Let me start by saying I have no idea what these GM’s plan to use as line combinations. I have just listed players by position and ignored line fits and defensive pairings. It’s just to get a rough idea of what the team has in order to come up with a best guess at the seasons standings come April 2024

1. Edmonton Oilers (Leon Yu)

LW                                        C                            RW

Brad Marchand        Connor McDavid       Sam Reinhart

JT Miller                   Auston Matthews      Andre Burakovsky

Radek Faksa            Sam Bennett            Oskar Sundqvist

Yanni Gourde           Nick Schmaltz         Alex Belzile

D

Matthew Benning     Rasmus Andersson

Jared Spurgeon      Nick Holden

Morgan Rielly         Ian Cole

Jordan Harris        Matt Roy

G

Connor Hellebuyck

Jaroslav Halak

That's quite the 1, 2 punch down the middle for Leon and his Oilers. Pair that with top notch goaltending and decent D and I think this division is Leon's to lose. It shouldn't really even be close.

2. San Jose Sharks (Sumit Purba)

LW                                C                                 RW

Alex Ovechkin        Sidney Crosby              Nikita Kucherov

John Tavares         Ryan O’Reilly                Nino Niederreiter

Artturi Lehkonen    Jean-Gabriel Pageau     Reilly Smith

Ilya Mikheyev          Sean Kuraly                  Colton Sissons

D

Ivan Provorov      Noah Hanifin

Nathan Beaulieu  Guillaume Brisebois

Niko Mikkola         Kevin Shattenkirk

G

Elvis Merzlikins

Anthony Stolarz

Sumit should be in the hunt for the playoffs as he's assembled a pretty good top line. I have him finishing 2nd as of how this roster looks right now. He's in need of a goaltending upgrade though and the depth on the back end looks atrocious. These are things he could start fixing as activity picks up.

3. Calgary Flames (Kevin Switzer)

LW                                                 C                            RW

Jared McCann              Brayden Schenn              Alex DeBrincat

Jake DeBrusk               Alexander Wennberg      Kirby Dach

Yegor Sharangovich      Shane Pinto                    Mark Stone

Alexis Lafreniere            Anthony Cirelli                Drake Batherson

Noah Cates                    Nico Sturm

D

JJ Moser             Adam Fox

Radim Simek      Brian Dumoulin

Ryan Lindgren    Colton Parayko

Nick Leddy

G

Logan Thompson

Spencer Knight

Kevin's team is hard to place because he's always willing to tinker and improve for next year and amass draft capital. With one single move, he could catapult himself past Sumit's Sharks. As of right now, I have him finishing 3rd.

4. Vancouver Canucks (Rob Botham)

LW                                 C                           RW

Chris Kreider       Claude Giroux     Jack Roslovic

Matthew Boldy    Jonathan Toews   Andrei Kozmenko

Lawson Crouse   Cody Glass         Jordan Martinook

Sonny Milano       Nick Bonino           Riley Nash

Tanner Pearson   Pius Suter          Nils Hoglander

Patrick Brown

D

Olli Maatta     Mattias Samuelsson

Vince Dunn   Joel Edmundson

Carson Soucy   Jamie Oleksiak

Zach Whitecloud   Jordan Oesterle

Jake Muzzin     Ethan Bear

Justin Braun

G

Thatcher Demko

Eric Comrie

Darcy Kuemper

Rob's Canucks did well last year and I could see them being in the wildcard hunt this year. This roster is not compliant at the moment with 30 players on the pro roster. He'll no doubt end up waiving or trading some of these guys prior to the start of the regular season. Maybe he's waiting on pre-season to see who to cut?

5. Seattle Kraken (Rex Shuck)

LW                                C                           RW

Kent Johnson        Jack Hughes         Anthony Beauvillier

Yakov Trenin         Juuso Parssinen   Connor Brown

Tyler Bertuzzi        Blake Lizotte         Kailer Yamamoto

Elmer Soderblom   Derek Ryan        Cal Clutterbuck

Brock McGinn         Rasmus Kupari (RFA)

D

Michael Matheson    Erik Gustafsson

Michael Anderson    Miro Heiskanen

Rasmus Dahlin       Thomas Chabot

Caleb Jones

G

Jeremy Swayman

Pyotr Kochetkov

Akira Schmid

Rex has good goaltending, a really nice looking defence, and some decent young forwards. I don't think this is a playoff team just yet, but it's certainly working it's way there. Capitalizing on his goaltending prospect depth now while they are considered high end would be beneficial.

6. Vegas Golden Knights (Joe Bast)

LW                                             C                            RW

James Van Riemsdyk    Matthew Beniers          Brendan Gallagher

Jesper Boqvist               Jordan Staal                 Pierre Engvall

Tye Kartye                     Zemgus Grigensons     Jesse Puljujarvi

Curtis McKenzie            Henrik Borgstrom          John Hayden

Morgan Barron

D

Jonas Siegenthaler   Ryan Murray

Bowen Byram           Drew Doughty

Braden Schneider     Kaiden Guhle

Oliver Ekman-Larsson

G

Jonathan Quick

Daniel Vlader

Brandon Bussi

Vegas is a team in transition. I don't think he'll be in the fight for last place in this division with the two teams under him tanking, but it doesn't appear to be a playoff roster.

7. Los Angeles Kings (Tyler Rumpel)

LW                                           C                                    RW

Teuvo Teravainen          Jesperi Kotkaniemi      Anthony Mantha

Vladislav Namestnikov   Ryan McLeod                Craig Smith

Jordan Greenway           Sheldon Dries             Anders Bjork

Milan Lucic                     Mitch McLain              Logan O’Connor

Oskar Lindblom (RFA)    John Parker-Jones

D

Joe Hicketts              Lawrence Pilut

Justin Schultz          Alex Breton

Kristians Rubins     Cooper Zech

G

Matt Murray

Jordan Binnington

Cam Talbot

14 first round picks for next year including his own. Rumpy will be trying to finish dead last to give himself the best odds at Bedard as well. Unfortunately he has a tanking master in his division who I predict will finish with less points.

8. Anaheim Ducks (Devon Cordell)

LW                                      C                        RW

Timo Meier                   Sam Steel            Andrei Svechnikov

Alexey Toropchenko   Jamieson Rees     Brett Ritchie

Kurtis MacDermid        Sam Carrick       Chris Wagner

Wayne Simmonds      Gabriel Dumont

D

Simon Nemec    Jacob Larsson

Dylan McIlrath   Trevor Carrick

Scott Harrington   Alex Petrovic

Conor Timmins

G

Jake Ottinger

Brian Elliott

Devon is committed to the tank this year, and that's quite obvious with the state of this pro roster. It looks pretty torn down already, but I suspect he might have a few moves up his sleeves for some of the older pro rated players on his roster. A bonus is he has a bonified #1 goalie in Ottinger going forward which should make the transition from tanking to competing easier

Pacific Standings Guess:

1. Edmonton Oilers - 115 points

2. San Jose Sharks - 96 points

3. Calgary Flames - 92 points

4. Vancouver Canucks - 88 points

5. Seattle Kraken - 87 points

6. Vegas Golden Knights - 78 points

7. Los Angeles Kings - 72 points

8. Anaheim Ducks - 49 points