The Central Division is lining up as a bruising race, and a few of the biggest swings may still be coming. Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota all took hits this offseason, Utah looks ready to push, and the trade market could still blow the whole thing open before the season settles in.
The Avalanche, Stars and Wild all lost important pieces, even if none of them are exactly backing into a step back. Colorado sent long-time winger Valeri Nichushkin to Columbus and also got younger in its bottom six by dealing Jack Drury and Ross Colton to rival Nashville.
Dallas remains over the salary cap, so another move is expected - forward Sam Steel could be one possibility - and it already moved a forward to Nashville. The Predators, with the threat of an offer sheet in the background, also landed young center Mavrik Bourque from Dallas.
Minnesota mostly shed depth, but the exits of wingers Mats Zuccarello and Vladimir Tarasenko could take a real bite out of the offense.
Even with those losses, all three teams still belong in the Central mix. The difference now is that one of them is more likely to come up short than the rest.
Utah enters as the division’s most intriguing threat. The Mammoth were one of the healthiest teams in the league last season, and that kind of injury fortune doesn’t always stick around. Even so, they did spend 28 games without number one center Logan Cooley and still looked deep enough to matter.
Their roster has the feel of a team built to contend right now. Utah matched New Jersey’s offer sheet for center Barrett Hayton, a move that showed a front office willing to take a risk and keep buying in.
The group has size, grit and scoring upside, and it now gets a full season with defenseman MacKenzie Weegar while also adding goaltender Sebastian Cossa to support Karel Vejmelka. On top of that, the prospect pool gives the Mammoth more room to chase something bigger if the right player hits the market.
St. Louis is another team with a very different vibe than it had a year ago.
Last season was a mess, and a lot of that traced back to the disastrous play of goaltender Jordan Binnington. The power play didn’t help, either.
So for the second straight offseason, the Blues went shopping for forwards, adding Connor McMichael and Mason McTavish. McMichael was extended for six seasons, while McTavish still has five years left on the deal he signed with Anaheim.
St. Louis is betting both players rebound after down years, and it’s also hoping that moving Jordan Kyrou changes the stylistic picture.
There’s also one major piece of clarity in St. Louis: Robert Thomas isn’t going anywhere.
The Blues and Thomas are aligned, and he helped drive what was the best line in hockey over the final two months of the season. Add Joel Hofer’s strong finish in net, and there’s at least a reason for Blues fans to feel better about where things are headed.
Chicago, meanwhile, has at least made a visible effort to get better. Bowen Byram arrived on defense, Patrick Kane returned up front to try to jolt a power play that was a disaster, and winger prospect Roman Kantserov brings pure upside. At the very least, the Blackhawks may be positioned to avoid a sixth straight season as the worst team in Natural Stat Trick’s expected goals for stat.
Then there’s the trade layer that could still reshape everything. Winnipeg may be better than people realize, but it’s hard to get a clean read on the Jets while Connor Hellebuyck is still on the roster. He wasn’t great last season, and any move involving him would be a wild card.
Nashville looks like a rebuild in everything but the label. That makes Ryan O’Reilly a name to watch in the final year of his contract, while Jonathan Marchessault and Steven Stamkos are still out there as well.
Minnesota, for its part, seems to be thinking long term. Letting Zuccarello leave was almost certainly tied to keeping flexibility for a run at center Dylan Larkin from Detroit. Dallas is also on Larkin’s approved trade list, which means one deal could end up shaking both the Central and another division along with it.
In Other News...
Blues Prospect Dmitri Buchelnikov Has One Big Hurdle Before St. Louis
Dmitri Buchelnikov remains one of the more interesting names in the Blues pipeline, even if his path to St. Louis is still taking shape overseas. The 22-year-old Russian winger is currently with CSKA Moscow in the KHL, and he has already lined up another season there after signing a one-year extension, keeping him in a league that can continue to sharpen his game while the Blues monitor his progress from afar.
For St. Louis, the attraction is obvious with a prospect ranked eighth in the system and still young enough to keep climbing. The bigger question is whether Buchelnikovs body catches up to his skill in time for the organizations preferred timeline, because the Blues would like to have him in North America by the end of the 2026-27 season if his physical development and overall readiness give them enough reason to make the move. [Read more 🡒]