During each NHL season, fans from every team can anticipate various exciting events. This includes the debut of top prospects, the arrival of new players from free agency, and the pursuit of the Stanley Cup. Nonetheless, certain storylines become prominent every season. These may include player trade rumours, contract extension disputes, and management and coaching staff changes. Some of these recurring storylines are more captivating than others.
There will always be that one game that sparks controversy, when referees either put their whistles away or call everything. We can all guess who might win the Stanley Cup, who might take home the Art Ross Trophy, and who might be taken first overall in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft. Some of these storylines could be prominent in the upcoming 2024-2025 NHL season, either in October or later in the season. These are the storylines that might be talked about.
The Next CBA (2026), LTIR, & ESCROW
Didn’t the NHL settle on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement? On some level, yes, they did during the end of the 2020 season during free agency in July. They extended it until the end of the 2025-26 NHL season; more specifically, Sept. 15, 2026. Arguably, the most significant topic and everyone’s favourite is the Long-Term Injury Reserve (LTIR). Nikita Kucherov and Mark Stone are arguably the two most prominent players involved in this situation. Both suffered injuries throughout the regular season and weren’t activated until the beginning of the first round of the playoffs. During their tenures on the LTIR, both managements acquired numerous high average annual value contract players to boost their team significantly and push for a deep playoff push, which both did as they went on to win the Stanley Cup in their respective seasons.
The main issue is neither team broke the rules. There is no salary cap in the postseason, so whoever is on the roster can play as long as they are healthy and ready to do so. Many fans were upset when teams can “bury” large contracts for their significant gain. We all hate it when players go through severe injuries and there should be a way for the teams to relieve that cap hit when players are rehabbing from surgery. But this is twice now that a situation has happened, and if a third time comes around, there might be even more significant backlash.
The other major topic is Escrow, a percentage of money subtracted from the players’ paychecks. During COVID-19 in 2020, revenue was down because fans couldn’t attend games due to safety restrictions. The league set the Escrow to 20% to help with the lack of revenue, but with things mostly back to normal, last season’s Escrow was 6%. However, players don’t want to pay that much, so expect the NHL Players’ Association to fight to drop that number. However, the faster they can sign another extension, the better for the league and the fans.
Goal Scoring Up or Down? (Regular Season vs Playoffs)
Scoring during the regular season was high. Players like Nathan MacKinnon, Kucherov, Connor McDavid, and Auston Matthews are putting up points with no problem. Still, scoring slowly drops as the season winds down and the playoffs approach. Once the playoffs arrived, defence took over some games and was critical until the finals. We saw a modern version of the defensive “trap” we had seen before. Will we see a more defensive style taken by some teams going forward?
To win a hockey game, you have to score one more goal than your opponent unless you plan on going into shootouts, which is another conversation about goalies and shootout-style goals. Last season, we saw the league average of 3.11 goals per team per game, a minor drop from the 2022-2023 league average of 3.18. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see that goal scoring is super high in October and November, and games finish with a crazy number of goals. Then, as the season progresses, teams make defensive changes, adjust to different schemes and find new ways to shut down some of the best players in the league or at least slow them down.
Utah’s First Season
Out go the Arizona Coyotes, and in comes the brand new Utah Hockey Club. I know it doesn’t sound the best to many, but I have to live with it for now. The Coyotes fought hard to stay in Arizona as long as they could, but with problems with the ownership and turbulence with the city of Tempe, the plug had to be pulled, and the team was relocated to Utah. Currently, the “Hockey Club” ownership is working and getting the fans’ opinion on their official name and logo, which is coming next year. We saw with Seattle and Vegas what a new market does to the NHL, and fans in Salt Lake City seem set bring passion and support to the games.
Besides the financial side of the team, it will be interesting to see what management does and how they plan to continue to build this roster. They had a solid draft and made great picks, including Tij Iginla. They were very active in free agency, making plenty of signings and some major trades to bolster their defence, and they still have more than $9 million in cap space to play around with. Expect Utah to be an exciting team in the Central Division.
Fighting
What do Ryan Reaves, Tom Wilson, Arber Xhekaj, and Matt Rempe all have in common? They like to hit hard and punch their opponents in the face when their opponents step too close to their star teammates. Fighting has gone down each season; last season, we saw 311 fights and in the 2022-23 season, there were 334 fights. It’s fair to say the league is much less violent than it used to be in the 1980s and 90s when they fought often, had famous bench-clearing brawls, and even occasionally fought in the stands. The hits and checks can still be brutal when because of how fast some players can move and we know what happens when an unmovable object meets an unstoppable force.”Today’s Players are bigger and faster: Tage Thompson, Roope Hintz, and Michael Rasmussen, for example, are players with great height who can play physically while producing at a high level offensively.
The debate centers around whether fighting will continue at the current pace in the NHL or if there will be a decline in the number of players willing to fight. Players Reaves, Wilson and Nicolas Deslauriers won’t be in the league forever. Will we continue to see young blood like Rempe and Xhekaj come into the league looking to provide hits, fighting and defence, or will players shy away from that due to the physical strain it puts on your body? I’m not trying to advocate getting rid of fighting, but similar to how the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) announced their fighting ban last year, will other junior leagues follow and shy away from the fighting?
