NHL season preview: Strengths, weaknesses, X factors for all 32 teams
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Ryan S. Clark
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Kristen Shilton
Opening night of the 2025-26 NHL season is Tuesday, featuring a tripleheader of games on ESPN: Chicago Blackhawks–Florida Panthers at 5 p.m. ET (including the Stanley Cup banner-raising), Pittsburgh Penguins–New York Rangers at 8 p.m. ET, and Colorado Avalanche–Los Angeles Kings at 10:30 p.m. ET.
Before puck drop, this preview will serve you all the key intel you need on all 32 teams, including strengths, weaknesses, X factors, most likely award winners, fantasy tips and a bold prediction.
Our season preview also features the first edition of our Power Rankings, which provide the order in which these teams are presented. The weekly rankings are formulated through votes from ESPN hockey broadcasters, analysts and reporters.
Note: Thanks to PuckPedia for salary and contract data. Advanced stats are from Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick and Evolving Hockey. Kristen Shilton profiled the teams in the Eastern Conference, while Ryan S. Clark handled the Western Conference clubs. The fantasy outlook for each team was written by Victoria Matiash and Sean Allen, and bold predictions are from the mind of Greg Wyshynski. Stanley Cup odds are courtesy of ESPN BET as of Oct. 6, projected points are via Stathletes.
Last season: 48-29-5 (101 points), lost in Stanley Cup Final
Stanley Cup odds: +800
Projected points: 103.1
Biggest strength: A supporting cast that appears threatening. Every team in a championship window is faced with the annual problem of building a strong supporting cast with limited cap space. The Oilers jettisoned quite a few players in the offseason to do just that, with the intent of reaching a third straight Cup Final — hopefully with a different outcome. Oilers GM Stan Bowman used his team’s tight space to add Andrew Mangiapane, and traded for Isaac Howard, knowing that the reigning Hobey Baker Award winner — along with Matt Savoie — gives them a pair of promising top-nine forwards at a team-friendly price.
Biggest concern: Do they have the defensive consistency to win the Stanley Cup? Their past two playoff campaigns have seen a familiar pattern. It starts with a combination of their defensive structure having breakdowns, along with inconsistent play from goaltender Stuart Skinner. That leads to changes either with their personnel or the Oilers’ system before they find cohesion. It’s what happened last postseason when they shut down two of the most prolific teams in the Golden Knights and the Stars before facing challenges in quite a few areas against the Panthers.
This season hinges on … Winning the Stanley Cup. No team has more at stake when it comes to winning a Cup this season than the Oilers. Yes, there’s the fact they’ve advanced to consecutive Stanley Cup Finals and have fallen short. But it also comes back to how superstar Connor McDavid is in the final season of his contract. Winning a title could be the strongest recruitment tool for him to stay with the only team he’s ever known — especially when McDavid is one of 11 pending UFAs on the Oilers’ roster.
Most likely award winner: Connor McDavid, Hart
Fantasy outlook: After the elite pair of McDavid and Leon Draisaitl up front, Evan Bouchard and Jake Walman are forecast as top-10 and top-20 fantasy blueliners, respectively. As someone who might earn some ice time with McDavid, new-ish forward Trent Frederic has sleeper value in leagues that reward physical play such as hits and blocks.
Bold prediction: Connor McDavid signs a team-friendly, three-year extension.
Last season: 47-30-5 (99 points), lost in conference finals
Stanley Cup odds: +800
Projected points: 107.6
Biggest strength: Carolina has the luxury of excellent depth up front and on the back end — GM Erik Tulsky made sure of it. He landed Nikolaj Ehlers — one of the offseason’s most coveted free agents — to give the Hurricanes a bona fide top-six winger, and traded for K’Andre Miller to make Carolina’s blue line more robust. Those newcomers join a stable of established performers that the Hurricanes can count on to deliver; Seth Jarvis is coming off a 32-goal campaign, Sebastian Aho was a nearly point-per-game contributor and a locked-in defense is led by all-around gamer Jaccob Slavin.
Coach Rod Brind’Armour has a good pulse on his group and how to get the best out of it. It’s how the Hurricanes finished among the league’s top 10 in both offense and defense a season ago. Yes, the Hurricanes do need to figure out who is going to handle the job at second-line center long term. But if Ehlers and Miller now provide an expected boost to the lineup, then Carolina’s depth will be shinier than ever.
Biggest concern: It’s fair to wonder whether the Hurricanes have the right tandem in net. They’re running it back with Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov, a pair of netminders who recorded sub-.900 save percentages last season and ranked Carolina 24th in that category across the league (lowest among playoff-bound clubs). The veteran Andersen has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career (and made only 38 appearances his last two seasons), so Kotchetkov has seen more action of late than his partner. But the 26-year-old certainly hasn’t separated himself enough to be anointed as Carolina’s No. 1.
It’s a question of consistency — and, frankly, trust. Who can Brind’Amour turn to with confidence on a nightly basis? Carolina is fortunate to have an high-end defensive unit to cover for some deficiencies elsewhere. However, the Hurricanes can’t expect to reach their full potential without the goaltending to — no pun intended — back it up.
This season hinges on … Carolina discovering its inner playoff performer. The Hurricanes seemingly have all the pieces in place to be not just a postseason contender but a championship one. Yet, the Hurricanes fall short year after year when it matters most (aka, the Eastern Conference finals) with a suddenly anemic offense and disjointed defense. How does that happen — repeatedly? And will Carolina’s inability to mirror their regular season success deep into the postseason derail them again?
There’s a mindset that Cup-winning teams have to carry them through the difficult stretches of a long run and Carolina has to find that resiliency in itself. It won’t satisfy anyone to have another excellent 82-game showing and then disappoint in the spring. Whatever Carolina bottles in November has to be there by June.
Most likely award winner: Jaccob Slavin, Lady Byng
Fantasy outlook: Ehlers has been one of the best per-minute fantasy forwards and could have a bigger role. Miller and Alexander Nikishin both have the potential to be fantasy mainstays if they get the right deployment on the blue line.
Bold prediction: Hurricanes will win the Eastern Conference.
Last season: 50-22-10 (110 points), lost in second round
Stanley Cup odds: +900
Projected points: 112.8
Biggest strength: They shouldn’t have any problems scoring goals. Not that this was an issue last regular season, with the Golden Knights finishing in the top five of goals per game and second on the power play. Adding Mitch Marner comes with benefits. Among them? Pairing Marner with Jack Eichel and potentially Ivan Barbashev to create what has a chance to be one of the strongest No. 1 lines in the NHL.
Another is what it could mean for the Golden Knights’ power play. It could give them a first team of Tomas Hertl, Shea Theodore, Mark Stone, Eichel and Marner.
Biggest concern: How do they fill the void left by Alex Pietrangelo? The two-time Stanley Cup winner said in the preseason he is not ruling out trying to make a return this season. But there is also the reality that he could miss the entire season and possibly may never play again while recovering from femur reconstruction.
Pietrangelo’s absence leaves the Golden Knights without a top-pairing defenseman who can lead a team in average ice time because he can be trusted in every situation while still providing between 30 and 50 points per season.
This season hinges on … Being successful whenever they need to shift to Plan B or Plan C. Go back to how they were knocked out of the playoffs. Their second-round exit by the Oilers was facilitated by an inability to make successful adjustments. They allowed nine goals in the first two games before they won Game 3. Only to then get shut out for the rest of the series, which included a one-goal loss in overtime to end their season.
Most likely award winner: Mitch Marner, Art Ross
Fantasy outlook: Top-line minutes with Eichel and Marner should result in Barbashev notching around 30 goals and 35 assists in 2025-26. Unlike the other two, he will be available in later rounds. Following the promotion of Akira Schmid to backup, the No. 1 gig with a very good Vegas team is Adin Hill‘s to lose.
Bold prediction: Golden Knights lose in the Western Conference finals.
Last season: 47-31-4 (98 points), won the Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup odds: +900
Projected points: 108.0
Biggest strength: Florida has a system, and it has led to the Panthers becoming back-to-back Stanley Cup champions. Yes, the Panthers have enviable depth in their lineup, and that has been a foundational piece of their success. But it’s how Florida manages to get the most out of itself with (seemingly) minimal effort, because everyone’s pulling on the rope.
The Panthers pack a mean forecheck that pressures opponents into turnovers and puts Florida on the attack. They are relentlessly opportunistic. And their neutral zone details are a game changer given how they can shut down even some of the league’s most elite scorers there. The Panthers way of doing business just works, and it’s why seemingly every player who comes into the organization finds a role and a way to excel. Everyone is important.
Biggest concern: Aleksander Barkov‘s absence looms large. Florida’s captain suffered a torn ACL and MCL during practice last month and will be out seven to nine months. That’s bad enough. But the Panthers are also without Matthew Tkachuk for at least several weeks into the regular season while he continues to recover from offseason surgery on a torn adductor muscle. That’s two of their top three scorers from last season gone early.
How Florida reacts to those losses will determine whether it has a chance to compete on a third Stanley Cup run by spring. Anton Lundell will get a terrific opportunity to raise his profile with Barkov out, and more responsibility will fall on Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe — not to mention goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky — to be top performers in every respect.
This season hinges on … The Panthers’ fortitude. It has been a long few summers for Florida, what with three straight Cup Final appearances. This year ahead will present fresh challenges given the aforementioned missing superstars. How will the Panthers avoid the perhaps inevitable fatigue that comes from another shortened offseason rolled into a campaign that’s already off to a rough start?
Florida has proved its mettle in this regard before. It’s more imperative than ever that it find ways to push through and adjust to what will be the new normal: trying to win games without two franchise stars.
Most likely award winner: Sam Reinhart, Hart
Fantasy outlook: Don’t let Matthew Tkachuk slide too far, as you can weather his early absence in your IR spot. Seth Jones could jump in value as the power-play anchor. The line of Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen and Brad Marchand that dominated the playoffs is worth monitoring to see if the magic sticks.
Bold prediction: Bobrovsky gets a “Marchand deal” to take him beyond this season.
Last season: 50-26-6 (106 points), lost in conference finals
Stanley Cup odds: +900
Projected points: 94.0
Biggest strength: Having one of the most complete teams in the NHL. The Stars have two 100-point wingers — Mikko Rantanen and Jason Robertson — who can play together on the top line, or be split between the top two lines. Their centers are led by one of the league’s premier two-way anchors in Roope Hintz, while having a trio of top-six options who can play down the middle or on the wing. They have three defensemen who can play on a top pairing — Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell and Thomas Harley — while having another young defenseman in Lian Bichsel who could use this season to prove he’s in that same conversation.
And if that’s not enough? They have one of the best goalies in the league in Jake Oettinger.
Biggest concern: Do they have enough depth to remain in contention for home-ice advantage if injuries become a problem? Evgenii Dadonov, Mason Marchment and their 42 combined goals from last season are gone. So are in-season trade deadline acquisitions Cody Ceci and Mikael Granlund. Losing three top-nine forwards and a top-four defenseman would be an issue for any team, yet the Stars still possess what appears to be one of the NHL’s strongest rosters.
But what happens if one of their best players sustains an injury for a long period of time? Especially when it comes with the reality that the salary cap space that aided them for years no longer exists like it once did?
This season hinges on … Whether their star players can return from the Olympics without any injuries. If there’s a disadvantage to having talent in an Olympic year, it’s the fact that the team that leaves for the Games could be different than the one that returns after the break.
There’s a chance the Stars could have at least nine players at the Olympics in February. It’s a group that includes their entire projected top line of Hintz, Rantanen and Robertson, their top defense pairing of Heiskanen and Lindell, along with starting goaltender Oettinger, among others.
Most likely award winner: Mikko Rantanen, Hart
Fantasy outlook: While Rantanen might not crack 100 points while playing away from Nathan MacKinnon, around 90 alongside Wyatt Johnston and Hintz is not too big of an ask. If Mavrik Bourque carves out a spot for himself in the Stars’ top six, he’ll merit rostering in deeper fantasy leagues.
Bold prediction: Prepare for regression from Matt Duchene
Last season: 49-29-4 (102 points), lost in first round
Stanley Cup odds: +800
Projected points: 111.3
Biggest strength: Having Gabriel Landeskog in the lineup on opening night. A conversation can be had about what it means for any team to lose its captain and longest-serving player for an extended period of time. Landeskog missed nearly three seasons, creating the challenge of trying to find someone who could help the team’s top six during his absence — with the lingering question of when he could return.
Back in the lineup, he provides the Avalanche with a proven top-six winger who can be trusted in numerous situations, while also strengthening a second line that has sought stability ever since the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 2022.
Biggest concern: Is the supporting cast enough as is, or could it use more help? Avs coach Jared Bednar said during media day in mid-September that the team’s third-line center situation is the only hole in the lineup. There are internal options who could provide a solution, with the idea that might be the most effective plan for the Avs. Well, for now at least.
The Avs entered training camp with $1.325 million in cap space. It’s possible they could use that money now, or wait until forward Logan O’Connor returns to get a true feel for their bottom six before making a decision about their third-line center concerns and potentially trading for the solution.
This season hinges on… Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood being as good or better than they were last season. Just look at what happened to them last October. The Avs opened last season with a four-game losing streak during which they allowed 25 goals. They ended October and began November by starting three different goalies in consecutive games, en route to losing all three. Winning just three of those games would have given the Avs six points — and two more than the Stars, which could have given them home-ice advantage in an opening-round series that saw them lose Game 7 in Dallas.
Most likely award winner: Cale Makar, Norris
Fantasy outlook: While Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar rank No. 1 at their respective positions, Colorado’s second scoring line carries the most fantasy intrigue. If Landeskog returns close to form, Valeri Nichushkin manages to stay healthy, and center Brock Nelson jells with both, look out.
Bold prediction: Avalanche win the Western Conference
Last season: 56-22-4 (116 points), lost in second round
Stanley Cup odds: +2500
Projected points: 94.7
Biggest strength: Offensive options. Their depth was already going to be somewhat tested to start the season with captain Adam Lowry recovering from a hip injury, only to have Cole Perfetti sustain an ankle sprain that will keep him out of the lineup on a week-to-week basis.
