Stanley Cup Windows 2023-24: Atlantic Division

Credit: Mitch Marner and Charlie McAvoy (© John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports)

The concept of a contention window for an NHL team didn’t truly exist before the salary cap. It did in the sense that teams wanted to capitalize while their star players were still in their physical primes, but there wasn’t the onus to win while your core players could all still fit under a set payroll. If your stars got too expensive and you were a big-market team, you simply spent more to keep them.

In today’s NHL, the “window” terminology gets tossed around whenever the trade deadline and free agency approach. General managers try to gauge when they should stop accumulating young assets and adjust the dial to contention mode before their top players enter their key earning years.

Perusing all 32 NHL teams as we drift closer to the deadest part of the offseason, with most major roster movement complete: where does every franchise sit on its Stanley Cup timeline? Some are just beginning long periods of contention. Others are straining to prop their window open as their top players begin to age out.

I begin my team-by-team analysis with the Atlantic Division clubs. Welcome to Part 1 of Stanley Cup Windows 2023-24.

WIN-NOW WINDOW

Florida Panthers

A team that just reached a Stanley Cup Final, in a win-now window? What gave it away? The Panthers and GM Bill Zito arguably lengthened their window when they acquired Matthew Tkachuk last summer in exchange for two players nearing the ends of their primes in Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar. They’re constructed now to take a large swing for the Cup over the course of Tkachuk’s peak prime. Among their forwards, Tkachuk is 25, while Aleksander Barkov, Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart are 27. On defense, Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling are 27, while Brandon Montour is 29. Newly signed supporting forward Evan Rodrigues is 29. Most of the Panthers’ key contributors are on the right side of 30. That said: goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky is 34. The Panthers have no defenseman other than Niko Mikkola signed beyond the next two seasons, while Reinhart enters the final year of his contract and Bennett and Verhaeghe have two years left apiece. The window thus isn’t wide open. The Panthers need to do their damage in the next couple seasons. They do have center Anton Lundell and goalie Spencer Knight to take the torch, but their prospect pool is neither deep nor impressive at the moment.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Remember that feeling Chicago Blackhawks fans had around 2016? Or Pittsburgh Penguins fans in 2018? How about Washington Capitals fans in 2019? It’s Tampa’s turn. You enjoy a long, fruitful period of dominance and then, suddenly, two straight Cup wins turn into a Cup final loss, then a first-round loss. Future Hall of Famers Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov are now in their 30s. The Lightning still have plenty of top-end contributors in their 20s, from goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to centers Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli to defenseman Mikhail Sergachev. It’s thus not inconceivable for this group to go on another deep run. But the Tanner Jeannot trade this past winter, in which GM Julien BriseBois dealt five draft picks for a bottom-six banger, sent a clear message: the Lightning are in “no turning back mode” now. It’s all about winning in the present, and it gets a bit tougher to remain elite with each passing season.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Tick, tock. The Leafs finally broke through and won a playoff series on their seventh try in the Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner era. But they need to play into late May or even early June while they still have their superstars onboard. We await extensions for Matthews and William Nylander, who enter the final seasons of their contracts, while Marner is up after two more seasons. The one-year contracts GM Brad Treliving handed out to Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi and John Klingberg this offseason speak volumes. The Leafs have one more window to take a big swing with this group before things get complicated next summer and their cap situation becomes even more top-heavy. While we can’t say for certain “it’s over” next year, there’s no doubt Toronto needs to push its chips in for 2023-24.

FOGGY WINDOW

Boston Bruins

How could a team fresh off breaking the NHL’s single-season wins record not land in the win-now tier? Because we simply don’t know what the Bruins will look like going into next season. They lost key trade deadline rentals Bertuzzi and Dmitry Orlov in free agency. They await word on Patrice Bergeron’s and David Krejci’s playing futures. With the those two veterans’ performance bonus overages eating into the team’s cap by $4.5 million this season, they had to send Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno out in a salary-dump trade. Adding veterans such as James van Riemsdyk and Kevin Shattenkirk doesn’t offset what the Bruins have lost so far. It would still feel weird to bet against a team that has David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, Charlie McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm and Linus Ullmark on it. But it’s difficult to define Boston’s identity until we know more about its 2023-24 roster makeup.

