As is tradition, I reached out to the general manager of my Stanley Cup champion-in-waiting to let him know what's coming.
Florida Panthers GM Bill Zito's reaction to my pick: "FINALLY!"
I didn't pick the Panthers when they won the Stanley Cup in 2024, because the Edmonton Oilers were supposed to do that. I didn't pick them the following year when Florida won again, because I figured it was the Dallas Stars' turn to win.
So I'm happy someone had the confidence to give the underrated and overlooked Florida Panthers, who have won three conference titles and two Stanley Cups in the last four seasons, their Stanley Cup pick.
I have the Panthers winning hockey's Holy Grail again over the Colorado Avalanche, who channel their frustration from a conference final defeat into a run to the NHL's last round ... only to find the deepest, nastiest and most self-assured team in hockey ready to pounce on another title.
What about the rest of the NHL? Here's my division-by-division breakdown of the projected standings. Playoff teams are bolded. Good luck to all 32 teams. I hope everyone has fun out there.
ATLANTIC DIVISION
Tampa Bay Lightning
Montreal Canadiens
Florida Panthers
Toronto Maple Leafs
Buffalo Sabres
Boston Bruins
Ottawa Senators
Detroit Red Wings
The Tampa Bay Lightning amassed 106 points in a season with several key players missing chunks of time, battling through injuries and in the case of captain Victor Hedman off-ice matters. Coach Jon Cooper finally won the Jack Adams Award for keeping this rickety ship sailing straight, with assists from Nikita Kucherov (130 points, winning the Hart Trophy) and Andrei Vasilevskiy (39 wins, capturing the Vezina Trophy).
Given the dominance of their top six and a deeper blue line thanks to the addition of new power-play QB John Carlson, it's hard to imagine the Lightning finishing anywhere but near the top of the Atlantic, as long as Vasilevskiy holds up his end of the bargain. But then comes the hard part: Getting out of the first round, something they haven't done since winning their second of back-to-back Cups in 2021. If that happens again, is it time for some changes?
The Canadiens were the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup in 1993, and are poised to become the next one to lift it. GM Kent Hughes is really putting the pieces in place, what with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield locked into the top line; Ivan Demidov powering the second line; and Phillip Danault centering the third line. The addition of Chris Kreider adds some veteran physicality and leadership to a team that already earned an education in its conference finals loss to Carolina.
It still feels like a team that's a year away from breaking through the conference ceiling. That said, their strong young goaltending and dynamic defenseman Lane Hutson -- my personal pick for the Norris Trophy this season -- might make them ahead of schedule. Montreal is a legit Cup threat.
We all know the Panthers have three dominant forward lines and two championship-caliber defensive pairings. What makes this team special is how these star players approach the game. "Humility" isn't often associated with the Florida Panthers, but it's one of the secret ingredients to their success. There have been team meetings over the years in which players are asked about their individual stats and they can't recall them. No one cares who scores the game-winning goal as long as the game is won -- and the Panthers have the utmost confidence that the guy next to them in the locker room can score that goal.
That's why I think Brady Tkachuk is going to work extremely well with the Panthers. He goes from having the weight on his shoulders and the spotlight in his eyes as the Senators' franchise player to being a gear in a well-run machine in Florida. This isn't to say that Tkachuk can't be "the guy" if needed, just that there's a different comfort and confidence level for a star player to walk into a dressing room already filled with Stanley Cup rings. See also: Mitch Marner in Vegas last season.
Every person around the NHL that I've spoken to about the Panthers echo the same sentiment: a healthy Aleksander Barkov and a rested roster are scary, but can Jacob Markstrom sufficiently replace Sergei Bobrovsky? To that I'd say the Panthers knew Bob might price himself off the roster and had game-planning out potential replacements. Markstrom was vetted and eventually acquired from the Devils. They believe he can be what they need -- and that the team in front is great enough to overcome a potential downgrade in goal to win a third Stanley Cup in four seasons.
After the Maple Leafs acquired Blue Jackets leading goal scorer Kirill Marchenko this week, a former NHL front office executive texted me to say, "You may have to upgrade Toronto" in the standings projections.
