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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
Jon Cooper has coached the Tampa Bay Lightning since 2013. During that time, he has watched the Battle of Florida between the Bolts and the Florida Panthers go from something theoretical to one of the NHL’s most intense feuds.
“They started to get good when we happened to be at the peak. It’s been a battle. And I’m telling you, it’s so much fun to play games against those guys,” Cooper told ESPN. “They for sure circle us on the calendar, as do we.”
The lifeblood of the NHL is rivalries. They’re the most marketable commodity in the league outside of the Stanley Cup itself. They invigorate the fans as much as they do the players and coaches.
But like success on the ice, rivalries come and go. For example, we’re about a dozen years removed from the Chicago Blackhawks and Vancouver Canucks having the most intense and brutal rivalry in the NHL. You’d never know it watching those teams play today.
We last ranked the top team rivalries in the NHL two years ago. Plenty of dynamics have changed since then, although a few feuds remain as intense as ever. So we decided to revisit them as another addition of the Battle of Florida arrives this weekend (6 p.m. ET Saturday, ESPN+/Hulu).
The other
31 teams
This entry ranked No. 2 on our list two years ago. At the time, the Golden Knights had amassed quite the rogues gallery of rivals: The Sharks, Kings and Capitals on the ice, and varying degrees of heat with the Jets, Canucks, Avalanche and even the Wild when it came to defending the honor of one Marc-Andre Fleury.
So if “Vegas vs. Everyone” was ranked second then, it has to ascend to the throne of NHL rivalries now. After the swaggering Stanley Cup victory. After the long-term injured reserve creative accounting, which for Vegas has been a matter of opportune timing and for fans of other teams has been derided as salary cap shenanigans. After landing Anthony Mantha, Noah Hanifin and Tomas Hertl at the trade deadline, courting Patrick Kane and then having GM Kelly McCrimmon take offense to the idea that the Golden Knights chase every big name player.
As I wrote after their Cup win, the Golden Knights are the NHL’s great disruptors. With disruption comes disturbance, and with disturbance comes annoyance. The envy over Vegas being on track for a second straight Cup just underscores that animosity. The best team rivalry in the NHL at this moment? This team vs. the other 31. Nothing comes close.
The Oilers have had the upper hand in this rivalry, winning four of their past six meetings as well as that chaotic second-round playoff series in 2022. One of my favorite quotes about the Battle of Alberta came from Calgary defenseman Rasmus Andersson after that playoff loss to Edmonton: “It obviously sucked that summer, but we were all pretty happy when they lost to Colorado.”
Outside of competitive balance — although Calgary leads the all-time regular-season series (.543 points percentage) — this is a feud that has it all. They’re division rivals and geographic rivals, and the fans circle the date when it’s time for another Flames vs. Oilers lovefest because things can get pretty hairy rather quickly. Look no further than last month’s 6-3 Flames win, which had brutal hits, two fights, three misconduct penalties and a reminder of what the “BoA” can be.
As Flames Hall of Famer Lanny McDonald said ahead of the Heritage Classic between the teams in 2023: “If you couldn’t get up for a game against the Oilers, then something was wrong with you, and you needed to go play for a different team. And the same went for them.”
It took a while for this one to get cooking, which is what happens when one team makes the Stanley Cup Final five times and wins three championships while the other makes the playoffs twice in the first 19 years of the century, losing in the first round both times.
As Lightning coach Jon Cooper noted, things started to turn in 2019-20, when Joel Quenneville arrived as head coach, Aleksander Barkov blossomed into a star and Sergei Bobrovsky signed as a free agent. The regular-season games became more intense with higher stakes. The Bolts and Cats met twice in the playoffs, with Tampa Bay winning both meetings.
Now, Florida is where the Lightning used to be: coming off a Stanley Cup Final appearance, pushing for best record in the NHL and looking like a postseason favorite. Based on the current standings, there’s a chance the Panthers meet the Lightning again in the playoffs this season with their roles reversed.
“That team started to get good and we happen to be at the peak,” Cooper said. “It’s been a battle. And I’m telling you, it’s so much fun to play against those guys.”
This rivalry is like a volcano that went dormant for a decade and then spewed hot lava last season when the Devils returned to playoff contention. They played with swagger. Their fans traveled to MSG to taunt Igor Shesterkin. They met the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs, losing the first two games and then rallying for a seven-game series win looking like the new hotness to the Rangers being old and busted.
