Story Archive

Rasmus Dahlin drove a plus-13 on-off as a genuine No. 1 defenceman, but Buffalo's 109-point season rode roughly 50 goals of luck on a 49 percent team. Whether the Sabres hold up depends on whether last year was real.

Andrei Vasilevskiy saved nearly 25 goals above expected, and that crease is doing more than winning games. It is holding a top-heavy, cap-strapped Tampa contender together. The window stays open exactly as long as he stays elite.

Dallas is loaded up front and a 52 percent team, but Jake Oettinger saved just 5.7 above expected, a notch below the elite tier, and his backup outperformed him. Why the crease is the one question standing between the Stars and a Cup.

The Islanders looked respectable, but they were a 48 percent team saved by one of the best goalie seasons in hockey. Mathew Barzal drove a plus-16 on-off underneath it. He is the real engine; Sorokin was the mirage.

The book on Jordan Kyrou says defensive liability. The Blues controlled 59 percent of the chances with him on the ice and 44 without him, and the crease, not the winger, was St. Louis's real problem. Then they traded him to Washington anyway.

Carolina won the Cup, and Sebastian Aho is the two-way spine that made it work. His on-off looks modest only because the Hurricanes are elite without him too. The most underrated superstar in hockey does everything at once.

Brady Tkachuk drove a 67 percent on-ice share last season, among the best marks in hockey, and Ottawa was a top-three possession team held back only by goaltending. Then the Senators traded him to Florida for picks. Corrected September 7.

Bedard drove a plus-14 on-off and Frank Nazar broke out as a plus-7 sophomore, but Chicago was still a 44 percent team with a barren supporting cast. The stars are here; the rebuild's middle innings are the slow part.

Evan Bouchard scored 95 points from the blue line and drove a plus-8 even-strength swing without shelter. The turnovers are real but outweighed. The question isn't whether he's good; it's whether Edmonton builds the blue line that lets his gifts win.

The Rantanen trade was called a Colorado loss. A year later, Martin Necas scored 100 points and drove a 64 percent share, giving the Avalanche the second star they long lacked. The deal won, and the only question left is the spring.

Amid Winnipeg's collapse, Kyle Connor scored 92 goals-and-points with a plus-10 on-off, the star whose game held up best. Why the data says he, not Scheifele, is the Jet to build the bounce-back around.

Columbus has had a rising young core for years and no goalie to support it. Jet Greaves changed that with a plus-16.5 season, the exact piece the Blue Jackets were missing. The whole rebuild now rides on whether it was real.

Elias Pettersson's points cratered to 51 and the narrative called it a decline, but he still drove a plus-13 on-off on a 45 percent team. Vancouver allowed a league-worst 314 goals. The scary part isn't Pettersson; it's everything around him.

Philadelphia was a 51 percent possession team with a young core, a reborn Trevor Zegras, and the biggest cap war chest in hockey. Matvei Michkov is the jewel, but the Flyers are already good, and closer than anyone thinks.

Matthews scored 53 in 60 injury-shortened games but still drove play. Toronto's collapse was a 46 percent team allowing 295 goals behind a blue line where four of six defenders sank. The stars were never the problem.

The skeptics have Kaprizov backwards. He drove a plus-18 on-off, not just 89 points, and the Quinn Hughes trade gives Minnesota two of the league's biggest on-ice engines. The record contract is justified and the window is now.

The Kings lost Kopitar to retirement and answered with a winger in Panarin, leaving the first-line centre hole wide open. Los Angeles was a 51 percent team that scored 29 goals below expected. The season rests on whether Quinton Byfield finally leaps.

DeBrincat, Raymond, Larkin, Kane and a 60-point Seider give Detroit a real top five. It missed anyway, because the bottom six craters and the crease split in half behind Cam Talbot's minus-13. The Yzerplan built the hard part; the easy part keeps ending the season.

