Every NHL team's biggest question at the quarter mark

No team in the NHL is more dependent on its goalies than the Anaheim Ducks. John Gibson and Ryan Miller have been absolutely phenomenal all season on what has been a flawed team. If the Ducks are going to make the playoffs, those two are going to need to withstand that constant barrage of rubber the rest of the season. 

When Antti Raanta has been healthy for the Coyotes over the past two years, they have been a pretty good hockey team and played at close to a playoff level. When he has missed time, they have struggled. The unfortunate reality for the Coyotes is that he has not always stayed healthy and has not always been available. 

Their top line is one of the best in the league, when they have Zdeno Chara and Charlie McAvoy in the lineup their defense can be very good, and they have two excellent NHL goalies in Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak. The big question here is who can provide offense after the Patrice Bergeron (when healthy), Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak line? There are only two other forwards on the team who had more than eight points after the first quarter of the season. 

Jeff Skinner has been one of the players most responsible for the Sabres’ one-year turnaround that has seen them go from the absolute worst in the league to a potential playoff team. He has been one of the NHL's top goal scorers and seems to have found a home on the top line next to Jack Eichel. The only concern for the Sabres is that he is a free agent after this season. Getting him signed should be a priority because he does not turn 27 until May and could still be a cornerstone piece for several years. 

The Flames spent a ton of money to lure James Neal to Calgary in free agency, and so far that experience has not gone as planned. Through his first 27 games, he had recorded just six points and only three goals. For a player who has been a lock to score at least 25 goals each season throughout his entire career, that is a pretty sudden and stunning collapse. With sub-5-percent shooting, there is reason to believe he has been a little snake bit, but they need the secondary scoring he can provide. 

Goaltending has been the single biggest thing holding this franchise back for the better part of the past decade, and every player it tries to insert into the starting spot always seems to disappoint. Scott Darling was the latest to follow that path, and for now the job seems to belong to 35-year-old Curtis McElhinney. He is a career backup and is the “hot hand” at the moment. It remains to be seen if he is the answer though. 

Dylan Strome never panned out for the Arizona Coyotes, but it was a worthy gamble for the Chicago Blackhawks to take in acquiring him (and Brendan Perlini) in exchange for Nick Schmaltz. Given their long-term salary cap situation, the Blackhawks need young, cheap impact players. Even though it hasn’t yet happened for Strome, he still has that type of talent and potential. The Blackhawks need to swing for the fences on players like this and hope they connect. The team is not going anywhere this season, so it might as well try to develop someone. 

With Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Gabriel Landeskog the Avalanche have the NHL’s best line. They have been absolutely unstoppable this season and have been one of the biggest reasons the Avalanche are a potential playoff team for a second consecutive year. The big question will be whether or not they can find enough depth scoring to complement them because there is going to come a time this season when that top trio hits a slump and gets shut down for a few games. If that happens to be in a playoff series, it will be enough to end their season.

It's the same question the Blue Jackets had at the start of the season: What are they going to do about Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky. They are the Blue Jackets’ two best players, and with them in the lineup they are a playoff team — and probably a good one. But they are both unrestricted free agents after this season, and it seems unlikely either will re-sign over the summer. Can the Blue Jackets risk losing them for nothing? Do they try to be buyers at the deadline and go all in on trying to win and make one more big run with them? Fascinating situation to watch unfold this season. 

Even though they always seem to make a major move in the summer and have what should be a really good team on paper, the Stars always seem to produce the same mediocre results on the ice, having missed the playoffs in eight of the past 10 years. They are never a playoff team; they are never one of the worst teams. First-year coach Jim Montgomery has them on track for what would be one of their best seasons in the past 10 years if they can maintain it. 

After being a postseason mainstay for nearly three decades, the Red Wings have started a new streak: missing the playoffs. They are on track to do so for the third year in a row. Last year the front office committed to selling and could be in a position to do so again this season with veterans like Gustav Nyquist, Thomas Vanek, Niklas Kronwall, Mike Green and Jimmy Howard all being potential trade chips. 

The Edmonton Oilers are basically a three-player team at this point. Ken Hitchcock has been playing Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as much as possible to make up for a stunning lack of depth elsewhere on the roster. Since the coaching change, McDavid and Draisaitl have been playing close to 25 minutes per game. If they are going to make the playoffs, this might be the only path they have. 

For the second year in a row, the Panthers slumped through a terrible start and put themselves in a position where they will need a huge second-half rally to even get anywhere near playoff contention. They played their way back a year ago before ultimately missing by a single point. If they are going to mount any sort of a comeback this season, they are going to need to find some consistency in net where Roberto Luongo has been injured and backups James Reimer and Michael Hutchinson have simply not played well enough. 

The Kings have probably needed to rebuild for a couple of years now, but given the way this season has gone there can be no more delaying the inevitable. This team is bad, old, slow and is in desperate need of significant changes from top to bottom. Will they finally go forward with them? 

Since joining the Minnesota Wild during the 2014-15 season, Devan Dubnyk has been one of the better goalies in the NHL, winning a Masterton Trophy and finishing in the top five of the Vezina Trophy voting two different times. He has struggled this season and has been going through a terrible slump over the past few weeks. If he is not playing on top of his game, the Wild won’t have much of a chance to make any noise in a tough Central Division where Nashville and Winnipeg run the show.

Max Domi and Tomas Tatar have been two of the biggest surprises in the NHL this season and have done their part to carry the Canadiens’ offense. But for as great as they have been, there is nothing to suggest those performances are sustainable and both are looking at potential second-half declines. What happens to the Canadiens’ offense then? 

