SI:AM | What to Pay Attention to This NHL Season

Here’s what should grab your attention as the season begins on Friday.

Can the Oilers go all the way this season? / Jim Rassol-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I would have written about that bonkers Mets game if I hadn’t already written half of this NHL preview.

In today’s SI:AM:

🍎 The Mets’ dramatic win
🏈 Kirk Cousins’s career night
📺 The weekend’s best college games

Everything you need to know about this hockey season

If you aren’t a big hockey fan, it may surprise you to learn that the 2024–25 NHL season is about to get underway. The MLB playoffs just started and NBA training camps have only opened up this week, but the NHL season begins on Friday with the New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres meeting in Prague at 1 p.m. ET. They’ll play again on Saturday (at 10 a.m. ET) before the rest of the league begins play on Tuesday. Here’s a quick primer on the biggest narratives of the season.

The Stanley Cup contenders

Last season’s Stanley Cup playoffs were as good as you could ask for. Ten of the 15 playoff series went to at least six games, including every series after the first round, and the Edmonton Oilers nearly came back from a 3–0 deficit in the Stanley Cup Final before losing to the Florida Panthers in Game 7.

So who could challenge the Panthers for their crown? Edmonton is a decent bet. The core of last year’s runner-up squad remains intact, including two of the best players in the game (Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl), and they added a pair of talented offensive-minded forwards in free agency in Viktor Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner. There will be some pressure on the Oilers to get it done this year since Draisaitl is set to see his cap hit leap by $6 million next year after signing a historic contract extension last month.

The New York Rangers also return most of their team that finished with the best regular-season record in the league last season. And they have a big contract decision looming, too. Star goalie Igor Shesterkin is in the last year of a deal that carries a relatively modest $5.7 million cap hit. He’s reportedly seeking as much as $12 million per year for his next contract.

Across the river, the New Jersey Devils are a trendy sleeper pick. They didn’t come close to sniffing the playoffs last year, but they upgraded their goaltender, trading a first-round pick to acquire Jacob Markström from the Calgary Flames. They’ve also got a new coach, Sheldon Keefe, who had plenty of regular-season success with the Toronto Maple Leafs in recent years.

Other favorites to lift the Cup include the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche, two teams that finished near the top of the standings last year.

Alex Ovechkin’s record chase

It’s possible that The Great One could be passed by The Great Eight this year. Alex Ovechkin is 42 goals away from passing Wayne Gretzky for the top spot on the NHL’s career goalscoring list.

Ovechkin currently sits at 853 career goals. He passed Gordie Howe (801 goals) for second place in December 2022 and his 31 goals last season inched him closer to Gretzky’s mark.

Ovi’s scoring pace will be fascinating to watch all season long. He has scored at least 42 goals in 13 of his 19 seasons, but at age 39 he’ll have to improve upon last year’s 31 if he’s going to pass Gretzky this season.

The newest phenom

Last year’s No. 1 draft pick Connor Bedard lived up to the hype in his first season with the Chicago Blackhawks, winning the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie. This year’s top pick enters the league with similarly lofty expectations. The San Jose Sharks took Macklin Celebrini with the top pick after a stellar season at Boston University (32 goals and 32 assists in 38 games). Celebrini just turned 18 in June but is expected to jump right in and be one of the Sharks’ top players, although he’s currently dealing with an unspecified lower-body injury.

Hockey comes to Utah

Say goodbye to the Arizona Coyotes and hello to the Utah Hockey Club. The Coyotes’ inability to secure a new arena led the league to approve the team’s move to Salt Lake City, where it will play under a temporary name this season while deciding on a permanent brand identity. The jerseys will be black, white and powder blue with just the word Utah across the front.

In June, the franchise gave fans six team name options to vote on: Blizzard, Venom, Mammoth, Outlaws, Yeti and Hockey Club. The team has said that it will begin using the new name as soon as it is decided upon. Logos and uniforms will be revealed later.

The team isn’t going to be any good. The Coyotes finished fourth from the bottom in the Western Conference last year. But they’ll surely attract an enthusiastic fan base eager to see a second big-league franchise in Utah.

An international twist on the All-Star break

Are you not interested in the NHL but looking to scratch the itch for international competition after this summer’s Olympics? Then get ready for the 4 Nations Faceoff in February.

The league is scrapping its usual All-Star Weekend in favor of a four-team tournament featuring players representing the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland. It’ll be played from Feb. 12 to 20 at TD Garden in Boston and Bell Centre in Montreal. Each country will play the other three teams once and the top two teams at the end of the round robin will play in the championship game.

It isn’t a perfect tournament. Other top hockey nations like Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Germany won’t be present, and participation will be limited to NHL players. But it’ll certainly be an improvement over an All-Star format that had grown increasingly stale. And after the league chose not to allow players to participate in the 2022 Olympics, it’ll be fun to see top players represent their country again and perhaps serve as a springboard to NHL participation in the 2026 Olympics in Milan.

The Mets will face the Phillies in the NLDS. / Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

• The Mets are moving on to the NLDS after a thrilling win over the Brewers capped by Pete Alonso’s ninth-inning home run that was, as Tom Verducci explains, the perfect encapsulation of what makes an imperfect player like Alonso one of the top pending free agents in the game.

• Verducci also wrote about why you should be rooting for a Yankees-Dodgers World Series.

• The Falcons stunned the Buccaneers in overtime on Thursday Night Football after Kirk Cousins passed for more than 500 yards. Gilberto Manzano has more on Cousins’s career night.

• Zach Koons ranked the most watchable college football games of the weekend.

• Caitlin Clark was finally, unsurprisingly, named WNBA Rookie of the Year on Thursday. Now she can reflect on what an unbelievable year she’s had, Emma Baccellieri writes.

• The Padres are trying to stop Dodgers fans from buying tickets to NLDS games in San Diego.

• Terry Francona is returning to baseball to manage the Reds.

The top five…

… things I saw last night: 

5. Bijan Robinson’s ability to dodge a tackle and keep his balance. 
4. KhaDarel Hodge’s run after the catch on his walk-off touchdown in overtime. 
3. The Brewers’ back-to-back homers to break a scoreless tie in the seventh.
2. Mets outfielder Jesse Winker’s emphatic reaction after scoring an insurance run in the ninth. Winker played for the Brewers in 2023 and was booed heavily by the crowd in Milwaukee throughout the series after a heated exchange with Brewers shortstop Willy Adames in Game 1.
1. Pete Alonso’s opposite-field home run off of Devin Williams to give the Mets the lead.