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Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images
Expectations are high for every NHL
club entering a new season. Playoff contenders aspire to win the
Stanley Cup. Rebuilding teams look for signs of real improvement and
the anticipation of reaching the postseason. Clubs that struggled the
previous season hope for a bounce-back performance.
Not every team, like the six on
our list, will see their wishes fulfilled when the season comes to an
end.
Some, like the Florida Panthers, are
coming off one of the best seasons in franchise history. Others, like
the Vegas Golden Knights, are former Cup contenders trying to regain
their once-dominant form.
In this slideshow, we’ll examine the
factors that could lead to disappointment in 2022-23. We’ve chosen
three teams from each conference. You can express your views on this
topic in the comments section below.
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Florida Panthers (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)
The Florida Panthers enter 2022-23
coming off their best regular season performance in franchise
history. Averaging a league-leading 4.11 goals per game, they
finished with a team record of 58 wins and 122 points to win their first-ever Presidents’ Trophy.
This is still a very good hockey team,
one that should qualify for the 2023 playoffs. However, they will
find it difficult to build upon last season’s dominant performance.
The departures of Jonathan Huberdeau
and MacKenzie Weegar will be a big factor. They were traded to the Calgary Flames on July 23 for power forward Matthew Tkachuk. Both played significant roles in the club’s remarkable
effort last season.
One of the league’s top playmaking
forwards, Huberdeau was the Panthers’ leading scorer with 115 points.
Tkachuk will bring more goal-scoring punch and an agitating physical
style that was absent during their second-round playoff exit to the
Tampa Bay Lightning. Still, they’ll miss Huberdeau’s set-up skills.
A late-blooming puck-moving defenseman,
Weegar enjoyed a career-best 44-point season in 2021-22. The Panthers
didn’t find a suitable replacement via the trade and free agent
markets to offset his departure. Gustav Forsling is projected to fill
that left-side slot on their top defense pairing.
Forwards Mason Marchment and Claude Giroux will also be missed. Marchment, 27,
was an energetic physical winger who signed with the Dallas Stars. Acquired at the 2022 trade
deadline, the versatile Giroux tallied 23 points in 18 regular season games for the
Panthers. He signed with the Ottawa Senators as a free agent on July
13.
Goaltenders Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight have yet to prove they can carry
the Panthers on a deep playoff run. The 33-year-old Bobrovsky has won just two playoff series in his 12-year NHL career. Knight, 21, has appeared in just two postseason games.
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Nashville Predators (John Russell/NHLI via Getty Images)
Since reaching the Stanley Cup Final in
2017, the Nashville Predators have slowly declined into a marginal
playoff team that hasn’t won a playoff round since 2018. They were
easily dispatched by the Colorado Avalanche in four straight games
last spring.
Predators general manager David Poile
ensured he kept long-time left winger Filip Forsberg by re-signing
him to an eight-year contract on July 11. He also acquired defenseman
Ryan McDonagh from the Tampa Bay Lightning and signed free agent
winger Nino Niederreiter.
These moves should help the Predators
remain a playoff club. However, their fans could end up disappointed
if they’re expecting a Stanley Cup run.
Goaltender Juuse Saros’ Vezina Trophy finalist
performance, Norris Trophy finalist Roman Josi’s 96 points, and 40-goal efforts
by Forsberg and Matt Duchene ensured the Predators clinched a
playoff spot. Still, it wasn’t enough to overcome the Predators’ lack of depth against the powerful Avalanche in the opening round.
Saros, 27, is entering his prime as a goalie and should
continue to shine. However, the 32-year-old Josi and 31-year-old Duchene will find it
challenging to match last season’s career-best performances.
It remains to be seen how well McDonagh
adjusts to his new club after winning two Stanley Cups with the
Lightning and reaching the Final with them last season. The
33-year-old has played in 185
postseason games on top of his 783 regular-season appearances. That much action with little off-season rest could start to take its toll on his game.
Younger forwards such as Tanner Jeannot
(24 goals) and Yakov Trenin (17 goals) will also face heightened
expectations after coming off solid performances last season.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited breakthrough performance for promising
winger Eeli Tolvanen has yet to materialize. After netting 22 points
in 40 games in 2020-21, he had just 23 points in 75 games last
season.
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New York Islanders (Francois Lacasse/NHLI via Getty Images)
After reaching the 2020 Eastern
Conference Finals and the 2021 Semifinals, the New York Islanders
missed the playoffs last season. A combination of a season-opening
13-game road trip while awaiting their new arena to open and a
COVID-19 outbreak in November scuttled their postseason hopes.
On Aug. 22, Islanders general manager
Lou Lamoriello expressed confidence in his current roster. However, a
lack of scoring punch could make things difficult for his club to
return to the playoffs this season.
Averaging 2.79 goals per game, the
Islanders were 23rd overall last season. Brock Nelson and
Anders Lee were the only players to exceed the 20-goal plateau.
Nelson, Mathew Barzal and Noah Dobson were the only ones to reach 50
points.
Lamoriello attempted to bolster his
offense this summer. On July 13, the New York Post’s Ethan Sears
reported he attempted to acquire J.T. Miller from the Vancouver
Canucks and tried to sign Johnny Gaudreau before he joined the
Columbus Blue Jackets. A rumored signing of Nazem Kadri came to
nothing as he went to the Calgary Flames.
Those offensive stats could improve
under new head coach Lane Lambert. Perhaps he can coax more
production from winger Anthony Beauvillier and Oliver Wahlstrom after
their disappointing performances last season.
