Athletic rankings of 32 teams heading into the season

[bert]

NHL season previews 2023-24: Counting down the teams from worst to first

The Athletic’s 2023-24 edition of the team season previews, a deep dive into what to expect from each team.

theathletic.com

Definitely a few headscratchers in this one

32. Sharks
31. Habs
30. Hawks
29. Ducks
28. Flyers
27. Jackets
26. Blues
25. Caps
24. Coyotes
23. Wings
22. Sabres
21. Preds
20. Kraken
19. Islanders
18. Canucks
17. Senators
16. Kings
15. Lightning
14. Jets
13. Flames
12. Pens
11. Wild
10. Panthers
9. Bruins
8. Devils
7. Knights
6. Avs
5. Leafs
4. Stars
3. Rangers
2. Oilers
1. Canes

The only one that looks strange to me is the Rangers at 3. There is no chance that team is close to that good, they looked so slow in the playoffs last year.

Every other team is pretty accurate as they could be plus or minus 3 spots max for the most part. Maybe they got New Jersey and New york mixed up? Those seem like the only outliers.

Who made that list? Chatgpt?

My god this is awful.

Habs projection is pretty accurate.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

Dom is idiotic this summer. An older and slower rangers team that got worse and has an unusable backup is ranked 5 spots ahead of team that got deeper and better and was better last year as well.

Alexis Lafreniere is on their top line now, look out for a huge break out year for Alexis.

 

[CupofOil]

I say this as an Oilers fan, Oilers are too high at 2, Knights too low at 7.

How the Devils are at 8 and Rangers at 3 when the Devils beat the Rangers (badly in the final game) in the playoffs with pretty much the same teams they are now is a headscratcher.

Lightning at 15 is laughable.
The Flames are better than the Kings, and the Lightning for that matter, how?

 

[CycloneSweep]

Edmonton at 2 just means they are going to miss the playoffs. The moment you have my expectations for the Oilers POW. Failure.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

Avs are still top 3 in my books as long as they stay healthy. They have the best trio of game breakers in the NHL (MacKinnon, Rantanen, Makar) and they’re far deeper than they were last year. If Landeskog returns for the playoffs, it makes them even stronger.

 

[MilkofthePoppy]

Knights and Avs below Toronto? I am a Leaf fan, but cmon....

 

[kranuck]

Weird that they predict more parity.

No team above 107 points and only 1 below 70.

I also like how they added a fractional point to make it seem like their predictions are less arbitrary.

I am convinced that the point of these things is "Skip Bayless Journalism" which is produce insane scorching hot takes like a pro wrestling heel to rile people up to get clicks.

Skip seems like he’s genuinely an asshole though.

The athletic seems like the arrogance is just trolling.

i got it for 1$ a month, then when I went to quit they gave me another year for 1$ a month. like you know why not

Because it’s not worth a buck a month at this point

 

[kranuck]

As much as I'd like to shit on The Athletic (as the quality of the site has deteriorated significantly in the past 3 years), what you're alluding to is not at all the case here as these projections are purely based on Dom's model and they generally do call out some of the potential flaws from the model that contribute to some of the quirky rankings within the actual articles.

Case in point for the Devils, Hamilton gets dinged for a poor 2021-2022 season (new team that overall struggled and an injury really negatively impacted his play) along with Schmid getting lit up on that same team as a 21 year old rookie.

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Doms job is to come up with hot takes and act like an arrogant troll to generate clicks.

The fact that they defend it as “stats” doesn’t change what he is doing.

“calling out flaws” is a nice euphemism for deliberately publishing stuff they don’t believe in for clicks.

 

[The Management]

Even in the adjusted tier rankings, I think Tampa is way too low. They narrowly avoided elimination last year, and were arguably the better team. The year before they went to the finals. Never count out the Bolts.

 

[canuckslover10]

Are the Rangers pretenders and not contenders, like I'd say that quite easily would be the case of not for shesterkin. I like Fox too but something about them makes me think of the sharks maybe not the same roster construction but they seem to be the type of team to do well in the regular season but disappoint in the playoffs.

