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The 2025-26 NHL season opens in six days, Canadian teams start hitting the ice in a week, and the Olympic men’s hockey tournament begins 134 days from today (not that we’re counting).
Here’s a quick catchup on a few big storylines around the league:
Florida’s threepeat hopes are on thin ice.
No team has hoisted the Stanley Cup three consecutive times since the New York Islanders won four in a row from 1980 to ’83. After defeating Edmonton in back-to-back Cup finals, the Panthers were able to keep their vaunted depth intact by re-signing Conn Smythe Trophy winner Sam Bennett, fellow star forward Brad Marchand and key defenceman Aaron Ekblad.
But Florida will be without its two best players as forward Matthew Tkachuk is sidelined until December after core-muscle surgery while Aleksander Barkov is likely out for the entire regular season due to a severe knee injury. And remember that the NHL closed the long-term injured reserve loophole that the Panthers (and other teams) cleverly exploited in recent years to beef up their roster for the playoffs.
Connor McDavid still hasn’t committed to the Oilers.
The three-time MVP and five-time scoring champion is now exactly nine months away from becoming the most coveted unrestricted free agent in NHL history. The price for Edmonton to prevent the world’s best player from hitting the open market went up yesterday when Minnesota signed Kirill Kaprizov to an eight-year, $136-million US extension â the richest contract in NHL history in terms of both total money and average annual value ($17M, easily surpassing Leon Draisaitl’s $14M salary with the Oilers).
If the Wild had to go to those lengths re-sign someone who’s reached 100 points just once in his five NHL seasons, you’ve got to figure McDavid has a shot at becoming the league’s first $20-million-per-year player as the salary cap rises from $88M last season to at least $113.5M by 2027.
The question isn’t whether the Oilers are willing to pay (they’ll figure out a way to build around McDavid and Draisaitl)Â â it’s whether McDavid wants to stay. He’s repeated over the off-season and training camp that he’s in no rush to re-sign. Each day he doesn’t, the speculation that he might leave Edmonton will continue to grow.
Sidney Crosby could be on the move too.Â
The best player of his generation (sorry, Alex Ovechkin) has spent his entire 20-year career with the Pittsburgh Penguins, winning three Stanley Cups, two Conn Smythe trophies, two regular-season MVPs and a pair of scoring titles. Crosby, who turned 38 over the summer, is still going strong: he scored 33 goals last season and reached the 90-point plateau for the third straight time. But the Penguins are not: they missed the playoffs for the third year in a row and haven’t won a series since 2018.
Crosby is under contract through the 2026-27 season after signing a two-year extension last September that pays him the same $8.7M per year that he made on his previous 12-year deal (I can’t figure out whether his obsession with the number 87 costs him money or makes him a little extra).
Given today’s rising salaries, that looks like a bargain for a Cup contender looking to add the most respected leader in the sport. And Crosby, who of course has a full no-movement clause, might consider parting ways with an aging Pittsburgh team that could finish near the bottom of the league.Â
Is this the end for Ovechkin?
Speaking of generational superstars who have spent all 20 of their NHL seasons with the same franchise and are still performing at a high level, the Washington Capitals icon scored 44 times in just 65 games last season to break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record and now needs just three more to reach the mythical 900 mark.
After that, there’s not much left to accomplish for a guy who’s won a Stanley Cup, a Conn Smythe, a scoring title, three MVPs and an incredible nine Rocket Richard trophies as the league’s top goal scorer. Plus, Ovechkin turned 40 last month, his contract expires this summer, and a Capitals ticket sales rep accidently sent out an email last May indicating this would be his final season.
The team called the email a mistake, but Ovechkin hasn’t said much to quash the possibility that he might hang ’em up. “I don’t know,” he told reporters recently. “We’ll see.”
On the opposite end of the age curve from Ovechkin and Crosby is 17-year-old phenom Gavin McKenna, who’s expected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft. The Whitehorse native won the Canadian Hockey League player of the year award with Medicine Hat and is now preparing for his first season at Penn State University after taking advantage of the NCAA’s new eligibility rules for major-junior players. Here’s more on McKenna’s journey from the Yukon to the NHL from CBC Sports’ Karissa Donkin.
