Chicago @ Tampa Bay

It's going to be a very long season for Chicago hockey fans as the rebuilding Hawks are without captain Jonathan Toews indefinitely due to a medical condition, lost good-looking young forward Kirby Dach likely for the season to a broken wrist suffered last month while playing for Team Canada and don't have either of their top two goaltenders from last year. Tampa Bay presumably will raise its Stanley Cup banner Wednesday even though no fans are allowed in attendance (the club may delay it until fans can be there). The champs did suffer a major loss, though, with former Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov out for the regular season following hip surgery.

The Lightning are a strong pick to repeat as champions. They have the best goalie in the league in Andrei Vasilevskiy and still have plenty of depth and talent. Chicago is going to struggle this year. Jonathan Toews is out and the Blackhawks are going with Malcolm Subban in net. He has primarily been a backup. Chicago really struggled on defense last season and could be worse this year. Tampa Bay, always tough at home, has won eight of the last nine meetings.