Contenders #4 and #3
The Colorado Avalanche a good team that got better this summer. They’ve got Nathan MacKinnon, two great wingers and maybe the league’s best blue line (Makar, Graves, Girard, Johnson, Toews) as well as potentially one of the best rookies to enter the NHL this year in Bowen Byram.
There really isn’t much difference in the top four teams here, but the Avalanche were the only team in the NHL to finish top five in both 5v5 shooting and save percentage last season. Since this is almost certainly not a repeatable feat, you can expect them to decline slightly.
If Morgan Rielly rebounds, I don’t see their defense as much better than Toronto’s, and the two-years-younger Auston Matthews is going to be better than MacKinnon going forward (if he isn’t already). After MacKinnon, all three of Nylander, Marner and Tavares would be the Avalanches’ second best player, so I think the Leafs are the better team.
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The Las Vegas Golden Knights are the most successful team in NHL history.
They have existed for three years and won two division titles, made the playoffs 100% of the time, and won five playoff series, which saw them advance to the Cup Final in year one, and the Final Four in year three.
In year four they will once again be one of the NHL’s best teams. Given an absolute sweetheart deal in expansion, and then buoyed by the stupidity of teams like the Capitals and Ducks, the Golden Knights were ready-made contenders.
This year they’ve got one of the best rosters in the NHL, including Mark Stone (one of the top two or three best all-round players in the NHL) and two of the top five or six defensemen (Pietrangelo and Theodore).
I give the next two teams the slight edge because one of them won the Stanley Cup and the other has John Tavares as their third best player, which is something that, if you weren’t used to it as a matter of course, would probably be shocking.