2024-2025 NHL season predictions: top teams, award frontrunners, and Stanley Cup favorites

The 2024-25 NHL season is now less than a month away which means it is time to predict how the upcoming season will go.

In this article, we will break down our predictions for the 2024-25 season, starting with the winners of each of the divisions. We will also predict who will win the next Stanley Cup, which teams will have the best chances of winning the 2025 NHL draft lottery, and much more.

Last season, the Pacific division was lead by the Vancouver Canucks, followed by a resurgent Edmonton Oilers and the Los Angeles Kings. The Canucks shocked everyone with their breakout season while the Oilers made a huge comeback after falling to 31st place in the league. Meanwhile, the defending Stanley Cup Champion Vegas Golden Knights fell into a wildcard spot and were out in the first round of the playoffs. So how will things go next season?

1st: Edmonton Oilers

The Oilers had one of the best winning percentages in the NHL after Kris Knoblauch took over as head coach last year. Had they started the season with him, it seems likely that they would have won the division, especially considering three of their early losses were against the Canucks. Furthermore, they were dominant in the playoffs and nearly managed a reverse sweep in the Stanley Cup finals. Getting that close but still failing will only drive Connor McDavid to pursue his dream even harder next year. The Oilers look like easy favorites to win the division as a result.

2nd: Vancouver Canucks

The Canucks had an unsustainably high PDO last season. In other words, they had both an unsustainably high team shooting percentage, and an unsustainably high team save percentage. Those two things combined will help you win a lot of hockey games. However, this team is loaded with star power including Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson, JT Miller, Thatcher Demko, and Brock Boeser. Most of these players are hitting their primes and will be playing at their best next season. They still have a lot of potential, and on paper, look like a lock to make the playoffs. However, Thatcher Demko remains sidelined with an injury sustained last season. Making matters worse, this is not an issue that can be solved by surgery. As such, Demko's health status could be a big wildcard factor for the Canucks next year, and could potentially break their season. That being said, the team is reportedly optimistic about his timeline and how much time he's going to miss next season.

3rd: Vegas Golden Knights

Last season, Vegas showed some serious flaws as a team. They didn't come particularly close to resembling the team that won the Stanley Cup the year prior until the playoffs, but their status as the second wild card team had them run into the Western-conference leading Dallas Stars. While Vegas appeared to be a step above their regular-season level, it was not enough to take out the 113-point Stars. Making matters worse is the fact that the team lost several key pieces this offseason including Chandler Stephenson and Logan Thompson. It is starting to feel like Vegas's time at the top of the league is over. The only question now is if they will still be a playoff-caliber team, or if they will fall into the basement of the standings. Clearly, we are betting on the former of those two options.

With the Pacific out of the way, let's move on to the Central.

1st Place: Dallas Stars

The Stars, Avalanche, and Jets were locked in a tight race for the Central division for much of last season. That being said, Dallas lead that race for the majority of the season, and the Avs fell out of it in the final two weeks. In the end, the Stars prevailed with a conference-leading 113 points. The roster is largely the same as last season and their is substantial support coming in the form of rookie Logan Stankoven, who turned heads during the Playoffs last Spring with 8 points in 19 games. AHL all-star and leading scorer Maverik Bourque should also crack the lineup full-time next season and will be another exciting young player to watch on this team. If Jake Oettinger has a bounce back season, the Stars are looking like a very dangerous team.

2nd Place: Winnipeg Jets

Like the Stars, the Jets had very little roster turnover this summer. They should continue to be a contender for the central division. As long as Connor Hellebuyck is in net, that will likely always be the case for this team. There is not much separating this team from the next tier of contenders, but at this point the Stars roster just looks a little bit better on paper. Of course, we will have to play the games to see if that is actually the case or not.

3rd place: Nashville Predators

The central division really has four teams that are looking very strong, including the Nashville Predators and Colorado Avalanche. The Avs certainly have the edge in firepower and recent history, but the Predators just had a huge offseason with the additions of Steven Stamkos, Johnathan Marchessault, and Brady Skjei. Meanwhile the Avalanche are only getting further away from their 2022 team and they have some concerns with the depth of their forward group. Whether or not Gabriel Landeskog is able to complete his comeback is one big wildcard for the Avs. Even if he does return, how effective is he going to be at age 32, coming off major surgery, and having missed two entire seasons? Additionally, what is going on with Valeri Nichushkin? He is suspended for a large part of the season already, but there have even been talks about his contract being terminated. How does he play into this season, if at all? Due to this uncertainty, we think the Preds have the edge this season.

Moving now to the Eastern Conference and we will start with the Atlantic Conference.

1st Place: Florida Panthers

Teams often fail to live up to expectations the year after winning the Stanley Cup. After all, it is hard to turn things around after the team experiences such a collective adrenalin rush of winning the Stanley Cup. Furthermore, the Panthers will have had the least amount of rest this offseason, which can make a difference for players coming off of surgeries. However, this team has already proven to be capable of back-to-back Cup finals, and they are clearly very well disciplined by head coach Paul Maurice. Additionally, the teams behind Florida largely did not make moves to get much better, so the Atlantic looks like the Panther's division to lose at this point.

