Teams in the Wild West were under-represented this year with only seven squads in the playoffs and now it is down to three remaining after the first round. Winnipeg, Colorado and Vegas remain in their quest for the Stanley Cup but only two of those can get through to the next round. Colorado can't win every game 7-1. Can they?

I thought we would look at each team that was eliminated and see what went right and/or wrong this season and which players might not be back next season.

Edmonton Oilers (Swept by the Winnipeg Jets in the first round)

When the Oilers committed to the goaltending duo of Mike Smith and Mikko Koskinen for this season, I thought it would be their downfall, somewhat in the regular season and then rear its ugly head in the playoffs. Truth be told, Smith was excellent during the regular season with a GSAA (goals saved above average) of 13.73 while Koskinen was below average with a GSAA of minus 6.45. During the playoffs, Mike Smith started all four games and was decent in losing all four of the games, albeit three of them in overtime, so blame doesn't fall on the goalie this season.

The Oilers had excellent regular seasons from Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Tyson Barrie and Darnell Nurse. Jesse Puljujarvi had an encouraging season with 15 goals and 25 points in 55 games and just turned 23 years of age. The good news is McDavid, Draisaitl, Nurse and Puljujarvi will be back. Barrie is probably not unless the Oilers are willing to spend $5.5 to 6 million AAV over six or seven years.

Other than that everyone else kind of treaded water or digressed. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins who is now 28 years old and just finished his 10th NHL season (all with the Oilers) had a bit of a down year with 35 points in 52 games (0.67 pts/game) after two prior seasons of 0.94 and 0.84 pts/game and reports are that the player and the team might not be close in re-signing.

Kailer Yamamoto over-performed in 2019-20 with his 26 points in 27 games (0.96) and expectations were far too high for this year. Eight goals and 21 points in 52 games (0.40) were well below even the most conservative predictions for him this year, so he needs to bounce back next season. He's only 22 years old so should find some ground between the two seasons’ production levels.

Unrestricted free agents are Nugent-Hopkins, Alex Chiasson, Tyler Ennis, Gaetan Haas, Joakim Nygard, Patrick Russell, Adam Larsson, Tyson Barrie, Dmitry Kulikov, Slater Koekkoek and Mike Smith. $2.5 million in buyout salary remains next season for Andrej Sekera, but $1.33 million comes off for Benoit Pouliot while $750,000 remains on the books for salary retained for Milan Lucic.

The Oilers have just over $22 million to re-sign Nugent-Hopkins, Mike Smith, Adam Larsson and Barrie or the equivalent second-line center, two top-four defencemen or a 1A goalie or risk going backwards. Only one of those four positions could be filled from within and that is Evan Bouchard or Phillip Broberg making the leap. I think they will get Nugent-Hopkins under contract, take a chance on Bouchard and will go after another potential number one goalie like Petr Mrazek, Chris Driedger or Linus Ullmark for $3 to 5 million AAV over three or four years. The Oilers might believe that Ilya Konovalov who is under contract next season is ready to be that guy, but at 22-years of age he will more than likely need a year or two in the AHL.

That would leave them about $9 to 12 million in cap space to upgrade their other holes with secondary scoring, their bottom six and on defence and replace Larsson and possibly Koekkoek. They could re-sign Larsson, but not at nearly the salary he has had.

Players that could come up from within are Broberg (D) (SHL), Tyler Benson (F) (AHL), Ryan McLeod (F) (AHL/NHL), Rafael Lavoie (F) (AHL), Dylan Holloway (F) (signed for next season), Cooper Marody (F) (AHL) and Dmitri Samorukov (D) (KHL).

I think the Oilers still are on the right track and just need to upgrade the unrestricted free agents they are replacing and hope some of their prospects are ready. It's not time to panic.

Nashville Predators (Beaten by the Carolina Hurricanes four games to two in the first round)

The Predators had an excellent second half of the season which saw them get to the playoffs for the seventh season in a row when it wasn't looking like they would get there from their play in the first half.

The Predators had trouble scoring and averaged 2.70 goals per game this season (22nd in the league). The scoring is spread out over the entire roster as Calle Jarnkrok and Mikael Granlund led the team in goals with 13 each (23 over 82 games). Their best scorers are typically Filip Forsberg (12 G 39 GP), Victor Arvidsson (10 G 51 GP), Matt Duchene (six G 34 GP), but Forsberg and Duchene battle injuries while Arvidsson and Ryan Johansen struggled to put up much offence this season.

Encouraging signs were shown by the production from Eeli Tolvanen who had 11 goals and 22 points in 40 games and Luke Kunin who had a much better second half to finish with 10 goals and 19 points in 38 games. The Predators’ strengths are in their bottom six and they lack the elite skill (other than Forsberg on occasion) in their top six.

Roman Josi had a slow start but was his usual self by mid-season, while Mattias Ekholm was solid and Ryan Ellis only managed to play 35 games. The Predators defense has been the envy of most of the league for the past seven seasons, but it is showing cracks with Ekholm entering his UFA season next year (big decision) and Ellis and Josi showing signs of slowing. Dante Fabbro has been slower to develop than was hoped but he is still only 22 years old.

