Welcome to the second half of this week’s two-parter, in which we’re trying to figure out which NHL teams have the best and worst odds of winning a Stanley Cup in the next five years.
Wednesday was the league’s bottom half. If you didn’t see your team there, the good news is I think their odds are better than any of those teams. The bad news is I’m bad at this, so take it all for what it’s worth.
If you didn’t see Wednesday’s post, go check it out so that you’re familiar with what’s happening here. Remember, the numbers will all seem low because that’s the reality of the parity era. If you think your team’s number should be higher, cool, but let me know which teams I should be subtracting from.
Hoo boy. Steve Yzerman’s extremely patient rebuild continues, and right now it looks like it could even lead to a playoff spot this year. The question is just how high the ceiling is for a team that doesn’t have anyone you’d consider a truly elite player. Maybe Moritz Seider gets there — he seemed to be on track not long ago — and Simon Edvinsson and Nate Danielson are on the way. Still, this may be a rebuild that’s exiting the asset-hoarding phase without a true franchise player, and the precedent for those types of teams winning it all is sparse.
Odds of a Cup in five years: 14 percent
Connor Bedard changes everything here; the moment those ping pong balls dropped, the Hawks were back on a path to another championship. The question is whether they can get there in our five years, especially when this year is a write-off and next year probably will be too. Kyle Davidson has done a masterful job on the teardown part of the rebuild, which is the easy part. How quickly can he surround Bedard with enough talent to compete? Sidney Crosby won a Cup in Year 4; Connor McDavid is still trying to get close in Year 9. If we were doing 10-year windows here, the Blackhawks would be near the top, but five years may not quite be enough.
Odds of a Cup in five years: 14 percent
14. Ottawa Senators
After spending all of our last five-year window floundering, the Senators are a tough one this time around. They’ve certainly got some pieces in place, most of them locked into team-friendly deals. More importantly, new ownership means the ceiling is miles higher than it ever was under Eugene Melnyk. It feels like there should be plenty of optimism here.
And yet … I mean, this season’s faceplant has to give at least some pause, right? The core has been relatively healthy, they switched coaches, new management tried to give the players the stability they were asking for, and it’s all added up to yet another write-off. Is it possible that the talent they’ve spent the last half-decade assembling just isn’t good enough? I’m not going to go that far, even as I’ll admit this ranking is lower than it would have been last summer. But Senators fans shouldn’t worry too much about where they place here; they know those five-year predictions can be tricky.
Odds of a Cup in five years: 16 percent
It took 19 teams to get here, but welcome to the “above average” tier.
The Kings are a great illustration of the risks of writing a piece like this during the season; if we’d done it about a month ago, they’d rank higher. In theory, their recent struggles shouldn’t move the needle all that much because this is still a case of a well-executed rebuild that’s reaching contention right in time for our five-year window. They’re close. Just maybe not quite as close as we thought they might be in December.
Odds of a Cup in five years: 18 percent
The Jets are very good right now, with 30-year-old Connor Hellebuyck playing like the best goalie in the world behind a roster that looks Cup-worthy. If there’s a concern, it’s whether the current mix, including Rick Bowness, can stay at this…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .