The biggest NHL stories of 2025: Ovechkin’s record, dynasties and blockbuster trades
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Sean Gentille
A broken high-profile record, potential dynasties and bits of eyebrow-raising player movement: Here are 2025's top NHL moments.
Sometimes, an NHL calendar comes and goes without much in the way of drama.
Other times, we see the fall of high-profile records, the birth of potential dynasties and bits of player movement capable of upsetting the league’s collective apple cart. Thankfully for us all, 2025 fell into the latter category — and with that, it’s time to look back at some of the year’s most impactful NHL stories.
Alex Ovechkin celebrates after scoring his 895th career goal to pass Wayne Gretzky’s record and become the NHL’s all-time goal-scoring leader April 6 in Elmont, N.Y. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
Ovechkin breaks Gretzky’s goal record
We’ve written up a laundry list of testaments to Ovechkin’s greatness, and one of them bears repeating: the fact that he’s here by virtue on a goal he scored in April, rather than October or November. The finishing kick that took him to No. 895 — 26 in 42 games, all after breaking his leg on Dec. 28 — cannot be overstated, no matter how much anyone tries. Taking control of the sport’s biggest, baddest record was always going to be equal parts inevitable and remarkable, but the specifics of Ovechkin’s final few weeks in second place made it all something even greater.
Months after it all ended on Long Island, as Ovechkin approached goal No. 900, the “broken leg factor” came up with Washington Capitals winger Tom Wilson. It still resonated for both of us.
“Insane,” Wilson said. “As an athlete, to be able to step up in those situations where people are doubting you and there’s adversity, and you just knock it down — the mental strength and physical strength to be able to do that is insane.”
The Minnesota Wild swung for the fences in acquiring defenseman Quinn Hughes. (Nick Wosika / Imagn Images)
Make it a blockbuster year
It’s always nice to get a reminder that, despite the world’s worst general manager cliché, trades aren’t always hard — and sometimes, they can be huge. It all started in January, when star winger Mikko Rantanen went from negotiating a new contract with the Colorado Avalanche to figuring out life with the Carolina Hurricanes, who seemed to have completed their search for another elite piece at the top of the lineup. Headed back to the Avs, in part, was the highly skilled, highly inconsistent Martin Nečas.
Six weeks later, Carolina was forced to flip Rantanen to the Dallas Stars, and in the months since, he and Nečas have shown themselves to be crucial pieces for two of the league’s best teams. The jury is still out on the future-focused package Carolina received from Dallas.
That all felt like an appetizer for the Minnesota Wild’s acquisition of Quinn Hughes on Dec. 12. In Hughes, Minnesota got a true superstar piece capable of pushing them into the Stanley Cup conversation. They also assumed real risk, sending a top prospect (Zeev Buium), a top-six center (Marco Rossi) and an intriguing young piece (Liam Öhgren) along with a first-round pick back to the Vancouver Canucks; great as Hughes is, he’s under contract only through the end of next season, and a potential reunion with his brothers Jack and Luke in New Jersey might loom.
Matthew Tkachuk raised the Stanley Cup for the second straight season. (Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
A repeat in South Florida
In 2024, when the Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup for the first time, there was a degree of shock given the organization’s history of poor play, dysfunction and general irrelevance. In a vacuum, though, the result shouldn’t have been surprising: Florida’s roster, top to bottom, seemed built in a lab to dominate the NHL postseason. By the spring of 2025, that bit of reality seemed to take hold. The Panthers — better, stronger and armed with been-there, done-that swagger — ran it all back. Then, improbably, GM Bill Zito re-signed key contributors Brad Marchand, Aaron Ekblad and Sam Bennett. Uh-oh.
Now, despite serious injuries to Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, the champs loom once again, winning eight of 10 games immediately before Christmas. A three-peat might not be likely, but it’s certainly not out of the question.
Matthew Tkachuk and Brandon Hagel squaring off was a demonstration of what international play means to the U.S. and Canada. (Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
The return of best-on-best hockey
If you were skeptical at the start of the 4 Nations Face-Off, an NHL-operated international tournament held in February, you weren’t alone. The real Olympics, featuring NHL players for the first time since 2014, were only a year away. Why bother with the store-brand version?
