Stolichnoye delo: Ovechkin and other Russians join the fight for the main NHL trophies

On the night of September 30, the new regular season of the NHL, the strongest hockey league in the world, started. The new season promises several big intrigues at once: the usual favorites are once again aiming for the Stanley Cup, leading Russian hockey players will compete for individual awards, and young talents will try to oust recognized stars. We analyze the main contenders for trophies, evaluate the chances of Washington in Alexander Ovechkin's last season, and look forward to the debut of Roman Kantserov, who can become one of the openings of the championship.

Stanley Cup Favorites for the 2026/27 season

Seriality is a trait inherent in the NHL at all times. It is extremely rare for a team that wins the title to drop out of the Stanley Cup competition the following year. A well-assembled backbone allows you to stay on the list of applicants for more than one year. Of course, with timely and targeted reinforcement. The recent examples of Tampa and Florida, and even earlier Chicago, perfectly confirm this. Andrei Svechnikov's Carolina has a deep squad, the team retained all key players in the offseason, and they are also the fastest runners in the league. Therefore, there is no reason for the cup race not to happen again.

In the East, Montreal, with a bunch of rising stars, will definitely be a serious competitor to Carolina. Young people grow up and progress, point selection adds experience to the team. The head coach Martin St. Louis is also developing. Already in the last playoffs, the Canadiens reached the conference finals, where, exhausted by two seven-game series, they could not cope with the future champion, Carolina. In the coming season, Montreal will become even stronger. And he may well take advantage of the drawdown of the leaders of his conference, who have become familiar in recent years. It's about Tampa and Florida. The latter still look well-equipped, but the Panthers have been squeezing all the juices out of the leaders in recent years. It doesn't go away painlessly. Besides, Sergei Bobrovsky is no longer on the team either (I'm very curious how our goalkeeper will do in Toronto).

Everything is stable in the West. Even with the loss of Pavel Dorofeev, Vegas has the most balanced squad, which combines experience and hunger for big wins. In the last playoffs, the Knights famously went through three rounds. The team enters the new season with a young coach, Ryan Craig, who will make his NHL debut in this position. This should not harm such a powerful team, but it should bring fresh ideas and fine-tune the already well-established mechanism to a specialist in strength.

Last season, it was a big surprise for many that Colorado, which totally dominated the regular season, did not reach the finals. The Avalanche probably won't make the same mistake now. They will slow down a little in a smooth championship, as Detroit, Washington, and Tampa did during the Cup seasons, but they will fully invest in the playoffs. It is difficult to fight with "Carolina" in its current form, but if you impose a cool team game on the scale of the talent of the Avalanche leaders, then it is almost impossible to resist it.

Ovechkin and Washington's chances

Washington, with a good goaltending duo and a well-organized defense, lacked balance in the game last season. This problem is related to the key moves in the summer, designed to add quality to the attack, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Spencer Carbery's team consists of forwards Jordan Kairou, Alex Tuck, Boone Jenner and defender Vincent Dearne. The Capitals look interesting on paper and are among the cup contenders. It was this fact that Alexander Ovechkin emphasized after signing the contract for a year.

— Our newcomers have a lot of experience, — said the star Russian. — They are tough, skilled. I think the organization has done a great job. It's hard to lose Lappy, Doggie and Mikey (Hendrix Lapierre, Brandon Dewey and Connor McMichael. — Ed.). We have a great relationship, they're great guys. But I believe that the current course is aimed at bringing the Stanley Cup back to the capital. And above all, it's a business, right? So all of [Chris Patrick's] moves and organizations are made for the sake of winning. That's why I said, "Okay, let's go for another year."

The ability of the updated squad to control the puck and strain other people's defenses will take the pressure off their own defenders. Therefore, goalkeeper Logan Thompson, who continues to make progress at the age of 29, will benefit from this. The last time a Canadian goalkeeper won the Vezina Trophy was in 2021, when the famous Marc-Andre Fleury did it. And Thompson was with him in the Vegas system. It would be symbolic if the Capitals goalkeeper could now repeat the achievement of his older friend.

At the same time, Ovechkin's influence on the team's results should decrease. Alexander, unfortunately, will not claim the title of the best sniper in the league — those days are over. But, probably, the legend's last season in the NHL will attract a lot of attention to every match anyway. And Ovechkin should score enough — at least 30 goals (32 last season). This will make it possible to confidently break Wayne Gretzky's record for the total number of goals in his NHL career, taking into account playoff matches (1016 goals, the Russian currently has 1006).

Contenders for NHL Individual Awards

Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, Nathan McKinnon. The Great Trinity continues to rule in the modern NHL and share the main individual prizes among themselves. Only injuries can ruin the season for each of them, but they were spared serious health problems in the last championship. McDavid took the Art Ross and Ted Lindsay, and the Coachmen took the Hart. McKinnon is slightly behind in terms of performance, but his 127 (53+74) points still look like a cosmic mark. In the coming season, the young genius from San Jose is ready to step into the battle of the Titans even more seriously. For McLean Celebrini, the past year turned out to be super saturated. The forward broke into the NHL's top 4 scorers, traveled to the Olympics and the World Cup, and seems ready for new achievements.

Russian goalies continue to dominate the NHL. Andrey Vasilevsky, who won the Vezina Trophy last season, Ilya Sorokin and Igor Shesterkin are once again the main contenders for the best goalkeeper of the season award.

Who will be the best rookie of the NHL season

At the end of last season, big forward Porter Martone, who played a brilliant year in college hockey for the University of Michigan team, made his debut in Philadelphia and made an amazing impression: 10 (4+6) points in nine regular season matches and 5 (2+3) more in 10 playoff games. It seems that he will grow into an elite power forward, who is adored both in his native Canada and in the city of Brotherly love, where the public has already fallen in love with the player. Mortone is in serious competition for the title of best rookie: Gavin McKenna (Toronto FC), Anton Frondell (Chicago FC), Cole Hutson (Washington DC).

Roman Kanzerov is expected to become one of the most interesting Russian newcomers of the 2026/27 season. Last year, the Metallurg forward became the best sniper in the KHL regular season, scoring 40 goals. At the end of the season, Kantserov decided to sign a three-year rookie contract with Chicago, explaining the decision as a desire to challenge himself.

The Hawks have high hopes for Kanzerov. The club continues to rebuild and combines a bet on young players led by Connor Bedard with the invitation of experienced stars like the returning Patrick Kane. Kanzerov will get an additional chance to gain a foothold due to a shoulder injury to Bedard. According to the Daily Faceoff forecast, Roman will start the regular season in the top three along with Frank Nazar and Kane. If the Russian manages to adapt quickly to the realities of North American hockey, he may well join the fight for the Calder Trophy.