23-24 NHL Atlantic Division Preview

NHL ATLANTIC DIVISION PREVIEW

Can The Bruins Repeat History? Will Tampa return to Glory? Can the Leafs finally break the Curse?

The Most Interesting Division heading into the 2023-24 Season.

NHL Atlantic Division Preview: The Boston Bruins took the entire hockey world by storm last season, setting records for most wins (65) and most points (135) in National Hockey League regular season history. However, they would meet their early demise in the playoffs, blowing a 3-1 series lead to their division rivals, the Florida Panthers, leading to a Game Seven Overtime victory by the “Cardiac Cats” who would then make an improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final, winning the Prince of Wales Trophy as Eastern Conference champions.

The Toronto Maple Leafs also met their playoff fate, getting eliminated by the Panthers, but not before bouncing the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games to advance to their first Conference Semifinals in 19 years. The Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators both had competitive seasons that saw them hanging around in the Wild Card race up until the final week of the regular season.

Both the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens are in the midst of rebuilds, but with some new talent additions, all eight clubs will be teams to watch in the Atlantic Division this season as we take an in-depth preview of each squad.

OPENING NIGHT

Boston Bruins (65-12-5, 135 Points)

⦁ Division Odds: +350
⦁ Conference Odds: +750
⦁ Stanley Cup Odds: +1400
⦁ Season Points Projection: 101.5 (Over -105/Under -125)

Continuing with our NHL Atlantic Division Season Preview: The Boston Bruins looked like a total team of destiny right out of the gate last October, despite missing stars Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy to surgery recoveries, the B’s won 20 of their first 23 games to jump out to a huge lead over the entire league and never looked back, winning 65 games and earning 135 points for the President’s Trophy and the best all-time regular season record for both marks.

However, the “President’s Trophy Curse” lives on yet again, as the Bruins fell in seven games to a Florida Panthers club that needed their own hot streak late in the final weeks of the season to even qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Despite having a 3-1 series lead, head coach Jim Montgomery stuck by his Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender Linus Ullmark, despite the fact he was playing with a hip injury late in the season.

Florida pulled the upset in overtime of Game Seven, and that would end up being the last game in the careers of long-time forwards Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, who both retired in the off-season. Krejci, who had taken a year to play back in his native Czechia in 2022, will be missed on the face-off dot and on penalty kills along with the captain Bergeron, who spent all 19 years of his career wearing the Black and Yellow “B”.

Up front, the aforementioned Marchand, who now wears the captain’s “C”, leads the rush along with superstar sniper David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha, who moves up to the top line as a centerman, a bit of a weakness for this team without Bergeron and Krejci. New acquisition James van Riemsdyk skates on a line with Charlie Coyle and Jake DeBrusk, providing a ton of physical power that could bully any group in the league.

It’s a nearly All-American Defense line for the B’s, with veteran Hampus Lindholm of Sweden the lone international representative. All-Star Charlie McAvoy leads the pack along with Matt Grzelcyk. Brandon Carlo, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Derek Forbort round out a tough, sturdy blue-line crew.

Defending Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark is healthy after off-season surgery and ready to make an encore performance after winning a career-best 40 games with a stellar 1.89 goals-against average. Jeremy Swayman, who also turned in a phenomenal 2022-23 campaign, returns as the backup, forming arguably the best goaltending duo in all of the National Hockey League.

It will be all but impossible for the Bruins to repeat exactly what they did in 82 games last season this time around, but Jim Montgomery has the lineup to keep afloat in the Atlantic and challenge toward the top of the East.

Toronto Maple Leafs (50-21-11, 111 Points)

⦁ Division Odds: +200
⦁ Conference Odds: +650
⦁ Stanley Cup Odds: +1100
⦁ Season Point Projections: 106.5 (-115 each way)

Another year goes by in the city of Toronto with no parade, no blue and white streamers across the streets in the late summer to celebrate a Stanley Cup. For the 56th season, the Toronto Maple Leafs failed to capture Lord Stanley’s prize, but they did accomplish a solid feat by advancing out of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2004, defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning in a six-game series.

It’s a new regime in the front office for General Manager Brad Treliving, who comes over from Calgary to replace Kyle Dubas, who is now down with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Treliving will have his work cut out juggling this team’s salary cap, with the squad having 40% of the team’s salary split amongst three players, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Mitch Marner. While those are the three key forwards to this offense, they have limited amounts of cash to make the rest of the parts work with quality secondary players, especially once injuries ultimately arrive. However, the plan by Treliving was to focus on depth players with grit and toughness.

