By Michael Phillips | Sports & Whatever | NHL
Carolina finally won the thing. After years of being the league’s most talented team that couldn’t get out of its own way in May, the Hurricanes got hot at exactly the right moment, ran the table through three rounds, and shut the door on Vegas in six. Jordan Staal, at an age when most centers are negotiating their exit interview, walked away with the Conn Smythe. It was a great story.
It is also, as of right now, somebody else’s story to top. Puck drop on the 2026-27 season is September 29 — Carolina raises the banner against Florida in Raleigh — and the league has already moved on. The Panthers, who missed the playoffs entirely last year after two straight Cups, spent the summer rebuilding at a pace that should scare people. The Avalanche have quietly become the deepest roster in hockey when healthy, which is the operative and eternally unresolved question with Colorado. And Carolina itself, the actual defending champion, isn’t even the favorite in its own division anymore.
That’s the sport right now: brutal, flattening parity at the top, with maybe a dozen teams who can plausibly say “we could do this” and nineteen or twenty others who are being honest with themselves about it being a longer-term project. Here’s how all 32 stack up, hoisting-the-Cup odds included, from best shot to longest shot.
The Contenders
1. Florida Panthers Bill Zito doesn’t have an offseason so much as a controlled demolition and rebuild every June, and this year’s version might be his best work yet. Trading for Brady Tkachuk to play alongside his brother Matthew is the kind of move that sounds like a video game trade until you remember Zito actually pulled it off, along with a new goalie tandem and re-signings across the board. The Cats missed the playoffs last season for the first time in the Zito era, largely because a roster that had been to three straight Finals finally ran out of gas. A full offseason of rest, plus the most talent-dense forward group in the league, has Florida opening as the sole favorite. If health cooperates, this looks like the team to beat.
2. Carolina Hurricanes The defending champs are somehow the value play. Carolina’s math last year was brutal and honest: 113 points, a Metro Division that wasn’t close, and then a playoff run so hot (16-3, including an 8-0 stretch through two rounds) that it’s tempting to write off as unsustainable. That’s probably underselling a genuinely deep, well-coached roster, but the oddsmakers have a point — winning back-to-back is rare, and the East got dramatically tougher around them. Frederik Andersen left for Edmonton on a one-year deal, which stings, but this is still a foundation built to contend for years, not just one improbable spring.
3. Colorado Avalanche This is the same conversation every year: on talent, Colorado might be the best team in hockey. Cale Makar and a forward group that can score in bunches make them a matchup nightmare on paper. The catch, also every year, is health — the Avalanche have had championship-caliber rosters derailed by injuries more than once, and until that stops happening, “deepest roster in hockey” and “best team in hockey” will keep being two different sentences. They open the season hosting the Winter Classic against Utah on New Year’s Eve, which is a nice bit of theater for a team that needs a clean run at this thing.
4. Edmonton Oilers McDavid and Draisaitl called last season’s first-round exit to Anaheim unacceptable, and ownership responded with an actual teardown of the coaching staff and support cast rather than more of the same. Mike Babcock is in, promising a more defensive structure, and the Oilers went out and bought stability in net — Frederik Andersen, fresh off winning it all in Carolina, headlines a three-goalie group that should stop being the reason this team’s window closes. Connor McDavid is not getting younger, and the front office finally seems to be operating with that urgency.
5. Vegas Golden Knights Runners-up in June, and they didn’t sit on it — Vegas has never been a franchise that shies away from swinging for a superstar, and last summer’s Mitch Marner sign-and-trade already had them positioned as one of the League’s most stacked rosters top to bottom. They open the season hosting Chicago, and get a Cup Final rematch with Carolina on the schedule in December. The pieces are all still here from a team that took the champs to six games; the only question is whether last spring’s near-miss becomes this year’s motivation or this year’s hangover.
6. Tampa Bay Lightning Still built the way Tampa’s been built for the better part of a decade: a nasty, well-coached veteran core that knows exactly what June hockey looks like. Nobody circles the Lightning as a trendy pick anymore, which given their track record, is exactly the kind of thing that should make people nervous.
7. Minnesota Wild The breakout team nobody outside the state saw coming a year ago, and the odds board suggests the league is taking it seriously now. Minnesota’s built a genuinely nasty, structurally sound team that doesn’t beat itself, and there’s a real argument they’re better positioned than several teams ranked above them. Worth watching closely.
8. Washington Capitals The Alex Ovechkin era is winding toward its actual conclusion — whatever decision he makes this offseason about his own future, GM Chris Patrick’s job is to have this roster ready to win with or without the Great Eight. Logan Thompson gives them elite goaltending, which buys patience for everything else to sort itself out.
9. Dallas Stars A perennial name in the “why haven’t they broken through yet” conversation. Dallas has had the talent to win a Cup for several years running and keeps running into buzzsaws in the Western Conference. At some point the sample size stops being bad luck.
10. Montreal Canadiens The most fun story in hockey right now, full stop. Nick Suzuki won the Selke, Lane Hutson and Matthew Schaefer are rebuilding the blue line from the ground up as rookies, and Montreal went 27-12-4 from January 1 through the end of the regular season — a genuinely elite stretch of hockey from a team that wasn’t supposed to be ready yet. They haven’t won it all since 1993, the longest active drought of any Original Six team, and this is the best case for it ending soon that Montreal’s had in years.