The trade that sent Matthew Knies to Columbus for Marchenko doesn't just give Auston Matthews his most talented linemate since Mitch Marner -- although Marchenko doesn't have Marner's defensive chops. It's the clearest indication of GM John Chayka's intention for the roster. Both Marchenko and Knies stand at 6-foot-3, but Knies had about 30 pounds on the newest Leaf. Knies is the player you keep on the roster if your team is specifically designed to take on the likes of the Panthers. Marchenko is the player who acquire if you're leaning into skill instead of bulk, a direction Leafs fans have been begging this team to take since the Core 4 ruled the Six.
First overall pick Gavin McKenna fits into that as well, but he also serves a more important purpose: a lottery win that gave the Leafs a sense of future and purpose right as it seemed like the franchise was on the precipice of entering its next phase.
Chayka's aggressive reshaping of the rest of the roster had its "throw all the bottom-six forwards at the wall and see what sticks" chaos, but it wasn't without salient improvements like Darren Raddysh's addition to the blue line. Enough of those bets will pay off, and the Leafs will return to the postseason.
The Buffalo Sabres making the Stanley Cup playoffs in back-to-back seasons might have previously been seen as a sign of the apocalypse, but Buffalo will return to the party as a wild card.
The crushing weight of the playoff drought has been lifted, but the bigger psychological development is a collection of young players getting playoff experience and the confidence that comes with it. Josh Doan, Jack Quinn, Noah Ostlund and especially Zach Benson are all progressing nicely and ready for greater responsibilities. Throw in rookie wild cards such as Konsta Helenius and Jiri Kulich, and the Sabres are as fueled by youthful exuberance as they are by stars such as Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin.
David Pastrnak is going to score 100 points, Jeremy Swayman is going to make a bunch of saves, and Charlie McAvoy is going to move the puck and throw the body. The Boston Bruins have won with a holy hockey trinity before -- Bergeron, Chara and Rask, hallowed be thy names -- but usually with a supporting cast that has fewer question marks than the current incarnation of the Bruins.
It's hard to imagine Pavel Zacha and Morgan Geekie running it back after career years, or the team's prospects such as James Hagens and Fraser Minten leveling up to the point of moving the needle.
I do like the addition of JJ Peterka, whose ill-fitting time in Utah ended after one season. But there's just not enough offense for me to depend on after Pasta.
The Ottawa Senators naming Quebecois Thomas Chabot as their captain was the most obvious thing in the history of obvious things. Jake Sanderson is younger, better, signed for longer and absolutely capable of captaining a team. But he's probably on the Team USA Olympic group chat, and this team plays in Ottawa and just saw previous captain Brady Tkachuk migrate to South Florida.
No matter how fractured things were with Tkachuk after the Olympics, he was one of the Senators' most consistent regular-season performers, with 59 points in 60 games last season. They're not replacing that point production or his snarly intangibles. Getting William Eklund from the Sharks certainly increases the skill level of a team that already has Tim Stutzle and Drake Batherson driving play at the forward spot, but there's not enough pop here to keep up with the rest of the division.
There is, however, an extremely good defensive team under the guidance of coach Travis Green. As Linus Ullmark showed in the playoffs last season, he's still an elite goaltender when locked in. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Ottawa can sneak into the playoffs on the strength of that team defense.
Detroit is a mess. Captain Dylan Larkin requested a trade ... and as punishment Detroit made him continue to play for the Red Wings with fewer responsibilities, taking away the captaincy. They're grinding 23-year-old defenseman Simon Edvinsson in a contract negotiation. Worst of all, the franchise had to finally admit the "Yzerplan" was a failure, as franchise icon Steve Yzerman left the general manager's office after seven playoff-less seasons.
The Red Wings have a few reasons for hope, such as defenseman Moritz Seider, winger Lucas Raymond and a prospect pool that's filling up but without any franchise-level talents.
In the long term, maybe the plan is hoping the Hughes brothers all want to play close to their Michigan roots when Jack is a free agent in 2030. In the short term, there's speculation about who's leaving next after Larkin is dealt, and does his name rhyme with "Alex DeBrincat?"
METROPOLITAN DIVISION
Carolina Hurricanes
New Jersey Devils
Washington Capitals
Philadelphia Flyers
Columbus Blue Jackets
Pittsburgh Penguins
New York Rangers
New York Islanders
Nothing is going to detract from the Hurricanes' hard-fought and well-earned Stanley Cup championship, the prize at the end of an absolutely dominant postseason run. This is essentially the same roster that skated the Cup on Vegas ice: a perfect alchemy of the Hurricanes' defensive hallmarks (in players such as Jaccob Slavin and Jordan Staal) and the offensive spark plugs that powered their championship engine (Nikolaj Ehlers and Logan Stankoven among them).
