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Neil PaineOct 22, 2025, 07:00 AM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Neil Paine writes about sports using data and analytics. Previously, he was Sports Editor at FiveThirtyEight.<\/p>\n Few teams in NHL history have proved themselves in the face of their doubters more than the Florida Panthers<\/a> of the past few seasons.<\/p>\n After getting humiliated<\/a> as a Presidents’ Trophy winner in 2022 — swept by the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> as their historic offense was mostly silenced — Florida rebuilt its identity<\/a> under Bill Zito and Paul Maurice, traded for toughness with Matthew Tkachuk<\/a>, leaned into defense and the goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a>, and turned those lessons into a championship blueprint: three straight Stanley Cup Final appearances, back-to-back titles and a bona fide dynasty<\/a>.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n But when one team proves so much, it doesn’t leave much room for others to do the same. So in many ways, this NHL season will be defined by the teams outside of South Florida that need to do a lot of proving of their own.<\/p>\n To help sort out which clubs have the most on the line in this prove-it 2025-26 season, we grouped 13 of them into five categories of teams with work to do and boxes to check. These range from longtime contenders still knocking on the door to hyped up-and-comers, possibly-past-their-prime powers and franchises whose fans would simply love them to prove they can make the playoffs every so often.<\/p>\n The common thread for all is that they have to change the story around their team, just like Florida had to do a few years ago. Let’s unpack each — and see who’s under the most pressure to get the job done this season.<\/p>\n The now-or-nevers<\/p>\n We’ve written about it here before<\/a>, but the primary victims of Florida’s success in recent seasons have been the teams that repeatedly came close to a title<\/a> but couldn’t break through. So this group is all about those that are seeking to prove they can finally make the championship leap — and especially those with a ticking clock on how long they can keep trying, and failing, to turn their potential into a parade.<\/p>\n Chief among this type of team? Clearly the Edmonton Oilers<\/a>, who finally skated for the Cup for the first time in the Connor McDavid<\/a>–Leon Draisaitl<\/a> era in 2024 after never previously advancing further than being swept in the conference finals. But back-to-back losses to Florida have raised the question of whether they can ever truly get over the hump.<\/p>\n New ESPN and FOX One Bundle<\/p>\n Bundle ESPN and FOX One and unlock more sports for one unbeatable price. Get the World Series, college football, NBA, NHL and more. Get access<\/a><\/p>\n The main things to prove might be whether the returning tandem of Stuart Skinner<\/a> and Calvin Pickard<\/a> can provide better goaltending than the .866 SV% they collectively posted in last season’s Final — and if this season’s offense, bolstered by the additions of Jack Roslovic<\/a> and Andrew Mangiapane<\/a>, can score enough for it not to matter.<\/p>\n Though McDavid recently inked a contract extension<\/a>, it only runs through 2027-28, so the Oilers’ window to compete still has a short shelf life.<\/p>\n And then there are the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> and Dallas Stars<\/a>, who are well past the point where they need to at least break through to the Final<\/a>, if not win the Cup. The two teams have combined to win an incredible 62 playoff games (32 for Dallas, 30 for Carolina) since 2022 without a single Stanley Cup Final appearance to show for it. No other team in the league had more such wins than the New York Rangers<\/a>‘ 23.<\/p>\n For Carolina, the team must demonstrate that its strategy of dominating possession — the Hurricanes have led the NHL’s offensive zone time-tracking metric every year it has existed — isn’t destined to forever be stonewalled by an elite goalie when the team runs up against one in the playoffs.<\/p>\n Dallas needs to prove that all the offseason moves it made<\/a> (including moving on from coach Peter DeBoer to Glen Gulutzan) were necessary to get this team to the next level.<\/p>\n Dallas is younger<\/a>, whereas Carolina has more of its core locked up longer, but both teams can feel the weight of time, and expectations, demanding a Finals run … maybe even against one another.<\/p>\n The snakebit histories<\/p>\n Now we get to the teams that haven’t even made it far enough to qualify as a now-or-never breakthrough candidate. These teams have had plenty of regular-season success, but they perpetually lose in Round 1 of the playoffs — or, on the odd occasion, win a series before a big letdown in the next round.