We’re just a few weeks away from the start of the 2024/25 National Hockey League season, with rookie tournaments already starting, preseason action beginning next week, and opening night coming on October 8th. Rosters are starting to take form – or at least are in the “concepts of a plan” stage – and those looking to get ahead of the game on the futures market will no doubt want to make their first move soon. Over the course of the summer, we’ve already started previewing bits and pieces of the league at the team and player levels, but now it’s time to dig a bit deeper.
In the first of our division-by-division breakdowns, we’ll be focusing on the Atlantic Division.
This post is part of a series looking at all four NHL divisions. Make sure to check out all of our previews as they come!
Atlantic Division – Metropolitan Division – Central Division – Pacific Division
 | PTS Line | Over | Under | 100+ PTS | Make PO | Miss PO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida Panthers | 102.5 | -110 | -110 | -210 | -500 | +350 |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 101.5 | -115 | -105 | -185 | -370 | +270 |
| Boston Bruins | 99.5 | -105 | -115 | -105 | -210 | +165 |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | 98.5 | -105 | -115 | +125 | -230 | +180 |
| Detroit Red Wings | 90.5 | -110 | -110 | +320 | +130 | -160 |
| Ottawa Senators | 90.5 | -105 | -115 | +325 | +110 | -140 |
| Buffalo Sabres | 88.5 | -110 | -110 | +400 | +165 | -210 |
| Montreal Canadiens | 76.5 | -130 | +100 | +1600 | +550 | -900 |
The Atlantic Division remains the league’s most ferocious, with a top end consisting of multiple teams good enough to be Presidents’ Trophy or Stanley Cup threats, and a bottom end that’s strong on paper and can’t be disrespected on a given night.
Leading the way this year, unsurprisingly, are the Stanley Cup champions. The Florida Panthers proved that their late-season surge in 2022/23 wasn’t a Cinderella run, but rather the beginning of a return to strength, combining a bit of the regular season strength we’d seen two years prior with the team that thrived in the playoffs and won the Eastern Conference. Not only did they do that again, but they finished the job, winning the championship in an intense seven-game series against the Edmonton Oilers. They’ve lost some of their talent, most notably their power play quarterback Brandon Montour, but are banking on their star core to continue to thrive and their depth to continue to blossom. One intriguing name to watch is Adam Boqvist, a once-heralded blueline prospect who could get an opportunity to take some of Montour’s minutes this year.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, who took two of Florida’s departing pieces in Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Anthony Stolarz, trail just behind in the projections. The Leafs also rebuilt their bench with Craig Berube and his support staff taking over for Sheldon Keefe, who heads to New Jersey, and added another key piece to their blueline in veteran Chris Tanev. This is far from the best Leafs team of the Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander era, but they’re still good enough to hang around the conversation of success – as long as they finally string together some playoff wins.
The Boston Bruins have been believed to be on their competitive deathbed for years, but keep finding ways to hang around, putting up a 109-point season last year. Boston took away from their biggest strength in goal this summer by moving Linus Ullmark to Ottawa, and Jeremy Swayman is still without a contract, creating some concern. On the flip side, they’ve rebuilt some of the hole left by Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci a year ago in signing Elias Lindholm, and Nikita Zadorov should make their blue line a bit meaner.
Over in Tampa Bay, one of the most interesting storylines of the summer came from the team moving on from longtime captain Steven Stamkos, choosing instead to use his money on signing winger Jake Guentzel to a long-term deal. The team also lost Mikhail Sergachev in a trade to Utah, Tanner Jeannot in a trade to Los Angeles, and Anthony Duclair to free agency, stripping away some of their support, but hope that the return of Ryan McDonagh can offset some of that gap. It’s fair to wonder if the Lightning’s golden era is behind them at this point, but it’s also difficult to fully dismiss them.
On the back end of the division, you have a familiar “will they, won’t they” trio of Detroit, Ottawa, and Buffalo. Ultimately, the answer was won’t they in all three cases last year. Detroit went right down the wire in the playoff race last season but fell short in the final days. Ottawa’s hopes relied on strong goaltending that they didn’t get, and they’ll hope that the aforementioned Ullmark trade makes a difference for them there. The Sabres were a bit of a disappointment after looking like they’d finally started to turn a corner – we’ll see if bringing back Lindy Ruff behind the bench marks a return to better days.
