The season began yesterday but I forgot to post a full recap of the projections I have for this year's taem. There's a few players who I didn't get to post my in-depth projections for so I'm including them in here too. I'm only including players who began the year on the team because doing everyone really isn't feasible at the moment.

Forwards

It's pretty similar to last season with Staal and Sknner being the only two to crack 50+ points but I have Jokinen scoring 20 goals. I also have Ponikarovsky with a bounce-back season now that he may get top-six minutes. Of course, I made these projections assuming they would be on different lines than they were yesterday so this is all subject to change.

Defensemen

I didn't make a projection for Faulk or Murphy, unfortunately.

McBain's numbers will probably be down because of spending more nights in the press-box than I thought he would. Same goes for Joslin. Overall, I feel that these are pretty reachable expectations. I have Pitkanen slightly improving and Kaberle having a slightly worse year, but those 43 points will be pretty good for Carolina given the production they had on their blue-line last year.

Overall, I have Carolina's "main" roster scoring 209 goals, which really isn't that good but it could go up if the AHL call-ups produce during their time here. Let's hope that someone else up front has a break-out season because the numbers here aren't that optimistic.

I don't think there's any doubt that the biggest change this off-season was the Atlanta Thrashers being bought by True North and moving to Winnipeg to become the Jets. It's going to have a big effect on the division as far as travel goes and this could be the last season this team is in the Southeast if the rumored re-alignment does happen. Either way, the city of Winnipeg should be glad they have a hockey team once again and I'm sure they will sell out the MTS Centre every night. Unfortunately for them, the team they inherited isn't that good, so the "Jets" first season in Winnipeg might be a tough one.

The Lightning were a very good team last year and surprised a lot of people with how deep they went into the playoffs last year and now we are all wondering if they can pull a repeat performance or possibly take the top spot in the Southeast from the Washington Capitals. I don't think they are quite ready to be first in the division yet and I see them taking a small step back compared to last season. They lost a couple pretty significant pieces in Simon Gagne and Sean Bergeheim and not much was done to fill those holes. This along with teams having more film on Guy Boucher's unique defensive system makes me think that they will find themselves lower in the standings. That said, I still have them as a playoff team and most of their core has remained intact so they should be a good team for awhile now.

There were few teams who were more active than the Florida Panthers on the first few days of July this off-season. With the NHL imposing a new cap floor, GM Dale Tallon felt the need to spend as much as he could and Florida how has a roster that consists of players who were second or third liners for other teams last year. All these signings and trades did was put Florida in an awful financial position and it's going to be even uglier a few years down the road. What about this year, though? As bad as a lot of these signings were, Florida appears to have a better team than they did last year but is it good enough to get them into the playoffs? To sum things up quickly; No. Not even close.

Florida wasn't an awful team in terms of possession (49.7% 5v5 corsi w/ score tied), but they lost one of the best goalies in the league and replaced him with a rookie and someone who was a back-up last season. They also remain without a star player and are trying to fix what was one of the worst powerplays in the league. It's going to be a long process until they get things going in the right direction.

Everyone knows what to expect from the Washington Capitals these days. They will have a great regular season and then struggle come playoff time. The expectations for this team are raised every year and judging from most of their fans, anything less than an Eastern Conference finals appearance will be a disappointment for this team with the off-season they just had. GM George McPhee opened up his wallet and upgraded this team at almost every position this summer but will it be enough to get the Caps over the hump after four years of playoff disappointment? It goes without saying that they are the best team in the Southeast and will certainly have enough to get to the playoffs but how they fare after that is a mystery.

After missing the playoffs by only one game, there is a sense of optimism among Canes fans that this team will be in the playoff hunt once again. However, there are many who say that the Hurricanes were not that good of a team last year and the one thing that kept them in the playoff hunt the entire time was a terrific season from Cam Ward. While I think there were other factors which kept Carolina in the playoff hunt (great seasons from Eric Staal, Jeff Skinner and Erik Cole), it's hard to call the Canes a contender when you take a look at their underlying numbers. They had a very poor corsi percentage with the score tied, a weak powerplay, a terrible penalty kill that could have been a lot worse and awful back-up goaltending (Justin Peters' .875 save percentage) which has actually been a problem for awhile now. Has Carolina done enough this off-season to fix these problems and possibly take themselves to the next level? They've addressed some needs but it's doubtful that anything they have done this off-season will make them a sure-in for the playoffs. The team has been in slight rebuild mode for the past couple of season and I expect them to continue that but in the Eastern Conference, you can be a playoff contender as long as you're not god-awful so Carolina staying in the playoff hunt isn't completely out of the question.

I have been very critical of the Anthony Stewart signing this summer, as I feel that he does not add much to a team which is in big need of scoring depth. Yes, he netted 14 goals last year but half of those came in the first 25 games of the season, while he only scored 7 in his last 55. He wasn't terribly impressive at driving possession last year in Atlanta either so what role will he have in Carolina and how many goals can we expect from him? Read more to find out.

It feels kind of weird to do a projection for Tim Gleason because scoring goals isn't his job. Being a steady defensive defenseman is what he's paid to do and the maximum amount of points we can expect from him is around 20. That said, we'll still do a projection for him and also look at what other things we can expect from Gleason this year. He was a workhorse on defense last year and had some pretty ugly underlying numbers as a result. It's looking like he will have a similar workload this season, so a rebound year would really help the Hurricanes.

With the cuts made yesterday, the forward group for the Hurricanes is beginning to look clearer and so are the possible line combinations. There's a very good chance the lines change over the season but it's good to have an idea what the "main" ones will be at the beginning of the year. Ideally, you want the your top two forward lines to produce a lot of offense with one being able to take on tough competition while another gets the benefit of protection. In the bottom-six, you want a third line to be able to produce secondary scoring and have the ability to take tough zone starts while the fourth line does the same but is depended on less for scoring. The Canes biggest trouble is going to be filling out those top two lines to make them a legitimate offensive threat, but I've come up with some line ideas which may work.

Brandon Sutter's already had quite a productive NHL career at such a young age but I remember hearing from a few fans that last season was "disappointing" for him. It's probably because he saw his point total drop from 40 to 29 and he scored seven fewer goals than he did the previous season. Was I hoping for more than 29 points from him last year? Yes. However, he made a lot of strides defensively last season and is really evolving as a two-way player for Carolina and should be a key part of the third line. What most fans care about are goals and points, though and here we'll take a look at what kind of performance Carolina will get out of Sutter this season.