<\/p>\n And over the past handful of seasons, nobody fits this mold more than the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> and Winnipeg Jets<\/a>.<\/p>\n Playoff wins for teams with most regular-season points (2018-25)<\/p>\n Since 2018-19, Toronto and Winnipeg rank third and seventh in total standings points, respectively, and yet they are the only members of the top eight on that list to fail to win 40 playoff games in that span — and neither is even close to that mark. (Neither has 30 wins, much less 40.)<\/p>\n The Leafs’ history of choking in the playoffs is extensive and well-documented<\/a>. Before 2023, this team hadn’t so much as won a single postseason series since 2004, and the Leafs still haven’t reached the conference finals since 2002 — to go with zero Cups since 1967, the final year of the NHL’s Original Six era.<\/p>\n As part of that, they own an eight-game losing streak in winner-take-all playoff games, the second-longest such skid in hockey history. There are micro-level things Toronto also needs to convince us about, such as offensive life after Mitch Marner<\/a> (so far, so good<\/a>) and if it can ever get the playoff goaltending it needs. But the main thing to prove is that the Leafs can overcome the ghosts of this franchise’s many past failures.<\/p>\n Winnipeg’s playoff struggles feel less biblical but are no better in the aggregate. After winning two total series in its first go-round — before the franchise relocated to Arizona — the version that rose from the ashes of the Atlanta Thrashers made a conference finals run in 2018 but has advanced to the second round only twice since then.<\/p>\n Last season was supposed to change all that<\/a>, but the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Jets barely beat the Blues in Round 1 and were then knocked off by the Stars as league MVP Connor Hellebuyck<\/a> was outplayed by Jake Oettinger<\/a> in net. Now the Jets have to show that their ascendance last season was no fluke, that they can be a playoff team in addition to a regular-season one, and that Hellebuyck can handle the pressure after three straight terrible postseason performances.<\/p>\n The hype trains<\/p>\n This is the place for those teams with young, exciting talent that haven’t exactly proved what they can do yet. They’re fun, marketable and full of promise — but as so many of the league’s up-and-coming squads of the past can tell you, promise alone lasts only so long.<\/p>\n Within this group, the New Jersey Devils<\/a> stand out a bit because they have been riding the hype train a little longer than the other two teams. The 2022-23 Devils appeared to announce themselves early as the league’s next big thing<\/a> behind a roster that ranked fourth on offense, eighth on defense … and third youngest in average age.<\/p>\n All of ESPN. All in one place.<\/p>\n Watch your favorite events in the newly enhanced ESPN App. Learn more about what plan is right for you. Sign Up Now<\/a><\/p>\n But electric center Jack Hughes<\/a> missed parts of the next two seasons, the team regressed and fired its coach, and the Devils only slightly reclaimed their prior potential last season. The 2025-26 version is off to a good start, but New Jersey needs to win some playoff series to get back to where we assumed it would be by now.<\/p>\n As for the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> and Chicago Blackhawks<\/a>, both have started the season fairly strong with rosters that rank 1-2 in the NHL in youngest average age.<\/p>\n Along with the Devils, the Canadiens were anticipated to be one of the league’s most improved teams this season, building on their playoff return a season ago with a young core that is now pretty well locked in after defenseman Lane Hutson<\/a>‘s recent contract extension<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now the job for Nick Suzuki<\/a>, Cole Caufield<\/a>, Noah Dobson<\/a>, Hutson & Co. is to see how much better they can continue to get this season — and whether they’ll belong in the Cup-contending conversation by the spring.<\/p>\n The Blackhawks are further from that goal than the Canadiens, but new coach Jeff Blashill has them playing much better than they did a season ago. Connor Bedard<\/a> continues to make progress, and Frank Nazar<\/a> has been an early-season star, while the Blackhawks appear to be a bit better on the goal-prevention side as well.<\/p>\n Chicago must prove that last season was simply a disappointing speed bump along its road to rebuilding a new winner with Bedard as the centerpiece.