Hope springs eternal. At least until the puck drops.



We’ve ranked the 31 teams from top to bottom (or bottom to top if you’re an Ottawa or Los Angeles fan and holding your phone upside down) as this will be the last moment of equal footing for every franchise.



The rankings are a compilation of voting by The Athletic’s NHL team and will be done at the beginning of every month of the regular season. Here is how we forecast the season and what each reporter thinks is the most important thing to watch for early.



1. Tampa Bay Lightning (41 first-place votes)



With the Lightning starting with six of their first seven on the road, it’ll be interesting to see how much they’ve been able to mentally move past their humbling playoff defeat. Players showed up for informal skates earlier than usual, a sign of a hungry and determined group. But the question remains whether their camp-long push to be better defensively (and limit...