Generally, in the course of the offseason, I discover myself going weeks with out fascinated about a selected NHL staff. Like a ‘Oh yeah, these guys exist too,’ type of expertise.
All of these groups stay within the Metropolitan Division.
However nonetheless, there are a variety of massive markets on this division: Washington DC performs its video games right here, three groups within the New York/New Jersey space play right here, and the Philly staff is right here as properly. Past that, it additionally options two of the sport’s elder statesmen in Sidney Crosby on the Penguins and Alexander Ovechkin on the Capitals.
However, BetMGM has the Metropolitan because the division with the longest odds (+350) to win the Stanley Cup.
Now that I’ve acquired all of my whining out of the way in which, right here’s a preview of how these groups are wanting headed into the 2025-26 season with odds as of September 29.
Carolina Hurricanes
- Win Stanley Cup Odds: +950
- Win Convention Odds: +425
- Win Division Odds: +125
- Make Playoff Odds: -1200
The one factor conserving the chances on the Metropolitan Division winner from being +1000 is the Hurricanes.
Carolina has the fifth-best odds to win the Stanley Cup for the time being, trailing the Oilers and forward of the Stars. In addition they have the second-best odds to win the Japanese Convention, behind the Panthers.
It’s arduous to name this a Cup-or-bust season for the Hurricanes, but it surely’s one thing shut.
Carolina has did not make a real run on the Stanley Cup over the previous few years regardless of having one of many league’s most proficient rosters. They appear to be a staff that’s all the time on the cusp and all the time falling quick.
Since head coach Rob Brind’Amour was employed earlier than the 2018-19 season, the Hurricanes have made the Convention Finals thrice, however have solely gained one recreation throughout these three sequence.
Nonetheless, the explanation why it’s arduous to name it a cup-or-bust season for Carolina is how younger their core is. Seth Jarvis is just 23, Sebastian Aho is just 28, Nikolaj Ehlers is just 29 and Logan Stankoven is just 22. Most of those guys are both pre-prime or proper in the course of it.
In the event that they don’t get it accomplished this yr, there nonetheless must be a couple of extra years of rivalry for them. The 2026 playoff run, although, is perhaps nearly as good an opportunity for the Hurricanes to strike as they’ve had all through this run.
Their solely actual foe within the East is Florida, a staff coming off three-straight Stanley Cup runs. The wear and tear and tear is already displaying with Matthew Tkachuk’s harm and will proceed to manifest in additional accidents throughout the Panthers’ lineup.
If any staff within the convention or the league can take down Florida, it is perhaps Carolina.
New Jersey Devils
- Win Stanley Cup Odds: +1700
- Win Convention Odds: +800
- Win Division Odds: +310
- Make Playoff Odds: -325
New Jersey’s one other staff that’s in an ungainly gray space between ‘Yeah, I assume we may win the Cup,’ and ‘Okay, now we have to win the Cup this yr.’
Having a staff constructed round a 24-year-old celebrity, in Jack Hughes, who has but to enter his conventional prime years, makes deciding when to go all in just a little trickier.
The Devils one way or the other made the playoffs final yr, solely their second playoff berth within the earlier 5 years, regardless of accidents to Hughes that ought to have sunk the staff. New Jersey completed because the three-seed within the Metro with a 42-33-7 report.
Final yr was additionally the second straight yr that Hughes missed 20 video games in a row. Essentially the most video games that the younger middle has ever performed in his NHL profession was 78 within the 2022-23 season. Earlier than that, he performed 49, 56, and 61 video games within the earlier three seasons.
Conserving Hughes’ accidents at bay will probably be a big precedence for the Devils this yr, and it’ll probably be the primary key to the staff’s success.
They confirmed they will win within the common season with out Hughes’ involvement however attending to the playoffs and truly being a contender are two various things. Hughes will should be a dependable member of the staff for New Jersey to have actual success.
If the 2025-26 season is a bounce-back yr for Hughes, the place he performs as much as his stage in 2022-23 when he scored 99 factors for the Devils, they might have an opportunity to grab a Division win away from the Hurricanes.
