NHL execs reveal Stanley Cup tiers: How every playoff team really stacks up

AtlanticBruinsCanadiensLightningMaple LeafsPanthersRed WingsSabresSenatorsMetropolitanBlue JacketsCapitalsDevilsFlyersHurricanesIslandersPenguinsRangersCentralAvalancheBlackhawksBluesJetsMammothPredatorsStarsWildPacificCanucksDucksFlamesGolden KnightsKingsKrakenOilersSharksScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsFantasyNHL OddsNHL PicksPlayoff projectionsNHL Draft rankingRed Light NewsletterNHL Playoffs It’s rare for a team to earn a clean sweep of Tier 1 votes from our panelists. Colorado did. Ron Chenoy / Imagn Images Share articleThis is one of the most unique crops of Stanley Cup playoff teams we’ve seen in recent memory. The Eastern Conference is wide-open with the Florida Panthers out of the picture. You have the perennial contenders in Carolina and Tampa Bay, the new kids on the block in Buffalo and Montreal, a couple of dark horses, and even legacy teams such as the Penguins and Bruins that defied all expectations by making the dance. The West is unpredictable for a different reason: The best teams (Colorado, Dallas, Minnesota) will be forced to go through each other. Meanwhile, the Pacific is flawed; the division-winning Golden Knights finished with one point fewer than last year’s Calgary Flames, who missed the playoffs. But the easier path means somebody from that side of the bracket will make it to the Western Conference final. Fans, media and statistical models are all making their predictions, but what do people inside the league think? We assembled a nine-person, anonymous panel of high-level NHL front-office executives and senior staff. We asked each person to sort all 16 playoff teams into Tiers 1-5 and tallied the average votes. This is how we explained the Cup contender tiers to our panel: While panelists were instructed to think of Tier 1 as the league’s inner circle of Cup favorites (roughly 3-4 teams), several executives were reluctant to include more than two clubs in that category. The result is a smaller top tier than expected, which is a telling sign of how uncertain this playoff field is. It’s rare for a team to earn a clean sweep of Tier 1 votes from every panelist. Colorado did. The last time it happened in this exercise? The 2022 Avalanche, who went on to win the Cup. Exec 2: “The (Nazem) Kadri addition was great. When you have (Nathan) MacKinnon and (Cale) Makar, the star power you have is overwhelming. Having (Martin) Necas and (Brock) Nelson, it’s just a good team.” The stage is set for a Stanley Cup run, but success is never guaranteed — just look at how dominant Presidents’ Trophy-winning teams such as the 2023 Bruins or 2019 Lightning flamed out. Exec 3: “I’ve always had a concern about their winger depth, just with (Gabriel) Landeskog’s health. It goes both ways, where he hasn’t had a lot of miles on the body in the last 12-24 months, but he also isn’t really in that kind of shape to maybe give you four really strong rounds. “And then outside of Necas and (Valeri) Nichushkin, I don’t know if they have any difference makers (on the wing). I think they’re in that first tier, but definitely some questions.” Even though Colorado was rated as the best contender in the NHL, most of our panelists think Dallas isn’t too far behind. Exec 2: “Dallas has an argument for being the best team in the league. I would give it to Colorado, but Dallas is right up there with them. It all starts with their depth and D core.” Exec 1: “They’ve got (elite) guys at every position, similar to Colorado. (Miro) Heiskanen is maybe my favorite defenseman in the league; he’s slightly lesser than Makar. You got (Roope) Hintz, (Jason) Robertson, (Mikko) Rantanen, they’re slightly lesser than MacKinnon. They’re deep, probably even a little deeper than Colorado, but they’re not quite as good at the highest high-end.” With Hintz’s uncertain health status — he’s expected to miss Games 1 and 2 of the opening round — there are some questions about Dallas’ speed down the middle and overall center depth. Exec 3: “The injury to (Tyler) Seguin hurts them. I think down the middle, (they’re) a little unsure with Hintz and his health. Wyatt Johnston had a pretty quiet playoff last year. Matt Duchene is a mixed bag — good player, but is he really going to stir the drink? But I do think, as a collective group and knowing what their identity