Our Stanley Cup Windows series commenced with the hyper-competitive Central Division and continues with the Pacific, hockey’s least-predictable division this season. The Vegas Golden Knights turned every prognostication on its head last year, while the Calgary Flames look as improved as any team on paper this summer. So which of these teams finds itself in a contention window? I’d argue no franchise, not even fresh Cup finalist Vegas, has a gaping, years-long window of contention like Winnipeg and Nashville do in the Central.

WIN-NOW WINDOW: San Jose Sharks

With so much of the Pacific seemingly in transition, the Sharks look like the division’s lone sure thing. They’ve made the playoffs 13 times in their past 14 seasons. They rely on a lot of savvy, defensively responsible depth at forward and on defense. No one will confuse the Sharks with a team of peach-fuzzers, of course. Joe Thornton is 39, Joe Pavelski 34, Brent Burns 33. Top prime-year contributors Logan Couture and Marc-Edouard Vlasic aren’t far off their decline seasons at 29 and 31. And the decline is a real thing to fear. Thornton and Pavelski’s numbers have steadily dipped in their 30s.

That said, the Sharks aren’t necessarily done as a true Stanley Cup threat. They’re two years removed from reaching the final. They have a good group of younger support players, including Evander Kane, Tomas Hertl and the emerging Timo Meier up front and steady Martin Jones in goal. Still, they have to make it count one of these years, especially before Burns, their most important player and driver of their offense, shows signs of age. They have a decent chance to win the division this year, and that alone makes them palatable Cup contenders, but the window won’t be open much longer. There’s a reason GM Doug Wilson chased John Tavares so hard. The Sharks feel the pressure.

WINDOW OPENING: Calgary Flames

The Flames bombed out last season after making progress the previous one, but they had excuses. Matthew Tkachuk, T.J. Brodie, Sean Monahan and Mike Smith all battled injuries. This team still relies on a relatively young core, especially at forward, anchored by Johnny Gaudreau, Monahan, Tkachuk and two-way pivot Mikael Backlund and now upgraded by James Neal, Elias Lindholm and Derek Ryan. Losing Dougie Hamilton in the big trade with Carolina obviously hurt, but Calgary got younger on defense with Noah Hanifin coming the other way.

The Flames have to hope Smith’s play in net can hold up one more season at 36, but he was excellent pre-injury last season, so there’s reason for optimism. Captain Mark Giordano has reached his mid-30s but still plays elite shutdown defense, and the Flames have some nice blueline prospects coming down the pipeline in Juuso Valimaki and Rasmus Andersson. Since most of this team’s core consists of prime-year or still-ascending players, the contention window appears to be opening.

WINDOW FOGGED UP: Vegas Golden Knights, Edmonton Oilers

Why is the Pacific so difficult to forecast right now? Blame these two teams. The Golden Knights just reached the Stanley Cup final in the most bizarre, exhilarating expansion season in major pro sports history. They also lost Neal and David Perron to free agency and have to cross their fingers that veteran goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, a revelation in the playoffs, can avoid more concussion complications.

On one hand, Vegas signed coveted UFA center Paul Stastny and has some exciting prospects developing in right winger Alex Tuch and defenseman Shea Theodore. The Knights also have a nice little farm system after just two drafts, headlined by 2017 first-round trio Cody Glass, Nick Suzuki and Erik Brannstrom. All those factors suggest this team has a wide-open contention window, and that might be true. But what happens if 43-goal man William Karlsson regresses after leading the NHL in shooting percentage? What happens if career checking center Erik Haula’s 29-goal breakout was a fluke? What happens to this team emotionally now that it carries the weight of expectation instead of weightless underdog status? For all we know, last season was the only window for the franchise’s current incarnation. The Golden Knights are a true mystery.

The Oilers looked so impressive in 2016-17 that we picked them to reach last year’s Cup final. Instead, the team around Connor McDavid looked too slow, goalie Cam Talbot regressed badly, and the Oil missed the playoffs by a mile. What should we expect going forward? Building around centers McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and big blueliner Darnell Nurse suggests Edmonton is in good long-term shape. But Talbot has a lot to prove, as do Milan Lucic and Oscar Klefbom coming off down years, as does Jesse Puljujarvi, who hasn’t lived up to the potential that made him 2016’s No. 4 overall pick. If all the Oilers’ complementary pieces fall flat again, it won’t matter how brilliant McDavid and Draisaitl are, and this team might be years away from being a Cup threat. Which Oilers were the real ones: the 2017 group that won a playoff series or the 2018 group that went bust? Place your bets.

WINDOW CLOSING: Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings

The Ducks’ roster structure is pretty easy to understand. They’re set in goal and on defense for many years. Building around John Gibson, defended by Cam Fowler, Josh Manson, Hampus Lindholm and Brandon Montour, is an enviable position. But the Ducks are very clearly aging at forward. Time is running out for the Ryan Getzlaf/Corey Perry/Ryan Kesler era. The Ducks have a great young goal scorer in Rickard Rakell and some intriguing forward prospects in Sam Steel, Troy Terry and Max Jones, but there may be a temporary dip once their top forwards age out. It’s already happened to Perry, no longer a 30-goal man, and Kesler, plagued by major hip issues. Whenever the bottom falls out for Getzlaf, the Ducks will be in trouble. They won’t be a bad team anytime soon but may regress for a few years, so there’s urgency to win now. Are they too late?

We can say the same about the Kings, though they got Cups in 2012 and 2014, so there’s no reason to pity them if their glory days have ended. They still do an amazing job keeping pucks out of their net, but they don’t score enough and don’t have nearly enough speed to keep pace with today’s game. Big, powerful sniper Ilya Kovalchuk doesn’t rectify the speed problem.

Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick and Anze Kopitar have built outstanding careers but can only do so much. Even with Doughty and Kopitar earning individual hardware, the Kings’ past four seasons consist of two playoff misses and two first-round ousters. The current core appears done challenging for the Cup. We can expect this savvy roster to keep flirting with playoff berths but not much more for the next couple seasons.

REBUILDERS: Arizona Coyotes, Vancouver Canucks

The Coyotes showed promise with a 17-9-3 run to end their season, but they also did that after the pressure to make the playoffs evaporated. We can’t forget this team started 2-15-3. It’s a reminder the Coyotes have a long way to go. General manager John Chayka made some lauded moves this off-season, trading for Alex Galchenyuk, Vinnie Hinostroza and Jordan Oesterle and signing Michael Grabner, but the Coyotes’ 2017 off-season was arguably even more hyped, and they still flopped.

The Coyotes really are building something. Clayton Keller has begun flashing that Patrick-Kane-like potential, Antti Raanta was phenomenal in his first chance as a starting goaltender, and they have all-world blueliner Oliver Ekman-Larsson signed long-term. But they still have several seasons to go before they’re thinking of the Stanley Cup. Let’s start with a winning season first. Their championship window isn’t yet open.

The Canucks fall into the same category. They’re clear rebuilders, preparing for a post-Sedins life with Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, Olli Juolevi, and Thatcher Demko as pillars. I’d argue they have an exciting future ahead, even if GM Jim Benning keeps making mixed-message roster additions like Jay Beagle, but we don’t know for sure Vancouver has bottomed out yet. This team may have a lower floor without the Sedins. The young Canucks, such as Calder Trophy threat Pettersson, could surprise, but this team could also wind up with a lottery pick. The Cup window remains sealed for at least another year.