Welcome to another State of the Atlantic Division address! It’s not quite a presidential speech, but during the Olympic break, it’s a great time to assess how the division is shaping up in the short and medium-term. As the Toronto Maple Leafs face the prospect of missing the playoffs for the first time in a decade, it’s worth exploring how the league’s most competitive grouping has changed, and how that may affect the remainder of the season, the deadline and what lies ahead.
The established power in search of one final title run
Tampa Bay Lightning
Jon Cooper’s tactical genius is on full display at the Olympics while manning the bench for Team Canada. He’s also done a terrific job this season, and is in line to win a long overdue Jack Adams Award. Tampa Bay has been the established guard in the NHL for the better part of a decade, with two Stanley Cup victories and four appearances. The dynasty, for all intents and purposes, was supposed to be over. And yet, Nikita Kucherov is amid another spectacular season, with 91 points in 51 games. Although the team has faced several injuries throughout the year, unexpected contributions from depth players like Charle-Edouard D’Astous, Pontus Holmberg, along with breakout seasons from Darren Raddysh and J.J. Moser, have propelled the Lightning atop the Eastern Conference.
Tampa Bay entered the Olympic break on a 19-1-1 run, while sporting a conference-best plus-57 goal differential for the year. Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh have recently re-entered the lineup after recovering from injuries. Andrei Vasilevskiy has reestablished his place among the top goaltenders in the NHL, while Kucherov and Jake Guentzel lead a potent attack that can get offence from four lines. The established power is in search of one final title run. With limited cap space, and the entire core returning for next season, don’t expect the Lightning to make major upgrades at the deadline, even if they’ve been historically aggressive under Julien BriseBois.
The new ascending giants
Montreal Canadiens
We completely understand if you want to throw your laptop out of a window upon reading this, but the Canadiens are poised to rule the Atlantic for the next decade. Nick Suzuki is the leading Selke Trophy candidate, Cole Caufield could hit the 50-goal mark, Juraj Slafkovsky is turning into the modern power forward the Canadiens had always envisioned, Ivan Demidov has met sky-high expectations, and Oliver Kapanen has been a positive surprise as a third-line centre with a booming shot. And that’s just on the offensive side of the puck. Lane Hutson looks like a future Norris winner when playing on his dominant side along Noah Dobson. If it weren’t for a porous season from Sam Montembeault, the Canadiens could be sitting atop the conference.
Montreal is in a compelling position ahead of the deadline. Although it holds limited cap space, Montreal still carries all of its draft picks, while boasting the best prospect pool in the NHL. Kent Hughes ought to remain patient, especially with Patrik Laine’s onerous $8.7 million contract coming off the books at the end of the year. They’re a year away from true contention, but the Canadiens have the pieces to accelerate their bright future if patience isn’t considered a virtue. It could be an ugly decade ahead for Leafs fans.
Buffalo Sabres
The last time we held this address, we labeled the Sabres as an absolute nightmare. A brighter future appears to be possible, as the Sabres’ collection of young talent have actualized into a really good hockey team, poised to take another step. Buffalo holds a wild-card spot at this juncture, while sporting a plus-19 goal differential. And though the Sabres control fewer than 50 percent of the expected goals or shot attempts at 5-on-5, their relative success this season isn’t a PDO-inflated mirage, either. Tage Thompson leads the way with 59 points, while Rasmus Dahlin remains as one of the NHL’s premier defencemen.
Buffalo has displayed improved depth scoring, with 10 players scoring greater than 10 goals ahead of the Olympic break. Buffalo holds close to $2 million in cap space, while looking to find a new contract for impending free agent Alex Tuch. Don’t expect the Sabres to be buyers at the deadline, although for the first time in a decade, few could fault them for making a push. A new era finally appears to be underway in Western New York.
The defending champions
Florida Panthers
We’re not going to rule out the Panthers’ bid for a three-peat just yet, but they are sitting dead last in the Atlantic Division with 25 games remaining. Aleksander Barkov is still recovering from a gruesome knee injury, Matthew Tkachuk missed the first 47 games of the season due to injury as well, and the draining effects of three runs to the Stanley Cup Final are beginning to take their toll. Florida is as cap-strapped as teams get and cannot reasonably make any moves ahead of the deadline. The price of success can be truly taxing, no pun intended.
