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Poll: Which Non-Playoff Team Last Season Will Make It This Year?

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In both conferences, the 2024-25 Stanley Cup playoff race came down to the wire, with the Columbus Blue Jackets missing the cut by two points, and the Calgary Flames tying but losing out via the tiebreaker. Outside of those two, there are a handful of teams that have a legitimate chance to return to the postseason this upcoming season, but the uphill climb isn’t expected to get any easier.

While not entirely impossible (looking at you, 2024-25 Flames), there are a handful of teams we can rule out of the conversation. The Chicago Blackhawks, San Jose Sharks, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Boston Bruins are by no means ruled out of the playoff conversation already, but their odds are nearly insurmountable.

Two of the most popular choices for returning postseason squads come from the Metropolitan Division. Given that it’s hard to expect the Washington Capitals to replicate last season’s unprecedented performance, and the fact that the New Jersey Devils’ competitiveness lies on the shoulders of the health status of Jack Hughes, the Blue Jackets, and the New York Rangers could return to the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2025-26.

Columbus has a major question mark between the pipes, and doesn’t have a true star forward, though they do have a star defenseman in Zach Werenski. Despite a disappointing 2024-25 season, the Rangers are only one year removed from reaching the Eastern Conference Final. They have retooled their roster and hired a new head coach during the offseason.

Although the Flames only missed by a tiebreaker last season, the Utah Mammoth have one of the strongest claims in the West this season. Unfortunately, they play in a difficult Central Division. It’s difficult to pencil in the Mammoth for a top-three spot in the division for 2025-26, but a Wild Card spot shouldn’t be out of the question.

This list is not exhaustive; the Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres, Philadelphia Flyers, Anaheim Ducks, Nashville Predators, and Vancouver Canucks have all expressed their desire to return to the postseason in 2025-26. Still, there are only so many postseason spots to earn, and none of last year’s participants are eager to give up their postseason positioning from this past season. Now it’s your time to choose: which non-playoff team from last season, if any, has the strongest chance for a playoff spot for the upcoming season?

Which Non-Playoff Team Last Season Will Make It This Year?
New York Rangers 16.44% (336 votes)
Utah Mammoth 15.36% (314 votes)
Detroit Red Wings 10.96% (224 votes)
Columbus Blue Jackets 9.54% (195 votes)
Vancouver Canucks 7.73% (158 votes)
Anaheim Ducks 4.89% (100 votes)
Pittsburgh Penguins 4.84% (99 votes)
Philadelphia Flyers 4.75% (97 votes)
Boston Bruins 4.55% (93 votes)
Calgary Flames 4.55% (93 votes)
Buffalo Sabres 4.35% (89 votes)
New York Islanders 4.21% (86 votes)
Nashville Predators 2.69% (55 votes)
Chicago Blackhawks 2.01% (41 votes)
Seattle Kraken 1.76% (36 votes)
San Jose Sharks 1.37% (28 votes)
Total Votes: 2,044

Mobile users click here to vote.

Submit Your Questions For The #PHRMailbag

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We are effectively near the midway point of the NHL’s summer season.  Free agency has slowed down with teams looking for bargains while the last few players of note are holding out hope that a team will improve their offer or find a way to make a trade to open up extra cap space.  Meanwhile, the trade market has stayed cool but that could change at any time.

So, with a general lull in the summer period, it’s a good time to reopen the mailbag to talk about what has happened and what could still be coming.  Our last call for questions saw enough submissions to fill three columns.  The first included discussion about Bowen Byram’s future in Buffalo, the state of goaltending, and the K’Andre Miller trade.  Topics in the second included Washington’s potential forward logjam, tanking in professional sports, and the best and worst summers so far.  Lastly, the third covered what’s next for Montreal, why the Devils haven’t been able to clear Ondrej Palat’s deal, contenders for the Gavin McKenna sweepstakes, and more.

You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter/X or by leaving a comment down below. The mailbag will run this weekend.

