NHL Division Odds: Is It the Maple Leafs' Time to Win the Atlantic?

The NHL season is only about a month away, and the teams are taking shape.

We pretty much know what these teams will look like when they hit the ice in October. With that knowledge, we can start to form some opinions on who will perform well this season.

The Atlantic Division remains interesting, as last year's top team looks like they may take a step back. Which team can step up if that's the case?

Here are the four teams with the best odds to win the division, per the NHL division winner odds at FanDuel Sportsbook:

Toronto Maple Leafs

Last season, the Toronto Maple Leafs got over the hump and won a playoff series for the first time since 2004. They then got dumped out of the playoffs in five games in the second round, leaving their fans unsatisfied.

Toronto finds themselves as favorites in this division -- less so because of their big moves on the ice but rather because of the changes last year's winners -- the Boston Bruins -- have gone through. The Leafs do have a talented team, though, with mostly the same core they've had for the past few seasons.

This will be the sixth season with the "big four" forwards on the Leafs. They've never won the Atlantic division in this time period. The only division title they captured was during the COVID-impacted 2021 season in which they played against only the other Canadian teams.

The team's strategy in this offseason was definitely different than in years past. That's because they made a switch at general manager to Brad Treliving, replacing Kyle Dubas. Treliving clearly prefers a different type of player to the previous regime.

The players brought into the Leafs this offseason are supposed to add toughness to the lineup. They signed Max Domi, Tyler Bertuzzi and Ryan Reaves in the summer. Old-school hockey people will tell you that you need these types of players to win in the playoffs, but these three don't have a history of playoff success.

The biggest question mark for Toronto remains in goal. Ilya Samsonov had by far the best season of his career last season, with 21.24 goals saved above expected. As good as Samsonov's season was, there are still reasons to not be completely sold on him.

Samsonov has never played more than 44 games in a season. With the way the league is trending toward duos of goalies, that means the Leafs will rely on either an unproven Joseph Woll or veteran Martin Jones, who has been well below average for the past five seasons.

Ultimately, the Leafs should be fine for the regular season, even with the questions in net. They have the talent up front to outscore most teams in the league.

Boston Bruins

The Boston Bruins set records last season with 65 wins and 135 points. Unfortunately, that seems to be where 2023 peaked for them.

Boston suffered a shocking upset to the Florida Panthers in round one after being up 3-1 in the series. There were a few injuries to key players that hurt the team overall, and the randomness of overtime went against them twice.

The news in the offseason was not good, either. Both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci decided to retire. It's obviously not a good thing when you lose your top two centers, especially when one was among the most dominant players in the league.

Bergeron was an elite player right up until the end of his career. He won the Selke Trophy in both of his last two seasons in the league, bringing him to an incredible six Selke wins overall. It wasn't just handed out on reputation, either, as he had the third-best expected goals percentage in the league and the best clip relative to his teammates.

Krejci isn't as big of a loss, but he still requires replacing. Boston didn't acquire anyone who could be considered a replacement for Krejci or Bergeron. They will have to get by with what they currently have on their roster at center.

It looks like Charlie Coyle and Pavel Zacha will be the top two centers for Boston. Both are capable NHL players, but neither has demonstrated the potential to score at anything above a second-line rate.

The good news for the Bruins is they still have elite players at other positions. David Pastrnak keeps improving, hitting the 60-goal mark last season. The defense -- led by Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm -- allowed the third-fewest expected goals per 60 minutes at five-on-five.

The two goaltenders form arguably the best duo in the NHL. Linus Ullmark got the plaudits with the Vezina Trophy, but Jeremy Swayman was excellent, as well. The team likely won't be as strong defensively without Bergeron, but the Bruins should be in good shape with these goalies.

A player to be slightly worried about is Brad Marchand. A year ago, he failed to score at a point-per-game pace for the first time since the 2015-16 season. He's been Bergeron's running mate for a long time and is now aged 35. His production may continue to slide this coming campaign.

Overall, the Bruins have a good lineup, but it remains to be seen how they can compete for the division title without Bergeron.

