The Atlantic Division offers less wiggle room than any other grouping in the NHL thanks to its number of quality teams. As such, getting some critical positive performances is extra important for all eight squads.
The goal here is to highlight one player for each club who sits at the intersection of importance and uncertainty. Of course it’s crucial for the likes of Tage Thompson, Nick Suzuki and Aleksander Barkov to show up, but it also feels safe to say — even with Barkov coming off a major injury — we can bank on a certain level of performance from those guys.
The players we want to focus on, for one reason or another, have some intrigue attached to them that could be rooted in a variety of things such as a recent dip in performance, where they are in their career arc or the fact they may be new guys adjusting to different surroundings.
They may not all be in the same skill tier, but their showings could greatly swing how their teams fare in hockey's Group of Death.
So, without further delay, we present one guy who must deliver for each Atlantic team:
Boston Bruins: JJ Peterka
Remember 13 months ago, when the Utah Mammoth acquired Peterka from Buffalo and a bunch of us raced to pencil Peterka in for 35 goals — with the promise of even better seasons to come — in his new home? Well, things didn’t really work out that way and Peterka’s 25 tallies in Utah last season represented his lowest total since he scored 12 as a rookie in 2022-23.
Boston sending two first-round picks to acquire Peterka kind of flew under the radar with all the other massive moves going down in and