NHL: Five Teams Best Positioned To Win The Stanley Cup In 2022
The Stanley Cup playoffs are right around the corner and there are a lot of teams to be excited about.
16 teams make the playoffs, but only one wins the Stanley Cup. There are a lot of teams well-positioned to win the championship but only one can come away with the trophy. Today I want to talk about the five teams well-positioned to win the cup.
Right off the bat, I have to say this. Any team that makes the postseason can win. All it takes is a hot goalie or a team finding themselves at the right time to make even a team with a bad seeding a contender for the Cup.
The last time we had an actual 82 game season was in 2018-19 and the first round of the playoffs saw all four wild card teams win their series, anything truly can happen in the postseason.
So, let’s talk about the five teams’ best positioned to win the Stanley Cup in 2022!
1. The Calgary Flames
The Calgary Flames are first up on my list. The Flames added Tyler Toffoli in February and the deal has been paying off great with Toffoli putting up 15 points in 19 games thus far with the Flames.
Calgary is well-positioned to be the top team out of the Pacific Division. While a lot of people talk about Colorado as the top team in the west, Calgary might have a bit easier of a first two rounds in the postseason and could be well-rested by the time they reach the Western Conference Final.
Calgary has been led by their three stars in Gaudreau Tkachuk and Lindholm, and adding Toffoli to the mix has just made them that much better.
2. The Colorado Avalanche
The Colorado Avalanche are well-positioned to lead the charge in the west. On paper, they are the best team around with all of their stars playing some great hockey. They have eight players with over 35 points and have been led by Mikko Rantanen who has 32 goals on the year.
The Avalanche were not the loudest team at the deadline, but they made some moves adding Andrew Cogliano, Arrturi Lehkonen, Nico Sturm, and Josh Manson. They added some depth to make them a deeper team for the postseason and are the top team in the league by over five points.
The Avalanche are no doubt going to be the first team to hit 100 points and the crazy thing is they are only 65 games into the season. They are the top team around and are going to have home-ice for all of the playoffs if they can keep playing at the pace they have been at all year.
The Avalanche have great goaltending with Darcy Kuemper in the net and they are going to be a rocking ball in the postseason, that is if they can make it out of the second round something they have struggled with the past few years.
3. The Tampa Bay Lightning
The Tampa Bay Lightning are the Stanley Cup Champions until some team proves otherwise. I put them on this list as a team well-positioned to win the Cup because of the teams they have to face.
The Lightning are in a tough division with the Florida Panthers and the Toronto Maple Leafs, while Tampa might not have added as much as Florida or Toronto, they do have something that neither of the two teams have – previous playoff experience to lean on.
Neither Toronto nor Florida have won a playoff series in a long time, while this might be their year to do so, they are going to have to both get through Tampa Bay to win in the postseason, and that success and leadership is something Tampa can lean on that the other two teams just don’t have at this time.
The Lightning have been going through a losing streak as of late, but if there is ever a good time to hit a losing streak and face adversity I think it would be right now before the playoffs start, now they can figure it out and get ready for another deep playoff run.
4. The Carolina Hurricanes
I wanted to go with a Metropolitan team in this list, and the Hurricanes are definitely the best pick. They had a quiet trade deadline but that really has to do with how good the team has already been. The Hurricanes didn’t need to add much at the deadline, and now their team is ready to keep rolling into the playoffs.
The Hurricanes are led by stars Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, and Teuvo Teravainen, Their lineup is very deep and their defense has been great this season with a big pickup of Tony DeAngelo during the offseason.
The Hurricanes are a great team and are definitely the top team within the Metro, the question is who they are going to face in the first round with the wildcard format. The way things are going right now the wildcard team would be the Lightning and obviously, that would not be an easy matchup.
The Hurricanes have great goaltending and depending on how the standings work out they should have a good first round matchup assuming Tampa Bay starts winning and gets out of the wild card spot.
Carolina has been fun to watch in the postseason in the past and this year should be no different.
5. The Minnesota Wild
The Minnesota Wild are going to have one of the top goalies in the world with Marc-Andre Fleury around. They already had Cam Talbot who has been playing some great hockey, but pair that with Fleury and you never know who could be the starter.
Fleury definitely has a lot of reasons to be hungry for a win. The reigning Vezina Trophy winner has had to split the net with some great goalies in Pittsburgh and in Vegas, in Chicago, he was with a struggling team but now has a chance to win a championship with the Wild.
The Wild are not the top team in the Central Division, but they are going to be in the postseason, and with great goaltending, they could find a way to make it far in the postseason and maybe even go all the way and win a championship.
Goaltending matters in the playoffs. A great goalie can steal a series and push a team further than expected – insert the Canadiens and Stars in the last two Stanley Cup Finals, maybe the Wild can get far with one of the best goalie tandems in the league.