Who is the best team in the Atlantic Division?
The Atlantic Division in 2025-26 looked nothing like it did in previous years, as the Buffalo Sabres finished with the best regular-season record, going 50-23-9 with 109 points. The Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning were close behind, both closing out with 106 points, while the Boston Bruins bounced back after missing the playoffs in 2024-25, as they finished with 100 points and earned a Wildcard berth.
The Toronto Maple Leafs failed to reach the postseason last spring, just one year after winning the Atlantic Division title in 2024-25. The Florida Panthers, who won the Stanley Cup in 2024 and 2025 and had reached the Stanley Cup Final in the previous three seasons, also missed the playoffs after dealing with injuries for the majority of 2025-26.
The offseason drama has plagued both the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings, as Ottawa traded captain Brady Tkachuk to Florida, while Detroit captain Dylan Larkin requested a trade and provided the Red Wings a short list of teams he’d accept a move to.
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Will we see a shift at the top of the Atlantic Division in 2026-27? Could teams that were busy in the offseason like Toronto and Florida take a step forward? Will playoff teams like Ottawa and Boston take a step back? And will an Atlantic team dethrone the Carolina Hurricanes and be the Eastern Conference representative in the Stanley Cup Final next summer?
On last Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the future of the Atlantic Division and who could emerge next season.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Toronto has added the most volume in the offseason, while Florida has overturned their roster, getting Brady Tkachuk and changing their goalie. Montreal was kind of status quo, and you look at Tampa, who lost Darren Raddysh and Nick Paul. Buffalo didn’t really do a lot to convince me that they’re better.
The next fill in the blank: The best team in the Atlantic Division is _____?
Carter Hutton: This is a really hard question. I think I’m going to go with the Florida Panthers. I just think having a healthy amount of time off, a full and recovered Aleksander Barkov, you’ve got Brady Tkachuk. I know you could make an argument for a lot of these teams and I think it’s going to be a dog fight, but I have to pick the best team and it’s the Panthers.
Tyler Yaremchuk: I think I still might go with the Tampa Bay Lightning. I like their crease situation, way more than I like the crease situation in Florida. Give me Andrei Vasilevskiy and Dennis Hildeby over Jacob Markstrom or Akira Schmid. I look at the Lightning’s blue line, and while they lost Raddysh, they’re replacing him with John Carlson, and that’s not the biggest step back, at least for next season. A fully healthy Victor Hedman, that goes hand-in-hand with a fully healthy Aleksander Barkov.
Up front, Tampa has Nikita Kucherov, Jake Guentzel, Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli … I think there’s enough upside with Tampa where they lost the division by three points to the Sabres, and there’s a real world where they close off that gap. I don’t have the same goalie concerns with the Lightning that I do with the Panthers.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…