The 20 NHL players under the most pressure for the 2025-26 season

He’s not even 30, and all he’s missing is the ring. McDavid is the best player of his generation, the best player since Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin, and possibly the best since Mario Lemieux. He could retire today and be in the Hall of Fame. Until he wins a championship, though, McDavid runs the risk of going down as the best player never to win the Stanley Cup. Sure, he has time, but the clock is ticking, and two finals appearances ending in losses have ratcheted up the tension.

It makes sense to have multiple Oilers on this list because the window is clearly open. With all due respect to Leon Draisaitl, another future Hall of Famer, having McDavid around takes some of the pressure off his shoulders. The goaltending situation for the Oilers the last couple of years, though, has driven Oilers fans mad. If Skinner were a league-average goaltender, the Oilers would likely have at least one ring. So-so goalies have put together one above-average campaign, though, and certainly have had magical playoff runs. Should the Oilers fall short again, odds are the goaltending, and Skinner in particular, will be blamed.

It’s not just that Marner was the biggest free agent this past offseason, or that he signed an eight-year, $96 million deal. No, it’s the fact he left Toronto, a hockey hotbed awaiting its first Cup since 1967, for Vegas, which is just a hotbed. Also, the Golden Knights have a Cup even though the franchise hasn’t even been around for a decade. Marner has “living up to the contract” pressure, but also will still be getting plenty of scrutiny from Leafs fans, though now from afar.

With Marner gone, reasonable or not, Knies will be looked to in order to fill the void. William Nylander is already a top-level wing, but somebody needs to deliver what Marner delivered. Knies tallied 29 goals and 29 assists himself last season, but that was in his age-21 season, his second in the league. Now, all of 22, Knies has to effectively replace the production of a guy who had 102 points last year for the biggest hockey market in the world.

Hellebuyck is now squarely in the “Yeah, but the playoffs…” territory. It no longer matters what he does in the regular season in terms of his legacy. The greatest American goalie of all-time, Hellebuyck has three Vezinas and just won the Hart for regular-season MVP. Emphasis on “regular season,” of course. In each of the last three postseasons, he’s finished with a GAA over 3.00 and a save percentage under .890. Frankly, it’s gotten downright bizarre, and so the pressure mounts. Or, rather, it will come April.

Alex Ovechkin is golden. He’s the all-time leading goal scorer, he’s going to get to 900 goals, and he has a ring. However, the Capitals are fully in the “last dance, win one more for Ovi” stage of things. Serving as Washington’s number-one center, Strome will be tasked with setting Ovechkin up, but also being a true top-line center. The kind that can help the Capitals make a deep run into the postseason.

For now, Necas is “not Mikko Rantanen.” When things broke down between Rantanen and the Avalanche, he was dealt to Carolina, with the biggest name heading the other way being Necas. Then, the Hurricanes went and traded Rantanen to the Stars, so now the Avalanche have to fight the Finn and his team for playoff positioning. Necas is a good player, and he’s had three 20-goal seasons in a row. Rantanen has had five 30-goal seasons in a row. Maybe Necas can’t do that, but even one 30-goal season would help quiet the worries about Necas as a “Rantanen replacement.”

Stamkos, a future Hall of Famer and a member of the 500-goal club, left the only club he had ever known, the Lightning, for the Predators last season. He was one of Nashville’s splashy free-agent signings. In his age-34 season, Stamkos had 27 goals and 26 assists. This year, Stamkos needs to show the Predators they didn’t invest heavily in the down slope of his career.

The Bruins went from Cup contender to rebuild in the blink of an eye. Brad Marchand is now a Panther! David Pastrnak is still around, but he’s minted. The dude gets goals and is pretty much golden. McAvoy, though, still has something to prove. Is he truly a number-one defenseman? Can he hold down the blue line for the Bruins? Will he be the new captain? Once a promising young defenseman, McAvoy is now square in his prime entering his age-27 season. The Bruins’ hopes going forward are heavily reliant on McAvoy’s play.

The Red Wings made the playoffs for 25 straight seasons between 1990-91 and 2015-16. Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, and Henrik Zetterberg all captained the Red Wings to playoff appearances, the first two hoisting Cups. Detroit has now missed the playoffs nine seasons in a row, including every season Larkin has been captain. This kind of drought doesn’t fly in Hockeytown. It pretty much needs to end now. If it doesn’t, Yzerman, now the general manager, will take some blame, but Larkin will also receive a lot of it.

