Welcome to the NHL’s final four and also, perhaps more importantly, The Rankings Boys’ final ranking of the season.
It’s been a fun run of ranking teams and being 100 percent correct every week. We hope you enjoy our last entry of the 2023-24 season, where we keep it simple with the final four: Why they will or won’t win the Stanley Cup. As for the four teams eliminated in Round 2, we’ve put down some reasons for optimism for 2024-25.
1. Edmonton Oilers
Up 1-0 on Dallas
Sean’s ranking: 2
Dom’s ranking: 1
Why they’ll win the Cup: The Oilers will go as far as their best players take them, and right now, that seems like it could be pretty far. Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman and Evan Bouchard have been the four most impactful players in these playoffs so far, all elevating their games past their already lofty regular-season levels. It’s one thing to have a quartet that grades out as the best in the world. It’s another thing for those guys to somehow get even better when the stakes get higher. They were a factor on every goal in Game 1 — and doing it all against a shutdown pair that has been defensively dominant through two rounds.
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McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard are the first trio of teammates ever to score 20 or more points through the first two rounds, and Hyman is scoring nearly a goal per game. It’s not fair! And it might be enough to propel this team all the way. Add some strong contributions from other high-end players, and the Oilers stars are shining incredibly bright.
That star power is ever-present at five-on-five and is also an obvious force with the man advantage. But on top of all that, the Oilers also have a killer penalty kill in these playoffs that ranks as the league’s best. That was on full display in Game 1 against Dallas, highlighted by a key four-minute kill to start overtime. All that together is very much championship-caliber.
Why they won’t: Making the Western Conference final by virtue of the strength of the team’s top end is all well and good, but a top-heavy approach leaves more vulnerabilities elsewhere for other elite teams to expose. No team is scarier than the Oilers, for better or worse.
The team’s top six is stacked, but the bottom six leaves a bit to be desired. The team’s top pair is one of the league’s very best, but the rest of the defense corps is highly questionable for an elite team. Edmonton’s depth is good enough given the strength of the top end, but if the team’s top guys slow down there’s a lot of room for those guys to get exposed.
The bigger issue, though, might be between the pipes. Stuart Skinner has looked like a solid starting option in each of the last two seasons, but that seems to go out the window once the playoffs begin. No goalie has bigger Pumpkin Potential than Skinner who is easily the goalie who inspires the least amount of confidence among the final four. Being “good enough” has worked up until now, but it may not be enough in the final two rounds. To his credit, Skinner has put together three straight quality starts — two of which were while facing elimination — but he’s still a very hard goalie to trust.
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2. Florida Panthers
Up 1-0 on New York
Sean’s ranking: 1
Dom’s ranking: 2
Why they’ll win the Cup: Already being 25 percent of the way to the Cup Final helps, but probably not as much as having a lineup that, more often than not, looks like the best in the sport. There are teams with bigger stars, deeper forward groups, stronger blue lines and better goaltenders. No team has it all on more nights than the Panthers.
Beyond that, they used Game 1 against the Rangers to show off another bit of the toolbox — they won without being at their best, winning a close game by three goals. Despite all that — and subjective as this may be — it didn’t feel like they got lucky. This is a dangerous team that blends outstanding process and outstanding results with tons of playoff experience and no glaring weakness.
Why they won’t: It’s not tough to imagine the power play turning into an area of concern. The Panthers were a top-10 team in the regular season but have seen their production dip in the playoffs. Eight goals in 12 games is fine, but four of those came in Game 3 against Boston, and they went 0-for-3 in Game 1 against the Rangers. Quality looks aren’t enough.
3. Dallas Stars
Down 1-0 to Edmonton
Sean’s ranking: 3
Dom’s ranking: 3
Why they’ll win the Cup: We’ve spent the entire season talking about the Stars’ forward depth, and one loss to the Oilers isn’t going to change that. The longer the series goes, the likelier it becomes that Dallas finds a way to advance. Dallas has more players capable of chipping in meaningful offense than any team in the field, and its conference-final opponent doesn’t have enough talent in the middle of the lineup to counterbalance that.
We also got Jake Oettinger near his best in Game 1, outcome aside (35 saves on 38 shots, 0.47 goals saved above expected). Consistency has been an issue, but Oettinger has the size and athletic ability to steal a series, not just a game, especially if the Stars stay off the penalty kill. The fact that Skinner is in the other net, great as he was in Game 1, also helps.
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Why they won’t: Dallas’ depth advantage still hinges on its elite players being available and productive. That hasn’t always been the case this postseason, and it wasn’t the case in Game 1. Roope Hintz’s injury is a gigantic issue; no team, regardless of its depth, can survive all that long without its No. 1 center. Losing his production is bad enough, and the ensuing waterfall effect hurts the rest of the top nine. Dallas needs points from everyone to counterbalance Edmonton’s best guys, and Hintz’s absence weakens the group overall.
Also, Jason Robertson is going through it. He hasn’t scored since the first round and hit two posts on the same power play in the third period of Thursday’s Game 1. Logic says he’s too good a player to not start cashing on those chances eventually, but Dallas needs it to happen ASAP. It’s almost impossible to imagine the Stars winning another series without a goal or three from him.