Washington Capitals
- Win Stanley Cup Odds: +3000
- Win Convention Odds: +1500
- Win Division Odds: +500
- Make Playoff Odds: -250
Most figured that Ovechkin’s closing years within the league can be performed out with little intrigue in addition to the way forward for Corridor of Famer chasing data.
Final season proved that Washington can nonetheless be a contender with the 40-year-old. Oh, and he additionally already acquired the report.
Thanks to some savvy strikes from GM Chris Patrick and the Capitals entrance workplace, they’re as soon as once more an element within the hierarchy of the Japanese Convention.
Washington had a 51-22-9 report final season, incomes the primary seed within the Metropolitan Division. In addition they had been capable of escape the primary spherical for the primary time since successful the Stanley Cup in 2018.
The playoff run was short-lived, nonetheless, because the Capitals misplaced in 5 video games to Carolina within the second spherical.
Is that success repeatable for Washington, or did we simply see one closing good yr out of the Ovechkin-led franchise? The emergence of facilities Dylan Strome and Aliaksei Protas for the Capitals final season means that final yr wasn’t that fluky, and there’s extra to this staff than simply Ovechkin.
Strome had 29 objectives and 53 assists in 82 video games performed, and Protas had 30 objectives and 36 assists.
Exterior of these two, Washington nonetheless has 31-year-old ahead Tom Wilson hanging on — Wilson scored the second-most objectives on the Caps final season, behind Ovehckin — and there’s additionally 27-year-old defenseman Jakob Chychrun.
The largest X-factor for whether or not Washington can hold this contending window open is second-year ahead Ryan Leonard, who solely appeared in 9 video games on the finish of final season.
Leonard was already a highly-ranked prospect out of the US Nationwide Improvement program when he was drafted eighth general by the Capitals in 2023. His inventory rose even additional after two 30-goal seasons on a stacked Boston School roster.
If he can develop into nearly as good a participant as scouts and analysts suppose he can, that has the potential to vary the entire order of this Division and possibly the Convention for the following few years.
New York Rangers
- Win Stanley Cup Odds: +2800
- Win Convention Odds: +1300
- Win Division Odds: +550
- Make Playoff Odds: -190
New York’s most important transfer this offseason was shifting on from Peter Laviolette after two seasons and hiring former Penguins coach Mike Sullivan.
The hiring of Sullivan may sign that the Rangers are intent on contending this season and have absolute perception of their roster. Or may or not it’s a typical New York Metropolis glitz-and-glamour, smoke-and-mirrors Jedi thoughts trick, the place they rent a buzzy head coach to make individuals suppose they’ve a great staff when, in actuality, they don’t have anything?
Final season was such an ungodly trainwreck for the Rangers that I can perceive desirous to cowl it up with a Gucci band-aid.
Did you overlook that New York gained the Presidents’ Trophy in 2024? As a result of I positive did.
They adopted that season with a 37-36-7 report in 2024-25, regardless of rolling out a roster that was largely unchanged.
Issues acquired so unhealthy for the Rangers that they traded their captain, Jacob Trouba, to Anaheim two months earlier than the commerce deadline, following a 5-1 loss at MSG towards New Jersey, when the staff had a 13-10-1 report.
It’s value mentioning that there have been additionally some main off-ice points in New York final season, together with a settlement made between star ahead Artemi Panarin and a Rangers worker who had accused him of sexual assault.
Moreover, there was ongoing strangeness surrounding the staff’s social media feeds, which featured a shocking lack of content material, and the staff’s conventional pregame tunnel movies appeared to be filmed by a security camera. Followers made a logical connection between this and a report that claimed that the staff’s social media employees had been banned from touring with the staff as a result of an incident within the 2023-24 season.
Not a lot has modified within the staff’s make-up because the finish of final season. Within the offseason, the staff signed defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov away from Los Angeles. In addition they gave an extension to defenseman Matt Rempe, who has 138 penalty minutes in his first two seasons within the league, regardless of splitting time between the professionals and the minors.
With solely modest enhancements since final yr, it will likely be as much as newly-hired Coach Sullivan to kind out whether or not this yr’s Rangers staff is a Presidents’ Trophy winner or a playoff-misser.
