One player who has to deliver for every Atlantic Division team

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:

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 around the NHL Draft. This is a monster move by the B’s, though, and they need Peterka to find the form many predicted for the German sniper who was picked 34th overall in 2020.

Peterka figures to get a great opportunity playing on the left side of Boston’s top line with superstar David Pastrnak to his right. At 24 years old, perhaps Peterka can finally settle in somewhere and find the best version of his game.

Has Norris officially taken the mantle of top “if-only-he-could-stay-healthy” guy in the league? Norris has played more than 60 games just once in the past five years — and he netted 35 goals for the Ottawa Senators in that campaign.

Alex Tuch’s departure is taking 33 goals out of the Sabres lineup and the Swords will need some guys to step up and fill the void. This will be just the second training camp for Norris in Buffalo and perhaps, with a clean bill of health and a lot of positive momentum around the squad, he can slot in as a real scoring threat on one of the top two lines and the first power-play unit. 

Norris is still just 27 years old, so there’s still time to pen a new chapter in his career.

Arvidsson posted 54 points last year for the Bruins, his best total since consecutive 61-point showings for the Nashville Predators in 2016-2017 and 2017-18.

Now, he lands in Detroit on a two-year deal with a Wings club that features all kinds of top-six uncertainty thanks to Dylan Larkin’s trade request and Patrick Kane’s departure as a UFA.

Even in a year that went well for him, Arvidsson missed 13 games due to injury and the 33-year-old hasn’t played 75 games in a season in nearly 10 years. With all the volatility in Detroit, there’s no doubt the Wings need Arvidsson to provide a steady dose of secondary scoring. Without that, Detroit could be in a world of trouble. 

Look around the Cats lineup and, even for a team coming off a horrendous injury-filled season, there are a lot of sure things.

You can’t say that about the crease.

The one prominent UFA to leave the championship nest in the past few summers was goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, for whom the Cats obviously didn’t want to shell out too much money. Now, another veteran stopper — albeit a less accomplished one — is tasked with providing Cup-level goaltending to a team that will settle for nothing less than a third title in four seasons.

The 36-year-old Markstrom, originally a second-round pick of the Panthers back in 2008, had an .892 save percentage the past two seasons during his largely unsatisfying stint in New Jersey.

If you’re looking for some positive news, Markstrom was very strong in the five playoff games he played for the Devils, posting a .911 save percentage in 2025 for a club that was outgunned by the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round. 

Markstrom doesn’t have to be spectacular — let’s face it, Bobrovsky had his ups and downs — but his predecessor was always good when he needed to be and that will be the ask for the big Swede, too.

If we’re being honest, Newhook isn’t the Canadiens’ Plan A for second-line help. The Habs went hard after Kirill Marchenko when they thought they might be able to pry the big winger out of Columbus earlier this summer and GM Kent Hughes has a bag of prospect powder he can blow at any time should a perfect fit — either at centre or wing — become available for the top six.

Of course, there’s no guarantee the trade market will produce the perfect partner and Montreal may have to make do with what it has. The team is surely counting on a step forward from sophomore Ivan Demidov this year and Newhook — entering his fourth year with the Habs and final season of his contract — showed in last year’s playoffs that he has the game to help in a meaningful way. 

The 25-year-old netted seven goals — including two Game 7 winners — in 19 post-season contests last spring, offering a glimpse of what Hughes saw in him when he snagged Newhook coming out of his entry-level deal in Colorado. The Newfoundlander also scored 13 times in just 42 games last season, a 25-goal pace that represented the best clip of his career.

Whether at wing or in the middle, the Canadiens will be in great shape if Newhook delivers like a second-liner this year. 

The counterbalance to the Sens parting with former captain Brady Tkachuk was acquiring Eklund from San Jose with the ninth-overall pick they got from Florida in the Tkachuk deal.

While Ottawa was sort of boxed in by the circumstances surrounding Tkachuk — it was clearly time to go and the player had full control over his ultimate destination — giving up a top-10 pick for Eklund is a sizeable bet.

The hope is a skilled (but small) winger who doesn’t turn 24 until October can unlock his game on a top line with studs like Tim Stutzle and Drake Batherson. 

Eklund was a seventh-overall selection in 2021 and posted 58 points as an NHL sophomore in 2023-24. The pedigree is there, but the need for him to produce in Ottawa could be make-or-break for the Sens offence — and, by extension, their playoff chances.

It sounds odd to say given Carlson’s status, but he’s got big skates to fill sliding into Darren Raddysh’s role as the defenceman on PP1. Carlson — unlike Raddysh — has an established history of thriving in that role, but it’s still a big deal for the 36-year-old to ostensibly be replacing a fellow right-shot defenceman who had 70 points last year. 

The good news for Carlson is he will have a clearly defined role on a veteran team that has successfully incorporated important veteran additions like Jake Guentzel in the past couple years. 

Still, the Bolts need this guy to strike the right notes in an offensive orchestra that contains some enormously talented players. How long it takes Carlson to find his rhythm will be a big subplot for Tampa. 

From 2019-20 through 2023-24, Matthews scored 257 goals, 35 more than anybody else in the league during that five-season span. In the past two campaigns, 36 players totalled more goals than the 60 posted by the Leafs captain.

Injuries have obviously become a major part of Matthews’ story in recent times and a run of good health would go a long way toward reclaiming his status as the best goal-scorer in the game. 

In the darkest moments of last season — and there were a few — handwringing about Matthews’ future in Toronto was rampant. With just two more seasons to go on his contract, the main question — even when new GM John Chayka took over in the spring — was what the Leafs could do to keep Matthews convinced Toronto is the place for him.

Let’s not lose sight of the other side of that coin, though. Chayka — aided by some lottery luck — has gone out and done what he reasonably could to help ensure the Leafs’ dip is just a one-year blip. Now it’s time for Matthews to re-affirm what he can do to help Toronto be a true contender. 

No. 34 is the most talented player on the Buds and, for all the change that occurred on the Leafs roster, he’s the guy the club most needs to deliver.