4. New York Rangers
Down 1-0 to Florida
Sean’s ranking: 4
Dom’s ranking: 4
Why they’ll win the Cup: The Rangers are this year’s team of destiny, a group that has seen a lot of things go right and has fought long and hard to build to this moment. They have an unbelievable power play and penalty kill, they have the formula to win close games and, perhaps most importantly, they have the best playoff goalie in the world. Igor Shesterkin is more than good enough in the regular season, but the way he elevates his game is second to none.
Over the last three seasons, Shesterkin has saved 0.5 goals above expected per game during the regular season, which is already the best in the world. In the playoffs, that jumps to 1.12 per game, the best of any goalie by 0.25 goals. That he’s managed that over 38 games, the third-most of any goalie, makes it all the more impressive.
And for anyone worried about the Rangers being down 1-0, it’s worth noting they were arguably the better team. Keep playing like that, and they can no doubt match the script from 1994, when they dropped Game 1 in the Eastern Conference final, too.
Why they won’t: Being down 1-0 is already a tough spot. That’s the biggest current reason to doubt the Rangers. Losing home-ice advantage also stings, especially when the Rangers entered the series as underdogs to begin with. Their odds of coming back against Florida aren’t high, and they’d likely be underdogs (again!) in the Stanley Cup Final, too.
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As fantastic as the team is on special teams and as incredible as its goaltending is, the team’s five-on-five game remains its Achilles’ heel. Some might be encouraged that the Rangers played the Panthers tight in that regard in Game 1, but the Panthers’ strength there makes it feel probable that the game was an exception to the rule. A game the Rangers couldn’t take advantage of because, for once, the bounces weren’t on their side.
Combine that with the team’s best defenseman, Adam Fox, looking not like himself in that game (and possibly playing hurt), and this may be where destiny ends for New York.
5. Carolina Hurricanes
Eliminated
Sean’s ranking: 5
Dom’s ranking: 5
Another year, another barrage of “we’re right there” quotes out of Carolina. Technically that’s true, but “right there” doesn’t mean much when your group is done because it couldn’t get on the right side of the bounces — again. The team, so far, has been designed to be “right there” but not “actually there” with a play style that doesn’t have the right chaos ratio. It’s a flurry of medium chances against just enough high-danger chances to end up “right there.”
But “right there” still offers hope because there is plenty of room to make the right changes to get all the way. Trading for Jake Guentzel was a strong start, and extending him would help change the calculus. With so many pending free agents, there’s a lot of flexibility to find the right mix that will finally work for Carolina.
Most important is the belief that this brain trust can figure out the right solutions. Carolina’s front office is one of the league’s savviest and though it hasn’t gotten over the hump yet, it’s difficult to bet against the Hurricanes finding the correct path forward.
6. Colorado Avalanche
Eliminated
Sean’s ranking: 6
Dom’s ranking: 6
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The Avs have one of the best four-player cores in the NHL, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen and Devon Toews are as good a set of building blocks as you’ll find.
Colorado has spent the last two seasons trying to rebuild the supporting cast after some post-Cup roster attrition, and their biggest swing yet — a midseason trade for Casey Mittelstadt — has shown signs of paying off; Mittelstadt had nine points in 11 playoff games, along with positive actual/expected goal shares, and generally looked the part of a second-line center on a Cup-caliber team. That’s what the Avs need him to be for the next several seasons.
7. Vancouver Canucks
Eliminated
Sean’s ranking: 7
Dom’s ranking: 7
The Canucks entered the season as a fringe playoff team that needed a lot of things to go right to get there. They closed the season as something much more: a team to believe in.
Sure, there were reasons to doubt them along the way. They had an all-time PDO bender that had several fourth-liners scoring on 20 percent of their shots, and everything felt easy for them. But from that came an unflappable confidence that grew throughout the year, creating a contender that seemed to only get better with each passing month. The team’s Game 5 effort in the second round was the culmination of that — their best game of the season, when they made Edmonton’s collection of superstars look like also-rans. The Canucks looked like a team built to win.
They also look like a team built to win long-term. A core of Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes and Thatcher Demko rivals the league’s very best. Add coach Rick Tocchet’s ability to get the most from the team’s depth, and the Canucks look poised to be a Western Conference power for years to come.
8. Boston Bruins
Eliminated
Sean’s ranking: 8
Dom’s ranking: 8
It’s easy to forget, given how well things went for Boston during the regular season, that 2023-24 was supposed to be a transitional year. It’s not just that Patrice Bergeron retired, either — it’s that the Bruins didn’t have the salary cap space necessary to carry a contender-caliber depth chart at center. That made it easy to assume a major step back.
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That’s not quite what we saw, though. Defensive structure, elite goaltending, solid culture and one of the best wingers in the game took them a long way. Charlie Coyle, Pavel Zacha and Morgan Geekie, overmatched as they might’ve been, performed admirably. Expecting the group to get past the Panthers, though, especially with Brad Marchand somewhere below 100 percent, was too big an ask.
Now, GM Don Sweeney has more than $20 million in projected cap space — and potentially more, depending on how he proceeds with goaltender Linus Ullmark. Whether Sweeney uses it on the UFA class or goes big-game hunting, you can bet on a legit addition down the middle. The gap has nearly been bridged.
(Top photo: Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)