The past two Western Conference champions have come from the Pacific Division, but the team at the bottom has picked either first or second overall in the draft as well. There may not be a division in the league with more tier breaks than the western-most collection of teams.
That said, the division has had three different regular-season champions over the past three years, from Calgary in 2022, to Vegas in 2023 and Vancouver in 2024.
What we know is that there are two definite Stanley Cup contenders in this group, and a third trying to prove its candidacy can last. After that, a group of teams will be hoping to be involved in the wild-card race, and it’s not out of the question that the Pacific could claim both of those in the West.
So how do we think this division could play out in 2024-25? Here’s a look, with our reasons why.
Even after starting so terribly last season and spending most of the schedule chasing down the league, Edmonton still finished second in the Pacific Division, just five points out of first. From mid-November on, the Oilers were the NHL’s best team and then ran through the West in the playoffs as well. So what doubt is there that they can win the regular season title this time?
There are certainly some changes this season. Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner bring extra offensive pop to the top six, and the latter must be hungry to get his first taste of playoff action more than 1,000 games into his career. Vasily Podkolzin replaces Dylan Holloway as a bottom-six upside winger after the 23-year-old spent most of last season in the AHL.
Stuart Skinner sharpened as last season went along, and now he’s among the favourites to man Canada’s net at the 4 Nations in February.
Not everything is perfect here, though. The defence is thin, with some combination of Ty Emberson, Troy Stecher and Josh Brown taking up two of the six spots — one on the second pair. The Oilers hope the unit holds until the trade deadline, when they should be able to push in more aggressively than they have been able to in recent seasons. And, with all this change, will it take a little bit of time for the whole team to come together? Is the NHL’s new oldest team really improved from last season? Not that we’d expect them to start as slow as they did in 2023-24, but with how tight the top of this division could be, dropping early games might be the difference.
The Golden Knights scratched and clawed just to get into the playoffs as a wild-card team last season and then were eliminated in the first round, but they are still a handful … if they can stay healthy. That’s almost always been their biggest hurdle.
Mark Stone, Shea Theodore, Jack Eichel, Adin Hill and Alex Pietrangelo are all important players who missed chunks of time last season. Heck, the team paid a big cost to acquire Tomas Hertl, who was injured at the time of the deal. If they could all play 82 games or even close to it, the Golden Knights’ lineup would be one of the more dangerous night in, night out. But as these players come and go, or return at something less than 100 per cent, the team isn’t really offering its best. Years of trading picks and prospects has left the organization thin on incoming talent.
And for as much contempt as the franchise and front office gets for how it uses LTIR to “conveniently” improve the roster around trade deadline, the salary cap is still a limiting factor at the start of every new season. Last year’s moves left the Golden Knights vulnerable and they lost both Jonathan Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson from their forward unit, a couple of important players over the years. Defenceman Alec Martinez — another player limited by injuries — also departed via free agency.
Still, the framework of a good to great team is still there, especially if Hertl returns stronger and hungry to be part of a winning culture again. Noah Hanifin is an upgrade on Martinez at this stage of their careers as well so, at least among the top four if not deeper, Vegas still stands to have one of the better blue line groups in the league.
As far as team regression candidates go, the Canucks are at or near the top of that list, but before anyone overreacts to that suggestion, let’s state clearly that a step back doesn’t have to mean a step off a cliff. Vancouver is a good team with good coaching and a reason to believe they can get more out of their best player this season. However, over the past 10 years, no NHL team has finished with as high a 5-on-5 team shooting percentage in an 82-game season as Vancouver did in 2023-24 (10.61) and no team that did lead the league in that stat repeated the feat the following season.
At the same time, the Canucks will start training camp with questions in goal. Thatcher Demko’s knee injury remains a concern, and even if he does participate in training camp, his workload through the season will be a storyline. Backup Arturs Silovs had an off-season injury of his own to recover from and though he’s also expected to be ready on time, it’s not the best way to start a new season, and the team is reportedly seeking more depth at the position.
Vancouver certainly levelled up last season and after taking Edmonton to seven games in Round 2 of the playoffs, will look to push ahead from there. But is it a given to repeat as regular season division champs? We think not.