However ... don't we all want to see Carolina go through their tormentors from South Florida for another shot at the Stanley Cup? To witness the last two champions in a slobber-knocker, especially now that GM Eric Tulsky has built a roster as good as any that the Panthers have faced? Of course we do, and not just for the Southeast Division nostalgia of it all. And given the strengths of both teams, we might get it.
A caveat about the Canes' season: There seems to be a growing sentiment that the Hurricanes are going to eventually solve their Alexander Nikishin problem -- an unsigned restricted free agent defenseman seeking a change in scenery -- by solving the Winnipeg Jets' Connor Hellebuyck problem, likely through a three-way trade of some sort. With due respect to the newly signed Pyotr Kochetkov and playoff legend Brandon Bussi, putting a multitime Vezina winner in a Rod Brind'Amour system behind that blue line is like putting a wall made of adamantium in front of the Hurricanes' net.
Stop me if you've heard this one before: The New Jersey Devils' success will hinge on the health of star center Jack Hughes and the quality of their goaltending. Rinse, repeat.
They went 34-24-3 with the Olympic hero on the ice last season and 8-13-0 without him. Their goaltending was 21st in the NHL in save percentage, thanks to the .903 that Jake Allen put up in 37 games. Jacob Markstrom was traded to Florida, which means the crease belongs to Allen and Nico Daws -- with Mikhail Yegorov gestating at Boston University.
New GM Sunny Mehta didn't take gargantuan swings in the offseason. (Potential Quinn Hughes trade pending.) Rather, he added some sorely needed scoring depth so the Devils might withstand the absence of Jack Hughes better than they have in previous seasons. Anthony Mantha, Luke Evangelista, Evan Rodrigues and Amadeus Lombardi join a forward pool that also includes Arseny Gritsyuk, who showed flashes of brilliance last season.
The Washington Capitals have a tantalizingly high ceiling this season. Like the Panthers and Hurricanes, every line brings something to the table. I love their mix of established veterans and young impact players such as Ilya Protas and Cole Hutson. I love that they can win a match of skills or one game pummeling one another in the corners. Logan Thompson is now overdue to win the Vezina Trophy, giving them goaltending on which they can build a contender.
What's holding me back from anointing the Capitals as conference champions, because the potential is there? Their Stanley Cup championship was won with John Carlson, Matt Niskanen, Dmitry Orlov and Brooks Orpik logging the most ice time. I don't see that presence or pedigree within their current defense corps. That could change with a deadline deal or two, but that's the only glaring concern on an otherwise stout roster. Alex Ovechkin's last NHL season -- we think? -- is going to be a lengthy one.
The rest of this division you could basically pick out of a hat and have a decent chance of getting the order right. That's not to say the Metro Division's other five teams are beyond my power of prognostication, but that there's so little daylight between them that any of them could be fourth and any of them could be eighth and none of it would be surprising.
Take the Philadelphia Flyers, who ended a five-season playoff drought and won a playoff round last season. There's at least a little fear around the team that there's going to be a step back before there's a leap forward with a young but very talented roster.
Just a little regression from their forward group or goalie Dan Vladar could turn a three-points playoff bubble cushion into a postseason miss.
In fact, one could argue that the Flyers wouldn't have made the playoffs had the Columbus Blue Jackets not epically face-planted with two wins in their last 11 games last season. The biggest question facing Columbus is what, if any, impact the turbulent offseason is going to have on the team. Norris winner Zach Werenski reportedly indicated he wasn't signing another contract with the Blue Jackets, vetoed a trade to the Stars and spent the next two months on a PR campaign to smooth things over with the fanbase.
Kirill Marchenko, their leading goal scorer for three seasons, declared he wanted out and was traded to Toronto for a package centered around Matthew Knies.
Now that the noise has quieted, are the Blue Jackets a playoff team? Potentially, if they look as good as they looked for much of Rick Bowness' time as head coach last season. Adam Fantilli is just getting started and leads a solid trio of centers with Sean Monahan and Charlie Coyle. They're going to have to get goal scoring from veteran wingers such as Valeri Nichushkin, imported from Colorado, and Conor Garland. They obviously also need young forwards Cole Sillinger and Kent Johnson to progress as Fantilli has.
