NHL-ийн багуудын 2026-27 оны улирлын өмнөх хүчин чадал болон ирээдүйн төлөв байдал

Zach Werenski’s Norris Trophy win solidified him as one of the best defensemen in the world. That alone creates some upside, but he needs some serious help in order for the Blue Jackets to be relevant this season. Adam Fantilli needs to take a leap into Tier 3, Jet Greaves needs to prove he’s the real deal and someone else outside the core group needs to show they’re worthy of being a top 150 player. Maybe that’s enough to convince Kirill Marchenko to stick around; if not, the future starts looking a lot murkier thanks to a present that’s still far from good enough.

Werenski is Werenski, but the Blue Jackets really have something in Greaves and Denton Mateychuk, who the league thinks hockey fans are sleeping on a little. Oscar Hemming and Pyotr Andreyanov are both a ways away but represent something intriguing as well. It’s Fantilli everybody is waiting to see take the next step from 60-point guy to bona fide point-per-game type. He’s got the tools, it’s now about the consistency and the IQ components coming together with them across 84 games. A little ironically, Jackson Smith also has the tools and will need the consistency and IQ pieces to come together for him as well.

Cayden Lindstrom falling out of Prospect Tiers altogether and Kent Johnson’s struggles could prove devasting and represent significant sunk cost if they can’t turn it around. Those around the league have doubts about both and serious ones about Lindstrom. If he busts in particular, the Blue Jackets will likely need Fantilli to become a franchise guy, Werenski and Marchenko to hold and stay, one of Greaves or Andreyanov to become a Vezina type, and all of Smith, Hemming and Mateychuk to really hit in order to have enough to open any kind of window.

Here’s the Rangers in a nutshell: they have two franchise players that demand building a contender around … and little else of note. Four Tier 5 forwards creating the core around two players as strong as Igor Shesterkin and Adam Fox feels very unserious. The Rangers made some strong moves this summer in service of being a win-now team and the presence of Shesterkin and Fox as franchise-worthy guys points to why they mortgaged the future to do so. But the ceiling is still low because the immediate help isn’t quite up to par.

Between Fox, Alexis Lafrenière, J.T. Miller, Pavel Dorofeyev, Gabe Perreault and Liam Greentree, the Rangers have a number of players the league is divided on — and who are probably of more value internally than externally. The result is a middling group. There’s an outcome for Perreault where he becomes one of the league’s top offensive wingers and that would change the dynamic, but if he doesn’t reach that ceiling because of either the limitations some think he has or because the Rangers can’t get him there, they may not have a premium guy coming up front. In Fox and Alberts Šmits, they’ll have that on the back end. In Shesterkin they obviously have it in net. But there are questions up front about a lot of their guys — some big, some small.

It’s easy to see why the Rangers were so aggressive this summer given their franchise duo, neither of whom are exactly young. But it’s also easy to see the risk; there’s a real chance those future firsts will come back to haunt a team that still isn’t close to contention after their remodelling.

So how exactly do the Rangers get back? It’s going to require a massive step forward for Lafrenière, who is still only 24 and has shown in the past he’s capable of a lot more. If he stays at Tier 5 as we’re projecting, the Rangers are cooked. On top of that, they’ll also need Šmits to be the real deal and Perreault to leap past his upside.

If they can marry that with Shesterkin and Fox aging well in their 30s, plus add a significant piece via UFA over the next few years, the Rangers have a shot of making it work. But doing that while Miller and Zibanejad, both 33, remain relevant will be a difficult needle to thread. There’s a path forward, but the Rangers don’t have much margin for error; they need everything to go right.

The Capitals appear to be successfully fighting the current after yet another strong offseason retooling. It was just two years ago that the window felt closed and we’ve been rightfully scolded ever since as Washington has steadily moved opposite the current thanks to a string of successful moves. Logan Thompson, Jakob Chychrun, Jordan Kyrou, Alex Tuch and Pierre-Luc Dubois have all been acquired in that time, creating a deep core that places the team firmly in dark-horse territory. There is a gap between Washington and the other contenders, though, that leaves questions regarding the team’s ultimate ceiling. Tom Wilson, despite his tremendous growth, is a tough sell as a contender’s best skater, leaving the team’s star power wanting.

