Here we are folks, the last week of summer — as defined on the NHL calendar anyway.
When we pass Labour Day next Monday, we’ll see players begin to return to their winter homes, skates kick up, and media days begin. New storylines will begin to take shape, controversies will arise, and surprises both good and bad will appear.
Before we get to that point, though, we’ll take one last look back at last season, through the lens of our pre-season bold predictions heading into 2023-24.
The idea with those is always to run with an idea that is perhaps not the most likely outcome, but has some basis in reality. And, generally, we think we did OK. We nailed some, nearly hit on others — and were way off on a few.
For example, our prediction for the Flyers was that they’d trade a top-six forward, thinking the rebuild would continue and someone such as Travis Konecny could move. That didn’t happen, but they did trade someone who surely would have been a top-six forward in the future, moving Cutter Gauthier to the Ducks for defenceman Jamie Drysdale.
For the rival Pittsburgh Penguins, we envisioned Sidney Crosby returning to 100-point form, leading his team back to the playoffs and winning a round. He didn’t quite get there, finishing with 94, but had a terrific season nonetheless. The Penguins were in the playoff race until the end, but ultimately missed by three points.
In Minnesota, we had Kirill Kaprizov winning the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy, with the idea that 50 goals was attainable for him after scoring 47 and 40 (in 67 games) the previous two seasons. Perhaps if he could get that far the league lead would have been within reach. He did approach 50, getting 46 in 75 games, but finished eighth in goals and was nowhere near Auston Matthews’ astronomical 69 goals.
In a little over a month we’ll do the same exercise for the 2024-25 season, excited for what the new season might bring. But first, here’s an audit over last year’s picks, the good, the OK, and the downright awful.
WHAT WE GOT RIGHT
Seth Jarvis breaks out with 60 points
In his sophomore 2022-23 season, Jarvis wound up with 14 goals and 39 points, but was in line for a much bigger role on the ‘Canes in Year 3. Our rationale for why such a breakout was coming was simple: Jarvis had a chance to become a top line 5-on-5 player and also earn a spot on the top power-play unit, which alone could increase his production by 15 to 20 points.
Most of that came to fruition. Jarvis was given more power-play ice time than any other Hurricane and jumped from five to 20 PP points year over year. He wasn’t a top line even-strength player all season, often seeing time on the third line, but he nonetheless improved by 11 points there as well. Jarvis nearly doubled his previous career high in goals to finish with 33 and reached 67 points. And there’s still reason to believe more could come.
Samuel Montembeault builds on 2022-23, becomes lead goalie
Montembeault turned the corner two years ago as a 26-year-old, playing 40 games, doubling his previous win total and seeing his save percentage jump by 10 points. Heading into a contract year, and following a gold-medal performance for Canada at the 2023 world championship, our pre-season prediction was that Montembeault would continue to grow into the starter’s role for the budding Habs rather than becoming more of a trade candidate.
Turns out, a great start led to Montembeault getting a three-year extension by early December and Jake Allen was later traded at the deadline. But while Montembeault saw improved numbers again in 41 appearances, 25-year-old Cayden Primeau might still have something to say about who is the long-term No. 1 in Montreal.
Joonas Korpisalo delivers below-average goaltending for Ottawa
Heading into a pivotal season, the Senators were banking on Korpisalo being a strong No. 1 in their net. Then-GM Pierre Dorion signed the UFA to a five-year contract, fully believing that Korpisalo’s career-best 2022-23 season between Columbus and Los Angeles (who brought him in as a trade deadline upgrade) was the 29-year-old goalie’s new reality.
We were skeptical.
Korpisalo hadn’t even been relied on for half a season’s workload before, and his career numbers prior to 2022-23 were below league averages. He did play 55 games last season, but his performance fell back toward his career average and the Senators finished 31st in team save percentage. New GM Steve Staios had to address the position again this off-season, sending Korpisalo and a first-round pick to Boston for Linus Ullmark, who is one year away from UFA.
Ullmark in, Korpisalo out.
