Few teams in NHL history have proved themselves in the face of their doubters more than the Florida Panthers of the past few seasons.

After getting humiliated as a Presidents’ Trophy winner in 2022 — swept by the Tampa Bay Lightning as their historic offense was mostly silenced — Florida rebuilt its identity under Bill Zito and Paul Maurice, traded for toughness with Matthew Tkachuk, leaned into defense and the goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky, and turned those lessons into a championship blueprint: three straight Stanley Cup Final appearances, back-to-back titles and a bona fide dynasty.

But when one team proves so much, it doesn’t leave much room for others to do the same. So in many ways, this NHL season will be defined by the teams outside of South Florida that need to do a lot of proving of their own.

To help sort out which clubs have the most on the line in this prove-it 2025-26 season, we grouped 13 of them into five categories of teams with work to do and boxes to check. These range from longtime contenders still knocking on the door to hyped up-and-comers, possibly-past-their-prime powers and franchises whose fans would simply love them to prove they can make the playoffs every so often.

The common thread for all is that they have to change the story around their team, just like Florida had to do a few years ago. Let’s unpack each — and see who’s under the most pressure to get the job done this season.

The now-or-nevers

We’ve written about it here before, but the primary victims of Florida’s success in recent seasons have been the teams that repeatedly came close to a title but couldn’t break through. So this group is all about those that are seeking to prove they can finally make the championship leap — and especially those with a ticking clock on how long they can keep trying, and failing, to turn their potential into a parade.

Chief among this type of team? Clearly the Edmonton Oilers, who finally skated for the Cup for the first time in the Connor McDavid–Leon Draisaitl era in 2024 after never previously advancing further than being swept in the conference finals. But back-to-back losses to Florida have raised the question of whether they can ever truly get over the hump.

The main things to prove might be whether the returning tandem of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard can provide better goaltending than the .866 SV% they collectively posted in last season’s Final — and if this season’s offense, bolstered by the additions of Jack Roslovic and Andrew Mangiapane, can score enough for it not to matter.

Though McDavid recently inked a contract extension, it only runs through 2027-28, so the Oilers’ window to compete still has a short shelf life.

And then there are the Carolina Hurricanes and Dallas Stars, who are well past the point where they need to at least break through to the Final, if not win the Cup. The two teams have combined to win an incredible 62 playoff games (32 for Dallas, 30 for Carolina) since 2022 without a single Stanley Cup Final appearance to show for it. No other team in the league had more such wins than the New York Rangers‘ 23.

For Carolina, the team must demonstrate that its strategy of dominating possession — the Hurricanes have led the NHL’s offensive zone time-tracking metric every year it has existed — isn’t destined to forever be stonewalled by an elite goalie when the team runs up against one in the playoffs.

Dallas needs to prove that all the offseason moves it made (including moving on from coach Peter DeBoer to Glen Gulutzan) were necessary to get this team to the next level.

Dallas is younger, whereas Carolina has more of its core locked up longer, but both teams can feel the weight of time, and expectations, demanding a Finals run … maybe even against one another.

The snakebit histories

Now we get to the teams that haven’t even made it far enough to qualify as a now-or-never breakthrough candidate. These teams have had plenty of regular-season success, but they perpetually lose in Round 1 of the playoffs — or, on the odd occasion, win a series before a big letdown in the next round.

And over the past handful of seasons, nobody fits this mold more than the Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets.

Since 2018-19, Toronto and Winnipeg rank third and seventh in total standings points, respectively, and yet they are the only members of the top eight on that list to fail to win 40 playoff games in that span — and neither is even close to that mark. (Neither has 30 wins, much less 40.)

The Leafs‘ history of choking in the playoffs is extensive and well-documented. Before 2023, this team hadn’t so much as won a single postseason series since 2004, and the Leafs still haven’t reached the conference finals since 2002 — to go with zero Cups since 1967, the final year of the NHL’s Original Six era.

As part of that, they own an eight-game losing streak in winner-take-all playoff games, the second-longest such skid in hockey history. There are micro-level things Toronto also needs to convince us about, such as offensive life after Mitch Marner (so far, so good) and if it can ever get the playoff goaltending it needs. But the main thing to prove is that the Leafs can overcome the ghosts of this franchise’s many past failures.

Winnipeg‘s playoff struggles feel less biblical but are no better in the aggregate. After winning two total series in its first go-round — before the franchise relocated to Arizona — the version that rose from the ashes of the Atlanta Thrashers made a conference finals run in 2018 but has advanced to the second round only twice since then.

Last season was supposed to change all that, but the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Jets barely beat the Blues in Round 1 and were then knocked off by the Stars as league MVP Connor Hellebuyck was outplayed by Jake Oettinger in net. Now the Jets have to show that their ascendance last season was no fluke, that they can be a playoff team in addition to a regular-season one, and that Hellebuyck can handle the pressure after three straight terrible postseason performances.