The defense is in good hands with Werenski, Ivan Provorov and the underrated Denton Mateychuk. One assumed Jet Greaves' breakout season in goal wasn't a fluke. Like the Flyers, they're right on the cusp.
The Pittsburgh Penguins were an unlikely playoff team last season after they ended up last in the Metro in most projections. Can Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin conjure another postseason party in their sunset years? That depends on three factors:
1. How much second-year coach Dan Muse can tease out of the team's supporting cast, after a masterful job last season.
2. Whether Erik Karlsson, finally in the last year of his contract, has another remarkable season in him after 66 points in 75 games, finishing ninth for the Norris.
3. How quickly rookie goalie Sergei Murashov can ascend to the starter's role and whether his play is good enough to separate the Penguins from the Metro pack.
I think the improvement of the rest of the division keeps the Penguins out. Which is a bummer, because I want all the Sidney Crosby in championship tournament spotlights I can get, as the clock ticks.
Full disclosure: An early draft of these projections had the New York Rangers as a wild-card team, even as they announced a "retool" earlier this season. Retool they have, adding Marcus Pettersson and Sean Durzi to round out a pretty good group on the back end led by the resurgent Adam Fox and solidified by Igor Shesterkin, one of the best goalies on the planet.
They also traded for Vegas winger Pavel Dorofeyev and handed him a seven-year deal worth $11 million annually against the salary cap. If he pops for another 30-plus goal season, the Rangers' ceiling is a bit higher in the standings. If he doesn't, because neither Jack Eichel or Mitch Marner is on the Rangers, then the climb becomes a bit steep. His two goals over the final nine playoff games last postseason gave me pause.
Dorofeyev isn't the only player whose performance could level this group up. If Gabe Perreault doubles his points, Will Cuylle bounces back from a regression year and Alexis Lafrenière finally answers "When will Alexis Lafrenière become a star?" with "Right now, baby," the Rangers could end up in the postseason. If not, the "retool" continues."
Someone who doesn't miss the playoffs often is New York Islanders coach Pete DeBoer, who took over with four games left last season. Not counting his cameo appearance last season and when he was fired by the Sharks after 33 games, DeBoer's teams have made the playoffs in nine of 10 seasons.
Alas, those Sharks and Knights and Stars teams were much more talented than this current group on the Island, despite the presence of rookie of the year defenseman and franchise touchstone Matthew Schaefer, as well as goalie Ilya Sorokin. It feels like a franchise stuck between previous iterations of the team and whatever the Islanders will look like in the Schaefer era.
CENTRAL DIVISION
Colorado Avalanche
Dallas Stars
Minnesota Wild
Utah Mammoth
St. Louis Blues
Nashville Predators
Winnipeg Jets
Chicago Blackhawks
Injuries to Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon gave the Colorado Avalanche plausible deniability for losing in the 2026 Western Conference finals, but let's face it: They weren't playing well enough at 5-on-5 to win the Stanley Cup anyway. MacKinnon and Brock Nelson had zero goals in 13 games at evens; Martin Necas and Artturi Lehkonen had one each. Over the last two rounds, Mackenzie Blackwood (.890) and Scott Wedgewood (.874) were a faint echo of their regular-season success.
After having the league's best record in the regular season, those diminishing returns must make the Avalanche angry -- and I like the Avalanche when they're angry.
Brent Burns trimmed his beard. That's how you know it's serious.
They were the best offensive (3.63 goals per game) and defensive team (2.40 goals against per game) last season. I don't expect the Lumber Yard (Blackwood and Wedgewood) to lead the league in save percentage again, but I do think Blackwood becoming the de facto starter will help slow that regression to the mean. MacKinnon and Makar drive play like few others can. The supporting cast took a little hit in the offseason, but I love the Jaden Schwartz addition and look forward to a full season of Nazem Kadri back in familiar stomping grounds.
Plus, I have unending faith in newly reestablished GM Joe Sakic to aggressively improve the team if necessary ... provided opposing GMs are dumb enough to pick up the phone.
Only one team had a better regular-season points percentage than the Avalanche over the last three seasons (.673), and that's the Dallas Stars.
