NHL Western Conference preview, storylines: Oilers reload, face challenging road back to Stanley Cup Final

The 2024-25 NHL season is upon us, and with it comes a host of new plot lines to follow. The Western Conference has plenty of them, including Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers going on their revenge tour after falling just shy of the Stanley Cup last season.

The Oilers enter the season as the class of the Western Conference, but they will have a tough road to a championship. Reigning Hart Trophy winner Nathan MacKinnon is eyeing his second Cup, and the Dallas Stars will be out to avenge their Western Conference Final loss from a year ago.

Elsewhere in the conference, the Nashville Predators spent big in the offseason, and now they’ll have to get some return on those investments. The Utah Hockey Club is also looking to make moves in its new locale, and the Vancouver Canucks will need to prove that last year’s surge was no fluke.

Here’s a preview of what to come in the Western Conference this season.

Central Division

Nathan MacKinnon looking for an encore

Going into last season, the only thing MacKinnon’s trophy case lacked was a Hart Trophy. That is no longer the case following a 140-point campaign in which he set career highs in both goals (51) and assists (89).

In addition to those gaudy raw numbers, a look under the hood makes MacKinnon’s season even more impressive. With him on the ice at five-on-five, the Colorado Avalanche owned a plus-35 goal differential and an expected goals share of 56.5%, per Natural Stat Trick. When MacKinnon was on the bench getting a swig of water, those numbers dropped to a minus-6 goal differential and a 48.6% expected goals share.

This year, MacKinnon may need to replicate those efforts. The Avalanche have some depth concerns, so they’ll be leaning heavily on their stars again. Good thing MacKinnon is a top-two player in the league, and he’s capable of powering the Avs on a Stanley Cup run.

Stars must get over conference finals hump

The Dallas Stars have been one of the NHL’s best teams for a couple of years now, but they keep hitting the same stumbling block in the postseason. In each of the last two seasons, the Stars have been eliminated in the Western Conference Final, and this roster is plenty good enough to get back there in 2025.

Stars general manager Jim Nill has managed to assemble one of the best rosters in the league, and it has the perfect balance of wily veterans, current studs and budding young stars. Perhaps the deepest forward group in the NHL has gotten deeper thanks to the emergence of rookies Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque. On defense, Thomas Harley showed potential to be a legitimate top pairing defenseman, which is a luxury considering Dallas already has Miro Heiskanen.

With so much talent returning in Dallas, will the third time finally be the charm? Top to bottom, the Stars are the best team in the Central Division, and a Western Conference Final rematch against the Edmonton Oilers could be in the cards. They just need to find two more wins this time around.

Will Nashville’s spending spree translate to wins?

On July 1, Nashville Predators general manager Barry Trotz spent money like he was using someone else’s credit card. In fairness to him, he was. Trotz doled out more than $100 million to completely remake the roster, and while that money isn’t coming out of his paycheck, his tenure will now be evaluated based on how those moves pan out.

The two biggest splashes Trotz made in free agency were the signings of Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault. Those two alone bring three Stanley Cup rings, a Conn Smythe Trophy and two Rocket Richard trophies to Nashville. Stamkos and Marchessault have done a lot of scoring and winning, but they are 34 and 33, respectively. The major acquisition on defense was Brady Sjkei, a prototypical two-way defenseman who posted solid five-on-five impacts in Carolina. Age is also a question for the 30-year-old Skjei, but to a lesser degree than the forwards.

The Predators look like a veteran-laden contender on paper, and there is more excitement around the team than there’s been in years. Now we have to see how well everything comes together on the ice, as well as how much juice these grizzled vets have left in the tank.

Buzz in the Beehive State

There is some buzz in Salt Lake City this preseason, and it’s not just because there’s a new major sports franchise in town. Sure, the debut of the Utah Hockey Club is reason enough for excitement, but it also just happens to be one of the most intriguing young squads in the NHL.

The 2023-24 Arizona Coyotes were much feistier than they should have been, given the circumstances. The novelty of playing in a college arena wore off, and the cloud of relocation loomed over them, but they remained relentlessly entertaining. With all of that drama behind it, Utah can now showcase its young stars as well as its shiny new offseason additions. Mikhail Sergachev, acquired from Tampa, gives the team a No. 1 defenseman. Clayton Keller has become a star and will lead a youth movement at forward that includes players with sterling pedigrees like Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther.

