Stanley Cup Windows 2024-25: Central Division

Matt Larkin
Matt Larkin(MLarkinHockey)
Stanley Cup Windows 2024-25: Central Division
Credit: May 13, 2024; Denver, Colorado, USA; Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar (8) passes the puck ahead of Dallas Stars left wing Jason Robertson (21) in the second period in game four of the second round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Ball Arena. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

During the NHL offseason, as teams scramble to improve their rosters via trades and free agency, they recalibrate their fans’ expectations. In the fog of war, it isn’t always easy to assess what your favorite team has become. Is it now a Stanley Cup contender after signing that big-ticket UFA, or did it just delay the inevitable for a group heading in the wrong direction? Should you be nervous if your team did nothing, or does the inactivity reflect confidence from a management group that knows it has a juggernaut?

I’m here to help by mapping out where I believe each NHL team is in its contention window. The term ‘window’ matters a lot in the salary-cap era, when each team has a limited juncture in which its top young players mature into their primes while still carrying reasonable AAVs. Where does your team sit in its Stanley Cup timeline?

We continue the four-part annual series with the Central Division.

WINDOW WIDE OPEN

Dallas Stars

They reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2020, but that was the grizzled version of the Stars. If we use Jason Robertson’s arrival in 2020-21 to signify the current era, these Stars have knocked on the door of the Western Conference Final in consecutive seasons without breaking through. No problem. This team is set up to contend for years. Robertson is 24. Roope Hintz is 27. Top blueliner Miro Heiskanen is 24. Goaltender Jake Oettinger is 25. These pillars were established as Dallas’ present and future core a couple years ago – but now the next wave is taking over, too. Playoff hero Wyatt Johnston is 21. Breakout blueliner Thomas Harley is 22. Logan Stankoven got his feet wet late last season; he’s 21. Mavrik Bourque won the AHL scoring crown and MVP; he’s 22. The veteran brigade of Jamie Benn, Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin is around merely for excellent depth support and leadership. No team in the NHL is set up better to take repeated swings at championships over the next half decade.

WIN-NOW WINDOW

Colorado Avalanche

You’d think a team two years removed from a Stanley Cup win, with three future Hall of Fame talents in Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen, would qualify as having its contention window wide open. But the Avs are in a state of pause, waiting for clarity on the health of captain Gabriel Landeskog and the potential November reinstatement of Valeri Nichushkin from the player assistance program. They’re capped out at the moment and haven’t been able to make any meaningful additions this offseason, pursuing instead bargain buy-low options like defenseman Erik Brannstrom. Beyond this season, Rantanen is a pending 2025 UFA whose next AAV starts with an 11 at the very least. So it’s difficult to forecast where Colorado will sit in its timeline a year from now. So much depends on Rantanen, Landeskog and Nichushkin.

Nashville Predators

How about them Predators? It will be fascinating a few years from now to look back and decide whether GM Barry Trotz’s aggressive moves heped Nashville break through or set the franchise back years by merely upgrading it to second-tier contender status. It sure is fun to see Trotz shooting his shot with Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchesssault and Brady Skjei joining the fray. But they are 34, 33 and 30 years old, respectively. Their stud, captain and blueliner Roman Josi, is 34. Top forward Filip Forsberg is 29. Aside from NHLer Luke Evangelista, most of Nashville’s prospects aren’t expected to be making major contributions for at least another year, however. Even if, for instance, someone like Joakim Kemell or Zach L’Heureux gets a look this season, there’s no one in the system who looks like a surefire franchise player to build around. The point I’m making here: the Preds aren’t ascending into a long period of contention. They have a good team – right now and right now only. They’re making a run at a championship with a veteran group, and it needs to happen in the next season or two.

WINDOW OPENING

Chicago Blackhawks

Don’t sleep on Chicago as a potential fringe playoff team this season. Seriously. Just as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Edmonton Oilers leapt into the playoffs in the MVP sophomore seasons of Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid, the Hawks have given themselves a chance to do the same in season 2 of their generational talent Connor Bedard. Their forward additions include Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen; they’ve added TJ Brodie and Alec Martinez on defense; and Laurent Brossoit upgrades their goaltending. Those veteran additions, plus Taylor Hall’s return from injury, lift the floor for a team building around Bedard, defenseman Alex Vlasic, young center Frank Nazar and fresh No. 2 overall pick Artyom Levshunov. Chicago remains a long shot to make the postseason but is a virtual lock to improve markedly on last season’s 31st-overall finish.

