New Jersey - Can they win the Metro? No, seriously. It's not the question you expected, but have you looked at their defense and goaltending? The forward corps is decent too, and Zach may just have brought together the critical mass of talent that transforms them from an afterthought to a contender. Carolina - Can they pick up where they left off? They finished the season hot after a rough start, and Getzlaf remains a top player. A return to the playoffs in the Metro is not out of reach. Columbus - What did Steph do to Simon T? And how long until Simon T finally lets go of the grudge? Because suddenly time is ticking. The BJs used to be lead by MacKinnon, Rantanen and Marner. Now they have Marchand, Bergeron and Wheeler. They cant afford too many cursed seasons before the top players start to decline. NY Rangers - The results from the last 2 seasons suggest they're contenders, but John himself has admitted some key players are getting older. With no future star in the pipeline, can they win before they run out of time? NY Islanders - Can McDavid finally win something again? Anything at this point. No one questioned his value when he led the Isles to the Cup in season 1, but since then he has 1 playoff appearance and he's never really competed for an individual award. Considering the hype and salary, he's starting to be a disappointment. Philadelphia - GM Sumit has a tendency of turning quality into quantity into quality into quantity into... Well, you get it. So with a ridiculous amount of middling assets and not much of anything that has high value, what will this team look like by the time next off season rolls around? Pittsburgh - The only good team in Pennsylvania somehow missed the playoffs last season. They are still stacked and looking like a contender. Talbot and Staal cost them last season. How much longer can Eric Staal keep the C if he isn't contributing and leading such a stacked team to the playoffs? Washington - Kurtis' unwillingness to lose value once led him to trading an aging Pavelski to the team that would defeat him in the finals. Sure, he got redemption and won it all the next season. But maybe if he hadn't taken the van for a spin on that fateful day he would be the CCHL's only repeat champ. We'll never know. His greed for value is leading him to shop aging stars Giroux and Backstrom, could they again go to a future playoff opponent?