They enter the season with Jason Robertson, the 45-goal scorer who sweated out a contentious contract standoff for a one-year deal ($12 million AAV) that walks him up to unrestricted free agency, and with a healthy Tyler Seguin, who looked incredible last season before (another) injury derailed him.
They enter this season without now Nashville center Mavrik Bourque, a rising star turned cap casualty who had 20 goals last season, and without current Columbus defenseman Zach Werenski, who vetoed a trade to Dallas in the offseason. But the Werenski ordeal is another example of GM Jim Nill trying to take the huge swing when the opportunity presents itself -- like when he acquired Mikko Rantanen, who had 77 points in 64 games last season to help drive the offense.
But the reason the Stars aren't the Avalanche is the scoring depth beyond Robertson, Rantanen and Wyatt Johnston. Dallas was ninth in goals per game (3.33) and 21st in expected goals at 5-on-5 last season. The slow leak of middle-six scoring talent -- Bourque, Logan Stankoven, Mason Marchment and Mikael Granlund, to name a few -- and the decline of players such as Matt Duchene is catching up with the Stars. But they're still the second-best team in the division, because they have discernible center depth, unlike the third-best team in the division.
The Minnesota Wild remain the NHL's most decadent artisan doughnut: gourmet ingredients on the outside and nothing in the middle.
The Wild have a tenacious collection of wingers led by goal-scoring stars Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy; they have a stout blue line, toplined by Norris winner Quinn Hughes and the rock-solid Brock Faber (whenever he returns from injury); and they have one of the best goalie tandems in the NHL with Filip Gustavsson and Jesper "The Wall" Wallstedt. And their No. 1 center is Joel Eriksson Ek.
What makes Minnesota so intriguing is the potential variance in its season. If GM Bill Guerin persuades the team from Hockeytown to trade Dylan Larkin, a close friend of fellow Olympian Quinn Hughes, to the State of Hockey, then that hole at center gets much smaller and the Wild's Stanley Cup odds get much better.
Then again, if it becomes apparent that all this dillydallying by Hughes about a contract extension just means he's going to bolt for his brothers' condo in New Jersey next summer, that could dramatically alter Guerin's plans. Keep him for a Cup run or get something before he skates away? That's why they pay Billy the big bucks.
Speaking of variance: How much higher can the Utah Mammoth climb above their 92 points last season if Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley reach the next tier of their stardom? Guenther, 23, popped for 40 goals last season. Cooley, 22, might have joined him were it not for an injury that limited him to 54 games, as he scored 24 times.
GM Bill Armstrong did the thing that young contending teams do and imported some veteran leadership this offseason in Swiss Army knife forward Vincent Trocheck from the Rangers and Islanders captain Anders Lee. They form a nice experienced core with returning forwards Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, who were a stabilizing force last season.
We know they can score. The Mammoth's success ultimately comes down to their defense corps -- which will be without promising Maveric Lamoureux for at least four months -- and the goaltending tandem of the tireless Karel Vejmelka and former Red Wings prospect Sebastian Cossa. Unless, of course, the Jets could be convinced to send Connor Hellebuyck to Salt Lake City.
The St. Louis Blues are one of my surprise teams this season. They sucked me in with their last 25 games, posting a .740 points percentage with the best goals-against average (2.16) in the league and a top-10 offense.
That's what happens when you turn your crease over to Joel Hofer, who went 12-2-2 in 16 starts to Jordan Binnington's nine appearances (5-3-1). Hofer had a .933 save percentage in that stretch. I don't think that was an aberration -- he's a goalie on the rise. Binnington, meanwhile, is in the last year of his contract. Maybe he ups his game for his next deal. Maybe he's wearing another uniform by the trade deadline.
I'm also confident that the trio of Dylan Holloway, Robert Thomas and Jimmy Snuggerud fuels this team's playoff journey. They produced 5.7 goals and allowed 1.4 goals against per 60 minutes. That's a preposterous 80.1% goals share at 5-on-5. If they can stay healthy -- a legit concern with Thomas and Holloway -- they have the potential to be the best line in the conference and carry this team offensively. Although it would be nice if players such as Jake Neighbours, Dalibor Dvorsky and the newly acquired Mason McTavish help shoulder that goal-scoring load.
Squint hard enough at the Nashville Predators, and this collection of Barry Trotz acquisitions and Chris MacFarland augmentations looks like a playoff team.
