It seems like Opening Night was just yesterday, but the National Hockey League’s regular season is set to wrap up in less than a month. With the Stanley Cup Playoffs just on the horizon, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the biggest surprises of the 2022-23 season. Here are three things we (probably) wouldn’t have believed about the state of NHL hockey in October.
First, the Boston Bruins are good… like, really good… like, the ‘setting records’ kind of good. They became the fastest team to hit 100 points in NHL history, breaking a record set in the 1970s. A week later they also became the fastest team to notch fifty wins in a single season.
It’s a pretty remarkable turnaround for a team with an ageing core in the league’s most competitive division, especially given how many pundits predicted the Bruins finishing the season outside of a playoff spot. This might be the last season for beloved captain Patrice Bergeron to win a Cup with the team, and the Bruins look unlikely to squander their opportunity.
The Bruins aren’t the only team to surpass expectations this season. The Seattle Kraken have gone from bottom of their division to the midst of a wild card race in just their second season of existing as a franchise. The New Jersey Devils look like solid playoff contenders after a similarly rough showing in 2021-22, and Vegas Golden Knights are dominating the western conference after missing out on a wild card spot by three points last year.
All of these teams’ success comes at the expense of others failing to live up to their hype – the struggling Florida Panthers and Calgary Flames chief among them. But for fans in Jersey and Seattle, the playoff future looks brighter than it has in years – or ever.
Finally, if we were to whittle down this season’s drama to a single word, it has to be… trades. So, so many trades.
In January, the ever-chaotic and poorly managed Vancouver Canucks offloaded their captain Bo Horvat to the New York Islanders. The Isles have worked their way into a wild card spot since acquiring Horvat, so he seems to have been worth the price. The Tampa Bay Lighting gave up an arm and a leg (and Cal Foote) in exchange for young forward Tanner Jeannot. But the most interesting trades came from a different sort of race: the tank for this year’s projected first overall draft pick, Connor Bedard.
The New Jersey Devils dramatically altered their roster (and future draft picks) to acquire Timo Meier from the struggling San Jose Sharks. Chicago Blackhawks phenom Patrick Kane was finally sent to the New York Rangers after multiple years of uncertainty about his future role with the team. The Arizona Coyotes acquired several first-round picks to send underutilised defenceman Jacob Chychrun to Ottawa, who has become an immediate favourite among Senators fans.
Bedard is widely regarded as the best prospect in nearly a decade, and perhaps one of the top five prospects of all time, so it makes sense that so many teams would give up major pieces for a better chance at acquiring him. There are at least four general managers actively ‘tanking’ (trying to lose) in an effort to improve their draft odds. Only one will end up with Bedard as their franchise player when the NHL Draft occurs in June. Perhaps that will be the biggest surprise of this season after all.
Image “DD5_1627” by All-Pro Reels is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.