Thanks in part to Matthew and Brady Tkachuk, we were all quickly disabused of that notion. Turns out the 4 Nations had juice. Who’d have thunk it? The tournament helped hockey surface on a general-interest level rare for the United States, added a layer of intrigue to the often-tiresome Olympic roster debates and primed the pump for Milan 2026.
Connor McDavid put the Oilers front office on notice. (Len Redkoles / Getty Images)
McDavid’s future
The long-term outlook for the greatest player on the planet turned into one of the summer’s biggest, most unexpected pressure points. By the start of the season, McDavid had signed a two-year, comically inexpensive extension with the Edmonton Oilers through the end of the 2027-28 season. He was doing a favor for an organization that, by and large, didn’t deserve it, in the name of loyalty and the possibility that he’d drag them over the hump after consecutive losses to Florida in the Stanley Cup Final. For the Oilers front office, the message was clear: You’re on the clock.
The topic burbled back up after Edmonton’s inert offseason gave way to an ugly start. The train is back on the tracks, thanks to a vintage McDavid offensive outburst, but book it — this one isn’t going away anytime soon.
The Mitch Marner saga in Toronto was inevitable. (Claus Andersen / Getty Images)
More drama in Toronto
The split for Mitch Marner and the Maple Leafs happened slowly, then all at once — and the end, as Jonas Siegel wrote, was as necessary as it was inevitable. Along the way, we saw a scuttled trade to Carolina that might have tipped the power balance in the Eastern Conference, another playoff crash-out by the Maple Leafs, plenty of hurt feelings and then, for Marner, a fresh start with the Vegas Golden Knights.
Now, with Auston Matthews and the Maple Leafs circling the drain, Marner has settled in as second fiddle to Jack Eichel in Vegas. Maybe everyone lost.
Macklin Celebrini is one of the new faces of the league. (Matt Krohn / Imagn Images)
Young guns
For years, the individual names at the top of the league’s food chain have been relatively static. This season, though, has brought a necessary influx of fresh blood. Macklin Celebrini, Connor Bedard (injury notwithstanding) and Leo Carlsson have spent the last few months establishing themselves as the leaders of the next wave. They’re not on the way — they’re already here.
Kirill Kaprizov received the richest contract in NHL history. (Alex Goodlett / Getty Images)
Dollar Bill Kirill
Since 2012, outside of the COVID-throttled 2022-23 season, the league’s highest individual cap hit had been between $14 million and $16.7 million. On Sept. 30, Minnesota Wild star Kirill Kaprizov raised the bar, signing an eight-year, $136 million extension worth not only the most total dollars ever given to an NHL player in one deal, but also marking the highest annual average value ($17 million per season) in the history of the league. We’ll need to wait and see whether it works out for the Wild, but as it relates to individual players, you can bet a rising tide will lift all boats.
In this courtroom sketch, from left, Justice Maria Carroccia, defendants Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote, are shown during a hearing in April in London, Ont. (Alexandra Newbould / The Canadian Press via AP)
Hockey Canada trial
In July, five members of Canada’s 2018 world junior hockey team were found not guilty of sexual assault, ending a months-long trial that garnered national attention. All five players had been charged in connection with an alleged incident in June 2018 in which a woman said she was sexually assaulted over the span of several hours in a London, Ont., hotel room after a Hockey Canada event.
All five — Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dillon Dubé and Cal Foote — remained temporarily ineligible to sign with NHL teams after the league “determined that the conduct at issue falls woefully short of the standards and values that the league and its member clubs expect and demand.”
All five have since returned to professional hockey, including Hart with the Vegas Golden Knights, Dubé with the St. Louis Blues’ AHL affiliate and Foote with the Carolina Hurricanes’ AHL affiliate, reinforcing the idea that what could’ve been a reckoning for the sport became something else entirely.
The NHLPA’s Marty Walsh, left, shakes hands with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman after announcing a tentative CBA agreement in June. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
Labor peace
In July, the NHL Players’ Association and the league’s Board of Governors officially ratified a four-year collective bargaining agreement that runs through the 2029-30 season. That means several different things, including an 84-game schedule — and, most importantly, that the league’s lockout-free streak is guaranteed to hit 18 years.