Juuse Saros was perhaps the best Predator all season and might have been the reason they were even in the playoffs. He had a save percentage of 92.7 and a GSAA of 20.72 which is among the league leaders in both categories. Pekka Rinne has more than likely played his last game in the NHL and the Predators will use his $5 million AAV for Saros for the next three to five years (knowing that they have the 11th overall pick from 2020 Yaroslav Askarov in the wings).

Unrestricted free agents heading into next season are Mikael Granlund, Erik Haula, Brad Richardson, Erik Gudbranson and Pekka Rinne. The only two I can see the team bringing back are Granlund and Haula, but at similar values that they had last season with one or two-year terms.

The team will have $2.275 million in buyout cap space burnt on $2 million with Kyle Turris and $275,000 on Steve Santini which will leave them with just under $17 million to re-sign or replace the UFAs and re-sign the following RFAs; Juuse Saros, Eeli Tolvanen, Rem Pitlick, Mathieu Olivier, Tanner Jeannot, Dante Fabbro, Jeremy Davies and Ben Harpur. There isn't much wiggle room to bring expensive outside help.

Possible upgrades from within are continued improvements from Tolvanen, Kunin and Davies and the emergence of David Farrance (D) (signed from US college), Philip Tomasino (F) (AHL) and Connor Ingram (G) (AHL) next season.

I don't see how the team gets better next season with so much salary invested in Duchene and Johansen. The expansion draft will prove interesting in who the Predators protect moving forward.

St. Louis Blues (Swept by the Colorado Avalanche in the first round)

Going into the year, the Blues knew they would miss their captain Alex Pietrangelo quite a bit and replacing him with Torey Krug was not going to be equivalent to having him back. The team still managed to right the ship around mid-season and played well enough in the second half to make the playoffs but they were going in tough against Colorado and were overmatched (which will happen to most teams).

Ryan O'Reilly, David Perron, Jordan Kyrou, had excellent seasons, while Brayden Schenn, Torey Krug, Justin Faulk, Mike Hoffman and Jordan Binnington held their own and were slightly above average when hopes were probably higher.

Disappointing years were had by Jaden Schwartz (battled injuries), Colton Parayko (injuries), Zach Sanford, Vladimir Tarasenko (injuries) and Nikko Mikkola.

Unrestricted free agents going into next season are Schwartz, Tyler Bozak, Hoffman and Carl Gunnarsson, Restricted free agents are Sanford, Ivan Barbashev, Robert Thomas, Jordan Kyrou and Vince Dunn. The Blues will have just under $15 million to replace and/or re-sign all of them, so are up against the cap and will be hard-pressed to replace them with upgrades.

I don't think they will re-sign any of their UFAs except perhaps Schwartz and that would need to be a one-year show-me deal for the Blues. The RFAs are all due a raise and more than likely at least one won't be in a Blues uniform next season.

Upgrades from within are possible from Jake Neighbours (F) (WHL), Scott Perunovich (D) (AHL) and Klim Kostin (F) (KHL/NHL), but the Blues cupboards are pretty bare and the odds of any of these three being an upgrade are slim next season.

It's tough to see the Blues upgrading next year over this season.

Minnesota Wild (Beaten by the Vegas Golden Knights in seven games in the first round)

I must admit that I thought the Wild were hard-pressed to upgrade from last year even with the addition of Kirill Kaprizov but was pleasantly surprised to see that they did improve.

The Wild had a great rookie season by Kaprizov (27 G 51 Pts in 55 GP) as well as very good years from Jordan Greenway, Joel Eriksson-Ek, Marcus Foligno, Mats Zuccarello and Cam Talbot. Kevin Fiala had a strong second half to salvage a good season with 20 goals and 40 points in 51 games. I'm not sure you could classify any Wild as having an overly disappointing season. Even Victor Rask had 10 goals and 23 points in 54 games.

The defence was not its usual productive self but was still one of the better top fours in the league with Jared Spurgeon, Ryan Suter, Jonas Brodin and Matt Dumba all playing 51 games or more. The expansion draft might throw a wrench into keeping that group but we will see what the Wild do in the next few months.

Unrestricted free agents for next season are Marcus Johansson, Nick Bonino, Nick Bjugstad, Kyle Rau, Luke Johnson and Ian Cole. Bonino is a valuable player and the Wild might bring him back but at less money and term than he had. The Wild will save $2.16 million in retained salary for Devan Dubnyk next season. Restricted free agents are Kevin Fiala (pretty big money), Eriksson-Ek (pretty big money) and Kaprizov (pretty big money). The team has $17.8 million in salary available for the big three RFAs and replace or re-sign the UFAs. It won't be easy, but part of the reason Dumba might be made available to Seattle.

Upgrades from within might be Marco Rossi (F) (Swiss), Matt Boldy (F) (AHL), Calen Addison (D) (AHL) and Kaapo Kahkonen (G) (NHL).

If the Wild can maintain their current level this off-season and add Rossi they will be ahead of this year.

I think I'll continue this next week for the other Western teams that didn't make the playoffs.

Thank you very much for reading and if you have any comments or suggestions please message me or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15.