Stanley Cup windows 2023-24: Metropolitan Division

The 2023-24 Stanley Cup Windows series continues. So far, I’ve assessed where each Atlantic and Central Division franchise sits on its contention timeline. Today, we look at the Metropolitan Division, which brings plenty of drama: contenders, wannabe contenders in denial, rebuilders and all-out disasters.

WINDOW WIDE OPEN

New Jersey Devils

I can quote superstar Jack Hughes directly, who told me last month, “We’ve got a really wide window,” when I asked him if 2023-24 was a Cup-or-bust year for New Jersey. It’s a fun time to be a Devils fan. What do Hughes, Nico Hischier, Timo Meier and Jesper Bratt have in common? They’re all part of the Devils’ top-six forward group, they’re all between 22 and 26 years old and they’re all signed long-term for between four and eight more seasons. Top defenseman Dougie Hamilton, 30, has five seasons left on his deal, while John Marino and Jonas Siegenthaler, both 26, are signed long-term for less than $8M combined in annual cap space. Oh, did I mention that the Devils have arguably the top two prospect defensemen in the sport in Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec? The Devils finished with the NHL’s third-best record last season and are poised to rule the Metro for years to come.

WIN-NOW WINDOW

Carolina Hurricanes

The Canes have played consistently dominant hockey since Rod Brind’Amour took over as head coach, never finishing with a points percentage below .596 in five seasons and winning the last three Metro crowns. But they paid up in free agency for defenseman Dmitry Orlov and left winger Michael Bunting this summer for a reason: it’s time to go all the way. Top center Sebastian Aho enters the final season of his contract, as do top-six forward Teuvo Teravainen and top-four blueliner Brett Pesce. Emerging young forwards Martin Necas and Seth Jarvis will earn big raises as RFAs starting in 2024-25. Top defenseman Jaccob Slavin is a UFA the summer after next. The Canes have enough prime-year talent to squeeze out a few more competitive seasons, but it will become much more difficult to keep the band together after this season, even with the salary cap expected to increase significantly next summer. This coming season has a Cup-or-bust vibe for Carolina.

New York Islanders

I considered classifying the Islanders in the Foggy Window section given the punchless offseason GM Lou Lamoriello has delivered for a second consecutive summer. But that would imply we don’t know what the Isles’ intentions are. We might not agree, but this group definitely fashions itself a contender and continues to behave like one, shoring up its talent on long-term contracts. Centers Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal are signed through 2030-31 and shutdown defense duo Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock through 2028-29 and 2029-30. Top-notch goaltender Ilya Sorokin just signed an eight-year extension. The Isles have enough quality players locked up that they should maintain a reasonably high floor going forward. But, sheesh, Lamoriello has so much term tied up in middling talent, including seven players 30 or older who have multiple seasons remaining on their contracts. Anders Lee, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Kyle Palmieri and Casey Cizikas combine for almost $20 worth of cap space, none of which comes of the books until 2025 at minimum. The Isles seem built to live in the 85-95-point range at the moment, fighting on the playoff bubble.

New York Rangers

As recently as a year ago, I would’ve considered the Rangers’ window wide open for years to come. But because Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko have not ascended to top-six forward status, there’s more pressure on the Rangers’ veterans to carry the load; imagine the Dallas Stars, for instance, if Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz had never leveled up beyond third-liners. Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider and Vincent Trocheck have all quietly crossed over into their 30s. Defenseman Jacob Trouba will turn 30 this season, too. Superstar netminder Igor Shesterkin is only 27 but has just two seasons left on his contract. The Rangers still have plenty going for them, of course; they’re contenders in the present, and anyone would love to have Adam Fox and K’Andre Miller to build around on defense. But as currently constructed, the Blueshirts need to make a deep run in the next season or two before their top forwards begin showing signs of decline.

