We are now less than a week away from ESPN beginning their fifth year of NHL coverage since they signed a seven-year agreement that started with the 2021-22 season. They will present an opening-night tripleheader to kick off the 2025-26 season.

The Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers minus Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk in their lineup will lift their Stanley Cup banner to open the season against Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks. That will be followed by the Mike Sullivan revenge game as the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the New York Rangers. The night will end out west when the Colorado Avalanche play the Los Angeles Kings.

As is customary a week before the season begins, ESPN hosted their annual season-opening conference call to discuss the upcoming season and much more. Steve Levy, Ray Ferraro and Emily Kaplan were on the call. P.K. Subban was scheduled to be on the call but did have a last-minute conflict come up.

We will share three key takeaways from the call. This will cover their top storylines to the impact of Kirill Kaprizov’s record-setting contract as well as a slight change to what you will see on ESPN this season.

To kick off the call, each panelist was asked which stories they were most excited to see unfold. There were no shortage of stories to pick from. Here is what they each had to say.

Levy: “I think the biggest story really is how does the NHL outdo what we saw last season? I can’t tell you what a great time I had personally last season. The enjoyment was off the charts, and it’s really hard to imagine this upcoming season being better than the season we had a year ago.

4 Nations, the Ovechkin chase, the trade deadline was even unprecedented too with big-time player movement and finally getting some new blood in there in the playoffs, Montreal and Ottawa in the playoffs.

The downside was not having the Rangers and not having Boston. Who else will take the step up this year? That’s the biggest question mark from me.

Steve Levy will again be both on play-by-play and in studio in 2025-26. (Photo by Al Powers / ESPN Images)

Again, we’re all prisoners of the moment. I get that. As you get older, your memory isn’t great. So, what’s in the recent past seems to jump out more, but I can’t remember a better – really even – regular season than the season we enjoyed last year.

In addition to that, we’ve got the big Kaprizov contract announcement today. The NHL has done a really good job of becoming more interesting out of season even with the coaching changes that are interesting, player contracts, the potential for player movement. Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, those kinds of story lines.

That’s where I sit. Just looking forward to it. The season will in some way, we’ll find a way to top what we experienced last season, but last season – just epic – and I’m personally still on a high from what we saw last year.”

Ferraro: “As Levs outlined, the season last year was just so awesome. We had a lot of Ovi’s games, which were pretty incredible events to be around. Just the way Spencer Carbery and the Capitals kind of gathered around Ovi, and they helped him to the record. It was really cool to watch.

For me looking forward, Sasha Barkov’s injury changes really everything in Florida. I would have thought they were going to be — I would have had them as almost my prohibitive favorite again, as crazy as that is, to try and win three times in a row, and I just can’t do that without Barkov at least part of the picture now, whatever it’s going to be coming back is a different story, I guess.

The margins of the league are so small now, I see such unpredictability and volatility in it, that that’s really what excites me. There’s going to be a team this year we’re not thinking about that is going to do well. Is this a year that — we asked this the last few years – can Detroit finally pop their way back in? Columbus was right on the cusp last year. Could they get in? What does Kaprizov’s contract do for the guys out there, McDavid, Levs mentioned, but Eichel as well, Kyle Connor in Winnipeg. These are big, big deals that are sitting there.

Of course, looming over all of it, the greatest player of this generation is Sidney Crosby, and where is he going to end up come March? Is it in Pittsburgh? Is it somewhere else? That’s something that Emily will be tagged into all winter, I’m sure.”

Kaplan: “Great transition. Echoing Levs and welcoming you guys all, and appreciate you guys having interest in us and as much as we’re interested in this sport.

With due respect to Ray Ferraro’s 408 career goals — don’t worry, Ray, we’ll never forget those – there’s never been a more exciting time to watch the NHL. I feel like I said this the last several seasons, and each season elevates more.

The game is faster than ever. The guys are more skilled than ever. And the one thing that has remained consistent is the intensity of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the emotion, the passion, the physicality, and the sacrifice the guys play through to get that Stanley Cup.

Because of that, the sport is in such a great place. The guys were alluding to it, though, what’s different this season is we’re truly entering this player empowerment era. Part of it is due to shifting attitudes culturally.

Part of it is just the fact that the salary cap is seeing a significant increase. It’s overdue past several years. It was stagnant due to COVID. Because of that, we have guys that are saying I know what I’m worth and I know where I want to go, and I’m not afraid to stand my ground. I think that aligns with a lot of the other sports.

We saw Kaprizov, he turned down the biggest contract in NHL history because he was like, no, I’m worth more than that, and he got it. We saw Connor McDavid in previous years, of course the marquee player in the league is going to resign a long-term deal with the team that drafted him. At this point, if he does resign in Edmonton, I’m expecting it to be a shorter-term deal to give himself some flexibility.

Ray mentioned Sidney Crosby, so many questions there. Quinn Hughes, what does his future hold? I think that drama and that intrigue aligns with the type of juice we see in other sports. I’m interested to look into it. I think it’s going to elevate hockey here in the United States and pull in more casual fans.”

As luck would have it, the conference call took place shortly after the news of Kaprizov’s contract was made public. He signed a record 8-year, $136 million contract. The $17 million AAV is the largest in NHL history.

What will be fascinating to watch unfold is to see how this contract affects everyone else down the line. We could be entering an era where we will get several new record contracts over the next few seasons as the salary cap continues to grow.

The ESPN panel was asked how the Kaprizov contract could impact Connor McDavid among others.