Columbus Blue Jackets
- Win Stanley Cup Odds: +10000
- Win Convention Odds: +5000
- Win Division Odds: +3000
- Make Playoff Odds: +200
The Blue Jackets had an inspirational season final yr within the face of the tragic dying of their franchise participant, Johnny Gaudreau, within the 2024 offseason.
Columbus completed two factors behind the Devils for the ultimate spot within the Division regardless of a 40-33-9 report.
It was the type of finish to the season that allows you to know that sports activities aren’t truly scripted as a result of there’s no approach Gary Bettman appreciated {that a} Hughes-less New Jersey made the playoffs over the storybook Blue Jackets.
Now, Columbus can attempt to construct on that shocking season and hopefully clinch their first playoff berth because the 2019-20 season.
New York Islanders
- Win Stanley Cup Odds: +15000
- Win Convention Odds: +6000
- Win Division Odds: +3300
- Make Playoff Odds: +220
The primary query for the Islanders this season will probably be how massive an influence their primary draft choice, Matthew Schaefer, can have on his staff.
The 18-year-old defenseman grew to become a consensus primary choose because the draft neared final season. He was most not too long ago a member of the Erie Otters within the OHL. Final season, in 17 video games began, he had seven objectives and 15 assists.
Schaefer has lots to stay as much as with the current historical past of first general picks, as each Connor Bedard, drafted in 2023, and Macklin Celebrini, drafted in 2024, have had fast impacts on the skilled stage.
It hasn’t essentially translated into wins for both the Blackhawks or the Sharks, who stay backside feeders within the league, however each have proved scouts proper.
There’s extra expertise on this New York roster than on these different groups, although.
The Islanders held on to Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat on the commerce deadline final yr and added free agent ahead Jonathan Drouin over the summer season. Drouin handled accidents final season in Colorado within the 2024-25 season, however nonetheless managed to contribute 37 factors to the Avalanche’s offense.
Philadelphia Flyers
- Win Stanley Cup Odds: +15000
- Win Convention Odds: +6600
- Win Division Odds: +4000
- Make Playoff Odds: +230
One of many extra attention-grabbing mixes of market and star is the Flyers and Trevor Zegras.
Hockey followers have soured on Zegras, who was as soon as a darling NHL prospect who was featured on the duvet of EA NHL, over the previous few seasons as a result of his on-ice antics and his failure to develop rapidly sufficient. Zegras’ picture as a brat isn’t helped by the truth that he’s additionally relationship a well-known TikToker.
Combine that with a metropolis, in Philadelphia, whose id is type of antithetical to that of a bratty, more-hype-than-results participant, and you’ve got a semi-tenuous relationship proper off the bat.
Flyers followers are in all probability hoping this goes extra Bryce Harper than Ben Simmons this season and that Zegras can contribute sufficient to assist Philly make the playoffs for the primary time since 2020.
Pittsburgh Penguins
- Win Stanley Cup Odds: +30000
- Win Convention Odds: +10000
- Win Division Odds: +10000
- Make Playoff Odds: +600
The eyes of the NHL world will in all probability be centered extra on the Pittsburgh basic supervisor, Kyle Dubas, than on any non-Sidney Crosby participant this season. Dubas has the unlucky duty, together with possession, to determine whether or not or not Crosby will retire as a Penguin, and that call might come to a head this season.
Each NHL fan needs to see Crosby on a aggressive roster once more, and any non-Pittsburgh fan doesn’t care the place it occurs.
For his half, Crosby has made it clear that he’s tremendous being a member of the Penguins, a minimum of, for now.
“That is the place I need to be, I like it right here,” Crosby stated in a September interview.
Crosby additionally acknowledges that the commerce buzz is comprehensible given the state of Pittsburgh’s staff.
Proper now, the Penguins’ odds to win the Stanley Cup are a number of the lowest within the NHL, and so they’re a +600 underdog to make the playoffs.
Stranger issues have occurred, however the odds of a aggressive season in Pittsburgh are slim to none. The one actual headlines that will probably be generated this yr will come from continued commerce buzz.