The hype trains

This is the place for those teams with young, exciting talent that haven’t exactly proved what they can do yet. They’re fun, marketable and full of promise — but as so many of the league’s up-and-coming squads of the past can tell you, promise alone lasts only so long.

Within this group, the New Jersey Devils stand out a bit because they have been riding the hype train a little longer than the other two teams. The 2022-23 Devils appeared to announce themselves early as the league’s next big thing behind a roster that ranked fourth on offense, eighth on defense … and third youngest in average age.

But electric center Jack Hughes missed parts of the next two seasons, the team regressed and fired its coach, and the Devils only slightly reclaimed their prior potential last season. The 2025-26 version is off to a good start, but New Jersey needs to win some playoff series to get back to where we assumed it would be by now.

As for the Montreal Canadiens and Chicago Blackhawks, both have started the season fairly strong with rosters that rank 1-2 in the NHL in youngest average age.

Along with the Devils, the Canadiens were anticipated to be one of the league’s most improved teams this season, building on their playoff return a season ago with a young core that is now pretty well locked in after defenseman Lane Hutson‘s recent contract extension.

Now the job for Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Noah Dobson, Hutson & Co. is to see how much better they can continue to get this season — and whether they’ll belong in the Cup-contending conversation by the spring.

The Blackhawks are further from that goal than the Canadiens, but new coach Jeff Blashill has them playing much better than they did a season ago. Connor Bedard continues to make progress, and Frank Nazar has been an early-season star, while the Blackhawks appear to be a bit better on the goal-prevention side as well.

Chicago must prove that last season was simply a disappointing speed bump along its road to rebuilding a new winner with Bedard as the centerpiece.

The do-overs

Last season, the hype machine broke down for a number of teams that were expected to be Cup contenders, and perhaps no teams were bigger offenders than this trio. Each is out to show that 2024-25 was a fluke and it deserves another shot in 2025-26.

The New York Rangers‘ collapse might have been the most jarring. A team that had finished top seven in fewest goals allowed per game for three straight seasons suddenly ranked 19th, allowed the sixth-most shots per game and got a combined .896 SV% from Jonathan Quick and Igor Shesterkin, who couldn’t paper over their issues anymore. The Jacob Trouba trade fractured the locker room, the power play cratered and a team that had made the Eastern Conference finals in 2024 unraveled far faster than anyone expected.

After making even more offseason changes — out were Peter Laviolette, Chris Kreider and K’Andre Miller; in were Mike Sullivan and Vladislav Gavrikov — the remade Rangers must get back to their previous business.

The Boston Bruins‘ fall was even steeper by the numbers. In fact, the Bruins saw the largest year-over-year drop in goal differential of any team (minus-1.13 goals per game) after transitioning from what was once a record-breaking veteran core to the league’s eighth-youngest lineup. What was supposed to be a smooth handoff turned into a full-scale identity crisis when Boston’s seven-year streak of top-five scoring finishes snapped to the tune of a No. 26 ranking on that side of the ice in 2024-25.

Now the remaining nucleus of David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman has to prove that it, too, can carry an era of Bruins hockey the same way Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejčí, Zdeno Chara, Tuukka Rask, Torey Krug and others did in the past.

And then there were the Nashville Predators, whose 68-point season represented a staggering 31.5-point shortfall versus their preseason Vegas projection — the biggest miss in the NHL. What once looked like a loaded Preds roster with scoring, depth and Juuse Saros in net instead seemed disjointed from the start and never found success at either end.

Most of the group that was supposed to win last season is back now, and some are bouncing back nicely. Others, however, are like Steven Stamkos, Brady Skjei and Filip Forsberg — from whom Nashville still needs more bang for the salary-cap bucks being spent.

The drought-enders

When the Ottawa Senators finally made the playoffs last season, for the first time since going to the 2017 Eastern Conference finals, they ended what was tied for the NHL’s seventh-longest postseason drought of all time.

However, Ottawa was not the only franchise with a playoff-less streak that long — or even longer — and its achievement just turned up the pressure on the other two teams in that category to make their own postseason returns.

First, the Buffalo Sabres: Their playoff drought is now an NHL-record 14 seasons long — four more than the second-longest in league history — and the organization is well past the territory where incremental improvements suffice anymore. The youngest current Sabre, Zach Benson, was still in kindergarten the last time Buffalo played a postseason game, and zero players on this season’s roster were in the NHL when the drought began.

After a modestly positive goal differential in 2023-24, Buffalo backslid to minus-22 last season, and that regression has seemed to carry over to 2025-26 thus far. The Sabres’ low playoff odds already don’t paint a pretty picture, but they have to prove they can end this streak one of these years.

Finally, there are the Detroit Red Wings, whose own nine-season drought is not too far off from Buffalo’s — and completely uncharacteristic for one of hockey’s most storied franchises. The “Yzer-plan” was designed to restore the glory years, but Detroit has ranked better than 24th in goal differential just once during the skid (2023-24) and gave back all of those gains last season.