The Islanders have a solid goaltending
tandem in Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov. They also possess a
strong blueline corps anchored by Ryan Pulock and Adam Pelech along
with rising young rearguards Noah Dobson and offseason acquisition
Alexander Romanov.
Nevertheless, they will have a
difficult time bouncing back from last season’s disappointment if
they can’t put more pucks in the net. They might be able to grind out
low-scoring victories but it won’t translate into another deep
playoff run if Lamoriello cannot find more scoring.
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Pittsburgh Penguins (Jeanine Leech/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The Pittsburgh Penguins ensured they
kept long-time core players Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang in the fold,
signing both in July to new contracts. They also re-signed trade
deadline acquisition Rickard Rakell and swapped defensemen with the
Montreal Canadiens by shipping them Michael Matheson in exchange for
Jeff Petry.
General manager Ron Hextall wants to
surround Malkin, Letang and captain Sidney Crosby with a supporting
cast capable of contending for the Stanley Cup. However, what he has
on his hands is a team with an aging core that last won the Cup in
2017 and hasn’t won a playoff round in four years.
Crosby, Malkin and Letang are now in
their mid-thirties. They’re still very good players who can carry the
Penguins into the playoffs, but they haven’t been able to carry them on
another Cup run over the past five seasons. Malkin has also battled
injuries in recent years that have taken a toll on his performance.
Forward Jeff Carter is 37 while
defenseman Brian Dumoulin is 31. Petry is 34 and coming off the worst
season of his career with the Canadiens. Jeff Zucker, 30, has
struggled through injuries. Rust, also 30, enjoyed a career-high 58
points last season but also missed 22 games to injury.
Goaltending is also a question mark for
the Penguins. Starter Tristan Jarry bounced back last season from a
sub-par 2020-21 campaign but struggled a bit down the stretch until
sidelined by a lower-body injury. Meanwhile, backup Casey DeSmith has had difficulty with consistency.
The Penguins also need more consistency
from younger players such as winger Kaspari Kapanen and defenseman
Marcus Pettersson. The 26-year-old Kapanen has yet to regain the
promising 44-point form he displayed with the Toronto Maple
Leafs in 2018-19. Pettersson, also 26, endured defensive lapses and was a healthy scratch in six games last season.
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Vegas Golden Knights (Scott Rovak/NHLI via Getty Images)
The 2021-22 season marked the first
time in the Vegas Golden Knights’ short history that they missed the
playoffs. Losing key players such as Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, Robin
Lehner and Alec Martinez to injuries contributed to their
disappointing finish. So did the absence of Jack Eichel as he miss
most of the season recovering from neck surgery.
Having a healthy Eichel, Stone and
Martinez will be crucial factors toward their hopes of regaining
their playoff-contending form. However, they’ll have to do it without
Lehner as the 32-year-old goaltender is expected to miss the season
recovering from hip surgery.
To replace Lehner, the Golden Knights
will turn to Logan Thompson, Adin Hill and Laurent Brossoit.
Thompson, 25, showed promise late last season but has just 20 games
of NHL experience. Acquired from the San Jose Sharks, the 26-year-old
Hill has struggled to establish himself as an NHL starter. Brossoit,
29, is also recovering from hip surgery.
Another concern is replacing
Pacioretty’s production. The Golden Knights traded the 33-year-old
winger to the Carolina Hurricanes on July 13 in a cost-cutting move.
On Aug. 3, he criticized his former club for its relaxed atmosphere
contributing to a lack of accountability among the players for poor performances.
The accountability issue could be
rectified by the hiring of Bruce Cassidy on June 16 as their new head
coach. The former Boston Bruins bench boss guided his former club to
six straight playoff appearances, including a run to the 2019 Stanley
Cup Final.
Finding a suitable replacement for
Pacioretty is another matter given their salary-cap
limitations. They could end up shifting Chandler Stephenson from
center to left wing, but he lacks Pacioretty’s natural goal-scoring
ability.
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Winnipeg Jets (Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images)
The Winnipeg Jets have been declining since reaching the 2018 Western Conference Finals. They
missed the playoffs last season for the first time since 2017 despite
carrying stars such as goaltender Connor Hellebuyck and scoring
forwards Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and Nikolaj
Ehlers.
General manager Kevin Cheveldayoff’s
only notable moves were hiring Rick Bowness as the new head coach and
re-signing center Pierre-Luc Dubois to a one-year contract. He did
little to replace departed center Paul Stastny other than sign
journeyman Sam Gagner and didn’t bring in anyone to shore up his blue
line.
Cheveldayoff seems to be counting on
the coaching change plus the anticipated promotion of promising players such as
forward Cole Perfetti and defenseman Dylan Samberg to get his club
back on track. Whether they can, however, is another matter.
Their defense corps still hasn’t fully
recovered from the departures of Dustin Byfuglien and Jacob Trouba in
2019. Their poor defensive play last season did no favors for the overworked Hellebuyck. Cheveldayoff also failed to find a
suitable replacement for two-way forward Andrew Copp after trading
him to the New York Rangers last season.
Meanwhile, the Jets are playing in a division dominated by the Minnesota Wild, St. Louis Blues and the defending Stanley Cup
champion Colorado Avalanche. They’ll have a difficult time jockeying
with the Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators for the remaining playoff berths.
With $5.5 million in projected cap room
for the coming season, Cheveldayoff has sufficient space to make
further additions later this season. He might just have to in order to get his club into playoff contention.
Stats via NHL.com and
Hockey-Reference.com. Depth charts via Cap Friendly.
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