Steven Stamkos and Ryan O'Reilly clicked, leading to Stammer's 42-goal season. Filip Forsberg had 40 goals of his own, and I'm excited to see how he works with young winger Matthew Wood. They could go a solid three lines deep.
It's the blue line beyond Roman Josi's top paring, as well as goalie Juuse Saros's frustrating decline, that's like an anchor dragging back their momentum. That said, even if this is coach Andrew Brunette's final season, it should be a fun ride.
It's been a lot less fun these days in Winnipeg. The Jets watched their franchise goalie Connor Hellebuyck peace out with a trade demand, suspending the multiple-time Vezina winner for not reporting to camp. Last season wasn't his greatest, but he's still a goalie with a .927 save percentage and a 1.98 goals-against average at 5-on-5 over his last 180 games. Due respect to Stuart Skinner, but there's no replacing that.
There's apparently also no replacing Nikolaj Ehlers. The winger's departure as a free agent in 2025, combined with several injuries on last year's roster, saw the Jets' offense plummet from 3.35 to 2.79 goals per game. Without the usual Hellebuyck safety net in a down year, that led to a staggering 34-point drop in the standings.
There's still a nice core here with Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Josh Morrissey. They could be better than expected if young players such as Viggo Bjorck, Isak Rosen and Brad Lambert level up, and if Cole Perfetti reverses his regression. But no Helly, no playoffs, no matter what comes back the other way in his eventual trade.
How far the Jets slide down the standings will determine whether or not the Chicago Blackhawks finish last in the Central for a fifth straight season.
In a major leap forward for the franchise, there are now multiple reasons to watch Chicago this season beyond the continuing offensive adventures of Connor Bedard. Center Anton Frondell (19) could challenge for the Calder. Center Frank Nazar (22) is maturing nicely into a point-producing pivot. Can defenseman Bowen Byram prove worthy of his six-year deal with an elephantine $12.5 million cap hit? Will Patrick Kane be something more than a nostalgia play?
The Blackhawks might not win much else this season, but they've recaptured our attention.
PACIFIC DIVISION
Edmonton Oilers
Vegas Golden Knights
San Jose Sharks
Anaheim Ducks
Los Angeles Kings
Seattle Kraken
Vancouver Canucks
Calgary Flames
I guess I see things differently than Connor McDavid. I thought what has held the Edmonton Oilers back from winning the Stanley Cup are factors like not having a good bottom six, not having six good defensemen, and a cursed goaltending situation that left Edmonton unclear about who would actually start an elimination game in the Final.
Connor obviously felt the problem was the Oilers not having an NHL coaching pariah with an inflated legacy using his sports psychology degree to squeeze another percent of effort out of the best player in the world, all while fighting the urge to invade his players' personal electronic devices.
However this Mike Babcock hiring turns out -- I know it's subtle, but I'm skeptical -- the quintet of McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Evan Bouchard will drive this team to its first division title since 1987, which is a truly wild gap of titles given the team's successful history.
Then the real questions can start being answered, especially the one about their goaltending: Can the three-headed monster of Tristan Jarry, Devon Levi and Stanley Cup champ Frederik Andersen finally give McDavid the championship quality netminding he's lacked in Edmonton?
The Vegas Golden Knights' reign of dominance is now 10 years old, having won six division titles, three conference titles and the Stanley Cup. The coaches during that reign: Gerard Gallant, Pete DeBoer, Bruce Cassidy and John Tortorella. All experienced, all accomplished and three of them with Jack Adams Awards. Tortorella took over the Golden Knights with eight games left in the regular season and led them to the Cup Final. He wanted to come back. But GM Kelly McCrimmon told him that Ryan Craig is his guy.
Boy, is he. Craig played for McCrimmon's beloved Brandon Wheat Kings. He joined the Golden Knights as an assistant coach in their inaugural season before taking over their AHL club for the past three seasons -- missing the playoffs twice, for what it's worth. He's been primed to take over this gig for the entirety of the team's existence, handpicked by his boss to replace a coach who had just led them to within two wins of a championship. (That's nothing to say for how good Mitch Marner played under Tortorella, too.)