He signed free agents such as Ryan Reaves, Max Domi, and Todd Bertuzzi. While Reaves is known virtually as the last “True Enforcer” in the National Hockey League, Domi and Bertuzzi have scoring skills to go along with their toughness. Domi showed off some of his protective nature last season in Chicago, defending his linemate, Patrick Kane, at times. NHL players like Sam Lafferty, Calle Jarnkrok, and William Nylander fill up the rest of the depth slots and play very well in their designated roles.

On the blueline, Morgan Reilly and T.J. Brodie take up the top spots along with oft-injured skaters like Jake McCabe and John Klingberg, and to round out the back-end, 40-year-old Mark Giordano, who’s still in tremendous shape, but not nearly at the same skill level he was years ago in Calgary.

Goaltending is always a mystery with the Maple Leafs. As of now, it’s Ilya Samsonov’s crease with Joseph Woll backing him up, and Martin Jones hanging around across the street (with the AHL Toronto Marlies) as a third option. Matt Murray is on Injured Reserve (stop me if you’ve heard this before) and will miss most, if not all, of the 2023-24 National Hockey League regular season.

Toronto fans are beyond desperate to see their long-time streak come to a close, and while they still have tons of talent, it’s hard to pull things all together to get those last 16 wins after the season. The Leafs should win this division and get back to the playoffs, but who knows what happens next after that?

Buffalo Sabres (42-33-7, 91 Points)

⦁ Division Odds: +900
⦁ Conference Odds: +1600
⦁ Stanley Cup Odds: +4000
⦁ Season Point Projection: 104.5 Points (Over -115/Under -120)

This has been a long rebuild in Western New York and while the native Buffalo people have been patient, they are now growing excited with the wealth of talent that they have developed into superstars, leading off with winger Tage Thompson. The Phoenix, Arizona native who turns 26 on October 30th scored 47 goals and 94 points last year, one of four Sabres skaters to score 30 or more goals on the season along with forwards Jeff Skinner, Alex Tuch, and Dylan Cozens. Add in secondary options like Casey Middlestadt, Jordan Greenway, and J.J Peterka, who elevated nicely into a Top-Six role. Captain Kyle Okposo leads the back-lines with Zegmus Girgensons, both of whom scored double-digits in goals last year.

On defense, Rasmus Dahlin is one of the best to play the position and will certainly get heavy consideration to win the Norris Trophy for Best Defenseman in the National Hockey League. The 23-year-old Swedish native scored 15 goals and 58 points in 78 games played with a plus/minus rating of +12. His linemate is Connor Clifton, a sturdy homebound blueliner who comes over from the Boston Bruins.

Owen Power is another defenseman with solid offensive upside while Mattias Samuelsson is one of those names you won’t hear mentioned enough but he is a very key player whose full impact and effort won’t translate well on a box score at the end of the night, but his shot-blocking and physicality can change the course of a shift or a period, and essentially, a game.

Between the pipes, Buffalo fans are fired up to see a full season on their young prospect Devon Levi. After a stellar college career at Northeastern, he played seven games at the NHL level towards the end of the season and looked solid. The club also re-signed veteran journeyman Eric Comrie and will have Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for another year. With Craig Anderson finally retired, the pipeline seems to be on track with Luukkonen and Levi to split duties and see who wins out. If both men can pan out to potential, this may be a lethal one-two punch in the net.

The Sabres finally have what it takes to break their twelve-year playoff drought, and I expect to see a big breakout season from Tage Thompson as Buffalo gets to see some late April Hockey once again.

Ottawa Senators (39-35-8, 86 Points)

⦁ Division Odds: +1000
⦁ Conference Odds: +2000
⦁ Stanley Cup Odds: +4000
⦁ Season Point Projection: 90.5 Points (Over -125/Under -105)

New Ownership takes control of the Ottawa Senators this season as Michael Andlauer’s group beat out celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Ryan Reynolds to earn control of the club in Canada’s capital city. The Sens were doomed from the start last year with the injury bug hitting early, most notably newly acquired goaltender Cam Talbot, who didn’t pan out as expected last season, and to add insult to injury, the goaltender they sent to Minnesota had a fantastic year in Filip Gustavsson.

Now they have a solid #1 option in Joonas Korpisalo, who was dealt from Columbus to Los Angeles at the trade deadline and signed with the Senators as a free agent. Paired with either Anton Forsberg, who is recovering from duel procedures for both the Anterior Crucial Ligament and Medial Crucial Ligaments, or the young Mags Sogaard, who really doesn’t have much to learn down in the AHL.

Up front, there is the absence of Alex DeBrincat, who moves to Detroit. Forwards Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle pair with veteran winger Claude Giroux, while Dominik Kubalik fills the positional void left by DeBrincat, alongside Josh Norris and Drake Batherson to round out a solid Top-Six forward group. The addition of Vladimir Tarasenko gives depth to the entire unit and his scoring prowess could really shine once again with this young core.

