Photo illustration Ming Wong/The Globe and Mail. Source photos Clockwise from left: Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press, Elsa/Getty Images, Bob Frid/USA Today Sports, Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press, Jay LaPrete/The Associated Press, Christine Muschi/The Canadian Press, Chris O’Meara/The Canadian Press/The Globe and Mail
After coming up a hair short in their run to the Stanley Cup last spring, the Edmonton Oilers enter the 2024-25 season with the expectation that they will become the first Canadian team to win a Cup in more than 30 years.
The Oilers shook off a dismal start to the 2023-24 campaign and ended up making a charge through the playoffs, all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, where they lost to the Florida Panthers.
Led by the world’s greatest player, Connor McDavid, and the newly re-signed Leon Draisaitl, the Oilers lead a pack of powerhouse teams that oddsmakers say will compete for the Stanley Cup.
The defending champion Panthers, the Dallas Stars, New Jersey Devils and the Colorado Avalanche are all expected to do damage when the puck drops on the NHL’s regular season, which begins Oct. 4 in Prague with a game between the Devils and the Buffalo Sabres.
There are numerous storylines to follow, such as: Whether Russian superstar Alex Ovechkin can catch Wayne Gretzky for the career goal-scoring crown (Ovechkin has 853 to the Great One’s 894); If newly minted Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews can get Toronto beyond the second round of the playoffs (the team has managed to do so only once since the lockout of 2004-05); And of course whether a Canadian team can break the country’s Stanley Cup drought, which has lasted since the Montreal Canadiens won in 1993.
Here’s how things are shaping up for Canada’s seven NHL teams.
Canucks: A contender again?
The Canucks had an exciting 2023-24 campaign, winning the Pacific Division (50-23-9) and giving fans something they had not seen since 2014-15: postseason games in Vancouver. Except for the pandemic-bubbled playoffs of 2020 (which were played in Toronto and Edmonton with no fans), the Canucks had long been absent from the playoffs.
In Rick Tocchet’s first full season as Vancouver’s coach, they fell just shy of advancing to the Western Conference final in a Game 7 loss to Edmonton. Can the Canucks be one of the Western Conference contenders again?
Captain with star power
Quinn Hughes is fresh off a hot season for which he was awarded the Norris Trophy, after leading all NHL defencemen with 92 points (17 goals and 75 assists) in 82 games, plus he contributed 10 assists in Vancouver’s 13 playoff games. He’s a solid leader who keeps getting better each year. The marketers clearly predict another great year for Vancouver’s captain – he was chosen for the cover of EA Sports’ NHL 25, alongside his brothers Jack and Luke Hughes of the New Jersey Devils.
Scoring power
J.T. Miller led the Canucks with 103 points last year, including 37 goals, while Brock Boeser netted a team-leading 40 goals, and Elias Pettersson added 34 goals. They are likely to be the team’s offensive engine again. Look for scoring from players such as Conor Garland too, and the team’s most interesting off-season acquisition, Jake DeBrusk.
Worry in the net
Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko sustained a knee injury in Game 1 of the first round versus the Nashville Predators and his status to begin this season remains uncertain. The 2024 Vezina Trophy finalist was a big reason for Vancouver’s success in the regular season and his recovery will be important to the team’s fortunes this year.
First game: Oct. 9, 10 p.m. ET vs. Calgary Flames
-Rachel Brady
Oilers: Driven by the top two
A year ago the Oilers started so poorly – 3-9-1 – that it took a near-miraculous effort for them to make the playoffs. They put together 16- and eight-game winning streaks en route to a second-place finish in the Pacific Division. If Edmonton can avoid another horrid start it very well could win the Presidents’ Trophy awarded to the NHL team with the best regular-season record and cruise into the postseason. The Oilers made a terrific run in the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring before they were defeated in Game 7 of the final by the Florida Panthers.
