The 2026-27 NHL season is just a week away, and there's no better time than to lock in some future predictions. Be sure to also check out the futures that our staff wrote prior to June's Draft.
There are an abundance of storylines coming into the season, including the fact that there will now be 84 games instead of the traditional 82-game season.
So let's dig into my 2026-27 NHL future predictions, where I cover divisional positions, a potential Stanley Cup winner, and the Vezina Trophy winner.
NHL Future Predictions
Islanders to Finish Last in the Metropolitan Division (+260)
GM Mathieu Darche's decision to buy at last year's trade deadline proved to be disastrous, as the team went 1-7-0 in the final eight games of the season and ultimately missed the postseason somewhat comfortably.
Based on the ceiling of the roster entering this campaign, it's hard to imagine things breaking in a way where Darche makes win-now moves as opposed to angling to push back into true contention during Matthew Schaefer's true prime.
Relative to other teams favored to finish last in their respective divisions, the Islanders do have some major strengths that keep the floor respectable. They have an elite goaltender in Ilya Sorokin, a clear-cut number one defender in Schaefer, and a pair of borderline elite forwards in Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal.
Pete DeBoer also should prove to be an upgrade over former head coach Patrick Roy, and he has, to this point, offered a first-year boost to his new side.
However, when you break down the Metropolitan Division, a price of +260 for the Islanders to finish last still seems quite appealing. Barring horrendous injury luck, the Pittsburgh Penguins feel to be the only other combatant with the potential to truly be uncompetitive.
While most other Metropolitan Division combatants made improvements, most notably the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers, the Isles more-or-less stood idle while losing Captain Anders Lee over the summer.
In a division with a number of notably deep offensive cores, the Islanders' bottom nine doesn't appear to offer much upside. Outside of Schaefer, I'm not in love with the defense core either, unless Roy was an even greater cause in the declines of aging defenders Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock than it seems.
At +260 or better, we look to be getting strong value in backing the Islanders to finish last in the Metropolitan division.
Edmonton Oilers to Win Stanley Cup (9 Cents, Polymarket)
After bowing out convincingly in Round One last season against the Anaheim Ducks, the Oilers had a controversial offseason by bringing in the much-maligned Mike Babcock as head coach and attempting to buy low on Alex Formenton to try to solidify the bottom nine.
As a result, the team is undoubtedly positioned to take a ton of heat if those moves prove to be failures. However, in playing out of an ultra-soft Pacific Division and possessing two Hart-caliber players, the Oilers should coast into the playoffs as a divisional seed, and at that point the price will be reduced.
After back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final, a long summer feels likely to provide a massive boost to an Oilers side that dealt with some critical nagging injuries for the majority of last season. Connor McDavid has been adamant since the start of training camp that the team needed to focus on sharper hockey in the regular season, and I'm not expecting the usual slow start.
While the team's greatest strength will always be its trio of elite superstars in McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard, the overall depth looks more respectable than is generally credited.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman both seem likely to offer greater value this season, while young forwards such as Matthew Savoie, Isaac Howard and Vasily Podkolzin should take steps forward. A full season of Jason Dickinson shouldn't hurt either, as he should be capable of handling tough shutdown minutes and freeing up McDavid and Draisaitl to produce.
Whether or not Mattias Ekholm and Jake Walman can bounce back are major questions on the blue line, but altogether the defensive core is another area that feels to be getting too much disrespect and could easily be as solid as the 2023-24 one, which was excellent as the team came up one goal shy of winning it all.
Goaltending is the only perceived weakness that we won't really defend simply for the sake of this bet, although Devon Levi is a reasonable gamble given that most of his opportunity at the NHL level came when the Sabres environment was still terrible.
It is easy to forget just how high the volatility of the position is; with an obvious reminder being a ton of mainstream media stating that the Hurricanes did not have the goaltending to finally get over the hump last year.
Based on my belief that the Oilers will have a much more convincing regular season than in years past and enter the playoffs as a clear-cut contender, they are the one team at the very top of the board that I'm willing to lock in on Polymarket.
Jake Oettinger to Win the Vezina Trophy (+2500)
My second favorite Stanley Cup bet is the Dallas Stars at +1700, and the strength of the team is a major reason why Jake Oettinger appears to be a good Vezina bet at +2500.
Last year's Vezina vote was yet another clear-cut argument for the fact that team success and having the luxury of playing in a higher-quality environment are not really considered enough credit in the Vezina vote. And as we touched on above, goaltending is quite volatile year-to-year, and there really aren't many netminders who are among the league's best season after season.
With those things in mind, Oettinger seems to check a lot of boxes considering how long the number is, with the only legitimate concern being how strong 1B option Casey DeSmith has been the last two years.
Dallas feels like a near-lock to finish as a top-three seed in the Central Division, and if anything, looks undervalued in being projected by oddsmakers to be a lesser team than the Minnesota Wild, even if Minnesota did manage to knock the Stars off in Round One last season.
It features excellent depth across the board and should be fairly stingy defensively, and recent history illustrates that team wins and GAA are overrated by the GMs' voting on the Vezina (we don't want to target goalies such as Jeremy Swayman stealing results for bad teams).
Oettinger has finished with a positive goals saved above expected rating in five consecutive campaigns. While there have been some low points in that span, he's still been one of the more consistently elite goaltenders in the regular season year-to-year and enters this season in his true prime at age 27.
