Five NHL Teams That Could Surprise This Season

This is part of VICE Sports' 2016 NHL preview coverage. You can read all our stories here.

The NHL season is about to start and everyone has published their season previews and predictions. Whether they're based on intuition or analytics, predictions usually heavily resemble last season's standings with a few exceptions. For example, the Montreal Canadiens are nearly universally expected to make a big jump up the standings with a healthy Carey Price, but that isn't a surprise.

What might be more interesting is to look at the teams that could be drastically different from expectations—the biggest potential movers that not many are talking about. We'll take a look at five teams that fit the billing.

I had two Hurricanes forwards on my potential breakout players list this season in Teuvo Teravainen and Elias Lindholm, but don't be surprised if Victor Rask, Noah Hanifin, and Brett Pesce are names you start hearing more of as well. Carolina's talented young core has had trouble producing goals in recent years, but under Bill Peters they were the 11th-best score-adjusted Corsi team in the NHL last season, and rank 14th over the last two years.

That may not seem too impressive, but it ranks them above several playoff-bound teams during seasons where they weren't expected by anyone to be a good team. Adding rookie Sebastian Aho, Teravainen, and veterans Viktor Stalberg and Lee Stempniak should supply some additional offensive skill to finish off the chances Carolina normally creates. That talent infusion should see the Hurricanes fly up the standings and challenge for a playoff spot this season.

The big caveat for the Hurricanes is their goaltending, where they are going into another season with Cam Ward and Eddie Lack splitting duties, a duo that struggled mightily last season. Ward is the presumptive starter despite four straight seasons of being below league average in save percentage.

One of the teams most favoured to win a Stanley Cup over the last several seasons, the Anaheim Ducks are closing in on the end of their Cup window, and it's possible that they've already slammed it shut. Assuming that the Ducks are able to sign both Rickard Rakell and Hampus Lindholm, the top end of their forward group is aging, and their additions this summer of Antoine Vermette and Mason Raymond are underwhelming, to say the least.

The defensive squad is as deep as it gets at the NHL level, with last season's standout rookie Shea Theodore not making the starting lineup. But the Ducks got significantly worse in goal with the departure of Frederik Andersen, who has been significantly superior to John Gibson and Jonathan Bernier the last few years.

The biggest problem for Anaheim, though, is that its gone back to a known quantity behind the bench in Randy Carlyle, a coach whose systems lead to his team being massively outplayed on a consistent basis. Carlyle won a cup in Anaheim in 2007, but Lindholm and Sami Vatanen aren't exactly Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer. The combination of age and poor strategy could see the Ducks fall out of the playoffs completely this season.

I've seen quite a few predictions that had the Flames vaulting up the standings so I'm not being original here, but I think this team is ready to take a huge leap forward. There was some nervousness before Johnny Gaudreau re-signed, but now that he has, it's full steam ahead.

The Flames should see internal improvements from young players like Sam Bennett, Gaudreau, and Sean Monahan, and brought in solid veteran help via free agency with Troy Brouwer and Kris Versteeg to provide depth scoring they haven't had in recent years.

The biggest improvement for Calgary will likely be in net, where Brian Elliott should stabilize a position that's been a disaster, despite one of the best defense cores in the league (especially the top-three).

New coach Glen Gulutzan is the big wild card for the Flames. Bob Hartley had trouble building a system that competently drove possession, so it's possible that the Flames are vastly improved in that area, but until we see Gulutzan's results, we can't know for sure.

The Rangers' situation is pretty simple—they may have improved their forwards a little bit with Mika Zibanejad, Brandon Pirri, and Jimmy Vesey, but they also lost Keith Yandle and Dan Boyle on defence, which has been their problem area for multiple seasons.

For all the hot takes coming out of New York about Boyle, he and Yandle were the Rangers' best Corsi players among regular defensemen last season, and it wasn't particularly close. With those two gone, outside of Ryan McDonagh, the Rangers will be forced to rely on sophomore Dylan McIlrath and rookie Brady Skjei as puck movers.

It could work, but it's a huge gamble from a defensive core that has been atrocious for a couple seasons now. More than ever, the fate of the Rangers depends on Henrik Lundqvist, and at 34 years old, there's only so much he can do.

Are they still rebuilding? Yes. But the Maple Leafs have completely overhauled their roster compared to last season, including a talent infusion that no teams can quite compare to with Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner, and Nikita Zaitsev joining the club.

Unfortunately for the Leafs, they're starting from so far behind every other team from a talent perspective that they're unlikely to make the playoffs, but this team is incredibly strong compared to last season.

I'm not convinced that Andersen is as big of an upgrade as others believe, but he is still an improvement on what the Leafs previously had, meaning there isn't really an area that the team will be weaker in compared to last season.

When you consider the fact that the feeble roster the Maple Leafs had last season still managed a positive score-adjusted Corsi of 50.23 percent under Mike Babcock, you have to think this edition will be a very difficult team to play against.