Predicting the NHL's Central Division Rankings in 2023-24

The NHL's Central Division could see some bounce-back campaigns, some big disappointments and a Stanley Cup. Adam Proteau provides his predictions.

The NHL’s 2023-24 regular season is almost upon us, so there’s no better time to put together some fun predictions as to how the year will unfold. 

There’s bound to be robust competition throughout the league, which is why, after speaking to NHL scouts, agents and media members, we’re ready to give you our perspective for each of the league’s four divisions.

We began our predictions Sunday with a breakdown of the Metropolitan Division – you can read that file here. On Monday, we analyzed the also quite competitive Atlantic Division. And today, we’re breaking down the Central Division. We’re going to get straight to it:

In: Matt Duchene (C), Craig Smith (RW), Sam Steel (LW), Gavin Bayreuther (D)

Out: Max Domi (LW), Luke Glendening (C), Colin Miller (D)

Why they’re picked in this position: The Stars added to an already-potent lineup this summer when they signed former Predators center Duchene. The 32-year-old is one year removed from a 43-goal, 86-point season. Although his numbers dropped to 22 goals and 56 points last season, you have to bear in mind that (a) he was playing on a not-great Preds team, and (b) he was relied on to do the heavy lifting up front. 

As a Star, Duchene will likely get his minutes reduced from the 18:19 of ice time he averaged last year, but he can still give them good minutes on the third line.

There’s still pressure there as far as Duchene being a UFA next summer and carving out what could be his last big contract at the end of 2023-24, but in some ways, he may benefit from being a secondary option. 

In any case, the fact a talent like Duchene is a third-liner speaks volumes about the depth and balance of this Stars team. They didn’t make many moves because they didn’t need to make many moves. As it showed in the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring, Dallas is perfectly capable of making a deep playoff run – and nothing less than a second consecutive trip to the Western Conference final will satiate GM Jim Nill.

Having expertly built the current Stars squad, Nill this summer looked to add another experienced hand up front, and he got that in Duchene. The Stars have only approximately $469,000 in salary cap space, but they don’t need anything else. From Jake Oettinger in net to elite defenseman Miro Heiskanen to sniper winger Jason Robertson to center Roope Hintz, Dallas has at least one excellent player in each of the aforementioned positions. 

They’re going to be a serious Cup threat again this year. No excuses not to.

In: Jonathan Drouin (LW), Ryan Johansen (C), Miles Wood (LW), Ross Colton (C)

Out: J.T. Compher (C), Lars Eller (C), Evan Rodrigues (LW), Alex Newhook (LW), Matt Nieto (LW), Erik Johnson (D), Jonas Johansson (G)

Why they’re picked in this position: Colorado GM Chris MacFarland spent virtually to the cap ceiling this summer when he went to the open-and-trade markets and remade the face of the Avalanche’s forward group. 

With captain Gabriel Landeskog out for the entire 2023-24 season, MacFarland and fellow Avs management member Joe Sakic took an aggressive approach as they acquired Johansen in a trade with the Predators, then acquired three different but valuable pieces in Drouin (somewhat of a reclamation project at this point), center Colton and winger Wood. The latter two have transformed Colorado’s third line and added depth to the forward group overall.

The Avalanche’s defense corps is more or less the same, and the same goes for their goaltending tandem of Alexandar Georgiev and Pavel Francouz. This is a very similar version of the team that won the Central last season, so there’s no reason for them to slip any farther than second in the division. Even if Johansen isn’t an elite player anymore, his presence will deepen the competition. And Colorado has enough core talent in Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Devon Toews and Mikko Rantanen to provide a foundation for winning.

The Avs lost a first-round showdown against Seattle that had three 3-2 games and one 2-1 game. Colorado may have been surprised a little by the upstart Kraken, but this season, it feels like they mean business just as much as they did in their Cup-winning season of 2021-22. They may not win the division, but they won’t be a team to bet against come the post-season.

In: Kevin Hayes (C), Oskar Sundqvist (RW)

Out: Tyler Pitlick (C), Josh Leivo (LW), Logan Brown (C), Thomas Greiss (G)

Why they’re picked in this position: The Blues lost eight of their first 11 games – all regulation losses, to boot – and never could get quite right until it was too late to save the season. Two losing streaks that saw them go a combined 3-9-2 from late January to late February put an end to their playoff hopes. 