But even with those absences, the Jets can still deploy veterans Gustav Nyquist and Jonathan Toews on the second line alongside promising rookie Nikita Chibrikov. Knowing Lowry and Perfetti could both be in the lineup by November provides the Jets with different lineup possibilities for a team that’s expected to challenge in the West.
Biggest concern: If anything happens to Connor Hellebuyck. Just the eighth goalie in NHL history to win the Hart as league MVP — and one of only a handful to win three Vezinas as the best goaltender — has made Hellebuyck one of the best players on the planet, and one of the best of his generation. Hellebuyck is among those select few goaltenders in the current tandem landscape that can consistently play more than 60 games per season, which further emphasizes his importance to the Jets. A major injury to Hellebuyck, and the Jets would be left scrambling.
This season hinges on… Getting beyond the second round. The Jets are in a unique space in that they’re not quite in that collection of teams in a proven championship window such as the Avs, Golden Knights, Oilers and Stars. But they also don’t appear to be one of those teams who need until the final two weeks to either make the playoffs or miss it altogether. What they do this postseason could be crucial toward figuring out exactly what the Jets’ standing is in the Western Conference landscape.
Most likely award winner: Connor Hellebuyck, Vezina
Fantasy outlook: Perfetti is poised to join the Jets’ strong corps of competitors as Ehlers’ replacement on the top power play. After getting his legs back under him, new second-line center Jonathan Toews sports sleeper potential in extra-deep leagues.
Bold prediction: Kyle Connor re-signs, makes Mitch Marner money
Last season: 52-26-4 (108 points), lost in the second round
Stanley Cup odds: +1600
Projected points: 99.6
Biggest strength: The Maple Leafs still have a “Core Four” — it just no longer includes Mitch Marner. Joining Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares in that role is Matthew Knies, who has emerged as the team’s latest breakout star and stands to help the Leafs capitalize on what they can do best: score goals. A healthy Auston Matthews is capable of hitting 50 goals; Nylander could do the same. Tavares and Knies should be aiming for 32-40.
There are also new arrivals who will give Toronto offense depth in its bottom six to stabilize the club up front even further — coach Craig Berube is bullish on Nicolas Roy taking over at third-line center and Matias Maccelli could surprise as a top-six contender if he can tap into what made his 57-point rookie season two years ago such an (unheralded) success. Toronto’s offense cannot be what it was with Marner. But there’s an opportunity for the Leafs to redefine themselves without missing a beat.
Biggest concern: Toronto had one of the league’s strongest goaltending duos last season in Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll. The Leafs were hoping to tap into that tandem again — with two healthy, available options — until Woll took a leave of absence from the team last month for personal reasons. There’s no timeline on Woll’s return, leaving Toronto in a lurch for who to rely on behind Stolarz.
Dennis Hildeby stepped in to make the first six appearances of his NHL career last season — generating an .878 SV% — and that wasn’t enough experience for the Leafs to lean on. So they signed veteran James Reimer to a professional tryout, and can only hope Reimer is up to the job of being the club’s No. 2 until Woll can return. The whole situation puts extra responsibility on Stolarz, though. His 34 starts in 2024-25 were a career high, and he’s certain to see more action in the coming campaign. How will he shoulder that responsibility? And if Stolarz gets hurt, can Reimer and Hildeby answer the bell?
This season hinges on… Health. For the Maple Leafs to soar this season, they need Matthews as injury-free as possible, pure and simple. When Matthews has missed time in the past, Toronto has persevered in large part because a player such as Marner filled in the gaps. That wouldn’t be the case anymore, and if Matthews were to be sidelined for any prolonged period, the results might not be so positive.
Beyond that though, the ultra-competitive Matthews will want to show the Leafs don’t have to be worse for wear without Marner, and he’ll be aiming to dominate like in that league-leading 69-goal campaign two years ago. And, while Matthews is pocketing pucks at one end, a healthy Stolarz is imperative to Toronto’s chances of keeping them out of their own net. Stolarz was hampered by a knee injury last regular season and a concussion in the postseason, both times to Toronto’s detriment. The Leafs can’t afford to see that again.
Most likely award winner: Auston Matthews, Hart
Fantasy outlook: The post-Marner Leafs still boast plenty of fantasy appeal at the top, but depth deployment will shape the secondary options. Maccelli and Max Domi could land top-line duty. If either Stolarz or Woll reaches 55 starts, they have top-five fantasy goalie upside.
Bold prediction: The Leafs will retain Nicholas Robertson
Last season: 47-27-8 (102 points), lost in the first round
Stanley Cup odds: +1000
Projected points: 111.7
Biggest strength: The Lightning have enviable offensive talent that makes them formidable at 5-on-5 and special teams. Nikita Kucherov‘s league-leading 121 points last season powered Tampa Bay’s No. 1-ranked offense, which averaged 3.56 goals per game, and there’s a litany of high-end skaters who can also generate offense. Brayden Point and Jake Guentzel each eclipsed the 40-goal mark, and Brandon Hagel tossed in 35 goals and 90 points.
Tampa Bay had eight double-digit goal scorers, and its depth continued to shine on the Lightning’s fifth-ranked power play. Tampa Bay has already shown its potency with the man advantage in the preseason. If the Lightning can come close to getting a repeat performance from their core up front and reasonable support from the bottom six, then Tampa Bay can expect to be contenders again.
Biggest concern: The Lightning have a hard time staying healthy. It’s only the preseason and starting goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy and top defender Victor Hedman have already dealt with injuries. Vasilevskiy will be the Lightning’s workhorse in net, and that can easily wear him down again. The same goes for Hedman, who shouldered a team-high 23:05 time on ice per game for Tampa Bay last season. Those are two essential players who make the Lightning elite, and any limitations on them will hurt Tampa Bay in the short and long term.
Jonas Johansson has been serviceable when filling in for Vasilevskiy, and the Lightning also claimed Pheonix Copley off waivers to give them another backup option. But Tampa Bay’s No. 1 remains one of the league’s best goalies when he’s available. The Lightning don’t have anyone who can replicate Hedman’s production. Tampa Bay needs all its core players to excel. Health is paramount to the Lightning’s success in an Atlantic Division rife with emerging competition eager to snatch their perennial playoff berth.
This season hinges on… How Tampa Bay weathers the regular-season grind. It’s no secret the Lightning know how to win when it counts; they were back-to-back Stanley Cup champions in 2020 and 2021. What has plagued Tampa Bay more recently is its inability to extend its regular-season success into the postseason. The Lightning have had three consecutive first-round playoff exits while failing to show the resiliency that made them a formidable threat in previous postseasons.
It’s not for a lack of lineup depth. It’s more that the contributions Tampa Bay counts on aren’t coming through when it matters most. Fatigue is also a factor for a group that leans heavily on Hedman, 34, and Kucherov, 32. How the Lightning bear the brunt of an 82-game grind will determine whether they make the postseason and their playoff impact.
Most likely award winner: Nikita Kucherov, Art Ross
Fantasy outlook: The Lightning’s fantasy appeal remains star-driven, but secondary roles matter. Anthony Cirelli carved out relevance as a second-line pivot last season, leaving room for a winger such as Oliver Bjorkstrand or Conor Geekie to follow. Sorting who sticks in the middle six will decide the sleeper values here.
Bold prediction: The Lightning will win the Atlantic Division
Last season: 51-22-9 (111 points), lost in second round
Stanley Cup odds: +3000
Projected points: 99.5
Biggest strength: The Capitals’ defensive depth is the envy of any opponent. John Carlson has been Washington’s go-to workhorse for some time, and he can still drive play from the back end while contributing offensively. Jakob Chychrun has picked up his game in Washington as well, and will be asked to carry more responsibility and show he can replicate Carlson’s reliable presence for years to come. Rasmus Sandin and Matt Roy have been a solid pairing, and Trevor van Riemsdyk is a consistent third-pairing asset.
The balance of Washington’s blue line truly makes it special. The Capitals’ primary six defenders can all jump into the rush or hang back; they read off each other well, and seem to anticipate each other’s movements. That was the case last season, when Washington pulled off an improbable 111-point campaign. That’ll be the goal again.
Biggest concern: It seems odd to point out that Washington has a scoring depth problem when the Capitals ranked second in that category last season. But, of course, Alex Ovechkin‘s history-making 44-goal campaign had a lot to do with that. Tom Wilson added 33. Dylan Strome‘s breakout year as a point-per-game skater was huge. And Aliaksei Protas overachieved with 30 goals.
There’s a sharp drop-off from there, though. Pierre-Luc Dubois collected just 66 points. Nic Dowd had only 27. There’s a strong chance Ovechkin won’t come close to his numbers from last season, and that puts too much pressure on Strome, Protas and Dubois to either keep pace with where they were or contribute more. Washington’s supporting cast has to work its way into the spotlight.
This season hinges on… Whether Washington can prove it’s the real deal. Looking at last season, the Capitals’ climb atop the Eastern Conference standings was unanticipated for good reason. There was little to suggest they’d produce that level of success. Coach Spencer Carbery maximized Washington’s talent, and that, in turn, brought out the Capitals’ best.
But was it all smoke and mirrors? Or will Washington feed off the confidence gained and return to leading the East? That hinges on those aforementioned improvements from guys like Dubois and another strong season in net from Logan Thompson, who owned a .910 SV%. Even if the rest of the league might wonder if Washington’s success last season was a fluke, the Capitals can show their achievement was no accident.
Most likely award winner: Ryan Leonard, Calder
Fantasy outlook: The Caps were a surprise among just five teams with five 25-goal scorers last season. Protas and Connor McMichael look to build on breakouts, while Leonard and playoff surprise Anthony Beauvillier push for spots. On defense, Carlson and Chychrun complement each other. Thompson is worth stashing early.
Bold prediction: Ovechkin breaks Wayne Gretzky’s regular-season-plus-playoff goals record (1,016)
Last season: 42-33-7 (91 points), lost in first round
Stanley Cup odds: +1400
Projected points: 100.7
Biggest strength: The Devils are powered by their three best players: Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt. Where that trio goes, New Jersey will follow. When Hughes isn’t hurt, he is an elite talent who drives the Devils’ offense as a scorer and playmaker, while Hischier’s two-way game can be as strong as anyone’s in the league. Bratt led New Jersey last season with 88 points in 81 games, and proved he could play up and down the lineup for coach Sheldon Keefe.
There’s enough supporting cast around those skaters to make the Devils a potentially formidable force. Timo Meier seems to have the right role on New Jersey’s second line, and Connor Brown signing as a free agent is a nice boost for the bottom-six group. The Devils should feel good about their prospects up front.
Biggest concern: New Jersey finally locked in top defenseman Luke Hughes on a seven-year deal … but what impact will his delayed offseason because of shoulder surgery have on his preparedness for the season? And when Hughes is up and running, will he be ready to be the leader of a defensive core riddled with questions?
Johnathan Kovacevic is out indefinitely. Brett Pesce struggled in his debut season with the Devils. Jonas Siegenthaler will be working in a new partner, and Simon Nemec is coming off a 2024-25 season spent yo-yoing between the NHL and AHL. New Jersey was fifth in fewest goals against last season (2.68 per game) thanks in large part to some strong goaltending from Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen. The Devils are banking on having enough defensive help for them to be an effective duo again. If not, there’s more pressure riding on the offense to produce.
This season hinges on… Jack Hughes’ health. Hyperbole? Hardly. The Devils aren’t the same team without Hughes. He’s practically on pace to hit 100 points per season, but he is repeatedly hampered by injuries. When Hughes is at his best, he can be a game-changer every game, but without him, the Devils have to ask too much of their bottom-six skaters. It’s a recipe that has continuously failed New Jersey. And it’s not just having Hughes on the ice, it’s him playing unencumbered physically and mentally.
Whatever has led to Hughes’ constant health woes must be addressed so that the Devils can be confident they’ll have their difference-maker in the lineup all season.
Most likely award winner: Nico Hischier, Selke
Fantasy outlook: The Devils have some high-upside picks to consider later in drafts. Luke Hughes is ready to start pushing the injury-prone Dougie Hamilton for quarterback time on the top power play. Evgenii Dadonov or KHL import Arseny Gritsyuk offer intrigue if they stay in the top six.
Bold prediction: Jack Hughes plays 82 regular-season games
Last season: 48-25-9 (105 points), lost in first round
Stanley Cup odds: +2500
Projected points: 102.4
Biggest strength: They’re a proven regular-season success. They receive production from every line combination while possessing a defensive structure that consistently makes life difficult for their opponents on a nightly basis. They even used the offseason to add more veterans who can help them be even stronger in those areas.
This all adds to the equation of what makes the Kings a team that can finish with 100 points in the regular season. That said…
Biggest concern: Trying to prove they can be a playoff success. This is what makes nearly every discussion around the Kings complicated. They’ve shown growth every season, but fail to make it out of the first round, losing to the Oilers four straight years, which has led to the sort of changes that range from personnel to the front office. Much like the past few years, the focus on the Kings is seeing if they can get out of the first round and begin to discover what sort of threat they could pose going forward.
This season hinges on… How they learned from last postseason. What they did in the first two games against the Oilers proved that the Kings can inflict serious damage. They weren’t just up by two games, but also they controlled practically every aspect before a series of missteps later in the series led to them eventually being eliminated. How they can learn to avoid or better work their way through their lapses could prove crucial.
Most likely award winner: Anze Kopitar, Selke
Fantasy outlook: Quinton Byfield projects to finally take another leap forward this season. Three seasons removed from scoring 39 goals in Vancouver, a well-travelled Andrei Kuzmenko is playing for his next paycheck on the Kings’ top line and power play.
Bold prediction: The Kings eliminate the Oilers in the first round of the playoffs
Last season: 45-30-7 (97 points), lost in first round
Stanley Cup odds: +4000
Projected points: 94.8
Biggest strength: Developing one of the NHL’s strongest farm systems. Going farm-to-table has allowed the Wild to have at least one homegrown player reach the NHL and impact their lineup in numerous ways. This season is no different, except that there could be as many as five rookies who could challenge to make the opening night roster.