Department of Player Saftey
On the topic of hard-hitting checks, the NHL Department of Player Safety, led by ex-NHLer George Parros, has been in the media and a. topic of discussion for his and the team’s doling out of discipline — debated if they were too harsh or not harsh enough on a certain player or play often abounds. This could be brought up in the CBA. Still, there are too many grey areas regarding some rule descriptions, and the penalty for breaking a specific rule could potentially remove those grey areas and standardize suspensions and help this process. If you cross-check, slash, and embellish, there should be a more straightforward process for the league and the fans as to why X player is suspended for X games or fined X amount.
The Morgan Rielly cross-check, the Tom Wilson high stick, and the numerous attempts Jacob Trouba made this past season have all raised eyebrows among fans around the league about the department’s decision-making. They have an essential job: to hold players accountable for breaking the rules and being overly physical. It is an important job, but when fans question your decision-making for serious situations revolving around injuries, there will always be talks about your quality of work.
Officiating
This is a no-brainer, right? There was a lot of discussion revolving around officiating in the 2024 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, and where there were some questionable calls — or lack thereof — this will always be a topic. I do believe that officiating isn’t as bad as it seems. Yes, they make mistakes, but we are all human, are we not? For many, it comes down to the game’s growth, the addition of technology, and the camera angles it brings. Many fans dislike how a referee can spend minutes looking at the same play in eight different shots when clearly all they need is one, and they still get the call wrong.
As fans of a particular team, there will always be a backlash of a call because one team’s side thinks it’s the right call, and the other disagrees, creating a tug-of-war situation. It’s similar to the Department of Player Safety — when they suspend someone for five games; you are going to have one side of fans calling for more games (especially for those who have a history of dishing out dirty hits) while the other side is going to say that was a hockey play and the other guy should have kept his head up. What we want as fans is a clean game; consistency is critical here, and it shouldn’t be too much to ask for. Right?
Expansion Speculation (Where? When?)
With the success that Vegas and Seattle brought and the hype surrounding Utah, many wonder how the NHL will handle its following expansion process: whether that’s bringing back old team locations like Quebec and Atlanta or trying out new places that owners are “hungry” for like Houston. Seeing how Utah works out and the massive support the fans of Salt Lake City could be a significant development for many potential owners in different markets without an NHL team and could work to bring one along.
Related: Bettman Hints at Future Expansion Possibilities
Remember, the expansion fee is split between the owners, so relatively speaking, if Houston gets green-lit for one, it reportedly would cost $1.2 billion. That money is split and sent to the current 32 owners, which is quite a sum to bring in. Given the current number of teams, it could also bring “bloat” to the NHL. Everything right now is perfectly split between conferences and divisions. It also starts the thought process of “Is it too much?” While many would love the Nordiques and Thrashers back, isn’t it fine how it is right now, with the number of games and talent across the league?
4 Nations Face-Off
It was announced earlier this year that a new event called the 4 Nations Face-Off will replace the NHL All-Star game this year. The tournament will have NHL players selected and put into their respective nationalities, including Canada, the United States, Finland, and Sweden. They will play against each other in a seven-game tournament. Games will occur from Feb. 12 to 20, 2025, and Montreal and Boston will be tournament hosts. Each team will play three tournament games in a round robin; a win will be three points, an overtime or shootout win will be two, and a shootout or overtime loss will be one. The two teams with the best record will play for the championship.
This comes after a relatively neutral 2024 All-Star Weekend in Toronto, Ontario. The All-Star showcase has been relatively the same, with the same skills competition and little twists leading to an All-Star Game. With Kucherov not trying his best in the skills competition or the event just getting repetitive, a slight change is good. It’s not removing the All-Star Weekend Event, as it will return in 2026 in New York City.
Record Chases (Ovechkin, McDavid, Matthews)
Certain players inch closer each season to many records that many might or might not know of; this season will be enjoyable to watch as many records could be broken. Alexander Ovechkin is chasing Wayne Gretzky’s goal record of 894. Connor McDavid is closing in on 1,000 career points, which would put him at 99th-most points in NHL history, and still counting as he will only turn 28 by the end of the season! Can Auston Matthews continue his goal-scoring prowess? He is 64 points away from being fifth all-time in Maple Leafs scoring, 21 goals from being second in all-time goals by a Maple Leaf and 52 away from being the leading goal scorer in franchise history.
Funny enough, his current goal-scoring pace is higher than Ovechkin’s if you look at goals per game throughout his career. A steady pace could make him an all-time goal scorer in NHL history. Many more records could be broken, from franchise records to NHL records; with the players in the league now, it’s a matter of time before certain ones are toppled.
Canada’s Cup Chase (Will a Canadian Team Win a Stanley Cup?)
Another year, another dream: Will this be the year that a Canadian team wins the Stanley Cup? It was close, as the Edmonton Oilers forced Game 7 when they were down 3-1 against the Florida Panthers in the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals, but they couldn’t complete the comeback. The pressure right now on teams like the Oilers, the Maple Leafs, and Vancouver Canucks is high with how much talent they have and how often they make the playoffs with little success to show for it (maybe just pointing the Leafs out on that one.)
It’s been more than 30 years since a Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup, and for many, that adds to the pressure on the Canadian teams, with players like Matthews, McDavid, Quinn Hughes, and Elias Pettersson. Yes, there is the caveat of taxes, and places like Florida and more locations in the United States don’t have them, so it’s “easier” for them to get top atlent. It all comes down to performance, and Canadian fans out there want their team to be the one that ends the drought.
