The path to the playoffs for Canada’s seven NHL teams

Technically, the National Hockey League opened the regular season this past weekend, with the Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks playing a two-game set in Prague. But meaningful puck drop – where the rest of the league, including the seven Canadian teams, get started – comes this week, and from there, a six-month sprint to the playoffs.

Speaking of the playoffs, Game 83 and beyond is where a lot of Canadian teams figure to be at the end of the season. Yes, some teams have higher base forecasts than others: the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Atlantic Division, and the Edmonton Oilers in the Pacific Division, are two examples where expectations are a fair bit higher than just playoff qualification.

There is a lot of hope in Canada right now – perhaps save for an in-the-thick-of-rebuilding team like the Montreal Canadiens. That optimism raises an interesting question: How many Canadian teams can we expect to qualify for the postseason, and what is the path for each team?

Betting markets offer some insight into this. If we look at revised playoff odds, we can see how Vegas – the bookmakers, not the hockey team – perceives each of the seven Canadian clubs’ chances at qualifying for the playoffs. (Note: I did not back out the “rake” the sportsbooks take on these futures prices, so true implied odds are probably a tick lower than shown.)

No team in the NHL has better implied playoff odds than the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche at nearly 99 per cent – not a shocker there, but the decisiveness of it is staggering and a testament to how talented and how deep that organization is right now. On the low end, there is little hope for the Arizona Coyotes and Chicago Blackhawks, clocking in under 6 per cent.

Let’s look at the Canadian teams, and where we see downside risks emerging for the likely contenders, and upside potential for the underdogs:

Toronto Maple Leafs

- Second-highest implied playoff odds (92 per cent)
- Projected to finish first in Atlantic Division

With Toronto’s playoff track record being so futile, there’s little – if anything – the Maple Leafs can do to win over their fans before playoff hockey begins. That said, it’s hard not to be very confident in this team reaching the postseason. The Maple Leafs have accrued more standings points than all but five teams in the Kyle Dubas era, averaging 105.4 (prorated per 82 games) per regular season. The Maple Leafs, not dissimilar to rival organizations in Tampa Bay and Boston, have enjoyed the luxuries of playing in a top-heavy Atlantic Division, where there have been an abundance of minnows and rebuilding teams. They will again this year, though we expect to see a little tightening from improvement across the bottom-half of the division.

Where’s the risk?

In net, of course. Toronto has succeeded despite porous goaltending as recently as last year, but there is no doubt the Maple Leafs are carrying an exceptional degree of risk in net with a prospective Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov tandem. Until Murray shows he can (a) be durable; and (b) can perform at the level we saw down the stretch last year, or a few seasons ago in Pittsburgh, league prognosticators will remain bearish. And Samsonov offers little reprieve if Murray doesn’t rebound. One of the deepest teams in the league is as deep as a puddle in net, and goaltending stinging Toronto this regular season is well inside of the range of outcomes.

Edmonton Oilers

- Fifth-highest implied playoff odds (88 per cent)
- Projected to finish first in Pacific Division

If Toronto is Canada’s best bet for a playoff representative in the Eastern Conference, it’s the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference. The Oilers have deepened a once top-heavy lineup and, with the dynamic superstar tandem of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl at the top of the lineup, have the type of firepower to buzz saw most opponents again this season. This duo combined for 99 goals a season ago and once again championed one of the league’s more dynamic offences – last season’s team averaged 3.5 goals per game, and the lion’s share of that lineup is returning in Jay Woodcroft’s first full season behind the bench.

Where’s the risk?

Like Toronto, Edmonton’s goaltending situation has been a bit untenable for a few seasons now, with a challenged Mikko Koskinen and an aged Mike Smith holding down the fort in the previous couple of seasons. But Edmonton, with a bit more cap space and an insatiable appetite to find stability in net, decided to take a different approach than Toronto. Rather than bargain shop, the Oilers gave starter Jack Campbell a five-year, $25-million dollar contract. Campbell has a lengthy track record of producing (91.6 per cent career stop rate) but is also fresh off one of his worst seasons, where he gave up eight goals more than expected in 49 starts. There’s plenty of reason to trust Campbell, but behind a sometimes overly amenable Oilers defence, this will be something to watch.

Calgary Flames

- Seventh-highest implied playoff odds (87 per cent)
- Projected to finish second in Pacific Division

Where does one even begin summarizing the Calgary off-season? The Flames took one of the league’s most dominant teams and detonated it in stunning fashion, with Johnny Gaudreau off to Columbus and Matthew Tkachuk to Florida. In a normal off-season, those two moves alone would be a lot to digest. But the Flames backfilled both losses by acquiring big talent from external markets, bringing Nazem Kadri, MacKenzie Weegar (freshly extended!), and Jonathan Huberdeau into the fold. Huberdeau will be a fascinating player to track this year. The 29-year-old winger finished third in league scoring with a high-flying Panthers offence last season, amassing 115 points. He’s always been a rare distributor and playmaker, and we will see if that continues with his new organization.

Where’s the risk?

For starters, no winning team experienced more year-over-year change than the Flames, and the bar from last season is so impossibly high it would seem difficult to clear. To the extent that team chemistry was a contributor to last year’s success – well, that’s something that’s going to need to be rebuilt on the fly by Darryl Sutter and company. And I still think this team needs one or two of their projected top-nine wingers to take a step forward this year – with Calgary’s newfound centre talent, players like Blake Coleman, Dillon Dube, and Tyler Toffoli will be expected to produce.