Utah Hockey Club

What a fakeout from Utah GM Bill Armstrong. Following night 1 of the 2024 NHL Draft, during which he selected Tij Iginla and Cole Beaudoin in the first round, Armstrong spoke about not accelerating his team’s slow and steady rebuild. The very next morning, Utah traded for defensemen Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino. OK, then. Utah is still progressing slowly, with modest expectations for its first season post-Arizona. But those trades tell us Armstrong and new owner Ryan Smith do want to accelerate the process to give the fans a competitive team, especially when the Sergachev trade cost Utah a solid young defenseman in J.J. Moser and one of the club’s top prospects in Conor Geekie. With top forward Clayton Keller smack in his prime and Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther breaking through as full-time NHLers, Utah is ready to start pushing for playoff berths. Stage 1 of the rebuild is over. It’s time for stage 2.

FOGGY WINDOW

Minnesota Wild

The Wild took a step back in 2023-24 after making the playoffs in the previous four seasons. As expected, they fell on hard times in their “Ryan Suter and Zach Parise peak buyout penalty” years and didn’t have the depth to hang in the playoff picture. That said, it’s not inconceivable that this team rebounds. Brock Faber has established himself as the team’s new horse and one of the best young defensemen in the league after setting an NHL record for average time on ice by a rookie. Kirill Kaprizov remains a superstar at the peak of his powers and Matt Boldy hasn’t delivered his ceiling season yet. It’s coming. If the Wild can find a trade partner for Filip Gustavsson, they can start breaking in top prospect goaltender Jesper Wallstedt in a longer-term NHL deployment. Marco Rossi also finally took that long-anticipated leap forward in his first full NHL season. That’s all the good news. On the other side of things, the Wild are also relying on some greybeard vets in first-line winger Mats Zuccarello, defenseman Jared Spurgeon and goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Some of the Wild roster will soon decay, and GM Bill Guerin once gain hasn’t been positioned to add much in free agency given his cap conundrum. At the same time, Minnesota’s core players are pretty good. This team could be 15 points better or worse, or exactly the same, this coming season, and no result would surprise me.

St. Louis Blues

Good luck trying to define what the Blues are. They’re a non-playoff team two years running, yet they have millions and millions of dollars tied up in long-term deals for veterans: Brayden Schenn, Justin Faulk, Torey Krug, Colton Parayko, now Pavel Buchnevich. Each of those players is between 28 and 33 years old. Yet the Blues are also building around Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou, who are 25 and 26 and signed to matching $8.125 million AAV deals for seven more years. The Blues have also begun injecting some young blood into their long-term vision, with forwards Dalibor Dvorsky and Jimmy Snuggerud among their standout prospects. This is a hybrid team, not quite old nor young, not particularly good nor bad, and what they do in the coming seasons will depend on whether their next generation starts contributing. If Jake Neighbours, their 2020 first-rounder, builds on his 27-goal breakout year, maybe the Blues surprise.

Winnipeg Jets

The Jets really needed to make noise last year in the playoffs, and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff evidently knew it. That’s why he traded for Sean Monahan and Tyler Toffoli. The Jets fell short and those two rentals walked as UFAs, along with defenseman Brenden Dillon and backup goaltender Laurent Brossoit. The Jets really didn’t adequately replace any of what they lost in the offseason; checking forwards Mason Shaw and Jaret Anderson-Dolan aren’t going to replace Toffoli and Monahan, Colin Miller and Haydn Fleury won’t replace Dillon and Nate Schmidt, and Eric Comrie is a downgrade over Brossoit. So a team that lost in Round 1 looks worse on paper heading into 2024-25. On top of that, if you look at Winnipeg’s core, Mark Scheifele is 29, Kyle Connor 27, Josh Morrissey 29, Connor Hellebuyck 31, and 28-year-old Nikolaj Ehlers doesn’t plan to re-sign and is a trade candidate. That core isn’t old per se, but it’s nearing the end of its prime years. If we zoom out: the Jets appear to be trending in the wrong direction, so they’ll really need their next generation, led by Cole Perfetti, to start carrying the load. Rutger McGroarty was supposed to be a crucial part of the Jets’ future, so hopefully they can mend fences with their disgruntled prospect, who is on the trading block. It’s difficult to predict what the Jets will give us this coming season. They’ll be competitive, but will they be much more than that?

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