Liam Ohgren and Danila Yurov are expected to contend for top-nine roles, while Zeev Buium and David Jiricek, who arrived in a trade from the Blue Jackets last November, could fill two openings on the Wild’s defense. Then there’s Jesper Wallstedt, who could be charged to work in tandem alongside Filip Gustavsson now that Marc-Andre Fleury has retired.
Biggest concern: Can they find a way to consistently generate scoring chances and turn them into goals? The team that had the fewest scoring chances in 5-on-5 play to make the playoffs last year was also the same team that also entered the postseason scoring the fewest goals of any team.
A lack of goals was an issue in the first round, with the Wild losing their final three games by a single goal in each contest.
This season hinges on… The health of Joel Eriksson Ek and Kirill Kaprizov. Averaging 0.63 points per game would have seen Eriksson Ek finish with 52 points in 2024-25 on a team that had four players finish with more than 50 points. Kaprizov had 56 points in 41 games, with the notion that he would have made a strong push for the Hart Trophy if he had played a full season.
And for a team that could still require as many goals as possible? Having those two players remain healthy could help strengthen the Wild’s bid for another postseason berth.
Most likely award winner: Zeev Buium, Calder
Fantasy outlook: Playing for his sixth team in four years, veteran Vladimir Tarasenko presents as an option in extra-deep fantasy leagues, especially if he sticks on the top power play unit. Rookie defender Buium is must-draft in keeper/dynasty competition.
Bold prediction: Zeev Buium outscores Brock Faber
Last season: 45-30-7 (97 points), lost in the first round
Stanley Cup odds: +3500
Projected points: 92.7
Biggest strength: Ottawa’s defense has come a long way since Travis Green took over as head coach last season — and it’s what could set them apart again this season. The Senators’ blue line is stacked with emerging talents, particularly the dynamic Jake Sanderson, who has established himself as a true No. 1 defender. Artem Zub provides Ottawa with a dependable stay-at-home presence alongside Thomas Chabot, and there’s the fascinating new arrival Jordan Spence who could anchor the Senators’ third pairing.
Green found a way to get the most out of Ottawa’s collective defensive effort last season though, taking the Senators from seventh-worst in goals against (3.43 per game) in 2023-24 to 13th-best (2.83) in 2024-25. The Senators’ ability to maintain that buy-in — and even see further improvements from their high achievers — will have a direct impact on how strong their goaltending under starting netminder Linus Ullmark can be, too.
Biggest concern: Do the Senators have enough scoring threats? They’re going to find out in a hurry. Ottawa made the playoffs last season without a single 30-plus scorer (Brady Tkachuk led the team with 29), and only five players with more than 50 points. Ottawa finished 19th in offense last season (averaging 2.95 goals per game) but were 28th overall at 5-on-5, and the team struggled all season to establish consistency there.
While the Senators have high-end talent up front in Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle especially, there’s a noticeable drop-off from there. Dylan Cozens has yet to deliver on his potential since being traded to Ottawa, and Drake Batherson hasn’t discovered his perfect fit yet. Skaters like Shane Pinto and Ridly Greig are going to be leaned on to contribute more while the aging Claude Giroux will try capitalizing on his minutes as well to give the Senators as much offensive life as possible.
This season hinges on… Internal growth. Ottawa didn’t make any bold offseason moves for a reason; GM Steve Staios believes this group that pushed its way into the playoffs last year can do it again. A few things need to go right for that to happen. The Senators have to play to their emerging identity as a defensive-minded club that can also challenge opponents offensively. Finding a balance at both ends of the ice is how Ottawa will keep pace with more established veteran teams in the Atlantic.
It’s also how they can take the pressure off Ullmark to be near-perfect. Ullmark will be carrying the load in net for Ottawa regardless as 23-year-old Leevi Merilainen offers support in the No. 2 role. The Senators have to see Stutzle, Tkachuk, Sanderson & Co. leading the way though with a maturation befitting of a team that’s entering this season with legitimate playoff aspirations.
Most likely award winner: Linus Ullmark, Vezina
Fantasy outlook: The ceiling is high for Dylan Cozens if he locks down top power-play time in his first full season with the Sens. Fabian Zetterlund has similar upside, though the deployment is a bigger ask. Linus Ullmark was elite aside from injury and lack of wins, both fixable for 2025-26.
Bold prediction: Dylan Cozens hits career highs in 2025-26
Last season: 44-30-8 (96 points), lost in first round
Stanley Cup odds: +5000
Projected points: 94.4
Biggest strength: They might have more scoring options than they did last season. Eight players reached double figures in goals for the Blues last season, with the notion that it could have been more if Cam Fowler played the whole season in St. Louis and Philip Broberg played in more than 68 games.
Blues GM Doug Armstrong used the offseason to sign another 20-goal scorer in Pius Suter, while the decision to move on from 19-goal scorer Zack Bolduc was made possible by the arrival of prized prospect Jimmy Snuggerud.
Biggest concern: Failing to capitalize on their progress. Last season was crucial in that another year without the playoffs would have been a third straight campaign without the postseason — and that would have been tied for the longest streak in franchise history. The Blues made the sort of decisions like the summer offer sheets to the Fowler trade to hiring Jim Montgomery to reach the playoffs. Winning the free-agency race for Suter is another move that suggests the Blues are serious about trying to be more than just a playoff team.
This season hinges on… Staking a claim. Ideally, they find a way to win one of the three Central Division spots; otherwise, they’ll be fighting in the hellscape that is the Western Conference wild-card race. The Blues were one of five teams from the Central to reach the playoffs last season, with the idea that a sixth team, the Utah Mammoth, was seven points shy of capturing the final wild-card place. Those six teams — along with what could be improved Blackhawks and Predators teams — could make the Central a more difficult landscape.
Most likely award winner: Jimmy Snuggerud, Calder
Fantasy outlook: St. Louis is chock full of underappreciated fantasy talent, like top center Robert Thomas, who averaged 1.10 points/game over the past two seasons. Or power-play anchor Cam Fowler, who collected 36 points in 51 games after joining the Blues from Anaheim last season.
Bold prediction: Jimmy Snuggerud will be a Calder Trophy finalist
Last season: 39-36-7 (85 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +3000
Projected points: 82.6
Biggest strength: New York’s backbone is its goaltender Igor Shesterkin. He’s the Rangers’ most important player, capable of stealing victories and being the calm in New York’s chaos. That was especially true last season, when Shesterkin posted career-low numbers (with a .905 SV%) that don’t reflect just how poorly the Rangers supported him.
GM Chris Drury hasn’t stood pat — at least when it comes to finding some answers for what’s ailed New York (like adding J.T. Miller and Vladislav Gavrikov, for example). What Shesterkin truly needs to keep thriving is a better defensive team in front of him. Gavrikov gives New York a No. 2 guy to pair with Adam Fox and will help new coach Mike Sullivan — another key offseason addition — to slot other defenders into roles they can manage. So long as it all translates to helping Shesterkin shine.
Biggest concern: What happens for New York when their stars go out? It’s inevitable that over the course of a long season there will be ebbs and flows throughout every lineup, but the Rangers don’t possess a supporting cast that could carry them through the downturns. While Miller, Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck are top skaters counted upon to light the lamp, will Alexis Lafreniere and Will Cuylle be consistent scorers, too? And what of Mika Zibanejad? Does he stay on the wing, where his game improved last year beside Miller, or go back at center to give New York possibly stronger depth down the middle?
Remember, Chris Kreider is in Anaheim now and Filip Chytil — traded to Vancouver in the Miller swap — was never truly replaced. And on the back end, after Fox and Gavrikov, who is reliable? New York should get its answers soon enough, and Drury is not afraid of making major trades if needed.
This season hinges on… How Sullivan redefines the Rangers’ identity. New York needed a new voice, and Sullivan arrived in the Big Apple with Stanley Cup-winning pedigree and a history of handling some of the league’s biggest stars during his time in Pittsburgh. The Rangers want Sullivan to work his magic on them, too.
Despite having Shesterkin in the crease, New York was in the bottom half on defense last season (allowing 3.11 goals per game), and that’s an area they’ll need to improve quickly under Sullivan. Special teams was another sore spot — the Rangers were 28th on the power play, making it a momentum killer. Sullivan has to dial in his team’s details and put them on track to be the dynamic contender they were not so long ago.
Most likely award winner: Mike Sullivan, Jack Adams
Fantasy outlook: From Presidents’ Trophy winners to missing the playoffs, the fantasy output for most Rangers mirrored the fall. Panarin and Fox can rebound if the power play regains form. Lafreniere has a chance to take a big step forward.
Bold prediction: The Rangers return to the playoffs
Last season: 40-31-11 (91 points), lost in the first round
Stanley Cup odds: +5000
Projected points: 87.6
Biggest strength: The Canadiens essentially ended their rebuild with a surprising playoff appearance last season, generated through its young core headlined by Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. And that group got an offseason upgrade with the addition of defenseman Noah Dobson via draft-day trade, a move that should elevate Montreal on both sides of the puck. Dobson is an elite puck-moving defender who can contribute offensively for the Canadiens and provide support for rising blue-line star Lane Hutson.
That’s exactly what Montreal needs to not only mirror last year’s success but take another step forward. The Canadiens have some depth, and the potential to see what a healthy Patrik Laine can do after he still managed 20 goals and 33 points in an injury-plagued 55-game 2024-25 season. Montreal has momentum, and confidence, and the fact GM Kent Hughes went after Dobson to give the Canadiens a true top-pairing defender shows the organization is anticipating big things in the months and years ahead.
Biggest concern: While Montreal boasts a few (seemingly) sure things like Dobson, their lineup does house more than a few players with question marks. Can Kirby Dach successfully anchor a second line with Laine and Ivan Demidov? And will the rookie Demidov be able to grow from his heralded NHL debut last season to become a nightly regular?
Juraj Slafkovsky still feels on the cusp of showing his full capabilities and it could be all too easy for Montreal to become too top-heavy and crumble without enough consistent contributors. Basically, the Canadiens’ best and worst qualities could be exactly the same; the maturation of their youthful skaters might be what makes or breaks them. What’s worrisome for Montreal is they won’t know for sure which way the needle points until the games begin for real and their developing swagger is put to the test.
This season hinges on… Getting the right goaltending. The Canadiens have a potential franchise netminder in Sam Montembeault. He was named to Team Canada’s roster for last February’s 4 Nations Face-Off, and he finished last season with a respectable .902 SV% and 2.80 goals-against average. Montembeault has the ability to hide all manner of sins for the Canadiens, a team that can be prone to defensive breakdowns and generally inconsistent play in their own end.
If Montembeault can provide the stability Montreal needs to establish better defensive showings (helped, again, by the addition of Dobson) while working in tandem with the newly added Kaapo Kahkonen, then the Canadiens have a chance to not only get off to a strong start but build confidence in front of Montembeault to last all season long.
Most likely award winner: Ivan Demidov, Calder
Fantasy outlook: Montreal has plenty of sleepers, but not all will hit. Rookie Ivan Demidov oozes talent, Zack Bolduc surged late, and Kirby Dach could center them both. Lane Hutson, Mike Matheson and David Savard form a murky blue-line mix, while goalie Sam Montembeault needs consistency. Above all, Juraj Slafkovsky looks primed for the elite tier.
Bold prediction: Kaiden Guhle earns more leaguewide appreciation
Last season: 38-31-13 (89 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +5000
Projected points: 98.3
Biggest strength: Addressing their needs in the offseason. They needed more goals, so they got one of the best forwards available in JJ Peterka and immediately signed him to a contract extension. They needed more help on the defensive side, which led to them adding a two-way forward in Brandon Tanev, defenseman Nate Schmidt and goaltender Vitek Vanecek.
Adding those players to a group that largely has the same cast from last season could be the difference in the Mammoth making the playoffs in their second season.
Biggest concern: Is it enough? A reality facing those Western Conference teams that either just made the playoffs or missed out on a playoff spot is that there are many of them in the same boat. The West had 11 teams that finished with more than 89 points, with many of them improving their rosters this summer. Others, such as the Ducks, who had 80 points, underwent changes that could also see them potentially challenge for a postseason berth.
GM Bill Armstrong may have to take another big swing or two in trades this season.
This season hinges on… If they can avoid lengthy losing streaks. A four-game losing streak to end October wasn’t great, and neither was a five-game slide to end December. Then there was the five straight they lost in late January.
Finding a way to break those streaks before they reached four or five games could have played a significant part in the Mammoth’s bid for the playoffs — a reality that becomes even more apparent for a team that was 14-7-13 in one-goal games last season.
Most likely award winner: Clayton Keller, Art Ross
Fantasy outlook: A healthy Dylan Guenther could score upwards of 35 goals, while ex-Sabre Peterka projects for 70 points in his new digs. If all that knits together, and the Mammoth challenge for a playoff spot, goalie Karel Vejmelka is going to make some managers very happy as a sleeper pick.
Bold prediction: The Mammoth make the playoff cut
Last season: 39-35-8 (86 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +10000
Projected points: 85.8
Biggest strength: Detroit’s offense is punctuated with talent, and there’s depth to spare. Dylan Larkin is a 30-goal scoring center, Lucas Raymond led the team last season with 80 points and Alex DeBrincat just missed hitting the 40-goal mark.
Beyond just the top two lines though, Detroit has a veteran scorer in Patrick Kane and an intriguing newcomer with Mason Appleton. There’s potential for Appleton to thrive in a matchup role for Detroit and to give them another layer that’s been lacking in recent seasons. When it comes to scoring though, the Red Wings should also receive some from the blue line again with Moritz Seider — who was top-five in points on the team last season, with 46 — eager to have another big campaign.
Biggest concern: The Red Wings’ poor defensive play has been their Achilles heel for too long. Detroit has yet to show they’ve learned any lessons on how to improve there. They gave up 259 goals last season — 12th-most in the NHL — and their abysmal penalty kill was dead last (70.1%) in the league.
