The Toronto Maple Leafs were a dominant force in last season’s North Division. Now, they return to the Atlantic Division with some of the best (and some of the worst) teams in the league.
I’m going to give you a preview of each team in this season’s Atlantic Division, take you through the major changes each team has made to their roster and predict how these changes will effect each team. We’ll see which teams got better, which teams got worse and how they’ll stack up against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
I’ll show you all the major roster additions and losses, but not all of them. I’m not going to worry about the players projected to be fourth line, bottom pairing, healthy scratches or minor league.
The Atlantic Division should be the most exciting division to watch this season as it’s stacked with some of the best teams in the league. You have the defending two-time Stanley Cup champion (Tampa Bay Lightning), last season’s Stanley Cup finalist (Montreal Canadiens), the North Division regular season champ (Toronto Maple Leafs), two more of last season’s playoff teams (Florida Panthers, Boston Bruins), two rebuilding teams filled with exciting prospects (Ottawa Senators, Detroit Red Wings) and last season’s worst team (Buffalo Sabres).
The Atlantic Division as we know it today was former after the NHL realigned it’s divisions to start the 2013-14 season. Before then Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston and Buffalo were in the now defunct Northeast Division, Tampa Bay and Florida were in the also now defunct Southeast Division with Washington, Carolina and Winnipeg/Atlanta, and Detroit was in the Western Conference’s Central Division.
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting border restrictions, the Atlantic Division was temporarily dissolved last season and it’s teams found themselves divided among three different divisions: The Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators were placed in the new all-Canadian North Division, the Boston Bruins and Detroit Red Wings found themselves in the newly created East Division, and the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panther temporarily joined the Central Division.
Let’s begin with the team with the lowest expectations: