Which young team will take the next step forward?

With the 2025-26 NHL season quickly approaching, most teams will be looking to take steps forward from where they finished in the 2024-25 season. 

While some will look to maintain their trajectory, others are still in the midst of rebuilds. A few, however, will also be taking significant steps towards contention, whether that means qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs or earning more meaningful games in the back end of the regular season. 

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton dove into which young teams could take the next step, focusing on the Anaheim Ducks, Chicago Blackhawks, San Jose Sharks, and Philadelphia Flyers. 

Yaremchuk: Everyone has the Anaheim Ducks pegged as the team to take that Montreal Canadiens-esque step this season, and I looked around and asked, is there another team you make a case for?

I think we’ll both agree that the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks are not taking any sort of remarkable jump this year. Chicago would need a 35-point increase to get into the playoffs, and San Jose would need even more than that.

I don’t consider the Columbus Blue Jackets in that conversation as a true “coming out of a rebuild” team. I’m not sure if I consider the Philadelphia Flyers in that conversation either, but maybe they’re the only other one that even comes close to fitting the description. 

Hutton: Those are the teams that are the lower bottom feeders, in that sense, where you’re looking for little victories at this point, right? 

We’re looking for guys to develop, looking for Connor Bedard, and can he have a bounce-back year?  Looking at the back end, with Alex Vlasic and Sam Rinzel, where can they fit as a one-two pairing with the Blackhawks?

Then you start to look at goaltending, on both these teams that are on the bottom, with the Blackhawks, is Spencer Knight, the true number one, and can he carry them out? Arvid Soderblom has done a good job of redefining his game because a few years ago, I made the argument that Soderblom was one of the worst goalies in the NHL, and he has changed his game since then. 

When you switch over to San Jose, there’s a lot of upside. I think there will be gradual ticks up for this team.

For the Philadelphia Flyers, I don’t see this team taking a step forward. I just look at their goaltending. You have Samuel Ersson and Dan Vladar, who are good goalies, but who is your guy? 

And then with Trevor Zegras, I think he was anointed “the one” when he first came into the league, but he just doesn’t have that grit in his game to carry this team. I think there are many young guys, and there’s a lot of good talent, so there are little victories we can see within the season, but for them to take that big jump to try to be in the playoffs or be a contender, I just don’t think anybody’s there yet.

Yaremchuk: I agree. If I had to rank again when they’ll be back in the playoffs between the Flyers, Blachawks and Sharks, there is a part of me that thinks it might be a long time for the Flyers still. 

Hutton: When we talk about San Jose, Chicago or even the  Utah Mammoth in that sense–– who’s a team that’s really going to be on the cusp of those younger players, their talented core, their future has more upside. When you look at the Flyers, they’re just kind of this meaty team in the middle, where I just don’t really know where it’s going to come from. 

You can catch the rest of the segment and Friday’s entire episode here: