I’ve refrained from blogging about sports for the first two iterations of Pete’s Perspective and this is about as long as I can restrain myself.

Not only are we a quarter of the way through the NFL regular season already, but October baseball is upon us and with the flip of the calendar, so is the NHL season.

It seems that every October starts with so much promise for Canadians, but come April and May, our chances of seeing a Canadian team win the Stanley Cup goes from slim to none.

I know we’re out-numbered. I also know most of the players on these American teams that have been hogging the championships for the past 25 years are Canadian anyway.

But being caught up in the excitement of a fan base going completely crazy over playoff hockey is something that few people my age have had the chance to experience. Sure, there have been the close calls in 2004 and 2006 for Edmonton and Calgary and 2011 for the Canucks, but nothing will replicate the feeling of the clock ticking down and the city erupting.

In the spirit of making bold predictions and having them go horribly wrong come April, I present to you – my list of all the Canadian NHL teams, ranked based on their chance to bring Lord Stanley home in June.

#7: Ottawa Senators

This one shouldn’t be a surprise. Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse for the Senators after last season’s record and Erik Karlsson seeming to not want to be around anymore, it did.

There was PR disaster after PR disaster and Eugene Melnyk and company handled these about as gracefully as a fish out of water.

There were questions about moving the team, a summer-long episode of trying to trade a franchise player (which they finally did, in return for much less than they should have received) and now the Sens start from square one.

They have a point-per-game player in Mark Stone, a top-five draft pick in Brady Tkachuk and not much else. There might be a better chance this team picks first overall next season, than the team at the top of the list winning the Cup this year.

#6: Montreal Canadiens

If the Sens are in the proverbial basement, the Canadiens are on the first or second step. They too were coming off a disastrous 2017-18 season and needed to make major changes.

Things started well with a third-overall draft choice in Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who is the first player born in 2000 to suit up in an NHL jersey.

The pick puzzled some, but through pre-season and his first NHL game on Wednesday, he looks like he could be the catalyst for change in this squad. Just maybe not this year.

Add in a puzzling trade with Alex Galchenyuk and Max Domi that is still without a clear winner, as well as sending captain Max Pacioretty packing just as training camp was set to begin and you have a team that is going to look and perform very differently this season.

This team may be on the right track now, but with injuries to Shea Weber and Carey Price coming off a season where he looked human, this will be a show-me squad this year.

#5: Vancouver Canucks

 The Canucks wallowed in the basement of the Pacific Division alongside a couple of Alberta neighbours last season, but GM Jim Benning didn’t press the panic button.

Benning kept his faith in Travis Green’s less-than-stellar freshman season behind the bench and also bet on his young core to take another step this season, not going after any superstars but loading up on veterans instead.

The addition of Elias Petterson looks to be a great one for the Nucks and he will likely stick around for his entire rookie season. Guys like Jay Beagle bring a winning culture to a room that just lost a lot of that this summer with the retirement of the Sedin brothers.

Vancouver is a few years away yet, but they have the right pieces in place. They will have to fight hard in the cutthroat Western Conference to get anywhere near the playoffs this year, but this should be an interesting team to watch.

#4: Edmonton Oilers

 The Oilers were an early-season favourite for a Pacific Division championship and maybe even a trip to the Stanley Cup Final. Coming off a second-round berth in 2016-17, expectations were high and the Oilers failed to get even remotely close.

The good news for this team is they still have the best player in the world in Connor McDavid, which will get them a long way. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb pegging him as the Art Ross trophy favourite.

It remains to be seen if guys like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Darnell Nurse, Cam Talbot and Leon Draisaitl can rise to the occasion and deliver both offensive and defensive depth the team seemingly lacked last year.

Ty Rattie looked great in pre-season but is a small sample size and the regular season is a different animal.

All in all, this team will be fun to watch and I wouldn’t be surprised if they creep into a wild card spot. Just don’t plan the party on Whyte Ave. just yet.

#3: Calgary Flames

 Just like their Alberta counterpart, the Flames disappointed a lot of people last season. With a roster talented enough to at least get them to the playoffs, management looked behind the bench to find someone to blame.

Now Glen Gulutzan is gone and took a trip up the highway to take an assistant coaching job with the Oilers. Bill Peters is in, coming off a year where many were singing his praises after keeping an underwhelming Carolina Hurricanes squad relevant until the last couple weeks of the season.

The Flames kept most of their squad intact and signed one of the big fishes of the free-agent pond, James Neal, who is coming off a trip to the Stanley Cup Final this spring.

Losing Dougie Hamilton hurts their defense, but Noah Hanifin could be just as good, if not better.

Their biggest question lies where it has for the past decade or so – in goal. Can Mike Smith be more of the durable, standout goalie he was in Phoenix, instead of the venerable version of himself he was last year? That could be the difference between a first-round exit and a trip to the Western Conference Final.

Either way, I would be shocked if this team didn’t at least snag a wild card spot this season. It will likely come down to both Alberta teams looking for that spot in the last two weeks of the season.

#2: Toronto Maple Leafs

 To me, the first five teams on this list were pretty black-and-white. Picking my number one and number two teams were nearly impossible. Although I claim to not have bias creep into my rankings, I’ll leave that for you to decide.

The Maple Leafs made their presence known on July 1, signing John Tavares, noted Torontonian and perhaps the biggest free-agent in NHL history.

How Tavares’ monster deal fits in with the impending extensions of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander (who can’t play this season before he puts pen to paper) remains to be seen.

However, the fact of the matter is that Toronto’s offense should be the class of the NHL this season and their power-play could score at a 30 per cent clip all year long.

Freddie Andersen has done enough to prove he can take this team past the first round, but the guys on the blue-line in front of him will have to perform better than they did a year ago.

I expect big years from both Jake Gardiner and Morgan Reilly. Nikita Zaitsev also needs to pick it up to prove he’s worth the seven-year contract he got a summer ago.

All things said, this team is a bona-fide Stanley Cup Final favourite out of the East and anything less than an Eastern Conference Final should be a disappointment for this squad.

There’s even a chance we could lock up an all-Canadian final with the only team I haven’t mentioned yet.

#1: Winnipeg Jets 

Choosing between the Jets and Leafs for this top spot was basically picking 1A and 1B, but after the season Winnipeg is coming off of, it is hard to think anyone has a better shot than them.

Things were looking so good for the Jets last season, after earning a crown as Central Division champions and knocking off the best team in the regular season, the Nashville Predators, in the second round.

Then came the fairy-tale Vegas Golden Knights, knocking the Jets out of contention and stopping the White Out, for now.

The fact is the Jets have experienced very little roster turnover from that team that looked so bulletproof last season. Paul Stasny is gone and there is no denying his contribution in the playoffs, but he didn’t get them atop the Central Division before he arrived.

Connor Hellebucyk shot himself into the upper echelon of NHL goaltending last year and there’s no denying we will need a repeat of that if we want to see the Jets get any closer this time around.

They know how to score, they know how to get physical and they can over-match nearly every team across the league. They have excellent coaching in Paul Maurice and fantastic management by Kevin Chevaldayoff has got them to where they are now.

The reason I edge the Jets over the Leafs is because after last season, this team now knows what it feels like to be successful. This team is far from a flash in the pan and should be a juggernaut in the west for years to come.