RALEIGH — The NHL season begins Tuesday when the Carolina Hurricanes raise their Stanley Cup banner before facing the Florida Panthers in a clash of the preseason favorites to win the championship. The opener arrives with two major storylines unresolved, with Winnipeg goaltender Connor Hellebuyck — who backstopped the U.S. to gold at the Olympics — suspended as he awaits a requested trade, and Detroit's Dylan Larkin in limbo after asking for a change of scenery, ahead of a record 1,344 regular-season games before the playoffs and the Final in June.
AP hockey writers John Wawrow and Stephen Whyno split on how the West will shift. Wawrow predicts general manager Mike Grier's practical and patient approach pays off when the San Jose Sharks win the Pacific Division, while Whyno has Macklin Celebrini and the Sharks making the playoffs after acquiring Hellebuyck rather than waiting on Yaroslav Askarov. In Edmonton, Wawrow calls it boom or bust after the Oilers brought in Mike Babcock as coach, questioning whether it will make the difference or the wheels will fall off. Whyno sees Sidney Crosby and Pittsburgh sinking back to the bottom half of the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference after surprisingly making the playoffs in coach Dan Muse's first season.
For individual honors, Whyno picks Celebrini to win the scoring title for the first time ahead of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Nikita Kucherov and Nathan MacKinnon. In net, Wawrow goes with Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy as the league's best goalie, while Whyno tabs Boston's Jeremy Swayman for the best season of his career, challenging Hellebuyck and Dallas' Jake Oettinger for the mantle as the best U.S.-born goalie. On defense, Wawrow bypasses Colorado's Cale Makar to pick either Minnesota's Quinn Hughes or Montreal's Lane Hutson, while Whyno takes Makar — who signed the richest deal in NHL history that does not kick in until 2027-28 — to win his third Norris honor. For rookie of the year, Wawrow selects Gavin McKenna of the Maple Leafs, the Yukon youngster who showed he is ready to play against men after his season at Penn State, while Whyno picks Washington defenseman Cole Hutson to follow brother Lane, over McKenna and Philadelphia's Porter Martone. For coach of the year, Wawrow chooses Buffalo's Lindy Ruff to make up for last year's loss with San Jose's Ryan Warsofsky as a threat, while Whyno picks Montreal's Martin St. Louis after another playoff appearance.
The projected playoff fields also diverge. In the East, Wawrow has Carolina, Philadelphia, Washington, Montreal, Florida, Tampa Bay, Buffalo and Columbus, while Whyno lists Carolina, Florida, Tampa Bay, Montreal, Buffalo, Washington, Boston and Philadelphia. In the West, Wawrow picks Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, Dallas, San Jose, Vegas, Anaheim and Edmonton, while Whyno has Colorado, Edmonton, Vegas, Dallas, San Jose, Utah, Anaheim and Minnesota.
For the Stanley Cup, the writers land on opposite endings. Wawrow predicts Montreal beats Minnesota in six, ending Canada's Stanley Cup drought, while Whyno forecasts Edmonton-Florida III ending the same way as the first two, with the Panthers winning it all for the third time in four years. The trade uncertainty around the league's top goaltender and Detroit's captain continues to shape the preseason picture following Hellebuyck and Larkin Want Out as Player Empowerment Grows.