Hurricanes' bid for Stanley Cup repeat among top NHL storylines this season

Let the games begin.

The NHL's 109th season gets under way with five games on the schedule Tuesday and no shortage of storylines to follow.

Here are 10 (actually more than that because we cheated in No. 10) of the top pieces of news entering the season:

1. Hurricane tracker

The Carolina Hurricanes will raise the banner on their 2026 Stanley Cup championship before opening the season against the Florida Panthers at Lenovo Center on Tuesday (5 p.m. ET; ESPN).

Once the banner is unfurled and raised to the rafters, the Hurricanes will formally turn their attention to defending the championship, a realistic goal for a team that returns almost intact from last season.

The two missing impact players from last season are goalie Frederik Andersen, who signed a one-year contract with the Edmonton Oilers, and unsigned restricted free agent defenseman Alexander Nikishin.

Seth Jarvis will miss the start of the season; the forward, who had 66 points (32 goals, 34 assists) and played on Canada's Olympic team last season, is still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery.

The Hurricanes are hoping to follow the same blueprint as the team they face on opening night. The Panthers repeated as Stanley Cup champs in 2025, becoming the third team since 2017 to do so after the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017 and the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2021.

2. Double Tkachuk and Barkov

It's a big opening night for the visitors at Lenovo Center; Brady and Matthew Tkachuk will play together in an NHL game for the first time.

Brady Tkachuk joined brother Matthew in Florida on June 21, when the Panthers acquired the power forward in a trade with the Ottawa Senators.

The Tkachuks got used to playing together for Team USA the past two seasons; at the 4 Nations Face-Off in 2025 and more than seven months ago at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, where they helped the Americans win gold for the first time since 1980.

The Panthers are also welcoming back captain Aleksander Barkov, who will play in an NHL game for the first time since June 17, 2025, when he had two assists in a Stanley Cup-clinching 5-1 win against the Oilers.

Barkov, who missed last season with a right knee injury he sustained on the first day of training camp, sets the standard of excellence Florida has lived by the past several seasons. Without him, the Panthers missed the playoffs last season. With him, they're a Stanley Cup contender, again.

3. McKenna mania

Gavin McKenna had a strong preseason, most notably showing a big improvement from his first preseason game to his second, when his skating, speed and confidence stood out. 

That was the appetizer for the Toronto Maple Leafs and their fans, who get to begin the main course Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena, where McKenna, the 18-year-old No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, will make his NHL debut against the Montreal Canadiens (7 p.m. ET; TVAS, SN).

McKenna is expected to start on a line with John Tavares and William Nylander, with Auston Matthews centering Matthew Knies and Jack Roslovic on Toronto's top line. McKenna likely will be deployed on the second power play unit.

Toronto is looking to get back into the playoffs after missing last season. McKenna has provided a shot of energy and adrenaline, but it only gets harder for him now. A strong start will go a long way toward him building equity in one of hockey's most challenging markets.

4. Oil change

Mike Babcock is back and will be behind the bench when he coaches the Oilers against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Place on Tuesday (10 p.m. ET; SN) on Tuesday. It will be Babcock's first official game since Nov. 19, 2019, when he coached his last game with the Maple Leafs.

Babcock was essentially recruited out of retirement by Oilers forwards Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman. Edmonton named him the new coach on June 23, five days after the NHL cleared Babcock following a review of his conduct during his short tenure with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

He was hired to be the Blue Jackets coach on July 1, 2023, but stepped down before the season began because of reports he asked players to share personal photos on their private mobile devices. 

The controversial decision to hire Babcock is behind Edmonton now as it looks ahead to the season, McDavid's first on a team-friendly two-year, $25 million contract ($12.5 million average annual value). 

It's a big one for the Oilers, who attempt to rebound after struggling last season following consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Final under former coach Kris Knoblauch. 

A strong season followed by a deep playoff run could be enough to convince McDavid to sign long term in Edmonton, which he can do as early as July 1. 

Babcock hasn't coached a team out of the first round of the playoffs since 2013, when he was still with the Detroit Red Wings. But the 63-year-old returns to the NHL with a resume featuring 700 wins, a Stanley Cup championship in 2008, and two Olympic gold medal victories with Team Canada.

5. Hellebuyck on block

Connor Hellebuyck is still at home waiting for the Winnipeg Jets to trade him, a request he made to the team early in the offseason and doubled down on with a public statement on Aug. 27.

However, the Jets haven't found a deal worth taking for the 33-year-old goalie who won the Hart Trophy, voted as the League's most valuable player and Vezina Trophy, voted as the top goalie, two seasons ago. 

So the stalemate that began when Hellebuyck chose not to report to training camp and was therefore suspended by Winnipeg continues with the team preparing to open the season against the Boston Bruins at Canada Life Centre on Friday (8 p.m. ET; NESN).

It's possible Hellebuyck could be traded before the Jets face the Bruins, but without movement the storyline will continue into the regular season and potentially without an obvious end in sight.