Now, having a reliable veteran goaltender in trade acquisition John Gibson should help the Red Wings see better results in their own end, but only if there’s a consistent commitment from the rest of the club to execute just as hard without the puck. Detroit added Jacob Bernard-Docker and Travis Hamonic to the blue line in the offseason, but the real improvement will need to be made from those top skaters who haven’t shown established defensive details.
This season hinges on… Todd McLellan’s impact. McLellan took over for the fired Derek Lalonde in late December, and the Red Wings made strides under their new head coach — until a brutal stretch from February into March featured six straight regulation losses and Detroit effectively exited the playoff conversation.
McLellan has had an entire offseason and training camp to prepare this group. It’s up to the veteran bench boss to prove the (mostly) happy early returns on his arrival were the real deal. If McLellan has the magic touch that makes the Red Wings as capable of preventing goals against as they are lighting the lamp, then Detroit’s postseason drought may finally be over.
Most likely award winner: Dylan Larkin, Lady Byng
Fantasy outlook: Marco Kasper keeps pushing toward fantasy-lock status, while a healthy Patrick Kane may slip past drafters. Simon Edvinsson has the tools to be a hits/blocks gem. There’s also an underlying risk that stalwarts Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond and Alex DeBrincat risk being overlooked. Do not overlook them.
Bold prediction: Steve Yzerman moves on from GM to be president of hockey operations instead
Last season: 40-33-9 (89 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +10000
Projected points: 81.2
Biggest strength: The Blue Jackets have real potential, and it has spurred legitimate confidence that could drive necessary internal growth to make them a playoff team. Columbus’ anchor is Zach Werenski; everything good for the Blue Jackets flows through him. When Werenski is moving the puck like he did last season and boosting Columbus’ offensive attack with his playmaking ability, then the entire lineup is benefiting.
That would bode well for the Blue Jackets’ top-six forward group. There’s ample talent there, from Adam Fantilli to Kirill Marchenko, and they’ve shown enough maturation year over year to suggest this is their time to truly break out and lead Columbus’ offense to new heights. It’s worth remembering that the Blue Jackets were the league’s top team in 5-on-5 scoring last season. And barely missing the playoffs — when they weren’t expected to really be in the mix at all — has emboldened the Blue Jackets to prove their success was no fluke.
Biggest concern: The Blue Jackets lack quality depth. There is a significant drop in reliable contributors beyond the team’s elite performers, and that puts immense pressure on Columbus to excel while being too top-heavy.
The Blue Jackets are crossing their fingers here after an offseason where GM Don Waddell made no significant roster additions. That need skaters like Dante Fabbro and Ivan Provorov to be as good or better than they were the season before, and for the bottom six — headlined by Yegor Chinakhov — to be more robust then it looks so far on paper.
Because if not, the Blue Jackets will struggle to keep pucks out of the net. Elvis Merzlikins is an inconsistent starter, and Jet Greaves is an unknown commodity with only 21 starts to his credit. There are too many “what ifs” in Columbus to give them a clear identity.
This season hinges on… How the core performs. The Blue Jackets know what they’re getting in Werenski. Fantilli showed promise last season as an emerging No. 1 centerman who can be responsible at both ends of the ice. Sean Monahan has provided insurance for Fantilli to hone his skillset in the 2C spot, but if he can be more effective at 5-on-5 it will boost the Blue Jackets attack tremendously.
Then there is Denton Mateychuk, a 21-year-old blueliner the Blue Jackets selected 12th overall in 2022, poised to make his case for a full-time NHL role. The list goes on from there, whether it’s Greaves, or Kent Johnson, or Cole Sillinger. All of those 20-somethings are key to Columbus taking the crucial next step in its development.
Most likely award winner: Zach Werenski, Norris
Fantasy outlook: Is this the season for some of the young Blue Jackets to break out for fantasy production? Fantilli and Kent Johnson seem on the verge, following Marchenko’s 2024-25 breakout. If wins follow, Merzlikins — or sleeper Jet Greaves — carry some crease intrigue.
Bold prediction: Jet Greaves takes over the crease
Last season: 41-27-14 (96 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +15000
Projected points: 80.2
Biggest strength: The potential for stability within their lineup. Think back to the last time the Flames were in this position after the 2022-23 season. They missed the playoffs by just two points, then went through a season of upheaval in 2023-24 that led to multiple players leaving the club via trade — Noah Hanifin, Chris Tanev, Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov in-season, followed by Jacob Markstrom in the summer — and then a reset to figure out the next steps.
They missed the playoffs by just a point in 2024-25 after that reset, and now have the belief that they have more stability; that idea only flourishes in the event that defenseman Rasmus Andersson opts to stay and sign a contract extension. It still amounts to the Flames having several players under contract for many years, all while knowing they could see more growth from their young core.
Biggest concern: Can they be just as good, if not better than they were last season?
The Flames have several key veterans returning from last year’s team, with the notion that their young players are expected to become even more important contributors. But that also comes with the realization that the Western Conference is expected to be more challenging, given the offseason work done by the eight teams that made the playoffs — along with the strides made by those teams that just missed out on the postseason, like the Mammoth and Ducks.
This season hinges on… Becoming a more complete team in the offensive zone. Their underlying numbers from last season show that the Flames can create opportunities as they were in the top 10 in shots in 5-on-5 play while also being in the top half of scoring chances in 5-on-5 play. But they were in the bottom three in goals per game, goals in 5-on-5 play along with high-danger scoring chances in 5-on-5 play. Improving those totals could help them reach the playoffs while also creating a lesser burden on Dustin Wolf in net.
Most likely award winner: Zayne Parekh, Calder
Fantasy outlook: Following their respective first full seasons in the NHL, neither netminder Dustin Wolf nor forward Matt Coronato is going to surprise anyone this round. But 2025-26 rookie Zayne Parekh might. Particularly if he lands on the secondary power play if/when Rasmus Andersson is traded. Also, an annual reminder that Nazem Kadri is more valuable than fantasy managers habitually believe.
Bold prediction: Nazem Kadri will be traded
Last season: 33-39-10 (76 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +10000
Projected points: 80.2
Biggest strength: It’s in the Bruins’ DNA to be a high-energy, physical group. That should hold true again. Boston has a solid stable of forechecking talents led by Viktor Arvidsson and Sean Kuraly, and Charlie McAvoy patrols the blue line with an impressive punch.
And speaking of defense, that’s an area where the Bruins can excel. The more Boston leverages a smothering attack in the D zone, then all the better for them spending less time there (and taking pressure off starting goaltender Jeremy Swayman). It will come down to work ethic and competitiveness in their own end, but if the Bruins can commit to their structure it’ll be a foundational piece to their overall success.
Biggest concern: Boston’s lack of scoring depth is a serious issue — especially considering their top scorer (David Pastrnak) has already missed time in the preseason with a tendonitis injury. Because outside of Pastrnak (who had an impressive 43 goals) and Morgan Geekie (33 markers), the Bruins were starved for scorers last season.
And there weren’t significant changes made up front that suggest the problem is solved. Boston’s offense ranked 28th overall in 2024-25, and unless Elias Lindholm, Pavel Zacha, Casey Mittelstadt and others can step up, the Bruins are likely to be shortchanged offensively again.
This season hinges on… Defensive improvement. Hampus Lindholm playing just 17 games before suffering a season-ending injury in 2024-25 hurt Boston in a big way. Then McAvoy missed time with shoulder surgery and Swayman — severely underperforming in the first season of his eight-year contract extension — didn’t get the required help to keep Boston from sliding all the way to the Atlantic Division basement.
Having Lindholm and McAvoy healthy, getting a rebound effort from Swayman, and seeing a collective buy-in on that side of the puck will be major factors in where Boston finds itself settling this year.
Most likely award winner: David Pastrnak, Rocket Richard
Fantasy outlook: With expectations low, the Bruins could offer under-the-radar fantasy value. No one is underrating Pastrnak as a clear first-round pick, but Swayman’s workload, McAvoy’s blue-line production and Lindholm’s second shot at the top-line center role make them underrated targets.
Bold prediction: The Bruins will trade Pavel Zacha
Last season: 38-30-14 (90 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +6000
Projected points: 79.3
Biggest strength: Goaltending. Much of that depends on whether Thatcher Demko is healthy. When that’s the case and he’s at his best, Demko has shown he’s the sort of franchise goalie that’s good enough to be a Vezina finalist. That’s what he was for the majority of the 2023-24 season before sustaining a series of injuries that hindered him last season.
Getting a healthy Demko alongside Kevin Lankinen, who had the strongest campaign of his career, will be crucial to how the Canucks fare in 2025-26.
Biggest concern: What are they down the middle? Elias Pettersson struggled last season, but there’s still belief that he could rebound this season. Beyond Pettersson, however, is where it gets murky for the Canucks.
Filip Chytil has only one 20-goal season in a career that has been interrupted by injuries. Aatu Raty has scored 14 points in 49 career games, with 11 of them coming last season. Teddy Blueger provides them with a venerable fourth-line figure who has had three campaigns of more than 20 points.
This season hinges on… Forming an identity under Adam Foote. During Rick Tocchet’s time with the Canucks, they became a team that had a defensive identity — though at times struggled to score goals in a consistent manner. But even with that deficiency, they still found enough to finish with 90 points in a 2024-25 campaign that had both on- and off-ice challenges. What sort of team will they be under Foote, who was an assistant under Tocchet, and is it enough to challenge for a playoff spot in the crowded West?
Most likely award winner: Quinn Hughes, Norris
Fantasy outlook: Maybe a freshly signed Brock Boeser returns to his 70-plus point-scoring ways. Perhaps new Canuck Evander Kane can keep his body intact for a near 30-goal run. A lot of fantasy maybes in Vancouver, except for Quinn Hughes, the only top-tier sure thing.
Bold prediction: Elias Pettersson cracks the 30-goal threshold again
Last season: 35-35-12 (82 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +15000
Projected points: 87.6
Biggest strength: New York is embracing the future on its blue line, and that’s going to be a positive storyline for them one way or another.
Having Matthew Schaefer — the first overall pick this June — already performing well (mostly) in the preseason is a great sign of what’s to come for him, and Isaiah George — a 21-year-old blueliner — could be coming into his own as well. But the Islanders defense — and starting goaltender Ilya Sorokin — have long been a staple to any of the overall team success. Having up-and-comers like Schaefer and George around only adds to the excitement of what the Islanders can potentially do now and into the future.
And most of all, having a healthy Mathew Barzal back in the lineup gives New York another legitimate scoring threat it lacked for too much of last season.
Biggest concern: The Islanders’ goaltending is precarious. New York opted to keep David Rittich as a backup for Sorokin, and Rittich hasn’t exactly impressed in the preseason so far (he did, for example, allow two goals on four shots in one start against the Rangers). Now, exhibition season is for working out the kinks, but still.
Sorokin has been a reliable worker for the Islanders in seasons past, but that strategy generally comes back to bite teams down the stretch or when the No. 1 goes down with an injury. New York is hardly a goal-scoring behemoth (and their bottom six is looking particularly inconsistent this preseason) so how Rittich can support Sorokin in limiting goals could spell success or failure for the group this year.
This season hinges on… How New York manages to find scoring. It’s not a new issue for the Islanders, who ranked 27th in offense last season (averaging 2.71 goals per game) and there was a steep drop-off in contributions outside of their top-four skaters (including points leader Bo Horvat and Anders Lee, who tallied a team-leading 29 goals).
Barzal being limited to just 30 games didn’t help in that respect, and having him back and healthy should provide New York with a more powerful attack. He is just one player though, and the Islanders will need fewer passengers to make a real change to their fortunes up front. That’s true on special teams as well, a real sore spot for the Islanders last season (with the league’s second-worst power play and penalty kill).
Most likely award winner: Ilya Sorokin, Vezina
Fantasy outlook: Horvat was tied for 100th overall in fantasy points this season, almost making the Islanders the only franchise without a player in the top 100. The Matts — Barzal and Schaefer — could change that.
Bold prediction: Head coach Patrick Roy is out after this season.
Last season: 35-37-10 (80 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +15000
Projected points: 77.0
Biggest strength: They’ve found a balance throughout different parts of their lineup. Much of the discussion around the Ducks has been about how they’ve developed one of the strongest farm systems in the NHL. Another aspect of their plan has been to add veterans so they can blend youth with experience.
It has created a situation in which all four lines, two of their defensive pairings and goaltending could all demonstrate that balance, in a season that could see the Ducks push for a playoff spot.
Biggest concern: Do they have enough to make a real playoff push?
Everything that makes the Ducks enticing is what also leads to questions. How much of their season relies upon seeing young players like Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and Mason McTavish reach the next stage of their evolution? How will it work with adding two more veterans like Mikael Granlund and Chris Kreider? And perhaps the most important question of all? Can they answer those questions while fighting for a playoff spot in a conference that has several teams who’ve had years to find cohesion?
This season hinges on… How well they can insulate goaltender Lukas Dostal. Finding defensive solutions has been a focal point over the past few seasons. And they’ve done that. They went from giving up 338 goals in 2022-23 to allowing 263 last season. Much of that was made possible by Dostal having a breakout campaign. But that also came with the realization that the Ducks allowed the most shots per game, high-danger scoring chances and most scoring chances in the NHL.
Most likely award winner: Lukas Dostal, Vezina
Fantasy outlook: Anaheim’s net now largely belongs to Dostal. If the Ducks take another step forward, as anticipated, the 25-year-old could crack the top 15 as a fantasy netminder. Alongside new winger Kreider, center Carlsson projects to hit another productive level. Upwards of 60 points is hardly out of the question. Top of the blue-line fantasy table, Jackson LaCombe should exceed the 55-point plateau as full-time anchor on Anaheim’s No. 1 power play.
