Power Ranking Every NHL Division After the 2024 Offseason

Don't look now, but we're just a couple weeks away from NHL action beginning in earnest. Rookie camps will get us warmed up for training camp to open and then next thing you know, it'll be October 4, and the season will be off and rolling.

In respect to making moves, the offseason is virtually over apart from a few high-profile trades of late involving Patrik Laine and Yaroslav Askarov along with a pair of offer sheets signed by the St. Louis Blues that took advantage of the Edmonton Oilers. You know, the fun stuff we've been hoping to see happen all summer.

Apart from any last-minute moves and some overdue signings to be done as well as PTO camp invites, how your team's roster looks right now is probably how it's going to look when training camp starts and the season begins.

Since the NHL playoffs are decided thanks to how teams stack up in their divisions, which leagues are going to be the most difficult on paper? Don't worry, we've got it all figured out.

We're ranking the four divisions based on how everyone finished the offseason and will go into the start of the new campaign.

Four divisions, four places to decide and lots of opinions to go around. We want yours as well in our comments, so be sure to tells us how you see it and how much you think we got it right and wrong.

It's a bit odd for us to pick a division containing some of the absolute best players in the NHL as the fourth best out of four divisions, but here we are with the Pacific Division.

The Oilers made some splashes by adding Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson in free agency, but they traded top defensive forward Ryan McLeod to Buffalo for top prospect Matthew Savoie and lost young players Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg to St. Louis via offer sheets.

Vancouver's additions filled holes with Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen and Derek Forbort signing from Boston, but Thatcher Demko's health is in question headed into camp.

Vegas brought Victor Olofsson in from Buffalo but it's cap-strapped so that's about all it could afford to do.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles sent Pierre-Luc Dubois to Washington for Darcy Kuemper, acquired Tanner Jeannot from Tampa Bay and signed Warren Foegele out of Edmonton to replace Arvidsson.

Among the non-playoff teams, Calgary traded No. 1 goalie Jacob Markström to New Jersey and added Anthony Mantha and Ryan Lomberg in free agency.

Seattle locked up star forward Matty Beniers to a long-term deal and added forward Chandler Stephenson and defenseman Brandon Montour to monster free-agent deals.

The Ducks opted to lay low in the offseason which, all things considered, wasn't a terrible idea.

Looking around at the teams, you could make the argument that the one that made the biggest moves to improve was the San Jose Sharks.

They drafted Macklin Celebrini and will potentially have Will Smith in the NHL with him as a rookie. They acquired Yaroslav Askarov in goal as well as Jake Walman and Cody Ceci on defense and added veterans Tyler Toffoli, Alexander Wennberg and Barclay Goodrow.

Considering they were the worst team in the NHL last year, that's a big step up, except they're still probably going to be bad.

This feels like there's a distinct difference between the haves and have-nots again. And while the haves are going to be good—particularly Edmonton, Vegas and Vancouver—there are some big questions about the rest of the group.

The Central Division was deeply top-heavy last season, with Colorado, Winnipeg and Dallas each taking turns at the top throughout the season.

We also saw Nashville rise to win a wild-card spot to the postseason, and the St. Louis Blues even hung around the race late into the season. Had it not been for a brutal start to the season, the Minnesota Wild could have been in that fight as well, as their second half of the season showed.

That's what made this offseason so fascinating.

Colorado essentially stayed quiet as it's looking at getting captain Gabriel Landeskog back perhaps early in the season.

Dallas kept its fantastic forward group essentially the same despite losing Joe Pavelski to retirement, but its defensive group added a lot of muscle with Matt Dumba, Ilya Lyubushkin and Brendan Smith to make up for the loss of Chris Tanev.

The only switches Winnipeg made was to its backup goaltending crew adding Kaapo Kahkonen and Eric Comrie while re-signing a pile of its own players.

While the top three kept it cool, Nashville turned things up in a big way by adding Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault up front, Brady Skjei on defense and signed No. 1 goalie Juuse Saros to an eight-year, $61.92 million extension.

The Predators were excited to get back to the playoffs last season and now have their eyes on getting into the ring with Dallas, Colorado and Winnipeg for the top of the division.

When you factor in the moves the Blues made in extending Pavel Buchnevich, scooping up Edmonton RFAs Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway via offer sheets as well as adding Radek Faksa from Dallas and Alexandre Texier from Columbus through trades, they got a lot tougher to deal with.

The Wild got more physical adding Yakov Trenin and Jakub Lauko, but they're banking on healthy seasons from Marcus Foligno, Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin to help them take a shot at the postseason.

This isn't even taking into account what Utah Hockey Club and the Chicago Blackhawks have done to better themselves. Utah added Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino to its blue line and Chicago brought in a load of NHL experience to give Connor Bedard more players who have been there before to work alongside.

This division is going to be hypercompetitive at the top, with Nashville making major additions to catch up to the Avalanche, Stars and Jets. But it's the wild-card group that will also be nasty to deal with in St. Louis, Minnesota and Salt Lake City, while Chicago attempts to not be as much of a doormat for everyone else.

You could look at a handful of the classically top teams in the Atlantic Division and wonder if this is finally the year when they come back to the pack, but all of them made moves to stave off that possibility and may have even gotten better.

