1 Prediction for Every NHL Team for 2023-24 Season

With the preseason winding down and the official start of the 2023-24 NHL season just a few days away it is time for another round of predictions for every team around the league.

We already made one early bold prediction before the start of training camp, and now that we have a better idea of the rosters and how lineups might be looking, we can make some updated projections on what to expect for teams and individual players.

It could be a more general prediction for the team as a whole, a performance-based prognostication, or something relating to an individual player.

Away we go!

Clayton Keller is the Arizona Coyotes' big offensive star, and his 2022-23 season was incredible when you factor in his production (86 points) and the fact that he did it on a team without much offensive support while coming back from a major leg injury.

His overall production has progressively improved in each of the past four seasons on a per-game basis, and now that he is entering his age-25 season (typically when scorers really hit their peak) with a better roster around him, he might still have room for even more improvement.

Eclipsing the 90- or 95-point mark is certainly within reach.

No Coyotes player has ever topped 90 points since the franchise relocated to the desert in the mid-1990s, so it would be an extremely notable accomplishment if he did.

As of publication, Jamie Drysdale is one of two notable restricted free agents who remain unsigned, so the Anaheim Ducks have to actually get him under contract for this to happen. But without any threat of an offer sheet (he is not eligible) and almost no leverage for Drysdale, that is going to happen sooner rather than later.

When it does, the Ducks should be hopeful for Drysdale to take a big step forward and show that he can be a key part of their rebuild.

The Ducks were hoping that was going to happen during the 2022-23 season, but a labrum injury just eight games into the season robbed him of a year of development.

All of that means they just had to wait a year for it.

It should be worth it.

Drysdale is an extremely important piece of the Ducks' rebuild simply due to the position he plays. They already have an impressive collection of young forwards including Troy Terry, Trevor Zegras, Mason McTavish and Leo Carlsson. That should be the foundation of a really strong group for the next decade.

But for a rebuild to work for any contending team, you also have to have a big-time defenseman who can play in big situations and help drive the offense from the back end. Drysdale is the best chance for that in the Ducks' system. Or at least the player with the highest upside.

The Boston Bruins are going to take a pretty significant step backward this season, and most of that regression is going to be due to the departures of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Taylor Hall and all of their midseason trade acquisitions.

But there is another factor that has been overlooked in their potential regressions—and that is the near certainty that starting goalie Linus Ullmark is not going to be anywhere near as good as he was during the 2022-23 season.

Ullmark is a very good goalie, but it is almost impossible to expect any netminder to maintain a .938 save percentage over multiple years. Especially when that goalie is normally around the .915 or .917 mark for his career.

When Ullmark, 30, does regress, that is going to open the door for Boston's other top goalie, Jeremy Swayman, to step in and take over the starting job. Given the age of both goalies, the 24-year-old Swayman is almost certainly the long-term option here anyway, and this will be the year he starts to take over that spot as the primary player.

The Buffalo Sabres have one of the most exciting young rosters in the league, and it's their defense of Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power—both No. 1 overall picks—that really has the potential to separate them from the rest of the pack in the future.

Dahlin has already had his big breakout, and this season is going to be Power's opportunity to really start to shine.

The Sabres did not fully turn him loose offensively early last season in an effort to improve his defensive play, but as the season went on you could start to see his offensive potential shine. That added experience, as well as a deeper defensive group, a talented collection of forwards in front of him and perhaps more freedom offensively should result in a breakout year.

Fifty points should be a reasonable expectation for him, and if he can continue to solidify himself defensively, that is going to give the Sabres one heck of a defensive group with him, Dahlin, Mattias Samuelsson and the veteran additions of Connor Clifton and Erik Johnson rounding things out.

A lot of things went wrong for the Calgary Flames during the 2022-23 season.

Former head coach Darryl Sutter wore out his welcome.

Their big offseason acquisition, forward Jonathan Huberdeau, had one of the worst seasons of his pro career.

And perhaps most damaging of all, the normally reliable Jacob Markstrom had a brutal campaign in goal. He finished the year with an .892 save percentage, by far the worst mark he has ever had as a starter. That came just one year after he was a runner-up for the Vezina Trophy.