Bold prediction: The Ducks are a final-week elimination from the playoffs
Last season: 36-39-7 (79 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +15000
Projected points: 80.5
Biggest strength: The Sabres have forward depth. There’s a top line now including trade acquisition Josh Norris between Tage Thompson (who tallied 44 goals in 2024-25) and Zach Benson. Another newcomer — Josh Doan — adds some energy on the third line and could even potentially play up with Jason Zucker and Ryan McLeod, too. Then there’s Alex Tuch — who notched 36 goals last season — who’s primed for another good campaign, and a rebounding Jack Quinn would make Buffalo’s attack more potent.
The Sabres’ back end is robust as well, with the addition of Michael Kesselring and continued growth of Owen Power. And, of course, Rasmus Dahlin is one of the league’s burgeoning defenders. All in all, Buffalo shouldn’t struggle to find talent to fill its lineup each night.
Biggest concern: Buffalo has leaned on its core before … and the results haven’t come. It’s an execution issue for the Sabres. They actually need Doan and Norris and Quinn to thrive so that Buffalo doesn’t immediately lag behind the rest of their division.
Beyond that, the Sabres must leverage the skill they have on special teams, too. Buffalo was 23rd on the penalty kill (76.4%) and 24th on the power play (18.8%) last season. Given their roster of scoring threats, that’s especially surprising. Their kill would be aided by better goaltending as well, and there’s another worrisome spot.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will likely be the guy going into this season, if he’s healthy, and Buffalo will need more than the .887 SV% he produced a year ago. The Sabres must be mindful of all the pieces they’ve collected actually coming together.
This season hinges on… The Sabres’ resilience. Buffalo’s got serious demons to slay, what with riding a 14-year playoff drought that won’t stop being a primary talking point until it ends. The Sabres have had strong stretches the past few years — and almost pushed their way into the postseason two years ago with a valiant sprint to the finish line — but have also been prone to downswings. Long ones. Painful ones. A 13-game losing streak last season essentially put Buffalo out of the playoff picture before the calendar turned to January.
The Sabres have to prove they have the maturity and confidence to not let a bad week turn into a brutal month. It’s on the team’s leadership group and coaching staff to help them cultivate the mental toughness required of a postseason contender.
Most likely award winner: Rasmus Dahlin, Norris
Fantasy outlook: Buffalo is loaded with volatile fantasy options. Dahlin and Thompson are safe picks, but Norris, Tuch and Jiri Kulich won’t all hit. And with Dahlin anchoring the blue line, it’s fair to question whether Bowen Byram or Power can carve out enough fantasy value.
Bold prediction: Dahlin will be a Norris Trophy finalist
Last season: 33-39-10 (76 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +15000
Projected points: 72.7
Biggest strength: The Flyers have potential to be a solid defensive team. Their back end is led now by Travis Sanheim, whose standout 200-foot game made him into an injury replacement for Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-off — and he’s given Philadelphia new life on the blue line as well. Speaking of new life, Rasmus Ristolainen has found a sweet spot for himself on the Flyers’ second pairing to allow young Cam York to slot in with Sanheim up top.
On the offensive side, there’s Sean Couturier (a perennial Selke Trophy candidate), Garnet Hathaway and Tyson Foerster exemplifying a defense-first mentality that, while not necessarily mirrored by the likes of Travis Konecny, allows the Flyers’ scorers to focus on what they do best. And Konecny’s playmaking can more than make up for what he lacks on the defensive side. Philadelphia has, by all accounts, enough threats in that department.
Biggest concern: Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but Philadelphia has a goaltending problem.
The Flyers believe in Samuel Ersson to be the No. 1 guy, but he has yet to show he’s capable of shouldering that much responsibility. He has posted a sub-.900 SV% in each of the past two seasons when he appeared in 51 and 47 games, respectively. That’s a large workload for any goalie, and Ersson hasn’t worn it well.
GM Danny Briere brought in veteran Dan Vladar to be backup for Ersson, and Vladar is an upgrade over last season’s options there (Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov), but he hasn’t started more than 30 games in a season of his career. How will those two work it out in the crease so that the defensive show Philadelphia puts on doesn’t go to waste?
This season hinges on… The forward group. Philadelphia needed a top center, and Briere traded for Trevor Zegras to be their 1A. Zegras has spent most of his past two seasons on the wing but has indicated that he’s still most comfortable at his natural center spot. The Flyers are counting on that being the case. Because there’s plenty riding on Zegras to help improve last season’s anemic scoring.
Matvei Michkov led the Flyers with 26 goals, and only four skaters hit the 20-goal mark for Philadelphia’s 24th-ranked offense. The Flyers’ putrid power play — 30th overall — was another casualty of too-few scoring threats. It’s not that Philadelphia couldn’t generate chances, but capitalizing on them was a problem. Success depends on that changing.
Most likely award winner: Travis Sanheim, Norris
Fantasy outlook: Zegras, Foerster and Jamie Drysdale are all low-investment targets if their roles stick. Don’t sleep on physical defensemen, as Sanheim and Nick Seeler were roster locks last season in standard leagues, which reward hits and blocks.
Bold prediction: Flyers win the Gavin McKenna draft lottery
Last season: 30-44-8 (68 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +10000
Projected points: 80.4
Biggest strength: A more realistic sense of expectations after “winning the offseason” in the summer of 2024.
Adding veterans such as Jonathan Marchessault and Steven Stamkos led to a discussion at the start of last season that the Preds could make the jump from being a playoff team to one that could possibly challenge for the West. Instead? They were met with a turbulent season that saw them finish with a lottery pick.
Going through such a trying campaign allowed their front office to understand the need to further insulate their young players with more veterans — and perhaps not have their season crushed under the weight of high expectations.
Biggest concern: The state of their top-six defense beyond Roman Josi and Brady Skjei. Playing 15 different defenseman last season further reinforced how the Preds couldn’t find cohesion on the back end.
One way they’ve sought to attain cohesion was by acquiring Nicolas Hague and Nick Perbix in the offseason. They’ve also used training camp as a way of gaining a stronger feel for what they possess in Justin Barron, Nick Blankenburg and Adam Wilsby.
This season hinges on… Roster stability. A number to know about last year’s Predators: 14. That’s how many players were either traded to or away from a club that sought to find what it believed was the strongest combinations. Rarely, if ever, is the roster that plays on opening night the same that plays in Game 82. But the objective for every team is to have continuity, which appears to be the goal for the Preds this season.
Most likely award winner: Matthew Wood, Calder
Fantasy outlook: Forward Filip Forsberg serves as a top-12 fantasy forward, whether Nashville’s squad enjoys success or not. If the Predators do manage to pull up their socks after last year’s debacle, then Stamkos and Marchessault are in for hearty rebound campaigns.
Bold prediction: The Preds stick with head coach Andrew Brunette through the entire season
Last season: 35-41-6 (76 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +30000
Projected points: 83.4
Biggest strength: Potential down the middle. Matty Beniers could have his strongest season to date after scoring 20 goals in 2024-25, while Shane Wright had 19 tallies in his first full campaign.
Where it gets interesting is what could happen with Berkly Catton, their first-round pick in 2024. Catton recorded more than 100 points in consecutive seasons in the WHL. If he makes the team out of training camp, it adds to a center group that also features Chandler Stephenson and Frederick Gaudreau, the latter of whom could be used as a winger.
Biggest concern: Can they generate more scoring chances? They have nine returning players from last season who finished in double figures in goals, while adding two more skaters this offseason who did the same, in Gaudreau and Mason Marchment. There’s also whatever Catton could provide should he make the opening night roster.
The Kraken finished 16th in goals last season, with the context that they were in the bottom three in high-danger scoring chances and scoring chances, along with being in the bottom 10 in shots per game.
This season hinges on… In a word, consistency. There’s the offensive component, but there’s also the defensive challenges they faced. New head coach Lane Lambert and his staff will be charged with trying to improve upon a structure that despite being around league average in shots allowed were in the top 10 in terms of allowing the most scoring chances and most high-danger scoring chances.
Most likely award winner: Joey Daccord, Vezina
Fantasy outlook: Forward Eeli Tolvanen is worth fantasy consideration in leagues that reward hits. Goalie Joey Daccord will start enough games to remain relevant in deeper leagues. Maybe better than relevant if the Kraken can squeeze out a few more wins.
Bold prediction: The Kraken will be the top seller ahead of the trade deadline
Last season: 34-36-12 (80 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +20000
Projected points: 83.9
Biggest strength: Pittsburgh’s greatest asset is Sidney Crosby, and the 38-year-old continues to deliver for the Penguins even as they’re stumbling through a rebuilding phase. Crosby is coming off another 90-plus point campaign — for the third consecutive season — and even in the absence of hope elsewhere in Pittsburgh, he’s managed to keep giving the fanbase something to cheer.
The incessant rumors about Crosby potentially being traded this season do, of course, put a damper on that. But going into the season, there’s no doubt Crosby will be at the forefront of all that is good for the Penguins and help new coach Dan Muse to find his footing as a first-year head coach. Crosby can make any skaters around him better, and that’s going to be invaluable to Muse. And given this might also be Evgeni Malkin‘s final season in Pittsburgh, you can count on him trying to make the most of it with Crosby.
Biggest concern: There are too many defensive and goaltending issues to list. Pittsburgh gave up the third-most goals last season (3.50 per game) behind an abysmal blue line that didn’t get enough help from Pittsburgh’s forwards to be of any advantage to their poor goaltending. The tandem of Tristan Jarry and Alex Nedeljkovic had no clear-cut starter and produced an .893 SV% and .894 SV%, respectively.
Nedeljkovic is now in San Jose, and his replacement Arturs Silovs will be working again with Jarry. That’s quite a gamble by the Penguins if they expect any sort of improvement in net. Jarry spent time in the AHL last season as he worked through some struggles, and Silovs comes with just 19 NHL appearances to his name. Pittsburgh will have its work cut out for them keeping opponents at bay.
This season hinges on… Managing expectations. The Penguins have to know what they’re aiming for here. Because the best-case scenario could be to work with some of the organization’s talented prospects, be competitive every night but ultimately be eyeing a high pick in the draft lottery. It won’t do any good to put pressure on this group to be good right now; unless there are some unexpectedly dramatic improvements from the likes of, say, Erik Karlsson, Jarry, and the entire bottom six, then Pittsburgh isn’t likely to stack up with the rest of the Metro.
That’s fine. They’re in a different spot now than in the Cup contention years, and leaning into that could allow the Penguins enough freedom to find out who they’ll be in this next chapter as the rebuild rolls on.
Most likely award winner: Sidney Crosby, Hart
Fantasy outlook: Trade rumors around Sidney Crosby cast a long shadow, but he and Erik Karlsson will deliver fantasy value regardless of uniform. Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust offer stability if they stay, but they are among the likeliest to be dealt if the Penguins keep tearing down.
Bold prediction: Crosby plays in the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs… somewhere
Last season: 20-50-12 (52 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +50000
Projected points: 71.6
Biggest strength: Giving their young players a chance to succeed. Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith showed last season they could handle what comes with being top-six players as rookies. William Eklund had the strongest season of his career, with the belief that goaltender Yaroslav Askarov, defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin and forward Michael Misa, the No. 2 pick in 2025, could be next.
But it’s more than just the playing time. The Sharks have also added the sort of veterans who can aid with those players advancing their development, such as Tyler Toffoli and Jeff Skinner up front, and Dmitry Orlov and John Klingberg on the back end.
Biggest concern: Being able to continue building on last season. Celebrini and Smith both made positive strides, and it’s imperative they continue to do so. The same goes for Eklund, who is still just 22, along with Askarov, Mukhamhadullin and Misa.
But it’s also the second year for head coach Ryan Warsofsky, who has a chance to get the club to the 70-point mark for the first time in three seasons.
This season hinges on… Finding ways to improve their future. Developing their young stars is only one part of the Sharks’ plan. Another is to continue maximizing upon their potential. They have 10 players who are on expiring contracts, which could see the Sharks capitalize by moving on from some of them ahead at the trade deadline, thus attaining more capital for the future.
Most likely award winner: Yaroslav Askarov, Calder
Fantasy outlook: Will Smith sports point-per-game potential. In play to crack the squad out of camp, second-overall pick Michael Misa presents as a dynasty dream selection with incredible offensive upside. If the Sharks become regularly competitive, 23-year-old goalie Yaroslav Askarov could prove to be the goalie sleeper of the season.
Bold prediction: Macklin Celebrini hits the 90-point benchmark
Last season: 25-46-11 (61 points), missed playoffs
Stanley Cup odds: +50000
Projected points: 57.4
Biggest strength: For now, the Blackhawks are in the part of their rebuild in which “potential” is the primary selling point.
There’s the potential of what Connor Bedard could do when surrounded by veteran scoring wingers like Andre Burakovsky and Ryan Donato. It’s the same for second-line center Frank Nazar, with the idea Oliver Moore could find a role within the lineup.
The same can be said for their promising blue line featuring Wyatt Kaiser, Artom Levshunov, Sam Rinzel and Alex Vlasic, among others.
Biggest concern: Can they find solutions to their issues from last season? Rebuilding teams are going to have consistency issues. But the Blackhawks had several challenges across the board in 2024-25.
If the Blackhawks didn’t finish last in a defensive category such as scoring chances allowed per 60 or shots allowed per 60, it’s because they were second-to-last. The same could be said for how they performed in the offensive zone, in that if they weren’t at the bottom, they were close. Things need to start trending in a positive direction.
This season hinges on… Showing significant improvement from last season. They went through offensive droughts and defensive lapses that were influenced by the fact they also had an in-season coaching change.
Altogether, the Blackhawks must find some sense of cohesion in 2025-26. Especially at a time in which they are either starting to pay — or have already paid — members of their young core in need of a second contract.
Most likely award winner: Sam Rinzel, Calder
Fantasy outlook: Nazar boasts sleeper potential as the Blackhawks’ second-line center and running mate to Bedard on the power play. Rookie defender Rinzel merits attention in deeper scoring leagues as Chicago’s top power-play anchor.
