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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
The Frozen Frenzy on Tuesday features all 32 NHL teams playing 16 games on one night, with gloriously staggered start times. As ESPN’s Kevin Weekes is fond of saying, it’s a buffet of hockey.
But like any buffet, it’s good to have a plan before filling your plate. Best not to overdo the steamed broccoli if there’s a carving station down the table, you know? (No disrespect to steamed broccoli intended.)
To help guide your attention during the 16-game Frenzy — and for the rest of the 2023-24 season — here’s one reason to watch each team, from players that thrill us to stories that enthrall us to vibes that are immaculate.
Find your entrée of choice and enjoy the Frenzy!
ATLANTIC DIVISION
Boston Bruins: The ‘you still got it’ factor
There’s a tradition in professional wrestling when a competitor who has seemingly seen their championship contention window close puts on a great match: The fans chant “you still got it!” in appreciation of their unwavering push to succeed. Listen closely enough, and they’re chanting it in Boston now for the Bruins.
They lost in the first round of playoffs after the best regular season in NHL history. They lost centers Patrice Bergeron (their star captain) and center David Krejci to retirement and a slew of other talents to a salary cap crunch. It seemed like they missed their best shot at a championship.
But the Bruins have started the season 5-0-0 looking very much like themselves, including the league’s top defense (1.40 goals-against per game) thanks to the goaltending battery of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman. They might not start the season 21-3-1 like they did in 2022-23, but as of right now, they still got it.
This is Dahlin’s sixth NHL season, which somehow seems like too long and too short for the time we’ve known him in the league. He was drafted first overall in 2018 by the Sabres, but only really started blossoming as a franchise-level defenseman in 2021-22.
He’s coming off a season with 73 points in 78 games, skating a career-best 25:48 per game and earning his first significant attention for the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman. That attention will only increase as his numbers do and the Sabres’ fortunes improve. The former is going to have a huge influence on the latter.
Red Wings center Dylan Larkin was recently asked about his instant chemistry with linemate Alex DeBrincat, who was acquired from Ottawa in the offseason. “We played summer league for a couple of years together. We scored a lot in that league. We knew it would transfer to the NHL, because why not, right?” he said, to laughter.
Their top line with winger Lucas Raymond has led to a stunning start for the Wings. When Larkin and DeBrincat are together, Detroit has outscored opponents 8-2 at 5-on-5. The duo scores an average of 6.9 goals per 60 minutes. They’ve also helped the Red Wings’ power play to the top of the league through six games, contributing to seven goals.
Larkin has never had this kind of goal-scorer on his wing, and it has been a while since DeBrincat had a player in his prime to mesh with like Larkin. Their partnership has been a high-octane boost to a team that needed it offensively.
The 25-year-old winger dragged the Panthers as far as he could take them before his body literally broke down last postseason: specifically his sternum, which was fractured in Game 3 of their Stanley Cup Final loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. He has had back-to-back 40-goal/100-point seasons, quickly becoming the face of the Florida franchise during a run that earned him a Hart Trophy nomination as league MVP.
He’s also never boring, relishing every chance to rile up a crowd or an opponent.
“I’ve got a big personality, so I’m probably talking more than the average player in hockey,” Tkachuk told ESPN’s Kristen Shilton. He’s one of the few NHL players to talk a big game and then have the big games to back it up.
Defenseman Arber Xhekaj was given one of pro sports’ most specific nicknames by his Canadiens teammates last season: “Wi-Fi,” because his last name resembles the default password one might find on the back of a router. But truth be told, he prefers another nickname entirely: “The Sheriff,” which he earned during his junior hockey days with the Kitchener Rangers in the Ontario Hockey League, where he was their leader in penalty minutes.
Xhekaj, 22, is a rarity in the modern NHL: a fighter. He had nine bouts last season and already engaged in a memorable tilt with heavyweight Ryan Reaves of the Toronto Maple Leafs this season. The Habs are a rebuilding team with some young offensive players. If an opponent decides to take liberties with them, they best watch out for The Sheriff — and not just because he now has a smashburger named in his honor in Canada.
