The biggest storylines heading into the 2016-2017 NHL season

It’s that festive time of year just before the opening of the NHL regular season, where all the predictions and possible storylines take shape.

Of course the season always turns out to be unexpected — like last year, when the Anaheim Ducks were a preseason favorite to make a run at the Stanley Cup and then couldn’t buy a win at the start of the season. Or when the Montreal Canadiens started off 9-0-0 before plummeting so far down the standings that they had no hope of redemption. Heck, surely nobody predicted at the start of last season that no Canadian teams would get into the playoffs.

But even with all of the unexpected and unknown, there is still plenty to talk about ahead of opening night puck drop. Here’s a look at ten storylines ahead of the 2016-17 regular season.

The aftermath of the World Cup of Hockey
Or rather, how the tournament will effect the whole rest of the season.

Talk on the topic started back in September when a number of players sustained injuries before the round robin even got underway. The conversation will only continue as the season continues, especially with regards to how fatigued players get. Will the young bucks from Team North America burn out quickly? Will the vets from Team Europe, like Zdeno Chara, have enough gas in the tank should their teams make playoff runs? Will players from the tourney who also played in the Stanley Cup Final — Sidney Crosby, Joe Pavelski, the guys with the crazy beards — be affected by the extra-shortened summer?

The World Cup might be over, but expect it to creep into the conversation.

Spotlight on captain Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers
As if the first overall pick from the 2015 NHL Draft didn’t already have everyone’s attention before coach Todd McLellan appointed him the youngest captain in the history of the league. But in his sophomore year in the NHL, the focus on Connor McDavid will expand from how well he plays hockey — which he might be kind of good at — to include how he can use his hockey superpowers to lead an Oilers team that has a history of under-achieving.

Of course Edmonton has plenty of other on-ice issues to address if they want to avoid spending another season in the basement of the standings. Goaltender Cam Talbot has to be more solid between the pipes in his second season as a starter. Veterans Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins  will have to step up their offense with the departure of Taylor Hall — although Milan Lucic will surely help in the scoring department.

But the focus will, no doubt, remain heavily on McDavid and if he can captain the Oilers to the point that McLellan doesn’t have to shred them during pressers anymore. 

Can the return of Carey Price solve the Habs’ problems?
The short answer would be “no, he can’t solve all of their problems.” But while one player does not a team make, Montreal proved last season that having one of the best goaltenders in the world on your roster can cover up all sorts of underlying team issues.

Despite jumping out to a 9-0-0 start last October, the Habs started a steady nosedive in the standings, which came around the same time that star goalie Price being injured and sidelined on November 25. Montreal’s backup arsenal tried to fill Price’s shoes, but the players in front of them couldn’t pick up the slack. And then once a team isn’t playing well, the off-ice issues bubble to the surface, like with the public drama between coach Michel Therrien and defenseman P.K. Subban getting a lot of attention. (Actually that is still getting buzz thanks to Subban taking a couple of jabs at his former club now that he is settling in with the Nashville Predators.)

So with a healthy Price, fresh off a World Cup of Hockey victory with Team Canada, it is understandable why fans are keeping their fingers crossed that his return will turn the whole club around. But again, one player does not a team make. Perhaps it’s better to view his return as less of an overall problem-solver and more like a stepping stone to getting back on track.

Who will be this year’s "Florida Panthers”
Every season has its Cinderella, that team that does much better than expected and has a ton of fun doing it. Last season it was the Panthers — its roster boasting young phenom Aaron Ekblad and not-so-young phenom Jaromir Jagr—who shocked everyone by topping the Atlantic Division with ease. The team had so much appeal that fans resurrected the practice of throwing fake rats into the ice, and embraced the team’s quirky “Spacey In Space” sweatshirt bit. Even Kevin Spacey himself even made an appearance at BB&T for a Panthers’ game.

