Every season there is plenty of turnover in the playoff picture. On average, a couple of teams per conference fail to qualify for the playoffs the year after doing so.
That means the door opens for some non-playoff teams to make it back to the dance.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at a couple of Eastern Conference teams who could bounce back and make the playoffs in 2018-19.
Carolina Hurricanes
Every year, the Carolina Hurricanes are a popular sleeper pick to make the playoffs.
Every year, they disappoint in large part due to horrendously bad goaltending.
They didn’t do much to fix it this summer – replacing Cam Ward with Petr Mrazek is a pretty marginal upgrade – but I’m going to go right back to the well again.
Why? I quite like the rest of their roster.
Led by emerging star Sebastian Aho and future star Andrei Svechnikov, they do have some high-end guys. Surrounding them is a nice mix of talented young players (Teuvo Teravainen, Martin Necas, Victor Rask, etc.) and reliable two-way players who probably don’t get enough credit for how good they are (such as Jordan Staal and Justin Williams). Losing Jeff Skinner definitely hurts but they’re still in pretty good shape up front.
On defense, they are absolutely loaded from top to bottom.
The Hurricanes already had one of the deepest and most talented blue lines in the NHL. Then they traded for Dougie Hamilton, whose 5v5 numbers compare favorable to the three finalists for the Norris Trophy last season.
Noah Hanifin is solid but Hamilton is most definitely an upgrade and a big one at that.
The Hurricanes also signed the underrated Calvin de Haan.
Of 117 defensemen to log at least 3,000 minutes at 5v5 from 2015-18, de Haan ranks 7th with a Relative Expected Goals For of +5.23%.
Using @CMHockey66’s Goals Above Replacement (GAR) numbers, de Haan has ranked as a top-50 defender in three consecutive seasons.
He may not put up many points but he can skate, move the puck well, and is excellent defensively.
With Hamilton, de Haan, Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, Justin Faulk, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Hadyn Fleury, the Hurricanes easily have the best defense in the East. Nashville might be the only team that can rival them league-wide.
If Mrazek and/or Scott Darling can provide anything close to average goaltending, there is no reason this can’t be the year the Hurricanes finally break through.
Florida Panthers
Sasha Barkov, Vincent Trocheck, Jonathan Huberdeau, Evgeni Dadonov, and Nick Bjugstad all enjoyed fantastic seasons in 2017-18. Unfortunately, not many other forwards on the roster did and secondary scoring was an issue as a result.
The Panthers addressed that in a big way when they went out and acquired Mike Hoffman for pennies on the dollar. Obviously, there are some off-ice issues that need to be sorted out but there is no denying his ability.
Over the last four years, Hoffman has averaged 26 goals per season and he ranks inside the top-30 in 5v5 goals during that span. He is one of the league’s better scorers and the Panthers acquired him without giving up anything from their roster.
Getting a full season of Frank Vatrano, who recorded eight points in 16 games with Florida after being acquired from Boston, will give them some more scoring depth; as will full-time promotions to top prospects Henrik Borgstrom and Owen Tippett.
Suddenly the Panthers will be able to ice three legitimate scoring lines, which wasn’t the case a year ago
With a respectable defense core – headlined by Keith Yandle, Mike Matheson, and Aaron Ekblad, although I think the latter is overrated – and a solid goaltending tandem playing behind a now deep crop of forwards, the Panthers seem like a good bet to close that *checks notes* one point gap and get back into the playoffs.
Note: data via Corsica.Hockey and NaturalStatTrick.
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