Draisaitl, McDavid lead scoring machine
The club signed second-line centre Leon Draisaitl to an eight-year, US$112-million contract, the richest in league history, during the offseason. He has scored 50 goals or more in three of the past six campaigns and is an MVP-calibre player. He would be the best player on most teams but is only the second-best in Edmonton after Connor McDavid. The latter has 96 goals and 285 points over the past two regular seasons and paced everyone in the 2024 playoffs with 42 points in 25 games. Between them and Zach Hyman (54 goals), Edmonton does not need much more help with scoring. But over the summer it signed veteran forwards Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson, who will likely line up beside Draisaitl, as well as Mike Hoffman on a tryout offer. They should go a long way toward making up for the loss by injury to Evander Kane and promising winger Dylan Holloway, who signed an offer sheet with the St. Louis Blues.
Suspect on defence
The Oilers are more suspect on defence, where Mattias Ekholm, Evan Bouchard and Darnell Nurse are their top blueliners. They lost 23-year-old Philip Broberg, who impressed in 10 postseason games, who was also signed by the Blues. Cody Ceci and Vincent Desharnais also signed elsewhere.
Gretzky sees big things
Barring injuries to key players, it is difficult not to see this team as a strong candidate to win its first Stanley Cup since 1990. “They lost three defencemen but should be first or second in the Pacific Division 50 games or so into the season,” Wayne Gretzky said during a recent interview. The Great One won four Stanley Cups in a five-year stretch with the Oilers. “They have the world’s best player in McDavid and possibly the second-best in Draisaitl. Those two remind me of Mark Messier and myself in our prime years with the Oilers. They push each other hard and are best friends.”
First game: Oct. 9, 10 p.m. ET vs. Winnipeg Jets
-Marty Klinkenberg
Flames: Tough division for rebuild
The Flames almost always field a competitive team.
A year ago they won only two of their first 10 games, clawed back to .500, got a season-high five games above, and then crashed down the stretch. They went 7-13 over their last 20 outings and finished 17 points out of the wildcard race in the NHL’s Western Conference.
It is hard to see how they will fare much better in a division that includes the rival Oilers, the surging Canucks, the Los Angeles Kings and the Vegas Golden Knights, and a conference with the Dallas Stars, Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Avalanche. This looks like a potential rebuild. Calgary has failed to reach the playoffs in three of the past four years.
The more painful losses
Just before the start of the 2023-24 season the Flames endured the heartbreak of losing assistant general manager Chris Snow to ALS after a four-year battle. The franchise suffered another devastating blow on Aug. 29 when Johnny Gaudreau, its most beloved and productive player for eight years, died along with his brother Matthew after both were struck by an allegedly intoxicated driver while riding their bicycles in New Jersey. Johnny Gaudreau’s death triggered an outpouring throughout the league but none more so than in Calgary, where he had been a standout from 2014 until 2022 when he left to join the Columbus Blue Jackets. It is a lot to expect for the team not to experience a lot of emotion when the puck drops on the regular season.
Rookie in net
During the offseason Calgary traded goalie Jacob Markstrom to New Jersey for a first-round draft pick in 2025 and defenceman Kevin Bahl. At one time Markstrom was considered to be among the NHL’s elite netminders but the Flames gave up on him after four mostly mediocre campaigns. In his place they are expected to start rookie Dustin Wolf, who has shined in the AHL the past two years. If it doesn’t work out, Dan Vladar will be the next up.
Flames turn to Mantha
The Flames will need left wing Jonathan Huberdeau to return to form after the two poorest seasons of his career. Mikael Backlund is a strong centre and Nazem Kadri remains a threat. Their biggest addition in the offseason was to acquire forward Anthony Mantha, who had 44 points in 74 games with Washington and Vegas in 2023-24. Forward Dillon Dube, among the accused in the Hockey Canada sexual-assault case, is playing in the KHL.
First game: Oct. 9, 10 p.m. ET at Vancouver Canucks
-Marty Klinkenberg
Jets: Arniel takes charge
After finishing fourth overall with a 110-point season – the same as the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers – it was another spring of playoff heartbreak for the Winnipeg Jets, who barely made a whimper in a first-round exit at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche.
That was enough for head coach Rick Bowness, who called time on his career after an NHL-record 2,726 games. Now it’s the turn of former Winnipeg Jets winger Scott Arniel to take the tiller in the Manitoba capital, as he attempts to pilot the team past the first round of the postseason for just the second time since 2018.