Florida’s entire core is under contract for next season and beyond, so this could be viewed as a one-off season, although Sergei Bobrovsky’s form has fallen off a cliff. Will the Panthers punt on this season and gear up towards another title run next season, with the goal of finding another quality goaltender, while sporting limited resources to make upgrades.
The rebuild has finally ended
Detroit Red Wings
At the time of this filing, the Red Wings are presented with 77.6 percent odds of making the playoffs for the first time since 2015-16, via
MoneyPuck. Moritz Seider will likely finish as a runner-up for the Norris Trophy, while Lucas Raymond, Dylan Larkin and Alex deBrincat bring some firepower to an imbalanced offence, ranking 27th in 5-on-5 goals. It’s an imperfect team to be sure, but the Red Wings have taken a step towards playoff contention, with Seider leading on the way on the blue line, along with the continued development of Axel Sandin-Pellikka and Simon Edvinsson.
Detroit boasts nearly $13 million in cap space, with a new deal for Edvinsson surely earmarked in its calculations. Could the Red Wings make a one-time aggressive buy at the deadline with the hopes of going on an extended playoff run?
A state of flux
Boston Bruins
You’ll hear about the Fraser Minten-Brandon Carlo trade ad nauseam in the coming weeks, but it’s a clever example of how the Bruins quickly retooled. Boston knew its Cup contention window was over last year, and traded some key assets, while keeping its core of David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm and Jeremy Swayman intact. Minten has graduated into a top-line centre, while the Bruins have replenished its prospect pool, as James Hagens waits in the wings. This may be the example for the Maple Leafs to follow, with several players on the trade block, amid what ought to be a retool.
Boston was simply too talented to bottom out entirely, with Pastrnak on the roster. Toronto finds itself in a similar situation, with Auston Matthews and William Nylander leading a talented but underperforming group this year. Boston currently holds onto the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, with an eye towards the future.
Worst Case, Ontario
Toronto Maple Leafs
It’s been a disaster of a season for the Maple Leafs, with 10 percent odds of making the playoffs at this juncture. Auston Matthews has returned to top form, William Nylander is one of the NHL’s most dynamic talents when healthy, but the Maple Leafs have been unable to replace Mitch Marner’s departed offence in the aggregate. It’s the other side of the puck that’s more concerning, as the Maple Leafs have operated for large stretches of the year as the NHL’s worst defensive team.
Toronto went all-in in the past several seasons, in hopes of winning an elusive Stanley Cup. The past decade ended in failure, and now the Maple Leafs are paying the price. Bobby McMann, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Nicolas Roy are on the trade block, among several others, and the Maple Leafs should be looking to recoup a first-round pick, with Matthew Knies and Easton Cowan are the lone under-25 pillars on the roster.
Ottawa Senators
At least it’s worse in the nation’s capital. After making the playoffs for the first time since 2016-17, the Senators have been doomed by brutal goaltending. Making matters worse, the Senators don’t have their first-round pick, forfeited due to complications involving a deal with Evgeny Dadonov. It’s been a brutal year for a Senators team that thought they were one of the NHL’s ascendant teams, after a six-game loss to the Maple Leafs in the first round of last year’s playoffs.
It’s not all bad: the Senators boast $3 million in cap space, while Jake Sanderson, Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle and Thomas Chabot are all under contract through 2027-28. Ottawa cannot buy a save this season, and without a first-round pick, it’s a totally sunken year in an competitive landscape.
PRESENTED BY OFF THE ROSTER
Introducing Off The Roster—Toronto Sports, Unfiltered! Toronto sports fans, your new favourite conversation has arrived. Hosted by Cabbie Richards, Lindsay Dunn, and Dan Riccio, Off The Roster dives into the city’s legendary plays, brutal trades, OG jerseys, celebrity tweets, and everything in between. Raw, fun, and totally unfiltered, this is Toronto sports like you’ve never heard it before. Tune in live every weekday morning on the
Nation Network YouTube channel, or catch episodes wherever you stream podcasts. Proudly brought to you by our founding partner, PROLINE. Off The Roster—the new sound in the 6ix.
