Tampa Bay wins the Atlantic Division in 2026-27 with 108 points. Montreal and Ottawa tie for second at 101, and Florida takes an Eastern wild card at 99. Buffalo, who won 109 points last season, is the first team out.
Below is every number behind that, and the five inputs that produced it ranked one through eight.
Projected Atlantic Division standings 2026-27
| # | Team | Record | Points | 2025-26 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tampa Bay Lightning | 48-24-12 | 108 | 106 | +2 |
| 2 | Montreal Canadiens | 46-29-9 | 101 | 106 | -5 |
| 3 | Ottawa Senators | 45-28-11 | 101 | 99 | +2 |
| 4 | Florida Panthers | 44-29-11 | 99 | 84 | +15 |
| 5 | Buffalo Sabres | 43-32-9 | 95 | 109 | -14 |
| 6 | Boston Bruins | 40-32-12 | 92 | 100 | -8 |
| 7 | Detroit Red Wings | 41-37-6 | 88 | 92 | -4 |
| 8 | Toronto Maple Leafs | 38-37-9 | 85 | 78 | +7 |
Montreal and Ottawa finish level on 101 points. The NHL breaks that on regulation wins, and Montreal has the edge there, so the Canadiens take second and Ottawa third.
Three of those look wrong at a glance, so start there. Buffalo won 109 points and drops fourteen. Florida won 84 and gains fifteen. Ottawa, who played the best hockey in the league by the underlying numbers, finishes third rather than first. Each of those has a measurable reason, and the reasons are below.
The five criteria, ranked
- 1
Ottawa Senators - 2
Tampa Bay Lightning - 3
Florida Panthers - 4
Detroit Red Wings - 5
Buffalo Sabres - 6
Montreal Canadiens - 7
Boston Bruins - 8
Toronto Maple Leafs
- 1Toronto Maple Leafs
- 2Boston Bruins
- 3Montreal Canadiens
- 4Ottawa Senators
- 5Florida Panthers
- 6Detroit Red Wings
- 7Tampa Bay Lightning
- 8Buffalo Sabres
- 1Montreal Canadiens
- 2Boston Bruins
- 3Buffalo Sabres
- 4Tampa Bay Lightning
- 5Detroit Red Wings
- 6Toronto Maple Leafs
- 7Florida Panthers
- 8Ottawa Senators
- 1Florida Panthers
- 2Buffalo Sabres
- 3Toronto Maple Leafs
- 4Tampa Bay Lightning
- 5Boston Bruins
- 6Ottawa Senators
- 7Montreal Canadiens
- 8Detroit Red Wings
- 1Tampa Bay Lightning
- 2Montreal Canadiens
- 3Ottawa Senators
- 4Florida Panthers
- 5Buffalo Sabres
- 6Boston Bruins
- 7Detroit Red Wings
- 8Toronto Maple Leafs
1. Tampa Bay Lightning: 108 points, 48-24-12
The only team in the division without a weak half: 53.4 percent of the expected goals, third best in the East, and Andrei Vasilevskiy at +25 goals saved above expected, second in the division behind Jeremy Swayman.
The summer washes out. Darren Raddysh went to Toronto with 70 points, 26 of them on the power play. John Carlson arrived from Anaheim and projects at 57 against Raddysh's 60, with 20 power-play points against his 18. The PP1 point is covered by a defenceman who won a Cup as a power-play QB in Washington. Behind Carlson there is one big question.
Victor Hedman, their captain, played 33 games last season. He projects at 48 points, more than any Tampa defenceman but Carlson. Seventy games from him and this blueline looks different. Thirty-three and it looks like last year.
2. Montreal Canadiens: 101 points, 46-29-9
Montreal went to the Conference Final last spring with the fifth-youngest lineup in the league. Lane Hutson, Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov all cleared 60 points at 22 or younger. The only move of the summer was keeping Demidov, eight years at $9.125M starting in 2027-28.
Second place is the crease. Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler project at +30 goals saved above expected together, the best mark in the division, and they are lifting a team that played to a draw: 49.7 percent of the expected goals, minus three across the whole season.
Standing firm is a defensible plan when your goaltending is this good. It is also the thinnest margin in the division, though not an empty one: a Selke-winning centre who put up 101 points is a real floor under a young team.
3. Ottawa Senators: 101 points, 45-28-11
Usually it is the skaters who hang a goalie out to dry. Ottawa flipped it. No team in hockey allowed fewer expected goals. They finished 13th in actual goals against.
They took 55.5 percent of the expected goals too, third best in the league. Give them average goaltending and this is a 110-point team.
They managed it while missing Brady Tkachuk for 22 games, and now they have lost him for good: 59 points in 60 games, gone to Florida. William Eklund arrives from San Jose to replace him, 53 points at 24 and projected for 65, with Andre Burakovsky in from Chicago.
Then you look at the crease. Linus Ullmark projects at -10 goals saved above expected, Samuel Ersson at -20. Together, on our fixed workload, that is -26 goals, the worst projected tandem in the division and the reason the league's stingiest defensive team finishes third.