The good news in Hockeytown is that the 2025-26 team has started strong, bringing its playoff odds up above a coin flip. But Detroit has been down this early-season path before, only to collapse down the stretch, so the Wings hanging on to their playoff position might be the biggest prove-it on our list.

Both clubs have stockpiled young talent and patience in equal measure, but the next step remains to end their droughts and prove the long rebuilds were worth the wait.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are the overwhelming favorites to win the 2025 World Series and become the first repeat champion in a quarter century.

That doesn’t mean they’ve cornered all the talent in this year’s Fall Classic.

In fact, the American League champion Toronto Blue Jays feature two of the top three players heading into the series and nearly half of our top 20.

Let’s dig into the stars — ranking the best of the series participants on how good I think they’ll be in this series and predicting who will take home some superlatives by the time the dust settles.

Top 20 players in the World Series

1. Shohei Ohtani, SP/DH, Dodgers

Ohtani put up a combined 9.4 WAR in the regular season and is a huge favorite to win the National League MVP again. Then, he one-upped himself with one of the greatest athletic performances of all time: six scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and three home runs in the clinching game of the NL Championship Series.

2. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 1B, Blue Jays

Guerrero had a big regular season — 3.9 WAR despite the sixth-worst ball-in-play luck in the league — but has been white hot in the playoffs, leading postseason players in most major offensive categories.

3. George Springer, DH, Blue Jays

Springer led the Jays in WAR in the regular season, has been very good this postseason and his iconic ALCS Game 7 homer will live on.

4. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, SP, Dodgers

All four of the Dodgers’ starting pitchers are on a heater, but Yamamoto was the best of the group in the regular season by a lot and one of the top five pitchers in baseball.

5. Blake Snell, SP, Dodgers

Snell missed the first two-thirds of the season with shoulder inflammation but came back looking as good as ever. He might be on the best run of his career right now, with a 0.86 ERA in three playoff starts and the second-best underlying numbers (xFIP and xERA) in the playoffs among starters, behind Detroit’s Tarik Skubal.

6. Mookie Betts, SS, Dodgers

Betts, a clear future Hall of Famer, is 33 years old and has lost the standout power from his peak years but is still an impact player.

7. Freddie Freeman, 1B, Dodgers

One of the most consistently elite hitters of this era, Freeman just keeps performing — and he has a history of coming up large in the playoffs.

8. Alejandro Kirk, C, Blue Jays

Kirk was quietly the second-best all-around catcher in the league this year behind Seattle’s Cal Raleigh, but isn’t a huge star since his value is largely driven by on-base skills and pitch framing.

9. Max Muncy, 3B, Dodgers

Muncy is surprisingly solid as a baserunner and a defensive third baseman, and he’s always been a dangerous hitter.

10. Tyler Glasnow, SP, Dodgers

Glasnow’s walks crept up during the regular season and the playoffs, but he’s been missing bats as always and is inducing weak contact during his current hot streak.

11. Will Smith, C, Dodgers

Smith hasn’t been very good offensively in the playoffs but had the third-best WAR amongst catchers in the majors this season, behind only Raleigh and Kirk.

12. Ernie Clement, 2B/3B, Blue Jays

Clement posted a quietly solid 3.2 WAR this season, driven mostly by contact and defense, but has gone to another level in the postseason, hitting .429 with almost no ball-in-play luck, due to his 4% strikeout rate. He’s on a heater, but the Dodgers’ staff is the type to possibly end that streak.

13. Daulton Varsho, CF, Blue Jays

Varsho is above average at basically everything on the baseball field but isn’t truly elite at much. He missed time with shoulder and hamstring issues this year but was on track for a career-best 4-ish WAR season.

14. Kevin Gausman, SP, Blue Jays

Gausman posted the 10th-best pitcher WAR in baseball this season but has one of the lowest fastball velocities of pitchers in that range and has been hit around in the playoffs, though his career playoff performances are close to his regular season quality.

15. Tommy Edman, 2B, Dodgers

Edman is a good defender at almost any position but had the 12th-least lucky ball-in-play outcomes this regular season. That luck has turned around in the playoffs.

16. Trey Yesavage, SP, Blue Jays

Like Gausman, Yesavage’s splitter is his best secondary pitch, and he doesn’t have standout fastball velocity or breaking ball quality. That said, Yesavage’s splitter has been confounding hitters in his six career big league appearances, half of which have been in the playoffs.

17. Bo Bichette, SS, Blue Jays

It sounds like Bichette will be able to return to the Jays’ lineup for the World Series, but he’s been out the past six weeks with a knee injury and it’s hard to know what he’ll look like in the short term.

18. Addison Barger, RF, Blue Jays

Barger is usable defensively at a number of positions and broke out this year to be an above-average hitter, mostly due to his power.

