Weekend NHL Rankings: Season-Ending Top 16, Plus Gold Plan Rankings & More – The Athletic

We made it. After 82 games and 26 weeks worth of leaderboards, we’ve reached the only part of the NHL season that really counts. The playoffs are here. Half the league is already miserable and now we get to know which 15 of the remaining 16 teams will join.

But first a ranking from last weekend. This one comes with a few twists, and we’ll get to that in a moment. It also comes with a final Bonus Top 5 where I make a few extra predictions just to make sure my playoff picks are extra wrong.

Top five overly specific bonus predictions

5. The Kings shut out the Oilers in Game 1 – One of those fun playoff tropes is the heavy favorite everyone loves, which puts an egg in the opener, causing waves of panic and overanalysis. Given the Ilya Sorokin factor, picking the Hurricanes for this spot feels almost too obvious, so let’s move on to Edmonton.

4. We’re getting triple overtime in the Kraken/Avs series – No one seems to think the Kraken can win, but that doesn’t mean they won’t make it interesting.

3. The Leafs/Lightning streak is short – A good rule of thumb is that if everyone is on the same page, we are all wrong. We’ve already fast-forwarded to an inevitable Game 7 in this case, which means it’s going to be a disappointment. I see a team holding a 2-1 lead through three, we all nod sagely and say “a long way to go on this,” and then it’s finished in five.

2. The Devils and Rangers go to Game 7 OT – I guarantee it.

1. Boston loses first round in biggest shocker of the year – As in, they lose once and win the series in five. Look, I like to think outside the box, but I’m not crazy.

Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron meets Panthers center Sam Bennett. (Jason Mowry / USA Today)

Now for this week’s top 5, which will actually be the top 16. Yes we do every playoff team from least likely to most likely to win the cup. Prepare to hurt your feelings.

way to the cup

The five 16 teams with the best odds of winning the Stanley Cup.

Two sets per team. This rule also applies to this intro.

16. Seattle Octopus — The season was a wonderful story. Let’s focus on that instead of the upcoming sweep.

15. Kings of Los Angeles — That says a lot more about my feelings for the Oilers than it does for the Kings, a very good team that drew a brutal matchup. Accept the ‘nobody believes in us’ narrative, Kings fans, and be gentle on this sleepy East Coast jerk in silencing Connor McDavid and his friends.

14. Winnipeg Jets — It’s going to be a long climb, they all seem to hate each other, and they need to avoid any just-happy-being-there vibes after that late-season bubble battle. With Connor Hellebuyck as one of the only two truly bankable goalies in the conference, they at least have a chance to punch.

13. New York Islander — We’re all too simplistic if we make it sound like all this team’s hopes are pinned on a goalkeeper getting red-hot. But I also don’t hate their chances of their goalie getting red hot.

12. Florida Panther — Watch out for the first step, it’s a sucker. But if the Panthers could somehow get past the Bruins, which feels unlikely but not impossible, they’d suddenly feel like a surprisingly plausible contender, right?

11. Minnesota Wild – As long as their run lasts, they’ll be slight underdogs in every series, but also have a nagging feeling they’ll win in six. Also, Norm Green sucks.

10. Toronto Maple Leafs — I’m being accused of performing a reverse curse here, but it’s easier than that – they have to get through Andrei Vasilevskiy and The Lightning just to take on the best regular-season team ever, and they do it with a beat up on Ilya Samsonov. It’s a spring to win, and you could absolutely see that a win in the first round gives a “Dragon At Last” momentum shift, but I’m a little surprised at how little I’m feeling it this year.

9. Tampa Bay Blitz — Ignore the bad results of the last few weeks. This is a team that only cares about the playoffs and I’m surprised at how many people seem to be writing them off.

8. Dallas Stars — The gap between encountering the wild or the kraken felt huge. Still, they have goalkeepers and a tough but not impossible road to the final.

7. Vegas Golden Knights — Dom, who initially picked the Jets as easy favorites, scared me a little, as did the goalie here. They’re definitely the weakest of the division winners, but they are division winners.

6. New Jersey Devil — Yes, behind the Rangers. The goalie gap in this series is just too big for me and while the Devils’ return to prominence has been very cool, they feel like they may be a year away from any real competition.

