Which bottom-feeders could make giant leaps next NHL season?

Exactly how much better this year’s New Jersey Devils will wind up being from last season’s version is still up in the air.

What we can say for certain, though, is a squad that missed the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs by 37 points is not only going to participate in the 2023 derby, it will likely have home-ice advantage in Round 1 and would seem to stand as good a chance as any Metropolitan Division club of advancing to the Eastern Conference Final.

Not bad for a squad that was essentially out of the playoff chase not far past the midway point of last season and began this year with cheap-seat screams for coach Lindy Ruff's head after the Devils kicked off their schedule with consecutive 5-2 losses.

Nearly half the league has officially been eliminated from 2023 playoff contention, meaning there are a lot of organizations out there already dreaming of a Devils-like turnaround next year. And while New Jersey has likely set too high a bar for anyone to match — it’s not unthinkable the Devils could win the East — there are a number of teams that can look at their current situation and talk themselves into the potential for huge gains next season. And, of course, the May 8 NHL Draft Lottery is also going to grant someone a massive Connor Bedard boost next September.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer at four teams that aren’t necessarily poised to jump up into the post-season fray next season, but could nonetheless make a huge leap from where they are today to where they sit 12 months from now.

The Blue Jackets played basically the entire year without their No. 1 D-man, Zach Werenksi. Last July, Columbus drafted David Jiricek — a 6-foot-3, right-shot defenceman — sixth overall. If you were to re-do the 2022 draft today, it’s likely a tossup between Jiricek and someone else we’ll mention a little later on in this piece for who goes No. 1. After a fantastic AHL rookie season, Jiricek could be a prominent member of the top six next fall.

As for who is already playing, Kent Johnston, the fifth-overall pick in 2021, has 11 points in his past 14 outings and is starting to look like the offensive menace Columbus projected him to be. Johnston’s fellow rookie, Kirill Marchenko, has 21 goals this season and is by far the freshman leader in goals-per-game at 0.39. Johnny Gaudreau is going to start next year much more comfortable with his surroundings than he did in Year 1 with his new squad and Cole Sillinger, who experienced a terrible sophomore slump, is surely poised to bounce back a little.

Now consider, with fewer than a handful of games to go, that Columbus has a real shot to finish last in the standings and you can introduce the possibility of adding Bedard — even Adam Fantilli — to the mix.

Will all of this pan out Columbus' way? Of course not. But even if you’re banking on Werenski coming back and reasonable progress from talented youngsters who play centre and defence, that’s a big boost. Now throw in some lottery luck in a year there’s a generational scorer at the top of the board and you can easily see the Jackets going from a 60-point outfit to an 80-point team.

The Canadiens could come back next year without making a single off-season change to the roster and still expect a 15-point bump based on the positively absurd list of players who have missed extensive time due to injury this year. A certain subset of the Boomer generation claim you should watch The Wizard of Oz set to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I say you should pull up the Habs' IR and read the names in the frantic pace of Billie Joel's We Didn’t Start the Fire: 

“Cole Cau-field, Mon-a-han, Kirby Dach, Jake All-en, Kaiden Guhle, Joel Armia, Brendan Gal-la-gher!

"Slaf-kov-sky, An-der-son, Paul Byron, Math-e-son, Jake Evans, Mike Hoffman, Joel Ed-mund-son!”

I mean, there simply can’t be an encore next year, right? 

The Canadiens are long shots to pick first or second, but they’re tracking a 28th-place finish and an 8.5 per cent chance at one and 8.8 per cent shot at two isn’t nothing.

Then there’s the semi-surreal situation whereby a big, 24-year-old centre who plays for a team that’s not Montreal has basically gone on record (via his agent) stating his long-term preference would be to play for the Canadiens. There’s certainly no guarantee Pierre-Luc Dubois will be in bleu, blanc et rouge next fall, but he sure doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to ink a long-term contract anywhere else and there’s more than a little speculation that the Winnipeg Jets and Canadiens could come together on a summertime trade that would ensure Montreal gets its man now, while the Jets don’t wind up with nothing should Dubois leave as a free agent in 2024.

Imagine if the Canadiens did win the lottery and had a top-six forward group consisting of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Josh Anderson and a trio of guys who can play centre or wing in Kirby Dach, Pierre-Luc Dubois and, ahem, Connor Bedard.

That would surely alter the arrival time for the club’s rebuild.

The Coyotes haven’t won in eight games, which is at least keeping the door open to the idea they could win the draft lottery by finishing six spots up from the bottom (where they are now) or even falling below Montreal to get the fifth-best odds.

Before its current slide, though, 'Zona went 14-7-6 and there have been some very intriguing developments in the second half of the season, including Clayton Keller producing like a truly elite winger; Barrett Hayton starting to fulfil his promise as a fifth-overall pick in 2018; Nick Schmaltz producing at a point-per-game clip and 24-year-old Juuso Valimaki scoring at a 56-point pace from the back end since late January.

Recall, earlier we said Columbus’ Jiricek might be the top pick in a 2022 draft do-over. Well, the other candidate is centre Logan Cooley, who is set to star this weekend at the NCAA Frozen Four for the Minnesota Golden Gophers to cap a fantastic freshman season. Suddenly, a 1-2 of Hayton and Cooley down the middle flanked by Keller and Schmaltz looks like something you can make some hay with.

Moving to a new phase of the scorched-earth rebuild also means Arizona could potentially add a low-cost complementary piece or two as opposed to selling everything that’s not nailed down. The bad vibes of the lingering Jakob Chychrun situation are finally gone and, unlike this year, it’s hard to imagine the Coyotes will have to play 20 of their first 24 on the road even with the ice-sharing situation with Arizona State University at Mullett Arena.

Finally, Arizona plays in a Central Division where the three top teams right now — Colorado, Minnesota and Dallas — will likely be good next year, too, but that’s not something you can safely say about Chicago, Nashville, St. Louis or even Winnipeg.

The Ducks are in the thick of the lottery race and have played almost the entire season without 20-year-old Jamie Drysdale on the back end. Trevor Zegras is still, technically, just a second-year player, it’s easy to see Mason McTavish being among the best sophomores in the NHL next season and Lukas Dostal is a good goalie prospect who could be ready to make the leap.

Also, with coach Dallas Eakins in the final year of his deal, you have to wonder if there might be a new-coach bump for Anaheim next season.