Who are the league’s absolute best teams? Great question, one that feels harder to answer than previous seasons.
Ask any hockey fan which five teams have the best shot at the Stanley Cup, and chances are you’ll get many different answers. This year feels wide open, and that’s because there is a large group of great teams, but not many teams truly separating themselves in either direction. Parity!
There’s a reason for that. Every team in the seemingly large contender’s circle has a unique reason they can win it all — a signature strength that sets them apart. But they also have a fatal flaw that could just as well be why it all comes crashing down. There are a plethora of reasons these teams are good or not good enough, but each team does seem to have a unique signifier compared to the other contenders — both good and bad.
The East has six teams with a chance to win the Stanley Cup north of 2.5 percent. These are each team’s signature strengths and fatal flaws.
(Data as of January 27.)
GO DEEPER
Analyzing the West’s Stanley Cup contenders: Signature strengths and fatal flaws
Stanley Cup chances: 11.5%
Signature Strength
The system
Different year, same story: The Hurricanes are winning a lot of games thanks to their biggest star, Rod Brind’Amour. As usual, he’s got his Hurricanes playing an aggressive style of forecheck-heavy hockey that keeps the Hurricanes in constant control, with or without the puck.
The Hurricanes dictate the pace of almost every game to the point it almost doesn’t matter who’s playing. Despite an offseason talent exodus, this is the third season in a row that the Hurricanes have had a shot attempt percentage at or above 60 percent. That mark has only been breached by one other team since 2007-08, the 2021 Avalanche.
It certainly helps that the Hurricanes are deep up front and on the backend, full of players able to execute the team’s distinct style from top to bottom. Swapping Martin Necas for Mikko Rantanen should only add to that. But the fact that the Hurricanes can rotate players in and out and not miss a beat points squarely back to a system hellbent on puck possession. It’s once again the Hurricanes’ bread and butter — no team controls the game better.
GO DEEPER
How does the Mikko Rantanen trade affect Carolina’s Stanley Cup chances?
Fatal Flaw
The goalie
For years, the Hurricanes have had the same fatal flaw: high-end talent. Well, all that changed last week with their blockbuster deal for Mikko Rantanen, rendering a lot of already written words useless. For a team that always leads the league in Corsi but never in actual goals, landing Rantanen is a big deal.
So what’s the new flaw to nitpick for the Hurricanes? I guess it has to be goaltending. Rantanen may fix things on the finishing front, but making saves the other way is still of some concern for the Hurricanes.
Both Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov are good goalies who have performed admirably over the last two years. But neither option feels very safe, especially in comparison to the other goalies in the Metropolitan Division. Those goalies — Igor Shesterkin, Logan Thompson, Jacob Markstrom — feel like a warm blanket on a winter night. Carolina’s goalies just don’t offer the same reaction. With Andersen, it’s a question of availability. With Kochetkov it’s a question of reliability.
While both goalies get the job done better than you’d think, it’s hard to feel extremely confident that one of them can lead a team to the Stanley Cup.
Carolina is good enough elsewhere that they might not have to. But if we’re trying to envision a world where the Hurricanes don’t go the distance, it’s easy to see goaltending being the reason why.
Stanley Cup chances: 9.5%
Signature Strength
The Core Four
This one is hilarious given the team and how little their supposed strength has done for them in the postseason. The Core Four era has led to just one playoff series win in six tries for the Leafs and in most of those series, the Core Four specifically have not been good enough. Strength? Pfft.
But that’s exactly the point. The Core Four is Toronto’s signature, a group of four elite forwards that very few teams can match. It’s supposed to be what sets the Leafs apart, making up for flaws elsewhere. And in the regular season at least, that’s been plain to see. Auston Matthews is a perennial Hart Trophy candidate, Mitch Marner and William Nylander are franchise wingers, and John Tavares has been a steady point-per-game presence. These four are the reason the Leafs win a lot of games and enter so many playoffs with high expectations.
A strength is only a strength if it comes through for you, though. These four, collectively, haven’t. Will that change this year under new coach Craig Berube? It’s difficult to say now, but it has to. In order for the Leafs to go the distance, what sets them apart in the regular season has to continue setting them apart in the playoffs. If the Core Four are just ordinarily great instead of a special kind of great, it sets the stage for the team’s fatal flaw to take over.
Fatal Flaw
The top four
Toronto’s top four is solid, arguably the best it’s looked in years. Maybe this time the defense by committee thing will work now that they have Chris Tanev in the fold. He’s the shutdown force this team has desperately craved for years. And yet their bigger problem still exists: the Leafs do not have a true No. 1 defenseman. That’s what separates them from the other top contenders in the league.
