San Jose Sharks

 

Division Projected Order of Finish - 7th

 

Current Lineup Score... 70.3

Division Rank 8th

 

Financial Power Flexibility Score... 14.0

Division Rank 3rd

 

Quality Draft Capital... 4.0

Division Rank 7th

 

Sumit's "Quality Draft Capital" score is deceiving.  I've only taken into consideration the next two seasons when calculating that, and he's apparently "going to suck" after this season so he's re-acquired some of his own very distant draft picks in preparation.  Does that mean he's aiming to be good this season?  The signs are there.  He's certainly got a few very skilled players up front in Debrincat and Elias Pettersson, and on defense in Chabot, amongst others.  He's got decent depth up front, but not so much on the backend, and could use an upgrade in goal from Demko if he wants to challenge for a playoff position.  He has a ton of cap space and cash, somehow.  Somehow near the top of the league in those departments again, so look for him to make a splash, yet again, next week.  Whether it'll be enough to make this a competitive team or not, is yet to be determined.

 

Biggest Strength: Cash... somehow

 

 

 

Vegas Golden Knights

 

Division Projected Order of Finish - 8th

 

Current Lineup Score... 70.6

Division Rank 7th

 

Financial Power Flexibility Score... 16.2

Division Rank 1st

 

Quality Draft Capital... 4.0

Division Rank 3rd

 

Taking a deep dive into the team that Joe has built shows us a lack of depth amongst his big-league forwards (after Fantilli), but a ton of depth (although no highly-rated players) amongst his D core.  Schneider, Byram, Guhle, and Edvinsson, though, wow, that's a stellar future top 4, they're just not rated elite quite yet.  There is a lot of money and cap space floating around the Pacific, and Joe sits number 1 in that category.  It's already close between 5th through 8th in this division.. heck, maybe even 3rd through 8th... so Joe could take this team places if he'd like.  It would have to start in goal, though, as Jet Greaves and Dan Vladar have abysmal ratings.  Joe's easily got a top-5 prospect pool in the league here, which is very exciting going forward, but he might be a season away.  A season at max though.

 

Biggest Strength: A filthy future top 4 on defense, and tons of cap space