2022-2023 NHL Season Preview: The Pacific Division

The NHL season is here, and the Pacific Division is perhaps the most up-in-the-air division in the league.

In the 2021-2022 season, the Pacific was won by the Calgary Flames, who went 50-21-11 to earn 111 points. Seven points behind the Flames were the Edmonton Oilers at 49-27-6 (104 points).

The only other playoff team from the Pacific Division last year was the Los Angeles Kings (44-27-11, 99 points). Two other teams were in playoff contention for most of the season but couldn’t quite punch their tickets to the postseason.

The Vegas Golden Knights (43-31-8, 94 points) missed out for the first time in franchise history, and the Vancouver Canucks finished in fifth place (40-30-12, 92 points).

Which Pacific Division teams are in line to make the playoffs?

From there, things dropped off, as the sixth-place San Jose Sharks collected only 77 points (32-37-13). The Anaheim Ducks came in seventh, one point behind the Sharks (31-37-14, 76 points).

Bringing up the rear last season was the league’s newest team, the Seattle Kraken. They went 27-49-6 for 60 points in their inaugural season.

Fast forward to this season, and the Pacific Division looks a lot like it did a year ago. There seem to be a lot of good teams but very few great teams, which will make for an entertaining push for the postseason.

As fans know, Calgary made some major changes, as Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk are gone and Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, and Nazem Kadri are in.

Other players coming into the Pacific include Jack Campbell (Oilers), Andre Burakovsky (Kraken), Ryan Strome (Ducks), and Kevin Fiala (Kings), to name a few.

When looking at this division, I see a clear favorite, one team that is obviously the worst, and six others with the chance to move up or down drastically in the standings.

With that, here is the 2022-2023 Pacific Division preview.