Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid doesn’t have a contract beyond this season, the Florida Panthers start their Stanley Cup three-peat bid without Matthew Tkachuk, and nearly a third of NHL teams have a new head coach.
Training camps open around the league this week with questions from Edmonton to South Florida, many of which will not be resolved by the time another banner is raised and the puck is dropped on opening night Oct. 7. It’s the NHL’s final schedule at 82 games before expanding to 84, shortening camps and reducing exhibition play ahead of the regular season.
Also gone next year? Mandatory fitness testing.
“Next year,” Carolina Hurricanes center Seth Jarvis said. “I’ve still got one more year.”
Long overdue, Seattle Kraken captain Jordan Eberle quipped: “I wish that we did (away with) the fitness testing about 10 years ago.”
That’s all part of the next collective bargaining agreement, which maintains hockey’s fruitful era of labor peace until at least 2030. Without that looming over the NHL, all 32 teams will hit the ice for practice Thursday with dreams — however realistic — of playing all the way until June.
Not all players will hit the ice just yet, though, including some who are important to their teams.
Tkachuk’s injury from the immensely popular 4 Nations Face-Off in February cost him the final couple of months of last season. He returned to help Florida win the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row, then had surgery to repair a sports hernia and torn adductor muscle.
“We anticipate him being out until December-ish, but don’t hold me to that,” Panthers general manager Bill Zito said of the 27-year-old wing. “That’s my internet medical degree.”
That is plenty of time for Tkachuk to be ready to play for the United States at the Milan Olympics in February.
Meanwhile, the Oilers have lost consecutive title series to Florida, keeping McDavid from hoisting the Stanley Cup for what would be the first time. Hockey’s best player has said he wants to remain with the Oilers as long as he believed they could be a perennial contender and give him a chance to win it all.
They cannot prove that to McDavid until next spring, and it’s more than likely he puts pen to paper on a new deal before that time. Until that happens, there is reason to wonder what his future might hold.
McDavid isn’t the only star without a contract. Minnesota Wild wing Kirill Kaprizov and Vegas Golden Knights center Jack Eichel are among those who could be unrestricted free agents July 1 if their situations don’t change.
Five or so months removed from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s career goals record, Washington Capitals wing Alex Ovechkin reported to camp Wednesday on his 40th birthday. He has 897 goals going into his final season under contract and what could be his last in the NHL.
Going into season 21, teammates see the same gap-toothed big kid playing the game he cherishes.
“If I didn’t know anything about hockey, I would have said ‘This guy, he just got here,'” Capitals center Pierre-Luc Dubois said of the Russian star. “He shows up every day with a smile on his face, hungry, loves to talk hockey, do video — all those things.”
In Toronto, Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube opened training camp Wednesday by telling reporters he was excited not to hear about the “Core Four” anymore. Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares combined to win two playoff series in nine years together.
Marner, who ranked fifth in the league in scoring last season with 102 points, left Canada’s biggest market in a sign-and-trade deal to go to the Golden Knights.
“It’ll be a little weird, I think, just not seeing him in the locker room,” said forward Matthew Knies, who is taking Marner’s place as a core piece of the franchise. “Obviously, he was pretty loud-voiced and he ran the music, and he did a lot for us.”
There were nine coaching changes during the offseason, including three-time Stanley Cup winner Joel Quenneville returning from his NHL-imposed exile to join the Anaheim Ducks. On the East Coast, Mike Sullivan replaces Peter Laviolette behind the bench for the New York Rangers.
Camp Sullivan is the start of the franchise’s hope to get back into the playoffs.
“You only have like two weeks of training camp before your first game,” Rangers forward Will Cuylle said. “Just making you’re really dialed in and making sure we understand all the systems and stuff, so by game one we’re not dipping our foot in. We’re more ready to go.”
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