WINDOW OPENING

Buffalo Sabres

There’s no fanbase I’m more vicariously excited for in 2023-24 than Buffalo’s. This team has endured an NHL-record playoff drought of 12 seasons and just missed the playoffs by a single point. It already has an exciting offense, led by superstar Tage Thompson; the Sabres scored the NHL’s third-most goals in 2022-23. And on top of Thompson, Alex Tuch, Jeff Skinner, Dylan Cozens, Jack Quinn and company: the Sabres have many more exciting forward prospects on the way, from Matthew Savoie to Jiri Kulich to Zach Benson. They needed to strengthen themselves from the net out to provide more support for ultra-promising blueliners Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power, and GM Kevyn Adams added veterans Erik Johnson and Connor Clifton. If top-tier prospect goaltender Devon Levi can meet the hype in his first full NHL season, surely Buffalo can muster that extra point it needed this past season. Whatever happens, once this team finally steps into its contention window, it should remain open a long time.

Detroit Red Wings

A week ago, I would’ve placed Detroit in the Foggy Window section. Their rebuild under Steve Yzerman had progressed in the sense that they were amassing close to a critical mass of young talent to build around: Moritz Seider, Lucas Raymond, Simon Edvinsson, Sebastian Cossa, Marco Kasper, Nate Danielson, Axel Sandin-Pellikka and more. But the existing veteran group Yzerman was merging with them looked subpar outside of captain Dylan Larkin. The Wings have been busy the past two summers but have added a lot of middling and/or aging talent: Andrew Copp, David Perron, Ben Chiarot, J.T. Compher, Justin Holl, Klim Kostin, Shayne Gostisbehere, Daniel Sprong…but all that changed with the Alex DeBrincat acquisition and four-year extension, secured last weekend. Detroit finally added a legitimate front-line talent to take the pressure off its younger forwards, and as long as all the veteran depth additions over the past two seasons aren’t playing too high in the lineup, they can elevate Detroit’s floor. The Wings have improved their points percentage in three straight seasons. They still missed the playoffs by a dozen points in 2022-23, but they could cut that deficit to half a dozen this time around, and once you’re that close, anything can happen.

Ottawa Senators

If we’re looking at the NHL roster player elements of the trade, downgrading from DeBrincat to Dominik Kubalik isn’t ideal for the Senators. But they will also theoretically get a fully healthy Josh Norris back after his lengthy recovery from shoulder surgery. They’ve upgraded in goal, albeit maybe not as much as they hope, with the Joonas Korpisalo signing. They get a full season of Jakob Chychrun in their top four on defense now, too, and could see Ridly Greig progress into a full-time regular this season. Why mention all these secondary pieces first? Because they represent what should be improved support for the the core of Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Claude Giroux, Jake Sanderson, Thomas Chabot and more, a group that helped push the Sens to within six points of a playoff berth in 2022-23. With so many of their most important young players signed to long-term deals, they should enjoy a lengthy period of contention once they finally get over the hump, just like the Sabres will. With Stutzle poised to make a jump into superstardom this season, it could be Ottawa’s year.

WINDOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Montreal Canadiens

The Habs know what they are. With so many Atlantic teams in their win-now windows or close to breaking through, it doesn’t make sense for Montreal to contend at the moment. The Habs are better off continuing to accumulate assets for their long-term success. They have Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield locked up to build around. They added a potential future top-pair defenseman in David Reinbacher at the 2023 NHL Draft. They took sensible mini-gambles on the untapped upside of first-round picks Kirby Dach and Alex Newhook in consecutive offseasons. They don’t have to rush Juraj Slafkovsky to be a star at the NHL level; he was always going to be a project by No. 1 overall pick standards. Ultimately, 2023-24 should be about additional asset accumulation for GM Kent Hughes. The Habs own one first-round pick and four picks in the first three rounds of the 2024 NHL Draft at the moment. Perhaps they inflate that number if, for instance, a team comes calling on Josh Anderson, Jake Allen or, if he’s healthy for the stretch run this time around, Sean Monahan. It’s a slow burn in Montreal right now, and that’s the right path for this team to walk.

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