Now that Santa Claus has completed his latest expedition across North America, millions of boys and girls will get up early to search anxiously beneath the tree for a Red Ryder BB gun or perhaps a pony. St. Nick has never made a habit of extending his altruism to NHL executives, but there’s a first time for everything. When he swept across Edmonton, did he leave an All-Star goaltender for Connor McDavid and the Oilers? On his way through Arizona, did his elves have enough time to build the Coyotes a permanent arena? Did the Blackhawks get a lump of coal? If Santa made stops at all 32 NHL arenas last night, here’s what each team should expect to find in their stockings.

Anaheim Ducks: Patience

3-16 since their surprising 9-6 start to the season, the last thing the Ducks want to hear is that they must stay the course. At 12-19 with a bottom-five offense and bottom-ten defense, Anaheim has plenty of reasons to despair on the surface level, but the team has taken major strides this season despite their brutal cold streak. The Ducks are converting on over 22% of power plays and killing over 80% of penalties, respectable benchmarks that show coach Greg Cronin has a structure in place in Southern California. That’s more than they could say last season, and with future stars Mason McTavish (10G, 21P in 24GP) and Leo Carlsson (8G, 15P in 22GP) already in place, a turnaround is not as far off as some might think.

Arizona Coyotes: A new home

Is there a more glaring need in the NHL than the Coyotes’ search for a new permanent arena? Hopefully Santa has some clout with the Arizona state legislature, because the Yotes are playing their best hockey in years; their defense is the league’s 11th-best thanks to a top pair of J.J. Moser and Sean Durzi and some stellar goaltending from Connor Ingram (2.55 GAA, .919 SV%). With Clayton Keller (12G, 30P in 32GP) on pace for another big season and the Central Division in shambles, the 17-13-2 Coyotes are in the mix for a postseason berth during their exile in Arizona State’s Mullett Arena. Owner Alex Meruelo must parlay his club’s on-ice success into a new building; the fifth-biggest city in America needs more than 5,000 seats.

Boston Bruins: A top-six center

Some narratives don’t need updating. The B’s lost future Hall-of-Famer and captain Patrice Bergeron to retirement in the offseason, ending nearly two decades of excellence on their top line. To add insult to injury, David Krejci called it quits for good after a 56-point comeback season in 2022-23. Pavel Zacha is back in the lineup after a stint on the IR, but he and Charlie Coyle have struggled to drive play despite combining for an impressive 42 points. Will they hold up as the Bruins’ 1-2 punch up the middle in the spring? With virtually no trade capital at their disposal, Santa might be Boston’s best bet at getting a shiny new centerman.

Buffalo Sabres: Depth on D

The Sabres knew their biggest hurdle on the road back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs was their lack of beef on defense beyond former No.1 overall picks in Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power. They tried to scratch that itch in the offseason with veterans Eric Johnson and Connor Clifton, but that pair has gotten caved in at even strength, controlling a shocking 34.94% of high-danger chances. Coach Don Granato earned a stay of execution when his team responded to a humiliating 9-4 loss to Columbus by in turn, humiliating the Maple Leafs 9-3, but he needs better personnel to turn around the league’s third-worst defense. The goaltending has been nothing to write home about, either.

Calgary Flames: The trade deadline

Poor Calgary fans. Their Flames looked primed for years of contention when they won the Pacific Division two seasons ago, but the team’s morale and offense never recovered after stars Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk forced their way out of Alberta. The exodus hasn’t stopped, and first-year GM Craig Conroy has already traded sniper Tyler Toffoli and hard-hitting defenseman Nikita Zadorov. The former team captain should go the whole nine yards and sell everything that isn’t bolted down before the March 8 deadline. Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri have been disastrous as this team’s pseudo-star players, and Conroy must be eager to start fresh. That could be a lucrative proposition if he plays his cards right; pending UFAs Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev, and Noah Hanifin are among the league’s most sought-after trade chips.

Carolina Hurricanes: Urgency

Playing winning hockey well under the cap and sans a major star was cute for a while, but the Hurricanes are out of passes for flaming out in the postseason. This is an NHL blue blood, and it’s time they started acting like one, especially after an uncharacteristically free-spending offseason that brought power forward Michael Bunting and veteran blueliner Dmitry Orlov to Raleigh. At a combined $12.25 million AAV, they erased Carolina’s cap space and all but ensured defensive d-man Brett Pesce and Finnish sniper Teuvo Teravainen won’t be back for 2024-2025. The heat is on for the Canes, lodged in fifth place in a Metropolitan Division they have dominated for years, to win now.

