2007-08 NE Depth Charts: Boston Bruins

(again, trying to cut/paste a table into Blogger is a fool's errand. Yet I continue to try. Sorry for the awful formatting...)

There are actually some things to like here, but the defence was so awful last year that they couldn't get the puck to their forwards. 219 goals last year...no excuse. I like the top two lines, but they've got to find a way to get Phil Kessel into the top six.

Forwards:
Marco Sturm	Marc Savard	Glen Murray
Peter Schaefer	Patrice Bergeron	Brandon Bochenski
P.J. Axelsson	Phil Kessel	Chuck Kobasew
Stanislav Chistov	Mark Mowers	Jeff Hoggan
Shawn Thornton	Jeremy Reich
Defence:
Zdeno Chara	Aaron Ward
Dennis Wideman	Andrew Alberts
Andrew Ference	Mark Stuart
Bobby Allen
rookies: Matt Lashoff
Goaltending:
Tim Thomas	Manny Fernandez

...with Tuukka Rask soon to arrive.

2007-08 NE Division depth charts: Toronto Maple Leafs

To me the most intriguing acquisition of the offseason for the entire division is Mark Bell:

Forwards:
Alexei Ponikarovsky	Mats Sundin	Jason Blake
Chad Kilger	Kyle Wellwood	Darcy Tucker
Mark Bell	Matt Stajan	Boyd Devereaux
Alex Steen	Nik Antropov
Bates Battaglia	John Pohl
rookies/callups: C – Kris Newbury
Defence:
Bryan McCabe	Tomas Kaberle
Pavel Kubina	Carlo Colaiacovo
Ian White	Hal Gill
Wade Belak
rookies/callups: Andrew Wozniewski, Staffan Kronwall
Goaltending:
Andrew Raycroft	Vesa Toskala	Scott Clemmensen

2007-08 NE Depth Charts: Montreal Canadiens

I'm not sure how good they'll be but I like where the Canadiens are heading. A bunch of young faces emerging over the past few years, with offensive talents like Mikhail Grabovski and Kyle Chipchura coming soon, and Carey Price soon to man the nets, starting in a year or two the Habs could be a presence in the East for the foreseeable future. It's just that defence that I'm not sure about...

Depth Chart:
Guillaume Latendresse	Saku Koivu	Alexei Kovalev
Chris Higgins	Bryan Smolinski	Michael Ryder
Steve Begin	Maxim Lapierre	Andrei Kostitsyn
Tomas Plekanec	Garth Murray	Tom Kostopolous

rookies/callups: C – Kyle Chipchura, LW Mikhail Grabovski

Defence
Roman Hamrlik	Andrei Markov
Francis Bouillon	Mathieu Dandenault
Josh Gorges	Mike Komisarek
Mark Streit

Goaltending:

Cristobal Huet Jaroslav Halak

rookies/callups: G – Carey Price

edit: i hate Blogger's editing "tools."

2007-08 NE Depth Charts: Buffalo Sabres

Now that a month has passed since "Black Sunday" (Captains Daniel Briere and Chris Drury left for much greener pastures) a little objectivity can set in...Buffalo is still very well-off. And although they signed Thomas Vanek (7 years, $50 million) and Derek Roy (6 years, $24 million) to more money than they would have liked, at the end of the day the Sabres have these two offensive talents locked up until they're both 30 years old.

Depth chart:

Thomas Vanek	Derek Roy	Maxim Afinogenov
Ales Kotalik	Tim Connolly	Jason Pominville
Jochen Hecht	Paul Gaustad	Drew Stafford
Dan Paille	Adam Mair
Andrew Peters	Mike Ryan
possible rookies: C – Marek Zagrapan, W - Clarke MacArthur, Patrick Kaleta, Mark Mancari.
Defence:
Henrik Tallinder	Toni Lydman
Brian Campbell	Teppo Numminen
Dmitri Kalinin	Jaroslav Spacek
Nathan Paetsch
Possible rookies: Michael Funk, Andrej Sekera, Mike Card
Goaltending:
Ryan Miller	Jocelyn Thibault

The next major front office order of business must be to lock up Ryan Miller for as long as possible. For all the press about Buffalo's new-NHL powerhouse offence, they go nowhere without Miller.

With the entire roster now signed, the Sabres' cap hit stands at just over US$45million, leaving about $5.1 million of space under the cap, giving them room to afford any sort of "rental" if they go that route this season.

2007-08 NE Depth Charts: Ottawa Senators

Preparing some Northeast division previews - I'll be posting my best stab at the depth charts as they exist today (late July).

Ottawa hasn't lost much, especially compared to last year's offseason (Zdeno Chara, Martin Havlat, Dominik Hasek). Peter Schaefer is a quality forward who will be missed; Mike Comrie was only added late in the year. Tom Preissing shouldn't be missed much as this team has quality defensive depth. Especially with another year in the books for youngsters like Patrick Eaves, Chris Kelly, and Antoine Vermette, the Sens should be right back near the top of the East again this year:

Depth Chart:
Dany Heatley	Jason Spezza	Daniel Alfredsson
Dean McAmmond	Mike Fisher	Patrick Eaves
Oleg Saprykin -UFA	Chris Kelly	Chris Neil
Shean Donovan (RW)	Antoine Vermette	Brian McGrattan
possible rookies: Josh Hennessy – C, Jim McKenzie – LW

Defence:
Chris Phillips	Wade Redden
Joe Corvo	Anton Volchenkov
Christoph Schubert	Andrej Meszaros
Lawrence Nycholat

Goaltending:
Ray Emery	Martin Gerber

Despite his quality season last year, the weak(est) link on this team remains in goal with Ray Emery. He could still emerge as a top-flight goaltender, but he needs serious progress on rebounds and positioning.