The Next Tier
11. Anaheim Ducks Knocked out the Oilers in the first round last spring and enter this season no longer a surprise — teams will circle them now. Real young talent, real belief they belong in this group.
12. Buffalo Sabres Broke out last season, and the odds board hasn’t forgotten it. The Sabres’ long, brutal playoff drought is the elephant in the room, but there’s finally a roster here that matches the hype cycle.
13. Utah Mammoth A playoff team in just its second season of existence is already a remarkable story on its own. GM Bill Armstrong has no major holes to fill, and the arrival of last year’s No. 4 overall pick, Caleb Desnoyers, could be the next step. Also hosting the Winter Classic, which says something about how quickly this franchise has been taken seriously.
14. Los Angeles Kings Perpetually good, perpetually knocked out early, perpetually searching for whatever the ingredient is that turns a solid regular-season team into a team that survives the second round.
15. New Jersey Devils Talented top to bottom but still looking for the version of themselves that shows up consistently in the playoffs rather than just the regular season.
16. Ottawa Senators Traded Brady Tkachuk to Florida this summer, which is either a sign they’re retooling around a different timeline or a sign they just handed a division rival a superstar. Ottawa’s young core is real; the front office’s convictions about it are less clear.
17. Toronto Maple Leafs The Gavin McKenna era begins — the No. 1 pick is expected to make his NHL debut on opening night against Montreal. Toronto’s annual playoff-disappointment cycle needs no introduction, but there’s fresh blood in the pipeline now, which is more than they’ve had in a while.
18. San Jose Sharks The most interesting bet-against-yourself story of the summer: San Jose made Macklin Celebrini the highest-paid player in the league, a massive commitment to a 20-year-old that says everything about how the front office sees its timeline. Their Cup odds moved from 50-1 to 35-1 after a strong draft. Not a contender yet. Building toward being one, on purpose, in public.
19. Philadelphia Flyers Solid, unspectacular, defensible middle-of-the-pack hockey team with no obvious signature identity yet.
20. Columbus Blue Jackets Continuing to develop without the pressure of contention — there’s young talent here worth monitoring, just not this year’s problem.
The Long Shots and the Rebuilds
21. New York Rangers This is where things get complicated for Blueshirts fans still processing last season’s collapse. New York finished last in the Eastern Conference and responded with genuine roster turnover: Vincent Trocheck finally got dealt to Utah, and in came Pavel Dorofeyev on a seven-year, $77 million deal to replace the scoring lost when Artemi Panarin was traded away in February. Coach Mike Sullivan insists the team is “certainly better on paper.” That’s a low bar coming off 34-39-9, and it says nothing about whether a young core still finding its NHL legs — the exact core whose development track record has been shaky — is actually ready to be trusted with a turnaround. Book-odds long shot, but not a hopeless one if the kids take a step.
22. Boston Bruins Still finding their footing in a rebuild that arrived faster than the fan base expected. Hosting the Rangers on opening night in an Original Six matchup that will mean a lot more in a few years than it does right now.
23. Pittsburgh Penguins Sidney Crosby keeps playing, which keeps this team relevant in the standings sense more than the contention sense. The Crosby-era math has an expiration date that’s getting harder to ignore.
24. New York Islanders Matthew Schaefer, last year’s Calder Trophy winner, is the reason to watch — a genuine building block on a roster otherwise still figuring out its identity. They host the revamped NHL All-Star Weekend at UBS Arena in February, which is a nice consolation prize for a season that likely won’t include home playoff games.
25. Detroit Red Wings Finished ahead of Toronto, San Jose, and the Islanders in the standings last year and still can’t shake the longshot odds — a sign that oddsmakers see last season as closer to a ceiling than a floor. Detroit’s rebuild has dragged on long enough that “signs of life” keeps not being enough.
26. Nashville Predators Big free-agent swings in recent years haven’t translated into contention, and this roster reads more like a team hoping its investments finally pay off than one built with a clear plan.
27. Winnipeg Jets Hosting the Heritage Classic outdoor game against Montreal in October is the marquee event on their calendar — a fair summary of where expectations sit for a team mid-transition.
28. St. Louis Blues The 2019 miracle run is a long time ago now. Nothing on this roster suggests a repeat is imminent, though stranger things have happened in this league than a St. Louis surprise.
29. Chicago Blackhawks The young core is still developing, still a year or two away from being a real question mark instead of an easy answer. Opening night on the road against the reigning Western Conference champs will be a rough measuring-stick game.
30. Seattle Kraken Hosting Carolina for the Global Series in Finland this November is the most notable thing on their calendar. Everything else says rebuild.
31. Calgary Flames Full-scale rebuild, and the odds board — triple digits to win it all — reflects it with total honesty.
32. Vancouver Canucks Dead last in the odds, tied with Calgary, and there’s no real argument against it. A long way from contention, with a long way still to go.
The thesis for this season: the gap between “contender” and “pretender” has never been thinner, and the gap between the top contenders and the merely-good ones has never been more obviously about health and depth rather than star power. Florida, Carolina, Colorado, and Edmonton all have the talent to win it. Which one actually does is going to come down to whoever’s training staff has the best summer.
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