And with the first pick, the Sharks take Macklin Celebrini
OK, we can admit this wasn’t the most bold of predictions, but there were a few candidates that could have finished at the bottom of the league and the Sharks finished a good deal behind them all. San Jose finished 32nd in the NHL, five points back of Chicago. Their minus-150 goal differential was 39 worse than the Hawks. You’d have to go all the way back to the 1993-94 Ottawa Senators for a worse GF/GA split (minus-196). With a little lottery luck the Sharks wound up with a former Junior Shark, and a franchise player they hope can have a quick impact.
The Seattle Kraken miss the playoffs
Seattle broke through with a playoff appearance and a series win in 2023, but we saw some cracks that made us believe a further climb wasn’t guaranteed. The Kraken had the league’s highest 5-on-5 shooting percentage in 2022-23 (second-best overall) after finishing near the bottom in their expansion season, and we questioned if they had the game-breakers to sustain that. In the end, it did end up being an area of regression, with the Kraken finishing 27th in shooting percentage — they slipped from averaging 3.52 goals per game in 2022-23 to 2.61 in 2023-24.
What did surprise us, at least a little bit, was that the goaltending mitigated some of the loss in offence. In their first two years of existence the position was a clear weakness as they failed to have a single regular starter finish with even a .900 save percentage. But, while $5.9 million netminder Philipp Grubauer failed to hit that number for a third straight season, $1.9 million backup Joey Daccord took the reins in 50 appearances and the Kraken actually allowed 20 fewer goals against in 2023-24. The lost offence was too much to overcome, however, and the Kraken still missed the playoffs by 17 points.
Alex Ovechkin falls below 0.40 goals per game average for the first time in his career
Always dangerous to bet against a player making a serious chase towards Wayne Gretzky’s goal record but, we thought, with the ageing Capitals roster clearly in decline, eventually that would rub off on a 38-year-old sniper. And through much of last season this looked like it would be an absolute slam dunk of a prediction — through 44 games, Ovechkin had just nine goals for a 0.2 per game pace.
However, goal scorers can be streaky and over his last 35 games played, Ovechkin ran hot, scoring 22 more times. That got him to 31 goals on the season, which was still the lowest output of his career in any 82-game schedule. And it barely made our prediction right, as he finished with a 0.39 goals per game rate.
Connor Hellebuyck signs an extension and stays with the Jets
Heading into last season the Jets had two big, expiring contracts to resolve: starting goalie Connor Hellebuyck and No. 1 centre Mark Scheifele. Our prediction for Winnipeg was that they’d find a way to keep Hellebuyck, if only because the goalie trade market was so ill-defined at the time that finding a suitable package would be next to impossible. There was also every possibility the Jets would be a competitive team, which Hellebuyck said was his primary desire.
Almost immediately after our bold predictions piece was published, the Jets signed both Hellebuyck and Scheifele to eight-year extensions with identical $8.5 million AAVs. So, ya, we got it right in our Jets prediction.
However, we’ll also take this time to point out we sort of got half of this wrong, since our bold prediction for the Bruins at the time was that they’d trade for Scheifele during the season. Boston was hungry for centres and Scheifele’s words at the end of the 2022-23 season seemed to express a player far less inclined to extend in Winnipeg.
WHAT WE GOT OH SO CLOSE ON
Jonathan Drouin sets career highs in goals and assists
After six years of struggle in Montreal, Drouin signed a one-year, $825,000 deal with Colorado to join forces with former major junior teammate Nathan MacKinnon and try out a fresh start. At the start of the season, it looked like Drouin would even play next to MacKinnon and be given a great chance to bounce back from the two goals and 29 points he scored in his last season with the Canadiens over 58 games.
So, we thought, if Drouin could stick alongside MacKinnon, he could set new career highs across the board at 28 years old. We were mostly right, but not entirely. Drouin did get the lion’s share of his ice time with MacKinnon and did set new career bests in assists (37) and points (56). It’s just that his 19 goals were two shy of the 21 he collected with Tampa Bay all the way back in 2016-17.
