An NHL player’s response to pressure can mean the difference between rising as a hero or becoming a fan base’s whipping boy.
Pressure is scary because of the stakes, but every athlete should relish it. Pressure is a privilege — it’s reserved for those who are either paid a lot of money and/or play on a team with hopes of a deep playoff run. Unless you want to be a forgotten footnote in the history book of the thousands of players who have suited up in the NHL, you’ll have to shoulder the weight of scrutiny and expectations at some point and perform under it.
Every year, there’s no shortage of players under the microscope. In this article, we examined seven of the most intriguing names at the outset of the 2024-25 season. The players on this list are in different situations — some of them have boat anchor contracts and need to show a baseline level of competency on contending teams, one is a franchise-level star that needs to bounce back and there are a couple of blue-chip young players facing the heat to break out. What these players share in common is high expectations to prove their worth because of the ramifications their performance could have on their team or the future of their careers.
We’re going to exclude Mitch Marner from this list because his future has been analyzed plenty already.
Only seven NHL defensemen have a higher cap hit than Darnell Nurse’s $9.25 million annual average value. Nurse’s contract is an albatross — there’s no realistic way for him to come close to living up to that deal — but that’s not even the bar that he’s expected to live up to at this point. Oilers fans would be thrilled if Nurse could consistently perform at the level of a competent second-pair defenseman.
Nurse has stretches where he looks like a bona fide top-four defender — he’s got a well-built 6-foot-4 frame and is a strong skater — but his poor hockey IQ leaves him prone to big mistakes and he struggles to break the puck out.
Most frustratingly, he’s played some of his worst hockey in the playoffs when the stakes are highest.
Last spring, the Oilers controlled 43.7 percent of expected goals and were outscored 24-15 with Nurse on the ice at five-on-five. In the second round against Vegas in 2023, the Nurse and Cody Ceci were outscored 6-1 at five-on-five. That same pair was outscored 6-2 against Colorado in the 2022 Western Conference final, though it should be noted that Nurse was playing through a torn hip flexor at the time.
The Oilers have no choice but to continue leaning on Nurse to play crucial minutes in the playoffs because the blue line lacks other viable second-pair candidates. He’s under even more pressure to perform and drive the second pair now because Edmonton has to saddle him with a subpar partner like Troy Stecher, Travis Dermott or Ty Emberson, at least until the club is able to make a midseason trade upgrade.
Edmonton needs Nurse to be a serviceable top-four player rather than a liability, especially come playoff time.
The Avalanche proved that all they need is average goaltending when they won the Stanley Cup in 2022. That year, Darcy Kuemper was battling through an eye injury and posted a .902 save percentage in the playoffs, with Colorado’s elite group of forwards and defensemen able to do the heavy lifting.
Alexandar Georgiev looked capable of hitting that level when he first arrived as Colorado’s starter. He started a whopping 62 games and pitched an impressive .919 save percentage, finishing seventh in Vezina Trophy voting in the process.
However, it’s been all downhill since then.
Georgiev slipped to a .897 save percentage last year during both the regular season and playoffs. He was pulled in his first two starts this season and didn’t fare much better in his third outing, surrendering five goals on 36 shots against the Islanders on Monday. He gave up four goals on 24 shots against the Bruins on Wednesday night too, bringing his save percentage to .800 through four games. The heat is also ratcheting up on him following the club’s Kaapo Kahkonen waiver claim.
Colorado is still a scary team on paper, but its skater group isn’t as deep as 2022. The Avs can’t prop up subpar goaltending to the extent that they perhaps could have in the past. Not only is Georgiev at risk of losing the starter’s job, but a bad year would also cost him millions on his next contract because he’s a pending unrestricted free agent.
The 28-year-old netminder needs to step up both for the sake of Colorado’s contention chances and his individual earnings/NHL future.
It’s been 13 seasons since Buffalo last made the playoffs. Sabres fans are sick of being told they have a promising core or an elite prospect pipeline; they want meaningful on-ice progress.
The biggest reason the Sabres regressed last year, following a breakout 2022-23 season where they finished one point back of the playoffs, is that their offense fell off a cliff. Buffalo fell from being the league’s third-highest goal-scoring team in 2022-23 to ranking 23rd in goals for last year.
The Sabres won’t surge back up the standings until their top forwards return to the level they showed two seasons ago, starting with Tage Thompson and Dylan Cozens.
Cozens, 23, exploded for 31 goals and 68 points in 2022-23 but dropped to 47 points last season. He’s also yet to develop into an above-average two-way driver, at least according to the underlying numbers. There’s extra pressure for him to reach his potential as a high-end top-six center because he’s got six years left at a $7.1 million cap hit.
Cozens hasn’t registered a single point through five games. He needs to come alive as a key offensive driver if the Sabres have any shot of climbing out of their early season hole.
Trouba is in a similar situation as Nurse: He’s never going to live up to his monster cap hit ($8 million), but he needs to play at a serviceable top-four level rather than being a liability.