19. Andy Pages, CF, Dodgers

Pages hasn’t been terrible at the plate this postseason, but he was a standout hitter (.272 average, 24 homers) and defender (plus-7 runs in 117 starts in center field) in the regular season, en route to 4.0 WAR.

20. Teoscar Hernandez, RF, Dodgers

Hernandez hit for power in the regular season (25 homers) but didn’t draw many walks or stand out defensively. This postseason, he’s been hitting for even more power on a rate basis, so he sneaks on this list.

Superlatives

Fastest pitch of the World Series will be thrown by: Roki Sasaki

Sasaki narrowly wins this matchup with the hardest-thrown pitch among these teams in the playoffs at 100.8 mph, and he’s fresher than Louis Varland (100.7 mph) and can go more max effort than Ohtani (100.3 mph).

Others in the mix: Ohtani

Best breaking pitch will be: Emmet Sheehan‘s slider

Sheehan’s slider was, per pitch thrown, the best pitch on the Dodgers’ staff this season. It doesn’t have a gaudy spin rate or crazy movement but he throws it hard and hitters can’t seem to track it.

Others in the mix: Yariel Rodriguez‘s slider, Braydon Fisher‘s slider, Brendon Little‘s curveball, Jack Dreyer‘s slider, Glasnow’s curveball, Shane Bieber‘s curveball

Best changeup/splitter will be: Yesavage’s splitter

Yesavage offers a unique combination of movement profile (his slider moves to his arm side), a very high arm slot, and short extension which brings his release even higher. Hitters haven’t seen something like this before, then add in a killer splitter (which he barely threw at East Carolina, where he was last season) and hitters don’t know what to do.

Others in the mix: Yamamoto’s splitter, Gausman’s splitter, Snell’s changeup

Most whiffs will be thrown by: Snell

Snell has been red-hot in the postseason (I explain why here) and should get two starts, but there’s a number of strong candidates for this.

Others in the mix: Yamamoto, Yesavage, Glasnow

Hardest hit ball in play will be hit by: Guerrero

The odds for this are as close to 50/50 as you can get. Guerrero (120.4) and Ohtani (120.0 mph) were second and third in max exit velo during the regular season behind Cincinnati’s Oneil Cruz (122.9). Ohtani has a slight edge in playoff max EV at 117.7 to Vlad’s 116.0. I’ll lean to Vlad because he’s been running hotter at the plate and thus will get a few more chances to smoke one at a gaudy number, but Ohtani will be facing a weaker pitching staff, so this is still a coin flip.

Also in the mix: Ohtani

Highest sprint speed will be recorded by: Clement

The other main candidates are part-time players who might get only some chances to open it up on the bases, but I expect Clement to be on base often in the series.

Others in the mix: Hyeseong Kim, Edman, Myles Straw

The batter who will record the most hits: Guerrero

Clement (second in postseason hits with 18) might be held back a bit by the quality of the Dodgers’ pitchers while Guerrero (first in postseason hits with 19) also makes a ton of contact but gets the margin for error of having huge power, too.

Others in the mix: Clement, Nathan Lukes, Betts, Freeman, Springer

Best defender will be: Kirk

If you consider framing to be a part of defensive value (you definitely should) and also factor in positional difficulty (I think you should), then Kirk is the answer. He’ll be impacting roughly half of the pitches in the series and he was the second-best framer in the league behind San Francisco’s Patrick Bailey this regular season.

Others in the mix: Clement, Edman, Betts

Here’s a hot take: We’re going to have an epic World Series between the heavily favored Los Angeles Dodgers and the underdog Toronto Blue Jays (who, by the way, won more games and have home-field advantage).

At least, we’re due for one. None of the past five World Series went longer than six games and none would be described as a classic or especially memorable World Series. We’ve had longer no-Game 7 droughts before (including eight years in a row from 2003 to 2010), but after a stretch of four series going the distance in six years from 2014 to 2019, we had grown to expect those drawn-out affairs. Here’s hoping we get one.

The big storyline this year is the Dodgers seeking to become the first repeat champion in 25 years, riding their billion-dollar rotation and coming off Shohei Ohtani‘s greatest performance ever to wrap up the National League Championship Series. The Blue Jays are riding the hot bats of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer to make their first World Series since 1993.

In terms of World Series annals, it’s a strong matchup, so let’s rank all the World Series since 2000 to see where Dodgers-Blue Jays fits in. This ranking is based on hype, the quality of the teams and their star power heading into the World Series. It’s not a ranking of the quality of the World Series itself, although we’re going to include a grade on that for each matchup. Let’s get to it.

The Yankees were back in the World Series for the sixth time in eight years while the Marlins had rebuilt after their fire sale following their World Series title in 1997. Trust me when I say: Nobody wanted the Yankees in the World Series yet again. And the Marlins were merely a 91-win wild-card team. Most notably, however, both teams had spoiled the ultimate World Series by knocking off the Cubs and Red Sox — before either team had overcome its curse — in Game 7s in the LCS.