Sometimes in the NHL, one line can carry a team to great heights. Few teams are more poised to have that happen than the Senators, who boast one of the league’s most impactful trios: Star winger Brady Tkachuk, burgeoning star Tim Stützle and Claude Giroux, who has amassed more than 1,000 points in his 17-year NHL career.
Last season, they generated more than 3.5 goals per 60 minutes together. So far this season, that number is over 4.9 goals. They fit together well: Tkachuk and Stützle generating a large amount of shots while Giroux glues the line together with veteran savvy and solid faceoff work. If the Senators make the leap this season, it’ll be in no small part due to this line doing what it does.
The players to whom the Lightning have said goodbye since their last Stanley Cup win in 2021 would make for a pretty good NHL starting lineup. Well, save for a goaltender, but now the Lightning have had to temporarily say goodbye to him, too: Andrei Vasilevskiy is expected to miss at least the first two months of the season after undergoing a microdiscectomy in September. With a diminished and depleted supporting cast, the Lightning turn to the stars.
The core of the Lightning led them to back-to-back Cups and is leading them through choppy waters in Tampa Bay this season. Nikita Kucherov, a previous league MVP, had nine points in his first six games. Centers Brayden Point and Steven Stamkos are both over a point-per-game pace so far. So is defenseman Victor Hedman, holding down the fort on the blue line.
All familiar names. All doing what they’ve done for years, at a vital time for the Bolts.
Matthews might be the best pure goal-scorer in the NHL. Since the 2021-22 season, no one has a higher goals-per-60-minutes average (at 5-on-5) than the Maple Leafs star’s, at 1.65. He has 106 goals in his past 152 games, including back-to-back hat tricks to start this season. Matthews peppers opposing goaltenders with shots every game, priming him for offensive fireworks on any given night.
METROPOLITAN DIVISION
The Hurricanes have the deepest defense corps in the Eastern Conference, a group that insulates their goaltending while generating offense in coach Rod Brind’Amour’s system. It starts with Brent Burns, the most famous name in the group. The 38-year-old, whose hirsute look makes him resemble a beard of bees disguised as a hockey player, remains one of the NHL’s top offensive defensemen in point and shot generation. His pairing with Jaccob Slavin is almost unfair, given Slavin’s dominant defensive ability and underrated offensive talents.
The second pairing of Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce is as steady as they come. The third pairing is a true wild card: Dmitry Orlov, the top defenseman in free agency who combines offensive pop with physicality, and the divisive Tony DeAngelo, back for his second tour of duty with the team after the Flyers parted ways with the offensively gifted but defensively limited blueliner. Jalen Chatfield, 27, is a more than capable fill-in for any of them.
Brind’Amour’s coaching is the most cited reason for why many believe Carolina is on the cusp of a Cup; this defense brings his vision to life.
The Blue Jackets have amassed several high draft picks in recent years, and all of them are featured on the current roster.
Center Kent Johnson, 21, was the fifth overall pick out of Michigan in 2021. Defenseman David Jiříček, 20, was the sixth overall pick in 2022 out of the Czech Republic. Center Adam Fantilli was the presumptive second overall pick behind Connor Bedard all of last season but dropped to third when the Ducks selected Leo Carlsson at No. 2. The Blue Jackets happily snagged him at No. 3, selecting another Michigan player, who won the Hobey Baker Award as NCAA men’s player of the year.
This is the present and future of the Blue Jackets. They’re a team that needs outstanding efforts from its young players to contend for a playoff spot this year, but they’re also a team with a strong foundation for years to come. Squint hard enough, and Fantilli and Jiříček do look a little like Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman Version 2.0.
