Let’s get you caught up on all the NHL action you missed over the weekend.

There wasn’t any. Cool, good column. See you next time.

OK, we won’t wrap it up quite that quickly. But with most teams getting only a couple of games in since this time last week, don’t expect any major changes in the rankings.

Instead, let’s use this week as a bit of a reset and regroup before the rankings take a few weeks off. For example, now would be a good time to look at which teams have been on which lists so far this year.

Bonus five: Observations about the rankings so far

5. The top five has been relatively consistent: Only ten teams have appeared in the top five this year. That includes two teams that have been featured all 18 weeks: the Carolina Hurricanes, who’ve held every spot from two to five at least once, and the Colorado Avalanche, who have been ranked first for 14 weeks and counting. The Dallas Stars, Vegas Golden Knights, Tampa Bay Lightning and Minnesota Wild have spent the last two months jockeying for the other positions. At the other end, the Edmonton Oilers were in the top five in our debut list, but not since.

4. There’s been more churn in the bottom five: We’ve had 15 different teams show up there, which is already a record. No teams have been on the list every week. The Calgary Flames have the longest streak, with 16 straight appearances.

3. Some of those picks don’t hold up well: It happens every year, but with 25 teams showing up on either list, some of those picks are going to look bad in hindsight. That’s especially true when you look back at the early weeks, where we can find some picks that I’ll go ahead say don’t age especially well. The Florida Panthers in the top five early? Defensible. The Winnipeg Jets? Maybe a bit less so. The New Jersey Devils? Oof. And on the bottom side, teams like the Boston Bruins, Seattle Kraken and Pittsburgh Penguins have defied expectations, but the big miss is the Buffalo Sabres, who were in the bottom five through mid-December. I’m certainly not alone there, since I’m not sure anyone saw their transformation coming. But a whiff is a whiff.

2. About those missing teams: We’re down to eight teams who haven’t shown up on either list. That includes two Atlantic teams, the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens, who’ve at least had cases to make pretty much all year long. The Utah Mammoth have been surging lately, although I’m not sure how I could find room for a fourth Central team. On the other end, the Ottawa Senators and Columbus Blue Jackets both got close bottom-five considerations before getting back on track. The Washington Capitals and Los Angeles Kings have both been right in the mushy middle pretty much all year long. And the Toronto Maple Leafs have been closer to the bottom than the top, but aren’t going to get close enough.

(For what it’s worth, the Senators, Kings and Mammoth also made it all the way through last year without being on either list, and the Leafs haven’t been on one since the 2022-23 season. I’m assuming that’s the only record-setting drought they’re in the middle of.)

1. The worst pick of all: You math nerds will have noticed that those 10 teams from the top five plus our 15 from the bottom five teams plus the eight that didn’t make either list adds up to 33, and there are only 32 teams. That means that for the first time in a few years, we’ve had the dreaded double team scenario, where one team makes both the top and bottom five in the same season. That shouldn’t happen, except that you have to keep something in mind: I’m not smart.

This year’s team is the Jets, who’ve gone from Presidents’ Trophy winner to in the running for dead last. That’s pretty much unprecedented, so I’m not alone in being mystified by this team. But then again, you readers did try to warn me.

On to this week’s rankings…

Road to the Cup

The five teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.

We’ll have all your Olympic hockey coverage right here, including our staff’s bold predictions.

5. Minnesota Wild (34-14-10, +26 true goals differential*) – Leave it Laz to come up with an angle that feels brand new. In this case: Bill Guerin’s Olympic picks, maybe not completely awful?

4. Dallas Stars (34-14-9, +32) – We’re still waiting on the prognosis for Tyler Seguin, who had surgery on his ACL last month. Remember, the Stars can use his almost $10 million in cap space if and only if he goes on the season-ending LTIR. That would mean he couldn’t return at any point in the playoffs, so they’ll want to be sure before they play that card.

3. Carolina Hurricanes (36-15-6, +33) – Worth noting: Not only are the Hurricanes one of the only contenders to have all their own first-round picks for the next few years, they also have an extra first from the Stars from the Mikko Rantanen trade. That one’s not until 2028, so it’s not a prime asset for this year’s deadline. But it might make the Hurricanes feel better about moving other picks, which in turn could make them even more aggressive than usual about pursuing big names.

2. Tampa Bay Lightning (37-14-4, +57) – Somewhat quietly, the Lightning have caught up to the Avalanche for the best won-loss record in the league, with both teams sitting at 37-18. Given how unbeatable the Avs looked in the first half, that’s pretty remarkable. And it’s got me questioning whether the Lightning should get the top spot. After all, they’ve got the easier path to the final, so if they’re even close to Colorado in terms of being the best team, their Cup odds should be better. That’s what both the projections and the other rankings have said for the last few weeks.

We try to err on the side of caution in these parts, and for now, that’s what I’m doing. But once the break ends, be ready for a new number one.

1. Colorado Avalanche (37-9-9, +78) – For now, though, make it 14 straight weeks on top for Colorado.

*Goals differential without counting shootout decisions like the NHL does for some reason.

Not ranked: Edmonton Oilers – I’m still not quite sure what to do with this team.

As we mentioned above, they’ve appeared in the top five just once this year, in the first week. That’s easy enough to defend, since they were back-to-back Western Conference champs. Then they had the same slow start they seem to have most years, one that’s always eventually followed by a lengthy hot streak that makes all the early-season anguish seem silly.

It’s fair to say that the Oilers have been better since hitting December as a .500 team. But it’s also fair to say the big hot streak hasn’t happened. It looked like it might be starting at the end of January, when the Oilers ran off a three-game win streak that was somehow their first of the year. But they followed that with three straight losses, all in regulation, including to the Leafs and Flames.