Snapshots: Ekblad, Red Wings, Gadowsky, Desnoyers

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On the heels of winning their second consecutive Stanley Cup championship, the Florida Panthers continued to impress the hockey world by re-signing their three biggest pending unrestricted free agents entering the offseason: Sam Bennett, Brad Marchand, and Aaron Ekblad. Even more impressively, the Panthers were able to re-sign the latter two for deals well short of their projected value on the open market.

Still, it’s well known that Ekblad especially turned down some serious money to return to the only organization he’s ever known. In a new mailbag with James Mirtle of The Athletic, Mirtle claims that the Detroit Red Wings were ready and willing to give Ekblad a notable payday to move north for likely the remaining years of his professional career. While that may be true, we’ll never know what the Red Wings were willing to offer Ekblad since he never reached unrestricted free agency; therefore, he couldn’t negotiate with other teams.

Mirtle argued that Ekblad’s situation might be different due to his strong affection for the Panthers organization. However, most top-tier free agents are reluctant to sign with Detroit, as the team has not made the postseason since the 2015-16 season and has not won a playoff series since the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign. Still, the Red Wings will enter the 2025-26 season with the seventh-most cap space of any team, and will have even more for what is shaping up to be a loaded free agent class next summer.

Other snapshots:

  • The new U.S. Collegiate Select Team for the 2025 Spengler Cup has named its head coach for the upcoming tournament. According to Adam Kimelman, the deputy managing editor of NHL.com, the head coach of the new team will be Guy Gadowsky, the current head coach of the NCAA’s Penn State University. Gadowsky has coached the Nittany Lions for the last 15 years, being the program’s first head coach while playing under the NCAA banner, and was responsible for bringing in the biggest recruit in NCAA history a few weeks ago, Gavin McKenna.
  • Earlier today, it was announced that Caleb Desnoyers, the recent fourth overall pick of the Utah Mammoth, had undergone wrist surgery and would miss the next three months of action. In somewhat of a silver lining, despite dealing with injuries to both of his wrists throughout last season, Belle Fraser of the Salt Lake City Tribune reports that Desnoyers only underwent surgery on one of his wrists. This likely shortened the recovery timeline and is a good vote of confidence that the medical team he’s working with believes rehabbing it will be enough.

Did The Rangers Improve This Summer?

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The New York Rangers surprised a lot of folks last season, and not in a good way. An Eastern Conference Finalist in the 2023-24 season, the Rangers failed to make the playoffs last year, falling apart in the second half of the season amidst a string of controversial roster moves and underperforming veterans. The poor play and negativity surrounding the team led to a string of roster moves that saw New York move on from several long-serving veterans and pivot to younger players and new veterans, as well as a new voice behind the bench in head coach Mike Sullivan. All of the moves point to the Rangers trying to compete for the playoffs this season and get back to the top of the Eastern Conference standings, but have they done enough to get there? The Rangers are effectively hoping to redeem themselves this upcoming season after letting last year get away from them due to a litany of factors, and it’s always difficult to bet against a group seeking redemption, especially when a two-time Stanley Cup Champion is leading them.

The Rangers swung for the fences in their coaching search and landed one of the best in the business in Sullivan. The former Pittsburgh Penguins bench boss is a proven winner and has always garnered the respect of his players, especially his stars. Sullivan effectively navigated some prominent personalities during his time with the Penguins, but was able to get the best out of almost all of his players. The Penguins were a dumpster fire when Sullivan took over in 2015, and it appeared as though Pittsburgh was well on its way to squandering the primes of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Phil Kessel. However, once Sullivan took over, the Penguins went on an unprecedented run of dominance that saw them win two Stanley Cups in his first 19 months on the job.

Sullivan can hardly be blamed for the ending of his time in Pittsburgh, as the Ron Hextall years took the Penguins from legitimate Stanley Cup contenders to a team that has missed the playoffs for three straight seasons. Those final three seasons saw Sullivan nearly guide some bad Penguins rosters to the playoffs, only to fall just short of the postseason. However, in New York, the Rangers are built to win now, even if they have spent the last nine months moving on from many veterans. Sullivan will be tasked with getting the most out of Mika Zibanejad and several other Rangers who had a down year last season.