Even though Markstrom is entering his age-34 season, it is hard to believe that his career has completely fallen off a cliff. He has too much of a track record and too much ability to struggle that much over a full season again, and it should be a reasonable ask to expect him to get back to a .910 mark.

The prediction here is that he will.

If the Flames can get that level of play from him, and get a better year from Huberdeau with a fresh start, a new coach and a new system, that should go a long way toward getting the Flames back into playoff contention.

The Carolina Hurricanes have been Stanley Cup contenders for a few years now but are still a fairly young team thanks to a farm system that is consistently churning out talent.

We saw Martin Necas take a big step toward stardom last season, and this year it is going to be Seth Jarvis who has that breakout as he gets to the 30-goal mark.

Jarvis, the No. 13 overall pick in 2020, has shown a ton of promise over his first two seasons and is still only 21 years old. The most encouraging things for him a year ago were some of his underlying numbers in terms of his ability to drive possession and generate shots on goal.

What held him back was a 7.5 percent shooting percentage that was half of what he did during his first year in the league.

Given the increase in his shot volume, a positive regression in that percentage could result in a significant jump in goals. Consider, if he had simply repeated his 15.7 percent shooting percentage on the 187 shots on goal he registered during the 2022-23 season, that would have put him at 29.7 goals—or, right near the 30-goal threshold.

Even if he does not see his shooting percentage bounce back that far, he is still probably looking at an increased role, more opportunities and more chances to keep generating more shots on goal.

The Chicago Blackhawks might not be particularly good this season as their full-scale rebuild continues, but they are certainly going to be interesting.

We already know about top draft pick Connor Bedard and his potential, but one of the other interesting rookies on this team is going to be goalie Arvid Soderblom.

He has kind of sneaked under the radar in terms of goalie prospects across the league, but the Blackhawks seem to think he can be a long-term answer in goal. He might not get the bulk of the playing time early in the year, as veteran Petr Mrazek is on the roster, but by the end of the season the Blackhawks are going to turn the net over to Soderblom and find that they have one less position to worry about long-term.

He spent the bulk of the past two years with Rockford in the American Hockey League and played very well. His first cup of coffee in the NHL did not go great last season, but the added experience and an improved roster in front of him will help him take a big step this year.

The Colorado Avalanche needed to reshape their forward depth this offseason and made some shrewd moves to add Ross Colton, Ryan Johansen, Tomas Tatar and Jonathan Drouin.

Drouin is probably the one who got the least amount of attention when he was acquired, but he might have a chance to make a significant impact.

Especially when his relatively small salary ($825,000) is taken into account.

Drouin never became the star Tampa Bay and Montreal hoped he would become, and the ending of his Canadiens tenure was extremely disappointing. But for all of his struggles scoring goals, he still remained one of the best playmakers in the NHL and was consistently among the best set-up men in the league when it came to generating assists. Especially on a per minute basis. He was doing that on a Montreal team that did not have a lot of finishing talent around him.

Of the 417 forwards who logged at least 1,000 minutes of five-on-five ice-time over the previous three seasons, Drouin ranked 50th in terms of assists per 60 minutes.

Now that he is going to a Colorado team loaded with finishing talent, he has the potential to be even better even if the goal-scoring does not return. Do not be surprised if he can record around 40-50 assists over a fully healthy season.

It seems like Patrik Laine has been around forever, but he is still only 25 years old and right in the middle of what should be his prime years in the NHL.

While he may have his shortcomings away from the puck, he is still one of the elite shooters in the league and has game-changing goal-scoring ability.

And that is something the Blue Jackets desperately need.

Assuming he can play something close to a full season (which has been a problem the past couple of years), he should be a threat to score 40 goals for the first time since his second year in the league.

Even with the missed time the past two years, he has still consistently put the puck in the net and scored at a 35-goal pace per 82 games since the start of the 2021-22 season (48 goals in 111 games).

A full season of health, and maybe a little puck luck, could get him back to being a top goal-scorer in the NHL. He is going to get the minutes, he is going to get the power play time and he has the rocket shot.

