25 questions heading into the second half of the NHL season

There have been only three repeat Stanley Cup champions in the NHL since the 1990 season. The Pittsburgh Penguins have done it twice (1990-91 and 1991-92; then 2015-16 and 2016-17), and the Detroit Red Wings have done it once (1996-97 and 1997-98). That alone tells you how difficult it is to win the Stanley Cup two years in a row. Do the Washington Capitals have what it takes to join that club? On paper the answer certainly seems to be yes. Even with the shorter summer, the Capitals have come back in 2018-19 and looked just as good (and at times even better) than they did during their championship season. Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom are still dominating, Tom Wilson has added goal scoring to his game, John Carlson looks like a potential Norris Trophy contender, and they still have Braden Holtby, one of the league's best postseason goalies. 

The Tampa Bay Lightning have been one of the top three teams in the NHL over the past four years based on every objective measure we have to analyze and evaluate hockey teams. They have elite talent, they have individual award winners, they win a ton of games, they score at a level almost no other team in the league can match and they typically go far in the playoffs. They have been in at least the Eastern Conference Final in three of the past four seasons, reaching the Stanley Cup Final once and losing in Game 7 (including a one-goal game on the road) the other two times. The only year during that run that they missed the playoffs was one that was ruined by significant injuries to key players, including Steven Stamkos who missed most of that season. They still almost ended up making the postseason that year. When it comes to this team, it once again has everything to make a deep run and is looking like it is going to have a great chance to finish with the league's best record. Is this the year this squad gets its Stanley Cup? 

Goaltending was one of the issues that prevented the Pittsburgh Penguins from completing the three-peat during the 2017-18 season. During the first month of the 2018-19 season, it looked like it once again might be a problem. But ever since Matt Murray returned from injury in early December, he has played some of the best hockey of his career and looked like the goalie who won back-to-back Stanley Cups during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. No one should expect him to maintain the pace he has played at over the past month. But if he gets back to the level he played at during his first two years in the league, this will be an extremely difficult team to beat in the playoffs given the talent it has in its lineup. 

The Toronto Maple Leafs finally got William Nylander under contract, but after missing a significant portion of the season he has yet to find his rhythm. Because it is happening in Toronto, and because he got a huge contract and because he sat out a quarter of the season to get that contract, he is going to face immense pressure. Eventually he is going to return to being the 60-70 point player he was over the first few years of his career and probably even exceed that at some point. Whether that happens this season or next season with a fresh start remains to be seen. But if the Maple Leafs are going to end their Stanley Cup drought that goes all the way back to 1967, they are going to need that version of Nylander to arrive this season and make an impact. 

We know Connor McDavid is the best player in hockey, and by extension, the most valuable player in hockey. We also know that because the team around him is lousy, it will work against him in voting just as it did a year ago. Will there be any sort of change in that mindset? Or will it go to Nikita Kucherov in Tampa Bay for his incredible offensive performance? Or perhaps one of the top-line Colorado Avalanche players? Will Alex Ovechkin, now a Stanley Cup winner, who is once again the league's leading goal-scorer on a contender and likely division champion get another one to add to his collection? One thing is for sure: We are headed for another few months of "what does value mean?" arguments.

Alex Ovechkin has led the league in goals in five of the past six years and through the halfway point is once again in the top spot. But he has a few challengers behind him in Jeff Skinner, John Tavares and Gabriel Landeskog. You can also never rule out Patrik Laine in Winnipeg. If Ovechkin leads the league again, it will be his eighth goal-scoring crown and the second-most in league history. 

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Montreal Canadiens remaining in the playoff race through the first half of the season has been the fact they did not have their top defender, Shea Weber, for most of the first three months and have only received average play from their top overall player, starting goalie Carey Price. Add in the fact they traded Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk over the summer, and it is sort of amazing this team even has a shot at the playoffs. What would give the Canadiens an even better chance is if Price started to play like one of the league's top goalies once again. They have a ton of money invested in him and Weber for several more years, and the concern there has always been the fact they put themselves on the hooks for those contracts after both players were on the other side of their 30th birthdays. That is not a normal approach for teams to take. 

