All 4 teams def deserve to be in this poll as they all have had their moments in trying to compete for this title . But for me, as others have noted, the continuing tire fire in AZ that started to smoulder almost immediately after they moved from Wpg, through the successive owners (and therefore lack of any stability), the bankruptcies, the failure to put the arena in the optimal area of the valley for fans to access, they stiffed Gretzky, the league had to take them over and operate them for a couple of years, Chayka, the scouting combine fiasco, drafting kids with sociopathic tendencies and then cutting bait on him and having nothing to show for a first round pick and now the myriad of allegations against Mereluo, just scream tire fire. Some may disagree and thats ok, they are all contenders, in my humble opinion.
If i had to rank them:
1 - AZ for aforementioned reasons
2 - Edmonton, deep pocket jock sniffing owner than cant seem to detach himself from 1984 and hire some people in his hockey ops department that know what they are doing, although seems like now they might be slowly turning that corner. It seems like the real estate play to him owning the team supersedes anything that they may do on the ice as a sports team
3 - Buffalo, similar reasons as Edmonton, they have all the money and good fans in the world but keep hiring Jr B level management and coaches
4 - Ottawa, even though Melnyk is a total douche, Dorian seems to be doing something right despite.