Which franchise without a Stanley Cup will win one next?

Vancouver Canucks center Elias Pettersson and Winnipeg Jets center Mark Scheifele.

Credit: © Bob Frid

While every hockey fan wants to see their favorite team win the Stanley Cup first and foremost, there’s something satisfying about seeing a team that has never won a Cup do it. It’s like witnessing history before our very eyes as the team gets its first taste of success, and seeing a fanbase finally get a chance to enjoy it.

We’ve been quite spoiled recently in terms of seeing new Stanley Cup champions. Just in the past two seasons, we’ve seen the Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights win their first Cups. Half a decade ago, we saw the St. Louis Blues and Washington Capitals do the same, and if we want to look back to the start of the salary cap era, we can add the Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks and Carolina Hurricanes to that list.

With all these new teams putting their names on the Stanley Cup, that leaves only 10 teams without one. Today, we rank them based on who will be the next team to win it. It’s a tough list to put together, because some have a strong chance to win right now, while others might be even better in the next 5-10 years, but let’s see where the remaining teams fall.

10. Seattle Kraken

Sorry Seattle, somebody had to be last. While they could very well use the excuse of being a recently expanded team for why they don’t seem to be in the best position for a championship right now, the Golden Knights winning in their sixth season certainly pokes a hole in that argument. To be fair, both teams built their rosters differently (and a lot more teams were willing to shoot themselves in the foot with protection trades for Vegas), but I can’t say I’m too confident that the Kraken will win a Stanley Cup by 2027.

The Kraken have certainly made strides so far in their franchise history, including their first playoff appearance, win and series win in 2023, and you could make the case that their roster is good enough to make the playoffs this season, but it’s really tough to see them go the distance with this current squad. A large reason for that is due to a lack of a game-breaking talent, and while Matty Beniers and Shane Wright will likely be very good players, I don’t see either of them being at a superstar level, and there doesn’t seem to be that kind of player in their system right now. They certainly have a lot of depth on their roster and in their pipeline, so that will allow them to be a consistent contender, but without that high-end player, I’m skeptical of their long-term chances.

9. Columbus Blue Jackets

As much as I hate to address the elephant in the room, Johnny Gaudreau’s tragic passing over the summer plays a big role in my long-term forecast of the Blue Jackets. While there are much more important areas of life that his death has impacted, Columbus losing a player who puts up 60 points even in a bad year leaves them with a big hole in their lineup. It’s not that the Blue Jackets don’t still have the potential to have a game-breaker on their roster considering the upside of Adam Fantilli, but having several of them is also a big part of winning a Cup.

That said, the Blue Jackets do have a lot of young talent on their roster. Fantilli, Kirill Marchenko, Cole Sillinger, Yegor Chinakhov, Kent Johnson, David Jiricek and Denton Mateychuk all have a chance to be impactful players at the NHL level and could be the start of a great core for a competitive team, especially with Fantilli. But until those players bear fruit, I’m a bit more in doubt of their chances of winning a Cup compared to the other teams ahead.

8. Buffalo Sabres

The Sabres are the team on this list that could very well prove me wrong for ranking them this low. They have a plethora of young talent ready to finally mold into a playoff contender, and it feels like every season they have a new player that emerges as a strong contributor to the team. Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens, Jack Quinn, Ukka-Pekka Lukkonen, Casey Mittelstadt and JJ Peterka have all established themselves as strong players, with Zach Benson, Jiri Kulich and Devon Levi also on the verge of doing so.

What gives me pause with the Sabres as a championship contender is not just their well-noted and lengthy inability to make the playoffs in the first place, but the fact that several of those key pieces took steps back. In 2023-24, Cozens was quite mediocre, Quinn was hurt, Mittelstadt was traded, and Thompson went from being the unicorn that is a game-breaking power forward/sniper hybrid with 90+ points to just an ordinary power forward with 50+ points. Thompson is the big one, because he was the type of player that filled the hole left by Jack Eichel. Without that, the Sabres may struggle to compete for a Cup unless they get another elite talent in the draft.