Actual World Series: C. The Marlins won Game 4 in 12 innings, when Yankees manager Joe Torre inexplicably failed to use reliever Mariano Rivera, and then 23-year-old Josh Beckett tossed a five-hit shutout in Game 6.

In an all-wild-card series, the No. 5-seeded Rangers had won 90 games and the No. 6-seeded Diamondbacks won only 84, making this the lowest combined win total in World Series history (for full seasons). The Rangers were going for their first World Series title, so there was that, and there were some fun hitters — Corey Seager, the red-hot Adolis Garcia (who had just driven in 15 runs in the ALCS) and Corbin Carroll — but it was a soft matchup on paper.

Actual World Series: D-. The series turned on Seager’s tying two-run homer off Paul Sewald in the bottom of the ninth of Game 1, which Garcia then won with a home run in the 11th. There wasn’t a single lead change after that and three of those games were blowouts.

This was the Cardinals team that got hot in September and clinched a wild-card spot on the final day of the season when the Braves blew a lead in the ninth inning and lost in extra innings. St. Louis certainly had star power with the likes of Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman and Matt Holliday but had won a World Series fairly recently (2006) while the Rangers had just been there the year before.

Actual World Series: A. The first two games were one-run games, including the Rangers pulling out a victory with two runs in the ninth. In Game 3, Pujols blasted a record-tying three home runs. Game 6 was the David Freese Game — perhaps the single most exciting baseball game ever played. Game 7 was a bit of an anticlimactic 6-2 Cardinals win.

The second-lowest combined win total in World Series history featured two wild-card teams who won fewer than 90 games. The Royals were at least a good story — in the playoffs for the first time since winning the World Series in 1985 — and had gone 8-0 in the AL playoffs, including an epic win over the A’s in the wild-card game. The Giants, however, had just won the World Series in 2010 and 2012 and this team didn’t seem nearly as good as those two.

Actual World Series: B-. Five of the games were blowouts, but it did at least go seven. It’ll be remembered for Madison Bumgarner’s historic performance: a shutout in Game 5 (the last complete game shutout in World Series history) and then five scoreless innings of relief in Game 7, getting Salvador Perez to pop out with the tying run on third to end it.

The Red Sox were only three years removed from breaking the Curse of the Bambino in 2004, so although they were still a star-laden team with David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and scrappy rookie Dustin Pedroia, they were no longer as interesting. The Rockies were a fun story, winning 14 of their final 15 games, including beating the Padres in a tiebreaker, just to win a wild-card spot. Then they went 7-0 in the NL playoffs and had won 21 of 22 entering the World Series.

Actual World Series: F. A dud. Two of the games were one-run games, but it goes down as one of the least memorable World Series of all time, with a forgettable four-game sweep.

21. 2006: St. Louis Cardinals over Detroit Tigers, 4-1

The Tigers were the story of the season. They had lost 119 games three years before and 91 just the previous year. With rookie starter Justin Verlander winning 17 games, they led the AL Central most of the season — only to lose their final five games and squeak into the playoffs as a wild-card team. The Cardinals won a weak NL Central with only 83 wins — although they at least had Pujols at his absolute peak (.331/.431/.671, 49 home runs). Both teams hadn’t won a World Series in a couple of decades: 1982 for the Cardinals, 1984 for the Tigers. Plus, it did feature two of the original 16 franchises.

Actual World Series: F. The Cardinals won one game in the bottom of the eighth, but it was otherwise a blur of nothing, most characterized by several Tigers fielding miscues by their pitchers. David Eckstein won MVP honors without hitting a home run and driving in only four runs.

The Braves were back in the World Series for the first time since 1999 — they had made 12 playoff appearances in the intervening years without making it to the Fall Classic. Still, this was the weakest of the Atlanta playoff teams of recent vintage, winning only 88 games and missing Ronald Acuña Jr. for the playoffs. The Astros, meanwhile, were back in the World Series for the third time in five years — but the first time since the 2017 sign-stealing scandal had broken in November 2019. Let’s just say not everyone wanted them there.

Actual World Series: D. This was a weird World Series. The Braves ended up going with two bullpen games (who remembers that Dylan Lee and Tucker Davidson started?) after Charlie Morton broke his leg in Game 1. Astros starters kept getting knocked out early (the only starter to go more than five innings for either team was Max Fried in the finale). Four of the games were blowouts.

19. 2012: San Francisco Giants over Detroit Tigers, 4-0

The Giants were back after winning in 2010 while the Tigers were back for the first time since 2006, featuring Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera and a strong 1-2 punch in the rotation with Verlander and Max Scherzer. This was also the last World Series with that season’s MVP winners (at least until this year), with Cabrera and Buster Posey.