Of course, that Devils team never showed up for the 2023-24 season. Neither did that Rangers team, as New York is the one playing with speed and confidence while New Jersey will likely miss the playoffs. The Rangers are 3-0-0 against the Devils this season, winning each game convincingly.
As the recent sideshow with Matt Rempe showed, there’s still plenty of animosity between these rivals, even if the odds are long that we’ll get another playoff pressure cooker between them this season. And it’s a rivalry that stretches decades.
“The hatred? I couldn’t even put a number on it — the hatred was off the charts,” said Ken Daneyko, who played 20 seasons with the Devils before becoming a broadcaster for the team. “It was an unwritten rule that you wouldn’t even say their name. I imagine it was the same thing for them. It was that kind of rivalry.”
While there’s a chance the Bruins could catch the Panthers for the top of the Atlantic Division, the likeliest first-round playoff series in the East would pit Boston against the Maple Leafs in their first postseason meeting since 2019. Which means we could be in for a show.
They’ve met three times in the past 11 postseasons, with the Bruins winning each series in seven games. None of these was pedestrian, from the soul-crushing “it was 4-to-1” overtime loss for Toronto in 2012 to back-to-back unravelings in 2018 and 2019 that were punctuated by pair of lengthy Nazem Kadri suspensions from the NHL’s department of player safety.
Games between the division rivals have remained intense and competitive, but the real money is in the playoffs. Will the Bruins continue to break the Leafs under the pressure of postseason intensity? Or could the Maple Leafs finally overcome their tormentors in a way that puts wind in their sails for a championship run, much like it did for the Washington Capitals against the Pittsburgh Penguins en route to the 2018 Stanley Cup?
What’s the spicier rivalry for the Penguins in 2024: their intrastate one against the Flyers or the one with the Capitals, which stretches beyond the Sidney Crosby vs. Alex Ovechkin years but reached its apex during that era?
We put it to a vote on social media, and 3,500 responses later the Penguins vs. Flyers had around 75% of the vote. But it did seem that a lot of dispassionate Pittsburgh fans wanted an option to vote for “neither” because the team’s competitive fire has been stolen like it was a crate of Jaromir Jagr bobblehead dolls.
The Capitals rivalry was special, and there’s no question it would have ranked first overall on this list within the last decade. The decline of both franchises as Stanley Cup contenders dampened the rivalry, but so did their success: The Penguins got their Cups and the Capitals got theirs. Plus, seeing Ovechkin and Crosby all buddy-buddy in their sunset years has kind of ruined the kayfabe of it all.
The Penguins and Flyers used to have nasty, blood-filled games. As Crosby noted to writer Dave Molinari earlier this season, the “new” NHL has meant an evolution in the rivalry, too. “The game has evolved and changed,” Crosby said. “And with that, the rivalry probably has evolved a little bit.”
There was already a baseline of animosity here between the cities, thanks to their proximity. But things really got interesting in recent years, with accusations that the Jets have targeted Minnesota star Kirill Kaprizov, and the situation this season involving Jets forward Cole Perfetti and Wild forward Ryan Hartman.
Perfetti asserted that Hartman intentionally high-sticked him in the face as revenge for Winnipeg defenseman Brenden Dillon having injured Kaprizov with a cross-check. Hartman denied the accusation and said Perfetti was trying to goad him into an admission because the Jets player was wearing a live mic for the Winnipeg social media team.
Violence, animosity, accusations of players wearing a wire to capture confessions … NHL rivalry or prestige crime drama? You decide.
As the MetLife Stadium Series showed, the warring factions of New York hockey fans have all the passion necessary to elevate this feud up these rankings. The Rangers vs. Islanders rivalry is like a lit fuse in search of a powder keg. That powder keg is, unquestionably, a playoff series between the geographic adversaries.
The Rangers and Islanders haven’t met in the playoffs since the 1993-94 season, thanks in part to NHL playoff formats and occasional postseason droughts by each team. It could happen this postseason, with the Rangers leading the Metro Division and the Islanders in the wild card. If it does, the series will be center stage for New York sports fans and could return this rivalry to its proper place in the NHL. Especially if Patrick Roy tries to fight Peter Laviolette at some point.
Laviolette played in the rivalry during his brief NHL career and has coached both teams.