Any division with the defending Stanley Cup champions is going to be ultra-competitive and the presence of the Florida Panthers and their playstyle made the Atlantic Division nasty to begin with.

And even though Florida lost a lot of talent this summer, all of its elite players are back up front, and the team has earned respect enough from everyone else in the division.

You could argue the Bruins took a big hit given they haven't re-signed Jeremy Swayman yet and traded Linus Ullmark within the division to Ottawa to help them get better at a position they were weak at last season.

The Bruins also lost a lot of depth with Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen and Derek Forbort all going to Vancouver, but they replaced them with Elias Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov and Max Jones. It'll make for a change in chemistry, yes, but they'll also get Matthew Poitras back from injury to make them just as deep as they were.

Tampa Bay parted ways with captain Steven Stamkos, a loss that cannot be discounted for how the team handles its business this season, but added the biggest free agent of the summer, Jake Guentzel, to soften the blow.

The Lightning also traded away young defenseman Mikhail Sergachev to Utah but got underrated defender JJ Moser and prospect Conor Geekie in return. That's a good bit of business for everyone.

Add in veteran free agents Cam Atkinson (Philadelphia) and Zemgus Girgensons (Buffalo), plus a returning Ryan McDonagh to go with a full healthy offseason for goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, and suddenly the Lightning look a bit scary again.

Even Toronto addressed a weak issue this summer by adding defensemen Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to give it the kind of veteran depth it hasn't had on the blue line in ages. Re-signing Max Domi was a solid move and getting Anthony Stolarz as backup to Joseph Woll in goal was a good move as well.

As long as Mitch Marner's final year under contract doesn't create an issue, the Leafs will be as dangerous as ever.

And those are just the moves the playoff teams made. Ottawa adding Ullmark was its boldest play to try to get back to the postseason.

Detroit's lack of action (re-signed Patrick Kane, added Vladimir Tarasenko and Erik Gustafsson) raises a lot of questions about whether it can get back to the postseason.

Buffalo bought out Jeff Skinner and lost Victor Olofsson and Zemgus Girgensons to free agency, but it added Jason Zucker, Ryan McLeod, Sam Lafferty, Nicolas Aube-Kubel and Beck Malenstyn to make its bottom six much speedier and stronger.

The Canadiens adding Patrik Laine via trade was a big move for them as they look to take steps forward in their rebuild.

This division will be a slobberknocker all season. And with the stakes getting higher for the teams trying to get back to the playoffs (Buffalo, Detroit, Ottawa) and those trying to win the Stanley Cup (Toronto, Boston), it makes the hate that's built up between all of them run that much hotter.

Hands down, the Metropolitan Division will be the most brutally competitive group in the NHL and this offseason hammered that home.

The New York Rangers won the Presidents' Trophy and made it to the Eastern Conference Final last season, but they didn't need to make drastic changes to try to keep up, just tweaks such as adding Reilly Smith and Sam Carrick up front.

It was a tough offseason for the Hurricanes and even though they weren't able to re-sign Jake Guentzel, Brett Pesce or Brady Skjei, re-signing Martin Necas was a welcome surprise, and they'll get a deal done with Seth Jarvis soon...right?

Adding William Carrier and Jack Roslovic up front were great fits for their bottom six and replacing Pesce and Skjei with Shayne Gostisbehere and Sean Walker make a lot of sense for how they play.

But where the Metropolitan "cold war" stepped up in the biggest way was in New Jersey and Washington. The Devils acquired Jacob Markström to address their dire goaltending situation and signed Pesce from Carolina.

They also brought back Stefan Noesen and Tomas Tatar up front and added Brendan Dillon to their defense. Mix in Paul Cotter from Vegas for their bottom six and hiring Sheldon Keefe to coach, and the Devils look daunting.

Washington, meanwhile, went off. It acquired defenseman Jakob Chychrun from Ottawa, goalie Logan Thompson from Vegas and forwards Andrew Mangiapane from Calgary and Pierre-Luc Dubois from Los Angeles via trades. They signed defenseman Matt Roy away from the Kings in free agency and added Brandon Duhaime to their forward group to bring the physical play. It's a very aggressive push by the Caps to ensure their playoff appearance wasn't a one-year hiccup as a rebuild looms in the distance.

The Penguins desperately need to get back to the playoffs while they've got Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson in their employ and veteran help from Kevin Hayes, Cody Glass, Anthony Beauvillier and Blake Lizotte up front and Matt Grzelcyk on the back will help them be a deeper team.

The Islanders adding Anthony Duclair gives them more weapons up front, something they very much needed.

The Flyers basically didn't do anything this summer as they've got their own game plan and are moving ahead with it and if the playoffs happen while they're doing it? Great. With how they performed last season, at least until the final month or so, they might be able to do it.

And Columbus? Sean Monahan was a good pickup to strengthen at center and moving on from Alexandre Texier and Patrik Laine makes them a little less potent up front.

When the Blue Jackets look like the only team on paper that won't be in the mix for the playoff race, you know you've got a wickedly competitive and brutal division that could lead to some surprise teams being dragged down into the lottery.