2nd Place: Toronto Maple Leafs

Brad Treliving pulled off some good moves to address the weaknesses of last year's team this summer. The 2023-24 Leafs constantly battled injuries on their blueline and were testing the depth of their organization for much of the season. Now they have Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman Larsson to bolster the blueline. However, he has elected a somewhat risky option for his goaltending as Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz appear to be the tandem for game one. Combined, they have less than 200 games of NHL experience. Will they both hold up under larger workloads than they are used to? Regardless, where the Leafs finish in the regular season standings will not be the primary discussion happening in Toronto this season. Rather, it will be Mitch Marner's status heading into the final year of his contract. Many fans were expecting a trade this summer, but the organization decided to keep the core together for one more run. Will it finally work this time? Probably not. But more importantly, what is going to happen with Marner? Will the Leafs sign him to an extension? Or will they head into the postseason without a deal in place?

3rd place: Tampa Bay Lightning

Sorry Bruins fans, but the Lightning aren't done yet. Last season was certainly not their best performance. 98 points and a first-round exit in the playoffs is far from their recent levels. However, they did make some big acquisitions this summer in the form of Jake Guentzel and Ryan McDonagh. Furthermore, Andrei Vasilevskiy remains one of the top goaltenders in the league. If he puts up another typical season we expect from him, this team is not to be underestimated. They may be a bit past their prime as a group, but their window for contention is still very much open.

And now, onto the Metropolitan division. This is probably the toughest division to predict given how most of these teams performed last season. The Capitals made the playoffs with a -37 goal differential as did the Islanders at -17. Somehow the Penguins missed with a positive goal differential of +4. These things are unlikely to repeat themselves.

1st Place: New York Rangers

The Rangers look like a slam dunk to win this division. Quite simply, there aren't really any other teams on their level anymore. the Hurricanes were up their last season, but the losses of Brady Skjei, Jake Guentzel, and Jesper Fast will hurt. Furthermore, the team lacks a true number 1 superstar defenseman, while the Rangers have Adam Fox. Igor Shesterkin will likely be a Vezina candidate and Alexi Lafrenière looks poised to finally live up to his potential as a former 2nd overall pick. This team is certainly still one of the top Stanley Cup contenders in the league.

2nd Place: Carolina Hurricanes.

As mentioned previously, the Hurricanes lost some substantial pieces last summer. That being said, they still look to be at least one step above everyone else in the division, even if they are a tick behind the Rangers. At this point though, that says more about the division than it does about Carolina. Much of the team's core is still intact and Rob Brind'Amour remains the head coach, so they should still be a good to very good regular-season team.

3rd Place: New Jersey Devils

After the 2022-23 season, many around the league expected the Devils to become serious contenders for the Stanley Cup. Instead, they fell out of the playoffs altogether. Much of that was due to awful goaltending, regardless of who was in net. The team solved that problem by acquiring Jacob Markstrom from the Calgary Flames this summer. That being said, we will be convinced by the Devils once they can show us they are a complete team. The team moved on from Lindy Ruff at the end of last season, which elated many fans, but then they replaced with with Sheldon Keefe, which doesn't feel like much of an upgrade. He's proven he can get teams into the playoffs, but will they actually succeed once they get there? I'll believe it when i see it.

We won't go into the nitty gritty of the entire playoffs in this article, although we clearly have 12 of our sixteen playoff teams via the top three in each division. Of those teams, we think the Florida Panthers, New York Rangers, Edmonton Oilers, and Dallas Stars will be the among the best of the best, and as such, they will make up our final four. Yes this is the same exact final four as last season. That being said, we think that this time, things will playout quite differently with the Dallas Stars and New York Rangers meeting in the finals. This has the potential to be a very fun and very close series as well as a gritty goalie battle between Jake Oettinger and Igor Shesterkin. Ultimately though, we think this will finally be the year Peter DeBoer takes his team all the way to a Stanley Cup victory with his Dallas Stars.

When it comes to the draft lottery, many of the teams involved last season will likely be involved again this time around. While teams like the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks each made notable improvements this summer, both will likely be at least bottom-ten teams once again. Anaheim appears to be stalling in their rebuild however, and as such I think they will be the favorites to finish dead last this season. Just ahead of them I would put the Sharks, Blackhawks, and Bluejackets, in no particular order. A couple of teams that could surprise and end up in this category for me are the Pittsburgh Penguins, Seattle Kraken, and Calgary Flames.

We won't go over all the awards here, but I do want to cover a few of them. First of all, the Calder race this season should be very exciting with the likes of Logan Stankoven from Dallas, Macklin Celebrini in San Jose, and Matvei Michkov with the Flyers. I expect these three to be the finalists and give a slight edge to Michkov as the winner due to his dynamic goal-scoring ability and age advantage over Celebrini. Stankoven however has already proven to be quite the effective player at the NHL level, but maintained his rookie status by two games. As such, do not be surprised to him win as well.

For the Maurice Richard, I think that this year will be for Connor McDavid. The Oilers captain is known more for his all-around greatness than his raw goalscoring, but he did win the trophy with 64 goals in the 2022-23 season. After a bitter end to last season, I think he'll be extra motivated to put the puck in the net himself this year.

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