The Golden Knights collect stars like they're playing a round of "Mario Party," which is why they're going to finish first or second in the Pacific again. But for the first time in their short history, they don't begin the season with a star behind the bench. No pressure, Ryan Craig. You're just a handpicked guy seeking to meet the highest standard of excellence for any NHL team in the last decade.
Please recall that Sidney Crosby played for the Stanley Cup in his third season. I'm not willing to go quite that far with his heir apparent, but I do have Macklin Celebrini winning the Rocket Richard, the Hart Trophy and Lululemon curator of the year in leading the San Jose Sharks back to the playoffs for the first time since 2019.
He is surrounded by a roster filled with young potential stars such as Will Smith (nearly there), Michael Misa, Sam Dickinson and Ivar Stenberg, their latest stroke of draft lottery luck.
But GM Mike Grier has been slowly building a truculent supporting cast in the punishing Western Conference, from his Kiefer Sherwood pickup last season to adding Jacob Trouba to an improved blue line that also now includes Darnell Nurse. You'd like a little more in goal from Alex Nedeljkovic and especially Yaroslav Askarov, who was an atrocious minus-19 goals saved above expected last season, and maybe the new vets on the back end help that out.
The Anaheim Ducks lost Trouba from their back end last season. Olen Zellweger is now a Sabre. Radko Gudas is back in Florida. John Carlson, added at the deadline, is in Tampa. None of them were sufficiently replaced on the fifth-worst team in expected goals against (5-on-5) in the league last season.
Granted, GM Pat Verbeek had to deal with his star center Leo Carlsson signing a $90 million offer sheet from the Flyers, matching it, and then figuring out how much more he had to pay leading scorer Cutter Gauthier ... because of Leo Carlsson signing a $90 million offer sheet from the Flyers. Maybe he was too busy to build on this team's playoff round victory last season, because this roster looks primed for a dip.
Having the Los Angeles Kings outside of the playoff picture just seems wrong. They've made the postseason cut five straight times. New coach Peter Laviolette has made the playoffs in his first full season at each of his six previous NHL coaching stops. They're going to have a full season of star winger Artemi Panarin skating up with Quinton Byfield and either Adrian Kempe or Kevin Fiala when healthy. Their back end features master Drew Doughty, his apprentice Brandt Clarke and the steady work of veteran goalie Darcy Kuemper.
What they don't have is a replacement for Anze Kopitar, who never received the appreciation for how much he did for the Kings in his sunset years. Will they have to move Kempe in the middle for depth's sake, further exposing a past-their-prime group of wingers? There's always a possibility of a trade for a center, but the Kings will have to take a number before being served one -- nearly every team wants another scoring center.
There's a chance I'm wrong here and the Kings vacuum up points in a weak division to make the playoff cut again. But their scoring depth and lack of overall team speed concerns me, even under a coach that gets results.
The best thing for the Seattle Kraken this season would be to be terrible, but this franchise continues to exhibit a stubborn inability to suck. They've never had a points percentage under .463 since their inaugural season. They haven't selected in the top four since drafting Shane Wright in 2022, a young center currently best known for being potential trade bait. Coach Lane Lambert has a system that squeezes out enough points to keep the bubble in sight.
Seattle's analytically driven front office continues to make the nice move here and there: Securing Bobby McMann from the Leafs, getting Mackie Samoskevich from Florida and finally unlocking Kaapo Kakko's potential. Assuming a bounce-back from Joey Daccord, their goaltending is quite solid. But the Kraken are once again neither good enough for the playoffs nor bad enough to maximize their draft lottery odds. They are the embodiment of hockey purgatory.
You probably won't find a standings projection that doesn't have the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames in the bottom of the Pacific. I'm buying into the vibe shift in Vancouver, with the Sedin twins running hockey operations above beloved former player and now head coach Manny Malhotra. They have two potentially solid scoring lines anchored by Elias Pettersson and Jake DeBrusk as well as Marco Rossi and Brock Boeser.
It'll be fun to see if Zeev Buium, who like Rossi came over in the Quinn Hughes trade, has another level.
The Canucks should be better than 31st in scoring, which is where they were last season. I'm not sure the Flames will be better than last in the league again, and that's fine. GM Craig Conroy is in the middle of a rebuild that he's handling adeptly.
Unless goaltenders Dustin Wolf and Devin Cooley prevent the bottom from falling out, the Flames should be 8th-of-8 in the Pacific.