The coaching change was hardly the only move New York made this summer, as the Rangers shipped out longtime veteran forward Chris Kreider and a 2025 fourth-round pick for Carey Terrance and a 2025 third-round pick. Kreider was an effective forward for a lot of years in New York, but the writing was on the wall for the past year that he would be shown the door. He could flourish again in Anaheim alongside some of their young stars, but the Rangers did well to get back two future assets in exchange for the aging veteran. The move didn’t do much to improve this season’s roster; however, it opened up valuable cap space that allowed the Rangers to make other moves.

Aside from Kreider, the Rangers also moved on from defenseman K’Andre Miller in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes. Miller figured to be a top-four fixture in New York, but the Rangers opted to cash in on the two-way defender and did okay to get back defensive prospect Scott Morrow in the trade, along with a conditional first-round pick and a second-round pick. While the trade weakened the Rangers for the next season, they did immediately turn around and sign Vladislav Gavrikov to a seven-year deal, which should improve their shutdown defense and help on the penalty kill. Now, the move to essentially replace Miller with Gavrikov will improve team defense. It does come at an offensive cost as Miller is the far superior offensive contributor; however, his defensive game leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall, it’s hard to call the Rangers’ defense improved, given that they are currently constructed to deploy Carson Soucy and William Borgen as their second pairing behind Gavrikov and Adam Fox. Now, no disrespect to either man, but that pairing isn’t likely to scare too many opponents, and it could allow teams to matchup favorably against that second pairing, exposing what can best be described as an average defensive core.

Upfront in the forward group, the Rangers didn’t do anything other than re-sign Matt Rempe, Adam Edstrom and Juuso Parssinen. The Rangers do have Gabriel Perreault in the fold now, but it’s hard to say whether or not he is ready to make an impact at the NHL level.

The Rangers do still have a solid top line with Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafreniere. Still, outside of that, it’s hard to say what they will get from J.T. Miller, Zibanejad and the second line. If Miller and Zibanejad play the way they have in the years leading up to last year, the Rangers should see improvement as a team. However, if Zibanejad and Miller can’t reach previous levels, it will handcuff the Rangers and put a ton of pressure on their top line.

In the end, Igor Shesterkin’s play will likely decide the fate of the Rangers as it did last year. If Shesterkin can get back to his Vezina Trophy-winning level of play, the Rangers will probably be good enough to come out of the Metropolitan Division. But if he plays the way he did last season, the Rangers could fall to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings in a hurry. New York is not built to win with average goaltending and will likely require a Vezina-caliber season from Shesterkin to get a sniff at the playoffs.

Ultimately, the Rangers are banking on significant internal improvement as well as the rub from  Sullivan’s coaching and a bit of youth being injected into the lineup. It’s not what you would call a foolproof plan, but there is a remote possibility that the Rangers are better thanks to the minor tweaks and Sullivan’s coaching. That being said, there is also a possibility of a learning curve for Sullivan in New York, and perhaps the pressure of the Big Apple brings a more challenging environment for Sullivan to pad his resume.

In any event, the Rangers roster is worse than the one that left the ice at the end of last season, and Sullivan is going to have to find a way to light a fire under the holdovers who performed poorly last season. He’s done it in the past and gotten career years out of many players, so it remains to be seen just how much Sullivan can extract from this poorly constructed roster.

Photo by Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

Minor Transactions: Kempe, Novak, Berger

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Former Coyotes forward Mario Kempe is continuing his career overseas on a one-year contract with Austria’s EC-KAC, the club announced.

The older brother of top Kings winger Adrian Kempe is entering his 18th professional season, the vast majority of which were spent in Europe. Now 36, he was a fifth-round pick of the Flyers back in 2007 but only played five games for their AHL affiliate in 2008-09 before returning overseas. His only NHL experience came later in his career with Arizona, recording a 6-7–13 scoring line in 70 games across the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.