Chicago Blackhawks: Integrity, transparency, character, etc., etc.

For the engaged NHL fan, it was disturbing to see a Chicago Blackhawks organization that covered up a sexual abuse scandal for a decade land a Crosby-McDavid caliber prospect like Conner Bedard. The Arizona Coyotes and Ottawa Senators have lost picks for less. GM Kyle Davidson thought he’d show that the team turned a new leaf by summarily axing veteran winger Corey Perry for a drunken debacle, but when he sat on his hands for days without saying what Perry had done to effectively get himself fired, he let hurtful speculation run wild on social media. The Blackhawks are as distracted by creepy extracurriculars as ever. They need to get a grip, but they probably will end up with a stocking full of coal instead.

Colorado Avalanche: Backend production

Who are the Colorado Avalanche? The dominant runaway train that stormed through the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs, or just another top-heavy team that cannot keep goals out like this year’s Lightning or any year’s Oilers. The Avs have the best triple threat in the NHL in Nathan MacKinnon (18G, 54P in 34GP), Cale Makar (31A in 29GP), and Mikko Rantanen (108G since 2021), but despite adding Ryan Johansen and Ross Colton to shore up their depth up the middle in the offseason, their scoring falls off a cliff after their three MVP hopefuls and power forward forward Val Nichushkin; Makar’s partner Devon Toews is their fourth-highest scorer with 17 points. Relying on a select few studs never ends well in the playoffs, especially with Alexander Georgiev struggling to recapture his 2022-23 form in goal. The record reads 20-11-2, but fans in Denver are rightfully skeptical after being undone by their depth (or lack thereof) last season.

Columbus Blue Jackets: New upper-management

The Columbus Jackets aren’t cursed; they’re just poorly run. Despite combining future stars like Kent Johnson and Adam Fantilli with big-ticket veteran acquisitions like Ivan Provorov and Johnny Gaudreau, this team sits 14th in the Eastern Conference, having played the second-most games in the NHL. It’s not GM Jarmo Kekalinen’s fault that Patrik Laine cannot stay healthy or Gaudreau is a far cry from his Calgary vintage, but by infecting his locker room with noted sociopath Mike Babcock and sending replacement coach Pascal Vincent into the breach with no preseason, he blew a major opportunity for a team in desperate need of improvement. It’s time for a change.

Dallas Stars: The old Jake Oettinger

It’s difficult to nail a roster in the salary cap era, but Dallas GM Jim Nill earned the Jim Gregory Award for executive of the year last season for combining veteran scorers Joe Pavelski, Tyler Seguin, and Jamie Benn with an ascendant core group of defenseman Miro Heiskanen, Californian goalscorer Jason Robertson, and two-way center Roope Hintz. Free agent acquisition Matt Duchene (11G, 29P in 31GP) has brought an already excellent top-six to a boil in 2023-24, but there is an unexpected hole in Nill’s carefully curated team in the form of netminder Jake Oettinger. “Otter” was a top-five finisher for the 2023 Vezina Trophy thanks to a 37-win campaign but has struggled to recover from an ugly postseason. The 25-year-old’s miscues have become a trend, and his substandard numbers (2.93 GAA, .901SV%) are a wart on a Stars team desperate for another crack at the Cup.

Detroit Red Wings: An apology to Steve Yzerman

Steve Yzerman earned plenty of sideways glances for the top line he assembled piece-by-piece over the past two seasons. When he paid Dylan Larkin long-term last spring, critics wondered whether the speedy captain was a legitimate top center. He brought Alex DeBrincat home to Michigan to questions over whether his goalscoring pedigree was enough to fix a sluggish offense, and completed the puzzle earlier this season with Patrick Kane, the mercurial legend with an aversion to backchecking. As it turns out, the three have been dynamite; Kane has 10 points in 10 games alongside the now-healthy Larkin (12G, 29P in 28GP) and former Blackhawks teammate DeBrincat (team-leading 32P). Not all of Yzerman’s gambits have paid off (Andrew Copp has especially struggled), but the greatest living Red Wing didn’t miss on his first unit.

