2018-2019 Atlantic Division Predictions: Raw Charge reader rankings
Tell us how you think the Atlantic Division will unfold this season!
Today is September 1st and that means the 2018-2019 NHL season is a little over a month away. The Lightning prospect tournament is next weekend and their first preseason game will follow a little over a week later. With that in mind, we’re going to shift into season preview mode here at Raw Charge.
We’re going to cover what to expect from the organization in depth over the next few weeks as we get ready for the preseason. One of the areas we’ll cover will be the Atlantic division as a whole. In the past, we’ve brought you our staff predictions as to how the standings would look at the end of the season. This year, we want you to participate.
If you helped with the Top 25 Under 25 rankings, this will be familiar to you. Click on this link to go to the survey. On that page, you can drag and drop the teams in the Atlantic in the order you think they’ll finish at the end of the season. Later this week, we’ll combine your rankings with ours to show the Raw Charge community’s predictions.
Last year, the Atlantic had a clear delineation of good and bad teams. The Lightning, Bruins, and Leafs were among the best teams in the Eastern Conference and made the playoffs. The Panthers were competitive but the rest of the division was among the worst teams in the league.
Do you expect that to continue? Do you think one of the struggling teams bounces back? Do you think we see a big change in the order at the top of the division? This season has lots of possible outcomes and we want to see which one you think is most likely.
The Lightning have Stanley Cup aspirations. That might affect how they approach the regular season and make it more likely the Bruins or Leafs win the division.
The Leafs are ready to be a real contender. No more expectation management. No more deferring to the future. They’re one of the best teams in the league in everyone knows it. What will that mean for how they play this season?
The Senators have three players headed for unrestricted free agency. If they trade any of them, they could easily find themselves at the bottom of the division. But they’ve also traded next season’s first round pick to Colorado so they could be desperate to avoid finishing too low in the standings.
The Red Wings. What are they? Aside from old, no one knows. Without Henrik Zetterberg, this season could get ugly.
The season will inevitably bring us some surprises that render our predictions silly in retrospect, but that doesn’t make coming up with predictions any less fun. So, go to the survey and tell us what you think! In a few days, we’ll compile everyone’s responses and write up the results of our community rankings.
At the end of the season, we’ll look back and see how wrong we all were.
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