The Stanley Cup bandwagon-hopper's guide to the 16 teams you could root for

It took a bit longer that expected – thanks for the suspense, Columbus – but we’ve got our 16 playoff teams. That means we’ve also got our 16 teams that missed, and those fan bases have a choice to make.

Stay neutral, and just root for the best playoff hockey possible? A very valid option. Root against your team’s rivals, and hope they lose in a way that makes them sad? We’ve all been there. Sit on the sidelines and sulk, acting like you don’t even care who wins? A bit unseemly, but understandable.

And then there’s the most controversial option: Pick a new team, just for the postseason. Yes, it’s the dreaded bandwagon pick, a path that some fans find untenable. If that’s you, feel free to check out now. But if you’re open to at least considering a bandwagon pick, you want to at least take the right one. That’s where this post comes in, as we’ll rank the 16 playoff teams from worst to best in terms of the bandwagon-ability.

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Win our prediction contest by getting this one easy question right (you won't)

The NHL playoffs are back, or will be in a few days. And that means its time for the annual playoff prediction contest, an incredibly simple single-question test that you will almost certainly fail.

We tried this last year, and readers seemed to enjoy it. A few of you even did reasonably well. But not many, and that was in a year where the postseason didn’t serve up many surprises. Let’s see how things go this time around.

All you need to do is leave a comment below, with your answer to our single catch-all question.

 

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NHL weekend rankings: A top 16, oddly specific predictions and Gold Plan standings

Welcome to the last Weekend Rankings of the 2024-25 season.

Longtime readers know what that means: You’re getting a Top 16 instead of a Top 5, with every playoff team ranked. We’ll also check in on what the Gold Plan standings would be looking like in the Bottom 5, and we’ll even make a few oddly specific predictions.

When the schedule first came out, I was a little bit nervous about having the season end on a Thursday, since that meant the last rankings would come out when each team still had a game or two left. What if there was a furious race down to the wire, and I couldn’t do a Top 16 because there were 20 or more teams still battling it out for the final spots?

Luckily, the NHL heard my concerns and responded accordingly, delivering an absolute dud of a late-season race in which we basically already know all the playoff teams and most of the matchups. Yay?

We’ll get to the rankings in a bit. But first, let’s make five oddly specific predictions...

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Let's find three positive thoughts for each of the NHL's 15 most hopeless teams

The theme of this post is kindness.

As in, let’s be kind to the fans of the league’s worst teams. It’s easy to forget these days, as some fans watch their teams fight for a playoff spot and others are already thinking about the Stanley Cup, that not all of us are having fun right now. Some of us cheer for teams that are already out of the playoff hunt, and in some cases might have been for months now.

That’s where the kindness comes in. Let’s show empathy and basic human decency to those fans, the ones who have the misfortune of rooting for one of those horrible, embarrassing, miserable loser teams.

I’ll admit that that last sentence could have gone better. Kindness isn’t easy. But it can be instructive.

For example, we did this post last year, featuring 11 teams. Of those 11 teams who were in bad shape, two – the Devils and Senators – have already clinched playoff spots this year. Another, the Canadiens, are about to join them. Optimism can be real.

Um, also one of those 11 teams ceased to exist a few days after the column ran. So sure, a mixed bag. Let’s stay focused on the positive. Kindness, remember.

According to Dom’s model, there are 15 teams that are either eliminated from playoff contention, or that have odds of less than 1%. In other words, they’re done. And they could probably use a kind word or two. Well, we’re going to give them three, as in three positive thoughts in a season of despair.

As always, we’ll do this in order, starting form the easiest team to find positivity for and working our way down to the most challenging.

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With Gretzky's goal mark gone, how many NHL records are truly unbreakable?

And just like that, Wayne Gretzky’s unbreakable record has been broken.

Well, one of them. Gretzky had more than his share. But for hockey fans of my generation, it really is hard to believe that Alexander Ovechkin actually did it. He broke Gretzky’s career goals record. That wasn’t supposed to be possible.

For decades, old-timers like me figured there was just no way that anyone could get to 894. Not in the Dead Puck Era, which eventually gave way to the Only Comatose Puck Era. Not when it meant scoring at a 45-goal pace for 20 consecutive seasons. Not in an era where players were bigger and stronger, meaning just staying healthy was a challenge. Not in a league where forwards were supposed to peak in their mid-20s and then give way to the next generation.

But here we are. So now we have to ask: What other “unbreakable” records could we be wrong about?

We’ve had some fun in the past with unbreakable records, as well as a few breakable ones. But today, let’s look at some of the sport’s marks that have at some point seemed unreachable, and try to figure out if they could actually be in play.

Jesse already took a look at Gretzky’s other records, and I’m mostly on the same page. I’d argue that the nine Hart Trophies is probably unbreakable, given how much modern sportswriters seem to value the novelty of getting new names on their ballots. But I’d agree that the career points and assists records are untouchable, and I like Jesse stopping just short of taking the 92-goal regular season record off the table.

What about the records that aren’t Gretzky’s? Let’s have a look at 15 of the most imposing, and see if we can imagine them being broken someday.

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