We made it. This is the final Weekend Rankings of the season. There’s still a couple of games left, and a few things still left to figure out over the next few days, but we’ll leave the final cleanup to the Friday guys. For our purposes, we’ve reached the finish line.
And if you’ve followed this feature over the years, you know what that means: Today’s the day you get an expanded Top 16, plus the Gold Plan standings down in the bottom five section.
But first, I’m going to be honest with you — I thought it would be a fun gimmick to use the bonus five section to go back and find my five dumbest rankings of the year. Nobody’s perfect, and you have to be able to laugh at yourself, or so I’ve been told. And sure enough, a quick look at the archives turns up more than a few weird calls. But when I dug a little deeper, I’m not sure I can really blame myself for some of those misfires. This season was just really, really weird.
Or at least, that’s the story I’m going to tell myself. You can decide if it sounds reasonable, as we dig through the five rankings from the season that stand out with the full benefit of hindsight as being, um, not completely accurate.
Bonus five: Weirdest (but maybe not wrong?) rankings of the season
5. The Panthers rankings first in week one – It’s not a great look when you call a team the Stanley Cup favorite and then they miss the playoffs by almost 20 points. Then again, was this really a terrible call? Don’t forget, they weren’t just the two-time defending champs — they started the season 3-0-0.
4. The Jets ranking first in week four – OK, this one’s a bit tougher to defend, since there’s a big difference between having three games to work with and having three full weeks. Still, the defending Presidents’ Trophy champs were 9-3-0 to start the year, so I’m not sure anyone saw the collapse coming. In hindsight, this was the peak — this is the week they’d score two goals while being swept on a three-game California road trip, starting a stretch that would see them win just six of 30 while losing Connor Hellebuyck to injury.
3. The Ducks in the bottom five in January – This one looked a lot worse even a week or two ago, when it seemed like Anaheim was going to cruise to first place in the Pacific. To my credit, I’d been a preseason believer and kept them out of the early bottom fives. But I finally pulled the chute in mid-January, with the Ducks having lost nine in a row to plummet to fake .500. At the time, I don’t think anyone was arguing. In hindsight, they were about to win seven straight.
2. The Devils ranking second in November – I’d forgotten that the Devils started the season 8-1-0. This ranking was from a few weeks later, when they’d just earned back-to-back wins over the Canadiens and Penguins to move to 11-4-0. Believe it or not, that briefly put them in first place overall in the league. They’d win two of their next three, but the weird Jack Hughes restaurant injury was just about to blunt their momentum — pretty much permanently, as it turned out.
1. The Sabres spending six weeks in the bottom five – There’s no better symbol for just how unpredictable the 2025-26 season turned out to be than the Sabres, who were bad enough to finally get their GM fired before deciding it might be fun to be the best team in the world for the next few months, just as a treat. It’s one thing for a team that ends up being good to show up in the bottom five in week one, but another entirely for them to be there six weeks in a row through mid-December. But is it? In my defense, six weeks might be fewer mentions than those Sabres deserved. And for the record, I never had them any worse than fourth in the bottom five. What I’m trying to say is that I was being an optimist.
OK, on to the main event…
Road to the Cup
The five 16 teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.
Man, I spend all season ranking five teams as Cup contenders, then we finally get to the weekend where I get to list everyone only to have the hockey media’s assignment editor announce that there are indeed only five. Ah well, let’s do this anyway.
And yes, we’re listing 16 teams even though there are more teams than that still mathematically alive. Does that mean we’ll have to get cute in a few spots? It sure does, but that’s never stopped us before.
As per tradition, each spot gets exactly two sentences.
16. The last wild-card team in the West – It will probably be the Kings, although the Predators still have a shot and the Sharks and Jets are at least technically alive. Congratulations to whichever team makes it, you’re going to lose to the Avalanche in three.
15. Boston Bruins – They’ve been a great story and Jeremy Swayman will give them a chance against anyone. Winning a round wouldn’t completely shock me, but four feels like too much to ask.
14. Anaheim Ducks – They’ve been one of the season’s biggest surprises, and I’ll never pass up an opportunity to say that I called it way back when. But they’re not winning the Cup.
13. The third-place team in the Metro – The race looks like it’s going to go down to the wire, with the Flyers, Capitals and (barely) Blue Jackets all in the mix. Any of those teams could beat the Penguins, and I might even nudge the Caps up a spot or two if they can pull it off, based on the Logan Thompson factor.
12. Pittsburgh Penguins – They’ve got a winnable first-round matchup, a legitimate “nobody believes in us” story they’re rightly leaning into, and the tantalizing potential of a Last Dance-style narrative if they can get some real traction. I just can’t talk myself into them winning more than a round, but I really wish I could.