Bold prediction: Frank Nazar doubles his point total from 2024-25 (26 points in 53 games)
Sports
Inside how the Dodgers fixed Roki Sasaki — and possibly saved their World Series repeat hopes
PHILADELPHIA — Halfway across the world, Roki Sasaki had a secret admirer. In 2021, his first season in Nippon Professional Baseball, the Chiba Lotte Marines’ teenaged phenom regularly blew triple-digit fastballs by hitters and complemented them with a split-fingered fastball that behaved like a high-velocity knuckleball. Once a week, new videos of Sasaki’s latest start would find their way onto social media, and when they did, Rob Hill would consume them with equal parts appreciation and awe.
“I keep a mental tab of a lot of pitchers that I like,” said Hill, the Dodgers’ 30-year-old director of pitching, “and I’ll go back and look how they’re doing and see how their bodies are moving and playing, like almost a game of: If they were with me, what would I do?”
On Sept. 4 this year, Hill got the opportunity to answer that question. Over the previous four months, Sasaki’s ballyhooed rookie season with the Dodgers had devolved into a disaster. He struggled through eight starts, hit the injured list with a right shoulder impingement May 13, started throwing again two weeks later and was shut down once more June 16. He returned to the mound for Oklahoma City two months after that with a fastball sitting at just 93 mph in Triple-A and had lost hope of contributing substantively to the Dodgers’ attempt to be the first team in a quarter-century to win back-to-back World Series.
Then came the early-September debrief with Hill at the Dodgers’ complex in Arizona. For months, officials throughout the organization had worked to gain Sasaki’s trust, cognizant of how loath he was to offer it. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, general manager Brandon Gomes and manager Dave Roberts all had let Sasaki know they hadn’t lost faith, even as he’d gone from the major league rotation to minor league mediocrity. They would provide whatever tools he needed as the season went on.
Finally, following another middling Triple-A start, Sasaki pronounced himself open to a mechanical overhaul. What happened over the next week changed the course of his season — and the Dodgers’. Small but significant tweaks to Sasaki’s delivery unlocked the monster within. The desire to compete — to win — prompted him to embrace a move to the bullpen. And following a pair of successful big league relief outings to end the regular season, Sasaki found himself thrust into the ninth inning of Los Angeles’ past two playoff wins: a wild-card series clincher against the Cincinnati Reds and Game 1 of the National League Division Series at Philadelphia’s raucous Citizens Bank Park. His fastball sat over 100 mph, his splitter tumbled with ferocity, and he looked the part of dominant closer.
“When he came back, I told him he’s got a different look now,” Roberts said. “He’s got the look of a killer.”
For all of the grief directed at the Dodgers because of their half-billion-dollar payroll and cadre of superstars, their ability to diagnose issues and coach players up, to open clear lines of communication and remain on the same page — to make players better and make that change sticky — is among the best in baseball. The Dodgers’ exceptional financial might makes them behemoths. Their skill at creating other advantages available to even those with much lower payrolls makes them terrifying.
The resurrection of Sasaki is their latest triumph, and they’re confident that with the extra strength he developed during his time off, the cue he found to hone his delivery and the dominance he has experienced in the bullpen, it’s here to stay. Everything coming together in less than a month was fortuitous, yes, but it was no accident.
HILL CALLS IT the deposition. When the Dodgers are looking to extract more from a pitcher, they’ll send him to Hill and Ian Walsh, the organization’s pitching performance coordinator, for a question-and-answer session that can last hours. There are the simple asks: What is your routine, and what are you most comfortable throwing, and what hurts? And then the ones a little more far afield: Was there anything a coach told you in fifth grade you still apply today? Or is there pain in your body you’ve gotten used to that probably isn’t normal?
The transition of the 23-year-old Sasaki to Major League Baseball was atypical. Almost every Japanese player who leaves for MLB does so after a series of high-end accomplishments. Sasaki did throw a perfect game in 2022 followed by eight more blemish-free innings in his next start. But over the next two seasons, he barely threw 200 innings total, with arm and oblique injuries limiting his time on the mound. Sasaki had no desire to follow his forebears in accumulating accolades in Japan before heading to the United States. And even the hundreds of millions of dollars he could have received by coming over after age 25 as an international free agent were not worth delaying what he believed his destiny: to pitch against the world’s best hitters.
He also, the Dodgers recognized, wasn’t himself in his final seasons in Japan. During his meetings with teams, Sasaki wanted one question answered: How would you fix my fastball? It had leaked velocity over the previous two seasons, and teams’ responses, Sasaki figured, would offer him the best insight into their philosophies on pitching. The Dodgers knew Sasaki’s unique leg kick would make his delivery difficult to replicate, but their philosophy on pitching takes that into account.
“I don’t ascribe to a mechanical model,” Hill said. “Mechanics are not something to be modeled. The human body and the way that it moves is going to determine the output of what you do. Your own structural and physical constraints, and then your ability to coordinate your movements, is going to dictate what you do. I’m not going to be a towel-drill guy or a Driveline guy. I’m a get-you-better guy.”
Even though Hill had thoughts on how to upgrade Sasaki’s mechanics during the spring, he didn’t want to overstep his bounds. Shohei Ohtani didn’t look like the most talented player in the game’s history in his first spring. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers’ ace this season, grappled with inconsistency for the first half of his MLB debut last year.
“And Roki’s younger than both of them were when they came,” Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen said. “You come over, you’re young, you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders. It’s not the easiest thing. I don’t know if some of it is that, but I don’t think it really matters at this point. I’m just grateful, because it’s not easy for people to come out of where they’re at. Sometimes that can wreck somebody.”
As much as mental wreckage had accrued for Sasaki from the beginning of the season through August, his physical issues had compounded even more. The mechanical changes Hill had noticed were, he said, almost certainly due to his right shoulder. Every big-league-caliber pitcher, Hill said, is an elite compensator. If something is wrong physically, they are capable of finding ways to move their bodies to make up for the deficiency. The problem is that doing so creates instabilities elsewhere in the body. And eventually, under the weight of those stresses, it breaks down.
“Good or bad, right or wrong, he hasn’t had a whole lot of instruction. He’s just been on his own program because of the talent,” Roberts said. “And there was a point where he was in Arizona where the group came together and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to give Rob a chance.’ And to his credit, he bought into that and just kind of freed himself up.”
During the deposition, Hill did what he called an accusation audit. He understood any skepticism Sasaki might have, and he wanted to address it head on, so Hill laid out all of the potential negatives of working with him. Maybe Sasaki was concerned with how Americans view pitching mechanics. Or the number of Dodgers pitchers who have suffered injuries. Or that they cannot possibly understand what it’s like to be him. And if Sasaki is annoyed by Hill or just doesn’t like him, that’s fine. He wouldn’t be the first. But at the end of the day, Hill said, he needed Sasaki to understand one thing and one thing only: The only thing Hill cared about is making him better.
“You can tell me you want to spin upside down on your head midway through your delivery,” Hill said. “If it comes out 100, I’m going to just sit back and watch. I’m not going to shove you into a box. I’m not going to tell you that you have to move a certain way, you have to use your glute, you have to use your foot. I’m just going to ask you different things that make sense in your head, and then we’re going to find a way to make it come to life.”
It came to life with what Hill calls the buffet. Following the deposition, Hill and Walsh broke down the answers and emerged with a suite of options to help fix the issues. They believed that Sasaki’s troubles stemmed from his pelvis tipping forward, which caused him to rotate too early. During the pitching delivery, energy builds in the body, ripples up to the arm and is projected onto the ball at release. Any disruption — even something that goes unnoticed by the naked eye — can wreak havoc. And with Sasaki, that havoc equaled 7 mph of fastball velocity going AWOL.
On Sept. 5, Hill and Walsh presented the buffet. In particular, they believed the set position of Sasaki’s back leg could fix what ailed him. During the deposition, Sasaki had shown them videos from the 2022 and 2023 seasons, when his stuff was at its best, and his back leg wasn’t nearly as extended. By flexing the back leg, with his knee starting over his toes, Sasaki could avoid hinging his pelvis and delay it from dragging his center of mass forward too early, which prevented his front leg from having enough time to stabilize.
“Rotating the pelvis early is just death to everything,” Hill said.
For three hours that day, they discussed the effect of the flexed back leg. Starting in the new position would allow Sasaki to stand tall with his exaggerated front-leg kick, flare that leg straight down, plunge into a deep position and delay rotation. A specific cue resonated with Sasaki. Up, down, out. Up, down, out. If he lost feel for his delivery, he could remind himself: Up, down, out. Though the new delivery would look similar, the delay allowed him to stabilize and extend, smoothing out an energy transfer that had grown too mushy and eaten away at his fastball velocity.
Typically, the Dodgers will have pitchers work on drills before trying out proposed fixes. Sasaki didn’t want to wait. The two months of not throwing a ball, and the trust he had in Los Angeles’ team physician, Dr. Neal ElAttrache, had his shoulder feeling better than it had in years. With additional strength gained in his lower half in the weight room during his time off, Sasaki was eager to test out the back-leg theory as soon as possible. There was little time to spare if he was to have any chance of contributing in October.
“I think I can do it,” Sasaki said.
Hill and Walsh weren’t going to say no. Players know their bodies and minds better than coaches ever can. On Sept. 6, Sasaki stepped onto the mound at the complex and sat 95 to 97 mph. Hill and Walsh were blown away. Because Sasaki told them during spring training that his bullpen sessions are typically 4 to 5 mph slower than what he throws in a game.
“What I try to do in that deposition is basically figure out if this is a software issue or hardware issue,” Hill said. “Like, is this a skill issue? Or are you hurt? Do you have a bony block in your hip that we don’t have diagnosed properly that is like actually limiting the ability to do things right? Once it’s somewhat determined that it’s not a hardware issue, it can happen quick if you just align the joints in the right way, especially with a guy who’s already produced a crazy amount of velo in his life.”
THREE DAYS AFTER that bullpen session, Sasaki took the mound for his next Triple-A start. He went 4⅔ innings, walked four and allowed three runs. And the Dodgers were ecstatic. Because the stuff was back. His fastball averaged 98.3 mph and topped out at 100.6. His splitter was dastardly. He even threw the cutter Hill helped teach him during spring training.
Almost immediately, the plans for Sasaki changed. The Dodgers’ bullpen was reeling. Tanner Scott, the closer signed to a $72 million deal over the winter, had faltered. Kirby Yates, another high-profile free agent signing, wasn’t much better and later would go on the injured list with a hamstring strain. For all of Los Angeles’ starting pitching depth, the bullpen was a liability. So the Dodgers approached Sasaki and told him that if he wanted to play meaningful baseball this season, there was a clear path through the bullpen.
“He saw what was happening with our starters and said, ‘Sign me up,'” Roberts said. “And so then it was on us.”
Still with Oklahoma City, Sasaki struck out a pair in his first relief outing Sept. 18. He followed three days later with another clean inning. The Dodgers summoned him back to the big leagues and threw him Sept. 24 and 26 to see how his arm would respond to going twice in three days. He punched out four, didn’t walk anyone and cemented his spot on their postseason roster.
“The fun part about relieving,” Sasaki said, “is the opportunity to be able to contribute to the game, to the team every day.”
And contribute he has. While Roberts wouldn’t officially name Sasaki the Dodgers’ closer, Sasaki will pitch in the highest-leverage spots as long as Los Angeles is in the playoffs. Against the Phillies, his fastball sizzled as high as 101 mph. He caught J.T. Realmuto looking on an unfair splitter and shook off a Max Kepler double to induce a Nick Castellanos groundout and Bryson Stott popout, securing the first save of his professional career.
“The goal was to come back fully healthy and just fully ready to pitch again,” Sasaki said. “So I was cognizant that there could be that possibility that I may not pitch in the regular season again. There’s been a lot of support staff, coaching staff, the people around me who helped me get to where I am today. So, yes, very grateful for that.”
He appreciates Hill and Walsh, Friedman and Gomes, Roberts, and Dodgers pitching coaches Mark Prior and Connor McGuiness. Strength coach Travis Shaw, who helped build Sasaki’s body to withstand what would be asked of it. The organization’s biomechanics experts who can point out whether his pelvis starts hinging again. The teammates who, even if they wondered at one juncture whether Sasaki was made to thrive in MLB, no longer have any doubts.
Now it’s about performing. Even if Sasaki will transition back to starting pitching next year, he is a reliever this month, a vital piece of the Dodgers’ plans to conquer October again. More than that, he’s a reminder that with trust and competence, what’s lost can be found.
“Never, ever write somebody off, never give up on somebody, regardless of how bad the circumstances look,” Hill said. “Because you truly never know.”
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Alden Gonzalez
WHEN THE LOW point arrived last year, on Sept. 15 in Atlanta, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts broke character and challenged some of his players in a meeting many of them later identified as a fulcrum in their championship run.
This year, he attempted to strike a more positive tone.
It was Sept. 6. The Dodgers had just been walked off in Baltimore, immediately after being swept in Pittsburgh, and though they were still 15 games above .500, a sense of uneasiness lingered. Their division lead was slim, consistency remained elusive and spirits were noticeably down. Roberts saw an opportunity to take stock.
“He was talking to us about the importance of what was in front of us,” Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas said in Spanish. “At that time, there were like seven, eight weeks left because we only had three weeks left in the regular season, and he wanted all of us, collectively, to think about what we were still capable of doing, and the opportunity we still had to win another championship.”
Later that night, Yoshinobu Yamamoto got within an out of no-hitting the Baltimore Orioles, then he surrendered a home run to Jackson Holliday and watched the bullpen implode after his exit, allowing three additional runs in what became the Dodgers’ most demoralizing loss of the season. The next morning, though, music blared inside Camden Yards’ visiting clubhouse. Players were upbeat, vibes were positive.
The Dodgers won behind an effective Clayton Kershaw later that afternoon, then reeled off 16 wins over their next 21 games — including back-to-back emphatic victories over the Cincinnati Reds in the first round of the playoffs.
It took a day, but Roberts’ message had seemingly landed.