This is the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Ottawa are first in the league at preventing chances, last in the division at stopping them, and 101 is where those two meet.
4. Florida Panthers: 99 points, 44-29-11
Florida were the only team in the NHL last season without one player who dressed all 82 games. Aleksander Barkov played none. Matthew Tkachuk missed 51, Marchand and Jones 30 apiece, Lundell and Reinhart 18 each, Luostarinen 9, and their iron man was Gustav Forsling at 80. That is 238 games gone from seven players.
They were third in the Atlantic by expected goals anyway, and they underfinished by 18 goals on top of it. Eighty-four points was not what that season was worth.
They all come back, and Brady Tkachuk arrives from Ottawa at 90 projected points. Depth paid for him. Samoskevich, Rodrigues and Greer scored 95 points between them last season, and all three are gone.
The brake is the crease. Jacob Markstrom projects at -15 and Akira Schmid at -7, seventh of eight in the division, and it is the only thing holding this number down.
Nobody can predict injuries. The Panthers are betting that a long summer heals what back-to-back Cups cost them, and no team in the league has more riding on it.
5. Buffalo Sabres: 95 points, 43-32-9
Buffalo won the division at 109 points and our model has them missing the playoffs. The fourteen-point drop is not a criticism of last season. It is two things that both point the same way.
Buffalo took 50.03 percent of the expected goals in their games, the closest to even in the league, and turned that into 109 points by finishing 24 goals better than expected.
Then they lost Alex Tuch and Bowen Byram, 108 points between them. Their net roster change of -74 is the worst in the division by a distance, and the worst in the Eastern Conference.
What holds them at 95 rather than lower is the crease. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Alex Lyon both project positive, third best in the division. They also carry genuine upside: their missing-talent index is 90, second here, with Josh Norris out for 38 games.
6. Boston Bruins: 92 points, 40-32-12
Boston lost the chance battle by 30 goals last season and won the scoreboard by 21. That 50-goal gap is the largest in the NHL.
It splits almost evenly: +24 from finishing, +27 from Jeremy Swayman. Swayman is the half that repeats, and he projects at +28 goals saved above expected, the best individual mark in the division. Finishing is the half that does not repeat. That is the eight points.
The summer was quiet, and no roster in the division moved less. Viktor Arvidsson and his 54 points left, JJ Peterka arrived at 52 projected.
The roster is not thin, it is early. David Pastrnak scored 100 and projects 106, second in the division behind only Kucherov. McAvoy projects 65. Behind them, Fraser Minten at 22 and James Hagens at 20 are getting a real opportunity to shine with the Bruins. Both carry upside that can help drag the chance battle back toward even.
Ninety-two points assumes Swayman covers the gap again. Whether he still has to is the question Minten and Hagens are being asked.
7. Detroit Red Wings: 88 points, 41-37-6
Detroit took 92 points last season while being outscored by 15 goals. By expected goals they were exactly median: 16th of 32 in share and 16th of 32 in differential, with competent goaltending from John Gibson at +6. Six Red Wings dressed all 82 games, tied with Edmonton for the most in the league, so nobody here is coming back from anywhere. Last season is not a floor to build on. It is the shape of the team.
They lost Patrick Kane and his 57 points and replaced him with Viktor Arvidsson, who scored 54 for Boston. But the captain has asked out, Dylan Larkin scored 67, and there is no general manager in the building to trade him. Everything wrong with Detroit is off the ice, which is the part no projection can price. Vancouver went from 109 points to 90 to 58 in three seasons the same way.
Lucas Raymond is the reason to watch. He is 24, scored 76, and projects 84. Detroit will ask a lot of Emmitt Finnie and Marco Kasper too: 21 and 22, one on the top line and one centring the third, and 49 points between them last season.
8. Toronto Maple Leafs: 85 points, 38-37-9
Toronto fell from 108 points to 78 last season, the third-largest collapse in the league. It was not the shooting: they finished 15 goals better than expected. They finished 30th of 32 in expected goal differential and 31st of 32 in expected goals against. Only Chicago and Vancouver were worse by differential, and only Vancouver gave up more. The only Leaf to dress all 82 games was John Tavares, at 36.
This is a full reset. A new general manager in John Chayka, a new head coach in Jim Hiller, and a lot of new faces in the dressing room.
They sold in March and spent all summer. McMann, Roy and Laughton went at the deadline. Then came the largest roster gain in the Eastern Conference, +100, with Gavin McKenna at 65, Darren Raddysh at 60, Jack Roslovic at 42, Teddy Blueger at 33 and Nick Paul at 31, against summer departures in Matias Maccelli, Nicholas Robertson and Brandon Carlo.
The crease is what stops it working. Sergei Bobrovsky projects at -15 over 59 starts and Anthony Stolarz at -2, sixth in the division. Auston Matthews played 60 games last season and William Nylander 65. Toronto need both of those numbers to go up before anything else matters.
Every projection driving these numbers, sortable, with availability and finishing on each player.
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