Who are the Stanley Cup contenders thus far?

The NHL’s 2026-27 season is creeping toward the one-quarter mark as the first week of November ends, and it’s already clear which teams may be in strong contention for the Stanley Cup come spring. 

There’s plenty of hockey left, but on a recent episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, co-hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton dove into their inner- and outer-circle Stanley Cup contenders at this point in the campaign. 

Tyler Yaremchuk: Okay, inner and outer-circle Stanley Cup contender time here. Let’s start with our inner circle. So we do this kind of on an every six- to eight-week basis here throughout the regular season. We list a handful of teams we believe are true inner-circle Stanley Cup contenders, and the teams just outside that group. 

I’ll start with mine. My inner circle is the Edmonton Oilers. Their record speaks for itself. Mike Babcock has them playing the right way. Carolina Hurricanes: there’s no Stanley Cup hangover. The Vegas Golden Knights look like a team fully capable of going on another deep run. The Minnesota Wild tick a lot of boxes for me. The one I was torn on was whether to include the Colorado Avalanche. That core knows how to get it done and is a veteran group, but they’ve stumbled a bit out of the gate here; but again, you just do the kind of whether or not they check all my boxes? That’s why I kept Colorado in. I went with five teams.

Carter Hutton: I have a very similar list. I added the Montreal Canadiens to that. I think they’re going to be aggressive in adding guys, and my factor is their youth and the fact that Jacob Fowler and Jakub Dobes are two guys who are stellar in net. 

My concern is: when you talk about winning four rounds in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, do they have the depth in their lineup to do that? If I had to be different and add somebody, to that extent, I like the Canadiens.  

There are a lot of teams that have come in and out. We have to make decisions on these. The other ones are kind of self-established with what they’ve done. Carolina is still my true number one because I feel like if their offense starts to slow down, they can grind a series out and find a way to win in overtime, as they’ve done. It’s not like they’re a one-line team. They can beat you in all kinds of ways. 

You can watch the full conversation and the rest of the episode right here…