Along the blueline, Jakob Chychrun and Thomas Chabot stabilize an improving corps that includes speedster Jake Sanderson, Artem Zub, and veteran Travis Hamonic. This group will be enough to make life manageable for Korpisalo, Forsberg, and Sogaard on a given night, and if they can stay healthy, we could see this competitive Sens bunch in the postseason come April.

Florida Panthers (42-32-8, 92 Points)

⦁ Division Odds: +450
⦁ Conference Odds: +900
⦁ Stanley Cup Odds: +1600
⦁ Season Point Projection: 98.5 Points (-115 each way)

The Team of Destiny from last summer, the Florida Panthers shocked the entire hockey world with their run into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. First, after enduring a fairly pedestrian regular season, the “Cardiac Cats” needed quality goaltending from minor-league journeyman Alex Lyon to grab six wins and 13 points over their last eight games to clinch the final Wild Card berth in the Eastern Conference.

Paired up against the record-setting Boston Bruins in the opening round, the Panthers switched from Lyon to veteran Sergei Bobrovsky in net when they trailed in the series 3 games to 1. “Goalie Bob” and company rallied back to force a Game Seven, where in Overtime, forward Carter Verhaeghe scored to complete the improbable upset and send the President’s Trophy winners packing.

After a second-round dispatch of the Toronto Maple Leafs and a clean sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes to win the East, Florida just ran out of steam and the Cinderella story came to a crashing end with the Vegas Golden Knights blowing out the Panthers 9-3 in Game Six of the Stanley Cup Final to clinch the championship on home ice.

This season, the Cats return licking their wounds. Matthew Tkachuk is back after a cracked sternum a couple of months ahead of schedule while defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour will both be out until Christmastime recovering from their playoff injuries.

Newly acquired forward Evan Rodrigues comes over from Colorado and is a solid fit for this offense, his two-way style lends itself to coach Paul Maurice’s cycle-heavy system. The Sam’s, Bennett and Reinhart, both had great playoff performances and will be paired together again on the second line. Captain Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe are on top and will look to carry the load early if Tkachuk isn’t fully sharp to start the year.

With the defensive injuries suffered, Florida now turns to Gustav Forsling and newly signed Oliver Ekman-Larsson as the top pairing along with recent acquisitions Mike Reilly and Dimitri Kulikov, in addition to Niko Mikkola, a shot-blocking specialist who will have to fill the gap left by veteran Radko Gudas, who played the best hockey of his career during the playoff run.

Sergei Bobrovsky earned his $10 Million dollar contract last season when he saved the club during the postseason, playing lights out when Alex Lyon started to falter after his magical run to end the season. The backup from last season Spencer Knight returns to the team after taking some time away in the NHLPA Player Assistance program.

While many fear the worst whenever a player enters that cycle, Knight was learning to control his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder issues, which he says had hampered his playing and general way of life. Hopefully, he will be able to stay well mentally and share the workload with Bobrovsky this season.

Florida might start the year with a bit of a Stanley Cup shellshock hangover, with making that big of a run and guys not always fully back and focused out of the gate that next season. This is a tight division and I wouldn’t be shocked if last year’s magic can’t be duplicated and the Cats stay home this Spring and Summer.

Detroit Red Wings (35-37-10, 80 Points)

⦁ Division Odds: +2000
⦁ Conference Odds: +2800
⦁ Stanley Cup Odds: +15000
⦁ Season Point Projection: 84.5 Points (Over -125/Under -105)

Maintenance is a staple of life in the “Motor City” and the Detroit Red Wings have been doing plenty of shifting and changing under the hood thanks to General Manager Steve Yzerman and some of the solid moves he’s made to bolster the talent on this squad. Adding sniper Alex DeBrincat from the Ottawa Senators, and J.T Compher from Colorado and Daniel Sprong to shore up holes with the forward groups and adding offensive blueliner Shayne Gostisbehere to move the puck and control the rush on the back end are all solid moves to keep this club competitive once again,

Head Coach Derek Lalonde instills a strong work ethic on defense and with strong skaters like Moritz Seider, Jake Walman, and Justin Holl, the Red Wings will clog up the neutral zone, make teams pay along the boards, and create havoc in shooting lanes by blocking shots. This will be welcome sights and sounds to goaltender Ville Husso, who did not have a spectacular season last year. His new backup is veteran James Reimer, who at 35, is in the twilight of his career, and is pretty much looking to play a couple more seasons before hanging up the skates.