Let's just go big and bold here with this prediction.

The Dallas Stars will represent the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup Final.

They were already close a year ago in reaching the Western Conference Final, and they are coming back with an even better roster on paper this season.

The Jason Robertson-Joe Pavelski-Roope Hintz line is one of the best in hockey, they have a top-line defender in Miro Heiskanen, and goalie Jake Oettinger can be a game-stealer when he is at his best.

The free-agency addition of Matt Duchene is also significant for their scoring depth, and they have another young emerging star in second-year standout Wyatt Johnston, who probably deserved more recognition in last year's Calder Trophy race.

This team has it all. It is their time.

Moritz Seider burst onto the scene for the Detroit Red Wings during the 2021-22 season and became the rare defenseman to take home the Calder Trophy as the league's Rookie of the Year.

That set sky-high expectations for him going into the 2022-23 season, and he seemed to take a little bit of a step backward. He was not necessarily bad, just not quite what was expected. At least early in the year.

The biggest source of those struggles was that the Red Wings spent the first part of the year asking him to play next to Ben Chiarot as his partner, and it simply did not work. Chiarot is a favorite of NHL coaches and general managers for his physical play and apparent defensive prowess, but it never actually shows up in the numbers, and he has a tendency to hold back his teams when he is on the ice.

Sure enough, when Seider was moved away from Chiarot, he started to again resemble the player he was as a rookie.

There is a stark difference in his performance with Chiarot versus without Chiarot, in terms of goals scored, goals allowed and scoring-chance differentials.

Putting him in a better position to succeed, as well as a second year of experience in the NHL, should help Seider have a true breakout year and reestablish himself as one of the best up-and-coming defenseman in the NHL.

The Edmonton Oilers have nearly every ingredient you could want in a Stanley Cup contender.

They have two megastars in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. They dramatically improved the forward depth around them. GM Ken Holland finally made a big move at last year's trade deadline to add Mattias Ekholm and give them a legitimate top-pairing defender. They have a good coach in Jay Woodcroft, who has improved them across the board from the moment he took over behind the bench in 2022.

The one thing they do not have, however, is a reliable goalie.

They tried to fix that by signing Jack Campbell in free agency to a five-year deal last year, but that quickly turned into a disaster after just one season.

Stuart Skinner was the better player throughout 2022-23, but how much do you trust him to be the goalie to lead a team to a Stanley Cup?

The Oilers are good enough that they do not need somebody to steal games for them. They mainly need somebody to simply not lose them. As low as that bar is, they still might not be able to reach it with this duo.

I am not sure how good the Florida Panthers are going to be. They might struggle to make the playoffs, and could easily miss. Yeah, they were just in the Stanley Cup Final, but that was the result of an improbable and unexpected run of great goaltending from Sergei Bobrovsky that he is not likely to repeat, and they were alarmingly close to missing the playoffs entirely. They needed every ounce of luck down the stretch just to get in.

But whether they make the playoffs or not, no team in the league is going to be more fun to watch than them.

They have an offense that will be one of the best in the NHL.

They do not defend particularly well.

And if Bobrovsky regresses to his pre-2023 playoff form, that combination of subpar goaltending and questionable defense is going to be a problem.

That means goals. Lots of goals. Lots of goals for them, lots of goals against them. Just goals on top of goals on top of goals.

Sustainable way to win? Maybe not. Fun for all of us? Absolutely.

Quinton Byfield has not yet produced like you would expect a No. 2 overall pick to produce, and given the Los Angeles Kings' center depth, he has started to find himself on the wing.

But he seemed to find a home on a line alongside Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe.

When that trio was on the ice during the 2022-23 season, the Kings outscored their opponents by a whopping 31-11 margin and posted great underlying numbers in terms of their shot attempts and scoring chances. They flat-out carried play, and Byfield seemed to be more comfortable playing alongside two established veterans, including one of the best two-way centers of this era.

It did not result in a huge boost in point production for Byfield personally (though he did record four points in six playoff games), but if he can stick on that line and keep getting opportunities next to Kopitar and Kempe, the points should start to follow.

