CAROLINA HURRICANES NEWS CLIPPINGS • August 6, 2021 NHL power rankings: Our brand new, offseason-friendly 1-32 list By Sean Gentille and Dom Luszczyszyn 2. Colorado Avalanche If you thought The Athletic’s NHL Power Rankings had gone Dom 11:46 AM dormant for the offseason, you thought wrong. The Rankings that’s who i would’ve had number one, with tampa number are eternal. The Rankings are forever. two, so i’m not that mad about it. colorado deserves to be knocked down a peg for a few reasons; they didn’t make it Also, a bunch of stuff has happened over the last month. past the second round Probably should address that. they lost a bunch of talent as well in grubauer, donskoi, saad, So, with both drafts and the first couple waves of free agency graves out of the way, we alternated picks from No. 1 to No. 32. All mackinnon took everyone’s snacks away which is a personal individual decisions were final, so things went off the rails offence to me early. This is copy-and-paste, peek-behind-the-curtain stuff. but they did look like a juggernaut for much of last year, one See you in September. of the best teams i’ve ever witnessed. winning this whole thing is hard but it feels like their time will come Dom Luszczyszyn 10:49 AM i think this is where things get spicy should we do a slack chat rankings Sean 11:47 AM Sean Gentille 10:56 AM before we do that — have you ever had chickpea pasta? did i think we can do whatever we want all that make you buy chickpea pasta? i’m in Group 2 1. Tampa Bay Lightning Dom 11:49 AM Sean 11:29 AM i am the least healthy person i know. i operate on an uber i get the urge to go off-book immediately. that’s what any eats diet subsisting of burgers, pizza, wings, burritos, sushi, troll/nerd worth his salt would do, really. i’m going to resist, tacos, and fried chicken. there is no chance i’m trying though. the Lightning are still No. 1. our rubric here is chickpea pasta (somewhat notoriously) stupid, and “They just won the Sean 11:52 AM Stanley Cup” should be more than enough to keep them on you’ll have a choice to make in a couple years, my boy. i also top. just bought a blender. no clue how it’s come to this. anyway, Dom 11:32 AM hockey players should be allowed to have real pasta. wow one team in and we’re already fighting Dom 11:52 AM Sean 11:32 AM not looking forward to that day troll/nerd agreed on the pasta. pasta is delicious, that shouldn’t be taken away from anyone Dom 11:32 AM they lost their entire second line!! Sean 11:59 AM the one no one would shut up about stuff gets really stupid at 3, huh kind of a big deal! Dom 12:01 PM Sean 11:36 AM yes this is a transitional set of rankings. what they did in the but i think division strength helps one team out a lot playoffs still matters to me. it won’t for long, but they deserve 3. Vegas Golden Knights the honor. they also mitigated some of the losses fairly well with cheap, situational guys. I just read this somewhere: “The Sean 12:02 PM team didn’t end up losing all that much value given the yeah it’s got to be them, right? i’m trying to find a way to circumstances. Eight other teams did worse and didn’t save avoid it and i don’t think i can. nearly as much.” also, none of this matters! let them have Dom 12:03 PM this! don’t really love their offseason, but they didn’t lose anything Dom 11:38 AM in expansion, still have an elite team, and their top “sean uses dom’s own words against him” is my favourite competition is edmonton in the pacific and least favourite bit Sean 12:07 PM but i’ll let you have this one. they won back-to-back cups, the i get dumping fleury to create space. i do not get using that last team that did that famously won the cup again the next space on evgenii dadonov. i dunno, man. they got worse and season made weird decisions, and the vibes are way off, but … i still Sean 11:38 AM think i’d pick them over teams 4-32. they still should coast to they’re not gonna do it again, and that’s fine first place in that division, if nothing else. i think that’s going to be a theme here; the good teams got CAROLINA HURRICANES NEWS CLIPPINGS • August 6, 2021 worse, but no teams leveled up enough to scramble things at Dom 12:28 PM the top. they’re a well-oiled machine. that is a winning culture i can get behind Dom 12:11 PM yeah it feels that way for sure. i’ve already Ran The Numbers Sean 12:30 PM for next season and the top is pretty much the same as healthy anders lee + an acclimated (if aging) palmieri + a usual. with that being said… low-cost, low-expectation version of parise, who did some stuff well last season … I dunno. They’re my No. 4 by virtue Sean 12:12 PM of not being the Maple Leafs, but this general space is where i think i know what’s coming. do it. they belong. Dom 12:12 PM 6. Boston Bruins (don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it) Dom 12:31 PM 4. Toronto Maple Leafs this is a ballpark where you can go a few different directions. Dom 12:17 PM i think next team i would go with boston, but again, i’m not i hate them with every fibre of my being right now. i don’t happy about it think they deserve this until they prove something in the are we really doing Second Line Center charlie coyle? playoffs because there is Clearly something between the Sean 12:33 PM ears. but the more montreal won in the playoffs, the less we’re agreeing too much here. i hate the fact that they lost monumental the upset felt. don’t get me wrong, it’s still the krejci. hate it. none of the forward additions do anything for worst in franchise history (they were up 3-1!) but seeing me. but … who else would you pick? until that top line montreal beat vegas and march all the way to the final (famously without a nickname) really starts to age out, i think alleviated some of that. toronto lost hyman, but didn’t the tiebreakers go to them. technically lose anyone to expansion, and arguably improved their goaltending. with the age of the leafs core, with the Dom 12:33 PM knowledge that this season might be it for them, with that bottom six stinks and goaltending could be a everyone else at the top getting worse… it feels like this is downgrade, but the defence at least looks somewhat better if where they sit. mike reilly can keep it up not a fan of The Ratatouille Line? Sean 12:19 PM (pixar power rankings coming soon) that is pure, unfiltered Toronto Man. “they’re shit and possibly broken. makes me sick. fourth-best team in the Sean 12:34 PM league though.” “the model likes The Good Dinosaur a little more than I expected.” Dom 12:21 PM i hate it here Dom 12:35 PM but i hate it elsewhere a lil bit more one of the few pixar movies i haven’t seen! Sean 12:22 PM Sean 12:36 PM i’d rather have mrazek than andersen. nothing bad happened watch the movies, bud. from a cap standpoint. on paper — if you ignore everything else about them — the placement makes sense. why do i Dom 12:36 PM only like three teams more than them? what is wrong with wow me? 7. Winnipeg Jets 5. New York Islanders Sean 12:42 PM Sean 12:25 PM we spent a decent chunk of the spring making fun of the since we don’t have to pretend that signed contracts for kyle winnipeg jets. spring is over. what was their biggest issue? palmieri, zach parise and casey cizikas aren’t sitting in a defense. what did they do? added defensemen. schmidt and drawer somewhere, hello Long Island? dillon are good enough on their own. when you factor for opportunity cost, that becomes an even bigger deal. there’s Dom 12:27 PM still a lot to dislike about them — not sure what’s going to honestly not that spicy. i think islanders fans might be mad happen to the bottom six — but here we are. they’re finally getting respect because they prefer the underdog role, but once they think to themselves “wait these Dom 12:42 PM morons still put the leafs ahead” i think they’ll be okay. once i oh NOOOO ran my model with those three, the islanders were the top Sean 12:43 PM team in the metro — and that’s without accounting for the who goes ahead of them?? fact the team is magic Dom 12:43 PM Sean 12:27 PM i have so many teams ahead i’m done not picking them to win the Metro, I’ll say that much.