The 2024-25 NHL season is already upon us. The New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres dropped the puck over the weekend in Prague, with the Devils winning both games of their Global Series. The remaining 30 teams are set to get started over the course of the next few days. All 32 clubs are embarking on a nine-month pilgrimage that will end in June with one of them hoisting the most famous trophy in sports.
Among the season highlights are more games overseas (the Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers play in Tampere, Finland, on Nov. 1-2); a New Year’s Eve Winter Classic matchup between the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues at Wrigley Field; an outdoor game at “The Horseshoe” on March 1 when the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings face off at Ohio Stadium in a game that could set an NHL attendance record, and a 12-day break in February to accommodate the initial 4 Nations Face-Off, with teams from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland playing in the first best-on-best event since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.
The 1,312-game regular season ends April 17, followed by two grueling months of playoffs to determine a new Stanley Cup champion.
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5 key storylines in 2024-25 NHL season
Here are five of the biggest storylines as the NHL enters the new season
Florida Panthers try to repeat
The Panthers are coming off their first championship since entering the NHL in 1993. Their objective for this season is to become the first team to repeat as full-season Cup-winners since the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998 (the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Cup in the two COVID-shortened seasons, 2020 and 2021). They will also try to match the Lightning’s feat of advancing to the Stanley Cup Final for three straight seasons; Florida lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023 before outlasting the Edmonton Oilers in seven games in June.
Most of the championship cast is back, led by center Aleksandar Barkov, 57-goal scorer Sam Reinhart, forwards Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe and Anton Lundell, and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
But the Panthers lost two of their top six on defense (Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson) to free agency, meaning that they’ll need newcomers Adam Boqvist and Nate Schmidt to step up. Backup goalie Anthony Stolarz, an unheralded contributor, also left as a free agent; the Panthers hope Spencer Knight’s return to health will fill that need and take some of the load off Bobrovsky, who’s 36.
Florida is still among the League’s elite teams. But there are definitely a few more question marks with this season’s group than the one that hoisted the Cup in late June.
Connor McDavid and Edmonton Oilers try to finish the job
You can be sure that McDavid and his teammates haven’t forgotten the pain of coming up just short of winning the franchise’s first Cup since 1990. The Oilers lost the first three games of the Final to Florida, then won the next three but lost 2-1 in Game 7. McDavid won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, an honor he’d gladly have traded for a chance to sip champagne out of Lord Stanley’s Cup.
But McDavid, sidekick Leon Draisaitl, 50-goal scorer Zach Hyman and 82-point defenseman Evan Bouchard – all among the top 50 players in the NHL — are back, as is goalie Stuart Skinner. Newcomer Jeff Skinner should be an excellent fit and can be plugged in up front for Evander Kane, who will miss much of the season recovering from sports hernia surgery. Victor Arvidsson also adds scoring depth.
However, McDavid is the one who makes the Oilers go. A 100-point season (barring a major injury) is a given; 150 points is a realistic target. With 982 points in 645 games, he’s 18 away from becoming the third-fastest player in NHL history to reach 1,000 points; only Wayne Gretzky (424 games) and Mario Lemieux (513) did it faster.
But his No. 1 objective this season is to be the one who gets to skate the first lap around the ice after NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman hands the Stanley Cup to the winning captain. The Oilers should win the Pacific Division comfortably and are favored to come out of the Western Conference – and are determined not to come up short this season.
Alex Ovechkin closes in on Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record
Ovechkin turned 39 on Sept. 17 and enters his 20th NHL season with only one player ahead of him on the all-time goal-scoring list. His 853 goals are 41 fewer than Gretzky, whose record of 894 has sat untouched and unthreatened for more than two decades since he retired in 1999.
Yes, Ovechkin’s scoring numbers were down last season; his 31 goals were the fewest he’s ever had in an 82-game season; however, his hot streak down the stretch (23 goals in his final 36 games) carried the Washington Capitals to an unexpected playoff berth. He needs 42 goals to surpass Gretzky; that number, which he’s equaled or exceeded 13 times, would match his total from 2022-23.
Catching Gretzky this season won’t be easy. The cast around Ovi has changed; longtime linemates like Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov are gone and some of his teammates are young enough to have watched him while playing pond hockey as kids.
But his trademark one-timer from the left circle is still one of hockey’s most lethal shots, especially on the power play. Expect his teammates to do their best to put him in position to score. Don’t be surprised if there’s a new all-time goals leader before season’s end.
It might be poetic justice if he ties or breaks Gretzky’s mark in Washington’s season finale. The Capitals finish the regular season on the road against the Pittsburgh Penguins, capping the 20th season of Ovechkin’s rivalry with Sidney Crosby, who’s chasing milestones as well. Sid is eight goals shy of 600, four points away from 1,600 and needs 46 points to surpass Joe Sakic for ninth on the all-time list (1,641).
Steven Stamkos starts new life in Nashville
Few players have been identified with one team as much as Stamkos and the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Bolts took him with the first pick in the 2008 NHL Draft and saw him develop into the leading scorer in team history while captaining the Lightning to the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021.
“Stammer” is a legend in Tampa, which is why his return to Amalie Arena on Oct. 28 figures to be one of the most emotional nights of the NHL season. That’s because after 16 seasons with the Lightning, they allowed him to leave as a free agent and he signed a four-year, $32 million contract with the Nashville Predators.
It’s not that the 34-year-old has lost his scoring touch; he reached the 40-goal mark last season for the seventh time in his career and ended with 81 points in 79 games. He was a big part of Tampa Bay’s NHL-best power play, scoring 19 of his goals with the extra man. But his minus-21 was a career worst, and the Lightning opted to sign Jake Guentzel, a younger scoring forward, and let Stamkos leave.
The Predators are counting on additions like Stamkos and forward Jonathan Marchessault to climb out of the middle of the NHL pack – they haven’t won a playoff series since 2018.
But seeing Stamkos in gold rather than blue figures to be a shock for the fans who cheered him for so many years.
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Goodbye, Arizona; Hello, Utah
The NHL welcomes the Utah Hockey Club to its ranks this season.
Utah HC, based in Salt Lake City, joined the League after owner Ryan Smith acquired the hockey assets of the Arizona Coyotes, who became inactive following last season. They’ll play in the Delta Center, a basketball arena that can accommodate 16,000 but has only about 10,000 seats with unobstructed views for hockey. That’s still a much better setup than what the former Coyotes had during their last two seasons in Arizona, when they played at Arizona State’s Mullet Arena, which seated 4,600 for NHL games.
Future plans for the Delta Center call for significant renovations that will raise the number of unobstructed seats, and the 2034 Winter Olympics should bring a new arena.
One thing the new franchise shouldn’t lack is fan support. There’s been huge demand for season tickets.
For now, those who turn out at Delta Center, beginning with opening night against the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday, will be seeing an up-and-coming team with a lot of young talent that’s aiming for its first full-season playoff berth since 2012 (they did make the COVID-expanded 2020 postseason). There’s a group of young forwards such as 20-year-old Logan Cooley and 21-year-old Dylan Guenther, and Utah has added Mikhail Sergachev, John Marino and Ian Cole to bolster the defense.
Clayton Keller, who led the Coyotes in goals (33) and points (76) last season, is the new captain — and he’s being counted on to help the League’s newest team get back to the postseason. Keller and his teammates will have a lot more supporters to cheer them on this season.