“We needed some positivity,” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said, “to remove all of the negativity that we were feeling in that moment.”
As they approach a highly anticipated National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, the Dodgers once again look like one of the deepest, most fearsome teams in the sport.
But the journey there was arduous.
A Dodgers team many outsiders pegged as a candidate to break the regular-season-wins record of 116 ultimately won only 93, its fewest total in seven years. Defending a championship, a task no team has successfully pulled off in a quarter-century, has proven to be a lot more difficult than many Dodger players anticipated. But they’ve maintained a belief that their best selves would arrive when it mattered most. And whether it’s a product of health, focus, or because the right message hit them at the right time, they believe it’s here now.
“We’re coming together at the right time,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said amid a champagne-soaked celebration Wednesday night, “and that’s all that really matters.”
BUSTER POSEY’S San Francisco Giants became the most dominant team in the first half of the 2010s, during which they won three championships. They won every other year — on even years, famously — but could not pull off the repeat the Dodgers are chasing. To this day, Posey, now the Giants’ president of baseball operations, can’t pinpoint why.
“I wish I could,” Posey said, “because if I knew what that one thing was, I would’ve tried to correct it the second, third time through.”
Major League Baseball has not had a repeat champion since the New York Yankees won their third consecutive title in 2000, a 24-year drought that stands as the longest ever among the four major North American professional sports, according to ESPN Research. In that span, the NBA had a team win back-to-back championships on four different occasions. The NHL? Three. The NFL, whose playoff rounds all consist of one game? Two.
MLB’s drought has occurred in its wild-card era, which began in 1995 and has expanded since.
“The baseball playoffs are really difficult,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “You obviously have to be really good. You also have to have some really good fortune. The number of rounds and the fact that the very best team in the league wins around 60% of their games, the very worst team wins around 40% — now you take the upper-echelon in the playoffs, and the way baseball games can play out, good fortune is a real part of determining the outcomes.”
The Dodgers, now 11 wins shy of a second consecutive title, will hope for some of that good fortune this month. They’ve already encountered some of the pitfalls that come with winning a championship, including the one Posey experienced most vividly: the toll of playing deep into October.
“That month of postseason baseball — it’s more like two or three months of regular-season baseball, just because of the intensity of it,” Posey said.
The Dodgers played through Oct. 30 last year — and then they began this season March 18, nine days before almost everybody else, 5,500 miles away in Tokyo.
“At the time, you don’t see it,” Hernández said, “but when the next season starts, that’s when you start feeling your body not responding the way it should be. And it’s because you don’t get as much time to get ready, to prepare for next season. This one has been so hard, I got to be honest, because — we win last year, and we don’t even have the little extra time that everybody gets because we have to go to Japan. So, you have to push yourself to get ready a month early so you can be ready for those games. Those are games that count for the season. So, working hard when your body is not even close to 100%, I think that’s the reason. I think that’s why you see, after a team wins, next year you see a lot of players getting hurt.”
The Dodgers had the second-most amount of money from player salaries on the injured list this season, behind only the Yankees, the team they defeated in the World Series, according to Spotrac. The Dodgers sent an NL-leading 29 players to the IL, a list that included Freddie Freeman, who underwent offseason surgery on the injured ankle he played through last October, and several other members of their starting lineup — Will Smith, Max Muncy, Tommy Edman and Hernández.
The bullpen that carried the Dodgers through last fall might have paid the heaviest price. Several of those who played a prominent role last October — Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips — either struggled, were hurt or did not pitch. It might not have been the sole reason for the bullpen’s struggles — a combined 4.94 ERA from free agent signees Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates played just as big a role — but it certainly didn’t help.
“I don’t know if there’s any carryover thing,” Treinen said Sept. 16 after suffering his third consecutive loss. “I don’t believe in that. We just have a job, and it’s been weird.”
IN FEBRUARY, ROJAS made headlines by saying that the 2025 Dodgers could challenge the wins record and added they might win 120 games at full health. An 8-0 start — after an offseason in which the front office added Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Michael Conforto, Hyeseong Kim, Scott and Yates to what was arguably the sport’s best roster already — only ratcheted up the expectations.
The Dodgers managed a 53-32 record through the end of June — but then, they went 10-14 in July, dropped seven of their first 12 games in August and saw a seven-game lead in the National League West turn into a one-game deficit.
From July 1 to Aug. 14, the Dodgers’ offense ranked 20th in OPS and 24th in runs per game. The rotation began to round into form, but the bullpen sported the majors’ highest walk rate and put up a 1.43 WHIP in that stretch, fifth highest.
The Dodgers swept the San Diego Padres at home in mid-August, regaining some control of the division, but then Los Angeles split a series against the last-place Colorado Rockies and lost one in San Diego. The Dodgers swept the Reds, then lost two of three to the Arizona Diamondbacks, dropped three in a row to the Pirates and suffered those back-to-back walk-off losses to the Orioles.
Consistency eluded the Dodgers at a time when it felt as if every opponent was aiming for them.
Before rejoining the Dodgers ahead of the 2023 season, Rojas spent eight years with the Miami Marlins, who were continually out of the playoff race in September and found extra motivation when facing the best teams down the stretch. Those matchups functioned as their World Series.
“I think that’s the problem for those teams after winning a World Series — you’re going to have a target on your back,” Rojas said. “And it’s going to take a lot of effort for your main guys to step up every single day. And then, at the end of the regular season, you’re going to be kind of exhausted from the battle of every single day. And I think that’s why when teams get to the playoffs, they probably fall short.”
Travis d’Arnaud, now a catcher for the Los Angeles Angels, felt the same way while playing for the defending-champion Atlanta Braves in 2022. There was “a little bit more emotion” in games that otherwise didn’t mean much, he said. Teams seemed to bunt more frequently, play their infield in early and consistently line up their best relievers. Often, they’d face a starting pitcher who typically threw in the low-90s but suddenly started firing mid- to upper-90s fastballs.
“It’s just a different intensity,” said A.J. Pierzynski, the catcher for the Chicago White Sox teams that won it all in 2005 and failed to repeat in 2006. “It’s hard to quantify unless you’re playing in the games, but there’s a different intensity if you’re playing.”
BEFORE A SEASON-ENDING sweep of the Seattle Mariners, the 2025 Dodgers were dangerously close to finishing with the fewest full-season wins total of any team Friedman has overseen in these past 11 years. Friedman acknowledged that recently but added a caveat: “I’d also say that going into October, I think it’ll be the most talented team.”
It’s a belief that has fueled the Dodgers.
With Snell and Glasnow healthy, Yamamoto dialing up what was already an NL Cy Young-caliber season and Shohei Ohtani fully stretched out, the Dodgers went into the playoffs believing their rotation could carry them the way their bullpen did a year earlier. Their confidence was validated immediately. Snell allowed two baserunners through the first six innings of Game 1 of the wild-card round Tuesday night, and Yamamoto went 6⅔ innings without allowing an earned run 24 hours later.
“For us, it’s going to be our starting pitching,” Muncy said. “They’re going to set the tone.”
But an offense that has been without Smith, currently nursing a hairline fracture in his right hand, has also been clicking for a while. The Dodgers trailed only the Phillies in slugging percentage over the last three weeks of the regular season. In the Dodgers’ first two playoff games, 10 players combined to produce 28 hits. Six of them came from Mookie Betts, who began the season with an illness that caused him to lose close to 20 pounds and held a .670 OPS — 24 points below the league average — as recently as Aug. 6. Since then, he’s slashing .326/.384/.529.
His trajectory has resembled that of his team.
“We had a lot of struggles, really all year,” Betts said. “But I think we all view that as just a test to see how we would respond. And so now we’re starting to use those tests that we went through earlier to respond now and be ready now. And anything that comes our way, it can’t be worse than what we’ve already gone through.”
The Dodgers still don’t know if their bullpen will be good enough to take them through October — though Sasaki’s ninth inning Wednesday night, when he flummoxed the Reds with triple-digit fastballs and devastating splitters, certainly provided some hope — but they believe in their collective ability to navigate it.
They believe this roster is better and deeper than the championship-winning one from last fall. And, as Rojas said, they believe they “know how to flip the switch when it matters most.”
“It’s been a long year,” Muncy said. “At this point, seven months ago, we were on the other side of the world. We’ve been through a lot this year, and to end up in the spot we’re in right now — we’re in a great spot. We’re in the postseason. That’s all that matters. That’s what we’ve been saying all year. Anything can happen once you’re in October.”
Six full weeks into the 2025 season and every team could use a little work. At least on offense.
Ohio State’s defense has been nothing short of spectacular, holding opponents to five points per game. The Buckeyes offense has been more potent as of late, but there are areas to improve, just like there are with many units.
This season has been one of inflated quarterback expectations, from Texas’ Arch Manning to Florida’s DJ Lagway to Penn State’s Drew Allar to LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier to Clemson’s Cade Klubnik. Those QBs and many others have time to get fully right, but they will need to perform better and receive more help from those around them.
A new group of standout quarterbacks has emerged, including Oregon‘s Dante Moore and Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss, and one-time Heisman favorite Carson Beck has found a different level at Miami. But no offense has it all figured out right now.
As we examine another reshuffled Top 25 in this week’s Power Rankings, we focused on the offenses, what’s working and what still needs work as the halfway point of the season approaches. — Adam Rittenberg
Previous ranking: 1
The Buckeyes could crank up the rushing attack. Ohio State ranks ninth in the Big Ten with 171.6 rushing yards per game and 10th in rushes per attempt going for 10 or more yards (15.2%). Freshman Bo Jackson, who’s averaging 7.5 yards per carry after not getting a touch in the opener against Texas and taking over as the primary ball carrier ahead of James Peoples and CJ Donaldson, has since given the Buckeyes a jolt (Jackson now has 30 carries over the past two games). Ohio State getting more big plays out of the running game will be key down the line to fully complement Jeremiah Smith & Co. through the air. — Jake Trotter
Previous ranking: 3
The Hurricanes have shown the ability to play smashmouth football and connect on explosive plays in the passing game in their 5-0 start. But they also have gone through lulls on offense that have turned double-digit leads into games that ended a little too close for comfort. It happened again in a 28-22 win over Florida State. Miami jumped out to a 28-3 lead heading into the fourth quarter. In that final quarter, Miami had 17 total yards, one first down and went 0-4 on third down. Against Florida and Notre Dame, Miami also had double-digit second-half leads before both teams made it a one score game as well. Miami did enough in all three of those games to win. But Miami coach Mario Cristobal also acknowledged after the game, “We’ve got a long ways to go.” — Andrea Adelson
Previous ranking: 2
A bye week might have come at the perfect time for the Ducks, who are coming off a thrilling overtime win at Penn State on Sept. 27 before they welcome Indiana for another top-10 matchup. Though there might have been questions about how Dante Moore would work within Oregon’s offense, he and coordinator Will Stein have left no doubt that their partnership is sound, while Moore has continued to shine (74.6% completion rate, 14 touchdowns and only one interception), the real bedrock of the Ducks’ unit has been their running game. Even though Tulane transfer running back Makhi Hughes did not pan out and will be taking a redshirt year, Oregon hasn’t needed him — the breakout of freshman running backs Dierre Hill Jr. (leads the team in rushing yards with 270) and Jordon Davison (leads the team in touchdowns with seven) has buoyed their attack. — Paolo Uggetti
Previous ranking: 4
Lane Kiffin’s Rebels enjoyed a bye week Saturday, and they host a wobbly Washington State team this coming weekend. So they have a bit of time to prepare for a massive pair of road games — at Georgia in Week 8 and at Oklahoma in Week 9. They’ve averaged 36.7 points per game since quarterback Trinidad Chambliss took over in the starting lineup, so it’s hard to complain about too much. But the run game could certainly help things out with a few more big plays. Even with Kewan Lacy on pace for an 1,150-yard season (projected over 13 games), he’s only averaging 4.4 yards per carry, and the Rebels headed into Week 6 ranked just 73rd in yards per carry (not including sacks). Ole Miss is staying on schedule, but the big plays have to come from the pass. — Bill Connelly
Previous ranking: 5
The Aggies ascended to the top 5 this week with a 31-9 win over Mississippi State. The Aggies started slowly, taking a 7-3 lead into halftime, scoring with 1:51 left in the second quarter. But KC Concepcion caught 34- and 2-yard TD passes in the second and third quarter respectively, and then the run game took over, with quarterback Marcel Reed scoring on a 7-yard carry and running back Rueben Owens II, who missed most of this past season with an injury, racking up 142 yards on 21 carries, with Le’Veon Moss adding 36 more on 11 carries. Mario Craver, the MSU transfer, caught a touchdown as well for the Aggies. Reed continues to improve, but still hasn’t hit his stride yet, completing 13 of 23 throws for 180 yards. And with a defense that has become dominant of late, Reed’s development with all the options around him has the streaking Aggies optimistic about the stretch run. — Dave Wilson
Previous ranking: 6
Aside from the health of quarterback John Mateer, who remains sidelined after right hand surgery, the clearest point of improvement has to be a Sooners run game that began Week 6 ranked 105th nationally in yards per game (125.3) and 112th in yards per attempt (3.6). Saturday’s 44-0 win over Kent State saw the most productive performance of Cal transfer Jaydn Ott‘s brief Oklahoma career (11 carries, 49 yards). But the Sooners still only mustered 4.5 yards per attempt against a Golden Flashes defense that entered the day with the nation’s No. 134 run defense, and Oklahoma has yet to have a running back go for more than 100 yards in a game this fall. Mateer has often been the program’s most effective runner this fall. Among the few silver linings of his injury is the opportunity for the Sooners to get their ground game sorted without him, something Oklahoma desperately needs in order to weather a brutal SEC schedule and remain a bona fide playoff contender. Between Ott, veteran Jovantae Barnes and underclassmen Tory Blaylock and Xavier Robinson, the Sooners surely have enough backfield talent. But as Oklahoma prepares to meet Texas in Dallas next weekend, it’s still waiting for a No. 1 running back — or simply a legitimate running game outside of Mateer — to emerge. — Eli Lederman
