Three months in, we’re starting to get a feel for how the 2024-25 campaign might just shake out in the end.
We’ve seen hot starts come back to earth, seen slow starters regain their footing. And here, as we move into the second half of the season, we’re getting a true look — the expected contenders mired in the basement might not be turning it around after all; the high-flying surprises might just be the real deal. And halfway into this thing, there have been a fair few notable moments.
Just past the midway point of 2024-25, here’s a closer look at a few of the most interesting stats we’ve seen through the first half of the NHL season.
Hellebuyck’s historic shutout run
Fresh off a Vezina-winning campaign, Connor Hellebuyck has somehow managed to reach an even higher level. The 31-year-old is flat out playing the best hockey of his career, throwing his name not only back into the Vezina chatter, but into the Hart Trophy conversation, too. With half the season still to play, Hellebuyck’s sterling year has him sitting at six shutouts already. As has been discussed plenty, those six shutouts sit level with the number of regular-season games he’s lost. But perhaps more interestingly, that total’s also level with the most shutouts Hellebuyck’s ever managed in a season (achieved twice, in 2017-18 and 2019-20 — both campaigns earning him Vezina nominations), and level with the most shutouts anyone in the league amassed last season (achieved by Sergei Bobrovsky, Tristan Jarry, Connor Ingram, and Charlie Lindgren).
The next shutout Hellebuyck puts up will mark a career high — playing the best hockey of that career right now, the wait likely won’t be long. The real question might be just how high he can push that total by the year’s end. The highest anyone in the league’s managed in the past decade are the 10 shutouts Marc-Andre Fleury posted in 2014-15.
In the modern NHL, post-lockout, the record is 12, collected by Martin Brodeur in 2006-07, the most anyone’s put up since the ‘60s. How close does the Jets’ talisman get?
Washington’s 15-point swing
Search out any prognosticators you want, you’d have a hard time finding any who predicted the Washington Capitals would be the league’s best at the mid-season mark. Through 45 games, the Caps have amassed 65 points, putting them tops in the NHL. For frame of reference, by this point last year, through as many games, the Caps had 50 points to their name, and sat 19th in the league.
Washington’s offensive revival has been at the core of that overall resurgence — rewind to this time last year, and the Caps ranked among the league’s worst in goals per game. Managing 2.36 per night, they sat third-last, just a hair above lottery hopefuls Chicago and San Jose. One year later, Alex Ovechkin’s club ranks third-best in the NHL with a mark of 3.61 per game. The same goes for the club’s overall goal differential — this time last year, Washington sat in the league’s basement with a -25. Now, they boast a +47, second-best behind Winnipeg’s +54. And make no mistake, while much of the Caps’ success has come from an offence that’s seen plenty of contributors step up, Ovechkin’s own resurgence has surely played a role. The 39-year-old is tallying at a near-60-goal pace this season, having collected 21 goals through his first 29 games.
An injury absence will limit how high he might’ve pushed that total, but with 37 games left in the year for Washington and Ovechkin back rolling, his current pace would see him collect roughly 26 more goals before the season’s end — enough to finish above the 40-goal plateau for the 14th time in his career, and, of course, enough to break Wayne Gretzky’s record for the most goals in NHL history.
Hagel remains an even-strength beast
Take a gander at the names dotted among the Art Ross race, and it’s a familiar cast — the monsters from Colorado and Edmonton, a couple surging Jets and Maple Leafs, a Panther. Strip away the noise and focus on who’s doing the most damage at even strength, and one outlier enters the mix — halfway through the season, Tampa Bay’s Brandon Hagel has been a force for the club at even-strength. Through 43 games, Hagel’s 38 even-strength points leave him tied for the eighth-most in the league alongside the likes of David Pastrnak and Kyle Connor, sitting just above Jack Eichel and Mark Scheifle. It’s much the same in the goals department — Hagel’s 18 even-strength tallies are tied for the fifth-most league-wide, alongside teammate and reigning Art Ross winner Nikita Kucherov, and only a handful off the league-leading sum.
Hagel’s even-strength dominance kicked off last year, in fact — the 26-year-old finished sixth in the league in even-strength scoring last season, just behind Sidney Crosby, and just ahead of Leon Draisaitl. The year before that? He finished 53rd in the league. Before that? 146th.
Since the start of 2023-24, though, the Saskatoon product has 104 total points at even-strength, eighth-most league-wide, and enough to position him just above Crosby, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Kirill Kaprizov — a feat that undoubtedly played a role in Hagel landing a spot on Team Canada’s 4 Nations squad.
NHL shots flirting with dead-puck-era levels
While the top end of the NHL’s offensive elite are still making as much noise as they always do — Nathan MacKinnon currently sits on pace for more than 120 points, Draisaitl is on track for his own 60-goal bid — the game’s overall offensive numbers have dipped so far this season. The league’s averaging 2.99 goals per game through the mid-season mark, still higher than the majority of the past 20 campaigns, but lower than where the NHL finished in each of the past three. More interestingly, the league’s average number of shots has dipped to 28.2 — the last time the NHL averaged fewer than 29 shots per game: 2003-04, the year before the lockout that revamped the game.
That overall decline in shots across the league is affecting the netminders, too. The NHL’s overall save percentage currently sits at .901, which similarly would be the lowest mark in two decades if it were to hold until the end of the year. When asked about the trend a month ago, veteran Andrei Vasilevskiy pointed to the fact that today’s NHLers are opting for quality shots over quantity, making it tougher for netminders to get to their game.
“I feel like guys don't waste shots anymore,” Vasilevskiy told NHL.com in December. “Back when I came into the League, it used to be 30 or 35-plus shots each game. It was almost every night, you felt good about your game, you were into it all the time. Nowadays, guys don't waste shots. It's all about the quality. They're all looking for that perfect play, perfect pass, perfect shot.”
4 Nations snubs stepping their game up
With international hockey back on the NHL’s horizon, the 4 Nations Face-Off has been the talk of the 2024-25 campaign. And while much of that discussion has focused on the players who did get a ticket to Montreal and Boston for the festivities, there’s been an interesting trend among many of those who didn’t.
The four official rosters were named on Dec. 4 — since that day, here’s how the list of the league’s top five goal-scorers shake out: Mark Scheifele, snubbed from Team Canada, is tied for the most goals in that span (14 in 20 games), Rickard Rakell (snubbed from Team Sweden) is tied for the fourth-most (12 in 19 games), and Zach Hyman (also snubbed from Team Canada) is alongside him with 12 goals in 20 games. They’re far from the only skaters who’ve seemed to up their game in the wake of the rosters dropping in early December.
And then there’s Logan Thompson, who seemed a good bet to start for Canada at 4 Nations, but wound up not even getting a nod as the No. 3 option. Through the opening months of the campaign up until the roster announcements, Thompson ranked 10th among netminders who were starting regularly when it came to both save percentage (.913) and wins (10). Since that Dec. 4 announcement, here’s where he ranks league-wide: second in terms of save percentage (.937), second in terms of goals-against average (1.70), and tied for second in terms of wins (10 in 12 appearances) — an ascent that’s sure to be brought up by fans of the red-and-white if Canada comes up short in February.
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