T.J. Oshie on Panthers’ three-peat chances: ‘If anyone can do it, it’s them’ (1:31)T.J. Oshie tells Pat McAfee that the Panthers are built for a third straight Stanley Cup title. (1:31)
Greg WyshynskiOct 8, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseGreg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.Follow on X
Imagine my surprise when I looked at the ESPN hockey family’s season predictions and saw the Avalanche were in fact the chalk of a very crowded field. A hipster picker’s nightmare, indeed.
As is tradition, I revealed my Stanley Cup selection to a member of that team while at the player media tour in Las Vegas:
I have the Avalanche winning the Cup over the Carolina Hurricanes, who are in at least their sixth attempt to break through in the Eastern Conference under coach Rod Brind’amour. I explain why below in my full 2025-26 NHL season standings predictions.
Here’s my division-by-division breakdown. Playoff teams are bolded. Good luck to all 32 teams. Hope everyone has fun out there.
Tampa Bay Lightning Ottawa Senators Toronto Maple Leafs Florida Panthers Buffalo Sabres Montreal Canadiens Detroit Red Wings Boston Bruins
Oh, and behind the bench a guy named Jon Cooper, considered by everyone except Jack Adams Award voters to be the best coach in the league.
Speaking of talent subtractions: Can the Panthers survive without Matthew Tkachuk until at least December and without Aleksander Barkov until at least April? The answer is “in this conference, probably.” But it brings me no joy to report that the Panthers’ three-peat attempt could end with them missing the playoffs entirely, especially given how much I’ve grown to love the beach vistas and fried fish in covering their past three runs to the Stanley Cup Final.
Whereas the Atlantic Division has some upwardly mobile teams below the contenders, the Metro feels like four teams with strong playoff chances and then four teams those top four will mine for points — with one exception.
What a long, strange trip it’s been for GM Eric Tulsky. He landed Jake Guentzel at the 2024 trade deadline, only to bow out in the second round and watch him leave for Tampa Bay. Still seeking that playoff scoring solution, Tulsky last season landed Taylor Hall from Chicago and Mikko Rantanen from Colorado for Martin Necas, but traded Rantanen after just 13 games because he wouldn’t commit long-term in Raleigh.
There are some points of concern with the Canes, starting with second-line center. Jesperi Kotkaniemi hasn’t been the answer. They’ve been using Stankoven there and might still try Seth Jarvis as an internal solution. This might be where Tulsky tries to use his cap space and draft capital to improve the team before the deadline. Or perhaps that’ll be in goal, where Frederik Andersen remains dominant but a constant injury concern, with Pyotr Kochetkov yet to show he’s anything but a downgrade.
Rod Brind’Amour has led the Hurricanes to a .604 points percentage or better in six of his seven season as head coach. He has led them to the conference finals three times without ever playing for the Stanley Cup. The Canes will kick that wall down this season with a tenacious, talented group that has room for improvement.
Are the Devils keeping their powder dry for a run at Quinn Hughes? They’d be silly not to if there’s even a small chance that Vancouver trades him to “play with his brothers” before his 2027 unrestricted free agency. But the reason the Devils tinkered with the roster instead of taking big swings is likely because they like what they have already and want to see what it looks like with a healthy Jack Hughes.
They were 33-23-6 with Hughes in the lineup until his injury on March 2, creating a points cushion that enabled them to still make the playoffs despite losing 12 of their final 21 games of the season. He has been over 3.2 points per 60 minutes in each of his past four seasons. Hughes is everything for the Devils, from being their offensive engine to being the reason they just paid a 22-year-old defenseman $63 million for services yet rendered. If Luke Hughes is happy, Jack’s hopefully happy.
New Jersey has a deeply talented blue line and the goaltending tandem of Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen, who took their team save percentage from 30th to 11th. GM Tom Fitzgerald had a nice signing in former Oiler Connor Brown and has anointed Cody Glass as the third-line center to start the season. If the bottom six is better and the team has better injury luck, the Devils are poised to make noise this season. Or, failing that, just trade for Quinn, I guess.
The Capitals don’t know what the future holds for 40-year-old Alex Ovechkin, who is now the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer at 897 and in the last year of his contract. But Capitals coach Spencer Carbery told ESPN’s “The Drop” that he’s relieved there isn’t another overriding Ovechkin story that his team is experiencing every night on the road, with “Ovi’s last season” replacing The Great Chase.
“Definitely. No doubt. If that was the case then every building you go into, especially the Western teams, it’ll be the last time definitely that he goes into those arenas,” he said.
