Midway through the 2024 to 2025 season of the NHL, The Athletic’s NHL staff took out their red pens and handed out grades for every team’s first half. The NHL Report Cards evaluate the progress and performance of teams and players throughout the year. The NHL is consistently evolving throughout changes in a player’s talent, coaching strategies, and team dynamics. The Athletic asked its NHL staff to assign a grade to every team’s performance throughout the 2024-25 regular season.

To start off, the Anaheim Ducks received a B-. The Anaheim Ducks were supposed to show improvement, and they did as they jumped from 59 points to 80 last season. However, it didn’t fare well in their first meaningful second-half game in years. Important players like Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish, and Jackson LaCombe took strides forward, while Cutter Gauthier had a fairly good rookie season. While Luka Dostal proved that he could be a Number 1 goalie.

Next up, the Boston Bruins receive a D-. It would have been one thing if they started the season with low hopes and expectations. This is not true as they believed they’d contend for the playoffs. So it was unsuccessful for them to finish as a bottom-five club. This soon led to the Buffalo Sabres ending with an F. The Sabres came into the season with hopes that they would make the playoffs and ended up regressing from their 84-point season a year ago. They were in last place for more than 3 months in the Eastern Conference. A 13-game loss streak ruined their playoff chances before January 1st.

Lastly, the Calgary Flames got a C-. They pushed against their expectations thanks to their rookie goalie, Dustin Wolf, and key contributions from Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri throughout the season.

I interviewed a freshman from Eleanor Roosevelt High School,  Ziyu Pan, and she stated, “I’m not a fan of hockey.”

I also interviewed another freshman at ERHS named Srini Harini, and he stated, “I think it’s cool because it’s different by using like school grading scales.”