Colorado controlled 57 percent of the expected goals and allowed the fewest goals in hockey. On a team this deep, even the best defenceman alive posts an on-off that undersells him. The only thing left to prove is the only thing that counts.

Kucherov scored 130 points and the Lightning were a different, worse team the moment he sat. The best offensive player in hockey is carrying a roster that gets thinner every summer.

Eichel, Marner, Stone, Hertl. Vegas had the deepest forward group in hockey and a 54 percent team to show for it, even after trading Pavel Dorofeyev. The problem is a crease that cost it 14 goals.

The Robertson standoff owns the Dallas headlines, but the more important story is that the Rantanen blockbuster already worked. He is a two-way engine, and that is the leverage the Stars can afford to use.

Ovechkin scored 32 in the twilight, but Washington was a 51 percent team carried by one of the best goaltending seasons in hockey. The Capitals go as far as Logan Thompson takes them.

Hutson put up 78 points and a plus-17 on-off as a sophomore, and Montreal's blue line collapses without him. The most exciting thing about the Canadiens is also their biggest structural risk.

Forsberg scored 40 and Stamkos 42, so the stars were not the problem. Juuse Saros finished nine goals below average while his backup was eight above. Nashville's miss was a goaltending story.

Tkachuk played 31 games, Marchand 52, Barkov barely at all. Florida did not decline; it got hurt, and Bobrovsky cratered at the worst time. The whole season was a health report.

Clayton Keller scored 88 points and drove a plus-15 on-off, and he is not alone: Guenther, Schmaltz and Cooley give Utah a young, plus-possession core the league still isn't watching.

Shesterkin saved 21 goals above expected and Adam Fox drove a 60 percent share, and the Rangers finished near the East basement anyway. When the goalie and the No. 1 defenceman are that good, the forwards are the problem.

The NHL added two games per team and cut 40 back-to-backs. It paid for the extra dates by deleting the 20-day Olympic break, and it handed Buffalo 26 back-to-backs while Dallas got 12. Every game of the 2026-27 schedule, counted.

Winnipeg fell twenty-five places in a single season, the largest collapse of the salary cap era. Connor Hellebuyck ranked twenty-sixth of fifty-two goalies in goals saved above expected, and both ends of the ice went at once. The Jets should not trade him.

The Bruins look like a comfortable playoff team on paper. Underneath, they were out-chanced most nights and saved by one of the best goalie seasons in hockey. Going into the new year, that is not a plan.

Crosby keeps producing like a top-line centre deep into his career. The Penguins keep hovering, neither contending nor rebuilding. The numbers say that middle ground is the one outcome that wastes what is left of him.

The consensus is that McKenna wins the Calder and drags Toronto back to the playoffs. The first part is fair. The second misreads why the Leafs collapsed, because their stars were never the problem.

McDavid could have forced the issue and did not. He took a short, team-friendly extension and handed Edmonton a deadline. The numbers say his brilliance was never the problem, and that the clock on everything around him is now very short.

Nathan MacKinnon scored 127 points, buried 53 goals, and Colorado controlled 65 percent of the expected goals with him on the ice. The gap between him and the field last season was not close.

Anaheim made the playoffs and knocked off Edmonton, and it did so while scoring 21 fewer goals than its chances deserved. A young core that already drives play plus normal finishing luck equals a problem.

Binnington's reputation says franchise starter. The numbers say he cost the Blues more goals than any goalie in hockey last season, while the backup they barely play was one of the best.

Minnesota was already a 104-point team with one of the league's best play-drivers in Kirill Kaprizov. Adding Quinn Hughes, whose old team fell apart the moment he left the ice, turns good into dangerous.

The young centre is the face of a rising Blue Jackets team, and the raw tools are obvious. But the five-on-five data says Fantilli is still a work in progress, and that is exactly why Columbus should be patient.

Most champions coast on reputation the following summer. Carolina added to the best possession team in hockey. Entering 2026-27, the numbers say the Hurricanes are not just defending, they are favoured.