It is a real "trust the process" situation for Byfield and the Kings. But he is still only 21 years old and it can sometimes take young players, even top picks, a few years to really find their footing. It might be time for Byfield.

If he can, that would be a huge boost to the Kings' chances in the Western Conference.

The bad news for the Minnesota Wild is their salary-cap situation is still a mess thanks to the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts.

The good news for the Wild is they have still managed to put together a really good team thanks to some good GM work from Bill Guerin and a pipeline of talent that has produced some outstanding players.

The best of those young players is Matt Boldy, who is coming off a 31-goal campaign in just his second year in the league. It wasn't just the goal total that stood out for him, either. He is a force every time he is on the ice and has the underlying numbers to go with the box score stats to suggest he might still have another level to reach.

He went from 2.40 shots per game as a rookie up to 3.15 per game in year two, his possession numbers skyrocketed, and he still saw a huge jump in his goal total despite the fact that his shooting percentage dropped from where it was as a rookie.

Given all of that, it would seem like 30 goals would be a conservative estimate for him right off the bat, and that he could hit 40 (or more) with just a little bit of shooting luck on his side.

The Montreal Canadiens raised some eyebrows at the top of the 2022 NHL draft when they selected Juraj Slafkovsky with the No. 1 overall pick, passing on Shane Wright and the best defensemen in the class.

The early returns on his rookie season were not that impressive, and were only made worse when he lost half the season to injury.

But the Canadiens are preaching patience with him, and even though he might not perform at a superstar level this season or be an immediate impact player, he is going to show enough promise to stay on track and give the Canadiens hope he can be a key part of their rebuild.

Even though it was a surprising pick, he was still considered one of the top prospects in the 2022 class, and he does bring an enticing combination of size and skill to the ice at 6'3", 230 pounds.

If he can give the Canadiens 15 goals this season, that should be an encouraging sign and a very reasonable benchmark.

The Nashville Predators are a really tough team to get a handle on.

They spent much of the past year-and-a-half shedding salary and veteran players, dumping Ryan Johansen, Matt Duchene, Tanner Jeannot, Mikael Granlund and Mattias Ekholm. They dumped salary, collected a ton of draft picks and watched as Barry Trotz took over as general manager and stressed the importance of swinging for the fences in the draft and trying to land superstars.

Everything about their recent transactions screamed rebuild.

But they followed all of that this offseason by bringing in veterans like Ryan O'Reilly and Gustav Nyquist.

On one hand, you still have put a team on the ice, and somebody has to fill those roster spots and give you minutes.

But it's difficult to see what O'Reilly and Nyquist on multi-year deals do for the long-term development of the team.

Signing them to one-year deals? OK, maybe they are players whose value you can pump up and trade at the deadline.

But that is not what the Predators did, and the multi-year deals seem to suggest they think this team is closer to contending than it is. It seems like another year where the Predators hang around in the playoff race thanks to their couple of top-line players (specifically goalie Juuse Saros), fail to make it, but are not quite bad enough to get the best draft lottery odds.

That is a good recipe for staying in the middle of the pack of the NHL.

There is going to be some stiff competition for the Calder Trophy this season with Connor Bedard in Chicago and Logan Cooley in Arizona, but do not rule out New Jersey Devils defenseman Luke Hughes of that discussion.

He did not look out of place in his first taste of NHL action last season—especially in the playoffs—and is going to get an opportunity to play a pretty big role on a prominent team that will score a lot of goals and win a lot of games.

A rookie defenseman who puts up points on a winning team that gets a ton of attention is the type of player who can rapidly build up a big following and gain a lot of love on voter's ballots.

The Devils roster is one of the most imposing in the league, loaded with forward talent and an impressive collection of young defensemen making their way toward the NHL. Their Stanley Cup window is just starting to open.

Every year it is easy to write off the New York Islanders because their roster is lacking impact and offensive talent, and their overall style of play is maddening in the way they surrender chances and shots. Yet they always seem to be right in the thick of the playoff race, if not actually in the playoffs.

