A request was made in the chat to see how the post FA landscape changed in terms of conferences.

I didn’t do this in the main article like I did previously because I thought it might be too much information all at once.

But at the stats are all there so it’s an easy breakdown to compile:

Ok… post FA we can see that the West (thanks to Rex) managed to add two more elite level (90+ SC) players to their count along with four more star level (80-89 PA) players, but actually lost an elite level PA (90+ PA) and a star level SC (80-89 SC) player from their totals.

The East, however, managed to gain four 90+PA players in addition to five 80-89 SC players without losing any ground, at least in terms of offensive ratings. So, in terms of which conference ‘won’ for adding the most offence during FA, it looks like the East comes out on top here.

Where the West came out ahead was in adding defensive forwards. The Western Conference 10 more 80+DF forwards while the East gave up three. The West also added more secondary DF (70-79 DF) players; five vs three more in the East. Clearly adding more defensive forward depth was a priority for the Western Conference GMs during the FA period.

So how do the conferences compare to one another after everything was said and done? Let’s take a look shall we:

Clearly both the East and the West currently match up very well against one another ratings wise.

In terms of SC ratings, it’s a dead heat with the both conferences tied for the number of elite rated SC players and the West having just one more player in each of the 80-89 SC and 70-79 SC categories.

However, while the East can boast having more elite level (90+PA) players – 17 in the East vs. 11 in the West – the West easily dominates with more star level (80-89 PA) and secondary level (70-79 PA) players with 16 and 10 more players than the East in both categories respectively.

In terms of defensive forwards, the East has four more 80+DF rated players while the West dominates in the secondary 70-79 DF category with 17 more rated players than can be found in the Eastern Conference.

Verdict: West is Best (for now)

Other Observations:

It’s interesting to note the distribution of the players in each division.

In the West, the players are very equally spread out amongst all of the teams with the only team in the Western Conference without any players with a SC or PA rating 80 or above being the Vancouver Canucks. The separation between the other 15 teams within the conference is very slim and its those elite level rated players that might just be the difference makers for the teams that have them over the course of the new season.

It’s a different story in the East where the distribution of elite and star level offensive players within the conference is very top heavy. There are four teams in the conference without a single player with a SC or PA rating greater than 79. One other team, the Lightning, only has one 80-89 SC rated player while Toby’s Penguins only have one player – that being David Perron – that breaches both the 80-89 SC and 80-89 PA ratings.

As it stands, it looks like it going to be a dogfight between Rich’s Hurricanes and Dan’s Red Wings for the final playoff spot in the East, but it’s ,ore or less set in stone for the other seven teams in the conference.