It’s a new year!
It’s now time for predictions sure to go wrong, 2024-25 edition! First up is the Atlantic Division. Was actually pretty proud of what happened last year in the prediction game, even thought my whiff on Florida was pretty atrocious. Let’s go for redemption this time around.
Last season, the Atlantic Division teams racked up 748 total points, which was down slightly from the 761 they accumulated in 2022-23 (courtesy of Boston having a record setting year that season, you’ll recall). We’ll shoot for about 730 this time around again, without looking at the betting markets or opening lines, guessing that without a pure non-competitive team in the division that the others won’t be able to feast on an absolute bottom dweller.
And, of course, Buffalo already kicked off their season in Czechia, dropping two games to New Jersey. That’s going to be baked in, but two games out of 82 ought not be terribly significant to alter the course of a whole season.
2024-25 Atlantic Division Predictions
The question every year in the Atlantic is which of the challenger/rebuilding teams (OTT, DET, BUF) will surpass the legacy contenders who might be falling off (BOS, TB). To date, that hasn’t come to pass. Here’s to thinking it won’t this season either.
Tampa is weakened again with some key losses, but the core of their team (Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy) is in tact. That should be valuable enough to keep them in the running, not to mention they’ve added Jake Guentzel and Ryan McDonaugh to help off-set the major losses of Steven Stamkos and Mikhail Sergachev. Tampa is on the downside of their championship window, but still a formidable regular season team. They’ll also benefit from Vasilevskiy not coming back from a major surgery like he did last season and ought to get a better performance out of him this time around.
Of all the non-playoff teams to potentially make a move, I like Ottawa the most to step it up. The addition of Linus Ullmark should help them in net, but after a few players they get really thin really quickly on defense, which is troubling when trying to put a lot of faith in them making a major step forward. A wild card could be the coaching of Travis Green, but at this point that could end up being a positive or negative factor.
This prediction would see a moderate step back for Detroit, no doubt a disappointment for them after narrowly missing the playoffs last season, but again, their defense outside of the awesome Mo Seider looks lacking on paper, and that becomes bothersome when seeing a team on the edge. However, it wouldn’t take much of a small bump up and if they win just a handful of games they we’re projecting as losses and the Red Wings will be right there in the playoff chase.
Buffalo’s coaching decision to bring back Lindy Ruff is rooted in nostalgia, and that’s a play we’re questioning on how it will work. Perpetually stuck in the mud, it doesn’t look like they’re going to get out of it this season. Sucks for that market so desperate and hungry to return to relevance.
The large free agent contracts Boston gave to Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov may not age well in a few years, but both as prime-age players should boost the Bruins back into no-doubt playoff territory. Getting Jeremy Swayman signed was the only potential issue for that, and they got it resolved in time to where it shouldn’t derail their whole season as a distraction had the stalemate lingered into the season.
Toronto is a predictable and known regular season team, penciling them in for 100+ points is automatic and bound to happen. On paper they should be set up for a deep playoff run, though we all know the postseason events tends to have different plans for them once they get there.
Montreal is still building, and has enough pieces to not be terrible. It’s a shame Patrik Laine is out 3-4 months, having another goal scorer in the mix might have been a huge boost but they are still mostly in the mode of biding their time and focusing on a brighter future beyond 2024-25 once their young pieces get into the league.
Given that I’m trying to build in a +/- 10 point cushion, there is a chance for some changes from 4-6 that could make things interesting if a new team really steps up this year. That’s not beyond the range of possibilities, but we’ll project that the Atlantic stays mostly status quo and that there won’t be any incredibly drastic changes coming onto the scene just quite yet.
For the Penguins and other Metropolitan teams, this type of outlook would be most welcome. If Atlantic 4 and 5 end up at 91 and 87 points, that opens the door for likely one Wild Card (Metro 4th place) to sneak into the playoffs. If the Atlantic is moderately stronger than this outlook and that pushes upwards to A4 at 94ish points and A5 at 90+, as could easily happen (especially if there are more OTL’s to increase the totals) then the Wild Card situation for the Metropolitan teams becomes increasingly more dire and unlikely.
Tomorrow we’ll turn to the Metropolitan and see where the Pens fit into the mix.