Even with mounting injuries, the Predators still look to be the class of the Western Conference and, perhaps, the NHL as a whole. When they are healthy, they are one of the deepest, best and most complete teams in the league. The big question again will be how Pekka Rinne holds up in the postseason. That has been the one thing that has plagued him throughout his career. 

After leading the Devils to the playoffs with an MVP-caliber season a year ago, Taylor Hall is once again averaging more than a point per game for the Devils and playing like a frontline player. The rest of the team around him is not. The result is a team that went 5-12-5 after a four-game winning streak to start the season. Will anybody step forward and give Hall some support, or is he destined to another season like the ones he experienced in Edmonton for so many years where it was him and nobody else.

The Islanders have exceeded expectations after the free-agency departure of John Tavares, but a lot of it is goaltending-based and that may not continue. They also have three significant players eligible for unrestricted free agency after this season in Anders Lee, Jordan Eberle and Brock Nelson. Do they try to capitalize on their unexpected success or try to re-sign all three? Or do they stick to a long-term plan and sell off all three free-agents-to-be?

The Rangers have something that most rebuilding teams have that can complicate the process. That something is a veteran, franchise goalie who can still steal them games and carry them to more wins than the roster would otherwise get. That has happened so far this season for the Rangers. This still probably is not a playoff team even with Lundqvist playing at this level, but he is the type of goalie who can carry a team like this to a surprising playoff spot. 

The Senators have made it clear the roster next season will look vastly different from the roster today. The past year has already seen them trade Erik Karlsson, Mike Hoffman and Derick Brassard. Matt Duchene and Mark Stone are almost certain to be next, given their contract situations. But how many more veterans on the roster will join them?

The Philadelphia Flyers have changed general managers, fired their assistant general manager, fired an assistant coach and are still facing an uphill battle when it comes to making the playoffs. None of that can be good news for coach Dave Hakstol, who has somehow been the one person in a position of authority to remain in place through another mediocre season. Will he be a part of Chuck Fletcher’s long-term vision? And how much of a chance will he get?

After winning two Stanley Cups in his first two years in the league, Matt Murray’s play has significantly regressed while he has struggled to stay healthy. Neither Casey DeSmith nor Tristan Jarry seem to be the answer in the short term, so they need Murray to get himself right and get back to the goalie he was in his first two years. Can he do that?

After acquiring Erik Karlsson and seemingly going all in on trying to get back to the Stanley Cup Final, and hopefully win one for Joe Thornton, the Sharks were supposed to be a Stanley Cup contender. They have not looked like one yet. How much longer does Pete DeBoer get to turn things around before the Sharks go for a different voice behind the bench?

Lot of problems in St. Louis but none bigger than the goaltending spot where Jake Allen and Chad Johnson have combined for a sub-.900 save percentage through the first quarter of the season. No team or coach can win with that level of goaltending. 

When the Lightning have been healthy, they have consistently been one of the top five teams in the NHL over the past four years. The one year they were decimated by injuries was the only year over that stretch they did not reach at least Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. They are once again one of the best teams in the league but have dealt with a couple of significant injuries already with Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Victor Hedman and starting goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy both missing some time. They can get through a few games in the regular season with Louis Domingue in net. But they need Vasilveskiy come playoff time. 

The Maple Leafs’ defense has been their biggest question mark, but they are a top-five team in goals against and starting goalie Frederik Andersen deserves a lot of praise for that. But just like last season, he is being asked to play a ton of games and a ton of minutes. It could be argued that wore him down at the end of the 2017-18 season and hurt him in the playoffs. Will that happen again? They need to find someone who can give him a break every now and then — or at least trust their backup to play a little more. 

Over the previous three seasons, no team in the NHL won fewer games than the Vancouver Canucks, and despite that lack of success, they have never picked higher than fifth in the NHL draft. Sure, they got Elias Pettersson in one of those years, but they have yet to have the franchise-changing luck of winning a No. 1 overall pick when a can’t-miss superstar was available. The Canucks are on track to finish near the bottom of the standings again this season, and Jack Hughes (brother of the Canucks' 2018 first-round pick, Quinn Hughes) is sitting out there as the next likely No. 1 overall pick. Can they be bad enough, and get enough luck in the lottery, to land him?

The Golden Knights still have their great top line led by Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson, but they need to find a second scoring line. The offseason additions of Max Pacioretty and Paul Stastny were supposed to form one. But thanks to a slow start from Pacioretty and an injury to Stastny, it has not yet come together. Pacioretty is starting to turn it around and Stastny will eventually be back, but their ability to form the line the Knights hoped for will go a long way toward determining their success this season. 

The Capitals are following up their first ever championship with another climb to the top of the Metropolitan Division. Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Braden Holtby are all at the center of it, but they are also getting a huge performance from Tom Wilson whose offensive game has been white-hot since his return from a suspension. He remains a big question mark for the Capitals for a couple of reasons. First, how long can he keep filling the net at this pace? And how long can he avoid drawing the attention of the NHL’s Department of Player Safety? He already got some attention for an ejection against the New Jersey Devils, and if he gets a suspension again it will be another significant one. 

The Jets are one of the best and most complete teams in the league, and they are going to make the playoffs. This question is more of a fun one. Will this be the year Patrik Laine overtakes Alex Ovechkin as the NHL’s top goal scorer? It is going to be a fantastic race to watch, and it only seems to be a matter of time until it happens.