Carolina made shocking moves during the trade deadline, almost as active as St Louis, they've changed the outlook of their team. Changing half of their top 6 forwards, Carolina will hope to pull off an upset over somewhat disappointing Atlanta.

Atlanta has gone through its customary 20 changes a year, with the exception at General Manager. However, despite their strongly rated forwards and blueline core they finished in what most teams would admit as a disappointing season. None of their players will contend for any major award and were the only division winning team to lack a player who had over 90+ points.

The Offense - Winners - Atlanta

With the likes of Kovalchuk and Heatley, Atlanta have two of the best snipers in the game but will need to up their game if Atlanta wants to match or exceed their last year's trip to the finals. Atlanta also has a good 1-2 punch of playmaking centers in Savard and Gomez, the weakest part of the team remains at 2nd line right wing. Ales Hemsky is playing with another playmaker in Gomez on the 2nd line and with Cole playing at left wing, there is no set goal-scorer on that line. What's the use of having passers of the puck if there's no one there to shoot it.

Carolina on the other hand will depend heavily upon their star center in Jason Spezza. His 83 points were 25 points more than any other teammate, but their advantage will come in their two-way play. While Atlanta only has three players with DF ratings over 70 (Kesler - 80, Pandolfo - 75 and Schubert - 71) while Carolina has 7 (Marchant - 81, Mayers - 81, Lombardi - 77, Hall - 76, Malone - 75, Devereaux - 73 and Draper - 73). If Carolina remains disciplined and not give Atlanta powerplays, they might take a few games off Atlanta.

The Defense - Winners - Carolina

Atlanta double-shifts Marc Savard in order to accommodate their 7 defensemen, this could cause Savard to tire later in the playoffs. Atlanta does have four solid puckmoving defensemen but two of those will be required to play powerplay time, with Souray and Campbell most likely playing on both special teams.

Carolina has the advantage with their depth, although they can contend with Atlanta's top 4, the depth that Carolina can rely upon in case of injury is solid and could give the advantage if both bluelines struggle or get injured.

The goaltending - Winners - Honours Even

Both Kiprusoff and Turco have posted similar numbers since joining their new teams, though due to Atlanta better team overall, it does give a slight edge to Carolina. Atlanta fights back with Carey Price as a backup, but his relative inexperience is a disadvantage to Carolina's backup of Weekes.

Who Wins?

Last year I was voting against Atlanta and they got to the cup finals, so I'm going to vote for Atlanta in 7.

-- Edited by BluesGM on Saturday 18th of April 2009 10:39:02 AM