From the Stanley Cup champion Panthers and beyond, the NHL is shooting for another best season ever
Aleksander Barkov lifted the Stanley Cup over his head, passed it around to his Panthers teammates and hockey's holy grail got a new home in South Florida. The next morning, Matthew Tkachuk gave it a saltwater bath in the Atlantic Ocean.
Commissioner Gary Bettman woke up after what former player-turned-analyst Paul Bissonnette called the greatest season in NHL history and said to himself: “Wow, that was great. Now we’ve got to do it again.”
It will be a tough act to follow.
The Panthers will be looking for a third consecutive trip to the final, the Edmonton Oilers will be eager to avenge their Game 7 loss to Florida and the league is out to keep the momentum going after setting an attendance record, hitting a new high water mark in revenue and getting more eyeballs on the sport in North America and beyond than perhaps ever before.
"You’ve got to do it again, and you’ve got to do it better," Bettman said on the eve of training camps. “If you take anything for granted, if you’re satisfied with the status quo, no matter how good it is, you will slide backwards, so we’ve got to keep pushing.”
Reigning playoff MVP Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers are pushing to win the Cup for the first time since 1990. Alex Ovechkin is in hot pursuit of Wayne Gretzky's career goals record. And after McDavid and Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov each racked up 100 assists, can Toronto's Auston Matthews score 60 goals again?
"There’s so many good players," Hall of Fame goaltender Henrik Lundqvist said. “It’s so fast. The players are so skilled, creative. The game is in a great place, and you can feel the excitement."
Panthers claw for more
Florida has won the Eastern Conference each of the past two years, losing to Vegas and then beating Edmonton for the first title in franchise history. They are trying to follow the cross-state rival Lightning, who were East champs from 2020-22, and also go back to back.
“You put all that work in your whole life, I don’t think it’s something you’re ever going to forget or not think about,” Panthers forward Sam Reinhart said. “Pretty quick after, you flip the switch in terms of getting ready to next year to try and do it all over again.”
The Panthers are about to defend the Cup for the first time. Coach Paul Maurice can’t wait to find out what that is like.
“I’m very aware of all the challenges that come with it, how few repeats there are, how hard it is just to get there in any year, let alone the potential to get to the final for three years in a row,” Maurice said. "But then there’s also an excitement for this year to start. Let’s go, right? Every guy that’s walked in, it’s not euphoria anymore. There’s just a little smile that you share. But, oh, it’s great.”
Florida will have to contend with some other beasts in the East, including Carolina and the New York Rangers, along with Toronto featuring an accomplished new coach behind the bench. Still, the Panthers are among the Cup favorites, 9-1 at BetMGM Sportsbook — and oddsmakers have just one team ahead of them.
Oilers time?
Edmonton goes into the season, which starts with games between Buffalo and New Jersey in Prague, as the championship favorite. The hockey-mad city has an arena full of banners from the glory days when the Oilers won the Cup in 1984, ‘85, ’87, ‘88 and ’90 but is starved to add another for a core group of players headlined by McDavid.
Draisaitl signed a lucrative extension that keeps him under contract through 2033, McDavid is likely to do the same next summer, and two of the best in the game are determined to finish the job sooner rather than later.
“We’re all itching to start back up again and start playing again and competing and just chip away at what we all want as an organization and that’s to hoist the Stanley Cup,” Draisaitl said.
How the West is won
The Oilers will not have an easy run through the West, not with rivals like Dallas, Colorado and Vegas standing in the way. The Stars have big aspirations after their deep run last spring.
“It’s fun playing on a great team, and I know we all have a lot of confidence and belief in the group that we have that we’ll be able to win a Stanley Cup,” 32 goal-scorer Wyatt Johnston said. “The margin for error is so small come playoff time that you need to make sure that you’re doing all the right things and putting your best foot forward every single night.”
The Avalanche won't have valuable forward Valeri Nichushkin until at least mid-November because of a suspension, though they hope to get captain Gabriel Landeskog back at some point after missing the past two seasons with a chronic knee injury that has since been surgically repaired.
What's good
Ovechkin, now 39 and in his 20th season with Washington, is 42 goals away from breaking Gretzky's NHL career record that was once considered untouchable. Matthews is on pace to become the fifth-fastest player in league history to reach 400, behind just Gretzky, Mike Bossy, Mario Lemieux and Brett Hull and ahead of Jarri Kurri and Ovechkin.
Patrick Kane is back for a second season in Detroit, trying to end the Red Wings' lengthy playoff drought. Sidney Crosby has at least four years left with Pittsburgh after signing another extension. Ovechkin has one year left on his contract after this one.
Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks are back in the Winter Classic, hosting St. Louis at Wrigley Field. The most recent No. 1 pick, Macklin Celebrini, will team with Will Smith to jump-start the San Jose Sharks' rebuild.
Players across the league realize it's a unique era with all these generations overlapping.
“We only have a few more years left of the Crosbys, Ovechkins, Kaners,” New Jersey center Jack Hughes said. “Those are guys I grew up on. McDavid, Matthews, MacKinnon, they’re in their prime. And obviously a lot of good young players.”
What's new
The Utah Hockey Club, formerly the Arizona Coyotes before relocating to Salt Lake City earlier this year, is here under new ownership and with an energized new fan base.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," said forward Josh Doan, the son of former Coyotes captain Shane Doan. "A lot of people are really excited for hockey and you get that kind of sense and vibe that it’s going to be a hockey city and a market that’s going to do really well.”
No All-Star Weekend this season. Instead, the league takes a break in February for the first 4 Nations Face-off between the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland exactly one year before NHL players return to the Winter Olympics in Milan.
It's yet another chance to build interest and buzz around hockey and showcase what the sport has to offer.
“Ultimately, people come out to see the players,” NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said. “We have to continue to build momentum, continue to market the game and show people how great the game is.”
___
AP Sports Writer Tim Reynolds and AP freelance writer W.G. Ramirez contributed.
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