Injuries have diminished the once-effective scorer in recent years. He spent last season in Finland with Tappara, scoring 11 points in 30 games for the Liiga club. He now joins EC-KAC in the ICEHL – still a major pro league in Europe, but not at the level of the KHL, SHL, Liiga, or Swiss NL. He’s spent most of his career in his native Sweden, recording 56 goals and 115 points in 328 career SHL games for Djurgårdens IF, MODO Hockey, Rögle BK, and Luleå HF.

More moves from around the hockey world:

  • The Coachella Valley Firebirds, the Kraken’s AHL affiliate, announced today they’ve signed forward Jakov Novak to a one-year deal. He spent the last two years in the Canadiens organization on minor-league deals with AHL Laval and ECHL Trois-Rivières. He was over a point-per-game for the latter club last season (57 in 53 GP) en route to a Kelly Cup championship. The 26-year-old winger was a 2018 seventh-round pick of the Senators but had his signing rights later traded to Montreal, which never signed him to an NHL deal.
  • The Flyers’ AHL affiliate, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, are signing left-shot defender Carter Berger, Tony Androckitis of Inside AHL Hockey reports. Berger, 25, was a fourth-round pick by the Panthers in 2019 but never signed. He spent his first pro season last year under contract with AHL Hartford but played almost exclusively on assignment to ECHL Bloomington, where he had an 8-25–33 scoring line with a -7 rating in 67 games.

Mammoth’s Caleb Desnoyers Has Wrist Surgery, Out Three Months

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Mammoth center Caleb Desnoyers, whom they selected fourth overall in this year’s draft, has undergone successful wrist surgery, the team announced Thursday. He’ll be sidelined for approximately 12 weeks while recovering, keeping him out of training camp and delaying his season debut until early November.

Whether that debut comes in the NHL with Utah or back with the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats remains to be seen, but it’ll likely be the latter. Desnoyers wasn’t viewed as a likely selection to make the jump to the NHL in his post-draft season anyway, and a lack of training camp time to show he can hang with the big guns definitely won’t help his case.

Desnoyers has been dealing with wrist issues for nearly a year. He declined to participate in pre-draft combine testing after playing through injuries to both of his wrists since November, he told Scott Wheeler of The Athletic back in June.

While his initial MRI indicated he would be able to rehab his wrist issues without surgery – an assessment Mammoth general manager Bill Armstrong concurred with, per Belle Fraser of the Salt Lake Tribune – something’s changed in the last several weeks. If his subsequent recovery goes to plan, though, it won’t take too big a bite out of a pivotal point in his development.

More of a cerebral-type center with decent size and some room still to grow into his 6’2″ frame, Desnoyers was among the most decorated players in the QMJHL last season. After recording 84 points and a +51 rating in 56 games for the Wildcats, he was named the league’s Best Professional Prospect, their Personality of the Year, and was included on the league-wide First All-Star Team at season’s end. The St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, native also added 30 points in 19 postseason games en route to a league championship, leading the playoffs with 21 assists and earning MVP honors.

Desnoyers is the highest-drafted player out of the QMJHL since the Rangers took Alexis Lafrenière first overall in 2020. While he may need an additional year of runway, the Mammoth are likely anticipating him joining them full-time for the 2026-27 season to complement an expertly constructed young center corps already headlined by Logan Cooley.

Flyers Believe Tyson Foerster Will Be Ready For Opening Night

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Flyers general manager Daniel Brière believes winger Tyson Foerster “should be ready for the season,” he told Bill Meltzer of NHL.com and Hockey Hot Stove.

Foerster had an elbow surgery earlier in the offseason aimed at addressing an infection he developed following an injury sustained while playing for Canada at the World Championship. Brière told Meltzer that “everything looks good right now” in terms of Foerster’s recovery, signaling the results of his reported follow-up MRI in late July were promising.

That knowledge may have played a small part in their joint decision to have 2025 top pick Porter Martone make the jump to NCAA hockey with Michigan State this season instead of having him compete for an NHL job in camp. A Foerster absence in camp and at the beginning of the regular season would have opened up another opportunity for one of the Flyers’ myriad young wingers to get a taste of NHL action, but if the team is anticipating him being available, that’s a top-six job they no longer need to worry about for the first few weeks of the year.