Vancouver Canucks

- 19th-highest implied playoff odds (55 per cent)
- Projected to finish fifth in Pacific Division

Oddsmakers see Vancouver right around the playoff cutline, and why wouldn’t they? Last year’s team was impressively mediocre (+13), though we saw more life under new head coach Bruce Boudreau. But that’s the frustrating part with this lineup and franchise right now – there’s more than enough talent here to deliver a playoff contender, certainly so across their forward group, and one berth in the prior five seasons just isn’t good enough. Combine the talent across their forward group with a bona fide first-pairing anchor in Quinn Hughes and a lockdown goaltender like Thatcher Demko, and it should be enough to see Game 83 in a softer Pacific Division. But I’ve said that before!

Where’s the risk?

We need to see this talented group of forwards generate meaningful offence and sustain it, particularly at even strength. Despite the obvious talent across the top nine, the Canucks forwards can go through lengthy periods where they struggle to generate dangerous offence, often pushed to the perimeter or stuck in a gummed-up game in the neutral zone. I suspect some of this has to do with a very weak blueline that, absent a player like Hughes, has a whale of time exiting the defensive zone and cleanly transitioning the puck. It puts way more defensive workload on the forward group and mutes its overall production. Look at last season: the Canucks, with a similar lineup at even strength, finished 20th in scoring (2.4 goals per 60). The year before they were 19th in scoring, with 2.4 goals per 60. The year before that the Canucks were 17th in scoring, at 2.6 goals per 60. You get the point.

Winnipeg Jets

- 21st-highest implied playoff odds (38 per cent)
- Projected to finish sixth in Central Division

If you were in a coma or decided to step away from hockey this summer, you may be curious to know what the Jets did to improve on last year’s disappointing finish. The answer is very little, preparing to dress a lineup virtually indiscernible from that of year’s past. In fairness to Winnipeg’s front office, the team is betting on two material changes coming from internal pieces. Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler, and Nikolaj Ehlers all missed meaningful time, and hopefully will be more available for new head coach Rick Bowness. They also need a young player like Cole Perfetti to step up and solidify one of the spots for an otherwise talent-depleted right wing position. Perfetti was nearly a point-per-game player in AHL Manitoba last year and, considering his draft pedigree from two years with the Saginaw Spirit, is a plausible breakout candidate inside of Winnipeg’s top six.

Where’s the upside?

This Winnipeg lineup looks very top-heavy once again, and unless we get supernova seasons from players like Ehlers, Scheifele, Kyle Connor and the like (though we did to a large degree last season), it’s going to be an uphill fight to qualify for the postseason. But the Jets have a wild card at their disposal many teams do not. Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck is the ultimate eraser and even in a relative down year like last season, he still stopped 91.1 per cent of shots and erased 14 goals versus expected. If Hellebuyck can bring those numbers closer to his career high-water marks (2019-20: 92.2 per cent stop rate, 20 goals saved above expected), Winnipeg instantly looks like a tougher out.

Ottawa Senators

- 22nd-highest implied playoff odds (32 per cent)
- Projected to finish fifth in Atlantic Division

On the very short list of teams primed to breakout and disrupt the standings picture as we know it are the Ottawa Senators. Ottawa willfully decided to blow up the core parts of their roster five years ago, moving into a deep rebuild filled with multi-goal losses and, bluntly, difficult-to-watch hockey. But my have things changed. Ottawa’s prospects are now young and established NHL players, and the team’s bullishness on the futures of players like Josh Norris and Tim Stützle – who combined for 57 goals last season – was met with long-term contract extensions this summer. For the first time in quite a while, there is going to be pressure back in the Ottawa market to deliver a playoff-calibre lineup. And though oddsmakers still see their qualification as less likely than more, a fifth-place finish in the Atlantic could be enough to snag a wild-card spot.

Where’s the upside?

If you are sleeping on Ottawa’s forwards, do me a favour and stop. The Senators are preparing to dress one of the more formidable top nines in the entire league, and the fact that most of these pieces – save for the veteran Claude Giroux, a key free-agent signing this summer – are very early in their careers should scare the rest of the Atlantic Division. The fact the organization can append a player like Giroux and Alex DeBrincat (41 goals a season ago) to a core group of playmakers that were productive playing with inferior talent is scary. And even if Ottawa’s breakthrough as a team doesn’t come this year, I would be stunned if the offence was quiet this regular season.

Montreal Canadiens

- 30th-highest implied playoff odds (6 per cent)
- Projected to finish eighth in Atlantic Division

It’s a rebuilding year. It will be deep, and painful. But Canadiens fans could – and perhaps should – embrace the organizational reset ongoing in Montreal right now. We witnessed a similar blow-it-up moment in Ottawa a few years ago, and now we are looking at a lineup that’s teeming with established professionals and capable prospects ready to make the jump. It simply takes time. The wins and losses won’t matter as much as the individual player evaluations. Core pieces like Nick Suzuki are going to have to hold the proverbial fort down as the team transitions through this period, and young names – starting with 21-year-old Cole Caufield, 21-year-old Kirby Dach, and 18-year-old Juraj Slafkovsky – will be must-watches for Montreal’s evaluation team, and head coach Martin St. Louis.

Where’s the upside?

It’s not this year. This team isn’t qualifying for the playoffs. But if St. Louis can get production from the pieces who figure to be around beyond this season, it’ll be an organizational win.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Hockey Reference, Evolving Hockey