The Caps have done well to find value where others didn’t in Chychrun, PLD and Dylan Strome. They’ll hope to do the same with Kyrou. And they’ve drafted well (see: Protas brothers, Cole Hutson, Ryan Leonard, etc.). I like wing prospects Andrew Cristall and Lynden Lakovic as well, though there probably won’t be room for both on a future Caps team given their depth on the wing; Lakovic would be the better trade chip from a league perspective. They’re going to have a lot of very good forwards and should have three good forward lines long after Ovechkin is gone. The Protas brothers are unique and every winning team has a Leonard who can score and energize. If Cole Hutson can be something close to Lane? Game changer. If he’s more Shayne Gostisbehere? Different story. Their future rating is dragged down by the lack of a definite franchise guy. They’ll need Hutson to hit and one or two of the forwards to separate from a strong pack.

Despite the low ratings here, it is imperative to mention the Capitals will start the year as a contender. Our internal model gives them a strong Stanley Cup chance, as does the betting market. The total value is there thanks to one of the league’s deepest teams and there’s some proof of concept of a superstar-less team winning thanks to last year’s Hurricanes. Washington is just an extreme example of that.

In that sense, maybe it’ll work and this exercise is moot. But there’s still a difference between where the Capitals land here and where the Hurricanes do. The Hurricanes have at least one franchise player, the Capitals don’t. The Hurricanes have seven players in Tier 4 or higher, the Capitals have three. To increase the team’s ceiling, Washington needs a legit high-end piece to raise it.

Can that come from within? It’s possible. Leonard, Hutson and Ilya Protas all project to be Tier 4 guys who can extend this window as the others age out, but the Capitals will need one of them to pop higher than that. Otherwise, it’ll have to come from outside. Washington is in a good spot in terms of cap space and assets to make it happen within the next five years and have proven that most things they touch turn to gold. We wouldn’t bet against them, but for now there’s still work to do at the top of the roster.

After a stunning lottery draft win, there is no team whose future is more interesting than Toronto’s. The Leafs are at the center of no man’s land, but they have a lot more mobility thanks to their current franchise star and the future potential franchise star they just drafted. For this season, it’s those two who will dictate what direction comes next.

If Auston Matthews can return to Tier 1 form, that’s a big step. If Gavin McKenna can have a Tiers-worthy debut like Macklin Celebrini or Connor Bedard before him (Tier 3), that’s another big step. Factor in some bounce-backs under a new coach and the possibility that Darren Raddysh is as legit as last season looked, and there’s potential to re-open the window. The age of nearly everyone involved, however, also raises the possibility of the window slamming shut if Matthews falls further, John Tavares ages out and Raddysh turns into a pumpkin.

Toronto’s present rating stands at a perfectly mid 5.0, but the range of possible outcomes feels wider than any other team in this range.

The Leafs’ 2026 draft class, headlined by McKenna, changes everything for an organization whose future looked bleak after Matthews, William Nylander and Tavares even with the emergence of Matthew Knies. McKenna gives them options and while the league placed him as a low-end franchise guy to start in Prospect Tiers, if he can become a 2A player instead of a 2C it opens up all kinds of possibilities for a team that had its back up against the wall before lottery night.

The Leafs have gone from all-in contender without much of a vision to a middling team that at least has a clear path, albeit with an upcoming fork in the road that hinges on Matthews’ future.

With Matthews’ contract up in two years and the team without their first-rounder in each of those seasons, the team has an obvious mandate to go for it during that time. What happens during that stretch will dictate Toronto’s fate: Do the Leafs re-sign Matthews and continue building or trade him to reset around McKenna?

Matthews’ own play can dictate part of that; if he gets back to Tier 1 status, Toronto’s chance of being a playoff team again goes up. And if he stays and maintains that level for the next five years, the growth of McKenna alongside him could breathe new life into a build that wasn’t working. Add some more pieces — specifically the elusive true No. 1 defenseman — and there’s a path forward after a brief blip. Lucking into McKenna is a big part of that. If Matthews’ play continues to decline or he decides to leave, however, the luck of adding McKenna creates an easy pivot point to reset.

