5 NHL Teams Who May Regress in 2024-25

2023-24 season: 50-23-9, 109 points, 1st in Pacific

The Canucks rode some unsustainable percentages to winning the Pacific, finishing with a 10.6 shooting percentage and .922 save percentage at five-on-five. The former ranked first in the NHL and generally speaking, a 10.6 shooting percentage at five-on-five isn't sustainable from year to year. The .922 SV%, while high, ranked sixth, and that's probably something that can come close to repeatable if Thatcher Demko is healthy.

A few Canucks players also had career years, specifically shooting-wise. Nils Hoglander and Dakota Joshua finished with shooting percentages of 20 percent or higher; in Joshua's case, it was 21.4 percent. J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser were just under 20 percent at 19.1 and 19.6 percent, respectively. Boeser is a great player, but he's a 13.8 percent shooter for his career, while Miller is a 14.9 percent shooter. There's likely going to be some regression for these two players.

2023-24 season: 47-20-15, 109 points, 2nd in Atlantic

This Bruins' roster doesn't look bad on paper, but they did lose a key piece in trading goaltender Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators. Jeremy Swayman and Ullmark were among the NHL's best netminding tandems, if not the best.

Joonas Korpisalo was part of the return for Ullmark, but he was one of the worst goalies in the NHL a season ago. I'd bet on him bouncing back to an extent in a Bruins system that seems to support goalies well, but I'm not sure what that looks like. It probably won't look like Ullmark, though, who posted a .924 SV% in his three seasons with the Bruins.

Their playoff positioning could be a bit more precarious than it has been recently.

2023-24 season: 52-24-6, 110 points, 2nd in Central

The Winnipeg Jets may be the team most primed for regression this season, and it mostly has to do with players who departed this offseason. Out are Tyler Toffoli, Nate Schmidt, Brenden Dillon, Sean Monahan, and Laurent Brossoit, and in was just Kaapo Kähkönen to replace Brossoit in between the pipes.

Kähkönen played well for a terrible San Jose Sharks team a season ago and was even better in a small sample for the New Jersey Devils after the trade deadline. He should be a quality replacement for Brossoit, but it's hard to argue this team is better than a season ago.

2023-24 season: 38-33-11, 87 points, 6th in Metro

Though the Flyers missed the playoffs a season ago, they were in the chase until the very end. The reason they didn't qualify is their team SV% plummeted for the last half of the season. The Flyers had a team SV% of .878 at five-on-five from Jan. 1 onward, the worst team SV% in the NHL.

That's arguably their most pressing concern heading into the new season, as Sam Ersson and Ilya Fedotov will make up their tandem. Ersson has some NHL experience, having played 63 NHL games, 51 of which came last season. His play began to drop off as his workload increased in 2023-24, while Fedotov spent his entire career in the KHL until the very end of last season.

2023-24 season: 55-23-4, 114 points, 1st in Metro, Presidents' Trophy Winners

Repeating as Presidents' Trophy champions alone makes the Rangers a potential regression candidate, but it goes beyond that. It's probably crazy to say Artemi Panarin might be due to regress, but he had a career year in 2023-24, totaling 120 points and 49 goals in 82 games - both career-highs.

The difference for Panarin is that he became a high-volume shooter, totaling 304 shots on goal a season ago. There might be an extent to which his career year is sustainable if he continues the high-volume shooting, but I'd still be surprised if he totaled 120 points and 49 goals again. Still, he's probably good for 30-35 goals and 90-plus points. That's going to drive some positive results for the Rangers.