“The rivalry is pretty awesome,” he said before the Stadium Series game. “It’s in New York. It’s a long-standing rivalry where two teams play hard against each other and I would expect it to be the same today. There’s some tradition here in regard to that rivalry.”
Is this a little too high? Perhaps, although both games between the teams this season were intense battles won by the Bruins. Those wins don’t exactly balance the scales when the Panthers have their seven-game, first-round upset over Boston — in what would become a de facto retirement match for Patrice Bergeron — to hold over the Bruins’ heads.
Matthew Tkachuk firmly established himself as public enemy No. 1 in Boston thanks to his antics and heroics in last season’s series. He cemented that status by telling ESPN this preseason that what he was most excited to see in 2023-24 was “what Boston does after their season last year, how they follow that one up.” Oof.
It always matters. Even when one team is up and the other is rebuilding. Even when there’s nothing on the line except one being a spoiler for the other. But especially when there’s plenty to play for, like when the Canadiens rallied for a seven-game playoff win back in 2021 in a series forever remembered for a brutal injury to Leafs center John Tavares in Game 1.
It’s still the historical, cultural, extremely Canadian feud that stretches back a century. The one that’s the centerpiece of many a “Hockey Night in Canada” on Saturdays. The one that inspired a children’s book about hockey sweaters. It’s Habs vs. Leafs. It belongs here.
The classics
Chicago Blackhawks vs. St. Louis Blues
Colorado Avalanche vs. Detroit Red Wings
Montreal Canadiens vs. Boston Bruins
Philadelphia Flyers vs. New York Rangers
Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Washington Capitals
The Battle(s) of California
One of the great joys in NHL rivalries is seeing that spark of animosity that still lingers between teams even if the feud’s apex was years ago. Like in that recent game between the Red Wings and Avalanche that Patrick Kane ended with an overtime goal, which was intense enough that fans lamented the fact that they’re no longer division rivals. Cale Makar was born a year after the Fight Night at the Joe!
The Blackhawks and Blues will be featured in next season’s Winter Classic at Wrigley Field. The Flyers and Rangers could meet in this season’s playoffs. The Habs and Bruins … not so much, but that’s obviously a rivalry that will reignite when Montreal returns to prominence.
The tough call was putting the Penguins and Capitals in the “legacy” category, considering how contentious this matchup has been for the better part of two decades. But as stated earlier, it has cooled off considerably as the teams have. We’ll still tune in for Sid vs. Ovi until we can’t anymore, but the team vs. team rivalry has calmed down.
Finally, while Florida and Alberta battle on, the various incarnations of the Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks rivalries have cooled off pending the latter two teams returning to relevance. But as they’ve all shown in the past 15 years, these feuds are anything but sunshine when they’re sizzling.
Ready to explode
Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Detroit Red Wings
Edmonton Oilers vs. Los Angeles Kings
Florida Panthers vs. Ottawa Senators
Seattle Kraken vs. Colorado Avalanche
Seattle Kraken vs. Vancouver Canucks
The easiest way to create rivals is through punishing playoff series. To that end, the Oilers and Kings have been very familiar with each other in the past two postseasons, with Edmonton advancing both times. One more tight series and this rivalry could be solidified.
If the Blue Jackets have a rival, it’s probably the Penguins for geographic reasons. But next season’s Stadium Series at The Horseshoe at Ohio State could reorient their relationship with the Red Wings with an infusion of that old Wolverines vs. Buckeyes animosity. Hopefully, at least.
The Senators and Panthers are low key becoming a must-see matchup in the Eastern Conference. Their game last November descended into utter chaos: Please recall Grandma Tkachuk being aghast when a brawl between the teams left the referee declaring “every player on the ice has a 10-minute misconduct.” The rematch was a tightly played overtime win for the Cats. These teams are putting on bangers despite the distance in the standings. Is it the Tkachuk factor?
Finally, we couldn’t quite put the Kraken into the top 10 yet, having just made the playoffs for the first time last season. But that postseason did include an upset over the Avalanche, and the intensity of that series has carried over to this season in three physical games that included players such as Jordan Eberle dropping the gloves.
Meanwhile, one of the most exciting things about having a team in Seattle was the proximity to Vancouver. As much as we want to will this rivalry into being a thing, we’re not there yet. But again, all it takes is one flashpoint incident or memorable playoff series, and these division rivals — and their fan bases — are ready for the rivalry to take off.