Can Hellebuyck get a break?
The success of the Jets starts and finishes with the play of Connor Hellebuyck, their No. 1 goaltender, who started 60 games and posted a dazzling .921 save percentage on his way to a second career Vézina Trophy. He tacked on the William M. Jennings trophy for good measure after the Jets conceded an NHL-low 199 goals. But the 31-year-old Hellebuyck ran out of gas in the playoffs, with his career-worst .870 save percentage and 5.21 goals-against average a key reason why the Jets were snuffed out by the Avalanche in five games. The team has responded by signing Eric Comrie, who started 10 times for Buffalo last season, and Kaapo Kahkonen, who split 37 games between San Jose and New Jersey, in the hopes of allowing Hellebuyck some rest to preserve his A-game for the spring.
New voice behind bench
With Bowness gone, Arniel gets his second shot at coaching in the big leagues. He – and the Jets faithful – will pray it goes far better than the first, when he had a 45-60-18 record over a season-and-a-half as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets before being fired in January, 2012. On the plus side, both Arniel and the players have familiarity with one another, with the 62-year-old having served as an associate coach in Winnipeg for the past two years, serving as head coach on three occasions while Bowness was absent because of health or family reasons, going 15-7-3 across 25 games.
Power outage in the ‘Peg
One of Arniel’s first priorities will be to fix the power play, which converted at an 18.8-per-cent clip last season, making it the worst mark of any playoff team, and below even the 20.2-per-cent conversion rate of the San Jose Sharks, who finished dead last in the entire NHL.
First game: Oct. 9, 10 p.m. ET at Edmonton Oilers
-Paul Attfield
Leafs: Matthews still the big gun
In the aftermath of a seventh opening-round playoff loss in the past eight seasons, change was expected for the Toronto Maple Leafs. But, disappointingly for the section of Leaf faithful screaming blue murder, it was more incremental than revolutionary. So president Brendan Shanahan returns for a 12th season at the helm, as does the Core Four of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and John Tavares, the oft-maligned quartet accounting for 53 per cent of the team’s salary cap.
However, there was a change of voices in the dressing room, with Stanley Cup-winning head coach Craig Berube replacing Sheldon Keefe, and Matthews taking over from Tavares as team captain. General manager Brad Treliving helped to revitalize the back end, bringing in Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson on the blueline, as well as Anthony Stolarz to challenge Joseph Woll as the starting netminder.
There’s a new sheriff in town
As someone who dropped the gloves with Shanahan when both were players – part of the 3,149 penalty minutes he amassed as an enforcer – Berube didn’t pull any punches then and isn’t about to start now. His first few days in training camp as the Leafs head coach were spent emphasizing that hard work and compete level are the two non-negotiables on his squads – traits that helped his 2019 St. Louis Blues win the Stanley Cup. Berube will hope that his emphasis on accountability and team toughness can squeeze an extra percentage point or two of effort out of them, particularly come the spring.
Same old sharpshooter
Matthews may have a C on his sweater this season, but don’t expect much else to change about him. The first American-born captain in team history will still expect to fill the opposition net with regularity – something he did an otherworldly 69 times last season. A repeat performance – or anything more than 52 goals – would be enough for Matthews to dislodge Mats Sundin from the top of the franchise’s career goal-scoring charts.
The elephant in the room
No, it’s not the soon-to-be 58-year (and counting) wait for Lord Stanley’s return to Leafland. It’s the expiring contracts of Marner and Tavares, who will both be unrestricted free agents next summer. Marner has spent his entire career in Toronto, but was scrutinized after registering just three points in the seven-game playoff loss to Boston. Playing for a contract brought out some of the best hockey of Nylander’s career last season; it remains to be seen if it can be a similar tonic for Marner and Tavares.
First game: Oct. 9, 7 p.m. ET at Montreal Canadiens
-Paul Attfield
Senators: Captain inspired to win
There was a little jolt of anticipation in Canada’s capital recently when the Ottawa Senators announced a land-sale agreement that inches the franchise closer to building a new arena at LeBreton Flats.