The answer for that is simple.

Goaltending.

And nobody has better goaltending than the Islanders with their duo of Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov.

Sorokin is arguably the best goalie in hockey and the type of player who can put a mediocre team on his back and carry it to levels it has no business reaching. He is the single biggest reason they made the playoffs a year ago and might end up doing it again this season. That earned him a top-three finish in the Vezina Trophy voting last year, and this year his play will get enough attention to make him an MVP finalist.

The New York Rangers' rebuild was supposed to be centered around a boatload of top draft picks that included Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, Lias Andersson and Vitali Kravtsov.

So far, they have all been flops or close to it.

Andersson and Kravtsov are already gone, while Lafreniere and Kakko have yet to break out and are continuing a disturbing Rangers trend of being unable to develop young, talented forwards.

The one exception to that on the current roster has been Chytil. He had a mini-breakout season for the Rangers in 2022-23 with 22 goals and 45 points, and he might be at a point where he can take an even bigger step this season.

Chytil's role and production increased dramatically last season, and there are a lot of encouraging signs to suggest he can do it again. Specifically an increasing shot volume that has seen him go from 1.81 shots per game two years ago all the way up to 2.39 shots per game this past season.

He has been the most impressive of their young forwards and is going to continue that this season by eclipsing the 30-goal mark for the first time in his career.

The Ottawa Senators are ready to take a big step forward in their rebuild, and they have one of the best collections of young forward talent in the NHL.

At the top of that list is Tim Stutzle, the No. 3 overall pick from 2020.

Stutzle had a true breakout season last year by scoring 39 goals with 93 points.

He is going to take it one level further this season by hitting the 100-point mark.

He has already helped make the 2018 Erik Karlsson trade a win for the Senators and one of the most successful trades of a star player in recent NHL memory. When the Senators dealt Karlsson as part of their rebuild, they received a first-round pick from the San Jose Sharks that turned into this selection, as well as forward Josh Norris. That is two top-six forwards, one of whom, Stutzle, looks like a franchise-changing player.

Given how little success the Sharks had in the Karlsson era, it is one of the few times a team has traded a superstar and ended up getting the better of the deal.

The Philadelphia Flyers front office has been very reluctant over the years to use the word "rebuild," even though it is painfully obvious that is what is happening.

They seem to be leaning into the idea a little more this season, especially after allowing James van Riemsdyk to walk and then trading veterans Ivan Provorov and Kevin Hayes. This is clearly not a team built to contend, and the standings are going to rapidly reflect that.

The Flyers took a massive PR hit at last year's trade deadline when they failed to deal some of their veteran players on expiring deals (like van Riemsdyk) and are not going to allow that situation to repeat itself. In fact, this is the time for them to be proactive and deal more veteran players who still have term on their contracts to maximize the return.

That starts with Travis Konecny.

Konecny had a big bounce-back season for the Flyers and is currently the best trade asset the team has. His name was mentioned in trade speculation for much of the summer, and this year's deadline might be the optimal time for the Flyers to try to deal him.

Any team that trades for him now would get two playoff runs out of him (his contract expires after next season) and his pact is still pretty team friendly at just $5.5 million per season. This would be a great opportunity to get more draft capital and young talent back for their rebuild.

They are still probably a few years away from serious contention, and Konecny is not likely to be a part of the next contending Flyers team.

The Pittsburgh Penguins power play was a huge issue during the 2022-23 season, which is kind of stunning when you think about how much talent that unit can put on the ice.

And while it has had some struggles during the preseason, they are eventually going to figure it out—and new addition Erik Karlsson will be a significant part of that.

Karlsson is one of the best power-play quarterbacks of the modern era and showed during the 2022-23 season that he can still be an elite producer, even in a tough spot. This situation with Pittsburgh is going to be remarkably better than what he had in San Jose, and is going to be one of the best situations he has ever had in his career.

As much as the Penguins' power play struggled last year, there was a definite element of bad luck to it.

They averaged 8.96 expected goals per 60 minutes of power-play time (a top-10 number in the league) and 31.9 high-danger scoring chances (third best in the league).

