It’s once again that time of year when fans get excited for the upcoming NHL season, so they click around and see dozens of articles with pre-season predictions. Not everyone loves reading them, as they’re just one person’s opinion, and most analysts hate making them, because they’re tied to evaluations done with incomplete information (injuries, acquisitions; a lot changes fast in hockey).
The thing is, they do serve a real purpose in that they set our expectations for the season, which is critical. Teams and players and coaches and managers aren’t judged against one another as a pure meritocracy, but are weighed on their performance relative to expectations (otherwise Luke Richardson would not still be the head coach in Chicago, for a random example).
So, I’ll throw my thoughts out there, and let’s see if we can get on the same page about what we expect to see from each of the 32 teams in the season ahead.
Anaheim Ducks
The Ducks just finished third-last in the league with a minus-91 goal differential and proceeded to add nothing of substance to their roster, unless you count rookie Cutter Gauthier. Selling a slow and patient rebuild guarantees a GM years of job security, sure, but after six straight seasons of no playoffs for the Ducks, anyone else feel like they’re willingly walking into 2024-25 as a punching bag yet again?
Boston Bruins
With Jeremy Swayman finally re-signed, their off-season looks like quantity out (Heinen, Lauko, DeBrusk, Forbort, Shattenkirk, etc.), and quality in (Elias Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov), so the Bruins' foundation of solid talent means they’re probably still a playoff team. But that prediction hinges on Swayman, who missed camp and has never been a pure starter, producing the same quality goaltending as he's been in a tandem, which is no guarantee.
Buffalo Sabres
Like most other teams in the league the Sabres have some capable forwards, but they have a higher upside than other non-playoff teams because there’s at least a chance a D-corps with Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, and Bowen Byram hits levels most teams can’t match. If Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen lives up to his new contract and provides top-15 goaltending, don’t be surprised if the Sabres are in the playoff hunt down the stretch.
Calgary Flames
The Flames don’t seem comfortable with the word, but it’s obvious they’re, um, “reallocating assets towards future-facing growth opportunities,” at this point (guys, it’s a rebuild). They sent away Jacob Markstrom and Andrew Mangiapane for long-term gain, and in turn, they should be clearly out of the playoffs before the deadline.
Carolina Hurricanes
They lost Jake Guentzel and Teuvo Teravainen and Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei, which, y’know, probably matters. But their D are still extremely good (added Sean Walker to the third pair), their goaltending should be good (it’s Pyotr Kochetkov’s time!), and they’re fast enough to create problems, so in a weaker Metro Division, they should be among the teams vying for top spot.
Chicago Blackhawks
I love when a team decides they’d like to stop getting embarrassed on a regular basis and acquires a bunch on legitimate NHL players to surround their recent promising draft picks -- it has to be one of the most fun phases for fans. I won’t list all of Chicago's off-season acquisitions, but with Tyler Bertuzzi, Ilya Mikheyev, Teuvo Teravainen, TJ Brodie, Alec Martinez and Laurent Brossoit (and drafting Artyom Levshunov), I’ve got the Blackhawks taking a massive step forward this season.
Colorado Avalanche
The Avs are a little hamstrung heading into the season, given they don’t know if and when captain Gabriel Landeskog will be available, and Valeri Nichushkin is suspended for having the audacity to (checks notes) deal with his addiction (if you missed the sarcasm, I still can’t believe the league suspends players for relapsing during recovery). They’re good at the top-end, and I like their blue line, but because they’re pretty meh around the middle/bottom, a division crown and more rides on the two players above helping out upon returning, plus getting good goaltending from Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen.
Columbus Blue Jackets
I’m not sure the Blue Jackets season will ever leave the spectre of this summer’s Johnny Gaudreau tragedy, nor is it important that happens. Hopefully Adam Fantilli gives fans something to cheer for and the other young talents take a step so there’s some forward progress towards better days, because looking at the roster, it doesn’t seem like a season where they’re ripe for a lot of winning (don’t rule out earning a number one overall pick).
Dallas Stars
The Stars didn’t do a ton this off-season, but they didn’t really have to given the amount of talent on the roster. They’ve got a great goalie, they’ve paired offensively gifted defencemen with guys who can hit (new additions Ilya Lyubushkin and Matt Dumba), and they’ve got a mix of old and young offensive talents, which all together makes them the prohibitive Central Division favourite.