Edmonton Oilers: See last year’s list

Does Santa’s GPS skip from Calgary straight to British Columbia? The Oilers keep writing him for depth scoring, goaltending, a mulligan on Darnell Nurse’s contract, and a prospect pool, but nothing has been forthcoming. Connor Brown, the would-be solution to the Oilers’ nonexistent bottom-six, has a single point to his credit and is now picking up healthy scratches. Journeyman Calvin Pickard has far better numbers in goal than 2023 All-Star Stuart Skinner or $5 million Bakersfield Condor Jack Campbell. Cap space, much less draft capital, is a foreign concept to GM Ken Holland. A Stanley Cup for Connor McDavid might be lost in the mail along with all of Edmonton’s letters to the North Pole.

Florida Panthers: An appropriate hype train

After the Florida Panthers emptied the bucket on their way to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, the working theory was that they’d foot the bill in 2023-24. Top defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour needed offseason surgery after working long hours for 21 games. Franchise lynchpin and Hart Trophy finalist Matthew Tkachuk, held together by duct tape and a prayer by the time Vegas lifted the Cup, would spend his offseason recuperating instead of improving. When the season finally began, though, the Cats were no worse off thanks to the contributions of Gustav Forsling and resurgent veteran Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Tkachuk will not record his third-consecutive 100-point season, but with four points in his last five, he finally looks like himself. With Sam Reinhart (19G, 40P in 33GP) picking up the slack on offense, Ekblad and Montour back in the lineup, and Sergei Bobrovsky (2.50 GAA) rolling back the clock in goal, no one will call the second-placed Panthers a fluke if they go deep this postseason.

Los Angeles Kings: A second Cam Talbot

The LA Kings are the team for the modern NHL. They feature size (Dubois, Byfield), skill (Kempe, Fiala), defense (Kopitar, Anderson), and depth at every position. In the offseason, GM Rob Blake bet he wouldn’t need to break the bank for a goaltender that could hack it behind such formidable skaters. So far, Cam Talbot has proved him right, playing excellently on a paltry $1 million one-year contract. The 36-year-old is facing the second-lowest volume in the league, but backup Phoenix Copley struggled to a .870SV% under the same circumstances before going down hurt. The Kings cannot afford for the same to happen to Talbot. Maybe Santa has another bargain bin goalie lying around? The Kings are too capped out to insure themselves against a Talbot injury otherwise.

Minnesota Wild: A rebuild

It’s hard to gripe with what John Hynes has achieved during the early goings of his tenure on the Minnesota Wild bench. The defensive identity Dean Evason cultivated over parts of four seasons in the Land of 1,000 Lakes came unraveled before his firing, but Hynes has gotten this Wild team back on track with the help of a streaking Filip Gustavsson (1.75 GAA since the coaching change). Is that a good thing? Gustavsson, Russian superstar Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, and dominant rookie defenseman Brock Faber are young enough to rebuild around, so it seems strange that GM Bill Guerin is so committed to having another crack with his veteran core. Mats Zuccarello, Marcus Foligno, and Jared Spurgeon have yet to win him a playoff series, but Guerin seems content to try again.

Montreal Canadiens: David Reinbacher to be the answer on D

The Montreal Canadiens were forced into a rebuild when future Hall-of-Famers Shea Weber and Carey Price were forced into retirement by injuries, and so far, things have moved at a snail’s pace. There are pieces to like in Montreal, like the 1-2 punch of captain Nick Suzuki and diminutive winger Cole Caulfield or rapidly improving former first-overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky, but they’re invariably forwards. On the blue line, top option Mike Matheson does most of his work in the scoring column and will not be around when this team is ready to compete, while Arber Xhekaj offers more heart than skill. Only the lowly Blue Jackets have surrendered more goals over the past three seasons, and though Sam Montembeault has shown promise in the cage, Austrian David Reinbacher cannot arrive at the Bell Centre soon enough. The Habs need the help.

Nashville Predators: A long-term vision

Years of over-reliance on stud goaltender Juuse Saros and superhuman captain Roman Josi came to a head last season, when David Poile fired coach John Hynes and retired as Nashville Predators GM after 25 years of service. Incoming GM Barry Trotz brought in highly-coveted New Jersey assistant Andrew Brunette to run his bench with a new vision of … over-relying on Josi and Saros. Trotz made a zero-sum move by buying out Matt Duchene only to replace him with the equally capable Ryan O’Reilly, then handed Ryan Johansen to the division rival Avalanche before signing veteran hand Gus Nyqvist. Is this a rebuild or not? Brunette is coaching the heck out of the Preds, but they again find themselves on the playoff bubble at 19-15. Too bad to be good and too good to be bad, Nashville might have to wait another season to escape the first round for the first time since 2018.

