Ranking the five-year window for every NHL team

This rebuild is a complete and total tear down, and from what owner Eugene Melnyk said at the start of training camp, many more changes are coming. An even bigger concern than whether or not management can successfully orchestrate such an overhaul is whether or not Melnyk has the funds — or the willingness — to pay a contending team with star players. Even worse: In the year where they might be at their absolute worst, and in a year where there is a potential franchise player (Jack Hughes) at the top of the draft, they have no first-round draft pick, thanks to the Matt Duchene trade. 

The short-term outlook is terrible, and the long-term outlook is not much better. It's an older team with a massive salary cap number and a lot of big contracts to declining veterans who are not that good. They do have a ton of draft picks to begin restocking the cupboard with, and Filip Zadina could be a star. But this rebuild is going to be painful. 

The Canucks have been one of the worst teams in the league over the past few years and have been so unlucky in the draft lottery that they have not picked higher than fifth. To be fair, Elias Pettersson looks like a stud prospect, and Brock Boeser is an exciting young player. But there are a ton of holes on this roster long term, and there is not much to build around. Trying to remain competitive around the Sedin twins at the end of their careers may have put the team back a few years. 

The big concern here is they have more than $18 million committed to Carey Price and Shea Weber for the next eight years — a goalie and a defenseman on the wrong side of 30 who both may be starting to wear down. That is going to be a tough core to build around in the coming seasons. 

The Rangers' long-term outlook is a bit of a mystery because most of the players on the roster right now are probably going to be gone over the next year or two as their rebuild rolls on. There are not a lot of long-term pieces in place yet playing major roles, so we really don't know what to expect. They are not a particularly good team right now, though, and that means Henrik Lundqvist will probably retire with no championship with the Rangers. That is unfortunate. 

They have a lot of young talent and some pretty good veteran players in place, but what they are really lacking is a franchise-changing cornerstone at forward to build around. Oliver Ekman-Larsson is tremendous on the back end, but they need to find someone up front to carry the offense. Can Dylan Strome be that player? Will they get some luck in an upcoming draft lottery? Those are the big questions. 

Mathew Barzal is a legitimate franchise cornerstone, and he gives them a ton of hope for the future. But I question if general manager Lou Lamoriello has adjusted to the new NHL and is capable of building a winning team around Barzal. The Islanders also have a ton of long-term contracts invested in fourth-line players. 

The window seems to be closing fast. They have some massive, seemingly unmovable contracts, and their core is not getting any younger. The health of Corey Crawford seems to be the thing that will make or break their level of success in the next couple of years, and they have some interesting young players. But the Blackhawks will have to hold on to the memories of the past 10 years for a while. 

The Kings seem like a team in need of a massive overhaul. They might still be good enough to make the playoffs over the next couple of years, but they just do not seem to have the horses to make another Stanley Cup run. This is a team that needs a rebuilt but may not realize it until it is a few years too late. 

They have a really good team right now, and they have a great defense pairing in Seth Jones and Zach Werenski. Here's the problem: Their two best players, and two of the players who make them a playoff team in the short term, are Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky. It is unlikely that either one is in Columbus after this season. That is a long-term problem. 

John Gibson is a top-tier goalie and gives them a chance to win every night and every year. But their best forwards are all getting older, and they are still very expensive for a very long time. They are going to need to tear down and start over soon, as Ryan Kesler, Ryan Getzlaf, and Corey Perry all age and continue to decline. 

It is a damning indictment on the front office and coaching staff that the Oilers have the best player in the world in Connor McDavid and are not higher. But if they could not build a contender around McDavid and Leon Draisaitl when they were on cheap, entry-level contracts, why should we believe they can do it when they take up a significant portion of the salary cap space? 

A large portion of this team is locked in place with long-term contracts. Whether or not they are the right players remains to be seen. And that is the big concern. If they are, their window could just be opening with Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Matthew Tkachuk all just starting to enter their primes. If they are not, this team could be destined for mediocrity. 

The rebuild that started several years ago has taken a lot longer than expected, but they have the two most important pieces in place: Jack Eichel and 2018 No. 1 overall pick Rasmus Dahlin. Eichel is already a star, and Dahlin could be the top defenseman the team has been lacking, who can help be a transformative player for the organization. 

Their core players are signed to long-term, cap-friendly contracts, and with Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Vincent Trocheck and Aaron Ekblad at the top of the roster it is a good core. Because they are all signed to such great contracts under the cap, they should have a ton of flexibility to build around them. They just have to find the right players to complement them. 

Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn are one of the league's best duos, and they may soon be joined on the backside by John Klingberg and Miro Heiskanen. They have been a bit underwhelming over the years, as their on-ice results have not really matched the offseason splash moves they always make. But they have a lot of talent that is still relatively close to the prime of its career, or just now entering it. 

