Pretender or Contender: Which Surprise NHL Teams Are For Real?
The first 20 percent of the season, give or take a game or two, is complete.
Which means the NHL puzzle for 2023-24 is beginning to take shape.
But there are a few errant pieces in either direction.
While the "Cup or bust" Edmonton Oilers became the first team to fire a coach when Jay Woodcroft was shown the door Sunday, there are a handful of teams that have done some surprisingly positive things through the schedule's initial month.
The B/R hockey team took a walk on the sunny side of the street for a look at those overachieving teams and to apply the Pretender/Contender litmus test and determine which of the surprises, if any, is likely to maintain the high-end vibes over the long haul—whether that means a possible Stanley Cup run or a potential playoff berth.
The squads are listed alphabetically by city/state name, and the aforementioned contender/pretender determination is included at the bottom of each summary.
Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the comments.
Anaheim Ducks
1 of 5
There's been a long run of irrelevance at Disney West.
The Anaheim Ducks were among the NHL's most consistent teams in the early stages of the 2000s—winning a Stanley Cup in 2007 and making the playoffs in 11 of 13 seasons between the springs of 2006 and 2018.
But it's been something less than the happiest place on earth in recent years, with five straight playoff misses, no better than a sixth-place divisional finish in that stretch, and a revolving door in the coach's office that had borne the names of Randy Carlyle, Bob Murray and Dallas Eakins before Greg Cronin was brought in to take over on June 5.
By comparison, though, it's been a blissful start to 2023-24.
The Ducks were 7-6-0 through 13 games and just a point out of what would be the second and final wild-card berth in the West, powered largely by a six-game win streak that ran from October 24 through November 5 and included defeats of both the Presidents' Trophy and Stanley Cup winners from last season.
Winger Frank Vatrano's nine goals in 13 games have him on pace to smash a career-best of 24 goals from 2018-19, and veteran goalie John Gibson has woken up the echoes of a Vezina-contending past with a .921 save percentage and 2.41 goals-against average through his first seven starts.
Verdict: Pretender
As heady as times have been, cracks are beginning to show. Vatrano hasn't scored in November, the Ducks have dropped two straight since the end of the six-game win streak, and young goalie Lukas Dostal was dinged for five goals on 35 shots in a Friday home loss to Philadelphia. It'd be more of a surprise if they're still close to the playoffs in a month than if they're not.
Arizona Coyotes
2 of 5
When it comes to irrelevance, the Arizona Coyotes are a rare breed.
They have missed the playoffs for three straight seasons and 10 of the past 11, and they haven't won an "official" postseason series since 2012.
So any bit of optimism tends to swell to gargantuan proportions.
The Coyotes are 7-6-1 through their first 14 games this season and found themselves in the eighth and final position in an admittedly premature playoff race through Saturday night.
Unlike Anaheim, though, there's reason to believe it may last awhile.
Arizona's plus-seven goal differential is fourth among the West's would-be contenders thus far, and they've been more consistent than the Ducks, going 4-2-0 at home, picking up two wins in shootouts, and getting balanced scoring with seven players at three or more goals.
The goalie tandem of Connor Ingram and Karel Vejmelka has been unspectacularly solid and seems reliable enough going forward, which should smooth out any peaks and valleys.
Verdict: Contender
Though no one ought to be scouting out spots for a Stanley Cup parade through metro Phoenix, the Coyotes do seem better constructed for a longer run of contention for one of the conference's second-tier playoff berths. Clayton Keller (15 points in 14 games) is one of the best players no one knows, and the guess here is that he'll thrive in important moments.
Boston Bruins
3 of 5
No, it's not a misprint. This is an entry for the Boston Bruins.
It's the same franchise that set records and won the Presidents' Trophy, but also the same one that flamed out in the playoffs and saw a number of high-profile pieces—veteran forwards Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci—head to the exits in the long offseason.
So it wasn't hard to find folks who said the Bruins would fall off, precipitously.
Which makes them, thanks to a league-best .857 win percentage (11-1-2) through 14 games, among the league's biggest and most pleasant surprises.
The goaltending that carried them to Jennings and Vezina trophies last season has maintained its stingy form with a league-best 2.00 goals-against average, they're one of three teams without a regulation loss at home (6-0-1), and offseason free-agent pickup James van Riemsdyk has fit in well and produced 11 points in his first 14 games.
That's a pace that'd get him to a career-best 64 points, at the unlikely age of 34.
Verdict: Contender
The Bruins are doing what the Bruins have done, which is contend to the point of reaching the playoffs in each of the past seven seasons and 14 of the past 16 and remain in the Cup mix. They're well-coached, they're disciplined, and they have a culture of winning. In reality, the biggest surprise of the season is just how badly we all seemed to miss on preseason forecasts.
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Detroit Red Wings
4 of 5
If you're a Detroit Red Wings fan, this might feel familiar.
The team from the Motor City was on this very list around this time last season, on the power of an 8-5-4 start that had them fourth in the Atlantic Division and 12th overall.
Free agent Dominik Kubalik was off to a hot start, team captain Dylan Larkin was at a similar point-per-game scoring clip, and goalie Ville Husso was reveling in the No. 1 role and had put up a 2.69 goals-against average through his first 11 starts.
The names are different this season, but the concept is the same.
Michigan native Alex DeBrincat arrived in an offseason trade and has already scored 10 goals. Larkin's 17 points have him among the league's top-15 scoring leaders. And, though Husso is 6-3-1 in 10 starts, it's been veteran pick-up James Reimer who's been a revelation with a 1.80 goals-against average and .933 save percentage when he's been called upon.
Last season's beginning devolved into a below-.500 end when the scoring stopped and the team wound up 24th overall in goals per game. The goalies couldn't make up the difference and Detroit wound up 12 points behind the final playoff qualifier in the East.
Verdict: Contender
Given that it's a similar start to last season, it'd be easy to dismiss Detroit's repeat and relegate them to the outside looking in. But it feels more substantial, even if just by a little bit, this time around. Larkin seems to have taken a step to elite status and DeBrincat is back to scoring clip he had in Chicago. If health remains intact, they'll be closer to getting a playoff spot.
Vancouver Canucks
5 of 5
There are surprises. And then there are surprises.
The Vancouver Canucks fit into the latter category this season.
But maybe they shouldn't.
An uneven start doomed coach Bruce Boudreau last season and saw him dumped in favor of hard-nosed ex-player Rick Tocchet, whose no-nonsense approached yielded a 20-12-4 finish across the last 36 games that was seventh-best in the West over that time period.
So the fact that Tocchet has the Canucks off to a 10-3-1 start through 14 games this season is really just more of the same. Vancouver has the fourth-best record in the West since Tocchet's arrival, their 180 goals in that stretch are second only to Edmonton, and their 145 goals allowed are ninth-lowest in the league.
Swedish center Elias Pettersson led the NHL in scoring with 25 points through Saturday, while defenseman Quinn Hughes' 22 points are tops among blue liners. Goalie Thatcher Demko makes it a power trio as one of only five goalies who've played at least four games and maintained a goals-against average below 2.00 (1.96).
Verdict: Contender
Unlike teams on heaters and playing above their heads, the recent success seems a lot more like the level on which Vancouver belong. The Canucks are deep and skilled. They're getting quality goaltending. And they're buying in to a coaching approach that's provided high-end results (.650 points percentage) for 50 games. They're the real deal.
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