The maturation of Jack Hughes as an NHL star has been a sight to behold. A couple of injury-impacted learning curve seasons. Then a leap to over a point-per-game status that also saw him pull a literal magic trick at the All-Star Game in Las Vegas in 2022. Then a 43-goal, 99-point performance last season that elevated him to franchise star status, making it “Jack Hughes and the New Jersey Devils” in those commercials for games.
He wore a hat and a cape in Las Vegas, but he doesn’t need them to be a magician on the ice most nights. Hughes is one of those players in constant motion on all three zones, using defense to create offense or creating offense when other defenders should have him otherwise shut down. The 22-year-old is captivating on the ice and charismatic off the ice, and he seems destined to become the first Devils player in franchise history to hit 100 points — perhaps even this season.
Ilya Sorokin isn’t the only elite goalie in the NHL. Heck, he’s not even the only elite goalie in New York, given the existence of his friend Igor Shesterkin with the New York Rangers. But few goalies define their franchises like Sorokin can define the Islanders.
They’re not the highest-scoring team — ranking 26th in goals per game over the past three seasons — despite the addition of center Bo Horvat from Vancouver last season. They rely on their goaltenders to keep things close and to close out games. Sorokin played 62 games last season and finished second for the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best netminder. But he also finished ninth in the MVP race.
Islanders fans fill the arena with chants of “Il-ya So-ro-kin!” when he’s on his game. Hence, one hears the chant a lot.
Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider have been linemates on the Rangers’ top trio for quite a long time. Over the past three seasons, the Rangers have a plus-25 goal differential when the duo is on the ice together. To watch them operate is to watch a contrast in styles that eventually lead to the same conclusion: a Rangers goal.
Zibanejad is a smooth-skating center, his hair catching the breeze as he enters the offensive zone. Once there, he can shoot from anywhere. Kreider, in contrast, is a master of the net front. He led the Rangers in high-danger shot attempts per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 last season. Rare is the NHL player who can match Kreider’s proficiency on tip plays in front of the opposing goalie, especially on the power play.
Look, we understand: Evoking Rocky Balboa to describe anything related to Philadelphia sports is as clichéd as evoking cheesesteaks or throwing snowballs at Santa Claus.
That established: Rocky was an underdog counted out by everyone who competed and won against more talented opponents through hard work and sheer will. Coach John Tortorella’s Flyers aren’t speed-punching frozen sides of beef to prepare for games — although that does sounds very Torts-adjacent — but they are playing extremely hard for a team many expect will end up tabulating its draft lottery odds at season’s end.
Forward Travis Konecny opened with five goals in five games. Center Sean Couturier returned after missing all of last season to injury. Defenseman Travis Sanheim is making Flyers fans thankful the team didn’t trade him; ditto that for goalie Carter Hart, who has been brilliant early. You might not always see a win when you watch the Flyers, but you’ll always see a team fighting until the final bell.
There are other intriguing players on the Penguins, from Evgeni Malkin‘s offensive marauding early this season to the integration of Norris Trophy winner and offseason trade coup Erik Karlsson onto Pittsburgh’s roster. But Malkin was re-signed and Karlsson was acquired in service of one player’s pursuit of a fourth Stanley Cup championship: Sidney Crosby.
The now-36-year-old Sid The Kid remains one of the NHL’s best two-way centers. His ice vision and passing ability are second to none. His backhand shot redefined how effective one could be for an NHL player. Sure, he’s a little older and less dominant than during his peak as a player. But that ticking clock on his career only adds urgency to the Penguins’ season — and makes every game he plays in the remaining years of his legendary career all the more vital to watch.
The most compelling record pursuit in professional sports today resides in the NHL. Alex Ovechkin (822 career goals) trails Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky (894) by 72 goals to match a seemingly unmatchable NHL career record. Every goal the 38-year-old legend scores is one digit closer to affirming his GOAT status.
But he’s a year older. The Capitals aren’t expected to contend in the East. And something happened to Ovechkin recently that has never happened to him before: He was held without a shot on goal in two straight games. Watch to see if Ovi can get on track; stay for the pursuit of hockey immortality.
