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NHL Standings 2024-2025: A Comprehensive Overview

The 2024-2025 NHL season was one of plenty of changes to the schedule and, hopefully, one of change for Canadian teams. The schedule saw the All-Star Games replaced with the incredibly heated 4 Nations Face-Off, and the league welcomed the Utah Hockey Club for its inaugural season, replacing the Arizona Coyotes. With the Edmonton Oilers losing in the Finals last season, 2024-2025 could end Canada’s Cup drought at 32 years.

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Canadian teams still make up more than their representation share of the all-time Stanley Cup winners since the Finals era was introduced in 1915. The Montréal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, and four defunct championship-winning clubs combine for 51 of the 108 Stanley Cups to date.

However, the last Canadian Stanley Cup winner was the Montréal Canadiens in 1993. Since then, the Finals have only featured a Canadian team seven times.

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League-Wide Standings Snapshot

Eastern Conference Overview

Stories emerging from the Eastern Conference swirled around one major story: Alex Ovechkin hunting down Wayne Gretzky’s NHL regular season goals record. The Washington Capitals star beat the record with games remaining, and in doing so, helped to surge the Caps to an unexpected conference-topping season.

For the Canadian contingent, the Toronto Maple Leafs powered to the top of the Atlantic Division and only fell three points back of the conference top spot, leap-frogging the Floridian clubs and leaving the Boston Bruins to sink. With some late heroics, the Montréal Canadiens joined the Ottawa Senators as the wild card teams, too.

Western Conference Overview

Frequently dismissed as just a team riding some in-form play, the Winnipeg Jets proved everyone wrong by holding an unbeatable pace atop the Western Conference and the overall NHL standings to claim the Presidents’ Trophy.

On the other side of the conference, the Edmonton Oilers had to dig deep throughout the campaign to secure a Pacific Division place. In a division dominated by big, strong, and defensively-savvy teams, the fleet-footed, offence-minded Oilers got endured beatings and several spells without key players. Still, they secured third.

Key Statistical Leaders and Team Performers

The Winnipeg Jets topped the standings for the most points (116), the fewest goals against (191), the best goal difference (+86), the most wins including overtime wins (54), and the joint-fewest overtime losses (4). Also topping the standings were the Tampa Bay Lightning in the goals for (294) department, and the Vegas Golden Knights for regulation wins (46).

As for individual statistical leaders, Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov returned to the top of the scoring list with 121 points in 78 games, while Leon Draisaitl of the Oilers claimed the top goalscorer title with his 52 from 71 games.

While the Bolts’ Andrei Vasilevskiy put up some stiff competition, Connor Hellebuyck of the Jets was, by quite some way, the best goaltender in the NHL. He put up an unreal line of 47 wins, 2.00 GAA, 0.925 SV%, and eight shutouts.

Canadian Teams: Season Highlights

Winnipeg Jets Soaring to New Heights

Following the retirement of Rick Bowness, Scott Arniel was appointed and took the team to the next level. The Presidents’ Trophy win simply confirmed the incredible season that the Manitoba-based team enjoyed in 2024-2025.

As noted above, Connor Hellebuyck was easily the best goaltender in the NHL throughout the 2024-2025 season. His presence in net made the Jets the favourites in the hockey lines for just about every game, with him being particularly stingy to average a mere 2.00 goals against per game.

The reigning Vezina Trophy winner will surely retain his crown when the awards ceremony comes around. Out on open ice, Kyle Conner nailed 41 goals and setup 56 more to come just three points shy of his first 100-point campaign.

The Winnipeg Jets went to overtime on 15 occasions but only dropped four of those games. Further, they boast the best goals against record in the NHL, but only put up a middling penalty kill percentage of 79.4. Going forward, however, the Jets’ powerplay proved to be the most potent with a 28.9 percent success rate.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Consistency Amid Challenges

The Toronto Maple Leafs should be proud of hitting this incredible streak of making it to the playoffs, with entry to the 2024-2025 postseason marking the team’s ninth successive appearance. However, of the eight so far, only one series win has been recorded, causing a great deal of hesitation when looking at the Stanley Cup odds for the Buds.