 

[rynryn]

#11 foreverrrrrrrrrrrr.
can't complain. it seems kind of optimistic if anything for the Wild.

 

[ToDavid]

Weird that they predict more parity.

No team above 107 points and only 1 below 70.

I also like how they added a fractional point to make it seem like their predictions are less arbitrary.


Skip seems like he’s genuinely an asshole though.

The athletic seems like the arrogance is just trolling.


Because it’s not worth a buck a month at this point

Projections will nearly always predict a tighter race because they’re effectively average outcomes. In a single season there will usually be teams over 110 and under 70. But if you repeated that exact same season a million times, it would be very difficult for a team to average above/below those marks.

Or, for example, there were five 110+ point teams last season. Only two of them have managed to hit 110+ points (or pace) in 3 of the past 5 season, none of them have done it 4+ times.

 

[abax44]

I wonder why people are still paying for that nonsens.

I got a year for $1.

 

[Devilsfan992]

NHL season previews 2023-24: Counting down the teams from worst to first

The Athletic’s 2023-24 edition of the team season previews, a deep dive into what to expect from each team.

theathletic.com

Definitely a few headscratchers in this one

32. Sharks
31. Habs
30. Hawks
29. Ducks
28. Flyers
27. Jackets
26. Blues
25. Caps
24. Coyotes
23. Wings
22. Sabres
21. Preds
20. Kraken
19. Islanders
18. Canucks
17. Senators
16. Kings
15. Lightning
14. Jets
13. Flames
12. Pens
11. Wild
10. Panthers
9. Bruins
8. Devils
7. Knights
6. Avs
5. Leafs
4. Stars
3. Rangers
2. Oilers
1. Canes

Rangers too high, Canes, Oilers a bit too high. Avs, Devils, Lightning, Kings too low.

 

[JianYang]

I don't really care for rankings. I look at teams alot more broadly.

Tier 1 - playoff locks
Tier 2 - playoff bubble
Tier 3 - non playoff teams

 

[syz]

Knights and Avs below Toronto? I am a Leaf fan, but cmon....

Leafs are the only playoff lock in a division that might be pretty weak this season. If they don't choke they'd have an easier path to at least the conference finals.

That said the opposite is true for the Rangers so idk.

 

[kranuck]

I got a year for $1.

waste of money.

 

[RangerBlues]

The Rangers at three is laughable.

 

[kingsfan28]

The Flames at 13? Dumping your old worn down 4th line and replacing the coach isn't exactly screaming playoff team.

 

[ScoreZeGoals]

Some impression's based only on a quick glance:

Rangers too high
Oilers a little too high
Bruins too high
Flames way too high
Canucks too high
Vegas a little too low
Tampa too low
Seattle too low
Kings too low
Sabers too low

 

[abax44]

waste of money.

Luckily, it's a hit I can afford to take.

 

[Three On Zero]

Gru may be the downfall of Seattle this season, he’s letting in some pretty big stinkers

 

[the_fan]

not even worth one dollar a month tbh

It’s a rip off

 

[The Crypto Guy]

3. Rangers
8. Devils

Lol what? Rangers are even slower than last year, when the devils skated them into the ground in the playoffs.

And yet they barely beat them in a game 7? Really “beat them into the ground” lmao

 

[SimpleJack]

1. Canes
2. VGK
3. Devils
4. Avs
5. LAK
6. Leafs
7. Stars
8. Oilers
9. Rangers
10. Sabers
11. Panthers
12. Senators
13. Bruins
14. Flames
15. Lightning
16. Jets
17. Islanders
18. Penguins
19. CBJ
20. Kraken
21. Wild
22. Ducks
23. Capitals
24. Red Wings
25. Predators
26. Blues
27. Coyotes
28. Canucks
29. Flyers
30. Canadians
31. Sharks
32. Blackhawks