On Monday, NHL.com released its list of Stanley Cup predictions from a panel of 18 staff members. Each member broke down the top three teams for each of the NHL’s divisions, as well as the two teams they believe will snag the wildcard spots in each conference heading into the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2019. The panelists also chose which teams they believe will win the Eastern and Western Conference titles, who will ultimately win the Stanley Cup Final and which player will take home the Conn Smythe trophy.

Out of the 18 panelists, seven chose the San Jose Sharks to win the Stanley Cup, six chose the Tampa Bay Lightning, two chose the Nashville Predators, two chose the Winnipeg Jets and one chose the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It makes sense that out of the 31 teams in the league, the Sharks and Lightning were chosen most often. The Sharks have added to an already strong roster, marking themselves as one of the most dominant teams on paper heading into this season, while the Lightning have had deep playoff runs for three of the past four seasons, making it to the Stanley Cup final in 2015 and to Conference finals in 2016 and 2018.

It’s important to mention the (maybe obvious) beauty of these guesses: that is all they are, predictions. No one knows what will happen in the months between now and April, and there is no way to tell if major injuries will plague a team or if players will ultimately underperform when it’s time to take the ice.

What is most shocking about these predictions is that the Vegas Golden Knights are not predicted to repeat their Western Conference title by any of the panelists in the article. The Golden Knights dominated in the 2017-2018 season, making it all of the way to the Stanley Cup final before ultimately losing in game five to the Washington Capitals.

While Vegas did lose winger David Perron, who earned a career high of 66 points this past season, as well as winger James Neal, that might not be enough to take the team out of the question for becoming Stanley Cup champions in 2019. The team did sign center Paul Stastny in early July, and his ability to consistently score points will be beneficial to the Golden Knights, providing some of that missing point-scoring the team lost following the departure of Neal and Perron.

Preseason is never the best predictor of the upcoming regular season, but Vegas has continued to show its dominant play so far, winning all but one of its seven preseason games. It will obviously take more than a handful of preseason games to gauge how well the Golden Knights will play this season, but there is no reason why they should be counted out for the Cup final this year.

One exciting pick panelists made for which team will be crowned the Stanley Cup champions was the Winnipeg Jets. Since the team’s relocation in 2011, the Jets had only made it to the playoffs once before last season, losing in a four-game sweep to the Anaheim Ducks in 2015.

Cue the 2018 playoffs, where the Jets barreled past the Minnesota Wild and the Nashville Predators to make their way to the Western Conference finals, ultimately losing to the Vegas Golden Knights. In the offseason, the Jets opted to keep the roster relatively the same, resigning key players Jacob Trouba and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. The team did lose Stastny to Vegas, but after experiencing a deep playoff run for the first time, the Jets can use this new experience to strengthen their play and ultimately make an even deeper run in this upcoming postseason, resulting in a trip to the Stanley Cup Final.