The 20 biggest storylines from the 2017-18 NHL season

Thanks to a new set of expansion draft rules that gave them better players to pick from than previous expansion teams, some questionable decisions by the NHL’s other general managers and a little bit of luck, the Vegas Golden Knights were able to assemble a roster that became the most successful expansion team in any of the four major North American sports. Pretty much every move that Vegas made this season turned out to be a success as the franchise pieced together a fast, entertaining team that has at times overwhelmed its opponents. The Knights have set a high bar for the NHL’s next expansion team — likely Seattle — and maybe given the rest of the league some lessons on whom they should, and should not, protect and make available in an expansion draft.

One of the most controversial elements of the NHL season has been the enforcement of goaltender interference, especially when it comes to the coach’s challenge. Inconsistency in the rulings, nobody understanding what the standard is and potentially big goals being wiped out thanks to the rulings resulted in a ton of criticism for the league. It finally reached a point that the NHL made a change late in the season where all goalie interference reviews would be handled by the league office in Toronto instead of the on-ice officials. It has not really ended the controversy and is sure to be an issue at some point in the playoffs. 

After winning back-to-back Stanley Cups, the Pittsburgh Penguins had an up-an-down season at times. They are not a great team defensively but managed to add to their offensive depth in season by trading for Derick Brassard and Riley Sheahan. They may have to win every game in the playoffs 5-4 if they are going to become the first team in three decades to three-peat, but if any team in the league is capable of it, this one might be the one. 

Entering the season, the Bruins had made the playoffs just once in the past three years and had not been out of the first round since the 2013-14 season. Just when it appeared as if the organization had stalled out, Boston rebuilt itself on the fly and is once again one of the league’s best teams. Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak make up one of the NHL’s best lines, while an influx of young talent all over the roster has given the Bruins a core to build around for the long term. They are back, and they are not going away anytime soon. 

He got a strong push from Patrik Laine and William Karlsson, but Alex Ovechkin is still the NHL’s top goal scorer. He reached the 600-goal mark for his career this season and will win his seventh goal title in 13 years. After the Capitals lost several key players over the summer, Ovechkin was the driving force behind the team's third consecutive Metropolitan Division title. 

After reaching the Stanley Cup Final a year ago, it should be no surprise that the Predators are a good team. But what they were able to do after that has turned them into one of the league’s top powerhouse teams. They made significant additions to an already strong roster with the acquisitions of Nick Bonino, Kyle Turris, Ryan Hartman, Scott Hartnell and Eeli Tolvanen and are still in great shape under the NHL’s salary cap. Almost all of their core is signed to long-term deals, and many of them are signed to cap-friendly contracts. You better get used to the Preds being near the top of the NHL for years to come.

Even though they were still in playoff contention in the weeks leading up to the NHL trade deadline, the New York Rangers announced to their fans that changes were going to be coming. Changes did, in fact, come. They began a massive rebuild that saw the team trade J.T. Miller, Ryan McDonagh and Michael Grabner for future assets. That came after the big offseason trade that saw New York send Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta to Arizona. And the push towards the rebuild reached its inevitable conclusion with Alain Vigneault's firing on April 7, the day before the regular season ended. It seems inevitable that more — and perhaps bigger — changes could be coming over the summer. Will Mats Zuccarello be the next to go? And what will happen with longtime goalie and franchise icon Henrik Lundqvist? Those are all questions that will be answered in the coming months. 

After moving from Atlanta following the 2011-12 season, the Winnipeg Jets took a slow, methodical approach to their rebuild: almost no trades, almost no free agent signings. There are still several players from the Atlanta days on the roster. They rebuilt through the draft and have slowly — but effectively — built one of the NHL’s most exciting teams with an offense that can match up with almost any other team in the league. Patrik Laine is off to one of the best goal-scoring starts in league history, while Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor and Nikolaj Ehlers have tormented opposing goalies all year. 

Steven Stamkos has missed so much of his prime years due to injury (and a lockout) that it is sometimes easy to forget just how dominant he is. After being limited to just 17 games a year ago, Stamkos was back for the Lightning this season and put together a great year (86 points in 78 games) to help the Lightning rebound from a down year a season ago. Led by him, Nikita Kucherov and a talented young core around them, Tampa Bay is back as a Stanley Cup contender. Injuries derailed the Lightning's season a year ago, but let’s not forget that over the past three years this is a team that was in the Stanley Cup Final and a Game 7 loss on the road from returning again. 

After being just one game away from reaching the Western Conference Final a year ago and still boasting the league’s most dominant offensive player in Connor McDavid, the Edmonton Oilers entered the 2017-18 season with the second best odds to win the Stanley Cup. That was probably the highpoint of their season. McDavid has still been amazing, but the rest of the team around him has completely fallen apart. Another questionable trade from general manager Peter Chiarelli and a lack of depth resulted in the Oilers officially squandering McDavid’s entry-level contract years, and now they have a salary cap nightmare on their hands in future seasons. 

With scoring across the league near an all-time low in recent years, the 90-point barrier had become almost impossible for even the best players in the league to reach. Between the 2013-14 and 2016-17 seasons, only three players in the NHL — and never more than one per year — had reached it. This season there were nine entering the final weekend of the regular season, including Connor McDavid, who topped the 100-point mark for the second year in a row. Since the start of the 2013-14 season, only three players have hit that mark. McDavid has done it twice. 

