Five NHL teams that look noticeably weaker going into 2026-27
The NHL’s 84-game 2026-27 regular season begins Sept. 29, meaning training camps will start in mere weeks. We don’t necessarily have to plant our flags on full predictions yet, but we’re starting to understand how the league’s power structure maps out with most teams almost done their offseason roster tinkering.
Earlier this week, we explored the league’s most improved teams. But which franchises have declined the most on paper? These five stand out to me most as noticeably weaker year over year.
Anaheim Ducks
In: A.J. Greer, Nick Jensen, Laurent Brossoit, Jeff Malott
Out: John Carlson, Mason McTavish, Jacob Trouba, Olen Zellweger, Radko Gudas, Jeffrey Viel, Ross Johnston
Ducks GM Pat Verbeek’s offseason has been nothing short of disastrous, and the pain might not be over. Facing a salary-cap crunch with RFAs Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and Pavel Mintyukov needing new contracts, the Ducks traded some young players with upside in McTavish and Zellweger and watched the entire right side of their D-corps depart in free agency – Gudas as part of a trade through which the Ducks overpaid Greer. After the Ducks matched the $18-million offer sheet to Carlsson from the Philadelphia Flyers, there isn’t enough money left to pay Gauthier, meaning Anaheim will have to trade another veteran, likely one of Chris Kreider, Alex Killorn and Frank Vatrano, to fit Gauthier under the cap.
Add in first-line right winger Troy Terry missing the start of the season recovering from hip surgery, and the Ducks are in danger of giving back last season’s jump from 80 to 92 points.
Buffalo Sabres
In: Olen Zellweger, Louis Crevier, Conor Sheary, Dennis Gilbert
Out: Alex Tuch, Bowen Byram, Jordan Greenway, Logan Stanley, Michael Kesselring, Devon Levi, Luke Schenn
An important clarification: I’m not saying the Sabres had a bad offseason or that they’re worse off long-term. They did a brilliant job landing the fourth-overall pick and prospect Daxon Rudolph in the Byram trade, and the buy-low on Zellweger might have landed them a perfect replacement for Byram in the medium term. A full season of young forward Konsta Helenius in the NHL should help offset their veteran forward losses, too.
But if we’re asking simply, “Are the 2026-27 Sabres as good as the 2025-26 Sabres on paper to start the season?” The answer is probably no. Tuch was Buffalo’s first-line right winger and the top UFA on the market. All the Sabres got for him was the 2027 third-round pick they netted by trading his rights to the Washington Capitals. And while they were right not to overpay Byram, he was a crucial member of their top four on defense and was excellent in the postseason. We can’t just assume Zellweger, who has 164 NHL games to his name and was healthy scratched for all but three of the Ducks’ playoff contests last year, will immediately be Byram 2.0. I’m still bullish on the Sabres as a repeat playoff club this season, but they may not be a 50-win team again unless Helenius is a top-six forward right away and the likes of Josh Norris and Jiri Kulich can stay healthy.
Colorado Avalanche
In: Jaden Schwartz, Fedor Svechkov, Zachary L’Heureux, Vinnie Hinostroza, Noah Juulsen
Out: Valeri Nichushkin, Jack Drury, Ross Colton, Joel Kiviranta, Ivan Ivan
Armed with future Hall of Famers Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar and having re-signed top right winger Martin Necas for big money, the Avs get top-heavier by the year in their cap spending, and they had to move out some veterans to stay compliant following their Presidents’ Trophy-winning 2025-26. They dealt Nichushkin, a staple of the 2021-22 Stanley Cup team, to the Columbus Blue Jackets. They sent Colton and Drury to the Nashville Predators, now helmed by freshly departed Avs GM Chris MacFarland.
The Avs are hoping the buy-lows on once-rated prospects Fedor Svechkov and Zachary L’Heureux can produce cost-efficient results and that veteran signing Jaden Schwartz still has enough juice to be an above-average top-nine forward. But the Avs, who flopped in the Western Conference Final in a sweep defeat to the Vegas Golden Knights, lost several veteran pieces and didn’t have the cap space to replace them with sure things. The Avs are weaker year over year, particularly because they have truly nothing coming from the farm to help them, and we can expect coach Jared Bednar’s already-warm seat to heat up this season.
Dallas Stars
In: Joel Kiviranta
Out: Mavrik Bourque, Michael Bunting, Ilya Lyubushkin, Alex Petrovic
The Jason Robertson saga played out brutally for Stars GM Jim Nill. For one, knowing Robertson’s next AAV would deservedly exceed the cap space Dallas had, Nill had no choice but to dump an ascending young forward and 2025-26 first-liner in Bourque, with the Predators also eating Lyubushkin’s contract in the deal. But for that move to only yield a one-year, $12-million contract walking Robertson to unrestricted free agency next year? Not ideal. The Stars might have been better off dealing Robertson for a large return and holding Bourque had they known they wouldn’t agree on a long-term deal with ‘Robo.’ Now they’ve weakened their depth at forward, they haven’t filled their glaring need for another top-four defenseman, and they’ll play this season with Robertson’s future once again a question mark. It’s been a summer to forget in the Lone Star State. They’re banking on a 34-year-old Tyler Seguin, returning from a torn ACL, to help them out on offense a lot more than they probably want to admit.
Vegas Golden Knights
In: Parker Wotherspoon, Victor Olofsson, Ville Heinola
Out: Pavel Dorofeyev, Colton Sissons, Cole Smith, Keegan Kolesar, Kaedan Korczak, Akira Schmid
It always feels like the wily Golden Knights have a shocking move coming – Dylan Larkin? Connor Hellebuyck? – but we can only grade the teams on what they’ve actually done this summer, and what the defending Western Conference champions have done is get quite a bit worse.
Dorofeyev is one of just 12 players who scored 35 or more goals in 2024-25 and 2025-26, and, with all due respect to perennial underachiever Olofsson, the Golden Knights have not replaced Dorofeyev’s goal production at all, choosing instead to commit their cap space to Rasmus Andersson’s new contract. Vegas is also down bottom-six forwards Sissons, Smith and Kolesar, depth blueliner Korczak and backup goalie Schmid. This is a shallower roster year over year, and we can’t forget that, despite winning the Pacific Division, the Golden Knights finished just nine points up on ninth in the West last season, so the margin for error going forward isn’t huge. They’ll have to hope the top half of their lineup, most notably Mark Stone, can stay healthy this season, because the bottom half is badly depleted.
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