Which teams look like Stanley Cup contenders going into the playoffs?

Credit: © Jerome Miron

Roughly halfway through the season, I took a look at which teams were playing like Stanley Cup contenders based on an interesting trend that I noticed: four of the last five teams to win the Stanley Cup finished in the top 10 in both 5v5 expected goals for per 60 and 5v5 expected goals against per 60, and the one team that didn’t (the 2021-22 Colorado Avalanche) finished in the top 15 for 5v5 xGF per 60 and was able to make up for it with their offensive talent. I identified the teams that met that threshold and while there were a few surprises at the time, all the teams listed have since improved to look like legitimate contenders.

I decided that, since we’re approaching the playoffs and when this threshold would actually be official, why not revisit this and see which teams meet the threshold now? Admittedly, there’s a lot of returning teams, particularly the ones that aged well, and one team in that Colorado Avalanche threshold that I identified as a team to watch ended up improving to meet both.

On the Cusp

First, let’s look at those teams that excel in one category but not the other. There’s a few familiar faces here, but there are also some new additions, and even one team that managed to switch to the other side of the coin.

Good Offensively, Bad Defensively – The Nashville Predators continue to find themselves here, but now they’ve changed from looking like a fringe playoff team to looking like one with a shot to make some noise. Depending on who they match up against in the first round, they may end up causing an upset. They’re joined by the Colorado Avalanche, who last time were good defensively but bad offensively. Remaking their forward group at the deadline has certainly helped that, while Nathan MacKinnon going nuclear offensively at the expense of the team’s defense probably has caused this change. Even then, they are just outside the threshold defensively, currently tied for 11th.

Good Defensively, Bad Offensively – The Philadelphia Flyers and Winnipeg Jets are the returnees to this category, although including the Flyers is just torture at this point considering how they’ve played lately. The Jets continue to sabotage their offensive generation by not giving Nikolaj Ehlers enough ice time, while maybe giving too many of those minutes to Kyle Connor instead, who excels at finishing but not generating. That said, the roles have actually reversed since the trade deadline, as their forward depth has helped their offense but hindered their defense. Joining this group is the Vancouver Canucks, who were once thought of as an outlier but have actually rounded out their defensive game to a legitimate level. However, their offensive generation is still lacking, and now that their scoring has regressed a bit, it’s more noticeable. But you also can’t deny the talent that they have, and they could certainly get hot and outperform it in the playoffs, with the defense and goaltending to help support that.

Carolina Hurricanes

5v5 xGF/60: 2.94 (2nd)
5v5 xGA/60: 2.39 (t-1st)

The Hurricanes made the list last time we touched on this topic, and it should be no surprise that they’ve remained here. If anything, it was a surprise that they were here the first time, because at that point, the Canes seemed very inconsistent, especially in net. Well, the crease is no longer an issue, as Frederik Andersen has been spectacular since his return from a blood clot issue, and while Pyotr Kochetkov hasn’t been quite as consistent, he’s been a solid backup.

You know the defense in front of Carolina’s goalies will always be strong, so the only remaining concern is their offense. They took some gambles at the trade deadline, finally going for a rental addition in Jake Guentzel and then bringing on a reclamation project in Evgeny Kuznetsov. Both have potential to vastly change the Canes’ offensive outlook, but so far, they’ve actually seen their goal rates go down since those additions joined the team despite the third-best expected goals for rate in that span. You’d hope for that to regress, but we’ve seen them underperform their offensive metrics before, so who knows how that will translate to the postseason?

Dallas Stars

5v5 xGF/60: 2.75 (8th)
5v5 xGA/60: 2.2 (t-1st)

Last time I did this, the Stars were a team on the fringe of making the list. They had a strong defensive game, but it was surprisingly their offensive game that was lacking just a bit, as they weren’t generating enough chances despite the fact that their offense was producing. Even then, I did pencil the team at the time as something like the 2021-22 Avalanche team, one with a strong defense but an offense that was just outside the top 10. That Avs team was able to overcome it due to the star talent on that team, and that’s something this Stars team is also capable of.

