Last week saw Phil Kessel sign with Vegas, which might improve their roster a little and Paul Stastny sign in Carolina. The number of free agents still available is dwindling and those remaining won't improve a roster that significantly. Here is my look at the remaining top eight teams in the West and how they rank in my mind.

On the Inside Bubble

#8 – Minnesota Wild

The Wild traded two key players in Kevin Fiala and Cam Talbot. In return for Fiala, they received Brock Faber and the Kings' 1st round pick in 2022 which turned into Liam Ohgren. Talbot was sent to Ottawa for Filip Gustavsson so the team got younger by 11 years and saved about $3 million in salary.

The team is counting on youngsters Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi to contribute this season as top-six forwards. Boldy was very impressive in 47 games last year where he had 15 goals and 24 assists with the Wild while Rossi had 53 points in 63 games in the AHL.  Even though Ryan Hartman had an impressive year in 2021-22 with 34 goals and 31 assists in 82 games, I wouldn't consider him a true number one center compared to other rosters in the West.

Where the Wild lack in top-end down the middle they make up for it with depth as Hartman, Frederick Gaudreau, Joel Eriksson Ek, Tyson Jost and perhaps Rossi make up a pretty impressive five.

Not to be overly simplistic, but if Kirill Kaprizov misses more than 20 games next season, the Wild could find themselves on the outside of the bubble. That is how important he is to this team.

On defense, the Wild are still slightly above average as a group but not as strong as they have been. They are led by Jared Spurgeon, Matt Dumba, Jonas Brodin and Alex Goligoski. Dumba will be unrestricted at the end of this season. Where they are in the race leading up to the trade deadline will determine what they do with him I'm sure.

Their top prospects are Brock Faber, Rossi, Adam Beckman, Mason Shaw, Calen Addison, Carson Lambos and Jesper Wallstedt. Rossi, Beckman, Shaw and Addison should see some games with the Wild this season.

Overall, the Wild in my opinion have taken a step back short-term to get ahead long-term. I don't think they will match their 53 wins and 116 from last year and might be in the 43-48 win range this season.

#7 – Los Angeles Kings

The Kings should be on the rise with their stable of young blue-chip players making inroads into the NHL as well as recent additions like Kevin Fiala, Victor Arvidsson and Philip Danault.

The team is still led by Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty and Jonathan Quick who were all part of the Stanley Cup-winning team from 2013-14. The baton is going to be passed on in the next few seasons to one of the better prospect pools in the league.

As much as the Kings hope that players like Gabriel Vilardi, Quintin Byfield, Alex Turcotte, Rasmus Kupari, Jordan Spence and Arthur Kaliyev make big strides in the next year or two, there isn't as much pressure as most markets with this team as it is constructed. Los Angeles can be patient and have these players progress at their own pace.

Positionally the Kings are strongest on defense with Doughty, Matt Roy, Sean Walker, Alex Edler leading the group. They will hope that Mikey Anderson and Sean Durzi continue to develop.

With Quick and Cal Petersen in goal, the Kings have average goaltending at best and it is an area they will need to look at upgrading this year or next.

They exceeded my expectations last year and had 44 wins and made the playoffs. This year they could improve upon that.

#6 – St. Louis Blues

The Blues had 49 wins last year and made it to the second round of the playoffs before losing to Colorado.

They have lost David Perron to free agency and haven't replaced him with a like-minded forward internally or externally. The team has also put all their eggs in the Jordan Binnington basket and shipped out Ville Husso to Detroit and brought in 36-year-old Thomas Greiss to replace him.

This is a pivotal year for them as Ryan O'Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko and Ivan Barbashev are all due to become unrestricted at the end of the year.

The emergence of Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich and Jordan Kyrou will need to continue this year for the Blues to have any chance to repeat 49 wins again.

On defence, the leaders are Torey Krug, Justin Faulk and Colton Parayko and all three of those guys will need to play at least 65-70 games for the Blues to succeed.

