play0:56Matthew Schaefer makes NHL history with OT winner for IslandersMatthew Schaefer becomes the youngest player in NHL history to score an overtime goal in the regular season.
play0:39McDavid scores absurd spinning backhand goal for OilersConnor McDavid puts defender Denton Mateychuk in a spin cycle and backhands an unbelievable goal past Jet Greaves.
Macklin Celebrini’s hat trick wins it for Sharks in OT (0:32)Macklin Celebrini scores on the power play for San Jose Sharks (0:32)
Matthew Schaefer makes NHL history with OT winner for IslandersMatthew Schaefer becomes the youngest player in NHL history to score an overtime goal in the regular season.
Matthew Schaefer becomes the youngest player in NHL history to score an overtime goal in the regular season.
McDavid scores absurd spinning backhand goal for OilersConnor McDavid puts defender Denton Mateychuk in a spin cycle and backhands an unbelievable goal past Jet Greaves.
Connor McDavid puts defender Denton Mateychuk in a spin cycle and backhands an unbelievable goal past Jet Greaves.
Greg WyshynskiNov 20, 2025, 07:00 AM ETCloseGreg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.Follow on X
play0:18Rasmus Dahlin notches goal on the power playRasmus Dahlin capitalizes on the power play
play0:57Frank Nazar scores goal vs. SenatorsFrank Nazar scores goal vs. Senators
play0:44Clayton Keller wins it in OT for UtahClayton Keller wins it in OT for Utah
Before the 2025-26 NHL season — on Sept. 24, to be exact — we made bold predictions for all 32 teams. With a quarter of that season now in the books, it’s time to check the validity of those claims.
Here’s a progress report on our bold predictions. We’ll rate each prediction on a 1-10 scale, with “1” indicating that the prediction absolutely will not come true and “10” indicating that I absolutely nailed it. Enjoy!
Considering the Bruins’ massive trade-off last season, seeing Zacha shipped out during their “retool” made sense. He’s a center who plays in all facets of the game and really found his offensive stride since arriving on Boston. He’s signed through next season at a very affordable $4.75 million annually against the salary cap.
But his availability is based on a few factors. Like whether Boston sees Zacha as part of their long-term solutions. Like if Boston is contending for a playoff spot or not. Like if someone in this center-starved league calls up GM Don Sweeney and makes him an offer he can’t refuse.
Dahlin is skating with a lot on his mind. He revealed before the season that his fiancée, Carolina Matovac, received a heart transplant this summer following a health scare while on vacation. Earlier this month, he returned to Sweden to care for her, missing three games. The support he received from the hockey community was inspiring and a reminder how far we’ve come in consideration of a player’s life outside the NHL.
In the 17 games Dahlin has played, he has 14 points with 13 of them assists. That places him in the top 10 among defensemen in scoring. That he plays for a Sabres team once again struggling to contend shouldn’t impact his Norris candidacy, as he finished sixth for the award last season. If there’s an analytic argument for his defense to go along with strong offensive numbers, he’s got a shot at being one of three finalists.
The real concern with this bold prediction is that for the foreseeable future, there might only be one Norris Trophy finalist spot open to someone who isn’t Cale Makar or Quinn Hughes.
Rasmus Dahlin notches goal on the power playRasmus Dahlin capitalizes on the power play
Naturally I predicted that the Red Wings’ general manager would abdicate the throne in the season where Detroit raced to first place in the Atlantic. I still don’t have too much faith in the “Yzerplan” — rough starts for top prospect Marco Kasper and goaltending solution John Gibson haven’t helped — but Stevie Y likely won’t be going anywhere if the Red Wings improve on their .524 points percentage from last season.
Of course, that’s going to depend on whether Detroit avoids its traditional second-half tailspin. Over the last two seasons, the Red Wings are 16-23-4 after March 1. If they fall short of the playoffs and are worse than last season’s record … well, he’s been the GM since 2019. How many more chances does the franchise legend get?
Regular-season Bob is the guy who is 9-5-0 through 14 games with a .883 save percentage and a 2.80 goals-against average. He does what he needs to in order to collect points to make the postseason. Which is where he becomes Playoff Bob, the guy who has led the Panthers to three straight Stanley Cup finals and two straight championships. The guy with the .914 save percentage and a 2.20 GAA in 23 games last postseason.
The Panthers just re-signed a guy named Sam Bennett who is productive in the regular season and a monster in the playoffs. I imagine they’ll do the same with Bobrovsky. The Panthers also just re-signed a 37-year-old to a six-year contract that pays him $5.25 against the cap annually. I imagine they’ll do the same with Bobrovsky. Like Brad Marchand, he doesn’t want to leave, either.