They are clearly in a win-now mode after spending a ton of money and assets over the summer to bolster an offense that was one of the league's worst a year ago. They could be a player in the Western Conference playoffs in the short term, but, wow, are they in a tough division to make any kind of a serious long-term run. 

The Wild are a good enough team stuck in a hellacious division where they are perpetually the third or fourth best team no matter how good they are. They will continue to make the playoffs but will struggle to get out of the first round. As long as you keep making the playoffs you, in theory, have a shot. But they just seem to keep running into the wrong teams every single year, and with Nashville and Winnipeg still ahead of them that does not seem likely to change. 

They have a tremendous young core led by Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog, a lot of salary cap space, and they have the potential to land a top pick (maybe even THE top pick) this season if the Ottawa Senators are as bad as we think they may be. The Avalanche own the Senators' pick as a result of the Matt Duchene trade. This could be a dangerous team if they are smart with the assets they have. 

A lot of their long-term success comes down to whether or not goalie prospect Carter Hart pans out. If he does he might finally solve the long-time Achilles' heel of this franchise. With Nolan Patrick, Shayne Gostisbehere, Ivan Provorov and Nolan Patrick, there is a lot of young talent the team can build around. And Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek are still at a point in their careers where they can continue as impact players. 

Ray Shero has done a great job rebuilding this team with some blockbuster trades over the years, including the acquisitions of reigning league MVP Taylor Hall and top-line forwards Kyle Palmieri and Marcus Johansson. Nico Hischier, the No. 1 overall pick in 2017, is also part of that core. If Cory Schneider can get healthy and return to form, he can be one of the better goalies in the league. 

The Carolina Hurricanes' defense has the potential to be one of the best in the league, especially after the offseason addition of Dougie Hamilton. They also finally seem to have some potential impact players at forward working their way onto the NHL roster. Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen are outstanding, Jordan Staal and Justin Williams are great veterans to have around, and Andrei Svechnikov, Martin Necas and Valentin Zykov all have major top-line potential. Svechnikov might even have superstar potential. If he becomes the player everyone thinks he can be, he could have a Patrik Laine-like impact on this organization. 

They have some big free agency decisions to make in the coming year with Erik Karlsson and Joe Pavelski. But just when you may have thought this organization's Stanley Cup window had closed, another one opened. If they can find a way to keep Karlsson, along with Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, they will always have a chance to win the whole thing. 

This could be a Stanley Cup team in the next couple of years. Their top line is the best in the business, and they have a ton of young talent just starting to break into the NHL that should be able to complement them, including Ryan Donato, Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen and perhaps the best of the bunch, defenseman Charlie McAvoy. Their biggest challenge will be getting through the two-headed monster in Toronto and Tampa Bay at the top of the Atlantic Division. 

They are one of the oldest teams in the league, and their quartet of stars (Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel, Kris Letang) are all starting to show some signs of slowing down. But they are all still elite players and will continue to be for at least a few more years. They already have three Stanley Cups and four Stanley Cup Final appearances in the past 10 years, and the window is still very much open for another one in the next five years. 

Now that they finally brought the Stanley Cup to Washington, will they be able to do it again? The window is not closing anytime soon. Alex Ovechkin is still a force, they have a dominant 1-2 punch at center with Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Braden Holtby can still be a game-changer in net. 

Do not think year one was a fluke. The Knights have some question marks surrounding their bottom-six, but they are going to be a destination team in free agency. They have salary cap space to work with, and they have a ton of assets in the form of draft picks and prospects thanks to all of general manager George McPhee's expansion draft dealings. 

They have an embarrassment of riches at forward, including Patrik Laine, who might be the player to finally overtake Alex Ovechkin as the NHL's goal-scoring leader. Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler might be the two most underrated players in the league. Continued success from goalie Connor Hellebuyck and their ability to work out something long term with defenseman Jacob Trouba will probably make or break their short-term (and long-term) Stanley Cup chances. 

This team has been to at least the Eastern Conference Final in three of the past four seasons, reached the Stanley Cup Final once and lost Game 7s in the other two appearances during that stretch. They are always right there, and they will continue to be right there. They have award front-runners at every position (Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos at forward; Victor Hedman at defense; Andrei Vasilevskiy at goalie) and depth all around them. They just have to break through that glass ceiling that is Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final. 

This team is remarkably well set up. The Predators have the best defense in the league and impact forwards, and even if they do not re-sign Pekka Rinne (or he retires in the near future) they still have a No. 1 goalie waiting in the wings in Juuse Saros. They were in the Stanley Cup Final two years ago, won the Presidents' Trophy as the best regular-season team a season ago, are still fairly young, have all of their key players signed long term and still have a ton of flexibility under the salary cap. They are not going away anytime soon. 

The Leafs may not have the defense or goaltending to win the Stanley Cup this season, but they have the potential to win one (maybe two?) over the next five years, especially if they find a way to keep all of their core players together. They should be able to, even if they all don't take the hometown discounts management wants them to take. Keep the stars, make changes around the edges and go all in with Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander.