We are officially past the mdiway point of the 2024-24 NHL season. With the developments of each storyline of the 32 teams, we may be getting a clearer picture of which team is a playoff contender, a Stanley Cup contender, and those who are gunning for Macklin Celebrini in the 2024 Entry Draft.
We start off with the Atlantic Division to see where each of these teams are at.
Boston Bruins
If anyone has watched Talladega Nights, Ricky Bobby’s father once told him, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.” Like Ricky, the Bruins also took that statement to heart. That’s been the story of this season’s Bruins thus far, as they’ve once again defied preseason expectations and are currently first in the Atlantic.
Goaltending has been the strongest foundation of the team, along with the defense, with Jeremy Swayman making his case for being the potential franchise goaltender. While Linus Ullmark’s stats are clealry down compared to last year, nobody really expected him to replicate the magical 2022-23 campaign. That doesn’t mean he’s bad, because he’s still performing at good 1B goaltender numbers.
The defense is still intact, with Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Linholm still leading the way for them, even with the offense taking a slight hit. Even with Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci still retiring, not a lot has changed.
While David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand are still the key faces of this offense, James van Riemsdyk may be the most underrated free agent signing of the offseason. In a middle six role, he’s put up 32 points through 45 games, and he’s playing on a one-year deal at a $1 million cap hit. Morgan Geekie has thrived on a third line role both offensively and defensively, most commonly with Trent Frederic.
Not to mention that the Bruins have also seen the emergence of rookies Matt Poitras and Johnny Beecher. The only bad thing to say about the Bruins is about the jerseys they keep insisting on wearing for their centennial season.
Buffalo Sabres
Has there ever been a more disappointing team in the 2023-24 season than the Sabres? No matter what move they make, no matter what happens on the ice through their offense, everything just doesn’t seem to click.
Goaltending has been the biggest disappointment for them, and it’s not like bad defensive play may have also factored into this. Devon Levi was supposed to be that guy in net for them, yet there’s the feeling that he was rushed into NHL action too early and needed time in the AHL for development. He was supposed to be their top netminder, but that now goes to their other young goaltender, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. He’s had himself a nice season for his standards, given he’s 24 years old. His stats are not eye-popping, but are certainly something of note. Eric Comrie was somehow worse than how he was last season after having himself a nice year as a backup to Connor Hellebuyck in 2021-22.
It doesn’t help that Tage Thompson isn’t at the goal scoring pace that he was last year and that he missed time due to injury. Jack Quinn being out for long stretches also doesn’t help. At least Casey Mittelstadt and J.J. Peterka are living up to expectations, but Don Granato’s seat has to be heating up from this disappointment.
Some key faces could go at the trade deadline, but Kevyn Adams has to do a better job at spending on the blueline next offseason than giving $3.25 million to Erik Johnson, who has just three points (all goals) on the year.
Detroit Red Wings
If there is a year for the Red Wings to break the playoff drought and make it to the dance, this year is the year. But let’s say that they have been rather streaky to go on the season. Yet at the end of the day, they’ll take being in a playoff spot by the All-Star Break over being outside of a spot entirely.
The offense has clicked to start the season off, going 7-5-1 in a tough 13-game stretch to open the season. They’ve fired on all cylinders on that side of the ice, and have nicely deployed all four lines to effectiveness. What I can describe the Red Wings run similarly to how the Golden Knights do and the Kraken did last year in rolling out all four forward lines and run through them to effectiveness.
The power play has taken a leap with Shayne Gostisbehere and Moritz Seider manning the units, and Seider continuing to improve chemistry with his defense partner, Jake Walman. Key offseason additions from the last two offseasons have been crucial to the Red Wings’ success, including Andrew Copp, J.T. Compher, Gostisbehere, Daniel Sprong, and Alex Lyon. Speaking of Lyon, he’s solidifying himself as the top goaltender on the team based on stats this season with Ville Husso struggling.
The addition of Patrick Kane is what the front office group led by Steve Yzerman thinks is the final piece to the offensive puzzle. Before his injury, he had seven goals and 16 points in 19 games. He’s primarily used in an offensive role and not in a defensive role considering he’s not a defensive-focused forward. A winning run in January got them back in a playoff spot, but now comes the big question: Can they hold onto it down the stretch?
Florida Panthers
Fresh off a Stanley Cup Final appearance, the Panthers are building on it nicely and have looked unstoppable on most nights, having put together winning streaks of five, nine, and four on the season, with the latter one being their current win streak. Them being on a roll is also of note as Matthew Tkachuk has gotten back into form and is now over a point per game after a slow start to the season, though it could be attributed to him not having fully recovered from a broken sternum in Game 4 of the Final.
However, it isn’t Tkachuk or Aleksander Barkov stealing the show for the Panthers. Sam Reinhart is second to only Auston Matthews on the goals leaderboard in the entire NHL, totaling 37 by the All-Star Break, and is enjoying a breakout season on a contract year.
While Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour still have to shake off some rust considering they had offseason shoulder surgeries, they’re still getting back up to speed, though the big surprise on defense has been the left side of the core. Gustav Forsling and Oliver Ekman-Larsson have been the ones standing out, with the latter driving a power play that has been finding their legs again, and the former playing like a no. 1 defenseman, especially in the time Ekblad and Montour missed.