Auston Matthews missed a huge chunk of the season – but still managed to put up 33 goals and 78 points – so up stepped Mitch Marner and William Nylander. Marner powered to 27 goals and 102 points, while Nylander posted a hefty 45 goals and 84 points.

Toronto struggled for much of the season to find the right defensive pairings that could stay fit enough to build consistency. In goal, the Buds rotated between Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz for the most part, with presumed backup Stolarz being far more statistically impressive.

Ottawa Senators: Breaking the Playoff Drought

It’s been a long and, at times, torturous rebuild for the Ottawa Senators, but the young guns peppered throughout the lines have quite swiftly turned around the fortunes of the hockey club. Now, this season looks to be the first big breakthrough to truly competing among the best in the NHL.

Given the “C” back in the 2021-2022 season, Brady Tkachuk has emerged into a superb leader on the ice flanked by two very reliable alternates in Thomas Chabot and Claude Giroux – who’ve held their badges since 2022-2023. He leaves it all on the ice, battling for every puck, as his 55 points, 123 penalty minutes, 296 shots on goal, 228 hits, 33 blocked shots, and 51.3 faceoff win percentage demonstrate.

Tim Stützle, Drake Batherson, Jake Sanderson, and Brady Tkachuk happen to be the 2024-2025 season’s top four scorers for the Sens. Throw in Dylan Cozens, Shane Pinto, Ridly Greig, and Tyler Kleven who’re already integrated in the lines, and clearly, this is a very good, young team with a high ceiling.

Montréal Canadiens: Rebuilding with Promise

It wouldn’t be unfair to say that it was a shock to see the Montréal Canadiens run to the Stanley Cup Finals in the 2020-2021 season, nor that they missed out in the following three seasons. In that time, the Habs gave up on Marc Bergevin’s fruitless plans, have retooled, and are well into the upswing of the rebuild with some late dramatics to get into the qualification end of the 2024-2025 NHL standings.

Nick Suzuki has put up ever-increasing point tallies that got him to 30 goals and 89 points in 82 games this season. It’s also the fourth consecutive season in which “captain consistent” has played the full slate of regular season games.

Also showing a step up each season following his 2020/21 debut has been Cole Caufield. Despite more injuries in his opening seasons, both last season and this season saw Caufield play all 82 games where he made 37 goals and 70 points.

The Habs are a very young team, so there’s plenty of room for growth across the lines. They still concede a lot of goals (265 GA, good for ninth-most in the NHL) and sit in the box a lot (760 PIMs, good for eighth-most in the NHL), but these are predominantly issues that get ironed out as star players gain experience and the lines get built up with experienced veterans.

Vancouver Canucks: A Season of Near Misses

The promise of the 109-point campaign in 2023-2024 and securing the contracts of franchise players didn’t materialize into another step forward this season. On April 11, the Minnesota Wild beating the San Jose Sharks in overtime ousted any postseason hopes of the Vancouver Canucks after an inconsistent campaign.

Vancouver fans enjoyed some thrilling hockey at times, including when they beat the Los Angeles Kings 4-2, held the Florida Panthers goalless in a 4-0 win, sent the league-leading Winnipeg Jets packing with a 6-2 battering at home, and all but closed out the season by topping the Dallas Stars 6-5 in overtime and then the Colorado Avalanche 4-1.

Still, for much of the season, they missed having a fully fit and primed Thatcher Demko in net, who’d been excellent in the 2023-2024 NHL season. He came back rusty and cautious in December. By the close of the season, the Canucks had only amassed winning streaks of at least three on four occasions, and only once went four-on-the-bounce.

Quinn Hughes remains the best player for the Vancouver Canucks and one of the most skilled defensemen in the NHL. Despite being hamstrung to 68 games, he still put up 16 goals and 76 points, along with 67 blocked shots.

