Eight games into the 1,344-game NHL season, the early league picture is led by the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes, with the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars close behind. The first in-season look at the NHL’s top clubs puts a familiar group in the front row, but the questions behind each contender are already clear: repeat pressure in Raleigh, goaltending in Dallas and Florida, health in Vegas and Tampa Bay, and whether young talent can drive Montreal and Washington another step.
Carolina sits first with 233 points after opening 0-0-1, retaining its preseason position. The Hurricanes have spent years testing themselves against championship-caliber opponents, but the assignment has changed now that they are the club wearing the target. Their experienced core is built to absorb that pressure, though a repeat demands handling every opponent’s best night over a long season.
Colorado, second at 224 points, remains viewed as a powerhouse despite its playoff upset last spring. The Avalanche posted an NHL-best 121 points, only 16 regulation losses and a plus-99 goal differential in the previous regular season. With key personnel back and a bitter finish still fresh, Colorado enters the season expecting to be playing deep into June.
Dallas holds third place with 190 points, but the Stars’ ceiling again comes back to Jake Oettinger. His regular-season resume is strong: a 184-78-33 record, 2.54 goals-against average, .910 save percentage and 16 shutouts across 305 games, including 296 starts. The playoff record has been less settled. Oettinger posted a 2.83 goals-against average against Minnesota in last season’s six-game first-round loss, and carried a 2.82 mark through 18 games in 2024-25, when Dallas fell in the conference final for a second straight year. He was pulled early in Game 5 against Edmonton. The Stars have enough skaters to chase the Cup, but they need their No. 1 goalie at his best when the games tighten.
Early Super 16
| Rank | Team | Record | Points | Preseason rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carolina Hurricanes | 0-0-1 | 233 | 1 |
| 2 | Colorado Avalanche | 0-0-0 | 224 | 2 |
| 3 | Dallas Stars | 0-0-0 | 190 | 3 |
| 4 | Florida Panthers | 1-0-0 | 181 | 4 |
| 5 | Montreal Canadiens | 1-0-0 | 174 | 5 |
| 6 | Vegas Golden Knights | 1-0-0 | 171 | 6 |
| 7 | Minnesota Wild | 0-0-0 | 142 | 7 |
| 8 | Tampa Bay Lightning | 0-0-0 | 141 | 8 |
| 9 | Buffalo Sabres | 0-0-0 | 124 | 9 |
| 10 | Washington Capitals | 0-0-0 | 95 | 10 |
| 11 | Edmonton Oilers | 0-0-1 | 83 | 11 |
| 12 | Utah Mammoth | 0-0-0 | 68 | 12 |
| 13 | Philadelphia Flyers | 0-1-0 | 54 | 13 |
| 14 | Anaheim Ducks | 0-0-0 | 49 | 14 |
| 15 | Boston Bruins | 1-0-0 | 48 | 15 |
| 16 | San Jose Sharks | 0-0-0 | 29 | 16 |
Crease pressure shapes the top clubs
Florida is fourth after a 1-0-0 start, and its new goaltending arrangement will determine whether its championship window remains open. Sergei Bobrovsky is gone, leaving Jacob Markstrom with the lead assignment and Akira Schmid as another option. The Panthers still have Aleksander Barkov, a deep forward group strengthened by Brady Tkachuk, and the sort of hard forecheck and defensive structure that should limit the load on their goalie. Markstrom does not have to steal every game; he does need to make the saves that settle a playoff series.
Montreal is fifth at 174 points, with a core that is both young and more seasoned than its age suggests after a long playoff run. Captain Nick Suzuki is 27, while Cole Caufield is 25, Noah Dobson 26, Juraj Slafkovsky and Lane Hutson 22, and Ivan Demidov 20. The Canadiens will also need Jakub Dobes to bring his postseason form into the regular schedule and, eventually, back into the spring.
Vegas, sixth with 171 points, has made the playoffs in eight of its nine seasons. The exception, 2021-22, arrived amid major injuries, and health was again a factor when the Golden Knights changed coaches from Bruce Cassidy to John Tortorella with eight games left last season despite holding a four-point cushion. William Karlsson missed 68 games, Mark Stone lost 22, Adin Hill was out for 39 and Carter Hart missed 34. Vegas went 24 games without both netminders available. If that group stays reasonably intact, the Golden Knights have the makeup of another playoff club.
Tampa Bay is eighth, one point behind Minnesota, and the Lightning’s fortunes are closely tied to Andrei Vasilevskiy. The reigning Vezina Trophy winner went 39-15-4 with a 2.31 goals-against average and .912 save percentage in 58 games as Tampa Bay won 50 games and finished second in the Atlantic Division. He generally carries a heavy workload when healthy, often approaching or exceeding 60 appearances. If injury intervenes, Dennis Hildeby, who has 26 NHL games on his record, would inherit a far larger job.