Actual World Series: D-. A boring sweep. Pablo Sandoval did hit three home runs in Game 1, but there were two shutouts and chilly weather in Detroit made the final two games unbearable.

18. 2013: Boston Red Sox over St. Louis Cardinals, 4-2

This one did feature the two best teams from the regular season (both won 97 games), the last time before this year we had that happen in a full season. It was also a classic original-16 matchup, although we had seen this in 2004 — plus, both teams had won recently (2007 for Boston, 2011 for St. Louis). Both were veteran teams, with Ortiz leading the Red Sox, while the Cardinals featured four .300 hitters, plus Carlos Beltran, who hit .296 and led the team in home runs.

Actual World Series: C+. Ortiz was absolutely locked in, hitting .688/.760/1.188 with two home runs and eight walks. The Cardinals were so scared of him by Game 6 that they intentionally walked him three times — with two of those helping lead to rallies and a 6-1 Red Sox victory in the final game.

This one could be No. 25 — it was during COVID after all, and it was played at a neutral site in a half-empty stadium for social distancing reasons. But it was a great matchup between the teams with the best records in each league, albeit over the shortened 60-game season. You had Mookie Betts and Clayton Kershaw and Randy Arozarena in the midst of one of the best individual postseasons ever, plus the small-market Rays trying to beat the big-market Dodgers.

Actual World Series: C+. Because teams were allowed an expanded roster of 28 players, it was a parade of relievers — but there were some fun games, including that bonkers ending to Game 4 and then Rays manager Kevin Cash’s controversial decision to remove Blake Snell in Game 6, which backfired in a big way.

16. 2005: Chicago White Sox over Houston Astros, 4-0

Maybe this should rate higher. After all, at the time, the White Sox were trying to break a World Series drought going back to 1917 and the Astros, born in 1962, had never won. But the White Sox drought never had the same nationwide interest as the ones for the Cubs or Red Sox (fair or not) and these weren’t particularly interesting teams. The White Sox were very good — they won 99 games — but lacked star power, with Paul Konerko their biggest name (Frank Thomas was on the team that year but played only 34 games and was injured for the playoffs). The Astros had Yankees transplants Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, but their two longtime stars, Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, were at the end of their careers (Bagwell, in his final season, was relegated to DH and pinch-hitting duties).

Actual World Series: C. It’s hard to give a sweep a decent grade, but all four games were exciting, including Scott Podsednik’s walk-off home run in Game 2 (after not hitting a home run all season) and Geoff Blum’s go-ahead home run in the 14th inning to win Game 3.

The Phillies were back in the World Series for the first time since 1993 — and hadn’t won since 1980. They featured a powerful offense with Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins and Pat Burrell. The Rays were maybe the unlikeliest World Series team ever: In their 10 previous years of existence, they had not only never had a winning season but had lost at least 90 games in each one. They won 97 games that year behind rookie Evan Longoria and power-hitting first baseman Carlos Peña, with speedsters Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton in the outfield.

Actual World Series: D+. Three games were decided by one run, but it was a pretty uneventful World Series. The lasting memory is the cold and rain in Philly that forced the midgame postponement of Game 5, the only time that has happened in World Series history. The game was suspended in the sixth inning and resumed two days later.

14. 2000: New York Yankees over New York Mets, 4-1

A Subway Series — the first since the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers met in 1956 — was certainly fun for the Big Apple, less fun for the rest of the country (it drew the worst TV ratings at the time). The Yankees were going for a third straight World Series and had officially become the Evil Empire by that point. To make it even worse, they weren’t even that good that season, winning only 87 games. The Mets were back in the World Series for the first time since 1986. There was certainly plenty of star power all around with the likes of Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens and Mike Piazza.

Actual World Series: C+. It was a tight-fought five-game series with all games decided by two runs or fewer. The turning point was the bottom of the ninth of Game 1, when the Yankees tied it off Armando Benitez and went on to win in 12 innings. Game 2 featured the infamous Clemens-Piazza bat-throwing incident, and the Yankees won the clincher with two runs in the ninth off a tired Al Leiter.

13. 2022: Houston Astros over Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2

I know, the Astros … again. Boo. But this was an absolute powerhouse of a team with 106 wins and stars such as Yordan Alvarez (1.019 OPS) and Verlander (18-4, 1.75 ERA), plus the old standbys Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman. The Phillies, meanwhile, snuck in as a wild-card team for their first playoff trip since 2011 but were an immensely entertaining team with Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber & Co., as well as a rabid fan base cheering them on.

Actual World Series: C. The Phillies won 6-5 in Game 1 on J.T. Realmuto‘s home run in the 10th inning. They took a 2-1 series lead but then their bats died. Astros pitchers tossed a combined no-hitter to even the series and Houston won the final two games 3-2 and 4-1, with Alvarez’s three-run blast in Game 6 the deciding blow.