New Jersey Devils: Time machine, Connor Hellebuyck

Connor Hellebuyck to New Jersey made perfect sense during the summer. The former Vezina winner must have known his run to the Western Conference Final in 2018 was as close as he would get to a Stanley Cup in Winnipeg. The Devils were his perfect suitor, an explosive, contending team with enough youth and talent to move for a star goalie without gutting their roster. New Jersey GM Tom Fitzgerald never pulled the trigger, confident the competition between Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid, who excelled during the 2022-23 regular season and 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, respectively, would yield a quality starter. Vanecek (3.35 GAA, .883SV%) and Schmid (5-7-1, 3.26 GAA) have taken turns going ice cold for a New Jersey team that is -6 on the season, and with the Jets in a playoff spot at Christmas, Hellebuyck and his fat new contract aren’t going anywhere. What Fitzgerald wouldn’t give for a redo.

New York Islanders: The best of both worlds

The New York Islanders, in a stark departure from everything Lou Lamoriello believes, are a fun hockey team. Yes, the same Islanders that turned anti-hockey into an art en route to a pair of Eastern Conference Final appearances, and continued to play three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust hockey even as Lane Lambert replaced Barry Trotz on the bench. The Islanders are fun, Mat Barzal is scoring goals, Bo Horvat is back, Noah Dobson (33P in 32GP, +19) is a Norris contender, and pigs are surely flying somewhere in Nassau County. Unfortunately, the Isles seem to have lost some of their defensive moxy along the way, and all-universe goaltender Ilya Sorokin is wearing a 3.04 GAA despite saving .915% of attempts. It doesn’t help that half the blue line is injured; when Lamoriello stalwarts Scott Mayfield, Ryan Pulock, and Adam Pelech return from the IR, the 16-8-9 Islanders could be a legitimate threat in the East.

New York Rangers: This to be the year

Sure, every team wants the Stanley Cup, but not even Santa can make that happen for the San Jose Sharks or Columbus Blue Jackets. His magic only goes so far. For the New York Rangers, though, it’s worth a try. The Blueshirts failed their moonshot spectacularly last season, getting smacked down by the New Jersey Devils somewhere in the stratosphere despite trading for Pat Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko at the deadline. If that was their last, best stab at the Cup, no one told Peter Laviolette. His Rangers are rolling through the ‘Met’ in a season that has seen Erik Gustafsson (16A in 32GP) and Jonathan Quick (9-1-1, 2.27 GAA) legitimately press Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin for time on the first powerplay and in goal, respectively. Weird things are going New York’s way. Does that make them a team of destiny or a disaster waiting to happen?

Ottawa Senators: A clean bill of health

The Senators moved on from GM Pierre Dorion when and coach D.J. Smith when it became clear the duo could never quite shake the mentality of their rebuilding years to press forward and play winning hockey. Franchise legend Jacques Martin is back on the bench on an interim basis, but steering this team out the Atlantic Division basement will be tough even with so many games in hand. Martin’s men snapped a six-game losing streak on Saturday, but injuries to Thomas Chabot and Mathieu Joseph (19P, +12 in 25GP) will not make righting the ship any easier. Chabot is a defensive leader on a team that has seen countless personnel changes since his debut in 2017-2018, while Joseph, a probable cap casualty last summer, is enjoying a career season on the wing. Martin needs them in the lineup to help his new (old) team establish the identity that eluded them under Smith.

Philadelphia Flyers: Cutter Gauthier

In their second year under coach John Tortorella, the Flyers have cleaned up their act in a big way, allowing just 28.61 shots per game en route to a 18-11-4 record, good for second in the Metropolitan Division. Friday’s wonky 7-6 shootout loss to Detroit aside, Philadelphia has installed one of the league’s more reliable defensive structures by coaxing results from veterans like Sean Walker and Nick Seeler. They lack some finishing touch outside of leading scorer Travis Konecny (16G in 33GP), as their anemic 10.58% power play attests to, and the fans on Broad Street must be frustrated that blue chip offensive prospects Cutter Gauthier and Matvei Michkov are so close but so far away; Gauthier could debut as early as this spring and has 13 goals in 17 games for the Boston College Eagles.