CENTRAL DIVISION
The Coyotes have one of the most unique home-ice advantages in pro sports, although not one they necessarily desired.
Two years ago, Arizona didn’t have its lease renewed by the City of Glendale, forcing them to find a temporary home. They found one in Tempe on the campus of Arizona State: Mullett Arena, a new facility being built for the school’s hockey programs. Named in honor of one of ASU’s key donors — and coincidentally an absolutely perfect name for a hockey barn — the Coyotes committed to play there for up to four seasons as they search for a more permanent home in the state.
In the process, they discovered Mullett Magic. Enchanted things happen for them in their 5,000-seat hockey haven. The Coyotes had a .573 points percentage in the standings at home last season. On the road, they were 32nd in the NHL with a .280 points percentage. They were top 20 In scoring at home. They were 31st overall on the road. Mullett Magic is real, and it’s spectacular.
One of the oft-asked questions in the NHL these days is whether the mountainous hype about rookie center Connor Bedard is warranted. For a player who caused teams to reshape their rosters in order to earn the first pick in last summer’s draft to select him. For a player who helped the Blackhawks sell $5.2 million in new season-ticket packages within 12 hours of winning the lottery and nearly doubled their season-ticket sales. For a player who scored 134 goals in 134 games in junior hockey.
He’s still an 18-year-old rookie who will make 18-year-old rookie mistakes. That’s part of the fun: Watching a generational talent develop his game, growing as a player as this franchise grows in relevance. And scoring a bunch of goals along the way.
It’s not hyperbolic to suggest that Cale Makar is a defenseman who has to be seen to be believed. He moves laterally better than most players move north and south. His speed allows him to limit opposing offenses. His puckhandling skills can break down opposing defenses — if they’re not prepared.
“You get caught flat-footed, and you got a guy like Cale coming at you, it’s almost an impossible play for the defense — and the goalie, for that matter,” his coach Jared Bednar said.
Makar, 24, is part of a wave of great offensive defensemen in the NHL — but make no mistake who is riding atop its crest. Makar won the Hobey Baker as the top player in NCAA hockey in 2019, then NHL rookie of the year in 2020, then the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman and the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in 2022 in leading the Avalanche to the Stanley Cup. He’s a better than point-per-game player when he’s healthy. He’s must-see TV.
Dallas Stars: Did they catch the bouquet?
The Stars made the Western Conference finals last season only to lose to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights in six frequently brutal games. That included three games that went to overtime, with the Knights winning the first two games of the series in the extra session. A bounce here, a break there, and perhaps it’s a different series — and champion last June.
The Stars return most of the team that came so close to advancing to the final round. The dominant top line of Joe Pavelski, Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz is back. Defenseman Miro Heiskanen could be poised to win his first Norris Trophy. Goalie Jake Oettinger is one of the NHL’s most dominant netminders — although hopefully with slightly fewer regular-season starts ahead of a playoff marathon. Players like Wyatt Johnston and Thomas Harley are a year older and better.
It’s a loaded roster, set for another run at the title.
Here’s a stat to help quantify winger Kirill Kaprizov‘s impact on the Wild: In just 208 games with the franchise, Kaprizov is already the sixth-highest goal scorer in Wild history (116). The leader is Marian Gaborik with 219 goals, and it’s easy to call Kaprizov the most electrifying player to wear a Wild sweater since that Slovakian scorer.
Last season, the Wild improved by 9% in goals-for percentage when Kaprizov was on the ice at even strength. He’s hit 40 goals in consecutive seasons, including 40 goals in 67 games last season. Whether he’s considered “Kirill The Thrill” or “Dolla Dolla Kirill Y’all,” he’s the greatest producer of goals in the State of Hockey.
Say the words “Barry Trotz” to a hockey fan and they’ll think about a storied, successful, Stanley Cup-winning coach whose name nonetheless had become synonymous with defensive-first and low-event hockey. So when he returned to Nashville as general manager earlier this year — having coached them for 15 seasons — the anticipation was that he would make a team that swims against the goal-scoring current in today’s NHL.