7. San Jose Sharks

I’m not going to lie, Macklin Celebrini plays a big role in the Sharks being up this high on the list. While they did have a solid prospect pool before drafting him, including the likes of Will Smith and William Eklund, Celebrini puts that group at a whole new stratosphere. Even through three games this season without a win, they look like a much more engaging team that can score with those players in their lineup. Once you add in the addition of Askarov, it’s easy to see how this team can be a Cup contender down the road once they improve in other areas, especially on the blueline.

But, this is still a Sharks team that’s a ways away from being at that Cup contender level. While Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Logan Couture only have two and three years left on their albatross contracts, that negates any advantage that they would have gotten from having Celebrini, Smith and Eklund on their ELCs. Those two contracts also provide us with more of a window as to when to expect the Sharks to be a playoff contender, so they are definitely outside of the window of “win now” like some of the teams ahead of them have more of a case of being in. That said, out of the teams that have a long term chance of winning a Cup, I like the Sharks the best.

6. Ottawa Senators

Unlike most of the teams below the Sens that have a long-term chance of winning a Cup, the future is now in Ottawa. Not only have they already seen most of their rebuilding pieces make the team and provide an impact, but according to Daily Faceoff’s prospects expert Steven Ellis, they don’t have a lot of long-term pieces left in their system. What puts the Sens above the other long-term teams is the fact that they are closer to making the playoffs this year and have the pieces to potentially win the Cup down the road.

Linus Ullmark is a fantastic goalie to have in net. Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot are excellent blueliners, with the former likely being a staple to build around for years to come. Tim Stutzle is looking like an elite first line center and Brady Tkachuk is one of the best power forwards already. Drake Batherson, Josh Norris and Shane Pinto are all solid complementary pieces, but beyond that, their depth doesn’t really inspire me as a Cup contender, and yet the Sens always seem to be too close to the salary cap to be able to solve that problem. There’s potential there, but the way to unlock it is with a puzzle that sometimes feels headache-inducing to solve.

5. Utah Hockey Club

It’s only been a week, but Utah as a hockey nation has taken the league by storm. Not only did the fans look electric during the team’s home opener last week, but the team also started the season 3-0-0. Sure, it’s only three games, but it’s the players driving that success that creates a bit more promise in Utah. Dylan Guenther was the first star of the week. Clayton Keller is leading the team in points. Barret Hayton, Logan Cooley and Nick Schmaltz are all a point-per-game. Mikhail Sergachev and Sean Durzi look great on the blueline. And then you also have Matias Maccelli, Josh Doan and Jack McBain as promising pieces that haven’t quite produced yet this season.

I wouldn’t call Utah a team that can win a Cup this season, but they’re certainly building momentum towards that goal, and may even be a playoff team this season. They have a plethora of young talent that is already making noise in the NHL, a couple more waiting in the wings in Tij Iginla and Dmitri Simashev, and Keller is really coming into his own as a high-end NHL player. If there’s any concern with Utah, it’s in between the pipes. Connor Ingram was great last season, but I’ll need to see more from him before I have faith in him as a goalie that can win a Cup.

4. Nashville Predators

I originally had the Predators much, much lower on my list because I don’t love their chances of winning a Cup with this current group. They were a good team last year and more than worthy of a playoff spot, and they’ve bolstered that roster with the additions of Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei, but I can’t quite see this team being the group that wins a Stanley Cup. However, Nashville has a much better chance of winning the Cup this year than any team below them, so it seems only fair to put them this high for the time being.