is, they probably have the most cohesive top six.” Carolina narrowly edged out Tampa Bay as the highest-rated team in the East, but the divide in how front offices view them was stark and telling. Exec 1: “Carolina’s a level above everybody else in the East, in my opinion … They’re really f—ing good and they’re really deep. They can throw three lines at you, they come at you in waves, their speed is top-level. (Brandon) Bussi has been a rockstar this year. They’re gonna be in the Conference finals, I don’t see any way that they’re not.” Exec 4: “Carolina is a regular-season team.” Besides goaltending, there’s always a question about whether the team has enough game-breaking/elite scoring threats, despite them being the NHL’s second-highest scoring team in the regular season. Exec 2: “There’s not a lot of marquee players that you could plug them into this (playing) style, and it brings their ability to be a game-breaker to a forefront rather than distracts from it.” Any team led by Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel, Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point and Co. is a formidable threat. Exec 2: “To me, Tampa’s the best team in the East … They’re the best-coached team in the NHL. That’s the biggest edge they have as a team.” The main concern multiple panelists highlighted was the age, injuries and overall mileage this older core has accumulated from this season and previous Stanley Cup runs. Exec 4: “Tampa is banged up and old.” J.J. Moser and Darren Raddysh also have to prove they can carry the top pair in the playoffs the same way they have in the regular season, because Victor Hedman’s game has significantly declined, and his availability for Round 1 is uncertain. Exec 1: “Hedman’s not the same. Point hasn’t been as good. (Erik) Cernak’s had some hard miles on him … I wouldn’t want to play Tampa in the first round. Each successive round, I think the odds that they get tired, injured and worn down (increase).” The Quinn Hughes acquisition has catapulted the Wild into top-five Cup contender status, but nearly every panelist agreed that they’re the third-best team in their own division, which makes their playoff route “damn near impossible,” as Exec 2 put it. Minnesota boasts arguably the best blue line and goaltending tandem in the NHL, but its one-two punch at center isn’t very imposing and the Wild’s crop of secondary top-six wingers behind Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy is good but not elite. Exec 1: “They have two rockstar goalies, their defense is crazy (good) now. You can throw (Brock) Faber, Hughes, (Jonas Brodin), (Jake) Middleton, and (Jared) Spurgeon and you’ve got all 60 minutes of the game covered by those (five) guys; they can all play monster minutes. Faber and Hughes alone, it’s almost criminal that they’re on the same team.” Exec 3: “I don’t think they have the firepower (that Colorado or Dallas does), but I do think they have the necessary pieces to foil what the strengths of those Central teams are.” Vegas is one of the biggest unknowns in the West. The Golden Knights underachieved for most of the season, but they’re experiencing a John Tortorella bump, going 7-0-1 since his arrival — though it’s worth noting their schedule was quite soft in that stretch. Exec 5: “Your path dictates where you go. I bumped Edmonton and Vegas up because the division is so weak. You look at the top-5 players in Vegas, they’re elite. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them get it done.” Exec 1: “I don’t think they can beat Edmonton (in a potential Round 2 rematch). They’re just not dynamic enough anymore.” Some had questions about their stylistic mix offensively. Vegas has elite, dynamic forwards in Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner and Mark Stone, but they’re all pass-first players, and outside of Pavel Dorofeyev, who’s mostly a power-play scorer, they don’t have many natural shooters to convert the chances that get created. Exec 3: “I think they have enough difference makers with Eichel, Marner, and then if you think about Stone and his ability to pick pucks off of guys, especially in the playoffs, where one good forecheck can tilt a game. (But) who those guys give the puck to is a problem.” Buffalo was rated as the third-best contender in the East by our panel, but there was some disagreement on exactly how dangerous the team is