12. 2015: Kansas City Royals over New York Mets, 4-1

The Royals proved their 2014 World Series appearance was no fluke, winning 95 games with a better team that included trade-deadline additions Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto. The Mets won the NL East behind a young, powerful rotation that featured Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom. It was a fun matchup of teams trying to avoid lengthy title droughts — 30 years for the Royals, 29 for the Mets.

Actual World Series: C+. It only went five games, but the Royals won the opener in 14 innings, won Game 5 with a three-run eighth inning and then won the clincher in 12 innings — after Mets manager Terry Collins’ ill-fated decision to leave in Harvey to start the ninth with a 2-0 lead.

11. 2010: San Francisco Giants over Texas Rangers, 4-1

This was a super entertaining showdown at the time. The Giants had yet to win a World Series in San Francisco and featured Tim Lincecum (“The Freak,” for his small stature and overpowering stature) and two rookies named Posey and Bumgarner. The Rangers had never won a championship and featured AL MVP Josh Hamilton and veteran DH Vladimir Guerrero. Both teams had pulled off upsets in the LCS, with the Giants beating the Phillies and the Rangers beating the Yankees.

Actual World Series: D. Meh. The Giants won the opener in a blowout as the Rangers made four errors and then tossed shutouts in Games 2 (behind Matt Cain) and 4 (behind Bumgarner). You can test Giants fans by asking them who won World Series MVP honors that year. Answer: Edgar Renteria (he hit .412 with two home runs and six RBIs).

Remember, this happened before the sign-stealing scandal changed how we view this era of the Astros. They had won 107 games behind the pitching duo of Verlander and Gerrit Cole and four players who mashed 30-plus home runs (which didn’t even include Alvarez, a rookie that year). The Nationals were a wild-card team that had overcome a 19-31 season start to win 93 games and featured a starting pitching trio of Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin (and 20-year-old sensation Juan Soto, who hit 34 home runs).

Actual World Series: B-. It went seven games — the road team would win all seven — although five of the games weren’t close. The best game was the last one: The Nationals went ahead 3-2 in the seventh inning on Anthony Rendon‘s home run and then Howie Kendrick’s go-ahead home run just inside the right-field foul pole.

9. 2025: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Toronto Blue Jays

Last year in the World Series, we had Ohtani versus Aaron Judge. This year, we have Ohtani versus Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is perhaps on his way to an all-time postseason after hitting .442 with six home runs through the first two rounds. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts stirred things up after the NLCS when he said during the postgame celebration, “Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball,” a reference to critics saying the Dodgers are ruining baseball with their high payroll. But we also get the vaunted Dodgers rotation and its ability to miss bats against the best-in-business contact ability of the Blue Jays.

Actual World Series: To be determined.

8. 2002: Anaheim Angels over San Francisco Giants, 4-3

The Angels, who joined the majors in 1961, were making their first World Series appearance, while the Giants, in the Bay Area since 1958, were trying to win their first title since moving from New York. You had Barry Bonds at the height of his unstoppable powers — and trying to erase his own postseason demons — while the Angels had a loaded lineup (Troy Glaus, Tim Salmon, Garret Anderson), the Rally Monkey and those deafening ThunderStix (let us pray they never return).

Actual World Series: A. Bonds was a beast, hitting .471/.700/1.294 (yes, that’s a 1.994 OPS), but it wasn’t enough. This series featured four one-run games, including a wild 11-10 contest and the classic Game 6, when the Angels rallied late from a 5-0 deficit to win 6-5. Game 7 was a drab 4-1 contest (Bonds went a harmless 1-for-3).

7. 2009: New York Yankees over Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2

The Yankees had missed the playoffs in 2008 for the first time since 1993, so they went out and signed free agents CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett to add to an already stacked roster that included Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada and Johnny Damon. Whoa. Yes, they were still the Evil Empire. The Phillies, trying to defend their title, had traded for Cliff Lee and then signed Pedro Martinez in July to bolster their rotation.

Actual World Series: C. It could have been a classic battle, but there were no one-run games and Game 6 — Martinez’s final start of his career — was over early. The crucial contest was Game 4, when the Yankees scored three runs in the ninth off Phillies closer Brad Lidge to win 7-4.

6. 2001: Arizona Diamondbacks over New York Yankees, 4-3

This one presented conflicting emotions. The Yankees were going for an unthinkable fourth straight title, but in the wake of 9/11, there was a “Win it for New York” angle that the Yankees had never encountered. The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, had the big, bad duo of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, with Schilling, when asked on the eve of the World Series about the Yankees’ mystique and aura, giving one of the great quips in World Series history: “Mystique and Aura? Those are dancers at a nightclub.” The Diamondbacks were not going to be intimidated.

Actual World Series: A+. Four one-run games, including three of the most memorable World Series moments ever: Jeter’s Mr. November home run to win Game 4, Scott Brosius’ walk-off home run to win Game 5 and then Luis Gonzalez’s bloop single to beat the invincible Mariano Rivera in Game 7.