WINDOW CLOSING

Pittsburgh Penguins

New Penguins president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas deserves plenty of credit for improving his team on paper this summer. Reilly Smith? Noel Acciari? Lars Eller? Ryan Graves? Thumbs up. Pittsburgh has resolved the depth problem that cost them a playoff spot and ended a 16-year run of berths this past season. But while Dubas’ architecture has the Pens looking like a playoff team again, there’s a big gap between a playoff team and a Cup contender. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang have plenty of game left. But by their lofty, Hall of Fame-worthy standards, they’re obviously nowhere near their peak performance levels anymore. Dubas has cranked the window open a bit wider, buying the franchise legends time for another playoff run, but the window is still closing. Dubas only delayed the inevitable.

WINDOW CLOSED

Washington Capitals

The Capitals’ grip on the Metro ladder started slipping in the seasons following their Stanley Cup win in 2017-18. They followed with two consecutive seasons in which they won the Metro only to lose in the first round of the playoffs. Their points percentage then slipped from .688 to .610 to .488 between 2020-21 and 2022-23. They missed the playoffs this past season and sold off the likes of Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway and Erik Gustafsson, behaving as a seller team for the first time since Brian MacLellan took over as GM in 2014-15. The Caps were plagued by injuries last season, but they can’t really count on that problem to disappear going forward; per Elite Prospects, the Caps have an average age of 29.62, making them the NHL’s second-oldest team. Father Time is already winding down the careers of Nicklas Backstrom (35) and T.J. Oshie (36), while even Evgeny Kuznetsov is 31 now, and No. 1 defenseman John Carlson is 33 and coming off a season marred by a skull fracture after taking a puck to the head. And then there’s Alex Ovechkin, of course, 37 years old and just 73 goals away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record. Ovechkin is aging as gracefully as any forward in NHL history but is still guaranteed to decline in the coming seasons. It’s just science. Even though Washington extended center Dylan Strome’s contract last season and signed Max Pacioretty as an LTIR stash free agent…the Capitals don’t look like a team that will magically climb back into the Eastern Conference hunt in 2023-24, especially with the Atlantic Division looking so competitive that it could easily yield five playoff teams and squeeze the Metro. Right now, whether they want to admit it or not, the Capitals’ most important pursuit is Ovechkin’s all-time goals record. That would mean more to the franchise than a couple of seasons finishing eighth or ninth.

WINDOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Columbus Blue Jackets

Don’t sleep on the Blue Jackets. The 2022-23 standings tell us they were an embarrassment, one of the worst teams in the NHL, a disastrous landing spot for top 2022 UFA Johnny Gaudreau. But they also lost more than 550 man games to injury, with No. 1 blueliner Zach Werenski missing most of his season with a torn labrum and separated shoulder. Over the course of that campaign, they kept developing mega-prospect defenseman David Jiricek. He should push for a full-time NHL gig this season. They parlayed their terrible finish into the third overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft and landed a probable franchise player in Adam Fantilli. They shored up their D-corps by acquiring Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson from rivals within their own division. Trading for the two of them sent a message that the Blue Jackets believe they’ve reached a critical mass of young talent and can start attempting to climb in the standings. The rebuilding phase is almost done. By this time next season, I expect to place them in the Window Opening tier.

WINDOW SMASHED

Philadelphia Flyers

It’s too early to even call the Flyers rebuilders. Not when they just changed their entire front office regime over in May. New GM Danny Briere has traded Provorov and Kevin Hayes and bought out Tony DeAngelo so far, but we await potential trades for Travis Konecny, Travis Sanheim and Carter Hart – maybe Scott Laughton, too. The Flyers’ top prospects, taken in 2022 and 2023, consist of Cutter Gauthier, who is going back to school for another year, and Matvei Michkov, who is signed in the KHL through 2025-26. Map it all out, and we have a bottom-dweller team, with a new GM, who isn’t done taking apart the previous regime’s core of veterans, whose top prospects aren’t in the NHL yet. The Flyers are years away from contending and arguably aren’t even in full rebuild mode yet. You have to demolish before you construct something new.