Almost every other contender has a lead dog on the back end. The Leafs have three No. 2s: an offensive one (Morgan Rielly, who hasn’t looked the part this season), a defensive one (Tanev) and a two-way one (Jake McCabe). That’s nice depth up top, sure, but compare that to other top teams and it feels like the team will once again be understaffed simply by not having The Guy.
The reason every trade deadline show starts with “the Leafs need a defenseman” is because they do — it’s just not the kind of guy you can get at the deadline. With a truly elite No. 1, it’s easier for things to fall into place. For the Leafs it’s always been a challenge. Maybe things work better with a third No. 2 added to the mix. For now, it remains a question mark.
Stanley Cup chances: 7.8%
Signature Strength
Powerful power play offense
Last year’s Oilers scored 10.6 goals per 60 and earned 10.7 expected goals per 60 on the power play and rode that wave (among other waves) to the Stanley Cup Final. This year’s Devils have that team beat in both categories: 11.1 goals per 60 and 11.8 expected goals per 60. The latter mark would be the highest ever in the analytics era.
All credit for that belongs to a blistering top unit featuring Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt, Stefan Noesen and Dougie Hamilton — a unit that generates over 13.5 expected goals per 60. That would also be a record.
New Jersey’s power play is lethal and it’s the team’s biggest weapon. That’s no surprise given every player fits their specific role well, functioning together as a creative and cohesive unit.
It’s not often that people point to a team’s power play as a key to playoff success, but New Jersey’s looks special at the moment. It helps to also be strong in other avenues, but it’s the team’s power play that sets the Devils apart.
Fatal Flaw
Weak five-on-five offense
For a team that’s so dominant on the power play, it’s baffling that they get so little at five-on-five. They certainly generate offense at a strong rate with 2.8 expected goals per 60, a top-five mark, but the team’s execution has been downright abysmal. New Jersey has scored only 2.34 goals per 60 this year at five-on-five, a mark that ranks 21st.
That’s putrid and it all comes down to finishing. When a team has more goals not scored above expected than the Hurricanes, something is wrong. New Jersey’s minus-0.46 goals above expected at five-on-five is the second-worst mark in the league ahead of only the Predators.
Some of that may be bad luck, but it’s also something that was an issue in each of the previous two seasons where the Devils scored 0.2 fewer goals than expected per 60 in each season. This year, Bratt is the only forward scoring over two points-per-60. The average contender has four.
It’s not just the stars not delivering at five-on-five either. There are a lot of depth pieces beyond them doing cardio out there putting more pressure on the Devils top guys to deliver.
It’s great having a power play that generates chances better than any other and has the results to show for it. But as the whistles start hiding in Games 5, 6 and 7, it’ll be goals at five-on-five needed most. No contender is struggling to score those more than New Jersey.
Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart get it done at both ends of the ice. (Sam Navarro / USA Today)
Stanley Cup chances: 5.4%
Signature Strength
A dynamic defensive forward duo
There are only two forwards in the league with a projected Defensive Rating of plus-six or higher: Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart. That duo is Florida’s superpower, a pair that should share the Selke Trophy. Barkov and Reinhart are the epitome of Florida’s current identity. Offense is great and they can generate it with the best of them, but defense comes first.
Other teams have great defensive forwards up front. Some have similarly dynamic forwards that play defense well. But Barkov and Reinhart are the league’s strongest blend of both worlds. Beating them in a matchup is beyond frustrating because they can not only hang with the best offensively, they can absolutely shut them down the other way too.
Over the last two seasons, against top competition every night, the Panthers have given up just 1.67 goals against per 60 and 1.84 expected goals against per 60 with Barkov and Reinhart on the ice. That’s an absurd number that speaks clearly to their defensive dominance. Barkov and Reinhart are the best in the world.
Fatal Flaw
An anemic offensive blue line
The best teams get defensive help from their forwards and offensive help from their defensemen. It’s a total buy-in across the lineup built on capable support that makes them difficult to stop. Think of the last few Stanley Cup winners and that pattern is plain to see. Last year’s Panthers, the Golden Knights, the Avalanche, the Lightning — they all had defensive support from the forwards and offensive support from the defensemen at above-average rates.
That brings us to this year’s Panthers. There’s no shortage of defensive buy-in up front, an obvious fact given what was just said about Barkov and Reinhart. But offensive support from the blue line has become a bit of a sore spot where the losses of Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson have been felt tremendously. While neither was perfect and the Panthers were right to not pay the price they commanded, it’s clear now that there’s a missing element on Florida’s blue line. There’s no one back there who can truly drive offense.