It’s not just that the Sabres are desperately trying to end a 14-season playoff drought, the longest across the four major U.S. sports leagues. Power needs to start showing he’s going to justify being the first-overall pick. Rasmus Dahlin, his fellow Buffalo blue liner, has done that. Power has not. Now, he’s still only 22, and he has been good enough that he’s not on pace to be a bust. There’s just a lot of space between “bust” and “justifiable first-overall pick” that Power doesn’t want to fall into. He wants to be Aaron Ekblad, not Erik Johnson.

The Canadiens surprisingly made the playoffs last season. Montreal’s young core is considered as good as any in the NHL, and it added Noah Dobson from the Islanders this offseason. What is missing for the Canadiens to be a Cup contender? Reliable, above-average goaltending. Even if Montembeault could provide league-average goaltending, it would be nice for the Habs. He has a career .899 save percentage, and his personal best in a season is .903. Even getting to .910 would make a world of difference.

It is not necessarily fair to admonish a player for not staying healthy, but when you are in Hughes’ position, it is undeniable that you have pressure on you to stay healthy. Being able to play 75 games for the Devils could make or break the team’s playoff hopes. A first-overall pick, and a worthy one, Hughes is a dynamic force on the ice…when healthy. He’s also a little undersized, and he’s only played in 62 games in each of the last two seasons. The one time Hughes played over 62 games? He had 43 goals and 99 points.

Pettersson won the battles in Vancouver. J.T. Miller is gone. Rick Tocchet is gone. The Swede is the centerpiece of the Canucks’ forward group, but he’s also coming off his worst season. He had 15 goals in 64 games and was a minus-10. Was it all bad vibes, and is Pettersson going to soar this year? He kind of has to, because otherwise the fingers will all be pointed at him this time.

Fox, a Norris winner, is about as polarizing as defensemen get in the NHL. He’s an elite offensive defenseman with three 70-point seasons before turning 26! He’s a power-play merchant who gives almost all the offense back on the defensive end of the ice because he’s too undersized to make a difference! Any defenseman who is able to help drive offense enough to give you 70 points in a season would have to actively try and score in his own goal not to deliver real positive value, but Fox is under the microscope. Being a Norris finalist who helps the Rangers make the playoffs would go a long way.

No, the Blackhawks aren’t thinking of the playoffs yet, and Bedard has only played two seasons. They have been good seasons, as well. The only issue is the expectations, whether or not they were fair. He came into the NHL Draft venerated as a franchise cornerstone in the making. In his sophomore season, he had 23 goals and 44 assists and was minus-36. Tim Stutzle was a third-overall pick, but a Stutzle-esque leap in his third season (39 goals, 51 assists) would have Bedard back on track as a guy you can build a team around. If he’s only slightly better, people might start thinking of him more as a John Tavares, a great player and likely Hall of Famer, who was expected to be a definite Hall of Famer by this point.

Unlike the Blackhawks, the Kraken are thinking playoffs, and the onus is on Beniers to get them there. He was a second-overall pick, he was a Calder winner, and he’s entering his fourth season (we won’t count his 10-game cup of coffee in his draft year). You draft players like Beniers at that position to be the number-one center for a playoff team. It doesn’t matter if your franchise has only been around a handful of seasons, Seattle has postseason hopes, and Beniers needs to deliver.

The Ducks gave up on Zegras. To be fair, he was largely overhyped because he could do cool stuff. So could Jason Williams in the NBA, you know? That being said, he had back-to-back 60-point seasons, and then the last two years have been a true disaster. Thus, Anaheim dealt away a 24-year-old who was a top-10 pick. Zegras has the pressure to prove the Ducks wrong and to make the most of what is likely his last chance with the Flyers. Also, the Cutter Gauthier thing means everything is just a bit more fraught when it comes to the Flyers and Ducks.

For years, the Hurricanes have been one of the best teams in the regular season. They win with elite defense, and Slavin is the focal point of that. He’s such a venerated defender that he gets hyped on social media for his stick usage in the neutral zone and deflecting passes in the defensive zone! Carolina has yet to return to the Cup since winning it all in 2006, though. Slavin carries the Hurricanes’ defense on his back, and this team wins with defense. He has as many eyes on him as any player not expected to get to 40 points.

What, did you think we wouldn’t have another Maple Leaf? The team hasn’t won a Cup since 1967! Matthews is their best player, and one of the best players of his generation! He’s an all-time goal scorer, and he’s the team captain. Being the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs is a lot of pressure in the best of times. Now, just go and add almost 60 years of a title drought on top of that.