Dallas wins the Presidents’ Trophy
With 98- and 108-point seasons in 2021-22 and 2022-23, the Stars were clearly a team on the rise and weren’t going to be a surprise. They finished eighth overall in the NHL in 2023 and made it to the Western Conference Final.
We noted in our predictions how the Stars could see bounce back campaigns from Mason Marchment and freshly signed Matt Duchene, both of which came true. We also noted their tremendous depth at forward, which became one of their main storylines and strengths of the season, especially as Wyatt Johnston turned heads and made headlines. And, we noted their high-end skill at key positions on the blue line with Miro Heiskanen and in net with Jake Oettinger. Though neither were factors in awards voting, both were key down the stretch and into the playoffs.
We were so close on this one. The Stars won 12 of their final 14 games (including both of their last two), but couldn’t overcome the New York Rangers, who also finished hot with a 10-3-0 record to finish. The Rangers edged the Stars out by a single point for the Presidents’ Trophy, though Dallas finished tops in the West.
Edmonton wins Canada’s first Stanley Cup since 1993
This looked like it was going to crash and burn in November when only the San Jose Sharks were between Edmonton and the very bottom of the league. That inexplicably awful beginning led to a coaching change, but if any team was going to be able to pull out of that nose dive, it was these Oilers. Not only did they push back hard enough to get into the playoffs, they finished second in the Pacific and came within six points of winning the division outright.
Hitting their stride at the right time, Edmonton eliminated Los Angeles from the playoffs for a third year in a row, overcame 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 series deficits to knock out Vancouver in Round 2, and then won three in a row against Dallas to eliminate the Stars in six and reach the Stanley Cup Final. This prediction was still alive and well in June after all. Though, again, it was crashing and burning when Edmonton fell behind 0-3 to the Florida Panthers. One more valiant comeback attempt kept us in the running to nail this one on June 24, but Florida triumphed 2-1 in Game 7.
Matt Barzal finally surpasses his rookie season point total
As a rookie in 2017-18, Mathew Barzal immediately flashed as one of the brightest young stars and posted 85 points. You may forget that the Islanders had the seventh-best offence in the league that season. That off-season, Lou Lamoriello left Toronto to head New York’s front office and it’s probably no coincidence they immediately took a turn towards being a defensively-focused team.
In 2018-19 the Islanders finished 22nd in goals per game, then 22nd, 21st, 22nd and, yep, 22nd again in the following four seasons.
There was some playoff success in there, with two appearances in the third round, but the team’s style of play was not designed for Barzal to shine his brightest. His highest point total in those five seasons was 62.
Under Patrick Roy the Islanders still finished 22nd in offence in 2023-24 (amazing, isn’t it?) but the conditions had gotten better for Barzal. In our bold pre-season prediction, we reasoned that Barzal had found quick chemistry with Bo Horvat after the latter was acquired from Vancouver. It was a very small regular-season sample in 2023, just six games, but Barzal had eight points and Horvat scored three goals. If that was real, perhaps Barzal could have a career season.
The two did spend most of 2023-24 together and carried over what they’d shown. They outscored the competition 51-35 together at 5-on-5 and Horvat nearly surpassed the career high goal and point totals he set in 2022-23, which some considered to be an outlier. Barzal also took a run at his rookie high and we nearly got this one right — he did set a new personal best with 23 goals and got back to being a point per game player, but his 80 points finished five shy of his rookie total.
Joseph Woll starts Game 1 of the playoffs for Toronto
The Maple Leafs’ net was such a roller-coaster ride last season that at one point Martin Jones was something of a saviour when Ilya Samsonov was struggling and Joseph Woll was out with a knee injury. In our pre-season prediction, we noted how well Woll had performed in seven regular-season games and two playoff starts in 2023. With so much up in the air at the position, he seemed a good bet to keep developing and end up as their Game 1 playoff starter.
And maybe he should have been.
However, with a strong month of March, Samsonov won over the coaching staff and the goalie utilization in April made it obvious he had been settled on as the playoff starter. Woll allowed four goals against or more in five of his last nine regular-season starts, so he wasn’t inspiring loads of confidence.
