from Emily Sadler of Sportsnet,

With a brand new NHL season comes a clean sheet of ice and a fresh batch of storylines ready to unfold.

And questions. Many questions. Every year, a lot of the same ones appear -- questions like, Whose rebuild will take the biggest leap forward? and How many trades might we see? and Who's left standing at the end of it all? and, of course, We're all about to underestimate the New York Islanders again, aren't we? (Just me? Oh. Sorry.)

That's what's so much fun about a brand new season of NHL hockey. Parity reigns, always. Windows of contention bust wide open and others slam shut. Anything can happen. With this year being our first 82-game schedule since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the upcoming campaign brings all at once the feeling of a return to normalcy as well as an ever-present uncertainty.

Some players will be crowned Olympic champions by season's end, with the NHL slated to break for the Games this winter after not participating in 2018.

This year brings a historic first, too: a 32nd franchise, as the Seattle Kraken make their long-awaited debut in the Pacific Division while the Arizona Coyotes are shuffled into the powerful Central.

Some of our questions will be answered. Others will inevitably just prompt more queries. Let's dig in, enjoy the ride, and learn a thing or two along the way.

1. Can the Tampa Bay Lightning pull off the three-peat?
The last team to win back-to-back-to-back championships was the Al Arbour-led New York Islanders, who matched Montreal’s four straight Stanley Cups to close out the 1970's with four of their own to open up the ‘80s in equally dominant fashion.

If Tampa Bay is to earn its third consecutive Cup, they’ll have to do so without the clutch third line of Yanni Gourde, Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow, whose excellent play in Tampa priced them right out of town (or, in Gourde’s case, caught the eye of Seattle).

20 more questions...