10 NHL Teams To Watch This Season
Here are the teams you need to start caring about right this second!
The new season of the National Hockey League is set to begin on 4 October, and the future is brighter than it’s been in a long time. A wide variety of young, budding superstars around the league look primed to challenge the status quo, and with that, showcase the NHL as a league buoyed by exciting, youthful talent.
The current decade has seen only four different teams hoisting the Stanley Cup, hockey's ultimate prize, but change appears more imminent than ever. A plethora of new teams are emerging as serious contenders with this season looking to be the breakout party of new challengers for the title of the league’s elite.
30 teams have increased to 31, each with new faces, new looks, and new weapons added to cement their individual claims to the throne, each hoping to wrestle the Pittsburgh Penguins away from the Cup they’ve held such a strong grip on for two years running.
Here are 10 teams in particular who are raring to go and ready to win this season. You can rest assured that the next Cup winner will be found within this list: I’ll stake my reputation on that!
10. Tampa Bay Lightning
With the return of their captain, multi-Rocket Richard winner Steven Stamkos, the Bolts promise to right the wrongs of an injury-plagued 2016/17 campaign in which they missed out on the playoffs. Perennially a team with great expectations behind them since their 2015 Stanley Cup Final appearance, Tampa Bay this time look set to challenge for the Atlantic Division title and more.
Having traded away their starting goaltender, the long-limbed Ben Bishop, the Lightning are putting their trust in Russian youngster Andrei Vasilevskiy, keen to embrace his role as the team’s undisputed number one. The defensive core still boasts arguably one of the top two defensemen in the league in the form of their Swedish giant, Norris Trophy contender Victor Hedman.
On top of the presence of Hedman and their shooting star captain, the Lightning possess one of the world’s premiere scoring talents in Nikita Kucherov, fresh off an outstanding season in which his play very nearly secured a playoff spot. If their key players fire on all cylinders and play up to their sky-high abilities, the Lightning should be one of the most exciting teams in the league.