So, Samsonov started Game 1 against Boston and lost 5-1. He won Game 2, then allowed three goals in a Game 3 loss, and three more goals over two periods in a Game 4 loss. Woll came on in relief, and then was a major difference maker in Games 5 and 6 to pull the Leafs back into it even though they only scored twice in both games. If not for an injury that kept Woll out of Game 7, perhaps the Leafs could have taken down the Bruins.
What if Woll was given the net in Game 1?
Logan Thompson takes back the net, starts in the playoffs
Though Adin Hill led the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup in 2023, there was still a path for Thompson to be a factor in the crease last season. After all, he was trending toward being their No. 1 in 2022-23 before an injury took him out.
We got parts of this prediction right. Thompson did start more games than Hill, though that was because the latter missed over a month with a lower-body injury. But, when the opportunity fell back to Thompson he did pretty well with it, and a 6-1 run through March helped ensure the Knights got back to the playoffs.
Thompson was the better of the two goalies down the stretch even after Hill returned and started Game 1-4 against Dallas, going 2-2 before the coaching staff turned back to Hill, who posted a .931 save percentage in three games but lost a tight Game 7.
So Thompson did start in the playoffs, played more games overall and had pretty similar regular season numbers to Hill, but we can’t say he took the net back. After all, Hill is set to return as the starter in 2023-24, while Thompson was traded to the Washington Capitals.
WHAT WE WHIFFED ON
A goalie not currently on the Kings starts Game 1 of the playoffs for them
At the start of last season we looked at L.A.’s roster and thought an awful lot of pieces were in place, and that recent playoff eliminations might make them stronger. We also thought Pierre-Luc Dubois might add another plus … but we don’t have to dwell on that one.
The biggest risk we saw with the Kings was in net, where they started out with returning backup Pheonix Copley and $1 million UFA signing Cam Talbot. Unless Talbot, at 37 years old, recovered from a poor season in Ottawa that led the goalie-needy Senators to cut ties with him, it seemed as though the Kings would have to address the position more seriously later on in the year.
But Talbot was not a problem in the crease all season and, behind the Kings’ 1-3-1 system, posted a .913 save percentage and finished with the eighth-best goals-above expected rate among all netminders who made at least 40 appearances. Come playoff time, the Kings were simply once again outclassed by the Oilers and Talbot was overwhelmed, allowing 16 goals in three games — though he did win one of them. David Rittich started Games 4 and 5, losing both.
Alex DeBrincat scores 40 goals again
Even though we knew he’d slow down from such a great start, when Alex DeBrincat shot out of the gate with nine goals in his first seven games as a Red Wing, we were feeling pretty darn good about this call. Just 31 more to go, and 74 games to do it in! Heck, he had scored 27 times in 82 games with the Senators the year before…
Then it got really cold, really fast. DeBrincat scored just three times in his next 15 games, but the real dry spells came in January and March when the winger scored just twice in 27 games. He had his chances, leading Detroit in shots and so there’s a debate as to how snakebitten he was for stretches last season.
After back-to-back 27-goal seasons, should he be in consideration for a similar prediction in 2024-25?
Akira Schmid takes over in New Jersey’s net and wins fantasy leagues
Trust us, this made some sense last October. Looking at the Devils then, we saw a team that had jumped up to 112 points and had every reason to believe could stay there. Goaltending was a concern on paper, yes, but the GM didn’t see it as urgent enough to seriously address in the summer of 2023. And, in the 2023 playoffs, Schmid took over for Vitek Vanecek after New Jersey fell behind 2-0 in their series against the Rangers, and led the comeback to a series win. Some of the magic wore off in Round 2, but he showed something at 23 years of age.
Turns out, New Jersey was hit with a number of big injuries and the mess in the crease was completely exposed. Five goalies saw games in 2023-24 and Schmid never showed any signs he was going to build on the playoff showing. In the end, New Jersey made an in-season trade for Jake Allen to be this season’s backup, and an off-season trade to make Jacob Markstrom their No. 1. Schmid signed on with Vegas in the off-season, where he figures to be their No. 3.
