Parker Michaels continues his NHL Season Preview series in reverse to first order according to his projected standings. Be sure to bookmark our Season Previews home base here where links to all 31 teams will appear as they’re posted. At No. 4, the Pittsburgh Penguins.

 

FUTURES

Stanley Cup: +1200 (BetOnline, Bovada)
Eastern Conference: +600 (BetOnline, Bovada)
Metropolitan Division: +180 (Bovada)
Regular Season Points: 102.5 (-104, -116) (Bookmaker), 102.5 (-115) (Bovada), 102.5 (-110) (BetOnline)
Make Playoffs: YES -600, NO +400 (BetOnline), YES -625, NO +425 (Bovada)

Current odds as of October 2, 2018

 

PROJECTED DEPTH CHART

*Individual Player Ratings represent how many points in the standings each player is directly responsible for over the course of the full season and is called Point Shares. It involves the base formula created by Justin Kubatko at hockey-reference.com. An explanation of how I further use his methods can be found here with a more detailed methodology by Kubatko himself, here. The average value for a forward is 3.5 and a defenseman is 4.4 Point Shares

*Salaries in green denote entry-level contract. Salary numbers from capfriendly.com

CENTER

NHL RANK: 1

LEFT WING

NHL RANK: 27

RIGHT WING

NHL RANK: 3

 

LEFT SIDE

NHL RANK: T-24

RIGHT SIDE

NHL RANK: 11

 

GOALTENDING

NHL RANK: T-20
(Starter – 21, Backup – 41)