The Philadelphia Flyers find themselves near the bottom of the NHL standings in what can only be described as a disappointing and chaotic season. They have fired their general manager, their assistant general manager, their head coach and one of their assistant coaches, and they have tried to find another fix in net with the call-up of top prospect Carter Hart. New general manager Chuck Fletcher has a lot of decisions to make as it relates to the future of several players, including free-agent-to-be Wayne Simmonds. Along with that, he needs to find a permanent coach (Joel Quenneville?), figure out if Hart is to be the guy in net and whether or not the team needs tweaks or a full-on rebuild. In other words: They have a lot of questions. 

If they want to be serious contenders, they will almost certainly have to. They are a top-heavy team with a great top line and a great defense pairing, but they just don't have much else after that. They are basically an Eastern Conference version of the Colorado Avalanche. That may be good enough to get in the playoffs, but will it be enough to climb through the gauntlet that would potentially be the Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning in the first two rounds of the playoffs?

After losing John Tavares over the summer, the New York Islanders have exceeded expectations this season and are right in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff race. The problem is that a lot of their success seems to be based on smoke and mirrors, and it may not be sustainable. Remember, they were in a similar position a year ago before completely falling apart in the second half. There is also the fact they have three key forwards without contracts beyond this season in Anders Lee, Jordan Eberle and Brock Nelson. Can they afford to lose any of them for no compensation this summer, and how will that impact their plans in the short term?

As long as they have Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane on the roster, it is really hard to imagine the Chicago Blackhawks throwing in the towel and going through a full-scale rebuild. But the team around them is not particularly good and is headed for its second consecutive non-playoff season. A lot of the core has either aged or is no longer a part of the organization and one of their most important players, starting goalie Corey Crawford, is once again dealing with concussion issues. None of that is ideal. The Blackhawks do have some salary cap space coming their way this summer and could probably create a bit more if they find a way to unload some of their problematic contracts (Brent Seabrook, for example). Are there a couple of quick fixes that can help this team retool on the fly? Or is this more of what we should expect from Chicago for the remainder of the Toews-Kane era?

It is not hard to identify the true contenders at this point, as well as the teams that are out of it. We know the Ottawa Senators will continue their firesale, but what about teams like the New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings? Both started rebuilds last season and were active at the deadline, and both have the potential to flip a lot of assets this season as well. In New York, Kevin Hayes seems like a given to get traded, while the Red Wings could potentially unload Gustav Nyquist or Jimmy Howard to keep adding draft picks and prospects to their cupboard. 

The Los Angeles Kings have stalled out. Their offense is dreadful, their core is getting older and slowing down, and there does not seem to be much coming in the near future that will significantly change things for the better. They just signed Drew Doughty to a long-term contract, so you know he is not going anywhere — and neither should Anze Kopitar. But would they ever consider moving Jonathan Quick? This team needed to hit the reset button two or three years ago and is only regressing even more under its current construction. 

It seems to be a one-horse race at this point for the Calder Trophy, as Vancouver Canucks sensation Elias Pettersson is running away with it. He has been an immediate impact player and has helped keep the Canucks in the playoff race. The only thing that might work against him is that he has missed more than 10 games due to injury, and there are a couple of really good defenders in Miro Heiskanen in Dallas and Rasmus Dahlin in Buffalo. But assuming he doesn't miss much more time and keeps scoring goals the way he has been, this may be Pettersson's award to win. 

They might be. They have been one of the biggest surprises in the NHL this season by not only charging toward a playoff spot, but by also being one of the best teams in the league at the halfway point. The Flames really are fascinating because they have some elite top-end talent (Johnny Gaudreau, specifically) and a potential Norris Trophy defender in Mark Giordano. They also have a pretty reasonable path through the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs where, if they can win the Pacific Division, one of their top competitors (San Jose or Vegas, which would almost certainly be the Nos. 2 and 3 teams in the Pacific Division) would be guaranteed to lose in the first round. The big question for this team will be the goaltending. 

With another season of Connor McDavid's prime years on the verge of being wasted, there seems to be a playoffs-or-bust mentality in Edmonton as it relates to the future of general manager Peter Chiarelli. That could be a problem for Oilers fans because it could mean desperation trades that don't really help the short-term outlook but could potentially damage the long-term outlook. There have been too many of those trades in Edmonton over the years, and with the Oilers struggling and Chiarelli seemingly in desperation mode, it could mean someone like a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl or Oscar Klefbom gets traded in a repeat of the Taylor Hall deal. The Oilers have already changed coaches, replacing Todd McLellan with Ken Hitchcock, but that is not going to be enough to fix a team that has nothing of substance around its top three stars (one of whom is a megastar, generational talent). 