The shots were there and the chances were there. Both of those numbers point to a unit that was putting itself in good positions but was simply unable to finish. Adding Karlsson to a unit that already has Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jake Guentzel and Kris Letang should only improve that ability to create—and finish.

There is a very strong probability that the San Jose Sharks are going to be the worst team in hockey this season, but there is going to be one big bright spot on the roster: forward Anthony Duclair.

At least until he gets traded at the deadline (which he almost certainly will given his pending unrestricted free agency).

The Sharks acquired Duclair this offseason from the Florida Panthers, as the latter needed to shed salary to stay under the cap, and it is going to be a perfect situation for him to get back on track offensively.

Duclair missed most of the 2022-23 season due to injury and then scored just two goals in 20 regular-season games when he returned. Do not expect him to struggle that much this season.

He has scored at a 26-goal pace per 82 games since the start of the 2019-20 season and is an incredible offensive talent who can excel when put in the right role. He is going to a San Jose team that will need to rely on him to be a key contributor, a situation that should result in him getting top-six minutes and a lot of power-play time.

With his talent, that should result in a huge year offensively that gets him back up over the 30-goal mark for the second time in his career.

That will also make him a big trade chip for the rebuilding Sharks.

It might not be right away.

It might take Shane Wright getting some time in the AHL at the start of the season (which he is eligible for due to an exception) if he does not make the initial NHL roster.

But at some point this season, the No. 4 overall pick from last year's draft is going to get an opportunity with the Seattle Kraken and is going to show that they have a potentially dominant young one-two punch to build around down the middle with him and Matty Beniers.

Wright dominated when he got sent back to the Ontario Hockey League last season, and also added four goals in only eight games when he got a late-season look in the American Hockey League. He has produced at every level to this point, and it remains a mild shock that he fell as far as he did in the draft after he was projected to be the top pick for so long going into last year's class.

The prediction here is that he ends up scoring at least 15 goals this season and starts his upward trajectory toward becoming another core building block for a rapidly improving Kraken team.

It has been obvious for a few years now that Jordan Binnington reached his peak in his first year with the St. Louis Blues.

To be fair, that peak was pretty exceptional as he backstopped the team to its first Stanley Cup championship.

But it has been a tumultuous and steady decline since then as Binnington has become one of the most loathed goalies (and players) in the league due to his random outbursts and on-ice temper tantrums, while also becoming a liability for the Blues between the pipes.

His save percentage has steadily dropped every year he has been in the NHL, going all the way down to an .894 mark during the 2022-23 season.

That is simply not a sustainable level of play for the Blues to deal with.

While the defense in front of him has taken some big hits in recent years with some significant departures, the Blues still need more from Binnington given his $6 million per year salary. He is not giving them that level of play, and there is little evidence to suggest that will change.

The Blues have a promising young goalie on the roster in Joel Hofer, who had a strong season in the AHL a year ago. If Binnington struggles again, the prediction here is that Hofer takes over as the Blues' No. 1 goalie and the team aggressively works to shed Binnington's contract.

This would be a pretty seismic shift for the Tampa Bay Lightning, but if you look closely, the writing is very much on the wall for this to happen.

General manager Julien BriseBois talked about Steven Stamkos' contract situation a couple of weeks ago and said a lot of things about needing to see how young players develop and spending their salary-cap money wisely.

Obviously every general manager needs to worry about that sort of stuff.

But this is not how the Lightning generally operate with players they want to keep.

They are typically extremely aggressive in re-signing the pending free agents they want and tend to do so as soon as they are allowed. They have done that in recent years with players like Mikhail Sergachev, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Anthony Cirelli, Erik Cernak, Brayden Point and most recently this offseason with Brandon Hagel.

It is interesting they did not need to wait to see how things would shake out when it came to locking up Hagel to a long-term deal but they for some reason need to do so with Stamkos.

The veteran players who make it to the final year of their deal without getting a new contract extension (Ondrej Palat, Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, Alex Killorn) before the start of the season tend to be let go in free agency.