Utah isn’t a lock for the playoffs, especially in a relatively deep Central Division, but a postseason berth is well within the realm of possibility for this group. If the prospects take a step forward, Salt Lake City will be enjoying the Stanley Cup Playoffs up close next spring.

Pacific Division

Oilers reload after Stanley Cup Final run

After falling one win short of the Stanley Cup last season, the Oilers weren’t content to run it back with the same roster. Edmonton has reloaded at forward, and it’s ready to chase down that elusive 16th playoff win in 2024-25.

The Oilers have typically gone as far as Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl can take them, and that’s pretty far, as we saw last season. They are two of the top five players in the NHL, but even they need some help to hoist the Stanley Cup. The Oilers did get scoring from elsewhere in 2023-24 (e.g. Zach Hyman’s 54 goals), but they could have used a little more support. They have that now following the acquisitions of wingers Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson. Neither player had a banner season last year, but they combined for 61 goals and 141 points in 2022-23.

Arvidsson and Skinner take an already imposing top-six and make it even more intimidating. If you thought the Oilers could burn out scoreboard pixels last season, they’ll do even more damage this year.

Was it just a flash in the Van?

The Vancouver Canucks were the most pleasant surprise of the 2023-24 NHL season. They went from being a preseason playoff bubble team to a Western Conference juggernaut in the blink of an eye. Was that a flash in the pan or was it a sign of what’s to come for the Canucks?

Through much of the first half last season, the Canucks were outperforming some discouraging underlying numbers at five-on-five. As the season progressed, those numbers steadily improved as Vancouver proved it was worthy of being a Western Conference contender. Despite those improvements, there are still some indications that negative regression is on the way. The team’s 10.6% shooting percentage at five-on-five was first in the NHL by a wide margin, and no team had a PDO at 1.028, per Natural Stat Trick.

Those numbers would suggest that there will be some leveling out in 2024-25, but just how much remains the question. The Canucks won 50 games and put up 109 points last year. Even if they lose a few more games, they’re still a solid playoff team. They just can’t have a complete tumble back to Earth.

Can anyone challenge the top three?

For the time being, let’s assume that the top three teams in the Pacific Division are the Oilers, Canucks and Vegas Golden Knights. I know what they say about assuming, but those seem like relatively safe playoff bets. So, can anyone else rise up and grab one of the division’s guaranteed postseason spots?

The Los Angeles Kings, last season’s third-place finisher, seem like the most likely candidate. At least, they did until star defenseman Drew Doughty suffered a fractured ankle. Los Angeles already seemed to be a step below the Pacific’s elite, and that injury only widened the gap. Beyond the Kings, the clearest candidate would be the Seattle Kraken. They made some rather expensive additions in the summer, but they will need bounce-back seasons from a few different players in order to make the jump.

The rest of the division looks like it could be in the draft lottery next year, so barring a shocking surge, the Pacific Division playoff race might be a bit of a snoozer in 2024-25.

California hurtin’

The fine hockey fans of California might be in for a long 2024-25 season. The San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks will once again be two of the worst teams the NHL has to offer, and now the Kings might be backsliding.

The Sharks are fresh off a season in which they were dead last in the NHL, and they won’t be far off from that mark in 2024-25. At least they now have a franchise cornerstone in Macklin Celebrini to show for it, and former No. 4 overall pick Will Smith could get his first full-time NHL action too. The Ducks were better than the Sharks last season, but not by much. Their young core has yet to take that next step, and this is a bit of a prove-it season for them. Until it shows otherwise, Anaheim will continue to be a young but frustrating bunch.

Finally, the Kings seem to be getting further and further away from the top of the division. I touched on the Doughty injury above, but they also didn’t do much to improve a roster that got cooked by the Oilers in the first round of the playoffs last year. I don’t think swapping one bad contract (Pierre-Luc Dubois) for another (Darcy Kuemper) was the solution either. The hockey vibes in California are less than stellar these days.