Ranking the 10 NHL Teams Under the Most Pressure Next Season
In a league strapped by a relatively flat cap and tons of parity, almost every NHL team is facing some sort of pressure heading into the 2023-24 season.
The Chicago Blackhawks need to teeter the line between rebuilding and giving Connor Bedard the best possible new home they can. All eyes are on young GM Kyle Davidson to see how he makes the most of having a projected generational talent in Connor Bedard.
The Red Wings are in year five of the Yzerplan and just made a potentially franchise-altering move in trading for Alex DeBrincat. Will he be good enough to help transition them from rebuild to in the playoff conversation?
Then you've got the Arizona Coyotes, who are just trying to keep existing.
There are tons to worry about all around and if you're anything like me, the worrying has already started months in advance. When it comes to pressure to win, though, 10 teams stand out.
10. New York Rangers
1 of 10
Look, the Rangers' Cup window is far from gone, but they had a solid opportunity as any last season with their core. They went big and picked up monster trade-deadline rentals in Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane. Tarasenko and Kane are gone, but New York did pretty well in free agency acquiring Blake Wheeler, Jonathan Quick, and Nick Bonino, among others, all signed to contracts under $825,000 AAV.
That's pretty dope considering GM Chris Drury had to re-sign restricted free agents Alexis Lafrenière and K'Andre Miller. But there's no ignoring that including the free agent signings, most key players on this team other than Lafrenière, Miller, Igor Shesterkin, and Adam Fox, aren't young. Drury was able to knock one of the things off his list yesterday, signing Miller to a reported two-year deal worth $7.74 million overall.
Consider the amount of Rangers players hovering around 30 years old, combined with the competition in the Eastern Conference, especially the youthful vibes of the team across the Hudson that beat them in the first round last season. Despite jumping out to a 2-0 series lead, the Devils skated circles around the Blueshirts late in the series.
The rebuild was ahead of schedule and the Rangers have some time, but the caliber of competition and age of the roster presents a sense of urgency as the team wades around the middle of its window.
9. Columbus Blue Jackets
2 of 10
The concept of pressure can mean totally different things to teams in different stages. The Blue Jackets obviously don't have much pressure to win a Stanley Cup next season, and yet I think about the vibes in Columbus and I tense up.
The trouble is, the Blue Jackets are coming off one of the worst seasons in the league, but they weren't supposed to be bad. You could (and should) argue that injuries to key players added up and you can't blame them for missing the playoffs. But something else quite isn't adding up, which could be as simple as a lack of center depth.
So what do you do? You hire controversial (to put it nicely) coach Mike Babcock and trade for defenseman Ivan Provorov, who has also been at the center of controversy.
Both of these people and in turn GM Jarmo Kekäläinen, are facing considerable pressure to prove to the Blue Jackets and Johnny Gaudreau that they will help the team get back to the playoffs without creating any distractions.
8. Florida Panthers
3 of 10
Shoutout to GM Bill Zito, because the Panthers are actually in a pretty chill spot with superstar of the year Matthew Tkachuk and most of the core already locked down. Florida was barely facing any pressure at all as it squeezed into a No. 8 playoff seed after All-Star Break, and the happy-go-lucky fun is partially how the team got to the Stanley Cup Final.
But now that the Panthers know how hard it is just to get to the Cup, how rare it all works out so you get to play for it is, and how close you can come to winning it all. After losing in the Stanley Cup Final, they won't want to waste any more close opportunities.
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7. Dallas Stars
4 of 10
Dallas has a fun, young, core led by budding star Jason Robertson and potentially elite goaltender-to-be Jake Oettinger. This core, including Miro Heiskanen and Roope Hintz, will have several cracks at it and there's no dire urgency to win a Cup next season.
But there's a definite urgency to ensure the aforementioned players take the next step and transition into bigger postseason roles as players like Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn get older.
Next season will be huge in particular for Oettinger, who solidified himself a top goalie in the league last regular season with a .919 save percentage and 2.37 goals against average in a career-high 62 games. But his consistency dipped in the playoffs, amounting to a .895 save percentage and 3.06 goals against average in 19 games.
He didn't exactly have to be ready to out-goalie the rest of the playoff teams in this situation at 24 years old. But it's imperative he and the rest of the core build on the lessons learned and keep it pushing.
6. Boston Bruins
5 of 10
It's really hard to contextualize the Bruins right now. Will Patrice Bergeron and/or David Krejčí return next season? If so, the pressure might shoot up from No. 6 to a higher position.
But what do you do with a team that went from low expectations at the start of 2022-23, to the highest expectations after the best regular season in NHL history, to a Game 7 loss to the No. 8 seed?