6. Larkin's list

Like Hellebuyck in Winnipeg, Dylan Larkin's trade request is still hanging over the Red Wings as they get ready to begin the season against the New York Rangers at Little Caesars Arena on Friday (6:30 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN1). 

Larkin's situation is slightly different from Hellebuyck's because he has been with Detroit throughout the preseason. However, he has been rehabbing an upper-body injury and did not play during the preseason.

Larkin has a no-movement clause in his contract that still has five years remaining. Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported last week that Larkin's list of teams he's willing to go to now includes as many as eight, up from the three that were initially reported back in June.

The Red Wings took the first step to moving on from Larkin by stripping him of the captaincy at the start of training camp. The next step is to find the right deal, which is likely what interim general manager Shawn Horcoff is working through as the regular season approaches.

7. 'Sid' and 'Ovi,' Chapter 22

With so many changes dominating the NHL, at least we can look to Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin for consistency -- for the 22nd straight season.

There was some doubt about this occurrence late last season when Ovechkin was reportedly mulling retirement and there was some "if this is the last time" stories about him. 

That narrative changed when the Capitals re-signed Ovechkin, who turned 41 on Sept. 17, to a one-year contract on July 2.

Crosby is in the last year of a two-year contract, which means this season could, again, potentially be the last with both legends still active.

Washington made significant upgrades in the offseason and is primed to get back into the playoffs after missing last season. Pittsburgh is hoping to build on last season, when it reached the postseason for the first time since 2022.

The Capitals and Penguins will be in the playoff discussion in the Eastern Conference. Ovechkin and Crosby will be in the news. So, yes, some things do stay the same in the NHL.

8. Mack (Shark) attack

Plenty of 20-year-olds are enjoying the college life, living it up on campus, going to football games and fraternity parties. 

Then there's Macklin Celebrini, the 20-year-old San Jose Sharks center coming off a dominant sophomore season who has a $94 million contract and a 'C' on his jersey.

Celebrini has quickly become one of the most impactful players in the world and arguably the most visible bright young face of the NHL. He was fourth in the League in scoring last season with 115 points (45 goals, 70 assists) and helped the Sharks improve by 19 wins and 34 points. They missed the playoffs by four points.

Now San Jose is expected to make the playoffs and Celebrini, who was named the youngest captain in team history on Friday, is supposed to build on what would be the best season for most players in their careers.

Pressure? For most, yeah. For Celebrini? Probably not, but let's wait and see what comes next for the young superstar.

9. Up to 84

If you thought 82 games were a lot, NHL teams will be trying 84 games on for size this season, with the Hurricanes and Panthers opening what will be an all-time high 1,344-game season.

One of the many changes in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that went into effect Sept. 16 is the expanded schedule to 84 games for the third season in NHL history, after 1992-93 and 1993-94.

Rivalries are at the forefront of the expanded schedule, with each team playing an additional two games in their division.

With the regular season longer, that meant training camp was shorter, which requires a faster adjustment to game speed for all players and less time to gain chemistry with new teammates.

It'll be interesting to see if that becomes a storyline unto itself in the first month of the season.

10. Odds and ends

Here are some other storylines to follow:

* Quinn Hughes and Nikita Kucherov are starting the season without contract extensions. Hughes, the Minnesota Wild defenseman, and Kucherov, the Lightning forward who won the Hart Trophy last season, each is in the final year of his current contract. Minnesota and Tampa Bay each is intent on signing its star players, but when will that happen, for how long will they sign and for how much money? Will one of them top Cale Makar's record-setting $20.4 million AAV he received in his NHL-record eight-year, $163.2 million contract from the Colorado Avalanche on Aug. 28?

* Victor Hedman returns for the Lightning, who open the regular season against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; The Spot, MSG, TVAS). Hedman, Tampa Bay's captain, hasn't played since March 19, taking a leave of absence from the team on March 20 to focus on his own mental health. The 35-year-old defenseman is entering his 18th NHL season.

* Ryan Craig will make his NHL head coaching debut with the Vegas Golden Knights against the Chicago Blackhawks at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday (10:30 p.m. ET; ESPN, TVAS2). Craig was hired to replace John Tortorella, who guided the Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final after taking over for Bruce Cassidy late last season. Craig, though, has always felt like the coach in waiting in Vegas, where he has been since the Golden Knights entered the League in 2017-18. He was an NHL assistant for the first six seasons and the coach of Henderson of the American Hockey League the past three. Now he's guiding a Stanley Cup contender and the defending Western Conference champions in his first head coaching job behind an NHL bench.

* Similarly, Manny Malhotra is set to make his NHL head coaching debut for the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday, when they play at the Oilers. On a track similar to Craig's, Malhotra was the coach of the Canucks' AHL affiliate in Abbotsford the past two seasons, guiding the team to the Calder Cup championship in 2025, after spending time in Vancouver as an assistant. The Canucks finished last in the NHL last season and are hoping to take positive steps with Malhotra behind the bench and first-year general manager Ryan Johnson leading the front office.