Canucks Army Roundtable: Dark Horses

September has hit the city of Vancouver like a semi-truck, but all that means is we are closer and closer to the NHL campaign. This time of year, all the pre-season lists and predictions hit the blog-o-sphere and posts get sent out that people try to forget by season’s end. Every season it happens too, a team that was supposed to be great isn’t and a team that was supposed to disappoint does the opposite. Colorado, a couple years back and Philadelphia last year come to mind as examples for the latter. This week, I took it to our writers to see who they think is the NHL’s dark horse this season. More after the jump!

Question: Who do you see as a dark horse team to contend for a playoff spot this season?

Carolina. Teravainen, Aho, Faulk, Slavin, Murphy, Saarela and Fleury are all part of the great youth movement going on in Raleigh. As long as their goaltending isn’t as terrible as it was last season.

I think the Arizona Coyotes are my pick to surprise this year. A bit of age with Shane Doan coming back as is former Canuck Radim Vrbata; the maturity is there to help guide the next stars in the desert.
Tough to say if Vrby is going to help lead, Brad Richardson definitely will. You have to like the youth on the Yotes roster and it will get better and better in the next few years. Max Domi showed us all he is for real, Anthony Duclair and Dylan Strome are just a few more names we’ll know quite well as the season goes on.
It is going to be a team that at some point, no one will want to play and for a franchise that has been borderline GONE, thats pretty good. Too bad my boy Nick Merkley isn’t healthy enough to threaten for a spot.

This one is tough to answer, just because the league is so competitive now that most teams are in the hunt until at least late February. The Avalanche are almost certainly a playoff team with competent coaching, but that’s a boring answer considering they won the Central Division just a short time ago. I think the Leafs could surprise people. Matthews and Nylander will be ready to step in and contribute immediately, and Marner isn’t far behind. Nazem Kadri has become a very solid two-way centre over the last couple of years, which is going push Tyler Bozak into the bottom six where he belongs. Rielly and Gardiner should be ready to take the next step, and they’ve got a decent tandem in goal now, too. Also, they finished 40th last season, so the bar is low. Finishing better than 20th will be a surprise. That’s a bet I’d be willing to take.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Flames make some noise this year. With Gully replacing Hartley at the helm, their goaltending finally looking stable, and some nice additions to their roster, I think they’ve made the moves they need to improve on their past season in a big way.

Thinking along the same lines as Jackson, I’m very interested to see how Buffalo will do this year. The Sabres, along with the Leafs and Coyotes, are the three teams that could be accused of deliberately icing less competitive rosters in order to secure higher draft picks these past couple of seasons. Each of these teams have acquired a plethora of elite prospects and we’re assuming it’s only a matter of time before one of them makes the leap. In the case of Buffalo, if it can continue to build upon the 27-point improvement from last year, it stands to reason that the team could push for the third playoff spot in a weak Atlantic Division. With Detroit poised to take a step back after the loss of Pavel Datsyuk, and the jury very much out on Montreal and Boston, Buffalo could make a push this season. Led by rising young stars such as Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, and Rasmus Ristolainen – not to mention the now seven-year veteran Ryan O’Reilly – the Sabres appear set at some very important positions. The off-season acquisition of Kyle Okposo was a shrewd move. And who knows? Maybe 2016 first rounder Alex Nylander cracks the opening night roster, too. All in all, it should be a very interesting year in Buffalo. Perhaps the Sabres will even challenge for a playoff spot.

I’m going to get bashed for some perceived homerism here, but I think the Coyotes are the team to surprise everyone this year. The addition of Radim Vrbata late this summer and the possibility of seeing Dylan Strome and Christian Dvorak have almost completely overshadowed that the team also added Jamie McGinn to help with scoring depth, and Alex Goligoski should give the blue line some more help. They don’t look like a Stanley Cup contender – at all – but they certainly look like they could be a playoff team next year, a la last season’s Flyers.

Calgary because they addressed their biggest weakness by adding Brian Elliot. A big reason for their bottom 5 finish last season was because of their inconsistent and unreliable goaltending. Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau, and Sam Bennett are only getting better and they obviously have a very solid defense core. I like the Brouwer signing, and I think that former Canuck Linden Vey will bring them some depth if he makes the team on a full-time basis. Also, if they offer Chris Higgins a contract after his PTO, he’ll be a solid, reliable player. Despite the Flames being division rivals, I hope they sign Higgins and I hope he finds success there.

Reading the Canucks Army comment section, I am now convinced that the Vancouver Canucks will surprise the most people this year.

I really like what Calgary did this off-season. After the disappointment of last year, I think a lot of those players there are ready to bounceback and with the added jolt from Brian Elliott and stable goaltending for the first time since Kiprusoff manned the posts in Calgary, it’s not hard to see them contending for a spot in the division playoffs or a wild card spot.