What teams are best set for contending the next 5yrs?

[Lshap]

yes, but 5 years from now is very different from "over the next 5 years".

Yes, the thread title sounds like it's asking which current contenders will remain contenders over the next five years. Frankly, the most logical answer is none of them. The next year or two? Sure. Over five years? Doubtful. Which is probably why the conversation has drifted into the more interesting tangent of upcoming contenders.

And that's where teams like San Jose, Montreal, Anaheim, Seattle, etc. come in. It's a safe bet that between now and 5 years, at least one bottom team will become a contender, while at the same time many top teams will fall out of the playoffs.

 

[dgibb10]

Yes, the thread title sounds like it's asking which current contenders will remain contenders over the next five years. Frankly, the most logical answer is none of them. The next year or two? Sure. Over five years? Doubtful. Which is probably why the conversation has drifted into the more interesting tangent of upcoming contenders.

And that's where teams like San Jose, Montreal, Anaheim, Seattle, etc. come in. It's a safe bet that between now and 5 years, at least one bottom team will become a contender, while at the same time many top teams will fall out of the playoffs.

I'd say the top 5 teams of the last 5 years have been VGK, Colorado, Tampa, Florida, and Boston.

4/5 of them were already contenders 6 and 7 years ago.

And florida was more mediocre than bottom feeder. They were projected to make the playoffs preseason of 19-20

You can throw in Dallas, Carolina, TML, Edmonton, and NYR to round out the 10 best teams if you want. Only NYR and Edmonton weren't projected to make the playoffs heading into 2019-2020

Teams like Anaheim, MTL, SJS likely have best case scenarios of 3 playoff appearances in the next 5 years.