4 teams that won’t win the Stanley Cup this year but could in 2021

1. Vancouver Canucks

What a story this Vancouver Canucks team has been ever since the season began. After being one of the worst teams in the NHL after their last playoff appearance in 2015, the Canucks have finally turned a corner with an exciting young core that just knocked off the defending Stanley Cup champions. While it would likely take a miracle to win the Stanley Cup this year considering what the path they still have to go through, next season could be the beginning of an overdue Stanley Cup window.

Ever since the Daniel and Henrik Sedin era started to wind down, Vancouver has been searching for a new young core to take them to their first Stanley Cup. Bo Horvat and Brock Boeser were a good start, but they weren’t the game-breakers that you need. That changed when they drafted Elias Pettersson fifth overall in 2017, who has become the elite center that every team dreams of having, but they still needed more. That more was defenseman Quinn Hughes, who somehow fell to seventh in the 2018 draft and is already evolving into an elite defenseman in just his rookie season. Vancouver finally has its core.

Alongside that core is a strong supporting cast that includes J.T Miller, a spectacular offseason addition that lead the team in points during the regular season. There’s also the likes of Tanner Pearson, Jake Virtanen, Adam Gaudette on offense, with Alex Edler Chris Tanev, and Troy Stetcher on defense. However it was the elite performance of Jacob Markstrom in goal this past season that was able to take Vancouver to playoff contention, and they’ll need him to continue that for them to be at the same level.

Unlike most of the other teams on this list, Vancouver doesn’t have the same salary cap flexibility heading into this offseason with a lot of money tied up in their reckless free agency spending over the last four years. While they’ll have about $17 million in cap space, a lot of that will have to go toward re-signing Markstrom and Chris Tanev. However, they’ll still have enough money to sign more depth to support this core and take Vancouver firmly into Stanley Cup contention.

The Canucks have mired in futility for long enough, and now they finally have a core that can take them to new heights as a franchise. As long as they continue to make mistakes in free agency, this Vancouver team can be a threat for the Stanley Cup as soon as next season and for several years to come