But Barry swerved us. He said he wanted the Predators to play fast and offensive, and then he hired Andrew Brunette as his head coach. Brunette had the Florida Panthers lead the league in offensive while interim coach in 2021-22, and then he helped shape the Devils into one of the NHL’s most high-octane offenses as an associate last season.
To that end, the Predators are now fun, if still trying to find consistency. Squint hard enough and you’ll see a team that skates in all three zones like last year’s Devils. “Jersey, obviously, plays really fast, and he’s trying to do the same here,” defenseman Roman Josi said.
He taunts opposing benches. He gets physical against rival skaters. He nearly came to blows with another goalie last season.
While the extracurricular plays have earned Jordan Binnington infamy — in stark contrast with the fame he earned in leading the Blues to the Stanley Cup in 2019 — his goaltending has left something to be desired.
Binnington, 30, is trying to change that. He’s had a torrid start to the season, going 2-0-1 and posting a stellar .959 save percentage. After a couple of seasons where his advanced stats had him at a below-replacement level, is it time for Jordan Binnington to get people talking about his success in the crease rather than what happens when he’s outside of it?
The Jets made one of the biggest trades of the offseason when they offloaded center Pierre-Luc “P.L.” Dubois to the Los Angeles Kings. Many assumed that when they traded Dubois, it could have jump-started a rebuild for the Jets. Instead, Winnipeg tried to split the difference in getting three roster players from the Kings: Center Gabriel Vilardi (24), forward Rasmus Kupari (23) and winger Alex Iafallo (30). Two younger talents and a dependable veteran.
Was that the right move? With the Jets re-signing center Mark Scheifele and goalie Connor Hellebuyck before the pair hit free agency next summer, the club seemed to declare that they remain in win-now mode.
Does the post-Dubois Jets team have enough to challenge for a championship? Because being content with a wild-card spot and a first-round exit in a packed conference isn’t going to energize fans who aren’t filling the building like they used to.
PACIFIC DIVISION
The Ducks have one of the most impressive collections of young talents in the NHL, including the ostentatious Trevor Zegras and 2023 No. 2 draft pick Leo Carlsson. But they aren’t expected to be ready to challenge for a playoff spot quite yet. Sometimes it’s better to look good than to play good; to the end, the Ducks are going to look great this season.
Anaheim is wearing a 30th anniversary throwback jersey in 2023-24 that’s simply one of the most gorgeous new sweaters the NHL has seen in some time. It’s a plum base with jade accents, in honor of its expansion team look. The crest features a snarly version of Wild Wing, the team’s mascot.
The Ducks have a handy guide for when to watch them fly together in these awesome duds. Hopefully they have the good fashion sense to make them the permanent sweaters.
Everyone loves a good comeback story. Jonathan Huberdeau was traded to the Flames in 2022 by the Panthers in the Matthew Tkachuk deal. He went on to have his most underwhelming offensive season since the 2014-15 campaign — which was especially frustrating for Huberdeau after coming off his best offensive season with 115 points.
This offseason saw the Flames dump coach Darryl Sutter — whom Huberdeau said did not put the Flames players “in a position to succeed” — and hire 48-year-old Ryan Huska. Can a change behind the bench restore Huberdeau to star status as an offensive player? The Flames certainly hope so.
Edmonton Oilers: Can they handle the pressure?
For the last two seasons, many have selected the Oilers to win the first Stanley Cup for stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who might be the two best forwards in the world. After falling in the Western Conference semifinals last season, it was clear McDavid and Draisaitl were done with postseason futility. They wanted to win, and win now.
But the pressure to do so is enormous. Not only in the playoffs, but in the regular season. The Oilers have looked like anything but a champion-in-waiting this season, getting off to a 1-3-1 start and losing McDavid to injury for up to two weeks. Heavy is the head that might, maybe, potentially, could someday wear the crown.