Here’s a question to consider: Did the Kings get better over the summer?
Following three straight third-place finishes in the Pacific, and three straight first-round exits against Edmonton, Los Angeles’ path to improvement from there was tough to envision. Its biggest off-season change was trading Pierre-Luc Dubois for Darcy Kuemper, which will save the team cap dollars in the long term. But Cam Talbot played well enough behind Los Angeles’ defence last season, posting a .913 save percentage, while Kuemper had perhaps the worst season of his career in Washington. It’s reasonable to wonder how much of an on-ice upgrade, if any, the team will feel from that move.
The Kings have a young breakout candidate on the back end in Brandt Clarke, and a chance that Quinton Byfield follows up his own breakout season with yet another. But outside of things falling just right for the Kings, and just poorly enough for the three teams we have ranked ahead of them, they seem to have a capped ceiling. And while they are still a couple of steps ahead of the bottom of this division, when the Kraken made the playoffs two years ago, they only finished four points behind Los Angeles.
After they finished with the NHL’s highest team-shooting percentage in 2022-23, the Kraken were the regression candidate last season. Lo and behold, it happened, and they finished 17 points off the playoff pace. Finishing 27th in that stat last season, the Kraken may be in line to bounce back again, to some degree. They still had the 17th-best power play last season and a major positive story for the team was how Joey Daccord stepped up to take over in net.
Seattle has swung so wildly over its three seasons, from 60 points, up to 100, and back down to 81, that it’s hard to get a read on what it really, truly is. At the very least, Chandler Stephenson’s arrival via free agency improves the Kraken’s centre depth and the addition of Brandon Montour to the blueline is an injection of the offence they’ve lacked. On paper, they’re a better team this season and should be closer to giving the Kings a run for their money than hanging back with the re-toolers and rebuilders in the division.
We’re going to take a crack (quack?) here and project the Ducks to take a small step up this season. With luck, Trevor Zegras will play more games and be more impactful on the ice, and likewise for Leo Carlsson. The kids are bound to start taking bigger and bigger steps forward and the newest arrival, Cutter Gauthier, will be eyeing a run at the Calder Trophy. The blueline is still very young on the left side but for every one of these youngsters in the lineup, there is a capable veteran who makes the Ducks a tougher beat than your average bottom feeder.
The trade deadline could still be a negative factor for the team in the second half, but that is also true for the team we are ranking behind them. If John Gibson leaves, for example, the Ducks’ crease becomes a major sore spot but, then again, Gibson has been included in trade rumours for years.
We’re not predicting the Ducks will take a healthy run at a playoff spot, but that they’ll start a slow climb up. If they are to pass the Flames, it would take a 22-point swing in last season’s standings. Between Anaheim putting more points on the board and Calgary struggling a little more, it’s not an inconceivable outcome.
Life begins without Jacob Markstrom in the crease, leaving veteran Dan Vladar and 23-year-old Dustin Wolf to pick up the pieces. Wolf is the Flames’ highly promising goalie of the future, but it may take a few years yet before he hits his full potential. If he gets there quickly, though, it would keep Calgary from falling back too far.
In theory, what the Flames have going for them is that they haven’t done a cannon ball into a rebuild and completely blown up the roster yet. There are still some impactful players here, especially with Rasmus Andersson and Mackenzie Weegar on the blueline. Yet, we have to wonder if this season goes sideways and realization sets in this is a project that will take years to get through, will any of them start trying to find a way out?
This season likely won’t bring the same amount of in-season trading and trade speculation 2023-24 did, but more upheaval is certainly possible. Calgary is more likely trending down than up, which is why we’re thinking they could sink near the bottom of the division this season.
Whoever finishes seventh in the Pacific Division will still probably be a couple steps ahead of the Sharks. The arrivals of rookies Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith add excitement and ammunition for the highlight reels, and a lot of folks can’t wait to see what goalie Yaroslav Askarov can do. But finishing at the bottom of the standings with 47 points last season leaves the Sharks with such a long climb up that we still can’t expect it all in one year.
There will be growing pains. There may even be trade-deadline fallout (Mikael Granlund, for instance, is a pending UFA and Mario Ferraro was in rumours last season). The silver lining? It probably won’t get worse than last season.