That sent them into the break cold, trailing the Knights by four points for top spot in the Pacific. (Vegas also has a game in hand.) Even worse, by points percentage, they’re also trailing Seattle and Anaheim. With the Kings landing Artemi Panarin, they should be back in play for a playoff spot. And there isn’t likely to be enough spots in the Pacific for all of those teams. Somebody’s going to miss out.

Could it actually be the Oilers?

No, it couldn’t be. I still feel pretty safe saying that. And assuming Edmonton does make it, their path out of the division wouldn’t be that foreboding. Put it this way: Only one team in the Pacific heads into the break with more wins than losses. That would be Anaheim, whose 30 wins lead the division. That’s impressive for a rebuilding team, but is anyone picking the Ducks over the Oilers in a playoff series? Or the Kraken, or Kings? You’d take Edmonton in any of those matchups, and probably wouldn’t have to think too hard about it.

So in theory, the path is clear and not all that difficult. First, make the playoffs. Second, win an opening-round matchup that should be a warmup. Third, beat the Golden Knights, a tough opponent that hasn’t looked right all year long. If all of that happens, the Oilers are back in the final four and we all act like we saw it coming all along.

If all of that doesn’t happen, then things might get interesting for a team that’s as all-in as you can be on winning a Stanley Cup, and winning it soon. Leon Draisaitl sure doesn’t sound happy, and he’s not the only one questioning the goaltending. The Tristan Jarry trade hasn’t worked, at least not yet, but you wonder if Stan Bowman even has a Plan B. They need more depth, especially up front, and are one of the teams under pressure to make a big add or two before the deadline. But they don’t have their own first-round pick, so some creativity might be needed.

I still think the most likely scenario is that Bowman adds around the edges, the team makes the playoffs fairly easily, and ends up giving Vegas all they can handle in a second-round showdown. But maybe that’s just force of habit. It’s 58 games into the season, and this version of the Oilers hasn’t looked like a Cup contender with any kind of consistency. We can’t just hand wave away the worst-case scenarios, because for now at least, everything is in play.

The bottom five

The five teams headed towards dead last and the best lottery odds for the top pick in this year’s draft and a shot at Gavin McKenna or Ivar Stenberg.

It was a weird and potentially costly week for Gavin McKenna. Other Sean has been all over the case, and has the latest here.

5. Chicago Blackhawks (22-26-9, -29) – A key detail here flagged by Scott: the Hawks can indeed win the lottery and move up to the top pick this year. There are rules about a team winning too often, and the Hawks have picked in the top three for three straight years. But only the Connor Bedard pick involved moving up in the order, so it’s the only one that counts as far as the limit. That means they can move up this year if Gary Bettman rigs it again the lottery breaks their way.

4. Calgary Flames (23-27-6, -27) – One of the best parts about being a bad team is watching your opponents have an existential crisis when they lose to you.

3. St. Louis Blues (20-28-9, -54) – The Nick Bjugstad trade felt like a warmup. Jeremy looks at the bigger shoes still left to drop in St. Louis.

And speaking of trades…

2. New York Rangers (22-29-6, -31) – That was not much of a return on Artemi Panarin, was it?

On some level, that makes sense. Panarin has a no-move clause, and apparently was quite willing to use it as leverage to control his destination. If he ultimately decided that it was L.A. or nothing, well, what else could the Rangers really do?

The only real answer is: Wait, and play a little bit of chicken. That’s why the rush to get this done before the Olympic roster freeze seems a bit odd. Maybe this plays out differently if Chris Drury says something along the lines of, “Look, I know you want to go to Los Angeles, but their offer just isn’t good enough. So you either need to give me another option, or hope they up their offer. Let’s check back in two weeks and see if anyone has changed their mind.”

Maybe somebody blinks and the Rangers get a better result. Or maybe it all falls apart, Drury ultimately can’t even get the package he did get, and we all write eye-rolling pieces about a dumb GM obviously overplaying his hand.

Vincent gets into all of this in much more detail in this piece, including whether Panarin would have refused to go anywhere at all.

Tell you what, let’s put a pin in the Panarin talk for one minute…

1. Vancouver Canucks (18-33-6, -63) – They’ve quietly built a nice little cushion at the bottom of the standings. This isn’t shaping up as one of those years with a McDavid-level or even Bedard-level prospect waiting with the first pick, but in a way that’s even more incentive to tank for dead last, assuring no worse than a top-three pick in a year where that still might get you the best player.

Not ranked: Los Angeles Kings – OK, back to Panarin. We talked about the Rangers. What about the Kings?

I’ll be honest, they weren’t high on my list of potential landing spots when we discussed it on the pod. Panarin felt like an ideal add for a contender, and the Kings had spent the season looking like … maybe not that. Even with Panarin obviously preferring L.A. as his destination, and the trade price obviously being more than fair, I wasn’t convinced it made sense for the Kings to be giving up any significant future assets at all.

But all that leaves out an important factor: the extension Panarin would use all that leverage to extract from the Kings. And to some surprise, that contract ended up being extremely reasonable. The $11 million cap hit is fine, but it’s the term that really pops. Getting Panarin to sign for just two more years removes all sorts of risk from the Kings’ side of the equation, and starts to make even the worst-case scenarios feel workable.

Ultimately, maybe this is less about Ken Holland following a plan and more about not being so beholden to one that you pass up on a gift that falls into your lap. Eric had a really good piece about the Kings’ end of this deal, and what it could mean going forward.

Either way, the trade certainly signals a shift in the Pacific race. With the Oilers and Knights both looking at least a little bit vulnerable, and the Ducks, Kraken and Sharks the only other teams to worry about, the Kings look like a playoff team again. The flip side of that is that missing out now feels like a much bigger whiff than it would have. Let’s see where it goes.