As great as Stamkos has been, he will turn 35 in the first year of his next contract and the Lightning have shown in the past they can win without Stamkos over long periods of time. They might simply see this as an opportunity to avoid paying a big-money deal and maintain their long-term salary-cap flexibility.

So much attention was paid to the Toronto Maple Leafs' inability to win a playoff round for so many years, that it kind of overshadowed the fact that they were never any more than the second- or third-best team in their own division.

They weren't only losing in the playoffs every year, they also weren't even that impressive of a regular-season squad when it came to actually winning things.

The only division title this core group has won was in 2020-21 when it finished in first place in the makeshift North Division, where it was the best of the Canadian teams (until the playoffs started).

In the Atlantic Division, the Leafs have four third-place finishes and two second-place finishes since the start of the 2016-17 season.

That will change this year.

With Boston and Tampa Bay probably taking a step back, and Florida, Buffalo, Ottawa and Detroit all being a tier below the Maple Leafs, this is their opportunity to finally win the Atlantic and give themselves a potentially favorable first-round matchup in the playoffs.

Last year they got the series win.

This year they get a division win that could set them up for real playoff success.

Will Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes win the Norris Trophy? Probably not. It still seems like this is an award that is destined for somebody like Cale Makar or Adam Fox. But Hughes has gradually worked his way up the voting leaderboards in recent years and is starting to get some leaguewide respect for how good of a player he is.

When it comes to playmaking and puck distribution, there are not many defenders in the league better than Hughes, and his defensive play is consistently better than it gets credit for.

The Canucks are still probably only a fringe playoff team, but Hughes is going to put up big numbers, play big minutes and as long as he continues to progress away from the puck, he is going to keep getting more recognition.

This season, that will translate into a top-three finish in the Norris Trophy voting.

When we say Vegas Golden Knights star Jack Eichel will have a career year, we are talking 90 or 100 points. Just an absolutely massive season offensively and the type of performance that was expected of him when he first entered the NHL.

The two big things that have held him back from doing so have been the supporting cast in Buffalo, as well as the injury issues that have robbed him of so many games over the past few years.

But he is coming into the 2023-24 season fully healthy, playing on a great team and still in what should be the prime year of his career. He has always had the offensive talent, but his overall game took a huge step forward under Bruce Cassidy this past season, and that is only going to help him generate more offense.

He was a point-per-game player during the regular season and then went off in a big way during the Golden Knights' Stanley Cup run with 26 points in 22 games.

We are going to see that sort of performance from him over a full season, and it is going to give the Golden Knights a fantastic opportunity to repeat as champions.

The Washington Capitals' run as a top-tier team might be winding down, but Alex Ovechkin is not finished as a top-tier goal scorer.

Especially now that he can probably smell Wayne Gretzky's all-time goals record, as the 38-year-old is just 73 shy.

Ovechkin scored 42 goals in 73 games last season, a nearly unprecedented number for a player that old.

He has already defied everything we know about aging curves deep into his 30s, and he is going to continue to shatter them this season by becoming the oldest player to ever score 50 goals in a season, breaking the record he already set.

A 50-goal season would give him 872 goals for his career, leaving him just 22 short of Gretzky's mark of 894 going into next season.

The Winnipeg Jets are clearly a team in transition after trading Pierre-Luc Dubois and buying out Blake Wheeler this offseason, while there remains a strong possibility that Connor Hellebuyck and Mark Scheifele are entering their final year with the team.

Obviously, there are some question marks here.

One player who shouldn't be a question mark is forward Nikolaj Ehlers, who will hit the 30-goal mark for the first time this season—assuming he stays healthy.

Health was the one big issue for Ehlers last season as he was limited to 45 games, but when he is on the ice, he is one of the Jets' top all-around players and a gifted offensive talent.

Injuries have consistently limited him during his career and that has constantly left the Jets wondering what he could be capable of if he could just stay on the ice. He has not played a full season since the 2017-18 campaign.

With a little bit of luck, the Jets will find out this season and he will give them what might be one of the few bright spots on an otherwise average team.

Advanced Statistics via Natural Stat Trick.