Joe Thornton should be remembered as one of the greatest players of all time, but unless he gets a championship there is always going to be a sentiment that his career is missing something. And that is unfortunate because it also makes him one of the most under appreciated players to ever play the game. When taking into account his entire body of work throughout his career, Thornton has probably been one of the top five players of his era and one of the best pure passers to ever step on an NHL ice surface. The Sharks have gone all in on trying to build a championship team around him, especially with the addition of Erik Karlsson. The Sharks have almost all of the ingredients necessary for another trip to the Stanley Cup Final and the salary cap space to maybe make another big add before the playoffs to help Thornton finally get the one piece of hardware his Hall of Fame career is lacking. 

The weirdest story of the first half of the season had to be Dallas Stars CEO Jim Lites profanely calling out his best players, Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn, in several on-the-record interviews with local Dallas media. What made it so strange is that even though Seguin and Benn have not quite played up to their usual levels, they have still been the team's best players this season and their line has been the team's most dominant and productive. The Stars are still looking like a playoff team, but you cannot take back things that were said publicly and on the record. If the Stars end up falling short, the fallout should be directed at the front office and general manager, who have built what has been a consistently mediocre team over the past six years. 

They are going to be a playoff team again, but the intrigue here is still how they handle the second half of the season. Their top two players, goalie Sergei Bobrovsky and winger Artemi Panarin, are free agents after this season, and their departures would leave two massive holes on the roster. There is always the possibility they try to load up for one more run with this core, but they also have to worry about just how good Bobrovsky can be. He has had a down year and opened up the second half by getting suspended for a big game due to an undisclosed "incident." His playoff struggles throughout his career are well-documented, and it is difficult to see Columbus going on a deep run without him playing at a high level. 

The Colorado Avalanche have the NHL's best line in Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Gabriel Landeskog, and they have been borderline unstoppable for much of the season. They helped carry the Avalanche to the playoffs a year ago and are the single biggest reason they are still in the playoff hunt this season. But for as good as that trio is, they are going to need some help from another line if they are going to be anything other than a team that just simply gets into the playoffs and then bows out in the first round. It's kind of remarkable one line has taken the team even this far. 

They have not been there since the 2010-11 season, but after a 10-game winning streak in November they looked to be back on track. The bad news is outside of that winning streak, which was mostly driven by overtime and shootout wins, the Sabres have been a completely mediocre team driven almost entirely by a top line of Jack Eichel and Jeff Skinner. Then there is also the question of what happens with Skinner, a free agent after the season, who has been one of the league's top goal scorers.

The Vegas Golden Knights were the story in the NHL during the 2017-18 season, going on an improbable run to the Stanley Cup Final in their first year of existence. After a slow start to the 2018-19 season, they are once again looking like one of the best teams in the league. If they can ever get Max Pacioretty back on track, they could have two great scoring lines in a division that is wide open for the taking. 

Over the past year, the Ottawa Senators have completely torn apart their roster, dealing Derick Brassard, Erik Karlsson, Mike Hoffman, Kyle Turris and several other significant players. They have a few more players who could be on the trading block before the deadline, including Matt Duchene, Mark Stone and perhaps even starting goalie Craig Anderson. Duchene and Stone are eligible to be unrestricted free agents after this season, and it remains to be seen whether or not they will want to re-sign with a clearly rebuilding, and often times, completely dysfunctional franchise. The Senators are already one of the bottom teams in the league and would only get worse without Stone and Duchene. That would be great news for the Colorado Avalanche, owners of the Senators' 2019 first-round draft pick. 

Halfway through the 2017-18 season, the St. Louis Blues had one of the better records in the entire NHL. Then they fell apart in the second half, missed the playoffs, and after an offseason spending splurge that saw them bring in Ryan O'Reilly, Patrick Maroon, David Perron and Tyler Bozak they have one of the worst records in the league. This will be a second straight non-playoff season for a core that has really only made one meaningful postseason run in eight years. The Blues already changed coaches several times during that stretch, and at some point you have to wonder when they hit the reset button. 

The 2018-19 Ducks are following the script of every Randy Carlyle-coached team from the past 10 years. After some initial success early on, they are getting absolutely crushed on the shot chart and relying entirely on their goaltending, which has been nothing short of amazing. It is a shocking sign as to how bad the rest of the team has been that even with some of the best netminding in the league, the team is still in danger of missing the playoffs. That cannot be a good sign for the long-term future of the coach.