Detroit Red Wings
It’s actually strange to look back at last season and remember the Red Wings only missed the playoffs by a tiebreaker with Washington, as most of the time they seemed unthreatening and mostly just “OK” (which checks out when it comes to the final playoff spot in the East last year). Their off-season was defined by absolutely treading water with their in/out list, and retaining their good players, so they seem primed for...91 points again, maybe?
Edmonton Oilers
The unequivocal “best team in the NHL” heading into Day 1 of the season (their over/under point line is set five points higher than the next-best team on most books). There’s maybe some weight to that, but they improved their very good roster from last season (I like Viktor Arvidsson a lot if healthy), I like Stuart Skinner’s odds of having a great year after a great playoffs, so yeah, these are your Presidents' Trophy favourites.
Florida Panthers
Everything went right last season for the Panthers (Sam Reinhart scored 57 times!), and they stayed true to their unquestioned identity of being extremely un-fun to play against. But they lost a couple good defencemen in Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, they lost several physical players, and they got the second-best goaltending in the league last year in team save percentage, and so I think it’s possible they take a step back into the low-100s for points and will have their hands full trying to stay healthy and go deep for a third straight season.
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Los Angeles Kings
The Kings are coming off a 99-point season with a plus-41 goal differential yet it feels like they’re going to be in tough to get to 95 this year (and 98 was the playoff cut-off in the West last season). Matt Roy is gone and Drew Doughty is out long-term, they got the fourth-best goaltending in the league last year but are giving the keys to Darcy Kuemper (who had an .890 SV% last year), and it just feels like they treaded water at best this summer, which could mean they sink this winter.
Minnesota Wild
The past few seasons have seen the Wild drop from 113 points to 103 points to 87, which feels a bit dramatic for the still-decent talent on the roster (despite the salary cap constraints!). Their combined shooting and save percentage (PDO) last year was bottom-10 in the league, so I expect some bounce-back, but they kind of feel like the generic team you have to (and will) beat in a video game to level up and get to the boss-level opponents when it really matters.
Montreal Canadiens
This team is full of promising but young defencemen, a money pit at right wing, inexperienced (or just below average) at centre, and probably closer to a 75-point squad than the nearly 95 it might take to make the playoffs in the East. That said, they’ve got young prospects who could surprise, and they’ve got draft picks if they decide to make trades and get aggressive sooner than later (you can only carry 50 contracts after all), so the best-case scenario is they do what Chicago did this past summer and say “OK, time to win now” with some in-season transactions.
Nashville Predators
OK, lean in close and keep this between us as it’s apparently a big faux pas to say too loud: I am not as high on the Preds (and their off-season) as everyone else. They’ve got talent and smart veteran players, they will do things the right way and be tough beat and all that (yada yada), but their blue line is just OK, and their most important forwards are old, so they just seem built to get 97 points and be eliminated by Dallas in the first round.
New Jersey Devils
The only possible reason to doubt the Devils is that, from the consensus of about 300 NHL preview articles, everyone thinks they’re going to be great. But in fairness, they are coming off a year with terrible injury luck (Dougie Hamilton and Jack Hughes), they got bad goaltending (and traded for a good goaltender in Markstrom), and they got a new coach (Sheldon Keefe) which usually helps generate some extra pop, so I guess sign me up, they look like the Metro Division favourites?
New York Islanders
The Islanders finished the 2023-24 NHL season second-last in expected goals against, they don’t quite have enough scoring, and so I don’t quite understand them looking at their roster and going “maybe if we run it back it will work?” There’s still a lot to like about their veteran team, and so I see still see a playoff chase in the cards, but they probably needed more than a Patrick Roy pop (and Anthony Duclair scoring a few) to push them into legit Stanley Cup contention.
New York Rangers
It doesn’t even seem right remembering that the New York Rangers won the Presidents' Trophy last season, given it feels like they were not as good as Florida, or Edmonton, or Dallas, or Colorado, or, or, or...others. But they did win it, and they didn’t change much of anything (maybe taking a small step back minus guys such as Alex Wennberg and Jack Roslovic), so I guess they’ll be a 100-plus point team again this season, though it won’t be another Presidents' Trophy.
Ottawa Senators
There’s a great clip of pro golfer Will Zalatoris talking about how hard it is for a 10 handicap to get down to a five, but he notes that it is exponentially harder for a five to get down to a zero, and I think that’s a relevant metaphor for the Ottawa Senators. OK, you’ve improved a lot recently -- there’s some real talent there -- now can you grind down the finer points and beat your good opponents enough to finish in the top half of the league (methinks it’ll be close, but only if they stay healthy)?
