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Yearbook 2020-21
Get everything you need to know about the upcoming NHL season with THN's annual Yearbook! It's 188 pages packed with previews, predictions, features and stats. We've got stories on Tavares, Hischier, the NHL's best young D-men (Hughes, Heiskanen & Makar); plus our Top 50 players list, and our staple four-page previews for each of the 31 NHL teams, including positional analysis, predictions, depth charts, stats and Future Watch.
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
A TAMPA BAY Lightning team built to win a championship, that flirted with one for half a decade only to suffer several disappointments in that pursuit, finally grabbed the silver chalice in 2020. After defeating Dallas in six games to capture the second Stanley Cup in franchise history, the Lightning had little time to revel in the title as the roster dismantling started almost immediately. In a salary cap straight jacket, Tampa GM Julien BriseBois had to wriggle out of it by parting ways with some key contributors. Kevin Shattenkirk left for Anaheim, Carter Verhaeghe went south to the Panthers and Zach Bogosian signed with Toronto all in the first day of free agency. In order to repeat as Cup champions, the Lightning will rely heavily on the core that still remains –…
SAN JOSE SHARKS
SAN JOSE’S JOURNEY from Western Conference finalists in 2019 to the basement last season was as rapid as it was stunning. The Sharks endured a horrible October, coach Pete DeBoer was dismissed in December, and after interim coach Bob Boughner took over, injuries to key players secured their fate. Their most notable off-season move wasn’t a new arrival but a departure – future Hall of Famer Joe Thornton, who signed with Toronto after 15 seasons in San Jose. General manager Doug Wilson, who added a few role players in the off-season, has expressed faith the team’s core will rebound in 2020-21. That means Erik Karlsson, Tomas Hertl, Timo Meier, Kevin Labanc and Martin Jones will all have to be better to make a playoff push possible. Further, team chemistry will also…
NEW YORK RANGERS
AFTER A SWIFT and successful teardown, the Rangers march on with youngsters. The two oldest players on the youngest team in the East last season – and key contributors over the past 15 years – are no longer on Broadway: future Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist, the team’s longtime backbone, was bought out and signed with Washington, and veteran defenseman Marc Staal was traded to Detroit. After Jesper Fast opted for a three-year deal with Carolina, that left Chris Kreider as the last player remaining from the 2014-15 squad that went to the conference final. The transformation, which started in early 2018, accelerated with a victory in the draft lottery and the selection of consensus No. 1 pick Alexis Lafreniere, who turned 19 in October. With the frozen salary cap, the Rangers…
Top 50 PLAYERS IN THE NHL
1. NATHAN MACKINNON COLORADO | C WE DID NOT TAKE this lightly and we did not do it for headlines. Sure, Connor McDavid would have been an easy No. 1 pick, but it was MacKinnon who elevated his game to unforeseen levels on an Avalanche team that survived a brutal string of injuries to his teammates. We posed the MacKinnon vs. McDavid question to an NHL GM, a Western Conference pro scout and an analytics expert and the vote came out split in favor of MacKinnon. The GM picked McDavid after some agonizing but was quick to big-up MacKinnon. “He’s a beast, he’s Mark Messier,” said the GM. “And he’s a hard skater. He’s not elegant, he’s hard.” Indeed, MacKinnon is a warhead on the ice with a top speed that’s flat-out frightening…
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