2023-24 NHL preview: So many teams could win the Stanley Cup

Has there ever been another year in which you might get between eight and a dozen different answers in polling folks as to who the team to beat is in the NHL? If there is a superteam here, I must confess that I can’t identify it.

This is the paradigm for which Ninth Avenue has been searching since the hard cap was implemented in 2005-06. The NHL had always been a league of dynasties. The Maple Leafs winning three straight and four out of five Cups to close the ’40s; the Canadiens with five straight from 1956-60; Toronto again with three straight in the early ’60s; Montreal again with four straight in the late ’70s before the Islanders’ 19 straight playoff series victories and their four straight Cups, all of which were immediately followed by the Oilers’ four-in-five (albeit no more than two straight).

The Blackhawks won three out of six, the Penguins took two straight and the Lightning even won 11 straight series in winning two straight Cups of their own just a while ago. But no dynasties. Not even the semblance of one budding after the effect of the three post-COVID flat caps that have leveled the ice surface while thereby attaining the NHL’s vision of egalitarianism.

There is a new order in the NHL and that is disorder. What else would you call a world in which presumptive third-string goaltender Adin Hill leads his Vegas team to the Stanley Cup?

Still, there are tiers. The season opens Tuesday with open season on the Cup, but if there are championship dreams in, say, Montreal or Anaheim or Columbus or Chicago or San Jose, they are merely hallucinations.

There are dreams in Canada, which has not been home to a Stanley Cup champion since the Canadiens last won in 1993, that the 2024 final might be entirely contested north of the border between Edmonton and Toronto. You certainly could do worse with a pick.

Fact is, I probably will.

The Chaff

BU center Macklin Celebrini is projected as the first-overall selection of the 2024 draft, but there won’t be daily tank temperatures taken this season. Still, the Sharks are the odds-on favorites to have the best lottery odds by presenting a team that makes head coach David Quinn’s first Rangers team in 2018-19 look like a powerhouse.

Will Trevor Zegras reach his ceiling with the Ducks on a team that features second-overall pick Leo Carlsson and Mason McTavish with a first-time NHL coach behind the bench in Greg Cronin? Will Juraj Slavkofsky, 2022’s first overall, begin to reach his upside on a Canadiens team that has bet the house on its youngsters’ upside — the way that Jeff Gorton’s Rangers did not — and is there a chance the Habs might be convinced to part with Cole Caufield?

The Blue Jackets do have the right coach behind their bench, even if it took two tries to install Pascal Vincent as head coach of a club that has been building since Rick Nash was 18 years old.

The Blackhawks, disgrace tucked under the rug, are starting the road they once traveled with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane — never heard of him — a couple of decades ago, but of course will be a must-see watch. Can Connor Bedard match Connor McDavid’s rookie season?

The Flyers have become the NHL’s New Irrelevant Franchise, so if incoming president Keith Jones can reverse that trend, he won’t have to worry about going back to his day job behind the mic.

The Wheat

Well, well, well, the Jets were telling no lies about intending to keep flag-bearers Connor Hellebuyck and Mark Schiefele, each locked up Monday to identical seven-year, $59.5 million extensions. That surely changes the dynamic in Winnipeg, who doubled down instead of reloading.

The Blues, no longer even a whisper of a formidable outfit, may need to bottom out before rebounding, and how about those four years at a cap hit of $6.5 million per apiece left on the contracts of Justin Faulk and Torey Krug?

The Canucks, who do have direction from head coach Rick Tocchet, have been on a treadmill to obscurity pretty much since Pavel Bure left town. Too harsh?

The challenge confronting first-time NHL head coach Spencer Carbery behind the Washington bench will be to turn an outfit that now seems to exist only for the glorification of Alexander Ovechkin into the serious rebuild operation the Capitals require.

The Predators front office pretty much tore it all down a year ago, so patience will be accorded first-year GM Barry Trotz. He will need plenty of it, too, though waiting for those thousand draft picks the club obtained in exchange for Tanner Jeannot will help ease the pain.

Bitter disappointment preceded an upheaval in Calgary and now the Flames must confront the possible departure of pending free agent Elias Lindholm, meaning new GM Craig Conroy might be forced to be on the wrong side of the rental business.

The Mushy Middle

The Red Wings continue to build under GM Steve Yzerman, but not with the immediate results the GM enjoyed in Tampa Bay. It’s getting a little bit late for a team that hit on Moritz Seider but whiffed like the Whammer in “The Natural,” on 2018 sixth-overall Filip Zadina, taken a pick ahead of Quinn Hughes.

Everyone wants it to be time in Ottawa, now under new and sanitizing ownership, but there are more steps to be taken for the Senators who apparently will open the season with Josh Norris on LTI and must rely on a bounce-back from netminder Joonas Korpisalo. We’ll see if Vladimir Tarasenko yields a first-rounder as rental this time around.

It’s unfortunate that the Coyotes left the Pac-12 to join the Central Division, isn’t it? One day, maybe not now, maybe not next month and maybe now next year, this collection of young talent will become stable enough to create headaches of a different kind for the league.

Sorry, but it seems that an organization that began with $81.5 million in cap space as the Kraken did upon entering the league in 2021-22 should have been able to make more of splash and more of an impact. The term “expansion team,” no longer is a pejorative. Shane Wright for Alexis Lafreniere, anyone? (I’m joking.)