Previous ranking: 7
There’s not much to nitpick with a Hoosiers offense averaging 47.8 points per game, 7.5 yards per play and converting third-down opportunities at 58%, all numbers that rank in the top 10 nationally. Indiana could be sharper on fourth down, though, as it has converted only 2 of 8 opportunities, ranking near the bottom of the FBS. The offense’s struggles in a Sept. 27 win at Iowa is worth monitoring, especially with Oregon’s defense looming this week. IU averaged only 2.7 yards per carry, and an offense predicated on big plays had just two longer than 16 yards. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza wasn’t nearly as efficient (13-of-23 passing) when under duress, and an offensive line featuring several new faces will be facing pass rushers like Oregon’s Matayo Uiagalelei and Penn State’s Dani Dennis-Sutton. The Hoosiers feel good about primary running backs Roman Hemby and Kaelon Black, but will look for Khobie Martin or another No. 3 option following Lee Beebe Jr.’s season-ending injury. — Rittenberg
Previous ranking: 9
The Red Raiders continued their torrid start, going 5-0 for the first time since 2013, winning all of them by more than 20 points for the first time since 1953-54, as they beat Houston 35-11. Tech had 549 yards and held Houston to 269 as Behren Morton threw for 345 yards and J’Koby Williams had his first two-TD game rushing for 107 yards on 19 attempts. What’s scarier for opponents is Tech went just 1-for-6 on red zone touchdowns and missed two field goals, with Morton saying after the game that there’s another level the Red Raiders can reach that nobody has seen yet. — Wilson
Previous ranking: 10
The Crimson Tide’s offensive output in their 30-14 victory against Vanderbilt was a snapshot of what coach Kalen DeBoer believes the unit could be. Alabama piled up 486 yards of offense and went 7-for-15 on third down. Quarterback Ty Simpson threw for 340 yards, and Jam Miller ran for 136 with one touchdown in his best game of the season. Simpson distributed the ball to a bunch of playmakers: Ryan Williams caught six passes for 98 yards with one score; Germie Bernard had five catches for 82 yards with one score; and Isaiah Horton had four receptions for 66 yards. Tight end Josh Cuevas had a couple of big third-down catches. When Williams is focused and isn’t dropping passes, it’s nearly impossible for opponents to account for all the Tide’s options. There’s still plenty to clean up — Simpson was upset at himself for taking four sacks. He admitted he needs to get rid of the ball faster or throw it away to take pressure off his offensive line. — Mark Schlabach
Previous ranking: 11
The Bulldogs bounced back from their loss to Alabama with a 35-14 victory over Kentucky at home, and their offense looked pretty solid against the struggling Wildcats. Quarterback Gunner Stockton threw for 196 yards with one touchdown and one interception and ran for two more scores in three quarters. The Bulldogs went 9-for-12 on third down, piled up 425 yards of offense and didn’t allow a sack. For the Bulldogs to reach their full potential, they’re going to have to get healthy on the offensive line. Georgia was already missing starting tackle Earnest Greene III, who sat out for the third straight game with a back injury. Then left tackle Monroe Freeling went down with a leg injury on the second play from scrimmage against Kentucky and didn’t return. Sophomore Bo Hughley stepped in at left tackle. Georgia used a different starting lineup on the line in each of its five games and needs to find continuity up front. Guard Dontrell Glover and tackle Juan Gaston played on the right side against Kentucky, the first time the Bulldogs started two true freshmen on the offensive line since 2008. — Schlabach
Previous ranking: 13
Although the Volunteers are off to a 4-1 start, quarterback Joey Aguilar believes they can be even more explosive going forward as he continues to master Josh Heupel’s system. On throws of 20 or more air yards this season, Aguilar is 10-of-19 for 443 yards, six touchdowns and one interception. Getting that deep shot element back in the Vols’ offense has been a big deal after Nico Iamaleava went 13-of-44 on throws of 20-plus yards this past season. The wide receiver room was a bit of a question mark entering 2025, but Chris Brazzell II has been outstanding as the fourth-leading receiver in FBS and second-year wideouts Mike Matthews and Braylon Staley have stepped up as well. They’ll try to light up an Arkansas defense led by an interim DC this week before it’s time to hit the road and take on Alabama. — Max Olson
Previous ranking: 19
An off week came at the right time for the Yellow Jackets, which Brent Key admitted went into their Week 5 matchup with Wake Forest running on fumes. Still, Georgia Tech survived that one and continues to rise in the rankings as others tumbled in Week 6. While the schedule remains manageable, and the Jackets have ample weapons, there is a push to get the passing game going with more consistent success. Eric Rivers, Malik Rutherford and Isiah Canion have all had their moments, but it has been up and down. The lack of explosiveness downfield showed early against Wake, and if Georgia Tech wants to keep Haynes King from taking 20 hits a game, distributing the ball better as a passer will be critical. — David Hale
Previous ranking: 17
Entering their bye week, Brian Kelly’s Tigers ranked 15th in points allowed per drive but ranked only 73rd on offense. This is a direct reversal of the profile LSU presented in recent years. Garrett Nussmeier has been throwing mostly short passes — it’s hard to avoid the idea that he might still be afflicted by the abdominal injury that occurred in preseason — but the major issue is that Nussmeier has to do everything because the run game stinks. LSU has averaged just 4.2 yards per carry not including sacks (116th in FBS heading into Week 6), with starting running back Caden Durham averaging just 4.1. The rebuilt offensive line hasn’t done its job well enough, and Durham’s per-carry averages, both before and after contact, aren’t acceptable. Following their loss to Ole Miss in Week 5, the Tigers will have to raise their game to get to the finish line around 10-2. Nussmeier’s health is an ongoing concern, but actually being able to run the ball would help a lot. — Connelly
Previous ranking: 16
Mizzou has a dynamite run game led by transfer star Ahmad Hardy — who’s currently on pace for 1,900 yards in 13 games — and Beau Pribula is completing 76% of his passes. There’s a lot to like about an offense that’s averaging 45.2 points per game. But sacks have been an issue: The Tigers entered their bye week ranked 97th in sack rate (6.7%) and 121st in sacks per pressure (30.0%). They aren’t making nearly enough big plays to justify that number of negative plays, either (117th in percent of completions gaining 20-plus yards). Injured star tackle Cayden Green isn’t likely to be ready for the Alabama game this coming Saturday, but one way or another, Mizzou will need to keep Pribula upright to have a shot at an upset of Alabama this coming Saturday. — Connelly
Previous ranking: 20
The offense is undeniably better under first-year coordinator Chip Lindsey, although the bar wasn’t exactly high from 2024. Michigan has been exceptional with its run game, reaching the end zone 17 times in five games, including twice from Justice Haynes in Saturday’s 24-10 home win against Wisconsin. The passing game also showed a bit of life in the Wisconsin win, as freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood passed for 27 yards and a touchdown. But there’s certainly another gear for the passing game, especially if Michigan wants to reestablish itself as a CFP contender. Indiana transfer Donaven McCulley has been as advertised, and Semaj Morgan has delivered some solid performances, but Michigan still needs others to emerge for an offense with only three passing touchdowns and tied for 61st in completions of 20 yards or longer. Finding that next level will be critical this week at USC. — Rittenberg
Previous ranking: 22
The Cougars, 5-0 after a 38-24 win over West Virginia on Friday, are a physical team with a clear identity between their top-10 scoring defense and top-15 rushing offense. True freshman QB Bear Bachmeier had been turnover-free through his first four starts before an interception and a fumble against the Mountaineers, but he’s showing growth every week and produced a season-high 351 passing yards on Friday with 100-yard performances from receivers Chase Roberts and Parker Kingston. This is the slowest offense in the Big 12 from a tempo standpoint, so it’ll be interesting to see how Bachmeier operates when he gets into more two-minute situations in tight Big 12 games and needs to go fast. The pressure is about to crank up considerably with a challenging four-game stretch ahead against Arizona, Utah, Iowa State and Texas Tech. — Olson
Previous ranking: 21
CJ Carr continues to make his case to be in the Heisman race. Carr threw for 189 yards and two touchdowns in Saturday’s win over Boise State, and in his past three games, he has thrown for eight scores without a pick (and notably been sacked just twice). The performance against a strong Boise State defense was encouraging, too, after some early struggles on the O-line, particularly in an opening-week loss to Miami. Notre Dame’s next four games — NC State, USC, Boston College and Navy — won’t see particularly ferocious pass rushes either, so the opportunity for the Irish O-line to gel ahead of a showdown with Pitt in November is there. — Hale
Previous ranking: 23
This spring, Illini offensive coordinator Barry Lunney Jr. outlined how explosive plays were the next step for the unit.
“We’re going to have a little bit more vertical speed in what we’re doing to stretch the defense than what we did [in 2024],” Lunney told ESPN. “We might have a little more down-the-field, stretch-the-defense threat.”
Illinois has shown a significantly better downfield passing game this fall, and again in Saturday’s win at Purdue, as Hank Beatty‘s 62-yard touchdown catch put the Illini on the board, and quarterback Luke Altmyer averaged 20.5 yards per completion. But Illinois’ running game hasn’t had the same big-play success. The Illini entered Saturday having only one game with a run of more than 26 yards. Although they had three rushing touchdowns against Purdue, including a 25-yarder from Ca’Lil Valentine, the team finished with just 117 yards on 41 carries (4.9 yards per carry). Illinois hasn’t averaged more than five yards per carry against an FBS opponent, and likely will need to hit big run plays this week against Ohio State to have a chance for the upset. — Rittenberg
Previous ranking: NR
For the first time all season, Virginia could not establish its ground game in a 30-27 overtime win over Louisville. The Cards held Virginia to a season-low 88 yards on the ground. So, instead, Virginia relied on its defense and timely plays from quarterback Chandler Morris to win. Despite the low rushing total, Virginia remains one of the best rushing teams in the country, averaging over 200 yards per game on the ground. And the Cavaliers have done it despite losing multiple starters and reserves to injury. Still, they have been able to find players to step up and a running back rotation that includes J’Mari Taylor, Xavier Brown and Harrison Waylee. Morris has made some plays, but he also takes some gambles that have led to turnovers and mistakes in the first six games. However, his leadership is undeniable, and he has lifted the Virginia offense to its best production under Tony Elliott. — Adelson
Previous ranking: 18
The Commodores had too many self-inflicted wounds in their 30-14 loss at Alabama on Saturday. Quarterback Diego Pavia has been great for most of the past two seasons, but he admitted he tried to do too much in the red zone against the Crimson Tide. Pavia had a costly fumble and an interception on a pass he tried to force to tight end Eli Stowers. Vanderbilt also had five penalties for 52 yards. As much as Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea has upgraded his team’s roster, the Commodores can’t afford to make that many mistakes and beat the upper-echelon teams in the SEC. It won’t get any easier for the Commodores in an upcoming three-game stretch against LSU (home), Missouri (home) and Texas (road). Vanderbilt also faces Tennessee on the road at the end of the regular season. The Commodores can clean up some of those mistakes in their upcoming open date. — Schlabach
Previous ranking: 24
There are only so many holes to poke in a Tigers offense that entered Week 6 ranked 15th nationally and second among FBS offenses in points per game (38.6). Behind 266 yards and three touchdowns from Nevada transfer quarterback Brendon Lewis, Memphis rolled past AAC rivals Tulsa 45-7 to improve to 6-0 Saturday night. It was easily the most productive passing performance of Lewis’ debut season with the Tigers, but there still hasn’t been a vintage Ryan Silverfield aerial attack so far in 2025. Memphis began Saturday ranked 97th nationally in passing offense (200.6 yards per game). By comparison, the Tigers have never finished lower than 21st in the category across Silverfield’s initial five seasons in charge of the program. At the same time, Memphis is running the football better than at any other point of Silverfield’s tenure, and there’s nothing wrong with a more balanced attack. But if the Tigers are going to vie for a conference title and remain in the playoff conversation come late fall, they’ll likely need some more firepower through the air over the back half of the season. — Lederman
Previous ranking: NR
Since his poor performance against Mississippi State on Sept. 6, quarterback Sam Leavitt has inched back toward the player who earned some preseason Heisman buzz. But if the Sun Devils are going to be a serious player in the Big 12, those inches need to turn into full strides. Cam Skattebo isn’t walking through that door and the next games — Utah and Texas Tech — might be the toughest left on the schedule. — Kyle Bonagura
Previous ranking: 15
The offense wasn’t the issue in the Cyclones’ 38-30 loss to Cincinnati. They moved the ball well enough through the air (314 yards) and on the ground (151) yards to win most games. But they were simply gashed up front, surrendering 7.6 yards per carry for a total of 260 rushing yards. That’s a tough formula to win with. Coming into the season, Iowa State’s defensive line was a concern and at the midway point of the regular season, that has not changed. — Bonagura
Previous ranking: NR
For the second straight week, Cincinnati was hitting on all cylinders on offense, showcasing a balanced attack that could turn the team into a real threat in the Big 12. In its 38-30 win against Iowa State, three players — Evan Pryor, Tawee Walker and Brendan Sorsby — combined for 264 yards on 33 carries, while Sorsby added 214 through the air. In a pair of Big 12 games, the Bearcats — one of four unbeaten teams in conference play — have amassed 1,082 yards of total offense. — Bonagura
Previous ranking: 12
The sirens are blaring in Austin now, as the preseason No. 1 team fell from the AP poll completely after a 29-21 loss to unranked Florida, which had scored 33 points total in its previous three games. Arch Manning threw two interceptions to total five for the season, the most by a Texas QB in the first five games of a season since Sam Ehlinger in 2020. And the Longhorns’ offensive line didn’t provide much help, giving up six sacks and forcing Manning to adjust to pressure all day and serve as the Longhorns’ leading rusher with 37 yards on 15 carries. The Longhorns’ other three ballcarriers, Quintrevion Wisner, Ryan Niblett and Christian Clark, combined for 15 yards on 11 carries. — Wilson
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