Pittsburgh Penguins: An extension for Jake Guentzel

When Kyle Dubas made the trade of the offseason to bring reigning and three-time Norris winner Erik Karlsson to the Steel City, critics wondered how the Swede and 37-year-old powerplay specialist Kris Letang would fit into the same top four; neither are noted for their defensive chops. Karlsson and Letang have made it work on Pittsburgh’s eighth-ranked defense, but with Bryan Rust hurt and Rickard Rakell and Jeff Carter having career worst offensive seasons, the scoring has not been there outside of Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jake Guentzel. The latter needs a big raise; his 35 points are tied with Crosby for the team lead, and without him, things would get ugly for the already floundering Penguins attack. The duo’s 33 goals make up over a third of Pittsburgh’s offensive output.

San Jose Sharks: A glimpse of hope

The Ducks have a number of players who could grow into stars in the coming seasons. The Blue Jackets are a halfway decent roster on paper that has self-sabotaged at every turn. The Blackhawks have Connor Bedard. What do 9-22-3 San Jose Sharks have going for them? There are no solutions in net or on the blue line, all of the best forwards are at least 30 and in desperate need in a move out of the Bay Area, and Will Smith is under impossible pressure to be a star player despite being the fifth-best forward in his class. GM Mike Grier could not get a franchise-changing return for Erik Karlsson because of his mammoth contrac, and it’s hard to imagine his Sharks turning it around in the next five years, let alone this season.

Seattle Kraken: Overtime points

The Seattle Kraken have struggled to replicate the balance of the 2022-23 season that ended in their playoff debut, and have come to rely heavily on Oliver Bjorkstrand (11G, 27P in 35GP) and Vince Dunn (5G, 28P in 35GP) as their primary sources of offense without Jared McCann and Calder-winner Matty Beniers at their best. Seattle is bottom-ten on either end of the ice, but their poor execution in overtime is somehow the only thing keeping them out of the playoff picture in a weak Western Conference. Their nine overtime losses are tied for most in the league, and leaving so many points on the ice will make it difficult to repeat their 2023 postseason heroics. Seattle is just five points adrift of a wild card spot thanks to Dunn, Bjorkstrand, and goaltender Joey Daccord (7-5–8, 2.53 GAA).

St. Louis Blues: No more no-trade clauses ever

Stanley Cup winning coach Craig Berube is gone in St. Louis, and GM Doug Armstrong seems to think he might follow him out the door in the near future. No one can take away what Armstrong and Berube have done for the Blues, but the former has locked the team into some ugly contracts while trying to replicate the magic of 2019. Half of the Blues’ cap space is tied up in contracts to players who are 30 or older and have full trade protection. Torey Krug, Jordan Binnington, and even captain Brayden Schenn are just a few of the Blues making far more than their current level of play deserves and will stick around until they are well past their primes thanks to no-trade clauses. Robert Thomas (13G, 37P in 33GP) has emerged as a legitimate top center, but he can’t keep a roster full of anchors afloat without incoming young talent. Even if new coach Drew Bannister leads St. Louis into the 2024 postseason, the future is bleak.

Tampa Bay Lightning: A third high-end defenseman

The Lightning have missed Ryan McDonagh these past two seasons. ‘Trucker’ gave their top four major flexibility, but when he left for Nashville, Tampa’s defense dropped out of the top ten for the first time since his first full season in Florida. So far in 2023-24, it’s been an outright disaster: the Lightning are the NHL’s fourth-most porous team. Although Victor Hedman has rediscovered his scoring touch with 33 points in 33 games, his pairing with Nic Perbix is not working in its own end, controlling just 43% of expected goals. Coach Jon Cooper is adamant on keeping Hedman and second-in-command Mikhail Sergachev separated to spread their 46 minutes of combined ice time out over the course of a game, but Perbix is struggling outside of the sheltered minutes he got as a rookie. Though Sergachev and Erik Cernak have been uncharacteristically leaky themselves, minus minutes from Hedman are particularly concerning. Is his partner dragging him down, or is the future Hall-of-Famer finally getting old?

