3 NHL Teams That Need a Strong Start to the 2026-27 Season

We’re in the dog days of the NHL offseason, with no noise around any transactions. Training camps are inching closer, but I want to get out ahead of the narratives that we usually see at the beginning of the regular season.

The points people forget about as the playoff race heats up are always the weird, sloppy games we see at the beginning of the season. Here are three teams that can’t afford to drop too many of those games.

Columbus Blue Jackets

The Columbus Blue Jackets were the easiest team to pick for this article. They’ve gone through a hectic offseason with a Zach Werenski trade request that was quickly retracted in a series of events that I’ve never seen before.

On top of their Norris Trophy-winning defenseman wanting out, a cornerstone of their forward corps, Kirill Marchenko, is entering his final year under contract before he is a restricted free agent. The contract discussions between the Blue Jackets and him have gone very poorly so far, and trade rumours have swirled around him.

Those are the two major headlines around the Blue Jackets, but the other big storyline people may have forgotten this deep into the offseason is that their head coach, Rick Bowness, ripped into the team after Game 82.

After they lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, Bowness told the media, “These guys, they don’t care. Losing is not important enough to them. It doesn’t bother them. How can you go out and play like that?”

So, heading into the season, they have two star players potentially on their way out, a coach who called out the team’s culture, a six-season playoff drought and a tough Eastern Conference to compete in.

If they start off slow this season, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see trade rumours pick up around Werenski and Marchenko. If those two are traded, they’re staring down the barrel of a rebuild with some younger players who haven’t quite panned out.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Throughout the Auston Matthews era in Toronto, the Toronto Maple Leafs have been perennial slow starters, but they’ve been able to turn it around, until last season, of course.

In one of the more disappointing Maple Leafs seasons in recent memory, the Maple Leafs faced a 30-point season-over-season decrease. Shortened seasons excluded, that is the franchise’s largest season-to-season decline in the 109-year history.

They are now likely to have approximately 10 new faces in the opening night lineup in comparison to last season. With so many new players, it’s logical that they would need time to gel, but the reality is they might not have that time available to them.

The Atlantic Division is the best in hockey, and dropping points early could tank the season. On top of that, there are a few players who would concern me if they start slow.

Auston Matthews just had the longest offseason of his NHL career. He just went through a season of dealing with multiple different injuries before Radko Gudas threw a knee-on-knee hit, tearing Matthews’ MCL. If the season begins and Matthews still doesn’t look like his old self, I’d begin to have some serious concerns that his regression over the last two seasons is the new normal.

The first overall pick, Gavin McKenna, should have a long leash because not all rookies step in and are fantastic right away, but he’ll be a big part of Matthews’ production. McKenna is probably the best passer Matthews will play with since Mitch Marner left for Vegas.

Another guy who had their longest offseason in a few seasons is their new goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky. After a terrible season in Florida, posting an .877 save percentage (SV%), -23.66 goals saved above average (GSAA), and -1.75 goals saved above expected (GSAx) in 52 games, he needs a bounce-back.

Bobrovsky does have the ability to flip the switch come playoff time, but they’re going to need him to be at least an average goaltender to even have a shot at the playoffs this season.

Darren Raddysh will likely be heading the first power-play unit, which is huge, and he needs to find his chemistry quickly with whoever new head coach Jim Hiller puts out there.

Speaking of Hiller, he might have one of the tougher jobs in the NHL because the heat is going to turn up quickly if the Maple Leafs have a slow start. It’ll be interesting to see if his coaching has changed at all after playing a pretty defensive style in Los Angeles. I felt during the time of the hire that it was odd the Maple Leafs wanted a change, but hired a coach who plays a somewhat similar brand of hockey to the one Craig Berube coached.

There are so many question marks with very little time to get everything sorted out for the Maple Leafs this season. It should be an interesting one in the mecca of hockey.

Ottawa Senators

The Ottawa Senators traded their former captain, Brady Tkachuk in division to the Florida Panthers in the biggest move of the offseason. Multiple stories have come out about the locker room environment not being the best in Canada’s capital.

They replaced Tkachuk with William Eklund from the San Jose Sharks, and while I liked Eklund, I don’t think they did enough in the offseason to improve the roster.

Senators general manager (GM) Steve Staios acquired Eklund, veteran Andre Burakovsky, who was very poor for the Chicago Blackhawks last season, and goaltender Samuel Ersson, who was below NHL level as the Flyers backup, as their offseason acquisitions.

The biggest X-factor this season for the Sens will likely be whether Linus Ullmark can carry his playoff form over to the regular season. Ullmark had a really tough 2025-26 regular season between rumours about his personal life and his play on the ice.

He picked up his play down the stretch, which helped the Sens go 10-3-2 in their final 15 games to take the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.

Four out of their first ten games are against divisional opponents, including their first three games all being against divisional opponents on the road.

If the Senators stumble out of the gate, not only will it be tough to make up ground in a tough division, but the pressure turns up on a team that needed to go on a fantastic run at the end of the season just to squeak in the playoffs.

All three of these teams have playoff aspirations in an incredibly tight Eastern Conference. While they all have different reasons for needing to make the playoffs, the stakes are high in all three markets.