Detroit was a solid Wild Card contender for about a month last season, I could see them hanging around a bit longer in the race but overall, this is another year outside of the postseason for the Winged Wheel.

Tampa Bay Lightning (46-30-6, 98 Points)

⦁ Division Odds: +450
⦁ Conference Odds: +900
⦁ Stanley Cup Odds: +1400
⦁ Season Point Projection: 98.5 Points (-115 each way)

The last glimpse of a Dynasty run by the Tampa Bay Lightning might have twinkled away much like a bolt in the sky after last season’s first-round playoff exit to the Toronto Maple Leafs. More changes had to be made by General Manager Julian Brisbois with the team close against the Salary Cap every season. He was able to replace some of his departing veterans like Alex Kilorn and Pat Maroon with forwards Conor Sheary and extending Brandon Hagel to a large contract extension worth $52 Million dollars over eight years.

Meanwhile, long-time captain Steven Stamkos still hasn’t agreed on a deal past this season and the 33-year-old winger has a right to be upset that the club he’s spent his entire 15-year career with isn’t coming to the table with a solid deal. Other key forwards who are sticking around in the Sunshine State include Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point, the latter of which scored 51 goals last season, with a career-high 95 points, the 27-year old Point has made himself into a quiet superstar in this league over the last several seasons.

Victor Hedman is still one of the best defensemen in the National Hockey League, despite having a light 49-point season in 78 games played. He’s one of many veterans on this team who I feel will be renewed and refreshed from having a “Summer Off” after being eliminated early last postseason. After three straight runs to the Stanley Cup Final that included playing in a bubble in Edmonton, a super condensed schedule coming out of the Pandemic, and then two tough regular seasons with the usual bumps and aches mounting up over time. Vets like Calvin De Haan, who has had his injury troubles, also surely could appreciate having a normal camp-in-season situation once again.

The big problem lies with the Best goaltender in the World, Andrei Vasilevisky, and his back injury that required surgery last week, forcing the former Conn Smythe Trophy winner to miss between 8-10 weeks. Back and groin injuries for goaltenders in hockey are like shoulder and elbow issues for pitchers in baseball. Once you have them, they are always something to worry about for the rest of your career. With the mega workload he’s carried during this amazing run, now the Bolts will have to rely on inconsistent journeyman Jonas Johansson or unknown AHL commodities like Matt Tompkins and Hugo Alnefelt. This is a major issue that could linger just long enough to derail any playoff plans in Tampa.

Montreal Canadiens (31-45-6, 68 Points)

⦁ Division Odds: +12500
⦁ Conference Odds: +10000
⦁ Stanley Cup Odds: +25000
⦁ Season Point Projection: 72.5 Points (-115 each way)

It’s still a rebuild in progress for Les Habitants de Montreal this season. With a National Hockey League record 751 man games lost last season, the Canadiens changed their entire training and medical staff this summer and proceeded to go ahead with many of the same young players they have been developing for the past three seasons, starting with a star in the making, Cole Caufield.

The speedy winger was on pace for a big year before suffering a shoulder injury that capped his year at just 46 games. His top linemates, Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach, will hope to mimic his offensive prowess and production this season. The addition of Alex Newhook from Colorado solidifies some toughness and size on their second-line pairing. Josh Anderson had a nice season with 21 goals and 32 points.

The blue line is one of the youngest in the National Hockey League, with 32-year-old David Savard the eldest statesman in a six-pack of skaters led by Michael Matheson. One of the emerging tough guys in the league is Arber Xhekaj (pronounced “Au-ber Jack-eye”) who tips the scales at 6’4″, 238 pounds. He’s had a couple of YouTube-worthy fight clips to check out.

In goal, the emergence of Sam Montembeault last season was a pleasant surprise to Habs fans, as he posted a Save Percentage of just over 90% percent, and won Gold for Team Canada in the World Championships, which seemingly gives him the inside track to start over veteran Jake Allen, who struggled with both injuries and inconsistency last season.

Montreal simply isn’t talented enough to compete in this division or conference this season. The Habs are doing a great job with the rebuild and with more seasoning and development, this club is about two years away from blossoming and making some noise again. Until then, it’s more lottery ball-watching in La Belle Province.

Predicted Order of Finish

1.	Toronto Maple Leafs*
2.	Boston Bruins*
3.	Buffalo Sabres*
4.	Ottawa Senators*
5.	Florida Panthers
6.	Detroit Red Wings
7.	Tampa Bay Lightning
8.	Montreal Canadiens

(* – Playoff Team)

Check out all the updated National Hockey League NHL Standings 2023-24, NHL Scores, predictions, lineups, future NHL odds, team stats, recent news, picks and parlays, and betting tips, right here at Point Spreads Sports Magazine.

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