<\/p>\n The do-overs<\/p>\n Last season, the hype machine broke down for a number of teams that were expected to be Cup contenders, and perhaps no teams were bigger offenders than this trio. Each is out to show that 2024-25 was a fluke and it deserves another shot in 2025-26.<\/p>\n The New York Rangers’ collapse might have been the most jarring. A team that had finished top seven in fewest goals allowed per game for three straight seasons suddenly ranked 19th, allowed the sixth-most shots per game and got a combined .896 SV% from Jonathan Quick<\/a> and Igor Shesterkin<\/a>, who couldn’t paper over their issues anymore. The Jacob Trouba<\/a> trade<\/a> fractured the locker room, the power play cratered and a team that had made the Eastern Conference finals in 2024 unraveled far faster than anyone expected.<\/p>\n Breaking News from Emily Kaplan<\/p>\n Download the ESPN app and enable Emily Kaplan’s news alerts<\/a> to receive push notifications for the latest updates first. Opt in by tapping the alerts bell in the top right corner. For more information, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n After making even more offseason changes — out were Peter Laviolette, Chris Kreider<\/a> and K’Andre Miller<\/a>; in were Mike Sullivan and Vladislav Gavrikov<\/a> — the remade Rangers must get back to their previous business.<\/p>\n The Boston Bruins<\/a>‘ fall was even steeper by the numbers. In fact, the Bruins saw the largest year-over-year drop in goal differential of any team (minus-1.13 goals per game) after transitioning from what was once a record-breaking<\/a> veteran core to the league’s eighth-youngest lineup. What was supposed to be a smooth handoff turned into a full-scale identity crisis when Boston’s seven-year streak of top-five scoring finishes snapped to the tune of a No. 26 ranking on that side of the ice in 2024-25.<\/p>\n Now the remaining nucleus of David Pastrnak<\/a>, Charlie McAvoy<\/a> and Jeremy Swayman<\/a> has to prove that it, too, can carry an era of Bruins hockey the same way Brad Marchand<\/a>, Patrice Bergeron<\/a>, David Krej\u010d\u00ed<\/a>, Zdeno Chara<\/a>, Tuukka Rask<\/a>, Torey Krug<\/a> and others did in the past.<\/p>\n And then there were the Nashville Predators<\/a>, whose 68-point season represented a staggering 31.5-point shortfall versus their preseason Vegas projection<\/a> — the biggest miss in the NHL. What once looked like a loaded Preds roster<\/a> with scoring, depth and Juuse Saros<\/a> in net instead seemed disjointed from the start and never found success at either end.<\/p>\n Most of the group that was supposed to win last season is back now, and some are bouncing back nicely. Others, however, are like Steven Stamkos<\/a>, Brady Skjei<\/a> and Filip Forsberg<\/a> — from whom Nashville still needs more bang for the salary-cap bucks being spent.<\/p>\n The drought-enders<\/p>\n When the Ottawa Senators<\/a> finally made the playoffs last season, for the first time since going to the 2017 Eastern Conference finals, they ended what was tied for the NHL’s seventh-longest postseason drought of all time.<\/p>\n However, Ottawa was not the only franchise with a playoff-less streak that long — or even longer — and its achievement just turned up the pressure on the other two teams in that category to make their own postseason returns.<\/p>\n First, the Buffalo Sabres<\/a>: Their playoff drought<\/a> is now an NHL-record 14 seasons long — four more than the second-longest in league history — and the organization is well past the territory where incremental improvements suffice anymore. The youngest current Sabre, Zach Benson<\/a>, was still in kindergarten the last time Buffalo played a postseason game, and zero players on this season’s roster were in the NHL when the drought began.<\/p>\n Fantasy hockey essentials<\/p>\n \u2022 Weekly trends: Defensive players to add<\/a> After a modestly positive goal differential in 2023-24, Buffalo backslid to minus-22 last season, and that regression has seemed to carry over to 2025-26 thus far. The Sabres’ low playoff odds<\/a> already don’t paint a pretty picture, but they have to prove they can end this streak one of these years.<\/p>\n Finally, there are the Detroit Red Wings<\/a>, whose own nine-season drought is not too far off from Buffalo’s — and completely uncharacteristic<\/a> for one of hockey’s most storied franchises. The “Yzer-plan”<\/a> was designed to restore the glory years, but Detroit has ranked better than 24th in goal differential just once during the skid (2023-24) and gave back all of those gains last season.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761130028_610_edm.png&h=110&w=110.png\")
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