The biggest issue has been the Preds’ back-and-forth commitment to contending and rebuilding. When Barry Trotz began his tenure as general manager, they seemed to be gearing towards the future with the team, as proven by the fact that they moved on from Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Johansen and Matt Duchene. However, since then, that hasn’t been the case. Nashville added veterans like Ryan O’Reilly and Luke Schenn that offseason, and after making the playoffs in the first season of their rebuild, they added Stamkos, Marchessault and Skjei this year. The key indicator of what path the Preds would take was what decision they’d make in the crease, and they ultimately committed to Juuse Saros and dealt Yaroslav Askarov. That’s far from a bad decision, but definitely an indicator that they’re committing to the older core.

What fluctuates the Preds from this spot and closer to the bottom is how fragile their contention window is. Nashville’s main core of Saros, Filip Forsberg and Roman Josi are 29, 30 and 34, and they only have three players on their NHL roster under the age of 26, so when their window to win a Cup closes, it’s going to slam shut, especially after dealing Askarov. When that happens, the Preds will be below the San Joses, the Buffalos and the Columbus’ because they’ll have to rebuild from the beginning with very few future pieces. So the time is now to win, but if this is the best Nashville has to offer, I’m betting more on the three teams ahead of them to do so.

3. Minnesota Wild

At first, I was going to put the Wild in a similar territory as the Predators, as they’ve given off the appearance that they are in the purgatory of the murky middle. They’re too good to be getting lottery draft picks, but they aren’t good enough to be Cup contenders, proven by the fact that they’ve made the playoffs in 10 of their last 12 seasons, but have only won two playoff series in that span.

However, that’s where the comparisons end. What the Wild have that the Preds don’t is that true game-breaking talent in Kirill Kaprizov, the kind of player who could put the team on his back and win them a game when they need it. On top of that, the Wild’s current core of players is much younger than Nashville’s. Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin may be in their 30s, but Brock Faber, Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi and Jesper Wallstadt alone make up a promising young core for the future, and that doesn’t even factor in that Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek are both only 27. If Rossi can become a high-end first-line center, this might be a pretty good team in the next 5-10 years, even if they’re in more of a mediocre state right now.

2. Winnipeg Jets

So now we’ve entered into “could win this season” territory, although I’ll admit that the Jets are teetering towards where the Predators sit right now. However, they do have the elite talent in their prime that can go on a deep run in the next few years. Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor, for all of their defensive flaws, are high-end offensive talents, and Nikolaj Ehlers is right there with them when he actually gets the playing time. Josh Morrissey has blossomed into one of the top defensemen in the league. Connor Hellebuyck is arguably the best goaltender in the league right now. They have all the pieces in place to win, and have surrounded them with quality depth over the past couple of seasons.

The thing with the Jets is that, despite all of these pieces, they don’t inspire a ton of confidence as a true Cup contender. It feels like every season now, they get off to a hot start, look like an elite team, but then slow down in the second half and lose quite easily in the playoffs. They’re off to a hot start again this season, and maybe this year is different, but I can’t exactly say that I think of them as the biggest hope for being the next cupless team to win when they’ve gone through the same motions every season.

1. Vancouver Canucks

If I was doing a scoring system for each team’s chances of winning the Cup out of 10, I would probably have the Canucks at a 7/10. They’re a very strong squad, but it still feels like there are another five teams in the league at least who have a stronger chance of winning the Cup than them right now. That said, they are easily the best bet among the remaining Cupless teams to win right now, considering that they are the best team of the bunch right now, and they also have a young enough core of elite talent that they can continue to insulate for the next 5-10 years.

It’s always said that the key foundational pieces for a hockey team are an elite center, defenseman and goaltender, and the Canucks have three of the best at all three positions in Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes and Thatcher Demko. What’s even better for the Canucks future is that all three pieces are still quite young, with Pettersson and Hughes still being 25 while Demko is the oldest at 28. They also have some older depth surrounding them in J.T. Miller, Brock Boeser and Filip Hronek, with the rest of the team being a solid mix of veteran depth players and younger players who all contribute in various ways. An 0-1-2 start this season is concerning, especially since there was the looming threat of regression from last season, but if any Cupless team is capable of winning the Cup this year, it’s likely the Canucks.

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