Even before the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers start the 2025 Stanley Cup final on Wednesday, they’ve already appeared in more post-season games than any other team in the league since the NHL went back to its regular playoff format in the 2021-22 season.
Here’s the top five:
1. Florida Panthers: 72 games
2. Edmonton Oilers: 69 games
3. Dallas Stars: 63 games
4. Carolina Hurricanes: 55 games
5. Colorado Avalanche: 45 games
Meanwhile, eight teams missed the playoffs entirely in all four of those seasons, and three more have played just a single series. That’s more than a third of the league.
The Stars and Hurricanes may still be hurting from their eliminations last week. But their spots in third and fourth place on that list serve as a good reminder of how much both those teams have achieved over the last four years.
Plenty of their peers would trade places in a heartbeat.
Multiple long playoff runs tell other players and agents that you’ve got a good thing going in your dressing room and your organization. That helps attract new talent and generates lots of valuable playoff gate revenue and merch sales, which keeps your owner happy.
So, despite the Stars’ dramatic flameout in Game 5, which opened up a potential rift between coach Peter DeBoer and franchise goaltender Jake Oettinger, Dallas owner Tom Gaglardi backed his bench boss in a big way when he spoke to Tim Cowlishaw of the Dallas Morning News the very next morning.
“He’s a top-three, top-five coach in the league,” Gaglardi said. “You think I want to be going into the coaching market right now, do you see who’s getting hired? Pete’s a seasoned coach. I’m just one voice in the discussion, but I don’t see (firing) Pete being on anyone’s agenda.”
DeBoer, 56, doesn’t have a Cup and has never been a Jack Adams finalist. But he did reach the Stanley Cup final with the New Jersey Devils back in 2012 and has made the conference final six times in the last eight years with the San Jose Sharks, Vegas Golden Knights and now the Stars.
That’s why he has never been out of work for long. And while DeBoer has become the league’s seventh-longest-tenured coach after just three seasons in Dallas and is now heading into the final year of his current contract, Gaglardi would prefer not to make a change just for the sake of change.
That being said, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported on Monday that other voices in the organization are not happy with DeBoer. Can they calm the waters, or will this tidal wave of emotion and frustration sweep the coach out to sea?
In terms of their roster, the Stars are at a bit of a natural crossroads. With less than $5 million in available cap space, per PuckPedia, and longtime captain Jamie Benn heading toward UFA status just weeks before his 36th birthday, there’s an opportunity to reframe the team’s leadership.
That said, GM Jim Nill told Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic they wanted to keep Benn last September.
“We’ll figure something out. He’s going to be a Dallas Star for life,” Nill said.
Even at a lower price tag, bringing back Benn would mean cutting back elsewhere. Decisions will need to be made on veterans Matt Duchene, Mikael Granlund and Evgenii Dadonov, who are also pending UFAs.
Young stars Jason Robertson and Thomas Harley are also one year away from becoming RFAs with arbitration rights. They’ll both be eligible to sign extensions starting on July 1.
With inflation expected to hit NHL salaries in a big way once the cap starts climbing this summer, history may eventually show that Nill got good value when he signed Mikko Rantanen and Wyatt Johnston to long-term extensions in March. In the meantime, those moves will leave him operating from a position of weakness as he tries to retool his group to take that elusive next step without sliding backward.
Damage Limitation In Carolina
As for the Hurricanes, they have plenty to be proud of.
In 2023-24, they only won one playoff round, and then they lost Jake Guentzel, Brady Skjei, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Teuvo Teravainen, Stefan Noesen and Brett Pesce during the off-season. Superboss Don Waddell also moved on to Columbus, handing the GM reins to first-timer Eric Tulsky.
In the aftermath of July 1, most observers thought the Canes’ window had closed – including coach Rod Brind’Amour.
“When I walked into this summer, with the pieces that left this organization, I was like 'I don't think we're going to make the playoffs,' ” the coach said during his exit interview last week.
And while the Hurricanes did drop by 12 points in the regular-season standings and endured six weeks of drama during Rantanen’s brief stay, they cruised through their early series against the Devils and Washington Capitals in impressive fashion before falling to the mighty Panthers.
They even snapped their long conference final losing streak with a decisive Game 4 win against the Panthers. And having three conference final appearances on their resume in the seven years since they returned to the playoff picture in 2019 is a feature, not a bug, in the Tom Dundon era.
After last year’s major roster reconstruction, this summer should be less of a storm surge and more of a gentle breeze in Cane country.
Brind’Amour has most of the pieces in place that he needs to run it back, and Tulsky has $28 million in cap space to chase after another superstar, if a fit is available.
The NHL likes to promote its parity and how any team can win on any given night. For now, the Stars and Hurricanes have separated themselves from the rest of the chase pack when the games really matter.
Job 1 for next season will be to avoid backsliding. Then, they can take another run at building on what they’ve learned from their battle scars.
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