St. Louis GM Doug Armstrong peeled off veteran members of what was the team’s core in their Cup-winning season: he shipped out Vladimir Tarasenko to the New York Rangers and former captain Ryan O’Reilly to Toronto.

However, Armstrong also made some late-season moves to give his team another shot at a playoff berth in 2023-24. He plucked well-travelled winger Kasperi Kapanen off waivers, and he acquired winger Jakub Vrana from the Red Wings. 

Vrana was a great success, albeit in a small sample size – in 20 games as a Blue, the 27-year-old Vrana generated 10 goals and 14 points. Meanwhile, Kapanen posted eight goals and 14 points in 23 games with St. Louis. 

As a result, the Blues now have three very respectable forward lines. Although their defense corps is one of the oldest in the league – five of their top six blueliners are between 30 and 33 years old – it’s also a defense corps that still knows the right way to play.

The Blues will likely sink or swim this season based on the play of goalie Jordan Binnington, and they need a calmer, more focused season from him. But adding Hayes to their top six forwards at next to no cost will help the offense, and better luck on the health front will also help their cause. 

They finished the year 8-5-2 – again, not ideal, but certainly, better than their play earlier in the season – and we think they’ll have a moderately successful regular season and could win a playoff round or two. There’s still lots to like in St. Louis, and a bounce-back year could well be in the cards.

In: Pat Maroon (LW)

Out: Gustav Nyquist (LW), Sam Steel (LW), Ryan Reaves (RW), Oskar Sundqvist (RW), Mason Shaw (C), Matt Dumba (D), John Klingberg (D)

Why they’re picked in this position: The Wild stumbled into the post-season last spring and were snubbed out by Dallas in a first-round post-season series that saw Minnesota score a combined total of six goals in its four losses. 

The offense was a problem for them in the regular season and the playoffs, and the cap-strapped Wild did nothing to address that in the free-agent or trade markets this summer. It did move on from enforcer Ryan Reaves in favor of big bruiser Maroon, but otherwise, Minnesota is turning to its younger players to keep them competitive as they navigate waters in the Central.

That may turn out to be a good thing if youngsters like D-man Brock Faber, center Marco Rossi, right winger Matt Boldy and superstar Kirill Kaprizov pan out as management hopes they will. Still, there’s also the chance the Wild continues to have issues putting the puck in the other team’s net – and Minnesota GM Bill Guerin has no leverage to make moves of consequence on the trade market. 

The Wild have $1.64 million in cap space, but they have three roster spots still to fill by the end of training camp. Almost assuredly, they’ll have to take chances on either younger players who are unproven at the NHL level or veterans forced to settle for league-minimum contracts on a short-term basis. That’s not ideal for a team trying to hold a playoff spot in the Central.

There’s a case to be made that there’s still enough left in Minnesota to keep the Wild in the post-season, and we tend to agree with that. But home-ice advantage doesn’t seem to be a realistic goal for them, and being an underdog in the playoffs is their most likely fate. Can the last gasps of their oldest veterans be enough to propel them into the second round of the playoffs and beyond? We doubt it, but stranger things have happened in hockey’s greatest league.

In: Ryan O’Reilly (C), Gustav Nyquist (LW), Denis Gurianov (LW), Luke Schenn (D), GM Barry Trotz, coach Andrew Brunette

Out: Matt Duchene (C), Ryan Johansen (C), Cal Foote (D), GM David Poile, coach John Hynes

Why they’re picked in this position: The Era of Trotz as Predators GM has begun, and he showed no hesitance to make a direct impact on the roster this summer. 

Nashville bought out Duchene and retained a portion of Johansen's salary and dealt him to Colorado. With the money Trotz saved in those two transactions, he landed a quartet of new faces in O’Reilly, Nyquist, Gurianov and Schenn. 

But the more we look at this Preds group as a whole, the more we see them and the Winnipeg Jets (more on them below) as the definition of mushy middle teams – just good enough to stay out of the basement in their division but just bad enough to fail to qualify for the playoffs.

Nashville can quiet its critics if some of its younger less-heralded players step up and make their mark this season. But even with O’Reilly and Nyquist as top-six forwards, we’re just not all that high on the Preds’ forward group. They have a lot of mid-tier players, but other than perennial Norris Trophy candidate Roman Josi and No. 1 goalie Juuse Saros, they don’t have the kind of truly elite competitors needed to keep up with the Joneses in the Central.