The Rangers captain decisively lost his matchups last year, controlling less than a 50 percent share of shot attempts and scoring chances, while being outscored 55-44 at five-on-five. He was playing through a broken ankle late in the season but it healed by the playoffs. Trouba was a major detriment in the postseason; he couldn’t move the puck, made costly defensive mistakes and was routinely hemmed in his own zone.
New York’s core is older (Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Vincent Trocheck are all over 30) and with the franchise facing a massive cap crunch next summer, this is one of this group’s final cracks at contending for the Stanley Cup. Trouba needs to be a competent No. 4/5 contributor for the Rangers to be a solid enough five-on-five team during non-Adam Fox minutes.
There are critical ramifications beyond this season, too. By next summer, Trouba will only have one year left on his contract. The Rangers will desperately need to clear cap room to keep their core together and moving Trouba, who will have a 12-team no-trade list at that point, should be a key part of that game plan, even if it requires salary retention or tossing in some trade sweeteners. Trouba’s play this year will have a major impact on how many teams will be interested in him in the offseason and where he could ultimately land.
If you’re outside the Vancouver market, you might not understand why Pettersson would belong on a list like this. After all, this is a player that scored 89 points last season (ninth among all centers) and 102 points the year before. He’s an elite player and in a completely different stratosphere than most of the other names on this list.
Pettersson is still going to be under the microscope this season for a few reasons, however.
Firstly, he faded down the stretch and was a huge disappointment in the playoffs last season. He only scored seven goals in 33 games from the All-Star break until the end of the regular season (and only two of those seven goals were against playoff-bound teams) and followed it up with just one goal in 13 playoff games. That lack of playoff production was especially costly because Pettersson was freed up to play softer middle-six minutes since J.T. Miller and Elias Lindholm were handling the toughest head-to-head matchups. Vancouver’s Swedish star revealed he was battling a knee injury from January onward, so that’s important context, but it doesn’t completely explain why he looked so lost on the big stage.
Secondly, Pettersson is entering the first season of an eight-year, $11.6 million AAV extension. He should have no problem living up to that contract if he can continue being a 90-100-point center, but after his disappointing second-half play, fans aren’t going to have much patience if he has a slow start.
Last year, he was stuck with inferior wingers like Ilya Mikheyev on his line. But after a busy offseason where the club substantially upgraded its winger depth, headlined by the Jake DeBrusk signing, the “Pettersson doesn’t have any help” argument isn’t going to cut it as a justification for his underwhelming play anymore.
Pettersson’s had a quiet start with just one point in three games. He hasn’t scored a five-on-five goal since Mar 5 against the Kings. He needs to get going soon and bounce back in the playoffs, otherwise, he’s going to become a target of criticism for Canucks fans.
Ducks forward Trevor Zegras has been in trade rumors over the past year. (Christopher Mast / NHLI via Getty Images)
The Ducks have an impressive collection of under-24 forwards in Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish, Trevor Zegras and Cutter Gauthier. Anaheim’s path to evolving from a perennial bottom-five team to an exciting, competitive young squad on the rise requires some of these players to develop into stars.
Entering his fifth season in the NHL, Zegras is under the most pressure out of that bunch to take a significant step forward because of his age (23) and experience. The dynamic, creative playmaking forward looked like a future first-liner when he broke out with 61 points in 75 games as a 20-year-old sophomore. He stagnated the following year and struggled with just 15 points in 31 games during an injury-riddled campaign last season.
Zegras’ name has surfaced in the trade rumor mill at various points over the last year. His defensive game has come under criticism at times, although watching him play last season, his work rate and defensive commitment looked miles better than earlier in his career. It’s especially frustrating that he hasn’t hit his ceiling yet because he has the elite hockey sense, highlight-reel puck skills and outrageous creativity to be a point-per-game producer.
Zegras has one year left on his contract after this season. He’s also been shifted to the wing because of Carlsson and McTavish’s arrivals. That matters because if he profiles as a winger long-term he becomes less of an essential piece for the Ducks. Zegras needs to show meaningful progress this year and next, otherwise, his future in Anaheim could be up in the air.
When the July 1 free-agent frenzy begins, there are always a few contracts that roll in and make you go “How did that guy get that much money?” Chandler Stephenson is a good player but his seven-year, $43.75 million signing ($6.25 million AAV) in Seattle certainly falls under that category.
The speedy 30-year-old center twice hit the 65-point range in Vegas, but he fell to 51 points last season and had a miserable first-round playoff series. Stephenson’s defensive metrics also fell off a cliff — he surrendered five-on-five scoring chances and expected goals against at the worst rate of all Vegas forwards in 2023-24. He also has to prove he can be a legitimate top-six caliber player now that he no longer has Mark Stone on his wing to be the main driver.
Stephenson’s impact will play a pivotal part in determining whether the Kraken can score enough to make the playoffs this season. If he struggles, and this ends up looking like an albatross contract, it’ll be another strike against GM Ron Francis, who will be on the hot seat if the club underperforms again.
Honorable mentions: PL Dubois, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Philip Broberg, Jamie Drysdale, Lukas Reichel, Timo Meier,
(Photo of Elias Pettersson and Darnell Nurse: Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images)
