Well I guess hindsight is 20/20. Now that we know that the New Orleans Specters did not win the President's Trophy, they don't have a "curse" to go up against! Does this mean that they now have a greater chance that they will win the Challenge Cup? I don't think so. I believe that a team's standings is indicative of how a team will do in the playoffs. In the past 2 seasons with FHM, both President Trophy winning teams made it to the 2nd round and in addition to that, the Buffalo Stampede lost in Game 7 in the 2nd round. One good bounce in their favour and Buffalo could've have made it to the finals and who knows, maybe they could've won the Challenge Cup. 

Also, FHM may seem to have a "curse" on the President's Trophy; however, we only have 2 seasons worth of data to pull from. A Challenge Cup win in this season and the next by the President's Trophy winner can greatly skew the numbers to a 33% chance of winning and a 50% chance of winning respectively. That makes the odds look a lot better in terms of a President's Trophy team winning the Challenge Cup, especially since there are currently 8 teams that enter the playoffs.

Lastly, if we look towards the SMJHL, the Detroit Falcons were able to win the Four Star Cup and the SMJHL equivalent to the President's Trophy in the same season. This makes the odds 50% in the SMJHL which makes it look really good.

The Tampa Bay Barracudas can 100% continue their improvement to double-digit wins next season. This is because the team have been actively seeking out some of the best IFAs in free agency and spending the money on getting better players for their team. In addition to this, I can see them getting a few upgrades for next season as they call up the likes of Ambacas Cuddles, Jerry Huuveri, and Zoltan Topalo. This will give immediate boosts to the team as they are higher TPE than their current players and will be continuing to grow throughout the season. 

Now where would the 2 extra wins come from? I am not entirely certain, but with the correct tactics and good puck luck the team can manage some wins over teams that people may not be expecting. I think a couple of their games show how close they were to double-digit wins this season as they had 6 games where they lost by 1 goal. As I mentioned earlier, a couple more lucky bounces and with the addition of their up and coming prospects, some of those 1 goal cames could have converted to wins.
Standings-wise, the New England Wolfpack are the best team that didn't make the playoffs. The team was just 2 or so points shy of that last place spot in the Eastern Conference and this was even after they traded players like Eko van Otter off the team this season. To be honest, even after the trades, I personally think that New England had a pretty good team although I didn't expect for them to make the playoffs. This season showed that I was correct and that they are still a very good team placing 8th overall in the entire league in points. Also, the team had a positive goal differential of +27 and a win percentage of 0.610. Sure the team lost to the likes of Tampa Bay, but are they the best team out of the playoffs? I think 100% they are.
Monkey D Luffy had such a dominating start of the season. It seemed like he was well in the clear of all other players and was destined to snag a couple awards at least this season. However, things appeared to have slowed down for the Buffalo Stampede nearing the tail end of the season. The team was still well in the playoffs; however, other teams and other players began catching up to them. 

Luffy ended the season with an impressive 72 points, tied with Daniel Smeb of the Chicago Syndicate and just 3 points behind Hamilton's Aaron Wilson. Now does this affect Luffy's chances of winning the MVP awards? In my opinion, absolutely. I personally think a league leading player in points that is 10 points ahead of the next highest scoring player on their team has a higher chance of winning the MVP awards compared to the 2nd place player that is 12 points ahead of the next highest scoring player. Plus, Luffy played on a stacked Buffalo team and I am certain that the awards committee will factor that into their voting as well. 

And so, the MVP awards were most certainly Monkey D Luffy's to lose.
For me, the best defenseman has to do it all. They have to be able to score points, play well defensively, and overall be trusted in all situations. Karlstrasse Scholz I would say exhibited these qualities. Scholz leads the league in points with 54 to end the season, he has 113 hits, 53 shots blocked, and 10 more takeaways to giveaways. Everything is looking set for Scholz to win the Stevens Award. The only thing that may be holding him back is that his shots blocked is a little lower in comparison to others.

I personally don't think Cameron Carter II will land on an all-star team. While his production was impressive considering how far into regression Carter is, I don't think that 41 points is enough to make it to an all-star team. Those 41 points was good enough for 4th among Chicago forwards, 5th overall on the team, but only around 40-50 in the entirety of the league. Plus, Carter doesn't have other stats to back him. He had 64 hits which is good, but 39 giveaways to 6 takeaways, and 6 shots blocked. Carter did not even play any special teams for Chicago which I think further hurts his chances.
While Parker Smeb had an impressive 337 hits last season, this season Parker came back down to Earth with 256. This still leads the league in hits; however, is only 27 more than the next hardest hitter in Wawazat. Looking at this season, I would say that Wawazat is the toughest player in the entire SHL. Wawazat has 229 hits playing 10 less minutes on average, and has a fight win this season under his belt. He also had 85 penalty minutes which was good enough for 3rd most in the league this season. I think those numbers speak for themselves and Wawazat, at least for this season, should take the crown for toughest player in the SHL.
Right on the mark as Collin Gibbles indeed finish once again at the top of the league in takeaways. Gibbles had 49 more takeaways than giveaways with 68, and has 20 more takeaways compared to the next player in Nat Emerson. What is most likely helping Gibbles in achieving this season after season is the fact that his stick checking is all the way up at 20. 

However, I personally think that having the most takeaways or having the most giveaways is not indicative of one's performance. I believe that we must look at the 2 stats together and look at the giveaway to takeaway ratio. This will better show us how effective a player is on ice. For example, Gibbles' takeaway to giveaway ratio 3.58 compared to Fiddler's 2.52. From this, I would say Gibbles was more effective, but that of course doesn't affect the fact that Gibbles had the most takeaways once again.
Among all the teams in the playoffs, the Calgary Dragons do seem to be the team that most urgently needed to make a deadline move if they wanted a better chance at the Challenge Cup. I counted 14 of their current rostered players undergoing regression and their window this this team is quickly closing unless they go into a bit of a retool and set sights on winning with another core.
Of all the major trades that went down, I remember the Theo Morgan trade as being the trade I felt would have the largest impact on the team. To what extent I was uncertain; however, I felt Morgan could slot in on the team very well on the 1st line and on the powerplay. I expected a good season from Morgan and he went well beyond my expectations, having the most goals in the league this season.
There is a very clear difference between where a team should be placed and where a team is most likely going to be placed. For example, teams in Seattle or Montreal are more likely; however it is clear the the SHL is lacking teams in the North West and Central part of the United States. There may be a good reason for that such as SMJHL teams like Colorado claiming an entire state, and Vancouver being in the SMJHL when the city can most certainly be an SHL team. 

As for West Virginia and Montana, West Virginia I think is too close to a lot of other SHL teams and so I don't think that an SHL team should be placed there. Montana on the other hand I think would be a good place since there aren't many teams there. However, I don't think there would be much support for a team in Montana.

I think with all the teams making it to the SMJHL playoffs once again, this makes it harder to say that there is a clear winner. This is coming from the standpoint of a Vancouver Whaler because we have witnessed the Whalers take the season series 3-1. Although season series aren't indicative of actual performance in the playoffs, it is a sign that the Berserkers are able to lose even though they seem unstoppable. This is again shown in last year's playoffs where they seemed like the favourites, but they were ousted in the 2nd round to the Carolina Kraken.

Are the Berserkers favourite to win the Four Star Cup? I would say so. But are they going to win the Four Star Cup? I'm not too sure about that. I feel like they are going to be upset once again this playoffs.