Kaapo Kakko steps up for a breakout season
Picked the wrong early-20s player on the Rangers here. Alexis Lafrenière built up to 39 points in 2022-23, while Kakko shot up to 40 points that same season and both seemed decent bets to keep improving. Lafrenière, the No. 1 overall pick in 2020, certainly did, getting to 28 goals and 57 points. Kakko, the second-overall pick from 2019, took such a step back that he was appearing in trade rumours and it seemed more likely than not he’d be playing somewhere else in 2024-25.
But with a one-year qualifying offer extension signed, Kakko is in line to return, and likely to New York’s third line with Lafrenière ahead of him on the depth chart, as well as UFA signing Reilly Smith. An RFA next summer who will be one year away from UFA status himself, Year 6 feels like a make or break one for Kakko. And he faces an uphill battle for more ice time and trust from the coaching staff.
This turns out to be Elias Pettersson‘s last season with the Canucks
No one — be honest, not even you — expected the Canucks to do as well as they did in 2023-24, finishing first in the West, winning a playoff round, and even extending the Oilers to seven games in Round 2. Now they’ll be looked at entirely differently in 2024-25.
But going into last season the Canucks had failed to reach the playoffs three years in a row and had to get a big contract done with one of their most important players. Elias Pettersson was set to be an RFA in the summer of 2024, but just one year away from becoming UFA eligible, the team needed a longer term commitment.
While it’s usually easier to believe an extension like this will get across the line with such an important player, this one took a while to resolve. The Canucks were making big changes to the roster and when Pettersson still hadn’t signed in February with the trade deadline drawing near, rumours began to kick up and the Carolina Hurricanes were one of the teams connected to the player.
Eventually the extension did get done, an eight-year contract with an $11.6 million AAV.
Adam Fantilli wins the Calder Trophy
It became such an obvious and easy choice to roll with Connor Bedard as a pre-season Calder Trophy pick that we truly knew this was a bold one that would require some help along the way. There were a few reasons why we settled on Fantilli. One was that the Blue Jackets had long needed a No. 1 centre and we thought he’d be given that opportunity very quickly. Another was that in Columbus, he’d likely get to play alongside Johnny Gaudreau or Patrik Laine, a couple of players who could help create offence. And, with Bedard stuck in the Blackhawks’ rebuilding wasteland, Fantilli could have been in an advantageous position. There was also the chance Columbus could have been an improved team.
Almost none of that happened, however. Fantilli was brought along slowly and his ice time fluctuated. The Blue Jackets went through some pre-season turmoil and were chasing from the start. And Fantilli’s season was cut short in January after his calf was cut by a skate blade.
At the time of his last game, Fantilli had 27 points in 49 games, fourth among all rookies, six points behind Bedard with 10 more games played than the Hawks’ superstar. Even if Fantilli didn’t get injured, both Brock Faber and Luke Hughes were already making stronger cases as rookies.
Arizona finds a new home and ends relocation speculation
This was the NHL’s never-ending story, desperate for a resolution in the desert. Even after the referendum was lost for an arena to be built in Tempe, the Coyotes were optimistic about Mesa and about six other places.
This one came to a crashing halt in April when owner Alex Meruelo agreed to sell the team to Ryan Smith, who then moved it to Utah for the coming season. At the time, Meruelo at least retained the rights to the Coyotes name, logo and trademark, and was granted a five-year window to reactivate the franchise if a new arena could be built.
That didn’t even last two months, as Meruelo relinquished those rights in July.
Jonathan Huberdeau scores 100 points again
Eeeeep.
The Flames started the season with generally positive vibes and, with a new coach and approach, we thought Huberdeau might be able to find some of his offence again. After all, he’s not really a 55-point player, is he? He may not be the 115-point winger he was in his final season with the Panthers, but he had been better than a point-per-game player in each of the three years before that.
By the end of it all, however, the Flames were big-time sellers and Huberdeau somehow took another tumble, falling to 52 points in 81 games.