All Connor McDavid desires to do after establishing himself as the perfect hockey participant on the planet is win the Stanley Cup. He is aware of he can’t do this in October, when the NHL playoffs really feel like they’re a lifetime away.
“There’s 82 full games before you can get back to the same position,” Edmonton’s captain stated. “This is a marathon.”
This subsequent march to the playoffs that begins Oct. 10 could possibly be a lot completely different than final yr, when the Boston Bruins broke the document for the perfect common season and misplaced within the first spherical. The Stanley Cup resides in Sin City for now after the Vegas Golden Knights went by means of McDavid’s Oilers and the Florida Panthers who vanquished Boston to win all of it – and they’re going to have a bunch of hungry challengers.
Matthew Tkachuk, the center and soul of the Panthers who performed with a damaged sternum within the closing, doesn’t purchase what he known as the “myth” that the common season doesn’t matter. After all, solely 16 of 32 groups get to maintain enjoying past mid-April.
“You’ve got to get in the playoffs,” Tkachuk stated. “But I think what’s more important than that is you’ve got to be playing your best hockey at the right time.”
That was the prevailing lesson after the banged-up Bruins fell “woefully short” of their aim, within the phrases of their normal supervisor, Don Sweeney, and the Panthers got here simply three wins wanting the Cup after shedding 28 of their first 41 video games and being the final workforce to qualify within the Eastern Conference.
Florida’s expertise isn’t an endorsement of slacking at the beginning of the yr, one thing the Washington Capitals discovered from their playoff streak ending. And coaches and gamers are nonetheless targeted on beginning sturdy with a watch on the lengthy, twisting street to the postseason.
“You’ve got to build your game,” Oilers star Leon Draisaitl stated. “You got to get off to a good start and build your game from there on in segments or in months – however you you shape it … and continue to get better throughout the year.”
Look no additional than Vegas for that blueprint. Despite needing 5 completely different goaltenders and 30 skaters throughout the season, the Golden Knights completed atop the Western Conference to shore up home-ice benefit when it mattered most.
They went 9-3 on The Strip within the first title run in franchise historical past and once more appear like prime contenders, armed with expertise and with the overwhelming majority of their roster again to attempt to repeat.
“That would be my goal every year, to go into the year with the expectation to be competing for the Stanley Cup,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy stated. “That’s our first goal: to keeping building games to give ourselves a chance to get there. Once you’re there, I don’t want to say wide open, but to a certain extent, it is wide open.”
The Colorado Avalanche, coming off a seven-game, first-round loss to Seattle, are literally favored to win the Cup for the second time in three years. Top middle Nathan MacKinnon stated he and his teammates simply didn’t have it final season however expects a fast turnaround, even with out injured captain Gabriel Landeskog.
“You have to be pretty near perfect to get the job done,” MacKinnon stated. “We’re all very motivated this year to kind of get our standard back to where we need it to be to win.”
The manner MacKinnon talked about his starvation to win earlier than the Avalanche acquired the job finished in 2022 is now being echoed by McDavid and Draisaitl. They’ve answered years of questions on what it’ll take to take to recover from the hump.
The Oilers received’t name this season “Cup or bust.” Draisaitl thinks that’s too dramatic. But all eyes are skilled on Edmonton, which hasn’t been Stanley’s residence since 1990.
“We’re ready to win. We’re ready to do whatever it takes to win, more importantly,” Draisaitl stated. “We’re definitely not far away. I certainly feel that way. I think we all do. I think the entire league feels that way about us.”
Still, Draisaitl acknowledged 31 different groups – nicely, most likely a couple of dozen, realistically, this season – are attempting to perform the identical aim. The key to doing so, from those that have received all of it, is sustaining some consistency by means of the inevitable streaks and struggles of a season.
“There’s going to be times where it feels like you can’t lose and times where it feels like it’s really hard to win, but that comes with 82 games and six months of a regular season,” stated Capitals defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk, who hoisted the Cup in 2015 with Chicago. “It’s going to go like that in a game like this where the margins are so small, so you just got to kind of not get too high or too low and just obviously bring that effort every night.”
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AP Hockey Writer John Wawrow in Buffalo, New York and AP Sports Writers Mark Anderson in Las Vegas and Pat Graham in Denver contributed.
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