Tampa Bay Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning are finally coming off of a season where they didn't play in the maximum amount of playoff rounds. This can be spun into a positive, as it means they finally got extra time to rest.

However, it also can be looked at as a negative. The Maple Leafs looked like the better team in the first-round series between Toronto and Tampa Bay. The Lightning's roster seemed to lack the depth that they had on their run to three-straight Eastern Conference championships.

Tampa tried to recapture the magic of past trade deadlines when they made the move to acquire Tanner Jeannot. It didn't quite work out as well as the moves for Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman did, which gave them a formidable third line.

The salary cap has caught up to Tampa a bit to weaken their depth. The likes of Mikhail Sergachev, Erik Cernak and Anthony Cirelli signing expensive contracts means that the Lightning will be diving deep into the bargain bin to fill out their roster.

The signings of Conor Sheary, Tyler Motte and Luke Glendening are good for forward depth, even if they aren't needle movers. The success of the team is likely to come down to their star players playing well.

With some other players making headlines, it was easy to ignore how good both Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point were last season. Kucherov was tied for third in the league with 113 points and second in assists with 83. Point scored more than 50 goals for the first time in his career.

Steven Stamkos didn't have a career year but had 84 points in 81 games. The player who had a sizable drop in his production was Victor Hedman, who fell from 85 points to 49. Some of that is due to a change in role with Ryan McDonagh no longer on the team, but Hedman's output was disappointing overall.

Perhaps the most important player on the team last season was at least partially to blame for the playoff exit. Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed 3.69 goals above expected in six postseason games in 2022-23. He was still one of the top goalies by this metric in the regular season, so it's not something to be too concerned about heading into next year.

The Lightning haven't actually won their division since their record-setting 2018-19 season. It's been clear in the last few seasons that they didn't prioritize their place in the regular season standings and would prefer to have things set up for the playoffs.

On one hand, that strategy makes them a shy-away bet for the division. However, they do have some top-end talent who could capitalize on a weakened Boston team and a Leafs team that tends to underachieve.

Florida Panthers

What a strange season it was for the Panthers in 2022-23.

They came off huge expectations after winning the Presidents' Trophy the year before. The summer saw them make two big moves in the offseason that you don't typically see from a team that had so much success the year before.

The first move was a coaching change. Andrew Brunette was the interim coach after the seventh game of the previous season, so he deserved a lot of credit for how well the team played. The organization decided to hire Paul Maurice instead.

This was disappointing for many people around the hockey world. Brunette was a younger coach who embraced offense, and the Panthers scored 4.11 goals per game that season. That was the highest average of any team since the 1995-96 Pittsburgh Penguins.

Maurice had a long track record of being a pretty average coach in the league, so the move was met with skepticism. He also was unlikely to want to play the same offensive style as the Panthers had done previously.

The second move was a big swing to acquire Matthew Tkachuk from the Calgary Flames. To do this, they had to trade Jonathan Huberdeau and Mackenzie Weegar. Huberdeau led the team in points in 2021-22 with 115, and Weegar was one of their top two defensemen.

The trade for Tkachuk is now looking like an absolute home run. He set a career high with 109 points and was a complete force in the playoffs. This is more of a clear win than the coaching change.

Florida took a step back in the regular season last year, going from 122 points to 92 and sneaking into the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. They still had one of the best offenses in the league and were a good possession team, but some poor defensive play and questionable goaltending held them back.

Things changed when they made the playoffs. Sergei Bobrovsky found his game in net and played excellently. Tkachuk was both consistently excellent and scored goals in big moments. The formula finally came together and resulted in a run to the Stanley Cup Final.

There are two keys to Florida having a better regular season this year.

One is Aleksander Barkov staying healthy. The star center missed 15 games last season; they'll likely need him playing close to all 82 if they want to compete for the division.

The other key is Bobrovsky finding his playoff form in the regular season. He's a two-time Vezina Trophy winner, so he obviously has a lot of ability. He needs to show it for Florida to be a contender in the Atlantic.

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