There’s no better place to start a preview of the NHL than with what I would consider to be the strongest of the four divisions this season.
The Boston Bruins created history last season by racking up the highest number of points in an NHL season. Realistically, the only way is down from there, but Bruins fans didn’t expect the down to begin in the First Round of the play-offs. A glorious regular season and a 3-1 series lead over Florida crumbled into a devastating 4-3 defeat courtesy of Carter Verhaeghe’s Overtime winner in Game Seven.
What that all means for 2023-24 depends on how you view the half-glass and what liquid you think is in it?
The retirements of Bruins legends Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci create a gap in experience that may make it a half-glass empty with the rest full of tears; however, there is still a lot of the history-making talent on the roster for it to be a half-glass full of champagne ready to be topped up with a trade addition or two throughout the season.
Is this finally the year for the rebuilding Buffalo Sabres to end their play-off drought stretching back to 2011?
The enviable crop of young talent was on full display last season, pushing the team to within one point of eventual Stanley Cup finalists the Florida Panthers. Tage Thompson, Alex Tuch, Dylan Cozens and Germany’s own JJ Peterka combined with others to score 293 goals, third most across the NHL.
The problem was at the other end of the ice, where they ended 26th out of 32 teams in goals allowed. Connor Clifton (Boston) and Erik Johnson (2022 Stanley Cup winner with Colorado) have been brought in to support the very promising trio of Rasmus Dahlin, Mattias Samuelsson and Owen Power to help tighten things up.
It’s been a while since the Detroit Redwings have been involved with play-off hockey, so making a bunch of signings should be applauded as an effort to start turning things around.
Alex DeBrincat will add goals to the lineup, with J.T. Compher, Shayne Gostisbehere, Justin Holl and Daniel Sprong all adding experience to the group.
The problem they’ve got is that they are in an extremely competitive division. The six teams that finished ahead of them last season all look likely to do so again in 23-24.
The Panthers are hard to predict. How much should we give them credit for making it to the Stanley Cup final when their 22-23 regular season performance was only just good enough to make it to the play-offs at all?
Perhaps the best thing is to split the difference. The quality is still there and the additions of Evan Rodrigues, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Dmitry Kulikov and Niko Mikkola have off-set the losses so they look like a team that should still be in the hunt, if far from guaranteed to be a play-off team.
Their quest to go one better than last year could rest on how quickly, and how effectively, Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour can come back from their respective off-season shoulder surgeries.
The main hope is that the Montréal Canadiens have some better luck with injuries this time around. Unfortunately, that’s probably where the hopes peak.
They’ve added former Colorado forward Alex Newhook. And that’s about it. In fairness to them, 23-24 is not going to be a difference-maker for them, so keeping space for their young players to get another season under their belts and then to reassess where best to spend money next off-season is the sensible approach.
It just means another season in which Habs fans need to set their own targets for the team to find some small successes along what could be another long campaign.
It’s hard not to like what General Manager Pierre Dorion is building in Ottawa. With a new owner now in place, there is a real sense that this is a team that is on the verge of an exciting new era, one that Senators fans deserve.
German Tim Stützle took “the step” last season in blistering style and his partnership with Brady Tkachuk is one of the most exciting across the NHL. The Sens waited out the market well by picking up Vladimir Tarasenko on a one-year, $5M commitment, although they are still to come to terms with Shane Pinto.
Goalie Joonas Korpisalo impressed hugely after his mid-season trade to the Kings last season and Ottawa’s five-year commitment to him shows that they believe that level of play is going to be the norm for him after some injury struggles.
The Cup-winning Lightning legacy group lost a few more members this past off-season with Alex Killorn (Anaheim) and Pat Maroon (Minnesota) moving on. There always comes a point when a team’s golden period comes to an end, yet expecting that for Tampa Bay any time soon is to underestimate the depth of talent they still possess.
So long as you’ve got Andrei Vasilevskiy in net then you’re going to be fine; however, the news on 28 September that he has undergone back surgery and is expected to miss the first two months of the season was a real “Bolt” from the blue (pardon the pun). Sweden’s Jonas Johansson has big skates to fill in the early going and there’s no doubt that the downgrade from the best goalie in the NHL is going to hurt the team. That said, better to have the surgery now than to lose Vasilevskiy later in the season.
It stings every year in Toronto, but last season’s play-off departure was one of the more depressing of recent vintage. Hopes took a leap after they knocked out Tampa Bay 4-2 in the First Round, only for the Panthers to smash them like a school-yard bully 4-1 and send them home.
Former Calgary Flame GM Brad Treliving has taken over from Kyle Dubas and they’ve made four good experienced additions in Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, Ryan Reaves and John Klingberg. The decision to try William Nylander at centre, in what is currently scheduled to be his contract walk year, will be under great scrutiny, as will the future of manager Sheldon Keefe.
That may sound strange given that he’s just signed a two-year contract extension, but we all know what the pressure cooker of Toronto is like if the season doesn’t start well.