Philadelphia Flyers
The Flyers seem in the midst of a proper rebuild, as their roster is littered with young players who are about to get a real chance to show their worth, while the overall team is likely to be Quite Bad. Hopefully for them Matvei Michkov is runaway-Calder-level good, but it’s awfully tough for me to look at that roster coming off an 87-point season and forecast a better season ahead (but they should draft high again!).
Pittsburgh Penguins
I’m bullish on this Penguins roster, as they’ve got quality at the top-end, good veterans throughout the lineup (I like Kevin Hayes and Rickard Rakell in tertiary roles), and I think some nice value guys filling in around them this season. I also think Kyle Dubas knows this is a “win now” team given its age, and so they’ll be aggressive, which in turn means I expect them to improve in-season and make the playoffs.
San Jose Sharks
Rebuilds are painful and the Sharks are going to be awfully rebuildy to watch this season (I’d like to see them add a couple decent NHL players, not to be competitive but just for the good of all involved). That said, you just hope Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith provide enough flashes of greatness that Sharks fans start to see what could be in a few years.
Seattle Kraken
Sometimes a team signs a UFA deal and people go “woof, I’m not sure about that contract,” even though there's no denying that the team got better with the added player. Well, Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour make Seattle better, Shane Wright looks ready, and so I won’t be shocked if the Kraken find their way back to the playoffs this season.
St. Louis Blues
Maybe it’s because I’m in media, but I tend to hate when teams who are OK look at their roster and go “um, internal growth should fix this,” because -- breaking news -- everyone gets a little better every year, growing from within doesn’t make you special. I love that the Blues offered sheeted (and got) two good young players in Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, who won’t be enough to make them a playoff team but should help for years to come.
Tampa Bay Lightning
Letting Stamkos go and then paying Guentzel is pretty ruthless (same with trading away Mikhail Sergachev), but make no mistake, the Bolts are an analytics organization that’s trying to win Stanley Cups, and they knew that they needed to try something different. With a bounce-back season from Andrei Vasilevskiy, I expect the Bolts to be a playoff team yet again.
Toronto Maple Leafs
Fans are frustrated they’re going to run back the same core, but those are awfully good hockey players most teams would kill to have, and so you can expect them to win a lot of (regular season!) games yet again. Their defencemen are better, they’ve got legit competition for their depth forward spots, and so if they get even league average goaltending (which is likely but not a given), they should surpass last season’s 102 points.
Utah Hockey Club
Utah (formerly Arizona) got serious about their defence, getting Sergachev, Ian Cole, John Marino, and Robert Bortuzzo, which suddenly makes them playoff contenders, given their solid forward group. The bigger thing here is I expect they'll want to compete immediately, so will spend some draft capital to get better now, and they’ll be a competitive team this year, right around that playoff hunt.
Vancouver Canucks
The defending Pacific Division champs (regular season) may not equal their great heights of last season, but this is still a really good team, even with the massive turnover. Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen, Vinny Desharnais … these are guys who should help support the elite talent on the Canucks' roster, and so I expect them to finish second in the Pacific (behind Edmonton), with their fate from there riding entirely on the health of Thatcher Demko.
Vegas Golden Knights
As much as it’s tempting to say “Vegas is finally going to pay for their sin of being too aggressive,” their defence corps is still Alex Pietrangelo, Shea Theodore, Noah Hanifin, Nic Hague, Zach Whitecloud, and Brayden McNabb, so yeah, they’re still going to win a lot of games. But we’ll see if they can score and get the goaltending needed to take them from just another playoff team to a more serious contender.
Washington Capitals
The Caps were not a good team last season (minus-37 goal differential), but they took aggressive steps to rectify that this off-season, getting Jakob Chychrun, Matt Roy, Andrew Mangiapane, Brandon Duhaime, and the ever-mystifying Pierre-Luc Dubois. They’re almost definitely better than they were last season, so I’ll say they’ve taken a step from bad to average, and should finish… about where they did last season, either just in, or just out of the playoffs (all while being on Ovi Watch, as Alex Ovechkin needs 42 goals to break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record).
Winnipeg Jets
The Jets had a massive 110 points last season, and the bones of that team are still in place, including arguably the league’s best goalie in Connor Hellebuyck. But while this is a very good team, they fell short last post-season, and let several good players go (Tyler Toffoli, Sean Monahan, Brenden Dillon, Laurent Brossoit to name a few) without really replacing them, so it’ll be a year-long battle for the playoffs, barring the addition of some help along the way.
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