Ascendant Jets, leaky Lightning, and the biggest NHL storylines to watch in January

When the calendar turns, the new year brings a palpable shift in the North American hockey landscape. As early-season streaks become trends over the course of 30+ games, surprising teams begin to believe they can compete far into the spring while franchises on the wrong side of the Wildcard race ponder whether it’s time to cut their losses before the trade deadline. Teams on either side of that equation, like the defiant Winnipeg Jets and decaying Tampa Bay Lightning, respectively, dominate the five hottest storylines to watch in January 2024.

Are the good times really over for the Tampa Bay Lightning?

In the salary cap era, elite teams fall apart quickly. General managers with a chance to win the Stanley Cup don’t flip pending UFAs who can help achieve that goal, and lengthy playoff runs increase their value to a level teams with star cap hits cannot afford. Case in point: the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning have lost the depth scoring of Ross Colton, Corey Perry, and Alex Killorn in recent seasons, but the emergence of Brandon Hagel (40G, 94P in 120GP for Tampa) and the wizardry of Nikita Kucherov (league-leading 63P in 38GP) means this team still has its cutting edge.

It has been more difficult for Tampa to stay whole on defense. Matchup forwards like Barclay Goodrow, Blake Coleman, Yanni Gourde, and Ondrej Palat have all moved on for, you guessed it, cap reasons since winning back-to-back Cups in 2020 and 2021. As good as they are, Anthony Cirelli and Nick Paul can only replace so many shorthanded and late-game minutes. On the actual blueline, Ryan McDonagh’s departure has been a disaster for the Lightning. Coach Jon Cooper could split the minutes of the former Ranger captain, Victor Hedman, and Mikhail Sergachev to cover an entire game, but since McDonagh was traded to Nashville in summer 2022, his Lightning are 21st in team defense.

In 2023-24, they are the league’s fifth-worst defensive club, and their lack of options outside of Hedman and Sergachev is starting to tell. Cooper has long relied on the former to carry partners like Jan Rutta and Zach Bogosian. Though second-year player Nick Perbix has more upside than those bargain-basement veterans, he and Hedman control just a shade over 43% of expected goals. The days of sending the 33-year-old Hedman over the boards and trusting he will dominate play alongside any warm body are over despite his surge in offense (5G, 36P in 36GP). With the injured Sergachev struggling badly to gel with longtime teammate but first-time partner Erik Cernak and Andrei Vasilevskiy (2.94GAA, .900SV%) playing at a shockingly mortal level, the 18-16-5 Lightning caught three 5-1 beatdowns in December alone. Forget another Stanley Cup: is this even a playoff team?

The Winnipeg Jets aren’t going away in race for Central Division crown

The Winnipeg Jets had a bipolar offseason. At the beginning of the summer, they bought out deposed captain Blake Wheeler and traded second-line center Pierre-Luc Dubois for a haul, opening the door to overhaul a team that has not won a postseason series since 2020. Then, just days before Winnipeg’s season began, GM Kevin Cheveldayoff inked power forward Mark Scheifele and superstar goalie Connor Hellebuyck, both career Jets, to twin seven-year, $8.5 million AAV extensions that will keep the duo in Manitoba until they turn 38. So far, ‘Chevy’ will feel justified in his decision to cancel the rebuild many fans and analysts forecasted.

In their second season under former Dallas bench boss Rick Bowness, the Jets have the league’s second-best scoring defense. The team’s stout defensive record is not just down to goaltending heroics either; there is actually less reliance on Hellebuyck (career-low 2.34 GAA), a four-time league leader in shots faced, than ever. Winnipeg is allowing the sixth-fewest shots in the league with its improved defensive structure. Top blueliner Josh Morrissey has career-bests in virtually every possession metric, and steady partner Dylan DeMelo is one of just two players with a higher rating (+25) than Morrissey’s +23. Further up the ice, newly minted captain Adam Lowry has played his typical brand of blood-and-guts hockey to lead Winnipeg’s forwards in hits (63) and blocks (30), while third-year player Cole Perfetti is sneakily one of the most effective two-way players in the NHL; his 59% shares of high-danger chances and expected goals are elite. The Jets PK is ugly (73.8%), but this is a tough team to score on at even strength.

That doesn’t mean offense has been an issue. Kyle Connor is one of the elite goalscorers in the league, but since his injury on Dec. 11, the Jets have gone 7-1-2 thanks to nuclear hot streaks from Nikolaj Ehlers (5G, 11P, +12) and Gabe Vilardi (6G, 12P, +13). The Colorado Avalanche, whom Winnipeg could leapfrog by winning either of its next two games, and the Dallas Stars, bumped to third place earlier in the week, must wonder how good their Central Division rival will be when its most dynamic player returns to the fold. They aren’t eager to find out.

The Vancouver Canucks are pacing the Pacific, and it’s no fluke

October and the beginning of the 2023-24 season saw the Vegas Golden Knights rattle off an impressive 12-game point streak that reminded the league why they won the 2023 Stanley Cup. By the end of November, the Los Angeles Kings closed the gap between themselves and the champs to five points with as many games in hand by playing a similar style of defensive hockey. In both cases, the Vancouver Canucks were also in the mix for the Pacific Division lead, but most onlookers figured they would trail off sooner rather than later. As it turned out, 2023 ended with the Canucks in first place after posting the NHL’s joint second-best points percentage in December. It’s time to stop regarding them as an apparition and recognize that the Pacific is now as wide open as any division in hockey.