Seeing how Edmonton does or does not deal with that pressure makes every game an adventure. Given how many goals they score and surrender, the Oilers are never dull to watch.
There was a time when the Kings were goal-scoring marvels, back when Hall of Fame players like Wayne Gretzky and Luc Robitaille were roaming Hollywood. That was a long, long time ago. In fact, the Kings didn’t have a team that averaged over 3.30 goals in a single season from 1994 until last season, when they averaged 3.34. On paper, this Los Angeles team could far exceed that output.
Few teams in the NHL have the forward depth that Kings GM Rob Blake has amassed through the years, from center Phillip Danault to winger Kevin Fiala to this summer’s big addition, center Pierre-Luc Dubois. They were added to a team that had established scorers in Anže Kopitar and Adrian Kempe, and emerging talents like Arthur Kaliyev and Quinton Byfield.
If coach Todd McLellan lets them rip — and admittedly, that’s a big “if” — the Kings could court a lot of goals this season.
Look, let’s be real: Every season, there’s going to be a team or two that’s decided to structure their roster in a way that maximizes the potential for draft lottery success. Some other sports might call this “tanking,” but as there is no tanking in the NHL, this serpentine definition is the best we can explain it.
To that end, the Sharks have downgraded their roster from a team that had a .366 points percentage last season. They traded winger Timo Meier to New Jersey at the trade deadline and then defenseman Erik Karlsson, their leading scorer, to the Penguins in an offseason blockbuster that won’t yield much in the way of immediate help.
One supposed the most compelling thing about the 2023-24 Sharks is to see if they can pull off what it appears they’ve set out to accomplish … and how the team’s remaining familiar veterans — Tomas Hertl, Marc-Édouard Vlasic and captain Logan Couture — are handling things.
The Kraken arrived as a contender last season, one year after they arrived in the NHL as a franchise. Fueled by the fourth best offense in the NHL (3.52 goals per game), the Kraken wrapped their tentacles around a playoff spot and then eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche to earn the first series win in Seattle’s young history.
The most fascinating thing about the Kraken this season: The pressure of an encore. Do they use that success to dive even deeper into the playoffs? Or do they take a step back due to offensive regression and their ongoing issues in goal? One thing’s for sure: Seattle is a market that got a taste of playoff mania and wants more.
The Canucks made defenseman Quinn Hughes the second youngest team captain in the NHL behind Brady Tkachuk of the Ottawa Senators. While that might defy conventional wisdom of giving a veteran the “C,” coach Rick Tocchet said one of Hughes’ best attributes is his ability to mix with everyone on the team no matter their role or experience level. It also probably helps that Quinn Hughes is arguably the team’s most important and consistent player.
Hughes, 24, is a swift-skating, puck-moving defenseman that played at nearly a point-per-game pace last season. He’s averaged over 25 minutes of ice time per game, giving the Canucks a stabilizing force on their sometimes chaotic back end. Like his brother Jack over in New Jersey, he’s one of the brightest young stars on the NHL, a foundational player for this team and just plain fun to watch.
The Stanley Cup champions aren’t standing on ceremony. They started the 2023-24 season by winning their first six games, with a plus-14 goal differential. They have a blazing star in center Jack Eichel, who has taken his game to the next level; a playoff MVP in Jonathan Marchessault; and one of the league’s most underrated talents in center Chandler Stephenson. Oh, and a roster that lifted the Stanley Cup last June.
But while the Vegas show is entertaining on the ice, it’s the glitz and glamor of the franchise that keeps us enthralled. The shimmery jerseys. The home-ice presentation that remains the gold standard for the NHL with the perfect blend of showbiz pomposity with traditional arena fanfare. A game at the Fortress, like Tuesday night’s tilt between the Flyers and the Golden Knights, is an unparalleled experience. Not just for the showgirls dancing in the aisles during warmups or the “Medieval Times” of it all, but for the fact that Vegas is as rabid a hockey town as you’ll find on the continent.