With new coach Brunette handling things, Nashville will have a new message this season. What will be most intriguing, particularly if they miss out on the playoffs, will be to see how Trotz reacts next summer. He’s shown this off-season he can strike via trades and contract buyouts, and if he makes similar moves next spring, we might see something that resembles a full-on rebuild that many (us included) think should’ve happened to the Predators long ago.

In: Alex Iafallo (LW), Gabe Vilardi (C), Rasmus Kupari (C), Laurent Brossoit (G)

Out: Pierre-Luc Dubois (C), Blake Wheeler (RW), Sam Gagner (C), Kevin Stenlund (C), Karson Kuhlman (C), David Rittich (G)

Why they’re picked in this position: As we noted above, the Jets are another mushy middle team. They barely made the playoffs last season and fell meekly to Vegas in five first-round games. 

They then lost former key components Dubois and Wheeler – in return for the former, they landed former Kings forwards Iafallo, Vilardi and Kupari, but they reportedly have unhappy campers in star goalie Connor Hellebuyck and star center Mark Scheifele, who both are scheduled to be UFAs at the end of 2023-24.

All things considered, there’s a grey cloud looming on the horizon for Winnipeg, and Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and owner Mark Chipman are feeling the heat to change the environment for the better. That may mean taking a sideways or backward step before they can take another step forward, but the core of this team has had its day in the sun and now feels stale and crumbly. They will have a very difficult time just trying to get into the post-season, let alone be a team able to make it out of the first round. 

The Jets team we see by season’s end may be significantly different than the one we see at present, and to be honest, that’s a good thing. Change is necessary for many teams in their competitive cycle, and Winnipeg needs a shakeup in the worst – and best – way.

In: Logan Cooley (C), Jason Zucker (LW), Alex Kerfoot (LW), Nick Bjugstad (C), Matt Dumba (D), Sean Durzi (D), Troy Stecher (D), Travis Dermott (D)

Out: Christian Fischer (RW), Brett Ritchie (RW), Laurent Dauphin (C), Patrik Nemeth (D), Connor Mackey (D), Zack Kassian (RW)

Why they’re picked in this position: We’ve seen some pundits who believe the Coyotes are going to be on the upswing this coming season, and we agree with them, if only because it’s going to be hard to be worse – either from their finish last year or to be worse than the Blackhawks. But that’s where the positivity ends from our perspective on Arizona. 

Even with the additions of Dumba and Durzi on the back end, the Coyotes’ defense is small and not especially adept at shutting down opponents’ offensive pushes. And their forwards may have some talented youngsters – most notably, rookie Cooley – but they’re also height-challenged, as five of their top 12 forwards are shorter than six-foot.

For those reasons, it’s a challenge for us to envision the Coyotes leapfrogging into a playoff position in the Central this year. Yotes GM Bill Armstrong has amassed a massive collection of draft picks and prospects, but we don’t believe he’s assembled a playoff team this season. 

Patience continues to be a virtue in the Arizona desert, and while that’s small solace for Coyotes fans, they really have no other choice but to watch and hope for the best as soon as possible. We think it’s possible, just not so soon.

In: Connor Bedard (C), Taylor Hall (LW), Nick Foligno (LW), Corey Perry (RW), Ryan Donato (LW)

Out: Jonathan Toews (C), Anders Bjork (LW), Caleb Jones (D), Jujhar Khaira (D), Ian Mitchell (D), Alex Stalock (G)

Why they’re picked in this position: The Blackhawks are another team some pundits are suggesting are in a position to surprise the league this year. We would answer that extreme optimism by cold-bloodedly pointing to the general area of their defense and goaltending. Like – really – do you see netminder Petr Mrazek and backup Arvid Soderblom as a playoff-caliber pair? And do you think a defense corps featuring Seth Jones, a couple of youngsters and some flotsam and jetsam filling out their top-six group of blueliners as being playoff-worthy? In both cases, you shouldn’t because they’re not.

The Hawks got their foundational superstar in the draft this summer in Bedard, and they’ve surrounded him with veteran talents such as Hall, Foligno, Perry and Donato. But overall, Chicago’s roster remains a dog’s breakfast of not-quite-good-enough fringe players and no-longer-good-enough veterans. They may be marginally better than they were in 2022-23, but it’s a long road back to respectability, and the Blackhawks aren’t even at the city limits of respectability.

Next season will be much more enjoyable for Hawks fans watching Bedard shine as a rookie, but there are going to be many potholes ahead for them in the short term. That will help them land another top-flite talent in the 2024 draft, but they’ll experience more pain to get there.