Vancouver’s dismissal as an unsustainable early-season standout made plenty of sense because of some statistical anomalies; it took Thatcher Demko until Nov. 15 to give up even two goals per game, while Filip Hronek scored at a point-per-game pace from the blueline until December began. Though some bounces are still going the Canucks’ way (Brock Boeser’s impossible 23.8% conversion rate comes to mind), nearly half a season of division-leading hockey implies that this is more a good team than a lucky one, especially given the performance of its stars. 

Alongside the calming presence of Hronek, first-year captain Quinn Hughes is dominating (10G, 46P in 37GP) at a level his talent always suggested he was capable of. Elias Pettersson is on pace for a second-consecutive 100-point season and will garner Selke consideration. Boeser (24G) and Demko (18-7-1, .917 SV%) are finally healthy. J.T. Miller’s 22 powerplay points are the joint-fifth-highest total in the league. Rick Tocchet’s no-nonsense approach is coaxing results from a roster that never lacked talent, and that’s a scary proposition for the slumping Knights (4-6 in last 10) and Kings (three-game losing streak).

The New York Rangers are in a Stanley Cup state of mind

Throughout the 2023 offseason, several teams garnered steady Stanley Cup buzz. A healthy Colorado Avalanche would be difficult to stop if one of Ryan Johansen or Ross Colton could fill J.T. Compher’s shoes. The Dallas Stars had the perfect mix of veteran leadership and superstar talent. The New Jersey Devils were sure to get better. Why should the Vegas Golden Knights get any worse? There was little page space dedicated to the New York Rangers, though, after they took their shot and missed it by adding Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane to a 2022 Eastern Conference finalist only to lose to New Jersey in the first round. 

The Rangers seemed to spin their wheels in the summer, replacing veterans Kane and coach Gerard Gallant with veterans Blake Wheeler and coach Peter Laviolette. ‘Lavy’ is an excellent coach who has turned around far worse rosters over the course of two decades on NHL benches, but it was hard to shake the feeling that New York slapped on a fresh coat of paint when the engine was the problem. Top guys Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin, and Mika Zibanejad are in their 30s, and since they couldn’t get the job done with star rentals in place, running it back did little to pique the interest of the hockey community. 

Overlooking New York, it turns out, was a serious miscalculation. Never mind that the 32-year-old Panarin is on pace for a career-high (by a million) 52 goals or that K’Andre Miller has taken strides toward becoming a legitimate top-pair option; we already knew they were studs. What’s intriguing about the Rangers is the unexpected things that have gone right. $825,000 offensive defenseman Erik Gustafsson already has eight powerplay helpers. Alexis Lafreniere (10G, 22P in 36GP) is developing serious chemistry with Panarin, who has spent most of his career on Broadway teeing up Zibanejad. Jonathan Quick (9-2-1, 2.41 GAA) is partying like it’s 2012. Everything GM Chris Drury touches turns to gold, and with superstar defenseman Adam Fox back at 100% and starting goalie Igor Shesterkin beginning to thaw out, the league-best Rangers are only getting better.

Can the Toronto Maple Leafs and New Jersey Devils survive their goaltending?

The Toronto Maple Leafs and New Jersey Devils entered 2023-24 in very different stages of their contention life cycle but with the same goal. For Toronto, a Cup is necessary to validate the ‘Fab Four’ era, one that comes closer to ending every time UFA William Nylander finds the scoresheet. Conversely, the Devils are too young to be in “win-now” mode but would love to win now anyway. They added goals-corers Timo Meier (acquired before the 2023 trade deadline) and Tyler Toffoli to an already-loaded top-six led by young stars Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt to that end. Against all odds, neither the established superteam in Toronto nor the brand-new one in New Jersey is anywhere near where they want to be as the midway point draws near. Different though the teams are, their problem is the same: goaltending. 

Depending on whom you believe, the Devils may have had a free run at Connor Hellebuyck, a top-three goalie in the world, as the Jets pondered a rebuild earlier in the offseason. Instead, they re-upped Meier on a $70-million contract and kept faith that one of Vitek Vanecek or Akira Schmid would claim the starter’s net. Neither decision has gone famously; Meier, now injured, is on pace for his lowest points total since his sophomore year in 2017-18, while Vanecek (3.35 GAA, .883 SV%), a 33 game-winner last season, and second-year player Schmid (3.26 GAA, .893 SV%) have crumbled behind a defense with surprisingly decent metrics. Prospect Nico Daws made his team debut last Friday, but is GM Tom Fitzgerald confident he’s the answer in net for the surging Devils? Now, instead of two unproven netminders, they have three.

For Toronto, the situation is more dire. They are in a hurry to win and have fewer in-house options than the Devils’ (admittedly uninspiring) three after Ilya Samsonov’s implosion (3.94 GAA, .862 SV%). ‘Sammy’ cleared waivers and traded places with AHL goaltender Dennis Hildeby, a 21-year-old with 17 games of North American pro experience under his belt.

It’s increasingly difficult to see the Maple Leafs’ best-case scenario. Does Samsonov get his head right with the Marlies? Will No.1 Joseph Woll and veteran Martin Jones finish the season as Toronto’s goaltending battery when the former returns from injury? Does Hildeby get an extended run as the starter? Whatever it is, it needs to happen quickly; the goalie market, like the Maple Leafs’ trade capital, is threadbare.