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Naomi Cambell, Contributor | 

Now that we are officially a month into the 2024-25 NHL season, let’s talk about how absolutely insane it has been. The first official day for the season was Oct. 8th, and it started out with an absolute stacked lineup of games.

The season faced off with the St. Louis Blues taking on the Seattle Kraken. Their first period of play was slow to start, but the second period was when all the magic happened. Just 27 seconds into the period, Seattle forward Vince Dunn opened the scoring with an amazing wrist shot off of his own rebound.

Not even a full two minutes later, teammate Eeli Tolvanen positioned himself perfectly in front of St. Louis goalie Jordan Binnington to secure a tip-in goal off of teammate Ryan Evans slapshot. At just over the halfway mark of the second period, the Blues managed to come back with three beautifully unanswered goals. Jordan Kyrou managed to skate past the heavy Kraken defence and start the Blues scoring with a very attractive backhanded goal.

Fresh out of a playoff run with the Edmonton Oilers, Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway rallied together to score their first goal and assist as teammates with the Blues organization, making it a tied game. At 15:37, Kyrou managed to score one more time giving St. Louis the lead and earning himself the game-winning goal.

Game two of the night was a fierce matchup between the six-time Stanley Cup Champions, the Boston Bruins and the defending 2024 Stanley Cup Champions, the Florida Panthers. Both teams had amazing preseasons and held a fierce rivalry, foreshadowing a great game.

In the first period, only 6 minutes and 27 seconds into the game, former Calgary Flames centre Sam Bennet opened the scoring for the Panthers. Florida proceeded to score again giving them a two-goal lead right off the jump. However, the Bruins have a reputation for coming back from tough deficits and soon proved why.

At 15:33, Pavel Zacha managed to score a short-handed goal (SHG) for Boston, breaking Florida’s lead to only one goal. Unfortunately for Boston, though, the Panthers quickly answered back with their own SHG from Sam Reinhart. Boston scored a second goal in the period, bringing the score to five to two at the end of the second period.

The third period was full of fire and passion from both teams. Florida scored once again to give them six goals on the night, and Boston managed to sneak two more past netminder Sergei Bobrovsky but ultimately fell short six to four when the final horn sounded signalling the end of the game.

The first two games were absolute thrillers, but the third game arguably proved to be the most exciting of the night. The Chicago Blackhawks and Connor Bedard went up against – for the first time ever – the Utah Hockey Club. Utah is now officially the new home of the Arizona Coyotes, and as sad as it is to see the Coyotes franchise come to an end, the Utah Hockey Club have an exciting opportunity to make a name for themselves this season.

They got to work early, as in the first period of the game, Dylan Guenther immediately energized the arena by scoring Utah’s first official NHL goal. Following Guenther’s goal, Utah captain Clayton Keller also secured his first goal for the team.

In the second period, Barrett Hayton scored, giving Utah a three-goal lead over Chicago. Chicago did manage to score two goals, one in the second from Tuevo Teravainen, and one in the third from Nick Foligno, but ultimately fell short. With this game being their first as a franchise, first of the season, and first game at home, this win was easily the most memorable of the night.

In the first month of the 2024/25 season, the NHL has had an insane amount of high-scoring games. Colorado beat Vegas by a score of eight to four, Winnipeg blew Edmonton straight out of the water with a score of six to zero in their first game of the season, and Seattle defeated the Predators seven to three, just to name a few.

This year we’ve got some fresh faces added to the rosters, with one being Macklin Celebrini. He has only played one game with San Jose, but quickly earned a goal and an assist in that match. So far, Celebrini is the only 2024 draft pick that has played an official regular season game, but many fans are excited for other rookies, like Beckett Sennecke, Carter Yakemchuk, and Tij Iginla, to hit the ice this year.

Macklin Celebrini, pictured, is the only 2024 draft pick to play this season and already has a goal and an assist. Photo courtesy of Instagram/@sjsharkshistory

Looking into the current standings as of Oct. 28, 2024, the top five teams are the Winnipeg Jets, Vegas Golden Knights, Florida Panthers, Dallas Stars, and the New Jersey Devils. This quintet of tough teams have been having a pretty amazing start to their season, especially with Winnipeg going 6-0-0 and being the last undefeated team in the league.

The bottom five teams are the Nashville Predators, Chicago Blackhawks, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, and the San Jose Sharks. In the past, these teams have dominated the league, but the start of this season has truly not been their best.

San Jose has only won two out of 11 games played, leaving them squarely at the bottom of the league. Rankings are still liable to change though, as only one month of the season has passed and teams still feel that anything is possible over the course of the 82-game campaign.

If you want to spice up the season a little bit, gather up some friends and partake in a fantasy league. Head to your local sports bar or bring your friends and family together to watch what is projected to be one of the most exciting seasons of all time.

Naomi Campbell is a Contributor for 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ 2024-2025.