In the wake of the NHL's trade deadline, it's becoming clear which teams are bona fide Stanley Cup contenders and which teams are playoff pretenders. Which four teams are in the "mushy middle", caught between Cup contention and a great pick in the draft lottery?
We’re nearing the final stretch of the NHL’s 2025-26 regular season, and as is always the case, several teams are hurtling toward somewhere no team should want to be – the 'mushy middle' of the league.
That’s the place in the standings where a team is not good enough to contend for a championship, but also not bad enough to land a lottery draft pick.
It’s the dead zone, where no team should want to be at the end of the season.
This year’s mushy middle teams include a recent Stanley Cup winner that is transitioning to a new era, an underachieving team that had high hopes, and some veteran-laden rosters that aren’t likely to make enough of a surge the rest of the way this year to get into a playoff spot.
With that said, let’s look at the mushy middle teams in alphabetical order:
Nashville Predators
Some hockey pundits believed the Nashville Predators wouldn’t be a playoff team this season, and from our perspective, that could still be the case for Nashville. Although, probably to their detriment, the Preds have been feisty this season, and they’ve pushed closer to a playoff spot than they deserve to be.
Nashville is 19 points ahead of the last-place Vancouver Canucks, and they’re still seven points away from being fourth in the Central Division.
Meanwhile, the Predators have an aging core, and GM Barry Trotz did very little at the trade deadline, dealing only right winger Michael McCarron and left winger Michael Bunting, among other minor moves.
They held onto Steven Stamkos, Ryan O’Reilly and Jonathan Marchessault – all of whom could’ve fast-tracked Nashville’s rebuilding process by acquiring draft picks and prospects. The Preds need generational talents to build around for the next decade, but that didn’t happen at the deadline.
The result – once again, the Preds aren’t strong enough to make the playoffs, but they’re too good to land a top-five draft pick. They’re almost the dictionary definition of a mushy middle team. Although there will be a GM change in the future, the Predators still lack the type of young, foundational talent that wins Cups.
Until they change their competitive philosophy, the Preds will be destined for mediocrity. And that doesn’t serve Nashville's fan base well at all.
New Jersey Devils
Hopes were high for the New Jersey Devils this season, and in recent years, for that matter. But the group New Jersey GM Tom Fitzgerald put together this season has consistently played like it was less than the sum of its parts.
With only 17 games left to play this season, the Devils are in seventh place in the Metropolitan Division, 15th place in the Eastern Conference, and 12 points behind the eighth-place Boston Bruins. New Jersey is also four points ahead of the 16th-place New York Rangers.
On the trade front, Fitzgerald didn’t make the big-swing move many expected from him, making only a minor trade that sent veteran left winger Ondrej Palat to the New York Islanders for right winger Maxim Tsyplakov.
While New Jersey’s prospect pool is promising, the bigger issue is the fact that the Devils could be missing the playoffs for the second time in the past three years. That’s a problem that deserves a response by Fitzgerald, but that’s not what happened for New Jersey at this year’s trade deadline.
Jack Hughes (Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images)So even if the Devils go on a late-season run, they’re only likely to guarantee themselves a mid-tier draft pick rather than embracing their sub-par season and gritting out the remainder of the season to get a foundational young player through the draft.
Fitzgerald needs to start tearing down his roster this summer or throw further assets into the core he’s built, because the team they have now is headed for mushy middle status.
Washington Capitals
The Washington Capitals were the Eastern Conference’s best regular-season team last year, but things have changed for them this season, and not in a positive way.
The Caps presently sit in 12th place in the East and sixth in the Metro Division. They’re indeed only five points behind the Bruins, but Boston has two games in hand on Washington. So the challenge of upending the Bruins for the final wild-card spot is even more mountainous for the Capitals.
Washington GM Chris Patrick is trying to transition his team from the Alex Ovechkin era to a squad with younger stars to build around. Sure, young right winger Ryan Leonard looks to be a core component for the Capitals, but he’s not a center who can be built around.
Also, veteran Jakob Chychrun is Washington’s top blueliner, but he’s also 27 years old. So the Caps are unlikely to rise to the top of the Metro Division anytime soon as they shift from the Ovechkin era to a new generation for the organization.
Yes, Washington made some moves of note at the deadline, acquiring defenseman Timothy Liljegren from the San Jose Sharks and dealing star D-man John Carlson to the Anaheim Ducks.
But Patrick failed to acquire either someone who can help them push for a playoff spot this season, or someone who can speed a retool-on-the-fly for the Caps. So, if the Capitals finished 11th or 12th in the East this season, nobody would be surprised.
That’s a condemnation of how quickly and how far the Caps have fallen after rising to the top of the East’s regular-season rankings last year.
Winnipeg Jets
After putting together a brutal 15-22-5 record in the first half of this season, the Winnipeg Jets have gone 11-7-5 in the last 23 games, pulling themselves out of the basement of the Western Conference.
However, that relatively strong play still isn’t likely to get Winnipeg into a playoff spot, as they sit in seventh place in the Central and in 13th place in the West.
Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff did make some moves of note by this year’s deadline, moving veteran left winger Tanner Pearson and defensemen Luke Schenn and Logan Stanley to the Buffalo Sabres in two separate trades.
Though Cheveldayoff clearly was trying to improve his team in the long-term by acquiring draft picks and prospects in the trades he did complete at the deadline, the bottom line is that the Jets are now less competitive.
The Jets are seven points behind the Los Angeles Kings, who are eighth in the West, so their playoff hopes aren’t completely extinguished. But there are five teams between Winnipeg and a post-season berth – the St. Louis Blues, Predators, Seattle Kraken, and Sharks – and it seems much more likely one of those teams makes the playoffs before the Jets do.
That almost certainly means Winnipeg is headed toward finishing ninth or 10th in the West, at best, far from making the playoffs and far from landing a top draft pick. That makes them an obvious mushy middle team.
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