As many know, the Olympics Hockey tournament sparked some serious interest in the great game of Hockey, specifically the NHL. It is a common occurrence to hear people interested in Hockey who have never been before, but a lot of them have never experienced the greatness of the NHL or the soon upcoming Stanley Cup Playoffs. Senior Bennett Bair is as excited as any when having a discussion with the new Carolina Hurricanes fan he said, Bennett has a team similar to Senior Sam Abney, who has also become a Canes fan and is incredibly excited for the rest of the season as well as the playoffs. These students have teams, but some of y’all might not, so with the new interest lets look at some teams that you could be a fan of if you’ve never watched the sport before.
- First if you’re someone who’s a fan of local teams like the Panthers, Hornets, or other local teams you should definitely become a fan of the Carolina Hurricanes, located in North Carolina you could definitely attend a game and experience one of the best atmospheres in Hockey.
- If you are a fan of teams based in Atlanta, while Atlanta doesn’t have a current NHL team anymore the Atlanta Thrashers did relocate to Winnipeg Canada and became the Winnipeg Jets, while this might be too far for some people it would be cool as the franchise is still in some way connected to Atlanta.
- If you are someone who doesn’t really have an allegiance to a certain city or region for sports teams, I would recommend becoming either a Seattle Kraken, Vegas Golden Knights, or Utah Mammoths fan. All of these teams are relatively new, and besides the Golden Knights haven’t had a ton of success so you could join the fanbase pretty early on.
- Next If you are a fan of teams in Baltimore like myself, there really isn’t any specific team for you as Baltimore doesn’t have a team. These calls for an interesting situation as you have a couple of options, you could stay as close as possible with the Washington Capitals, but some BMORE fans don’t like rooting for DC teams, or you could pick another team in the region, like the Philadelphia Flyers, New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, or the Pittsburgh Penguins.
- A lot of people are starting watching Hockey due to the Olympics and star Connor Hellebuyck might be the reason they are fans. If that’s similar to Atlanta I recommend the Winnipeg Jets as that’s the team that the so called “Secretary of Defense” plays for.
- Similar to the last scenario, another US star in Jack Hughes, who scored the winning goal is the star of the New Jersey Devils, while this is personally my least favorite NHL team they have had some success recently and have some very passionate fans.
- A lot of people when watching sports pick teams that win, and that causes a pretty unique situation especially this year, as recent back to back Stanley Cup champions Florida Panthers have been awful this year. This could be a fun team to become a fan of now however as they might have a great bounce back that you could experience.
- Similar to winning, the team with the most wins by a team in NHL history is the Montreal Canadians and while they are named the Canadians and most of new NHL fans are Americans, that doesn’t mean you can’t root for them, they have arguably the best home playoff atmosphere and one of my favorite players, in Cole Caufield, overall if I wasn’t a Rangers fan this would probably be my pick.
- If you want a team that is on the rise and with one of the best young stars, then maybe root for the San Jose Sharks as they have one of if not the best young star in Macklin Celebrini, and they are a relatively niche team to root for if that matters to you.
If you still can’t decide, here’s the current list of NHL teams and I’ll give a rating /10 with 10 being the best teams to root for and 0 being the worst
- Tampa Bay Lightning 5/10 – the worse Florida team
- Buffalo Sabres 9/10 – having their best season in franchise history and could be here to stay
- Detroit Red Wings 8/10 – Coming back to relevance and historic
- Montreal Canadians 10/10 – Some of the best fans, great history, and Caufield
- Boston Bruins 7/10 – Good all around option
- Ottawa Senators 4/10 – Niche but for a reason
- Toronto Maple Leafs 3/10 – nothing I like about this team really and they haven’t been good
- Florida Panthers 8/10 – Crazy fall off but might have a great bounce back
- Carolina Hurricanes 9/10 – Local team and great atmosphere and great recent success
- Pittsburgh Penguins 7/10 – Has Crosby and some good history
- New York Islanders 8/10 – Has some really good young players
- Columbus Blue Jackets 6/10 – Really niche team
- Washington Capitals 7/10 – Some of the best Jerseys and the great 8
- Philadelphia Flyers 6/10 – Have some interesting players
- New Jersey Devils 7/10 – Decent all around
- New York Rangers 6/10 – Greatest Team of All time, but awful management
- Colorado Avalanche 6/10 – Recent Success, but pretty common team to like
- Dallas Stars 9/10 – Cool Jerseys and good fans
- Minnesota Wild 8/10 – Good balanced option and have some great players
- Utah Mammoth 9/10 – one of the new teams = lots of new fans
- Nashville Predators 7/10 – kind of local and decent team
- Winnipeg Jets 9/10 – Have Hellebuyck so good American to root for
- Chicago Blackhawks 9/10 – Have a great logo and one of the best young players(Bedard)
- St Louis Blues 0/10 – really bad this year, and don’t have much going for them, except maybe a high draft pick
- Vegas Golden Knights 7/10 – Cool location and Jerseys and some of the best fans
- Anaheim Ducks 8/10 – some of my favorite Jerseys and cool logo/history
- Seattle Kraken 9/10 – One of the other new teams so more new fans
- Edmonton Oilers 7/10 – If you like being so close yet so far this is your team
- San Jose Sharks 9/10 – Have Celebrini and cool Jerseys
- LA Kings 6/10 – Don’t know why you’d pick them
- Calgary Flames 4/10 – Also don’t know why you’d pick them
- Vancouver Canucks 7/10 – Awful right now but good logo/jerseys