Yes, I see the Islanders’ depth chart down the middle, but can I be the only one who thinks it is Looney Tunes to move Mathew Barzal to the wing?

Here is Bill Guerin, the Minnesota GM. Here is Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill until it rolls back on him. The Wild have been bold, they have been dynamic, they have spent like a financial powerhouse … and they have not won a playoff series since — what?? — 2015.

You win two Cups within three years, as the Kings did from 2012 to 2014, and you don’t have to rush a rebuild. The Kings, run by Hall of Famers Rob Blake and Luc Robitaille, have gone the prudent route. But their trade for Pierre-Luc Dubois has raised the ante for both the team and the center, the latter of whom has a proving season ahead.

The Legacy Teams

Upon taking control of the operation, Kyle Dubas decided to double down on Tristan Jarry as the Penguins’ answer in nets to give Crosby and Co. a final ride to glory, and we will certainly see about that just as we will see if the marvelous Erik Karlsson can play 200 feet.

Pavel Zacha replacing Patrice Bergeron as the Bruins’ first-line center? The strange things happening got a little stranger on Monday when Boston’s prime rental target, Scheifele, renewed his vows with the Jets. Adam Henrique, anyone?

You Tell Me

Maybe the Rangers are a legacy team, the definition of which can be left up to others. Maybe they’re the cream. I expect the Blueshirts to be a better team in December than they are in October and better in March than in December. A year ago they managed to record 107 points in a season when Igor Shesterkin was not at his best until the final weeks. If they are not in the mix, there will be hell to pay.

The Sabres would make history — the right kind — by winning a Cup the first year into the playoffs after missing for 12 straight seasons. But this is a formidable lineup ultimately constructed by GM Kevyn Adams. If we’re not talking about the very best of the NHL’s brightest, is there a 22U forward you’d rather have than Dylan Cozens? The more pertinent question, though, is whether netminders Devon Levi, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Eric Comrie can take Buffalo to the promised land of the first round? And Buffalo is going to have the cap space for Patrick Kane just about any time No. 88 is ready.

The Lightning enter the season without all-world netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy, out until at least late November after back surgery, and with gilded favorite son Steven Stamkos given a harsh brush-off by GM Julien BriseBois regarding the pending free agent’s contract extension status. The Lightning have prospered while hard-balling one marquee player after another through the years but they may no longer have the personnel to back it up on ice. A playoff miss is more likely than another run.

The Contenders

The Hurricanes have built and built and built and built and they were undermined last year because Andrei Svechnikov went down in an injury that was catastrophic to the organization. Two years ago, Carolina couldn’t get by the Rangers. Last year, they couldn’t get by the Panthers. Their goaltending is never quite elite when it gets to head-to-head in the playoffs. The next step includes Sebastian Aho being a playoff force. Dmitry Orlov at $7.5M? Really?

The defending champion Golden Knights presumably will find a way to stay within the lines while using cap camouflage to their advantage. Cup-winning netminder Adin Hill will be challenged by Logan Thompson. The franchise that has made a habit of collecting shiny new toys is now buoyed by depth developed through their system.

Dallas starts with a base of Jake Oettinger in nets, Miro Heiskanen on defense and Jason Robertson up front. Not bad at all. Joe Pavelski is enjoying a renaissance, Roope Hintz is on the verge of a breakout and there is Matt Duchene adding to the mix of Stars. Nils Lundkvist apparently is making a bid for playing time this time around.

Wouldn’t it be ironic, don’t you think, if Kyle Dubas’ strategy in forming the cap-strangling Big Four up front in Toronto — Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitchell Marner and William Nylander — pays off for the Maple Leafs after his departure? Are Ilya Samsonov and Joseph Woll enough in nets?

If Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec become reliable defensemen as rookies, if Akira Schmid builds on last season and becomes, well, a rock in nets, nobody but nobody has a better chance to come out of the East than the Devils while nobody but nobody other than Jack Hughes has a better chance of snatching that Hart Trophy out of Connor McDavid’s hands.

Oh, speaking of whom, the Oilers seemed primed for a restoration of glory but can they do it with Stuart Skinner in nets? Or is that question answered by, “Adin Hill?” Edmonton is apparently going to some sort of neutral-zone lock, too, so maybe their games won’t be track meets. A pity except when it hits that there are few track meets in the Stanley Cup final.

The Panthers are the real deal, Matthew Tkachuk wouldn’t have it any other way. But the road will be as rocky as it was during the 2022-23 regular season — in which the Puddy Tats qualified for the playoffs in the final 48 hours — if Sergei Bobrovsky cannot approximate his postseason level. Florida is going to need that to accommodate the anticipated loss for up to two months of defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour to injuries.

If I have a team to beat, it’s the one that was beaten in the first round as the defending Cup champion last year. That would be the Avalanche, who, yes, again will play the season without Gabriel Landeskog but still flaunts elite talent up at the top. Taking a gander at the contenders’ goaltending, Alexandar Georgiev seems solid. Now, if Cale Makar — seemingly the Bobby Orr to Adam Fox’ Brad Park in the eyes of Norris balloters — goes down for a while? Well, as long as he is healthy for the playoffs.