NHL Olympic Break cup contenders

While the National Hockey League puts the season on pause in order to participate in the Winter Olympics for the first time since 2014, let’s take a look at a few teams dominating on the ice and those best qualified to win the Stanley Cup.

Colorado Avalanche

The 2022 Stanley Cup champions carry the best record in the league heading into the Olympic freeze. They’re led by Nathan MacKinnon, who leads the NHL with 40 goals and is second in points to Connor McDavid at 93.

Colorado has tapered off to start the New Year, with just a 7-7-2 record, but they’re still out in front in the President’s trophy race at 83 points, five over the Lightning and the Hurricanes.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Speaking of the Lightning, they’re certainly up there. In contrast to the aforementioned Avs, who stopped Tampa Bay’s three-peat attempt in 2022, the Lightning have shot out of the New Year like an absolute cannon, winning 14 of 16 to open 2026 and 19 of their last 21 overall. This includes the Stadium Series game against the Boston Bruins in which the Lightning recovered from a four-goal deficit for the first time in franchise history.

Tampa Bay is led by Nikita Kucherov, who is third in the NHL with 91 points, and the goaltending of Andrei Vasilevsky, whose 2.11 goals-against-average is the league’s best. It’s just 1.72 since New Year’s Day.

Carolina Hurricanes

Tied with the Lightning atop the Eastern Conference standings rest the Carolina Hurricanes, at a comfortable margin in the Metropolitan Division over the second-place Penguins. Carolina is tied with the Penguins for the third-best record post-New Year’s Day at 12-3-3.

The team is led by Sebastian Aho (20 goals, 37 assists), Andrei Svechnikov (21 goals, 28 assists), and Seth Jarvis (25 goals, 18 assists). Carolina also features excellent goaltending on the behalf of Brandon Bussi, who is second in the league with a 2.16 goals-against-average.

Boston Bruins

Now, for a team that is a sneaky contender. Boston is in fifth place in a highly competitive Atlantic Division; however, it has the second-best record in the National Hockey League post-New Year’s and is certainly trending in the right direction.

We’ve seen stories like this before, where a team is in the middle or bottom of the pack on January 1st before making a big push to win it all. The St. Louis Blues were tied for the fewest points in the National Hockey League on New Year’s Day before winning the 2019 Stanley Cup Finals. The Florida Panthers were a bottom-5 team in the East when the calendar flipped from 2022 to 2023 and wound up in the Stanley Cup Finals after entering the playoffs as an 8-seed and knocking off the heavily-favored, record-setting Bruins in the first round.

Jacob Petrarca is a fourth-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email jap6840@psu.edu