The current situation is very murky, but there is a path back to contention. Whether it’s the short way (Matthews returns to form and stays) or the long way (a full rebuild around McKenna), Toronto’s future doesn’t look nearly as bleak as it did half a year ago.

Boston’s three representatives are exactly who you’d expect and that trio is the reason the Bruins were a surprise playoff team last season. It’s hard to be bad with that starting point. It’s the next layer that limits the team’s ability to contend and keeps Boston stuck in no man’s land. David Pastrňák, Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman need some serious help around them.

James Hagens and Dean Letourneau give the Bruins something they haven’t had for a long time: actual prospects. Fraser Minten gives them a young support piece as well. But almost every team in the league has those guys and the Bruins have simply gone from being one of the few without them to one of the many with them. A Will Zellers or a Cooper Simpson could conceivably play their way into a Tier 5 projection with another good season, but much of the Bruins’ future rests on Hagens’ shoulders. He needs to become for them what Logan Cooley is becoming for the Mammoth.

The Bruins made the right choice when they committed to moving guys out so they could begin to prioritize the future a little more than they had for a long time. But in a tough Atlantic Division, that may not be far enough. They have to be careful not to tell themselves they’ve done enough because they’ve got a few good young pieces to work with now. It’s hard to move on from a core as strong as Pastrňák, McAvoy and Swayman, but that discussion may not be over — and shouldn’t be, in our view.

The Islanders are in a very interesting spot thanks to the immediate impact of Matthew Schaefer. He gives the team two franchise-caliber players, a feat only boasted by nine other teams — eight of which are legit contenders (and the Rangers are the other). Mat Barzal and Bo Horvat are a decent enough forward duo on top of that. That’s enough for an average core. The problem is there isn’t enough outside of that. The team’s stars are good enough to be playoff-worthy and can carry the Islanders to heights they probably have no business reaching. The question is whether that’s the direction they should go after being given the gift of Schaefer.

Schaefer puts you on a different path but every great player needs a supporting cast and the Islanders will need Calum Ritchie, Victor Eklund, Kashawn Aitcheson, Malte Gustafsson, Cole Eiserman and co. to either meet or exceed expectations virtually across the board. Those first four are safe bets. Eiserman is the boom-or-bust one-shot scorer who could give them something different, but has longer odds of doing so. Him proving some people wrong would go a long way for the Islanders.

Schaefer changed everything for the Islanders. There are only six future Tier 1 players and Schaefer is one of them; that’s a massive edge for future contention. The problem is the Islanders currently have three very strong players around age 30 who are holding them back from truly bottoming out while also likely not having star-level upside in five years’ time. In a sense, the Islanders are a little stuck between an obvious future and a current core that isn’t bad enough to give up on.

The Islanders have a swath of low-tier prospects who can make noise and it’s possible they can compliment the current core to bridge timelines. If one of them can surpass their current ceiling, all the better. It’s just a little dicey to bet on and may be a misstep given the gift they have in Schaefer.

The Islanders’ top priority towards contention needs to be building a franchise-level nucleus around their future MVP-caliber player. Everything might work out that way if they bottom out this year in a tough East and come back stronger a year later while Sorokin, Barzal and Horvat remain strong. But it’s possible the timing might be off, the Islanders are never bad enough to add a franchise player to fit alongside Schaefer, and they stay in league purgatory throughout his prime as Ilya Sorokin, Barzal and Horvat age out.

Unless the Islanders can land a young franchise piece via other means, the best path forward might be downward. The Islanders don’t have to go scorched earth, but they could use some more lottery picks.

It’s been an incredible fall from grace for the Devils, who had six players on last year’s list. This year they have three, two of whom — Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt — dropped a sub-tier. Only four teams have less representation than the Devils after another lackluster season and that puts major questions on the team’s upside for the upcoming season. Can Dougie Hamilton or Timo Meier return to tier form? Can Luke Hughes finally take a Tiers-worthy leap? Was last year’s breakthrough from newcomer Luke Evangelista for real? The answers to those questions will dictate how serious the Devils can be this season. Their big three are a nice start, but they desperately need that second layer behind them to heat up — and for a true No. 1 defenseman to emerge.