Re-signing Nick Leddy is not a reassuring sign for me that the team believes that Scott Perunovich is the answer as Perunovich might need some injuries from other players to get an extended opportunity. The only other prospect that could get an extended chance is Jake Neighbours.

The team will need Binnington to get his game back to a closer level from two or three years ago.

There are signs that this team will need a lot of things to go its way to repeat last year and in all likelihood, they will take a step back. Will that be from 49 down to 45 wins or all the way to 40 wins is the question for me.

#5 – Vegas Golden Knights

In my opinion, your roster is not ideal when you sign Phil Kessel to a contract and you're hoping for a short-term solution that requires a longer-term one. Kessel might get 20 goals and 50 points in Vegas, but his overall impact will be less than that.

The team was forced to trade the salary of Max Pacioretty so losing him is a big hit to this lineup. The team has also lost Robin Lehner for the season with an injury. Those losses should be more than made up for if Jack Eichel, Mark Stone, Alec Martinez, Alex Pietrangelo and Shea Theodore can all stay healthy for most of the season.

If healthy, I consider their defensive group one of the best in the league as it is led by Pietrangelo, Martinez and Theodore with support from Brayden McNabb, Nicolas Hague and Zach Whitecloud.

Losing Lehner for the year hurts, but he did struggle last season and the combination of Logan Thompson and Laurent Brossoit shouldn't be that much of a downgrade in net over the full season. Having said that, Vegas will need a third capable goaltender and Michael Hutchinson hopes to fit that bill.

Prospects that are close are Brendan Brisson, Pavel Dorofeyev, Jack Dugan and Kaedan Korczak.

Vegas had 43 wins last year with a roster that had Eichel play 34 games, Stone 37, Reilly Smith 56 and  Martinez 26. Those four are pretty important members of this squad and could be worth five or six wins which might bring Vegas closer to 50 wins, but because of the uncertainty, they remain on the inside bubble.

#4 – Nashville Predators

The biggest move that Nashville did in the off-season was to re-sign Filip Forsberg to a new contract. They also brought in Nino Niederreiter, Ryan McDonagh and Kevin Lankinen who should be their new backup. They did all that and didn't lose any top-of-the-roster players, so they should at least maintain where they were last season when they won 45 games.

The Predators are hoping for similar seasons from Forsberg, Matt Duchene and Ryan Johansen up front and I'm sure would be ecstatic with anything over 65-70 points by Roman Josi. They are hoping for progression from Eeli Tolvanen,  Philip Tomasino, Cody Glass and Dante Fabbro.

The top prospects are Joakim Kemell, Zachary L'Heureux, Fedor Svechkov, Yaroslav Askarov, Luke Evangalista and Luke Prokop. None of these players are likely to see the NHL this season.

The team has a strong defense still and the addition of McDonagh should only help things. It will be very impressive if Juuse Saros can play 60 games or more once again at the level he did last year. If he takes a step back, this team could find themselves battling hard for a playoff spot. A lot rides on him.

Locked for the Playoffs

#3 – Calgary Flames

You have to give Brad Treliving credit as he bounced back after losing Johnny Gaudreau to free agency. When it became clear that Matthew Tkachuk didn't want to stay long-term he pulled off what is now looking like a pretty good trade in getting Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar for Tkachuk.

To top it off he was able to sign both Huberdeau and Weegar long-term and then bring in Nazem Kadri after moving Sean Monahan and his salary to Montreal.

If healthy the Flames now have an above-average top-three center group with Elias Lindholm, Kadri and Mikael Backlund. Add in Huberdeau, Tyler Toffoli, Andrew Mangiapane and Blake Coleman and they are fairly strong up front. They do have some holes and question marks in the bottom six which might hurt them a little this season. When a team loses two players like Gaudreau and Tkachuk they are not going to be as good going forward but at least the addition of Huberdeau bridges that gap a bit.

Adding Weegar and losing Erik Gudbranson is a fairly large upgrade and if Noah Hanifin, Rasmus Andersson and Oliver Kylington can maintain their level of play the defense should be substantially improved.

