By Steve Farnham, AllHabs.net

MONTREAL, QC. — There’s a slight chill in the air, fantasy hockey poolers are scrambling through statistics, masses have the date of October 7th circled on their calendar, yes everyone, we can all stop asking “Is it October yet?”, it is, and the NHL’s 2010-11 season is only two days from getting underway.

Many have already signed off on their predictions for the upcoming season.  Personally, I’ve been rather quiet about my own thoughts, and wanted to take most of the preseason to wrap my head around this.

There are many factors to consider.

Can Carey Price live up to the colossal expectations that the Montreal fan base has towards him?  Can he quiet the anti-fans in the crowd who still have not forgotten a certain i forget who, who was traded during the off-season?  Can he prove to the Habs organization that they were correct in choosing him as the future goaltender of this organization?  Whether you are a fan of Price or not (which I am for the record), the questions can legitimately be asked, and only time will give us the answers.

I for one believe this will be a career defining year for Carey Price.  I certainly don’t think it will be perfect, there will be bumps in the road, but ultimately, i believe he will be season’s end have found a way to win back the hearts of the fan, and there’s no doubt for me he will be a great goaltender for many years to come.

There’s also many questions that could be asked regarding the defensive unit, with players like Jaroslav Spacek, Ryan O’Byrne and even P.K. Subban to an extent coming to mind.

The same could also be said with the forwards, i can throw names like Benoit Pouliot and Andrei Kostitsyn into the mix.

Off the ice, we can spend countless hours analyzing the job that both Pierre Gauthier and Jacques Martin have done, but its been done over and over again, and we’ll have plenty of time to judge them again after the season gets underway.

The goal of this piece however is not to analyze the entire the Habs organization from top to bottom, but rather to simply gauge our audiences view on the Habs playoff hopes.

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With everything that you know, where do you think your beloved Habs will finish in the standings this season?  Where will the finish in their own division?

I for one, believe that the upcoming season will look very much like the last.  The season will be filled with up and downs but when it comes down to it, the Habs will be fighting for a playoff spot and it might again go down to the wire.

I haven’t analyzed the other teams within the division all that much, but you could argue that the North East division is a rather weak division, and unless Ryan Miller makes the miracles he did last season, the only team i can really see running away with the division are the Boston Bruins.  (I can see the hate mail coming now)

That being said, I’m confident that if the Habs play to their fullest potential, they can easily place as good as second within the division itself.

In the conference, again having not analyzed the other teams activities too much, you could argue that teams like the New York Rangers, Atlanta Thrashers and Tampa Bay Lightning are improved, so we might find ourselves with more teams battling for the final eighth spot this season, then we did in the last.

So for all the bragging rights that it can bring, here are my predictions for the North East division and eastern conference, i also invite you to comment on your predictions below.

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As mentioned earlier, i predict that the Habs will be fighting for a playoff spot when it all comes down to it.  I see it as very likely to have the teams I’ve positioned as finishing between 6th and 12th to be battling for the final three positions.

What are your predictions?  Let us know!