So Where Will the Scoring Come From?

Ignoring for the moment that we gave up 3.02 Goals per Game in 2014-15, let's focus on the 2.77 GPG we scored, which resulted in a total of 227 goals for the good guys.  It was an injury riddled year, but the 227 goals was good enough to finish 13th overall in goal scoring last year.  Due to the off season changes, and the recovering health of the team, we can play around a little bit with the numbers, and see where we might end up.

Certainly, many of these numbers will be dead wrong, with all of the foibles of the season laying before us, but here is some conservative guess work on how scoring might turn out.  Obviously, this is contingent on players being healthy.

Player                     Goals Guesstimate    Net from 2014-15
Johansen                         26                                 0
Foligno                           25                                  -
Hartnell                          22                                  -
Atkinson                        20                                  -
Clarkson                        17                                  0
Dubinski                        15                                  +
Saad                                 20                                  -
Wennberg                     10                                 +
Calvert                           15                                  +
Jenner                            15                                  +
Borque                            8                                   +
Campbell                        8                                   0
Boll                                   1                                   0
Johnson                         10                                   +
Connauton                     9                                   0
Savard                           10                                   -
Tyutin                             3                                   0
Murray                          10                                  +
Total                            244

Sorry for the lame table, Blogger has zero functionality in that regard.  But I digress...

If you look at the number of goals scored, with a good deal of the optimistic guesstimates still pretty reasonable and based on a greater number of games played, this is a pretty serious potential jump in goal scoring.  Should this season be blessed with some good luck, rather than the horrifying luck of 2014-15, there is reason to think that the scoring could compete with the top 5 in the NHL.

There is real reason to think that Wennberg might explode this year, as he looked really good down the stretch.  There is also real reason to think that he might have a tragic sophomore slump, based on evidence provided by Messrs Jenner and Murray.  However, there is a ton of depth in scoring this year, which might spell trouble for some of the other teams in the NHL.

The Metro is definitely getting tougher.  Right now over on the Cannon Matt is nursing a review of the Metropolitan Division.  It is going to be really interesting to see how the East stacks up this year.  Did the Atlantic Division just become the least in the East?

The prospect of more prolific scoring for next year is enough to get the juices going during the doldrums of summer.  I kinda like that!  So I thought I would throw these numbers out there for everyone to ponder.

GO JACKETS!!