Lastly, at the bottom, we have the still-rebuilding Montreal Canadiens, who should be one of the more interesting bottom feeders in the league. Most notably, the team added Patrik Laine from the Columbus Blue Jackets, hoping to revitalize the sniper’s career in a market that has often fared well for big-personality skilled forwards needing fresh starts.
| Line | 23/24 | YoY | xGF% | PDO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Florida Panthers | 102.5 | 110 | -7.5 | 54.3 | 100.7 |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 101.5 | 102 | +0.5 | 51.4 | 100.7 |
| Boston Bruins | 99.5 | 109 | -9.5 | 50.0 | 102.7 |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | 98.5 | 98 | +0.5 | 49.1 | 99.4 |
| Detroit Red Wings | 90.5 | 91 | -0.5 | 45.9 | 100.8 |
| Ottawa Senators | 90.5 | 78 | +12.5 | 49.2 | 98.3 |
| Buffalo Sabres | 88.5 | 84 | +4.5 | 48.4 | 100.2 |
| Montreal Canadiens | 76.5 | 76 | +0.5 | 46.4 | 101.1 |
PDO: A combination of Shooting and Save % at 5v5. Large deviations from 100.0 can be signs of fortune/misfortune.
The Atlantic is priced pretty conservatively considering the teams’ projected point lines compared to where they finished last year. The two teams seeing substantial dips are Boston and Florida, which makes sense even before you look at the rosters—there’s a smoothing effect that tends to happen with projections at the top and bottom, and you’ll rarely see a projection from a sportsbook or an independent model project a repeat of the types of point totals that tend to lead the league.
The Edmonton Oilers, for example, have the highest line at 108.5 points, while a 109-point season would be the lowest 82-game total for a Presidents’ Trophy winner since 1997, before the removal of ties.
After that, the next three teams in last year’s division standings are priced at roughly where they were last year, within a point, truly turning the question into whether or not you think the Leafs, Lightning, and Wings are generally better than they were in the previous season. The former pair really comes down to how you feel about their biggest stylistic changes, while Detroit does seem somewhat reasonable to come to fruition, with their youngest players likely to improve and Vladimir Tarasenko likely to provide some punch.
The big riser in this equation is the Senators, with their line sitting at a 12.5-point improvement over last year. Then again, their line last year was a very similar 91.5 points, and look where that got them. Ultimately, the jump was always going to rely on strong goaltending, and they didn’t get that. Ullmark, two seasons removed from winning the Vezina Trophy, could end up the solution here, or we could find out that his success was systems-driven. My guess is they improve, but whether that improvement brings them all the way into the playoff picture is hard to say.
I’ll remain stubborn on the Sabres and say they shake off their seven-point dip from last season. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen appears to be the real deal in goal, they’ve got several platoon options behind him, and it feels like Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch should both be able to rebound from down years. From mid-December on, they looked much closer to a playoff team than they had been in their early struggles, and I’m going to take the bait again here.
Lastly, Montreal sitting at the same total as last year feels like an underestimation of them. Their younger players are starting to blossom and Laine should add some scoring punch. I still don’t think they’re good, and their undoing might be the amount of divisional games in their schedule, but I think they’ll once again be the best division bottom feeder in the league this year.
Confidently Over: Montreal Canadiens
Confidently Under:
Feeling Over: Buffalo Sabres
Feeling Under: Boston Bruins
Use Your Judgement: Ottawa Senators, Detroit Red Wings
Let It Play Out: Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers
| Win Division | Pres Trophy | Stanley Cup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florida Panthers | +210 | +850 | +1000 |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | +250 | +1100 | +1600* |
| Boston Bruins | +450 | +1800 | +1800 |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | +450 | +2200 | +1800 |
| Detroit Red Wings | +1100 | +5500 | +4000 |
| Ottawa Senators | +1100 | +6000 | +4000 |
| Buffalo Sabres | +1300 | +9000 | +4500 |
| Montreal Canadiens | +7500 | +20000 | +8000 |
Picking a division winner out of this pile is a little difficult. It’s hard to dismiss the defending champs, but a short offseason and some noteworthy departures could make this a tougher task. The Maple Leafs have a good enough team that they could ride a new coach bump to their first Atlantic Division title of the era, but we’ve expected similar highs out of them more than a few times over the years and they’ve never quite gotten there. Not to mention, there’s a lot of questions to be asked about their goaltending tandem of Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz, who have produced strong performances but never been ones for big workloads.
I’m also past the point of completely dismissing the Bruins. Every year, we look to pull the parachute on them, and every year, they prove to hang around. I think Lindholm is a great signing for their forward group, and I could see a rebound year for a healthy Brad Marchand. So, while I think the trend is downward for them, that could mean 107 instead of 109, and they somehow find themselves back on top.
Ultimately, the depth of the division combined with the dulling of the top end should mean that no team dominates the gauntlet, making a Presidents’ Trophy run tough for anyone. Lastly, for the big prize, you can take advantage of a current boost to the Maple Leafs’ odds if you dream of a historic breakthrough, though it’s hard to argue that the choice would be more rational than hopeful. A repeat in Sunrise at +1000 seems like a reasonable look, and their state rivals in Tampa have shown in recent years that three straight trips to the dance and back-to-back wins are both attainable outcomes with the right focus.
Check back in the coming days as we continue our trip around the league with the Metropolitan Division.
