With the puck about to drop on the 2026-27 season, our writers weigh in on their predictions for both player and team awards and accomplishments. 

Observations:

There were no unanimous picks among the panel, but there were interesting trends:

• Although Connor McDavid was listed as the most likely Art Ross winner, the panel leaned toward Macklin Celebrini winning his first Hart Trophy
• The panel believes in Auston Matthews bouncing back in a big way and winning the Rocket Richard Trophy
• Cole Caufield, who was only one of two players to reach 50 goals last season, was picked as the most likely player to regress
• Logan Thompson is favored to win his first Vezina Trophy
• The panel believes that the Mike Babcock hire is the right one for Edmonton, as the Oilers are the pick to win the Stanley Cup
• Could it be an all-Canadian-based team final? Montreal is one of the two favorites as Stanley Cup runner-up. The other is Florida, which would create an Oilers/Panthers Stanley Cup Final rematch for the third time in four seasons.

Agree? Disagree? Comments? 

About the panel:

Dobber launched this website in 2005 after he was the fantasy hockey columnist for The Hockey News website, The Fantasy Sports Network, and a contributor to The Forecaster. DobberHockey has since grown into the Dobber Sports Network and has work can be found across the internet.

Ian Gooding is the managing editor of DobberHockey and a regular writer on the daily Ramblings beat, also providing monthly Top 100 Roto Rankings. He has also contributed to many other sites, including Sportsnet, Today's Slapshot, Kukla's Korner, and fantasyhockey.com.

Mike Clifford is an associate editor of DobberHockey, writing the Ramblings multiple times per week. He also covers DFS for Stokastic and has also written for EP Rinkside.

Alex MacLean is an associate editor and writes the Ramblings once a week. He was previously the author of the Capped column and also contributes salary cap league rankings.

Puneet Sharma is also an associate editor who also writes the Ramblings once a week. He has covered both the Top 10 list and The Journey in the past. Puneet is also a senior writer at Dobber Prospects.

Mario Prata is the Manager of Dobber Sports Publications and a co-founder of The Sports Forecaster magazine and its sports websites.

Eric Daoust manages our valued Frozen Pool section.

Rick Roos authors the weekly Roos Let Loose column every Wednesday, covering a variety of topics. He is the former Cage Match writer for DobberHockey.

Flip Livingstone is the Saturday game picks writer. He is a former NHL writer for theScore with past experience at such outlets as Postmedia, Hockey Night in Canada, and the CBC.

Michael Amato is the Goalie Post editor who provides the latest starting goalie information and writes the Goalie Ramblings. He also covers fantasy hockey for Sportsnet and has also co-hosted the Sleepers & Keepers podcast for The Hockey News. 

Chris Kane writes the Frozen Tools Forensics column on Fridays, emphasizing what he finds on Frozen Tools.

Lucas Main keeps an eye on everything Western Conference in the Wild West column every Monday. He shifts over to line combinations on Tuesdays with Lining Up.

Andrew Santillo shares salary cap league thoughts in Capped on Thursdays. He's a very busy guy, also sharing his DFS picks two days a week.

Ryan Brudner covers what you need to know about NHL betting in his weekday article Puck Picks. He has also written the Geek of the Week column, has written for GoaliePost, and has contributed goalie stats to Frozen Tools.

Stas Pupkov dives deep into advanced stats with Analytics Advantage every Friday.

Caleb Desjardins authors our popular Top 10 column. He also checks out what’s coming down the pipe schedule-wise with the Looking Ahead column every Friday.

Victor Nuno shares his extensive prospect knowledge in The Journey every Saturday. Also known as the Fantasy Hockey Doctor, Victor is also the co-host of the Fantasy Hockey Life podcast and is an editor for DobberProspects. 

Garrett Finlay writes the Injury Ward column on Wednesday, and he also creates videos for several DobberHockey writers.

Kevin Bissonette writes the Injury Ward column on Sunday.

Khurram Sher writes Eastern Edge every week, where the focus is on Eastern Conference teams and players. Khurram has also written for GoaliePost.