ESPN future power rankings for all 32 teams

[Figgy44]

They can't

Do you have ESPN+ to watch all of the out of market games?

Nope. Never used anything ESPN in my life for streaming.

I also tried toggling the in browser ad blocker, VPN and script blockers. I didn't notice a difference. I also copied the link and tossed them into Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Edge. All opened fine.

 

[boredmale]

Probably the first non-islanders fan i've seen have this opinion. I agree but at the same time, everyone has been just so bullish on the islanders for the fact that they "don't score", yet they do have goal scoring talent. I don't think they're a terrible team, but they don't have the wealth of prospects NOW. Down the road sure. They are in the same boat as the Blues really, just held down by a few stinky contracts compared to the Blues glut of bad contracts on defensemen.

I think the problem for the Islanders is they just aren't sexy enough. In order for a sexy team full of young guns and top prospects just waiting to burst out to improve somebody has to fall down and it's easy to look at the Islanders and just not be inspired to pick them to do much. By time you rate all these sexy teams(which the majority will most likely do worse than the Islanders) all of a sudden the Islanders rank much lower then they most likely will finish.

 

[nowhereman]

This is a pretty poor list that loses sight of its own framework fairly quickly (i.e. success in the next 4 years). I mean, how do you argue that a team like Detroit is better positioned for short term success than Toronto or Edmonton? And how do you justify Arizona and Washington ahead of Vancouver?

 

[Ezekial]

Nope. Never used anything ESPN in my life for streaming.

I also tried toggling the in browser ad blocker, VPN and script blockers. I didn't notice a difference. I also copied the link and tossed them into Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Edge. All opened fine.

I have ESPN+ to watch the Wings so idk.

edit: I just opened in incognito and was paywalled. You are more powerful than Disney

 

[DuklaNation]

Even if you believe the list's premise as legitimate and fair, they obviously HEAVILY discount the current and next 1-2 years so much of the total 4 years that it renders the list utterly useless.

 

[Figgy44]

I have ESPN+ to watch the Wings so idk.

I wonder if some posters deleted cookies and whatnot from their browser, if they'd be able to see the article.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

This is a pretty poor list that loses sight of its own framework fairly quickly (i.e. success in the next 4 years). I mean, how do you argue that a team like Detroit is better positioned for short term success than Toronto or Edmonton? And how do you justify Arizona and Washington ahead of Vancouver?

Toronto and Edmonton are both well on their way to suffering from the aane fate Colorado and Tampa are beginning to suffer from now... And aging core and no longer having its best players signed to team friendly deals.

I disagree with ESPNs evaluation of Detroit in particular, but I would say teams like Buffalo/Ottawa/Seattle easily have a brighter future then the likes of Edmonton/Toronto/Colorado.

 

[HBK27]

Toronto and Edmonton are both well on their way to suffering from the aane fate Colorado and Tampa are beginning to suffer from now... And aging core and no longer having its best players signed to team friendly deals.

I disagree with ESPNs evaluation of Detroit in particular, but I would say teams like Buffalo/Ottawa/Seattle easily have a brighter future then the likes of Edmonton/Toronto/Colorado.

When the hell did Toronto ever have that?

 

[CupsOverCash]

Sabres gonna come for the neighborhood this year...

 

[CBJx614]

Columbus always ends up on these lists....

Because they've been underperforming due to injuries and have had shit coaching. The current roster has a ton of talent and already has a top 3 talent pool whom are already making their way into the lineup. KJ and Fantilli will both be on the roster, Svozil and Jiricek will be waiting for a call up in Cleveland. Hell a guy like Mateychuk looks like he's already about ready to play in the NHL (although he's all but been told he's going back to the jr's)

I think there's going to be a ton of surprised folk around here when they are competing for the playoffs this season.

 

[squashmaple]

There's some extreme overrating of prospect pools over proven elite NHL talent.

Bleacher Report's Top Prospect Pools (published in 2016)
1) Maple Leafs
2) Coyotes
3) Blue Jackets
4) Jets
5) Flyers
6) Sabres
7) Canes
8) Habs
9) Isles
10) Bruins

Having good prospects is insanely far away from being a contending NHL team and ranking teams like Columbus over teams like Colorado over a time period as short as 3 years is absolutely asisine. It's far more likely that CBJ doesn't even make playoffs in that timeframe than that they outperform Avalanche.

Not disagreeing with you on your last paragraph nor am I in any way defending the ESPN list, but I do want to point out that Columbus had 383 regular season points in the four years between the 2016-17 season and the shortened 2019-20 season, and made the playoffs every one of those years. Yes, it fell apart because Jarmo chose players who all wanted to leave (and they were unlucky enough to be in the same division with both prime Caps and Pens), but BR were absolutely correct to imply in 2016 that the Blue Jackets would be a very good team going forward.

Hell, the Leafs being listed there is also a point in BR's favor, as they'd been absolute ass for half a decade and had just picked first overall to add the feather in the cap of their prospect pool... and what do you know, they also made the playoffs that season and haven't missed since. In fact, almost every team on that list was good between 2017 and 2020, many of them even now today like the Canes, Isles, and Bruins thanks players who were prospects on those lists in 2016. Arizona and Buffalo are the outliers, and those organizations were horribly run in that period.

 

[Three On Zero]

I wonder if some posters deleted cookies and whatnot from their browser, if they'd be able to see the article.

It was just some random article while I was scrolling the news this am, never even seemed like an attempted paywall article.