5. 2018: Boston Red Sox over Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-1

Two of baseball’s most historic franchises had never met in a World Series, creating the classic showdown with games in Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium. It doesn’t get any better than that. The Red Sox were a 108-win powerhouse — with AL MVP Mookie Betts leading the way, backed up by J.D. Martinez, who hit .330 with 43 home runs that season. Chris Sale and David Price headlined the rotation. The Dodgers actually had a bit of a down year with 92 wins, but they also weren’t lacking in big names, with Manny Machado (a trade deadline acquisition), Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp, Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner, with Kershaw and rookie Walker Buehler on the pitching side.

Actual World Series: C-. A letdown. The first two games in Fenway were cold and windy. Game 3 was an 18-inning affair — longest in World Series history — but was more of a slog than a game to remember. Game 4 was the best of the series as the Red Sox rallied with nine runs over the final three innings to win 9-6.

4. 2017: Houston Astros over Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3

This series had it all: dominant teams (both won over 100 games), long World Series title droughts (never for the Astros, 1988 for the Dodgers) and superstars galore (Altuve, Verlander, Carlos Correa, Kershaw, Seager, Bellinger, Yu Darvish). We didn’t know at the time that both franchises were just kicking off 100-win dynasties — let alone what the Astros were doing behind the scenes — but the anticipation level was off the charts for the first matchup of 100-win teams in the World Series since 1970.

Actual World Series: A-. Game 1, with a start-time temperature of 103 degrees at Dodger Stadium, was a Kershaw 11-strikeout gem. The Astros tied Game 2 in the ninth on Marwin Gonzalez’s home run off Kenley Jansen (1.32 ERA that season), both teams scored twice in the 10th, the Astros scored twice in the 11th on George Springer’s home run and held on for a 7-6 win. Game 4 featured a five-run rally in the ninth by the Dodgers to win. Game 5 was completely bananas, with the Astros finally winning 13-12 in 10 innings. Game 7 was a letdown though, as the Astros won a 5-1 snoozer in which they scored five runs off Darvish in the first two innings.

3. 2024: New York Yankees vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

As mentioned, what’s not to like? Aside from Ohtani and Judge each playing in their first World Series and trying to put a final stamp on their legacy-defining seasons, we have Juan Soto and Mookie Betts, a suddenly rejuvenated Giancarlo Stanton and a hobbled Freddie Freeman (only raising the drama if he hits well), Gerrit Cole and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Aside from the history between the clubs, we have both clubs needing to rewrite their recent history: The Yankees, back in the World Series for the first time since 2009, and the Dodgers trying to add a more legitimate championship to the one they won in the COVID-shortened season.

Actual World Series: C+. The Judge-Ohtani showdown was a flop, as Judge hit .222 with one home run and Ohtani hit .105 without a home run or RBI. The series also went just five games, with the Dodgers winning the first three. The series did produce two forever moments, however: Freddie Freeman’s walk-off, Kirk Gibson-esque grand slam in Game 1 and the Yankees’ fifth-inning defensive meltdown in Game 5.

2. 2004: Boston Red Sox over St. Louis Cardinals, 4-0

The Red Sox were coming off their never-done-before comeback from down 3-0 to beat the Yankees in the ALCS — and still had to beat a 105-win Cardinals team that featured Pujols (.331, 46 home runs), Jim Edmonds (.301, 42 home runs) and Scott Rolen (.314, 34 home runs), plus in-season pickup Larry Walker, who had an OPS over 1.000 that year. The Red Sox had their own ridiculous lineup with Ortiz (.301, 41 home runs), Ramirez (.308, 43 home runs) and Damon (.304, 20 home runs) plus a rotation with Schilling and Martinez. It seems inevitable now that Boston was going to win, but that wasn’t the case at the time, so the buildup was intense.

Actual World Series: D. Blah. I mean, Red Sox fans will rightfully call it the best World Series ever, but after a sloppy 11-9 Game 1 played in a drizzle at Fenway (the Red Sox won despite committing four errors), the Cardinals never led again.

The Cubs had not only not won since 1908, but they hadn’t even been in a World Series since 1945. The Guardians, meanwhile, had the second-longest drought of the original 16 teams, without a title since 1948. That was enough right there to build up the anticipation, but this also rates high because it was two good teams — Chicago won 104 games while Cleveland won 94. Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant won MVP honors that year and Cleveland was led by 18-game winner Corey Kluber (who would start three times) and young rising stars Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez.

Actual World Series: B. The first six games weren’t anything too special, but Game 7 was one of the greatest in World Series history. Cleveland tied it on Rajai Davis’ three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth, the Cubs scored twice in the 10th — following a stress-filled rain delay — and escaped with an 8-7, curse-ending win when Cleveland had to bat little-used Michael Martinez with its season on the line.