I guess you take away the biggest sample size and understand that the team is still. really good. Most of the core will be back (with big asterisks on Bergeron and Krejčí, but there are still some huge blows to depth with Taylor Hall, Tyler Bertuzzi, Garnet Hathaway, Nick Foligno and Dmitry Orlov gone already.
You also consider that if the curse of the Presidents' Trophy exists, so does the luck of teams like the Panthers that went on to succeed after their winningest regular seasons.
The Bruins are going to be a different team next season, but a lot of the essence that made them the best regular season team in the league will be returning. There's definitely some pressure to do the last dance thing for real this time if Bergeron comes back, or to set a precedent for the future if the Captain hangs 'em up.
5. Minnesota Wild
6 of 10
I understand why the Maple Leafs get the choke-job spotlight, I really do. They're in the hockey hub of the world and have some of the best players in the NHL signed to monster contracts.
But shouldn't there be a little more commotion for the recent history of the State of Hockey? Minnesota was a second-round exit in 2013-14 and 2014-15, then has been a first-round exit since 2015-16, save for failing to qualify in 2018-19 and losing to the Canucks of all teams in the 2019-20 Qualifying Round.
There isn't as much pressure on the Wild because, again, there's less star power, and hey, they've favorably switched up their front office and coaching. But with Kirill Kaprizov and other youngsters emerging -- and with the Leafs getting out of the first round -- it's time to direct our middling ire to the Wild, who are appropriately placed at No. 5 out of 10.
4. Buffalo Sabres
7 of 10
For the love of God, you guys, please just do the thing this time. You've put us all through more than enough. Get to the playoffs and we shall never speak of this again.
3. Carolina Hurricanes
8 of 10
No. 3 might seem a tad high on the pressure scale for a team that has gone from league-longest playoff drought to five consecutive playoff appearances, including two trips to the Eastern Conference Final. But what a shame it would be if this careful assembled, innovative team and core were only remembered for making it to the Conference Finals to get swept twice?
Freddie Andersen and Antti Raanta are both re-signed and potential goalie of the future Pyotr Kochetkov is waiting in the wings. It looks like a Sebastian Aho extension will get done sooner rather than later, and this season you've still got Seth Jarvis, Jaccob Slavin, Brent Burns, plus the return of Andrei Svechnikov. Not to mention, the team signed the best free-agent defenseman Dmitry Orlov to a two-year contract. It feels like the two years with Orlov and everything else relatively intact are the Hurricanes' best chance to go from perennial playoff makers to actual Cup contenders.
2. Edmonton Oilers
9 of 10
The Oilers have been admittedly high on the pressure power rankings ever since they got stuck with the burden that is the best player in the world AKA Connor McDavid.
Is it their fault that they had the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft? No. Is it their fault they've failed to build the correct defense and goaltending around him and fellow perennial 100-point club member Leon Draisaitl? Yes.
But wait! After the years of missing playoffs and first-round exits, I must admit Oilers management has started to get it right the past two-or-so seasons. GM Ken Holland had one of the best trade deadlines period last season, finally appropriately addressing defensive needs and acquiring Mattias Ekholm.
In turn, the Oilers were basically the only team to give the Stanley Cup Champion Golden Knights a serious fight. The combination of another year without McDavid in the Cup Final, the team actually improving, and general Canadian angst is why the Oilers have the second-most pressure in the league to win a Cup next season.
1. Toronto Maple Leafs
10 of 10
Well, well, well. Two Canadian teams have the most pressure on them to win the 2024 Stanley Cup. And if you thought the pressure would be off the Toronto Maple Leafs once they finally got past the first round, you thought wrong.
The euphoria and "We want Florida" chants from Leafs nation as the Buds took down the Lightning were cut short by the real 2023 Cinderella story -- the Panthers -- in five games come round two.
Former GM Kyle Dubas had his most aggressive, and perhaps most effective had Ryan O'Reilly not broken his finger, trade deadline at the Leafs' helm. Whether it was the pressure, the expectations, the locker room clean-out day press conference, or a combination of all, it wasn't good enough and he and the Leafs parted ways. They have to prove that was the right decision.
New GM Brad Treveling came in and immediately made a push for grit, signing Tyler Bertuzzi, Ryan Reaves, and Max Domi in free agency. The added snarl eliminates an excuse many critics have long cited as a reason for Leafs playoff choke jobs. Then there's looming contract negotiations for star Auston Matthews among other key players, and another year gone for the core four.
Somehow, now that the first-round monkey is off Toronto's back, there's even more pressure for the Maple Leafs to win the whole thing.
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