Now it’s time for the team, which has missed the playoffs for the past seven seasons, to make strides on the ice. Last year the Sens snowplowed to a dreary 37-41-4 record and finished 14th in the Eastern Conference. Travis Green takes over behind the bench, succeeding interim head coach Jacques Martin, who took over the Sens’ job last December after DJ Smith was fired for getting them off to a lousy start.
Better in net
Ottawa added veterans David Perron, Michael Amadio, Nick Cousins and Nick Jensen, but the team’s biggest splash of the offseason was Swedish goaltender Linus Ullmark, who arrived via a trade from the Boston Bruins. By reeling in the 2022-23 Vézina Trophy winner, the Sens got a much-needed upgrade between the pipes after allowing the fifth-most goals in the NHL last year. Ullmark was half of the elite goaltending duo in Boston, where he shared the net with Jeremy Swayman.
A need for Norris
If the Sens want to make the playoffs, they’ll need Josh Norris – who inked an eight-year, US$63.6-million contract after recording career highs in goals (35), assists (20) and points (55) in 2021-22 – to return to form. He’s returning to game action following a March shoulder surgery – the third of his NHL career. Injuries have limited him to 58 games in the past two seasons. It begs the question, is he durable enough to produce like a top-end centre?
Inspired captain
Brady Tkachuk has not been to the postseason during his six seasons in Ottawa. The team’s captain enters the year with some new inspiration. There was the recent birth of his first son, Ryder. His family also spent a lot of time with the Stanley Cup, which he watched his brother Matthew Tkachuk win with the Florida Panthers. Ottawa’s Tkachuk leads a group starring Tim Stützle, Claude Giroux, Jake Sanderson, Drake Batherson, Ridly Greig, Thomas Chabot, and Norris. Can the captain steer this group back to relevancy in the Atlantic division?
First game: Oct. 10, 7 p.m. ET vs. Florida Panthers
-Rachel Brady
Canadiens: Injury bug already hits
As the TV show of the same name points out all too painfully for Habs fans, the Rebuild continued through the 2023-24 season, and this coming campaign will likely be no different in Montreal.
Youth is still the order of the day, as the top line of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and former No. 1 overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky – average age 22.67 – were the only players to reach the 20-goal mark and were heavily leaned upon. To inject some more offence – and speed up the rebuild – the Canadiens traded for a reclamation project in the shape of Patrik Laine in August, but the one-time 44-goal scorer suffered sprained knee ligaments in his second preseason game and will be out for two to three months.
A mark of shame
Since the NHL was founded in 1917, the Montreal Canadiens have never gone longer than three years between playoff appearances. But rebuild or no, this current group, which has now missed out in three successive years and five of the past seven, is in danger of setting an unwanted franchise first.
Offensive output
The Flying Frenchman are no more. The franchise that helped launch the legend of Maurice (Rocket) Richard has been firing blanks more often than not of late, and last year sputtered to a paltry 2.86 goals a game, placing Montreal 26th out of 32 teams. Suzuki, Caulfield and Slafkovsky combined for 81 goals, so the team will be hoping for a repeat or better performance from its top line, while contributions from Laine – whenever he’s back on the ice – and Kirby Dach, whose untapped potential as a former third-overall pick is still to be realized, wouldn’t go amiss. It’s almost enough to make you wish that two-time Art Ross Trophy winner Martin St. Louis was on the ice instead of behind the bench.
The injury bug
Goals and assists aside, staying on the ice – or even something approaching walking-wounded status – would probably give the Canadiens their best shot at returning to the playoffs. Unfortunately for Habs fans, the team has led the NHL in one of the least-desirable stats over the past three seasons with a combined total of 1,589 man-games lost to injury over that span. And the omens aren’t much better entering the 2024-25 season, with Laine already on the shelf and rookie defenceman David Reinbacher, taken fifth overall in the 2023 draft, out for five to six months with a knee injury.
First game: Oct. 9, 7 p.m. ET vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
-Paul Attfield