After nine consecutive trips to the playoffs, a run that saw them win three Stanley Cups and reach the Western Conference Final two other teams, the Chicago Blackhawks’ run of postseason appearances came to an end this season. Salary cap issues, core players starting to decline, a major injury to Corey Crawford and some offseason moves that did not pan out (trading Artemi Panarin for Brandon Saad, the Patrick Sharp reunion) all contributed to the worst Blackhawks season in more than a decade. A healthy Crawford next season could help them get back to the playoffs, but given the roster and the long-term salary cap outlook, their days as Stanley Cup contenders could be finished. 

For the first time since 1967, the NHL went through an entire regular season without a single coaching change. Not one (though the Rangers fired Alain Vigneault after their final game on April 7). For comparison, there were five a year ago. Just because everyone in the league made it through the season unscathed does not mean there will be a lack of change over the summer, as Doug Weight, Bill Peters, Glen Gulutzan, Todd McLellan and perhaps even Barry Trotz if the Washington Capitals do not go on a deep playoff run will find themselves on the hot seat. 

It has been one of the tightest Hart Trophy races in recent memory with probably close to 10 players all having legitimate arguments for winning the award. The league’s best player, Connor McDavid, plays on a team that missed the playoffs by a mile. Taylor Hall singlehandedly dragged his New Jersey Devils to the playoffs. Nathan MacKinnon, Claude Giroux, Alex Ovechkin, Anze Kopitar, Evgeni Malkin and Nikita Kucherov all have strong arguments themselves. The big question in the debate has been how we define value and how much team success should factor into the voting process. A player on a non-playoff team has not won the Hart Trophy since Mario Lemieux back in 1987. Will McDavid be the next one? Or does Hall's magic act in New Jersey give him the edge?

After leading the Ottawa Senators in a stunning run to the Eastern Conference Final a year ago, Erik Karlsson entered the 2017-18 season regarded as one of the three best players in the entire league. Even though he was not always at 100 percent, he still finished as one of the top-scoring defensemen in the league (including the top-scoring defender in terms of points per game) and was a dominant player. The problem for Ottawa: The Senators fell apart, Karlsson has one year remaining on his contract and wants to be paid as one of the top players in the league, and the Senators may not be able to do that. That led to a season full of trade rumors, and while he did not get moved prior to the deadline, it seems almost inevitable that he will be on the move at the NHL Draft. 

The 2017-18 season turned out to be a nightmare for the New York Islanders thanks to one of the league’s worst defenses. The offseason may not be much fun either as John Tavares will be eligible to hit the unrestricted free agent market if he remains unsigned by July 1. If he gets there, he will be one of the biggest free agents to hit the open market in decades and would leave a massive hole in the middle of the Islanders’ lineup. Will the Islanders be able to come through and convince him to stay? Or will they have to rebuild their roster around Mathew Barzal as the cornerstone building block?

As long as Henrik and Daniel Sedin were on the roster, the Vancouver Canucks never seemed to be willing to commit to the all-out rebuild they needed. They may have no choice now. The Sedins announced their retirement at the conclusions of the 2017-18 season and gave their fans one more incredible moment in their final home game when Daniel scored a pair of goals — both assisted by Henrik — including the game-winning goal in overtime. The Sedins will go down as the best players to ever play for the franchise and among the most productive sets of siblings to play in the NHL. They are first-ballot Hall of Famers. 

Five years ago the Buffalo Sabres completely tore their organization to the ground in a scorched-earth style rebuild that was centered around landing top players in the draft. After picking No. 2 overall in back-to-back years, landing Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel, the Sabres made some huge investments by acquiring the likes of Evander Kane, Ryan O’Reilly and Robin Lehner in an effort to rebuild. Five years later the organization is in the same position that it was when the rebuild started — the absolute worst team in hockey. For the third time in five years, Buffalo finished with the NHL’s worst record, and even with Eichel, the Sabres don’t seem to be any closer to contending than they were when the rebuild began. That is a problem. Maybe this year the draft lottery will go their way and help them get the No. 1 defenseman — Rasmus Dahlin — that they need.

In what has become a yearly tradition, the Dallas Stars were the winners of the offseason after acquiring Ben Bishop, Alexander Radulov, Martin Hanzal and Marc Methot, adding them to a roster that already had a trio of All-Stars in Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn and John Klingberg. Once again they failed to turn all of those blockbuster moves into success on the ice during the season, missing the playoffs for the second year in a row and the eighth time in 10 years. You have to wonder how much longer general manager Jim Nill will continue to have an opportunity to build this roster. 

While there were no coaching changes in the NHL this season, there were some changes at the top of one team. The Carolina Hurricanes had an ownership change with Thomas Dundon buying the team and immediately working to put his stamp on the organization. His first major move: removing franchise icon Ron Francis from the general manager role and transitioning him into a president of hockey operations role that seems to have stripped him of all of his power. How Dundon’s hands-on approach will work remains to be seen, but after another disappointing season, the Hurricanes probably have nothing to lose at this point.