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Some years the NHL has a team that runs away with the standings and takes on the title of “The Team To Beat”. Other years, maybe two carry a pluralized version of that mantle. But this season the Presidents’ Trophy is going to be won by either Washington or Winnipeg — two legitimately great teams who’ve had special years — but they feel closer to the chase pack than some league leaders of yore.
I’ve got 11 teams that have a legitimate shot at this year’s Cup, which is flatly absurd. I’d even be willing to stretch that to maybe 13 if a fanbase were passionate enough and felt like yelling about it.
Since you’re curious, that fairly large group includes:
If you feel like you’d include another team or two, you’re further proving my point. It’s anyone’s ballgame.
What’s noteworthy, though, is that I’ve got New Jersey in brackets because of injuries. Very few teams could survive losing their number one centre (Jack Hughes) and number one defenceman (Dougie Hamilton) and then run through the playoffs start to finish.
And so, it feels like this is going to be the year of the injury, not just for New Jersey, but for everybody. Or, to phrase it in a far more optimistic light: the year of the healthy team. It’s tough to make predictions when it doesn’t seem like we’re able to forecast who is and who isn’t healthy on the exact days the games are played.
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It was on Feb. 20 when Mark Stone suffered a back-related injury that put him on the sidelines shortly before the 2023 NHL trade deadline. That year, his injury allowed Vegas to move his cap hit to LTIR, and with that newfound cap space they added Ivan Barbashev. Stone was then okayed to skate in April, cleared from LTIR on April 18 – after the salary cap went away for the playoffs – and Vegas went on to win the Stanley Cup.
Barbashev had 18 points in 22 playoff games for the Golden Knights, just a handful behind Stone himself.
Two years before that, Nikita Kucherov missed all of the NHL’s shortened 2021 season and recovered just in time for Game 1 of the playoffs — allowing the Lightning to spend his LTIR’d cap space along the way — en route to winning the Stanley Cup. He finished second in Conn Smythe voting, leading the playoffs in scoring by a whopping nine points, which led to Dougie Hamilton’s light-hearted comments that his Hurricanes lost to a Lightning team that was “$18 million over the salary cap.”
That comment led to this shirt that Kucherov debuted around the time of their second Stanley Cup parade.
It’s not that Kucherov or Stone weren’t injured, it’s that we didn’t know when they would’ve returned if it wasn’t salary cap related, and we’re all fairly sure their clearance dates wouldn’t have been “exactly Game 1 of the playoffs.” But what’s just as relevant as the cap shenanigans is that those teams got back tremendous players at the right time, suddenly healthy and rested, who were able to launch their teams through the type of series that often come down to a single goal or single play at a single moment.
You know, the times you want your best guys to be out there, and at their best.
So these two things — that it’s anyone’s year, and that the timing of getting healthy is going to be so key — had me wondering: is there a team it could all come together for, health wise, at the perfect time? A team that could go from being just “good” to “fully loaded” just as it comes time to put all your cards on the table?
Well, enter the Edmonton Oilers.
Currently, the Oilers are without Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. And while you never want your best players to be injured, it’s not a terrible time to be getting a little extra rest provided these injuries can be healed up in time for the playoffs. It sounds like Draisaitl will be back soon after a little time off, and McDavid will be having a longer absence, presumably erring on the side of caution, and they’ll get him back in advance of the post-season.