Instead, the Capitals can remain focused on repeating their incredible 111-point campaign from last season, which saw them advance to the second round of the playoffs. GM Chris Patrick won almost every bet he made last offseason, such as with Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jakob Chychrun and Logan Thompson. Provided there’s little to no regression there, and young players such as Aliaksei Protas and Ryan Leonard progress, they’ll keep Ovechkin in contention in what could be his final NHL season.
The Rangers have enough talent in the right places to overcome significant lineup holes and earn a playoff spot this season. Miller’s arrival helped pull Mika Zibanejad out of a nightmarish season. Will Cuylle is burgeoning star who’ll take over most of what Kreider was doing in the lineup. The line of Alexis Lafrenière, Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck is a dependable force — and Panarin is in a contract year, too.
The Rangers need Adam Fox to recapture the magic of his Norris Trophy form, and importing Kings defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov as a free agent should do the trick. Provided Igor Shesterkin bounces back with a better structure in front of him — and he had 21.6 goals saved above expected — the Rangers should be the fourth Metro playoff team, if not much more than that.
It doesn’t get more inspiring than what the Blue Jackets did last season, finishing two points out of a playoff spot while playing through unfathomable grief. I love what they’re building in Columbus, and a wild-card spot isn’t out of the question.
It’s conceivable that Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson and Kirill Marchenko all take another huge leap forward surrounded by an improved supporting cast — I love the Charlie Coyle addition. It’s possible that Denton Mateychuk has a breakout season on a blue line that needs more skill. But the season probably rests on the shoulder pads of 24-year-old Jet Greaves, and whether he’s good enough to wrest the crease from Elvis Merzlikins. Because someone needs to.
The most that the Flyers can hope for this season is the continued progress of its young players as new coach Rick Tocchet power-drills fundamentals into them. They’re going to be a tough out and fun to watch, depending on how much time Trevor Zegras and Matvei Michkov are given to create content. But the Flyers aren’t likely to grab too many headlines in Philadelphia this season. The Jalen Hurts discourse can continue, uninterrupted.
Colorado Avalanche Dallas Stars Utah Mammoth Winnipeg Jets Minnesota Wild St. Louis Blues Nashville Predators Chicago Blackhawks
Can Martin Necas give them 75% of what Mikko Rantanen did, as was the gamble in trading their star winger last season? Can Samuel Girard and Josh Manson be the rock-solid second paring behind the ridiculously good Makar and Devon Toews? Can Gabriel Landeskog, one of last season’s most heartwarming stories that lacked a storybook ending, become Gabriel Landeskog again?
I’m saying yes to all of this. I’m also putting my faith in an aggressive front office to once again bolster this lineup before the postseason if necessary, whether incrementally or with a big swing. Say, did you hear Nathan MacKinnon grew up in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia? I wonder if that’s relevant to any other current events in the NHL …
Since winning the Stanley Cup in 2022, the Avalanche have been eliminated in the first round to Seattle, the second round to Dallas and the first round to Dallas again. That last seven-game loss to the Stars left MacKinnon “shocked” and unsure how to process it. That’s exactly what you want to hear as an Avalanche fan. Palpable disgust is what fueled MacKinnon’s first Cup win. The tank’s nearly full again.
The Stars are still in the sweet spot for NHL teams: productive veterans and outstanding young players and a franchise goalie combining for a Cup-worthy team. Last season saw them add a superstar in Mikko Rantanen, and anyone who watched the playoffs understands his postseason impact.
Yet Dallas has room for improvement. Teams of scientists are still trying to determine what happened to Wyatt Johnston in the 2025 playoffs, mustering four goals in 18 games with a minus-16. The Matt Duchene regression seems inevitable. They’re going to have to replace what they lost in Mikael Granlund, Mason Marchment and Evgenii Dadonov. The young standouts such as Thomas Harley, Lian Bichsel and Mavrik Bourque must continue to level up.
Again: The Dallas Stars can win the Stanley Cup this season if the mix is right and the path is friendly. One just hopes that DeBoer didn’t take their window to win with him, and that the legacy of his group is as the Western Conference’s annual bridesmaid.
The Mammoth will make the playoffs. I’m a believer that the core they’ve built there — Clayton Keller, Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley — is trending to be the type of elite trio that powers a team to the postseason. Keller and Nick Schmaltz anchor one line. Cooley, whose ceiling increasingly looks to be a Jack Hughes-adjacent player, is in the middle of Guenther and JJ Peterka, their big offseason acquisition from the Buffalo Sabres.
