Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

The Advancing Eastern Conference

02/11/2016 at 10:17am EST

from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,

Are we continuing to see the shift in the NHL's power balance from the West to the East?

After years of the West being the best, I remember writing a piece last March about how it appeared that the Eastern Conference closing the gap on the West in terms of the competitive balance. I think we're seeing more of that this season.

Let's look at the wild-card races to begin with: the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins hold those two spots with 62 and 61 points, respectively. Compare that to the wild-card placeholders in the West: the Nashville Predators and Colorado Avalanche have 59 points apiece. The ninth-place New Jersey Devils in the East have 61 points, and 10th-place Montreal has 58. Of course, the true measure of excellence for me has always been the quality of the elite teams, which is where the West has been dominant for a good decade now,

in my opinion. When you're talking true, veritable Cup contenders I'd give you the Chicago Blakhawks and Los Angeles Kings at the top in the West, followed a notch below by the Anaheim Ducks, then another notch down go the Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues. That's subjective, of course. In the East? Washington stands alone as the top Cup contender, followed by the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning, then the Rangers. Again, it's subjective, and I would still give the West a slight edge in this department, but the gap is closing for sure. Thoughts?

continue for more on this topic from the ESPN hockey crew...

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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