5. New York Rangers — Yes, from the devils. And also in the top five for the first time all year.

4. Carolina Hurricanes – I’m more nervous about putting them in here than I probably should be as they will finish with the second-best record in the league and have home ice for at least the first two rounds. Injuries worry me a little; Ilya Sorokin worries me a lot.

3. Colorado Avalanche – I’ve had her back all year and I’m not going to stop now. But the news from Gabriel Landeskog is big, and I think they could be headed for a conference finals rematch that they can’t win.

2. Edmonton Oiler — McDavid looks unstoppable, Mattias Ekholm was the home run swing of Deadline, Stuart Skinner is good enough and tired jokes aside, this hasn’t been a one or two man team all year. Even without home ice after the first lap, I really think this could be their time.

1. Boston-Bruins — No excitement and no surprises. Anything can happen in the playoffs, including first-round stunners for historically great teams, but we don’t need to think twice about that — the Bruins have fully earned their status as big favorites.

By the way, heed this fair warning: don’t be shocked if the brackets or prediction lists you see from me don’t match these rankings. The list above is what my head says based on analysis and objectivity. But I reserve the right to rely on any particular prediction, including the occasional angry selection, to try and make me look smart. It’s just a lot more fun that way.

The bottom five

The five teams that are on the road to death and the best lottery odds for Connor Bedard.

This is the other section that will be reworked at the end of the season. All year we’ve been trying to figure out which team would end up bottom of the table and unlike the top 5 we already know the answer. Congratulations(?) to the Ducks, who earned the honor after a 13-game losing streak at the end of the season before promptly firing their coach. In the tank business we call that an exclamation mark.

I’ve had the Ducks number 1 this year, but only three times and all in the first half. The order that turned out to be correct – Anaheim, Columbus, Chicago, San Jose and Montreal – didn’t show up here all year. What can I say, the Ducks aren’t the only ones bad at this hockey stuff.

Instead of a regular Bottom Five, let’s use this space to explore an alternate universe where the NHL uses a better system than the current Tank-A-Thon. First up is the Gold Plan, where teams earn points towards the top picks starting on the day they’re eliminated from the playoffs. With the obvious caveat that we can never know for sure, because one of the advantages of this (far superior) system is that it changes the incentives and encourages teams to win more games, here’s how the gold – Ranking based on the results we achieved would have looked like this year:

2022-23 Gold Plan Ranking

In the Gold Plan world, the Blue Jackets’ victory over the Penguins was a franchise-changing win that their fans will forever celebrate rather than be an annoyance. Teams that fought to the end, like Vancouver and Ottawa, would benefit rather than be penalized, while the Hawks and Ducks will no longer be rewarded for pulling the chute for weeks. And Detroit still gets screwed, because even in the draft-order multiverse, some things never change.

Let’s do one more thing. A few weeks ago I proposed a system where the non-playoff teams would draft a playoff partner, with the #1 going to the team that picks the eventual cup winner. They all seemed to like it and rightly so as it’s brilliant. We have no way of knowing who would pick who, of course, but let’s assume everyone followed Dom’s model projections. If so, then the pairings would fail.

Draft Results “Choose Your Partner”.

You can argue with Dom’s list, but that’s half the story – we’d have a blast arguing about the order in which the teams were chosen. Columbus debates between Colorado and Edmonton would be fascinating, Ducks fans would get a reunion with Hampus Lindholm, the Habs swallow their pride to conquer the hated Hurricanes, Kings fans are furious at how far they’ve fallen, and so are we would all make fun of the Sharks for conquering the Leafs. And how excited would Sens fans be to fight the Leafs even more than usual?

But yeah, the current system is great too. It’s really fun hoping your team will lose for months, we all love it, no need to change anything.

One last thing: With the season coming to an end, we’re getting some clarity on the prediction contest. Condolences to the 137 of you who saw your entries unravel when Mitch Marner or Jack Hughes faltered at 99 points. We still have to get through the early off-season before we can announce a winner, but you can check this site to see how your entry is progressing.

And that concludes another season of the weekend leaderboard. Thanks again to everyone who read along, rolled their eyes at my tips, demanded more (or less) respect for their team, and debated them in the comments section. We plan to repeat everything next season. Until then, I promise you, your favorite team was sixth.

(Top photo of Connor McDavid skating against the Kings: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)