Getting a healthy Foerster out of the gate is a crucial step toward any postseason hopes the Flyers have. The 23-year-old is fresh off a career-high 25-goal season – second on Philly last year behind star rookie Matvei Michkov – and signed a two-year, $7.5MM extension in May to keep him away from restricted free agency. He’ll be penciled into a top-six role, which could be on a line with captain Sean Couturier or offseason trade pickup Trevor Zegras if he’s deployed down the middle.

Panthers Sign Mike Benning To Two-Way Contract

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The Panthers have signed RFA defenseman Mike Benning, according to a team release. The deal is a two-way pact, although financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Benning remains in the Florida organization after spending his first two professional seasons with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers while he played out his entry-level contract. While he missed nearly 20 games last season due to injury, he upped his offensive production to 23 assists and 32 points in 54 games after posting 26 points in 72 games in his rookie season for Charlotte. That wasn’t enough to get him an NHL call-up, though, and he became an RFA this summer without a top-level game to his name.

As a 10.2(c) player with fewer than three years of professional experience, Benning was ineligible to sign an offer sheet or to request an arbitration hearing upon receiving a qualifying offer in June. He was locked into a new deal with the Panthers as a result, one that presumably includes a raise over the $80K minors salary dictated by his ELC and maintains his waiver-exempt status for one more season.

A fourth-round pick by the Cats in 2020, Benning always faced an uphill battle for NHL minutes because of his 5’9″, 176-lb frame. Despite that, he was a dominant two-way threat in college at the University of Denver. His standout sophomore season in 2021-22 saw him record a 15-23–38 scoring line with a +32 rating in 41 appearances. Not only did he help the Pioneers to an NCAA championship, but he was also named the MVP of the national tournament. He recorded 34 points in 39 games the following season to be named the NCHC’s best offensive defenseman before turning pro with the Panthers in 2023.

Because of his underwhelming frame, he’ll need to become an undeniable offensive force at the minor-league level to sniff an NHL role. While he’s steadily improved since making his pro debut, that hasn’t quite happened yet. Today’s deal gives him another year of runway and ideally at least one call-up opportunity to prove he could at least be effective as a power-play specialist.

The Panthers have now filled 45 of their 50 contract slots for 2025-26. They have no other unsigned RFAs remaining, at least among players who haven’t already agreed to contracts overseas.

Morning Notes: Hutson, Papaioannou, Rodrigue

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Extension talks between the Canadiens and pending 10.2(c) RFA Lane Hutson are still in their preliminary stages but have been “very amicable,” sources tell RG’s Marco D’Amico.

D’Amico deep dives into a couple of peculiarities impacting Hutson’s next deal, the first of which is his inability to receive an offer sheet next summer due to his lack of professional experience. That takes significant pressure off the Canadiens to rush things with the reigning Calder Trophy winner while also somewhat limiting Hutson’s leverage to command north of $10MM per season on a mid-to-long-term deal, as some have speculated.

After erupting for 60 assists and 66 points in all 82 games in his first crack at the NHL, Hutson will be up for his first standard contract at just 22 years old with five years of team control remaining. That means a long-term deal may not be in the cards – a four-year contract would give them one more try at negotiating with Hutson under team control and would allow him to land a payday at age 26 amid his peak.

That could result in a more conservative cap hit in the $8.8MM to $9.5MM range when an extension does get done eventually, D’Amico writes, citing other 10.2(c) comparables in the past few years like Brock Faber, Quinn Hughes, and Jake Sanderson. They’re also likely keeping talks quiet until another 10.2(c) RFA defenseman, Luke Hughes, signs his next deal with the Devils to give Hutson’s camp a more recent comparable to work with.