 

[nowhereman]

Toronto and Edmonton are both well on their way to suffering from the aane fate Colorado and Tampa are beginning to suffer from now... And aging core and no longer having its best players signed to team friendly deals.

I disagree with ESPNs evaluation of Detroit in particular, but I would say teams like Buffalo/Ottawa/Seattle easily have a brighter future then the likes of Edmonton/Toronto/Colorado.

I don't doubt that Buffalo, Ottawa and Seattle may have better long-term futures than Edmonton, Toronto and Colorado (although nothing is certain when much of that anticipated success is predicated on prospects). But the latter teams all have a better chance of contending and winning the Cup in the next 3-4 years than the former and that's what this ranking is about. Take a team like Vancouver – all of their best players are either in entering their prime (Pettersson, Hughes, Demko) or right in the middle of it (Miller, Kuzmenko). Are they contenders? No. But are they in a better spot to be competitive in the next few years than Arizona, San Jose and an aging Washington team, all of whom might never sniff the playoffs during the next few years?

This is just such an odd list. But it's ESPN, so I wasn't expecting much.

 

[Viqsi]

I think folks reading this are whiplashing between whether to give greater weight to the earlier seasons in that four-season span or the later seasons and nobody can make up their mind.

 

[NyQuil]

I think folks reading this are whiplashing between whether to give greater weight to the earlier seasons in that four-season span or the later seasons and nobody can make up their mind.

I just find that 35% of the weighting reserved for the actual rosters of the teams is woefully small.

How much roster turnover typically happens in 4 years? How much turnover of the core of a team?

Maybe 1/3 of the league moves significantly, either better or worse?

 

[CraigBillington]

Listening to the guy on the radio yesterday, his reasoning behind some of this was just stupid. Definitely reeks of someone trying to get clicks.

 

[eojsmada]

Folks...it's an ESPN article. Which has as much weight and voracity as an Eklund rumor.

 

[Enniskillen]

ESPN talking about hockey. Automatic failure as if Tucker Carlson talked about culinary receipts instead of politics. Or maybe he is a chef!

 

[Sensin5]

Lol ESPN.

One Canadian team in top 15 and it's Winnipeg - I think the pandering is a little too obvious.

Some of the top 10 choices are hilarious.

 

[Three On Zero]

Lol ESPN.

One Canadian team in top 15 and it's Winnipeg - I think the pandering is a little too obvious.

Some of the top 10 choices are hilarious.

It reminds me of the "Most US national aired games" thread where ESPN is showing more Edmonton games, yet ESPN thinks that Edmonton is going to be a lower end teams over the next 4 years? .

You bet on a Canadian team to get you viewership but double down and say that team you're betting on is also going to be bad?

Overall this list is pretty hilarious, I knew it would generate some conversation. I think the general consensus is that ESPN has no f***ing idea how to market hockey to it's demographic

 

[Osakahaus]

Because they've been underperforming due to injuries and have had shit coaching. The current roster has a ton of talent and already has a top 3 talent pool whom are already making their way into the lineup. KJ and Fantilli will both be on the roster, Svozil and Jiricek will be waiting for a call up in Cleveland. Hell a guy like Mateychuk looks like he's already about ready to play in the NHL (although he's all but been told he's going back to the jr's)

I think there's going to be a ton of surprised folk around here when they are competing for the playoffs this season.

Tabbed

 

[the_fan]

Give it up ESPN, just stick to baseball and football

 

[SimpleJack]

F: Fantilli, Laine, Gaudreau, Jenner, Sillinger, K.Johnson, Marchenko, Chinakov, Brindley

C: Werenski, Jiricek, Provorov, Boqvist, Severson, Bean, Szovil

Looks pretty loaded to me. I think they could be a force as soon as this year, provided they get decent goaltending.

You lost me at “Laine”.

 

[Bank Shot]

Toronto and Edmonton are both well on their way to suffering from the aane fate Colorado and Tampa are beginning to suffer from now... And aging core and no longer having its best players signed to team friendly deals.

I disagree with ESPNs evaluation of Detroit in particular, but I would say teams like Buffalo/Ottawa/Seattle easily have a brighter future then the likes of Edmonton/Toronto/Colorado.

Why Seattle?

They have Grubauer signed for $6 million the next four seasons, he's turning 32 at the start of the season and his last two seasons were .889% and .895%.

The majority of the team are in their late 20's, early 30s. Berniers, Wright and Sale are supposed to offset that?

Think how good Seattle could be in 2 years if Beniers and Wright become as good as Mackinnon/Rantanen and Ryker Evans is the next Makar! Hey Colorado already has those players, but think of the mystery box in Seattle! If the 1% chance happens that those players turn out as good as Colorado, they could be a perennial contender!

But Colorado already has those players.....Shut Up! The mystery box could be anything! It could even be MacKinnon/Rantanen and Makar, you know how much they've always wanted three players like that. No brainer to take the mystery box.

I mean Seattle has cap flexibility! If they utilize that future cap space perfectly and avoid any kind of mistakes at all (Like Grubauer), they could be as good as Colorado one day!

As a Colorado fan you watched yourself as the Avalanche were a "team on the rise" since 2010 and it took them like ten years to break through as a consistent strong Cup contender. The 13/14 Avalanche were stacked with way more young, proven NHL talent than the Kraken could even dream about and it still took until 19/20 for the Avanlanche to become a consistent juggernaut.

Are you just trying to be a contrarian?

 

[JadedRandom]

The real answer to all questions/comments in this thread is that we should be getting paid for reading ESPN's articles on Hockey and not the other way around given how abysmal their coverage of the sport is.