sharks
• Ducks
• Kings
• Oilers (Wildcard spot)
• Canucks
• Flames
• Coyotes

So is this the year for a Kings vs Capitals Stanley Cup final? I can’t say that it’s a safe bet, but I can certainly say that I’d love to see that series!