Jacob Markstrom played 63 games last season and had 37 wins which is a heavy workload for him. The Flames are playing with fire if they have him play a similar amount of games next year.

Top prospects for the Flames are Jakob Pelletier, Juuso Valimaki, Connor Zary, Dustin Wolf and Matthew Coronato. Pelletier and Valimaki might see a regular role to start the season while Wolf would only see action with the Flames if injuries cropped up with both Markstrom and Vladar.

The Flames had 50 wins last season and should be able to get to 45 this year.

#2 – Edmonton Oilers

The Achilles heel of the Oilers last season was goaltending at times and with the addition of Jack Campbell and Stuart Skinner getting a chance, there is hope that they have improved in this area. The re-signing of Evander Kane was huge while the departures of Duncan Keith and Zack Kassian might hurt in the dressing room, but not so much on the ice.

Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are going to lead this team, and should be able to replicate 123 and 110 point seasons once again (if not more for McDavid). Other players that could improve production are Zach Hyman, Kailer Yamamoto, Ryan McLeod, Jesse Puljujarvi and Evan Bouchard or Tyson Barrie.

Mattias Janmark and Greg McKegg were brought in to improve the depth of the forwards and should be a slight improvement on those in those roles from last year.

It will be interesting if the Oilers elect to have Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg start the season with the big club as a 13th forward for Holloway and 7th defenseman for Broberg.

The Oilers power play is special and could see a 30% success rate next season, but will Barrie, Nurse or Bouchard be the quarterback? My guess is that Bouchard will take over by Christmas as the number one.

On paper, Mike Smith was slightly better than Campbell and Skinner in net last year and over the past three seasons combined. On the ice, I'm not sure that was true but fans will be able to get a look at an alternative this season. All Campbell and Skinner need to do is be average and not let in a soft goal at crucial moments of the game.

The Oilers had 49 wins last season and there is little reason to think that they can't duplicate that if not get over 50.

#1 – Colorado Avalanche

The Stanley Cup winners have some potentially large holes this season that they didn't have last year. They have lost Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky and Darcy Kuemper and replaced them from within except for bringing in Alexandar Georgiev as a backup in goal.

Replacing Kadri is a huge ask of J.T. Compher or Alex Newhook and neither are as good at this point in their career. Burakovsky had 22 goals and 39 assists last season and that production will be hard to replace as well. If Newhook moves to the wing, he or Valeri Nichushkin might inherit the ice time left by Burakovsky.

Losing Kuemper who was very solid in the playoffs, and going with Pavel Francouz who only managed to play 21 games over the past two years and Georgiev who struggled with the NY Rangers last season in 33 games with a 89.8 save percentage, raises some red flags. The good news is that this team only needs average goaltending to succeed.

If we take into account that the leaders of the forwards, Nathan MacKinnon played 65 games, Nichushkin played 62, Gabriel Landeskog 51 and Mikko Rantanen 75, it is scary to think what production this team could put up if these guys all played 75 games or more.

Expect some increase in production from Compher and Newhook but don't count on any more games played for the others than they had last year.

On defense, Cale Makar is the best in the NHL and after putting up 28 goals and 58 assists in 77 games, there is no reason to think he can't do it again and again. Devon Toews on the other hand had 57 points in only 66 games and has never played more than 68 games in his career. I'm not convinced he can duplicate that again.

The team is hoping for a bounce back year from Samuel Girard and a healthy one from Bowen Byram. I'm still convinced that the team will look to trade Girard at some point for forward help or even a goalie if the Avalanche aren't convinced the duo they have can perform to a high enough level.

The top prospects in Colorado are Sampo Ranta, Mikhail Maltsev, Martin Kaut, Ben Meyers and Justus Annunen. All of these players could see some games this season and an extended look if they do well in their auditions. There is opportunity from within this year.

Colorado had 56 wins last year, but will be hard pressed to repeat that, so look for around 50 this year.

I was tempted to slot Edmonton as number one, as they might do better in the regular season over Colorado but I'm still not convinced they can beat Colorado in the playoffs.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or players you'd like me to look at please message or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15.