from Scott Burnside of ESPN,

The National Hockey League's regular season is upon us, and with it, so many compelling storylines. Here's what's top of mind as the puck gets set to drop on Thursday (Wednesday):

Cut the captain some slack

On Oct. 5, Connor McDavid was named captain of the Edmonton Oilers, making him the youngest NHL captain ever. I have no problem with the assignment. McDavid is a rare talent, to be sure. But I also seem to be in the minority in believing that it's a little over the top to suggest that McDavid, who is only 19 and just 45 games into his NHL career, is already poised to challenge for a scoring title....

Time to double down on discipline

The league has once again embarrassed itself with its handling of supplemental discipline, and we haven't even had a meaningful puck drop yet. But we're not going to batter the NHL Department of Player Safety, even though it is laughable that -- until Radko Gudas was suspended for the first six games of the NHL regular season for his late, high hit on Bruins prospect Austin Czarnik in a preseason game -- the dangerous, reckless play of Gudas, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Tanner Pearson and Andrew Shaw somehow managed to net a total of just three regular-season games in suspensions.

Watch them in sequence and ask yourself if they are the kinds of hits that make the game better. Better yet, why aren't NHL GMs watching those games and breaking into a cold sweat?...

more on each of the above topics plus other storylines...