Last year the Pacific Division came down the final couple weeks of the season. Eventually, the Vancouver Canucks ended up in first, the Edmonton Oilers second, Los Angeles Kings third then the Vegas Golden Knights found themselves in a wildcard spot. To finish out the non-playoff teams it went the Calgary Flames, Seattle Kraken, Anaheim Ducks, and then the San Jose Sharks.
That was last season though, all team have made changes in the offseason. Some teams on paper have gotten better and other have gotten worse. That is why I think right now is a good time to take a deep dive into what types of changes each team have made. For us at Oil On Whyte we tend to focus on the Oilers, so we know what changes have been made by Oilers and we have our opinions on how the Oilers have done this offseason.
In this article though I will not just focus on the Oilers, but on every other team in the Pacific Division. Last season the Edmonton Oilers came out of the Pacific by beating the Kings in the first round the defeating the Canucks, before eventually losing to the Florida Panthers in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Looking back, I wonder what would have happened if the Knights would have finished ahead of the Kings, could the Oilers have beaten them like they did the Kings?
This is why the regular season is important. The Kings finished one point ahead of the Knights and because of that faced the Oilers instead of the Dallas Stars. For the Knights if they would have been a bit better, they would have faced the Oilers, a team they have had success against in the past, instead they were eliminated in the first round.
It is a long 82 game season and lots of things can change the outcome of the standings, but for game one most teams will be starting with their full roster. That is why I am now going to start by looking at all these teams today. While it is obvious that some of these teams are going to be better and some worse.