Edmonton enters at No. 11 with the same concern it has carried through several recent Cup pursuits: the crease. Tristan Jarry, Devon Levi and Frederik Andersen are the goaltenders in the mix. Jarry, acquired from Pittsburgh in the Stuart Skinner trade, lost the starting role to Connor Ingram last season and allowed six goals in the opening loss to Vancouver on Tuesday. Levi spent all of last year in the American Hockey League. Andersen, a Cup winner in Carolina, has not dressed for Edmonton after an undisclosed summer injury. The Oilers need one of them to provide the caliber of goaltending a contender requires.
Utah, ranked 12th, will again ride Karel Vejmelka after his breakout season. Vejmelka went 38-20-3 with a 2.75 goals-against average and .897 save percentage over 64 games, including 63 starts. He finished second in the NHL in wins and led all goalies in appearances. Sebastian Cossa, obtained from Detroit on June 26, is the backup after playing only one NHL game in 2024-25 and looking uneven in preseason action.
Boston is 15th but opened with a 1-0-0 record after Jeremy Swayman stopped all 24 Rangers shots Tuesday. Swayman was a Vezina finalist last season, and the Bruins need a repeat performance to climb through an unforgiving Atlantic Division. Without it, the path back to the playoffs becomes considerably steeper.
San Jose rounds out the 16 and is banking on 24-year-old Yaroslav Askarov to turn promise into consistency. His November last season was outstanding: an 8-2-0 record, 1.88 goals-against average and .947 save percentage, all league-leading marks for the month. His full-season numbers, however, ended at 3.63 and .884. The Sharks gave him a better team in front of him and saw sharper work during preseason, making Askarov the central variable in whether the rebuild merely improves or reaches the playoffs.
Injury, travel and young impact players
Minnesota’s seventh-place standing comes with an immediate obstacle. Defenseman Brock Faber is out indefinitely after a puck struck him in the head during a 2-1 preseason loss to Dallas on Sept. 25, resulting in a skull fracture. The Wild also face a demanding October, with 10 of 15 games away from home, including a five-game Pacific Northwest and Salt Lake City trip from Oct. 20-27. Jesper Wallstedt must establish himself as a true long-term starter, Quinn Hughes needs to play like a Norris Trophy candidate in his first complete Minnesota season, and four-time 40-goal scorer Kirill Kaprizov will be expected to push toward 50.
Buffalo sits ninth and has three roster questions to answer: surviving an Atlantic Division loaded from top to bottom, replacing departed Bowen Byram and Alex Tuch, and getting steady enough goaltending from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Alex Lyon and Colten Ellis. The Sabres lost to Montreal in seven games in the second round last spring and were an overtime goal from the Eastern Conference Final. Their upside remains substantial, but the unanswered pieces will decide if they can return that deep into the bracket.
Washington, ranked 10th, has room for two 20-year-old rookies to alter its ceiling. Forward Ilya Protas will begin as the third-line center and work on the second power-play unit. Defenseman Cole Hutson is set to run that second unit and could receive top-four minutes while Rasmus Sandin recovers from ACL surgery. The Capitals already have an experienced roster capable of reaching the postseason. Significant contributions from Protas and Hutson could make them much more than a playoff qualifier.
Philadelphia is 13th and needs more finish after a defensively sound first year under Rick Tocchet. The Flyers allowed 25.5 shots per game last season, fourth fewest in the League, but their power play ranked last at 15.7 percent. Tyson Foerster was tracking near a 40-goal pace before an arm injury on Dec. 1 sidelined him for four months. A healthy Foerster, a refreshed Matvei Michkov and a full year from Porter Martone should help. Philadelphia has not had a power play rank in the league’s top 20 since 2020-21, and getting there would change the outlook.
Anaheim is 14th and will lean heavily on Cutter Gauthier to keep powering its offense. Gauthier led the Ducks last season with 41 goals, 69 points, seven game-winners, 11 power-play goals and 285 shots, while winning 49 percent of his faceoffs. Leo Carlsson, 21, and Beckett Sennecke, 20, add more young skill, while Lukas Dostal and a blue line led by Jackson LaCombe must hold up their side. Gauthier has a new contract and a clear challenge: build on his breakout and help push Anaheim into the postseason.
Teams just outside the 16
- Pittsburgh Penguins: 15 points
- New Jersey Devils: 9 points
- Toronto Maple Leafs: 6 points
- New York Islanders: 2 points
- Ottawa Senators: 2 points
The rankings are based on 15 ballots, with a first-place vote worth 16 points, second place 15 and descending from there. With only eight games played across the league, the standings are still a sketch. But the early board already puts the most important jobs in plain view: Carolina handling a champion’s burden, Colorado answering its playoff disappointment, Dallas finding postseason goaltending, and the next tier proving it belongs in the same spring conversation.