as a Cup threat, with the club receiving four Tier 2 votes and five Tier 3 votes. Exec 3: “I think their forward group is just dangerous. Up and down the lineup, they just have a really strong forward group identity, which is play with a s— ton of pace and then they have guys who can finish on every line.” Exec 4: “I am not quite buying Buffalo.” Exec 1: “Buffalo’s gonna win one round (at least) without blinking. I really like their back end. (Rasmus) Dahlin is a 25-minute-a-game player; he’s offensive, he’s got size and he’s a little bit sneaky with some of the s— he does. “(Bowen) Byram has tightened his game up more this year. (Mattias) Samuelsson is rock-solid; he’s turned into the best-case scenario of what he could be. I know Owen Power gets s—, but my god, he’s still a 22-23 minute a game player and he’s 6-foot-6 and he can skate (well).” A couple of panelists had concerns about whether the Sabres’ elite regular-season goaltending results (league-high .927 five-on-five save percentage since early December) would actually carry over to the playoffs. Our panel agreed that this year’s Oilers are slightly weaker than the last two years, especially with concerns around Leon Draisaitl’s health, but that’s offset by a favorable path through the Pacific. Exec 1: “They’ve been to the Cup (Final) twice because of three or four guys. If you had given them any kind of depth on the forwards or if their goalie wasn’t Stuart Skinner, they’re probably two-time Stanley Cup champions. So what do they do? They go out and get a goalie (Tristan Jarry) who might not be as good as Skinner … it’s astounding to me that they haven’t fixed any of the holes.” Exec 5: “Edmonton’s not murderer’s row anymore. They have Connor, which is the cure-all, but they don’t have the same depth they used to.” The front-office execs we polled spoke in exceptionally glowing terms about the Canadiens’ young core. This is a bona fide Cup-contender quality nucleus in their eyes. Exec 1: “I love the pace they play at. (Cole) Caufield is a rockstar with the scoring. (Nick) Suzuki is one of the most underrated players in the NHL. He’s f—ing awesome and people have no idea; they go 25 (players) deep (talking about the best players in the league) before someone mentions Suzuki’s name, it’s crazy to me. He can do it all.” Exec 2: “Montreal and Buffalo are the exact same caliber teams. I would maybe even be a bit more bullish on Montreal. I believe in their higher-end players a little bit more.” There are some question marks about their depth, though. Noah Dobson’s injury is a significant blow for the right side. A couple of panelists pointed out that the Canadiens are also, in their minds, another elite middle-six center away from championship-caliber forward depth. Exec 2: “When you look at the middle six, you look at guys like (Alexandre) Texier and (Alex) Newhook and (Oliver) Kapanen and (Kirby) Dach, I’m not sold on them as the middle pieces of a Cup-contending team.” The Senators dominate shots and high-danger chances, and there are believers who see a case for them as dark-horse contenders if they get league-average goaltending. However, not everyone is sold — Ottawa ended up being one of the most polarizing teams in this exercise, receiving votes everywhere from Tier 2 to Tier 5. Exec 2: “Ottawa’s a better team to me than their record suggests. … When you have a guy like Jake Sanderson on the back end, it lets guys like (Thomas) Chabot and (Jordan) Spence take a bit of a backseat role and do their thing better. “Brady Tkachuk is the emotional heartbeat of that team so a lot comes down to him, but they rely a lot on that team toughness where you can envision them in the playoffs having a lot of success. Shane Pinto is a really good and under-appreciated player.” Exec 1: “(Linus) Ullmark has the history (from past years) of being a really good regular-season goalie and being less able to be counted on in the playoffs. I don’t love that.” The Penguins have morphed into an offensive powerhouse under Dan Muse, scoring goals at the third-highest clip in the NHL this season. Will it be enough to fuel a deep playoff run with the old guard? Exec 2: “They’ve had some clever additions (Anthony Mantha), I love the (Justin) Brazeau addition, (Egor) Chinakhov has been excellent for them. “Erik Karlsson is having an unbelievable year. A lot of things are going right for this team