I think you’re discounting how immovably bad SJS, CHI, ANA, CBJ, MTL, ARI, OTT, SEA, CGY, and BUF are at this point, either from an inferior roster or organizational ineptitude standpoint. Then there are teams like PIT and MIN that might be reshuffling the deck next season and take a couple of steps back from their poor outcomes this season. It is really crowded at the bottom right now.
Even giving back some of the factors you point out, I just don’t see the roster we have now going into next season worse off than any of those teams without multiple catastrophic injuries. While not part of my original comments, I think bottom 10 is possible for any team if they get bit badly enough by the injury bug.
Very hard disagree on a lot of these teams being immovably bad. There are only 5 teams in the NHL this year with fewer than 75 points right now and Montreal has 2 games to earn 1 point to hit that mark. There were 6 teams with 70 or fewer points in each of the previous 2 seasons and this year there will only be 4. If anything, the actual bottom is the least crowded it has been in a while.
Looking at those 4 teams at the true bottom (SJ, CHI, ANA, and CBJ), I actually see a couple with paths out of the true basement, especially if one of them wins the Celebrini lottery.
Bedard was the real deal this season and it wouldn't be at all surprising to see him have that 2nd year jump that guys like Sid, McDavid, and Matthews had, especially if the Hawks can put a bit of actualy NHL talent around him. They have $38M in cap space to supplement the (currently truly awful) roster and also have tons of draft/prospect capital to use in trades if they so choose. I'm not picking the Hawks to be a playofff team next year, but they are about in the stage of their rebuild where they could hit the upswing and be competitive.
I'm less sold on Anaheim being one of those basement teams that finds itself overnight, but Gauthier can very well be an impact player in the middle of the lineup next season and Carlsson should have a bigger impact overall than he had this year. They have $33M in cap space, but I'm not sold that they make a push to improve with vets.
Arizona is (all but fully confirmed) moving to Utah next season and has $49M in cap space with clear incentive to bring in talent to hit the ground running for a new fanbase. They also have 7 surplus 2nd round picks over the next 3 drafts and a top 10 prospect pool to use as trade currency. They could very easily add an entire line + D pair of quality veteran players in addition to whatever prospects prove ready to make the jump. Bill Armstrong has had a clear mandate to build a war chest of futures assets with no concern about the on-ice product for the last couple years. That will absolutely not be the mandate in Salt Lake City and the brand new owner will almost certainly be looking to spend a bunch of money to make a playoff push. The roster for 2024/25 should be significantly better than this year's roster that managed 75 points. 85+ points is very realistic for this group that should be upgrading about half a dozen spots on the roster.
Buffalo is a .506 team with the youngest top 4 D group in the league and $22M in cap space. Power should continue improving and we'll see if Samuelsson can give them more than 42 games next year. They also have a pretty damn skilled group of young forwards that could absolutely see a couple 'next steps.' Finishing with 85+ points next year isn't remotely unrealistic.
Seattle is a .494 team this year and was a playoff team (who won a round) last year. They have $22M in cap space, which will not all be going to internal raises. Beniers had a sophomore slump this year, but I don't think he is a lock to just not be good again next season. Wright had a really nice AHL seasone and contributed in a sheltered/limited role over 8 NHL games. Like Buffalo, finishing with 85+ points isn't at all unrealistic.
I think Calgary should continue stripping their roster for parts, but their ownership group hates missing out on playoff revenue and hates having dead money (via retention or bad contracts) on the books. They have $18M in space to fill 3 roster spots and I could absolutely see them adding over the summer.
The Sens have a number of issues, but they also have 76 points through 80 games after finishing with 86 points the prior season. The goaltending doesn't have much room to get worse than it was this year and they are NHL .500 with Martin. They should be in the market for a coach, so improving into the 85+ point range(where this group has already been) isn't all that unreasonable.
I'm not sure what to make of Montreal this year. They improved their point total while winnig fewer games. Slaf took a nice step, but I'm not sold that they will get much better next year. But like a lot of these teams, they have $20M in cap space and they only have to fill a handful of roster spots.
Are all these teams going to improve? Absolutely not. But a lot of them have pretty clear paths to improving. Not to suddenly be a contender, but to get (or keep) themselves out of the bottom of the league.
From our perspective, we had a decent amount go right this year. Our underlying metrics were bottom 10 across the board but we dramatically outperformed them on-ice. Our top 6 forwards in TOI per game have missed a combined 6 games this year (Thomas, Buch, Kyrou, Schenn, Neighbours, Saad). Our top pair (Parayko/Leddy) missed 0 games. Our 3 C missed 3 total games and our only real injury on D was Faulk missing 21 games (and not looking right all year). Neither of Binner/Hofer got hurt and both were excellent. There is an argument that we had the best injury luck of every team in the league this year. We basically dealt with one meaningful injury to the top half of the lineup (Faulk) and one injury to the bottom half n the last 10 games of the season (Sunny). The odds of getting so lucky next year are extremely slim and it won't take catastrophic injuries to put us in a noticeably worse spot than we were this year.
We were 12-5 in OT/shootouts, which is historically not a reliably repeatable accomplishment.
We may or may not be bringing all of our good players back next year.
I'm not saying that we will for sure be worse, but there are plenty of very realstic scenarios where we see a noticeable drop. The actual bottom of the league isn't crowded and then there are a bunch of teams in the mushy/mediocre middle. I don't think this team tries to tank next year and I wouldn't put money on a top 5 pick, but it's not like we just don't have a reasonable path to a top 10 pick. I'd be surprised if there aren't multiple teams among the group you listed who outperform us next season.