Sergei Bobrovsky has also bounced back to form after a stellar 2023 playoffs, and he is carrying that momentum over to this year. It’s not known if they will finish the job this time around, but they’re still one of the favorites to emerge from the East.
Montreal Canadiens
The Canadiens shouldn’t sweat this too badly. They’re still a rebuilding team, and it is common for them to experience growing pains during seasons like these. Most of the talk around Montreal is surrounding Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, and for very good reason. They’re the driving force behind the offensive operation, alongside Mike Matheson, who took his game to the next step when landing on Martin St. Louis’ system and became the team’s top defenseman.
However, when going back to said growing pains, they have not had a winning streak of more than three games on the year. They’re essentially trading wins and losses, and there isn’t truly any one consistent goaltender between Sam Montembeault, Jake Allen, and Cayden Primeau. In fact, Allen has regressed significantly, and Montembeault, even though he has improved stat-wise, has some consistency issues.
It also doesn’t help that they’re still trying to find an identity on defense, resulting in a bottom tier penalty kill. Worsening matters is that the injury bug is also continuing to hit. Kirby Dach played only two games this season as he tore his ACL and MCL. Alex Newhook suffered an ankle injury in early December, though he is slated to return in March. And Christian Dvorak suffered an upper-body injury, and he too is out for the year.
Given that Suzuki and Jake Evans are their only two listed centers on the roster after trading away Sean Monahan, they’ll have to call someone up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket. Although they did a 2024 first round pick and a 2027 conditional third from the Winnipeg Jets in the Monahan trade, which is good asset management by Kent Hughes.
Ottawa Senators
At this current point there are legitimate questions if the Senators should re-evaluate the state of the team. This season has been a walking nightmare for them. While it’s not as bad as the other nightmare that was the later years of Eugene Melnyk’s tenure, the fact that there were expectations of the Senators competing for a playoff spot makes this season as bad, if not worse, than the late Melnyk years.
No matter what addition they make, no matter how logical or ridiculous they sound, they just can’t get to the next level. While they had a recent stretch of winning four of their last six games heading into the Break, it just feels like a lost season. No matter what happens, nothing seemed to click.
More alarming is the amount of drama they endured during the season, from Shane Pinto’s 41-game suspension for sports wagering, to the Alex DeBrincat saga that resulted in him getting traded to the Red Wings, to forfeiting a first round pick for failing to notify the Golden Knights on Evgenii Dadonov’s no-trade list. Things got bad to where both general manager Pierre Dorion and head coach D.J. Smith were both fired.
Even with the successes of Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Drake Batherson, Claude Giroux, the defensive top four, and the offseason addition Vladimir Tarasenko, Joonas Korpisalo has looked very dismal in net and has not lived up to his five-year contract that he signed with the team in the offseason. There may be the feeling that fans are asking “What more does our team have to do?”
Tampa Bay Lightning
Fans may have spoken too soon about the Lightning’s fall. But there might be a weird sense of déjà vu. They looked shaky to start last season before pulling off several winning runs during the course of the regular season. Andrei Vasilevskiy missed the first month and a half of this season after undergoing back surgery, which may have added to this year’s slow start. Things were mostly good during the month of December, though winning eight of nine since January 9th and nine of 12 during the month of January propelled them back to a playoff spot.
Like all previous Stanley Cup champions, once the cap crunch hits, they have to adapt to being a top-heavy team. It’s safe to say they’ve handled that pretty well, especially with Nikita Kucherov averaging nearly 1.75 points per game on the season by the All-Star Break. They’ve gotten the offensive aspect of the game still going with their electric power play, yet as teams age, some attributes decline.
Defensively, they’ve taken a hit, and their underlying numbers don’t exactly shine out. There is still no set return date for Mikhail Sergachev as he continues to recover from his lower-body injury, and Victor Hedman had a heavier load to carry as a result.
While Vasilevskiy is on his winning ways, he has looked rather vulnerable this season, having his worst year statistically with a 2.85 GAA and a .899 save percentage by the Break. They’ll still be in the playoff conversation, though many are still going to wonder how many years they have left.
Toronto Maple Leafs
We are more than halfway through the season, and I still can’t get a clear vision of what the Maple Leafs truly are. Are they contenders? Are they pretenders? One night they look like they are on the cusp of greatness. The next night they put up a letdown. That’s been the story of the Leafs this season, despite the offseason additions.
Speaking of which, while Max Domi has been okay for what he is worth, he’s nowhere close to the totals he has put up when he was with the Blackhawks and during that playoff run with the Stars. Tyler Bertuzzi has disappointed and is producing at less than a half a point per game pace, not what Toronto signed up for when he was one of the Bruins’ best players down the stretch after last year’s trade deadline. John Klingberg is the newest long-term stay at Robidas Island where he joins Jake Muzzin and Matt Murray after just 14 games, and even so, his game continued taking a hit both offensively and defensively.
Ilya Samsonov has taken a step back as well on the goaltending department, and the two most reliable goaltenders are Joseph Woll, who might resume practicing after the All-Star Break, and Martin Jones, who was the third-string goaltender to begin the year. While Auston Matthews is primed for a 60-goal season and William Nylander got rewarded with an eight-year, $92 million contract that runs through 2032, the Maple Leafs may be running out of time before they know it.
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