All of Luke Hughes, Anton Silaev and Mikhail Yegorov are talents but all have also had an up-and-down couple of years (Silaev in particular). Subtracting Šimon Nemec has an impact too, even with his warts and the practical challenges his place within the organization represented. And while you won’t find a scout who doesn’t like Alexander Command, the league doesn’t view him as a high-end skill guy and he’ll fit in as an excellent support piece. The result is a murkier future score than over the last couple of years.

There’s a third Hughes who could change everything, but pretty quickly the Devils have begun to feel like they’re a ways away in an Eastern Conference that looks more and more like a bear. If key players and prospects can return to form, they should be able to move out of no man’s land, but Sunny Mehta will have to be creative and execute if they want to open the window back up.

Ottawa’s strength is in its depth; any chance of contention will rely on a similar approach to Carolina’s in being deeper than its opponents. But that job gets harder if the group’s stars fall below average. Losing Brady Tkachuk is a big part of that, but even with him in the lineup the team’s star power was already in question. Jake Sanderson took the leap and that’s great. Now they need a big season from Tim Stützle to do the same, plus some players outside the top 150 to make noise. Carolina has eight representatives on the list, three more than Ottawa; can Dylan Cozens, William Eklund, Artem Zub or Jordan Spence prove worthy this season?

The Sens’ three best players are still young and Shane Pinto’s emergence as a Selke-caliber player makes a difference, but their pool is mediocre. Carter Yakemchuk has some Evan Bouchard in him but the league worries about his feet and brain at the NHL level, so some proof of concept will go a long way there after he showed positive signs in his brief time in the league last year. After Yakemchuk, guys like Logan Hensler and 2026 first-rounders Jonas Lagerberg Hoen and Jaxon Cover come with intrigue but a lot of questions marks. The latter two are capable of playing their way into Prospect Tiers next year with a big post-draft season.

The biggest problem for Ottawa is that help is not on the way. Yakemchuk and Hensler are the lone prospects ready to add to the core, but they land in Tier 4 and 5. If those two only replace Thomas Chabot and Drake Batherson in the next five years, the Senators are sort of stuck where they currently are.

The biggest thing that can change everything is Stützle taking another step forward. Right now he sits on the cusp of the 10 best centers in the world; he needs to enter that realm for Ottawa to have a legit shot. That would create a lethal one-two punch with Sanderson for the next five years and perhaps make Ottawa a more desirable locale. Especially if it leads to some immediate playoff success on the back of the team’s depth.

Still, even that won’t solve all the team’s problems. The Tkachuk-sized hole still needs to be filled and the Senators need a high-end forward to pair with Stützle. That was already true with Tkachuk around, which points to the significant mountain Ottawa has to climb with regards to star-level talent.

The market making it difficult to find that externally is a challenge, and that’s where smart buy-low bets on young players with star-level upside (and no trade protection) is the way to go. Eklund certainly fits that bill and if the current era is to see success, the Senators are going to have to continue making those bets. It might not work, but with Sanderson and Stützle around in their prime, starting over isn’t an ideal option.

Are we underrating the Blues? It’s certainly possible with the impact Robert Thomas, Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg have all created over the last few seasons. But even if that trio gets bumped up a notch, it’s still not enough to be overly thrilled with St. Louis’ current level of star power. There’s no true franchise guy and not enough high-end support around the top guys they do have — especially after dealing Jordan Kyrou and with Colton Parayko close to falling off the list. As long as St. Louis’ core is a work in progress, the immediate upside will be seriously lacking; the team is dangerously close to the rebuild zone.

Holloway and Broberg have already proven to be huge wins. Justin Carbonneau and Jimmy Snuggerud can score. Dalibor Dvorský and Tynan Lawrence represent two-third of the Blues’ top-nine centers of the future. The Blues have a number of good young D. But their current pool feels a lot like their previous core: a collection of good players without a truly great one.

The Blues have amassed quantity that should give Alex Steen’s team a good floor as he takes over. They need a ceiling-changer, though, and you don’t want to end up as a middle-of-the-pack team with three second lines and three second pairings. Those teams risk winning enough games to miss the playoffs and being just good enough to never find the one thing they need most in the draft or free agency: a superstar.