The two main candidates are obvious: 19-year-old net-driving sensation Valeri Nichushkin and oft-injured but highly skilled Czech-born winger Ales Hemsky.

Earlier this summer Stars general manager Jim Nill suggested that Hemsky would get the first look on the Stars’ first-line, a nod in part to his abilities as a puck-carrier and distributor. If Hemsky indeed plays with Benn and Seguin, and if he can stay healthy, he’ll be a major assist threat from the wing.

Nichushkin on the other hand is only going to improve his output from last season regardless of whether he’s on the first or second-line. Though Nichushkin could blow up if he beats out Hemsky for a first-line slot, he’ll retain some of his value if he’s starting the season with Jason Spezza on a secondary line. Realistically Hemsky will retain a good deal of value too, especially if he can retrieve the chemistry he flashed with Spezza during last season’s post trade-deadline run with the Senators.

One more thing to note: last season Seguin played a point-type roll on the Stars power-play (he was positioned on ‘the Ovy spot’ at the top of the left circle, and Dallas generally used just one defender on their first unit). Dallas’ leaders in power-play ice time per game last season included Alec Chiasson and Ray Whitney – neither of whom is with the club anymore. So that means both Hemsky and Spezza could get first-unit power-play minutes. 

4. Tampa Bay Lightning top-line

Coming off of injury last season, Lightning forward Steven Stamkos never really found the sort of chemistry he’d had with Marty St. Louis with any of his other Lightning teammates.

Stamkos was still absurdly dangerous playing with the likes of Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Alex Killorn, but ideally you’d have a higher-end playmaker to complement Stamkos’ heavy artillery, someone who can dominate the puck. 

Pretty much everyone – though people who own him in a keep league in particular – is hoping that Jonathan Drouin can step into a full-time NHL role and stick beside Stamkos this upcoming season, but it’s a big gamble at this point. Drouin is the best drafted prospect in hockey at the moment, but he’s also undersized, and 19-years-old, and trying to crack a very deep Lightning lineup. 

I have no idea how Tampa Bay’s lineup will look next season, but I know I’ll be paying close attention to who Stamkos is spending preseason games skating with. 

5. Vancouver Canucks RW

Radim Vrbata is a massively under-rated two-way winger and a volume shooter with a dangerous right-handed trigger. He might be the most skilled Sedin twin line-mate in the history of the Vancouver Canucks, which is needed, since the twins finally began to look their age last season. 

Can he stick with Henrik and Daniel though, or will Alex Burrows continue to beat back all comers – as he’s done time and again over the past five years – and remain on the right flank of the twins?

This may not be as much a ‘training camp story’ as it is a thing to watch through October. Vrbata was wooed to Vancouver in part on the promise of playing with the twins, so we can be confident that he’ll get an extended look in that spot to start the year. The thing with Burrows though is that – last season’s nightmare aside – he’s expert at converting the twins’ cycle game into goals, and he’s a beast defensively. 

Vrbata is an intriguing gamble this fantasy season and has a tonne of upside. When you consider Vancouver’s desperate need for a heavy right-handed shooter on the power-play, I even think he might get a look playing the point with the man-advantage. At even-strength it’s more complicated, since he’s got to beat out Burrows and beat him out permanently to have significant value next season.

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One final note: in the war for scoring in hockey, the skaters are losing. 

Goaltenders are getting better and better every season and the proof is in the pudding. Every year goaltender save percentage continues to climb and, not coincidentally, goal scoring drops (except in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs for whatever reason). 

Now the spin-o-rama, which was cheap but whatever it was also just a spin-o-rama, is gone from the shootout. Now the trapezoid has been expanded.

Not the rule changes even matter in this epic struggle. Last season the league tried to restrict the size of goalie equipment, but guess what? The goaltenders got faster, they all adopted the reverse VH technique so shooters couldn’t squeeze pucks through and they continued to win the war.

The quality of goaltending has improved so enormously that veteran guys, the types of players that used to get an endless number of looks in the NHL, they have to wait for injuries before signing contracts. Tomas Vokoun, Ilya Bryzgalov, Martin Brodeur – they’re all unsigned.

This is an unintended consequence of better NHL goaltending: every year it seems that older goalies are having a tougher time finding work in the NHL.

It’s simple really: if the aggregate quality of goaltending has improved, then it follows that an average goalie is of a higher caliber than in the past. When more puck stoppers can do the job it decreases the marginal value of “experience” so more teams are willing to take a chance on cheaper, less experienced labour.

This is why you’re seeing teams hand out hybrid-type contracts to goaltenders – deals that begin as two-way contracts, and evolve (with a Lightning stone!) into one-way deals towards the tail end. This is also why you’re seeing veteran UFA goaltenders, the ones that miss out on the intial frenzy, forced to wait until October to find a job.