So who will be that special squad this season? (The Panthers are looking more serious this preseason after adding to their blue line and emptying their wallets to sign James Reimer to their goaltending arsenal.) But there are a couple battalions in the league that seem primed to have that magic this season. The Arizona Coyotes could be that team, if Max Domi and some of the other young players can hit the high notes that helped push the team at the mid-season mark in 2016. The Hurricanes have potential to make their mark in the East with the addition of Teuvo Teravainen up front to balance out the weight that Carolina’s young blue line had to carry last season. Some might try to add the Maple Leafs to this category due to the excitement of top draft pick Auston Matthews, although Toronto is likely still in a building mode and probably not quite to scrappy-enough-to-make-the-playoffs status yet.

Who will be this year’s “Columbus Blue Jackets”
Not every team gets their campaign off to a good start. Sometimes that start is so catastrophic that the team can barely recover.

Enter the 2016 Columbus Blue Jackets, who set an NHL record losing their first eight games and firing head coach Todd Richards after just seven.

Naturally at the start of the regular season, every game carries more weight simply because there aren’t enough to analyze. But it’s a pretty safe bet  that if a team loses its first three or four tilts that the “Is so-and-so the next Blue Jackets?” narrative will pop up.

How will Boston recover from late-season collapse
Unlike Montreal’s decline over the course of the regular season, the Bruins maintained good standings up until the last minute,  losing their playoff ticket in April to make it two years in a row without making the post season.

Now, the general consensus is that Boston will be able to avoid a third straight year without a playoff bid, although there are still of a lot of unanswered questions heading into the season opener. The B’s got a facelift in the off-season and line combinations are still a mystery (who is former Blues captain David Backes going to line up with?) and the defense in-front of Tuukka Rask is a bit of a gamble — will Zdeno Chara be fatigued late in the season from World Cup participation? Once some of those questions get answered, it will be interesting to see how much the heartache of last season still weighs on their game.

Is Nashville the new threat in the West?
The Predators were already a tough team to beat. It took the San Jose Sharks are a full seven-game series to knock them out of the conference semifinals last year and the addition of P.K. Subban to their blue line makes them downright intimidating.

Nashville already had a tough defense to get through under Shea Weber’s tenure as captain, and their offense is fearless. But this could be the season that they really make a mark on West. It will be difficult, playing in a division with the dynamic Chicago Blackhawks, hard-hitting St. Louis Blues and score-happy Dallas Stars. However with Subban helping to mount the attack (and help keep pucks away from Pekka Rinne), Nashville could be a whole new hockey threat.

Can the Stars get off to another strong start — and then some?
Last season the Stars showed that an offense-first team can jettison to the top of the conference standings. They also showed how difficult it is to win with a young defense and unreliable goaltending tandem when the scoring drops off.

But they also found a way to grind through the late season in, arguably, the toughest division in the NHL, and made it all the way to the conference semifinals.

Health will be a big factor in Dallas’s success, with big guns Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin returning from injury. This is still an offensively-driven team, and keeping the puck a the other end of the ice is going to be what makes or breaks this team this season.

Will last year’s Stanley Cup Final teams make another run?
Both teams that competed in the previous Final tend to get a lot of attention right off the bat. For the Stanley Cup-winning Penguins, the conversation will be about whether or not they can repeat that success — which will be agonizing if Pittsburgh starts off this season like the last one, where Sidney Crosby can’t find the back of the net. For the Sharks, it will be about whether the additions they made in the off-season filled the right holes — the Pens beat them in the Final with speed, so San Jose added speed by acquiring Mikkel Boedker in July.

Conversation about both teams will also be regular because of who is on their rosters. Pittsburgh has two of the league’s most polarizing figures in Crosby and Phil Kessel. San Jose has its own cast of characters including  Joe Thornton and Brent Burns, two fierce competitors whose masterful skill can sometimes be overshadowed by their epic beards.

The NHL’s 100th Anniversary
This is a no-brainer. The 2016-17 campaign is also the league’s centennial season. Expect a lot of nostalgia from the start of the regular season all the way through the playoffs.