In his first season not in a Boston Bruins jersey, Jake DeBrusk also put in a fine season for the Canucks, playing all 82 games to finish as the team’s top goalscorer with 28 and 48 points in total.

Calgary Flames: Battling for Relevance

The Calgary Flames ended the 2024-2025 NHL season being unable to challenge for a playoff spot and boasting too many talented players to be in the mix for a top draft place. Finishing 11th in the Western Conference on 81 points, the Flames are in a tricky situation as a franchise.

Nazem Kadri led the scoring with 35 goals and 67 points, while former Florida Panthers stars MacKenzie Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau put up 47 and 62 points, respectively. A bright spot for the future lines of the Flames emerged in the form of Matt Coronato, who, at 22-years-old, scored 24 goals and 47 points.

Stuck in the “mushy middle” of the Western Conference, it’ll be difficult for the Flames hierarchy to decide on the right course of action. They’ll want to retain as many of their high-profile impending free agents as possible, but perhaps it’s time to cash in on veterans like Rasmus Andersson, Blake Coleman, and Kadri. Even without big trades, the Flames would be in a good spot in terms of the salary cap to bolster in the free agency.

Edmonton Oilers: Struggles and Silver Linings

Going to the Stanley Cup Finals is gruelling, particularly when you make an incredible comeback to force a Game 7 only to lose even with the Conn Smythe winner on your team. Given their stack of talent, the Oilers were regularly backed in the sports betting this season, but injuries and fatigue bit down over the course of the campaign.

Edmonton’s top eight point scorers in the 2024-2025 season averaged 72.1 games each, but Connor McDavid was the biggest miss in his spells off of the ice. In the end, he could only muster 67 games, but even with this handicap, he still powered his way to 100 points – making it five in five seasons – to help the Oilers get back to the playoffs.

Few would count out the combined might of Leon Draisaitl and McDavid in the playoffs, especially as they have the experience of a recent deep run to tap into. So, they’ll remain a dark horse in the NHL odds to go all the way, but most understand that it’s an uphill battle this time around.

Comparative Analysis: Canadian Teams vs. US Counterparts

Three Canadian teams finished with a top-ten points tally, and the lowest-ranked team overall was the Vancouver Canucks in 18th on 90 points. That puts 14 US teams below the worst-performing Canadian team. A Canadian team, the Jets, also topped the standings with the best defensive record and goal difference in the 2024-2025 NHL standings.

The seven Canadian teams in the NHL account for 21.9 percent of the 32-team league. With 50 percent of teams going to the playoffs, one could expect four Canadian teams to make the cut. This season, five did, giving Canadian teams an outsized presence of making up 31.25 percent of playoff teams.

With lower figures being better for conference seeding, the average seeding of Canadian teams going to the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs was 4.6, while the US teams averaged a seeding of 4.5. The Canadian teams seeded slightly worse, weighed down a bit by the double wild card placing in the Eastern Conference.

Some of the biggest statistical lines show Canadian teams top the rankings for penalties drawn (Senators, 349), goals against per game (Jets, 2.32), powerplay percentage (Jets, 28.9), and shots per game (Oilers, 32.0).

The US teams lead on net penalties (Red Wings, 57 – Ottawa 2nd), faceoff win percentages (Islanders, 54.9 – Maple Leafs 2nd), goals for per game (Lightning, 3.56), and penalty kill percentage (Hurricanes, 83.6).

NHL Standing FAQs

Which Canadian Team had the Best Regular Season Record in 2024-2025?

The Winnipeg Jets flew up the standings and won the Presidents’ Trophy with an almighty 56-22-4 record for 116 points.

What Was Significant About the Ottawa Senators’ Season?

The 2024-2025 NHL season was the first time the Sens had secured a playoff spot since 2016-2017.

Who Were the Standout Players for the Montréal Canadiens?

Team captain Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield put up 30 goals and 89 points, and 37 goals and 70 points, respectively. The emergence of Lane Hutson on the blueline also bolstered the Habs’ season in 2024-2025.