Well, it turns out Kaiden Guhle played five games before having surgery for a partially torn abductor muscle and will miss at least two months of the season.
Now, that does leave enough time in the season for him to make an impact and earn the notice he deserves. Or, failing that, the Canadiens miss him desperately while he’s on the mend and he’s appreciated for his absence.
The targets for this bold prediction: 31 goals and 68 points, set when Cozens was a 21-year-old center with the Sabres in 2022-23.
The progress so far: Cozens has seven goals and seven assists in 19 games. That puts him right around 30 goals but well short of his career point total. Praying for a hot streak at some point this season.
The Lightning face-planted out of the gate with a 1-4-2 record and then suffered a slew of injuries to players like Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh and Anthony Cirelli. They’ve now won nine of 12 games and some of the aspects of their team that were struggling — like their power play — might be rounding into form. At some point it would be nice if Brayden Point looked like Brayden Point again, but he’s got time.
Stathletes projects the Lightning to have an 81.5% chance of finishing first in the Atlantic Division. We’ll take it.
Given everything that swirled around the Maple Leafs in the first month of the season, this prediction reads like an act of cowardice. Where was “they fire Craig Berube before Christmas?” Or “the Leafs miss the playoffs outright?”
Instead, I predicted that Nick Robertson, a player perpetually in trade rumors, would remain with the team rather than being shipped out. He’s still there, playing in 19 of their 20 games and has 11 points. But who knows where the wacky season in Toronto takes him.
The Hurricanes’ regular-season success has become so expected under coach Rod Brind’amour that their 13-5-1 start is just background noise in the Eastern Conference right now — despite not having star defenseman Jaccob Slavin for all but two games of it. They’ve made the conference final in three of the seven years that Rod the Bod has coached them, including two of the last three seasons in which they were eliminated by the Florida Panthers. No shame in that. Ask Edmonton.
Their issue in the playoffs remains their goal-scoring. They averaged 3.12 goals per game during that three-year span in the postseason, down from 3.27 over 246 regular-season games from 2022-25.
Absent a star scorer like Jake Guentzel or Mikko Rantanen, perhaps that defect prevents them from playing for the Stanley Cup again. Or perhaps the early returns on the Carolina offense this season (3.63 goals per game over 19 games) underscore how deep their goal-generation goes on this edition of the Canes, indicating they have enough of it to finally break through the Eastern Conference ceiling.
All of that ignores the elephant in the room, which is that no one in the Eastern Conference seems all that formidable at the moment in comparison to the Hurricanes. Unless of course the Panthers get Aleksander Barkov back for the playoffs …
There have been few stats more jarring than the Blue Jackets being among the leaders in team save percentage during the first 20 games of the season, given the recent effectiveness between the pipes. The goalie rotation of Jet Greaves and Elvis Merzļikins was working well, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that Greaves was outplaying his tandem partner. He had a .904 save percentage in 12 games and higher goals saved above expected.
If the crease isn’t Greaves’s now, it will be eventually. The Jackets have waited for someone to play well enough to relegate Merzļikins to a backup role, and Jet might have the fuel to do it.
Roy reportedly doesn’t have a contract beyond this season. He has a new general manager in Mathieu Darche who had no hand in hiring him, and as a new general manager, he would probably like to get his own guy in there at some point. The Islanders were projected to finish with around 84 points and had a 1-in-4 chance of making the playoffs.
Then the 18-year-old first overall pick in the NHL draft shows up, plays like Cale Makar and infuses the entire organization with a youthful enthusiasm and optimism. Suddenly the Islanders are in a playoff spot and ascendant in the East.
Matthew Schaefer makes NHL history with OT winner for Islanders
There have been stretches in the first 21 games of the season in which this prediction looked quite good, and there have been stretches in which the Rangers making the playoffs seems implausible.
Stathletes says there’s an 84.2% chance the Blueshirts make the Stanley Cup playoffs, which gives me hope. So do the seasons that goalie Igor Shesterkin and defenseman Adam Fox are having, and the seasons that players like forwards Will Cuylle and Vincent Trocheck will have when they get through the team’s early-season offensive doldrums.
The impetus for this prediction was basically a goof on Penguins fans who thought their team would continue its downward trajectory only to end up with the first overall phenom in next year’s draft who also happens to play at Penn State. Wouldn’t it be funny if he went to the other team in the state? Ha, ha. Everyone laughs.