Toronto Maple Leafs: Chris Tanev

The Toronto Maple Leafs’ infatuation with Chris Tanev is so blatantly obvious that they might struggle to get the defenseman for a fair price from the Calgary Flames. They need Tanev, and Calgary knows it. Perhaps Toronto GM Brad Treliving’s relationship with his old employers will help him grease some wheels, but he’d better work fast; if T.J. Brodie was ever a top-pair option for a Cup contender, he isn’t in 2023. Puck-moving top blueliner Morgan Reilly would benefit immensely from a steady stay-at-home righty like the 34-year-old Tanev, who has driven play at a dominant clip ever since leaving Vancouver in 2020. The elder Tanev brother would shuffle Brodie and Timothy Liljegren into manageable roles further down the lineup opposite a left side that would feature Reilly, hard hitter Jake McCabe, and veteran Mark Giordano once the latter returns from injury. It’s not the Bruins’ blue line, but it’s a heck of a lot better than anything the Leafs have rolled out so far.

Vancouver Canucks: A clean break from Andrei Kuzmenko

Andrei Kuzmenko can play, and should he become available on the trade market, a slew of teams would gladly eat the entirety of his $5.5 million cap hit to have him on board. The former KHL standout scored 39 goals during his North American debut last season, and at face value, 19 points in 30 games is a decent follow up. The problem is that Kuzmenko’s work ethic has done little to impress coach Rick Tocchet much less president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford. Tocchet has taken a Vancouver team that missed the playoffs last season to the summit of the Pacific Division after 35 games; what he says goes. By scratching the 27-year-old not once, not twice, but three times, the Flyers and Penguins legend has sent a clear message about his thoughts on the winger. J.T. Miller (15G, 48P) and Elias Petterson (13G, 43P) are producing a boatload of offense for the ‘Nucks as is, but perhaps Kuzmenko’s cap hit would be best spent on another horse for Vanoucer’s top six. His relationship with the organization is deteriorating rapidly, and Rutherford would do well to move him on before a “damaged goods” label is applied.

Vegas Golden Knights: A healthy Adin Hill

Adin Hill was the last in a long procession of starting goalies for the Vegas Golden Knights when he helped them win the Stanley Cup during the 2023 postseason, a fact viewers could not avoid thanks to constant broadcast references to his rise from relative obscurity. No one is calling Hill a fourth-stringer now, and the towering netminder’s recent injury absence has made it clear he is a key man for the defending champs. Hill has played all of six minutes this December, and while neither Vegas’s 6-4-1 record during the month nor their three-game skid is reason for panic, the Knights have shipped 3.45 goals per game without him. For context, Hill’s GAA on the season sits at 1.93. Logan Thompson, who had every chance to push Hill for his job throughout the early season, got tagged several times before going down himself. Jiri Patera (3.98 GAA) is now Bruce Cassidy’s top (and only) option, and the coach misses the Vezina-level play of his starter in the worst way.

Washington Capitals: A happy ending to the Alexander Ovechkin saga

It is a testament to the goalscoring genius of Alex Ovechkin that his pursuit of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record ever became a relevant storyline. The records of Gretzky, statistically the greatest athlete who ever lived, are generally so untouchable that even Jaromir Jagr’s pursuit of the No.2 spot in the all-time points chart turned into a media frenzy; Gretzky was so far ahead that displacing Mark Messier for second place was as good as an individual record in most other sports. Still, 92 goals in his age 36 and 37 season lodged Ovi in the hunt for the Great One’s goal mark of 894, and it stood to reason that two more seasons would get him over the line. Year one of that plan has gone awry, and the 38-year-old Ovechkin has become strikingly human with just six goals in 30 games. The hockey world is waiting with bated breath to find out if this is a bump in the road or the end for the Great Eight and his impossible mission.

Winnipeg Jets: Adrenaline

When the Jets re-signed Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck despite the departures of Pierre-Luc Dubois and Blake Wheeler, it seemed they would ride what remained of their core to the bitter end with no real hope for playoff success. At least Scheifele and Hellebuyck, arguably the two signature players of the franchise’s return to Manitoba, would go out as Jets. Instead, Winnipeg has defied logic to tangle for the Central Division crown with Dallas and Colorado teams that viewed them as an afterthought throughout the offseason. When leading scorer Kyle Connor went down for six-to-eight weeks with a knee injury, it seemed the fun was surely over. Not so. The Jets are 4-1-1 since the injury thanks to a monster hot streak from Nikolaj Ehlers, who has 10 points in his last five games. Scheifele (8P since Connor’s injury) and Hellebuyck (2.00 GAA in L5) haven’t been half bad, either. Don’t stop believin’.