More from around hockey today:

  • The ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers have named Ryan Papaioannou as their new head coach, their NHL parent Penguins announced. Papaioannou, 41, had been the GM and head coach of the junior ’A’ Brooks Bandits since 2009-10, spending nearly all of that time in the Alberta Junior Hockey League until they moved to the British Columbia Hockey League last season. He guided the Bandits to five AJHL titles, one BCHL title, and won AJHL Coach of the Year honors three times (2013, 2019, 2022). He succeeds Derek Army, who left to become an assistant coach with the AHL’s Colorado Eagles, as Pittsburgh’s second-tier affiliate bench boss.
  • Former Oilers depth netminder Olivier Rodrigue has signed a one-year contract with Kazakhstan’s Barys Astana in the KHL, per a club announcement. The 25-year-old had spent the last five years in Edmonton’s system, primarily with AHL Bakersfield, but was not given a qualifying offer this summer following a tough campaign. He was limited to a .897 SV%, 3.12 GAA, and an 18-16-8 record in 41 showings for Bakersfield. He also made his NHL debut, allowing four goals on 29 shots across one start and one relief appearance.

League Notes: Berglund, Brazeau, Gorges

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In an effort to strengthen the team’s depth chart and offer lineup flexibility for new head coach Dan Muse, Pittsburgh Penguins GM Kyle Dubas signed forward Justin Brazeau to a low-key, two-year, $3MM contract this offseason. Brazeau, in turn, is looking to build on the confidence he’s developed over the past few seasons, per team reporter Michelle Crechiolo.

Brazeau, 27, made the most of his first full NHL season last year. In 57 games for the Boston Bruins, the 6’6″, 220-pound winger averaged 12:58 of ice time per night and produced 10 goals and 20 points. He was then flipped to the Minnesota Wild in March, but couldn’t find similar offensive production, posting just two points in 19 games. Still, he finished the season with career highs across the board, including games played (76), goals (11), points (22), hits (123), and blocked shots (38). After bouncing around the ECHL and AHL for much of his pro career, Brazeau is looking to continue to build on his growth from last season.

“With every game, every day in the NHL, I think my confidence has kind of started to build and grow, getting adjusted to the speed of the game and the timings and stuff like that,” Brazeau said. “So, I don’t think it’s any one thing in particular. I think it’s just kind of that confidence and knowing that you belong in this league and you can be a good player.”

Brazeau, whom Dubas originally signed to his first pro contract during their time with the Toronto Maple Leafs, seems to fit the type of player the Penguins targeted this offseason. While it’s still unclear what head coach Dan Muse’s system will emphasize, the organization has clearly prioritized adding size and physicality to the lineup. Alongside Brazeau, Pittsburgh also brought in physically imposing players like forward Anthony Mantha and defensemen Connor Clifton and Alexander Alexeyev. The team also re-signed depth forward Bokondji Imama, who racked up 45 hits and 30 penalty minutes in just 16 games last season.

Elsewhere around the league:

  • The World Junior Summer Showcase (WJSS) recently wrapped up, and several prospects impressed on the international stage, including Philadelphia Flyers 2024 second-round pick Jack Berglund. As team reporter Bill Meltzer outlines, the 19-year-old native of Sweden produced seven points in five WJSS games, which included two even-strength goals and two power-play goals. Berglund, who already stands at 6’2″, 210 pounds, also showcased a physical brand of hockey and mixed it up several times against Team USA and Team Finland. A center with strong defensive grades, Berglund spent most of last season playing with Färjestad BK of the SHL, Sweden’s top professional league. He posted just three points in 17 games, but served as one of the youngest members of the team. With a solid showing at the WJSS and his North American pro debut on the horizon, Berglund will be a player to watch for the Flyers.
  • NHL veteran and alum Josh Gorges has been added to the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets coaching staff, per a team release. Gorges, 40, appeared in 783 games over 13 NHL seasons, and most recently laced it up with the Buffalo Sabres during the 2017-18 season. The rugged defender produced over 1,500 blocked shots and 1,000 hits during his career, which included stops in San Jose, Montreal, and Buffalo. In the late 2000s, Gorges was a staple in the Habs lineup, appearing in 80 or more games on three different occasions. The announcement is a bit of a homecoming for Gorges, as he played four seasons with Kelowna from 2000-2004.

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