Especially Colorado. I get it.....they've got talent out the wahzoo....but, even last year pre-covid heading into the Playoffs they were in trouble. Covid saved them and Dallas from embarrassing first round losses in the playoffs. It's one of those deals where somewhere Colorado has been anointed and they're the new 'it' team. They have an utter super star in McKinnon which it's understandable....but you have to produce when it counts and they haven't.
Vegas will be interesting to watch because there were a ton of stories before, during and after Petro was signed that the players were ticked that they were shuffling and changing things around to land Petro. They'll all say the right things but it'll be interesting to see how they play together. Petro is not a very animated leader or a person who is loud in the locker room. He's very soft spoken. The knock on him in StL in the locker room was that he was just 'boring' He never went out with the guys.....he's a big family man and if he wasn't playing hockey he was at home. Vegas is another team with a ton of pressure to produce....lets see if they can live up to the hype.
I personally love the lack of 'respect' or whatever it is that StL gets and is getting in all the pre season stuff. I get it. Petro's gone and we brought in new guys but IMO StL got better...not worse...by passing on Petro and picking up Krug, Clifford and Hoffman. It's a new look team that's going to have some spunk and attitude. Binnington will be fine.....remember....he won 30 games last season and was playing extremely well heading into the playoffs. The covid tournament was just that....a tournament that you can't put a whole heck of a lot of stock into as far as judging where players are at. It's go time now so we shall see how this all unfolds.
I get what you are saying, but I guess the Cup win took a lot of that chip off my shoulder about lack of respect. Besides, we are still ranked pretty high and are one of the Vegas favorites, so I am not going to quibble about a few teams being ahead of us.
I agree about Petro. It felt like O'Reilly was ready to take over anyway, so I think their leadership will be just fine going forward. Binnington I worry about simply because he is a goalie, and goalies by their very nature are fragile. They can go from being a stud to being a clown who can't stop a beach ball in the blink of an eye. I have no clue when Tarasenko will be back, or if he ever will, but I am anxious to see how the team does this year. They were a juggernaut again last season before the shutdown, so we'll see if some of these personnel changes make them fall back to the pack.