This time, that isn’t a concern at all. While their offense isn’t top of the league in terms of generating expected goals, they’ve cracked the top 10, and continue to score in waves. Part of that is due to the injection of Logan Stankoven into the lineup, giving them one more offensive weapon for other teams to have to worry about. Their defense has also seen improvement thanks to addition of Chris Tanev, and they’re finally getting some goaltending from Jake Oettinger as well. With all that clicking together heading into the playoffs, the Stars may just be the team to beat in a Western Conference loaded with great teams.

Edmonton Oilers

5v5 xGF/60: 3.18 (1st)
5v5 xGA/60: 2.4 (t-8th)

The Oilers are another returnee (spoiler alert: it’s all the same teams as last time from here on out), and much like the Canes, they’re a team that seemed like a bit more of a surprise to be on a list of Stanley Cup contenders when I did this in January. They hadn’t quite returned to form and were still outside of a playoff spot at the time, but they were also on a six-game winning streak, so the signs of improvement were already there.

That six-game winning streak would go on to become a 16-game winning streak, one short of the NHL record, and that was the high point of the Oilers’ big comeback season. Connor McDavid is Connor McDavid again, Stuart Skinner is providing a steady presence in net, and now not only are the Oilers comfortably in the playoffs, they’re set to have home-ice advantage and possibly challenge for the Pacific Division crown. Their offense is where they thrive, but their defense has gone under the radar in the past calendar year ever since Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm have anchored that top defense pair. They didn’t have quite as good of a trade deadline as Dallas, though, so that could be the big difference maker come playoff time.

Florida Panthers

5v5 xGF/60: 2.74 (9th)
5v5 xGA/60: 2.3 (5th)

When we last visited the Panthers, they had just started to get healthy after surviving all the early season injuries that they had to face, particularly to defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour. With that, they seemed poised to dominate for the rest of the season and easily make the playoffs, which they did until this recent stretch that’s seen them go 4-7-2.

Maybe that stretch might have you less convinced that the Panthers can repeat their run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2023, but it shouldn’t. While their expected goal generation has taken a slight step back, their ability to suppress chances in their own end has more than made up the deficit, and they have the scoring talent in Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart and more to overcome any concerns about their offense. Despite his solid play all season, I’d argue that Sergei Bobrovsky might be my biggest concern for the team in the playoffs, but that’s mostly because of the goaltender’s age and up-and-down play throughout his Panthers career.

Los Angeles Kings

5v5 xGF/60: 2.79 (6th)
5v5 xGA/60: 2.28 (4th)

The Kings were maybe the only team to not be a total surprise to make the list last time, and this time, they may be the only team that is a surprise. By the time the new year rolled around, the Kings seemed unstoppable. They were dominant at both ends of the ice, were getting great performances from some of their young players, and they looked like one of the best teams in the NHL despite having lost their last four games. Of course, they were in the beginning of what would become a stretch of 14 losses in 16 games, which resulted in the firing of coach Todd McLellan, and while they’ve stabilized a bit more under Jim Hiller, they’re still pacing to look more like a lesser playoff team than what they may have seemed to be initially.

And under the hood, that’s more or less matched what we’ve seen on the ice. Their offensive generation has taken a nosedive, dropping from 3.02 5v5 expected goals for per 60 minutes (third in the league) to 2.57 (14th). Meanwhile, their defensive suppression has only dropped from 2.3 5v5 expected goals against per 60 minutes to 2.33, but the league standing is where it’s really shifted, going from first in the league to seventh. Basically, the teams around them are getting better in that regard. Their overall numbers still have them in that threshold that has allowed the other previous Cup winners to have success, but that’s heavily propped up by their play to start the season. This might be one where even I say the numbers are wrong, especially when they seem poised to go up against one of the best teams in the West, but perhaps they can show us otherwise in the next few weeks.

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