11. Utah Mammoth – They’re going to be a very trendy pick to win the Pacific Division as a crossover wild-card team. Probably a little too trendy given how Edmonton and Vegas are finally starting to wake up, although the Mammoth are at least trying to please the hockey gods.
10. Vegas Golden Knights – They just haven’t clicked all year long, despite a loaded roster. Still, this feels like the first team we’ve hit where you can imagine a realistic path to a championship, especially when you mix in the John Tortorella factor.
9. Minnesota Wild – They’re definitely better than the ninth-best team in the league. But after a season of the Central’s big three all feeling like legit contenders, we’ve finally hit the point where one of them has to pay the playoff format tax.
8. Montreal Canadiens – This is a fun team that sure seems to be having one of those seasons where a lot of things break just right. I’m still not quite sure how that translates to winning more than a round or two, but they’ll be must-watch while they try.
7. Ottawa Senators – This is higher than you probably expected, but I’ve been trying to sound the alarm here for a while now, including on last week’s pod when I planted my “The Senators are winning the Metro” flag. They might ruin that by staying in the Atlantic, but either way, this is an extremely dangerous team if they can get even decent goaltending from their (checks notes) recent Vezina winner.
6. Buffalo Sabres – You know I love you guys, Sabres fans. You also know there have been some warning signs on the dashboard all year long, and that the Habs and Lightning make the path out of the Atlantic look daunting, so this is about the best I can do.
5. Edmonton Oilers – Somebody has to come out of the Pacific, and whoever it is will have as good a shot as anyone in the final four. My money is on the Oilers, although that’s based on the assumption that Leon Draisaitl makes his return at some point in Round 1.
4. Tampa Bay Lightning – Yes, I’m picking the grizzled veterans over the division’s cast of upstarts, despite what the standings might say. Mainly because I hate fun and whimsy.
3. Carolina Hurricanes – Looking at the path in front of them, this might be the single best chance they’ve had under Rod Brind’Amour, which gives this spring an added “now or never” vibe. I’m leaning towards now, especially if they get Boston instead of Ottawa.
2. Dallas Stars – That comeback win over the Wild to all but clinch home ice was their closing argument, and it was enough to lock down second spot. Pierre has been lobbying forever to have the Stanley Cup final played in May, and I’m starting to think he may get his wish this year when the Stars and Avs face off in the second round.
1. Colorado Avalanche – The path out of the division is brutal, but we don’t have to get cute here. Make it 21 consecutive weeks on top of the rankings for the Presidents’ Trophy winners.
Not ranked: Detroit Red Wings – If the grimacing emoji was a hockey team.
The bottom five
The five teams headed towards dead last, and the best lottery odds for a shot at Gavin McKenna or Ivar Stenberg.
The idea behind this section is a year-long attempt to predict which teams will end up at the bottom of the league. But with just a few days left, you don’t need me anymore. The standings page tells us everything we need to know.
So instead, we like to use the final bottom five section of the year to update the Gold Plan standings. If you’re new to the Gold Plan, it’s an alternate system for determining draft order — teams are ranked based on how many points they accumulate after being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, meaning bad teams get a head start but everyone has to actually win their way to a high pick.
The Gold Plan is used in the PWHL, and I’ve been making the case for years that it would be an improvement over the NHL’s system. Not everyone agrees, but a lot of smart people do. There are also some fair objections, which I tried to address back in the day.
So how would the race for the top pick look in a world where the NHL had the Gold Plan? Well, it’s fair to say that this year wouldn’t rank especially high for suspense.
2025-26 Gold Plan Standings
TeamFirst dayGPWLOTPTS
Rangers
26-Mar
9
6
3
0
12
Canucks
23-Mar
11
3
8
0
6
Devils
08-Apr
3
2
1
0
4
Panthers
05-Apr
3
1
1
1
3
Flames
08-Apr
3
1
2
0
2
Blackhawks
03-Apr
4
1
3
0
2
Maple Leafs
03-Apr
4
0
3
1
1
Kraken
12-Apr
0
0
0
0
0
Red Wings
12-Apr
0
0
0
0
0
Blues
12-Apr
0
0
0
0
0
Yeah, the Gold Plan race has been all Rangers this year. Or at least it would be, if the results of all the games stayed the same, which they wouldn’t — that’s half the appeal of the system, that it would motivate teams to actually try down the stretch instead of sleepwalking their way through the final weeks.
But even if it did play out this way, it would mean Rangers fans would have spent the last few weeks cheering their team on while they rolled to a potentially franchise-defining pick, instead of feeling annoyed that each win was just hurting their draft odds. I think that’s a better system; maybe you agree, maybe you don’t. For now, it’s a thought experiment and nothing more.
That does it for another year. Thanks to every who read, shared, commented and otherwise joined in the fun. We’ll be back next season, when it will be way too early and we’ll be mostly wrong. Until then, enjoy the playoffs.