That effect has been felt on a power play that is creating 1.3 fewer expected goals against per 60 and as well at five-on-five with 0.1 fewer. In all situations, this year’s Panthers have dropped to eighth in chances created, down from second last season. Without many meaningful changes up front, that difference is likely a result of an offensive void on the back end. Without a true driver there, the Panthers’ claws don’t feel as sharp this season.
Tampa Bay Lightning
Stanley Cup chances: 4.6%
Signature Strength
High-end firepower
Between Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Jake Guentzel, Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli, no team has a deeper group of high-end talent. Only one other team has four forwards above plus-10 in Net Rating and Cirelli, at plus-nine, almost makes it five. The average contender’s fifth-best forward sits at plus-four. In terms of both quality and quantity, Tampa Bay may have the most firepower in the league.
We all knew Kucherov was one of the league’s best players. We all knew Point was one of the league’s most dangerous scorers. We all knew Guentzel would be a tremendous addition to that duo.
What sets the Lightning apart even further within this realm is the emergence of Hagel and Cirelli, one of the fiercest puck possession duos in the league. They dominate the puck at both ends of the ice, making life easier on the other stars defensively, while adding the necessary offense to ease the burden there too.
It’s those two that are the major difference here. A few teams can match the Kucherov-Point-Guentzel triumvirate. None have a Hagel-Cirelli pair on top of that.
Fatal Flaw
Low-end supporting cast
There’s a catch that comes with Tampa Bay’s incredible stable of top forwards: the rest. No team is more top-heavy than the Lightning, whose depth is arguably the league’s most vulnerable. As amazing as the team’s top five forwards are, the rest tend to give a lot back. The gulf in talent between the team’s top and bottom forwards is stark.
The Lightning try to mitigate that with the sturdy Nick Paul on the third line, but he simply doesn’t have a lot to work with. Maybe a system where the Lightning operate with two top lines and two fourth lines is the future. Coach Jon Cooper certainly uses them that way to minimize any damage the bottom six might cause. Still, it does put a lot of pressure over the final third of the game — the one where the team doesn’t have Point’s or Cirelli’s line on the ice. Stopping both lines will be a tall task for any team, but the Lightning leave enough on the table to make it up elsewhere. It could be their downfall.
Stanley Cup chances: 4.4%
Signature Strength
Spite
The power of spite is real. A collective chip on the shoulder can fuel a deep run to the Stanley Cup Final beyond a team’s means — just ask the 2018 Golden Knights.
Not a single soul could’ve imagined the Capitals would be leading the entire league in points past the halfway point of the season, but here they are. It’s hard not to believe that spite is the driving force. Think of all the players who were essentially given up on by previous teams and how they’re doing this season.
The Blackhawks didn’t think Dylan Strome was worth qualifying. The Kings were completely done with Pierre-Luc Dubois. The Senators lost faith in Jakob Chychrun. The Leafs didn’t think Rasmus Sandin could be a top-four defenseman. The Golden Knights gave Logan Thompson away for almost nothing.
All of those players have been vital cogs to turning the Capitals around. Between those five players, Washington has solidified its top six centers, fortified its top four defensemen and on top of that have one of the league’s best goalies.
Washington’s biggest strength this season is its depth, powered by misfit players who have found a home. They’ve helped turn the Capitals into a powerhouse.
Fatal Flaw
Belief
As good as those players have been and as good as the Capitals have been as a whole, there’s a reason those players were previously abandoned. There’s a reason no one expected the Capitals to even come close to this level of play. There’s a reason they still don’t, with oddsmakers giving Washington the 11th-best Cup odds at the moment (we have them ninth). There’s a reason that there isn’t a single member of the team representing Canada, USA, Sweden, or Finland at the 4 Nations Face-off. It’s all the same reason: A lack of belief that this incredible run from these particular players is legit.
It’s that last point that’s the biggest issue. Aside from Thompson, is there anyone else on the team who was a genuine 4 Nations snub? Probably not, and if so, there’s no one who would be a top-of-the-lineup difference-maker in a best-on-best tournament. And that includes Alex Ovechkin who has slowed down since returning from injury.
A team can win without star power and the Capitals have the depth and goaltending to do so. But those stars on other contenders are the types of players that can will a series win from nothing. As good as some players have looked this season, Washington is still lacking the best of the best and it’s what could put the Capitals behind in most matchups.
Data via Evolving Hockey and Natural Stat Trick
(Top photo of the Carolina Hurricanes: Katherine Gawlik / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