and you have to give a lot of credit to the coaching staff, but at the end of the day, how much more can you squeeze out of this team? (But) when you have (Sidney) Crosby, Karlsson, and (Evgeni) Malkin, I have to put them in that same bucket I put Montreal, Ottawa and Buffalo in.” Exec 3: “If they win that first-round matchup against Philly and they run into Carolina in that second round, I could see them beating Carolina in a little bit of a one-shot (scoring contest). … You’re confident that Crosby against (Sebastian) Aho is probably a wash. Malkin against that (Logan) Stankoven line, they might get outshot, but they might (still) score the extra goal.” Utah is an exciting up-and-coming team, and very few people would be surprised if they find a way to take Vegas down in Round 1, but our panel doesn’t view them as a true Cup threat quite yet. Exec 1: “I think they’re a year or two away if they make the right moves. Right now, I don’t think they win a round and if they do, it’s only one.” Exec 2: “Utah’s a better team than I think their record suggests. They’re a fun team to watch. They are very much a team (though), where I don’t bet on their high-end players in the playoffs. “Guys like (Clayton) Keller, (Logan) Cooley, (Dylan) Guenther, and (JJ) Peterka are great, but they’re a little inconsistent, and I’m not sure they’re the type of players who (will) elevate in the playoffs to the same degree as other players.” The Bruins have star power at every position with David Pastrnak, Jeremy Swayman and Charlie McAvoy. Many execs, however, were skeptical about their chances of a deep postseason run because they don’t believe their secondary scoring (which has been surprisingly good this season) will hold up in the playoffs. Exec 2: “Pittsburgh and Boston, they can win a round, they’ve had good years, but these are not teams that I believe in.” Exec 3: “All of the dice that they rolled this year hit. Tanner Jeannot fit in pretty nicely and Viktor Arvidsson fit in pretty nicely and Casey Mittelstadt, after the trade, adjusted (well), but just because those guys had productive regular seasons doesn’t necessarily mean I trust those guys in a playoff series to pull you ahead in a tug of war.” The Ducks are a bit similar to last year’s Canadiens narrative-wise: They’re extremely fun, fast and dynamic offensively, but have some major flaws, especially defensively, which significantly limit their playoff ceiling. And yet, just like last year’s Canadiens, it doesn’t matter because the team is playing with house money after making the playoffs a year sooner than many expected. Exec 1: “They’ve outscored teams. They got (Cutter) Gauthier, (Leo) Carlsson, (Beckett) Sennecke. (Jackson) LaCombe’s a stud. (Mason) McTavish is having a bad year (but) he’s still got almost 20 goals … (Lukáš) Dostál does have the ability to get on hot streaks, but it’s very hard, if not impossible, to win like that in the playoffs.” Exec 2: “Anaheim’s one of those teams that can win a round. The goaltending (for Edmonton) is unreliable, and Anaheim just has so many young studs that are virtually (all) offensive firepower.” Don’t sleep on the Flyers in Round 1 against the Penguins. Philadelphia is structured defensively, Dan Vladar has had a strong year between the pipes, and Porter Martone (10 points in nine games) has been an instant difference-maker. Ultimately, though, Philadelphia is viewed as a mid-tier team that outperformed its true talent level. Exec 5: “I know (Rick) Tocchet will get the most of them, but Philly is happy to be there. This is a miracle. They were miles out of it and they’re young.” Exec 1: “(Trevor) Zegras, (Christian) Dvorak, (Matvei) Michkov, (Owen) Tippett, I think they get pushed out (to the perimeter).” L.A. is stingy defensively, and the acquisition of Artemi Panarin injected a desperately needed game-breaker. But this is still a team that severely lacks offensive juice (29th-ranked in goals scored per game), at least in part because their back end is too heavy and slow to move pucks up the ice to their forwards. Exec 2: “I expected more out of this roster. They can definitely win a round. I think they’re a better team than Anaheim, a more playoff-ready team than Anaheim, but at the same time, I’m not gonna bet on the team playing against Colorado in Round 1.” Spot the pattern. 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