The eight most improved NHL players of 2024-25
Very rarely does a player develop and produce at a consistent rate. They may see an overall rise in their play earlier in their career, a peak, and then a slow decline as they get older, but that doesn’t always mean consistent improvement or decline on a season-by-season basis. Whether it’s situational or just bad luck, players experience up and down seasons throughout their career, sometimes even back-to-back.
The 2024-25 season saw its fair share of players coming off down seasons who turned things around and picked up their play. Lets dive into the eight players who improved the most between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. This won’t just be based on production (or in the case of goalies, the lack of production that they create), but also their defensive play in some cases.
Also, we’ll only be looking at players in the league that had an established level of play. So while seasons like what Dylan Holloway had could be considered an improvement, they fall more under the category of breakout seasons.
Pierre-Luc Dubois, Washington Capitals
Dubois might have been the most disappointing player in the 2023-24 season. Fresh off a trade request with the Winnipeg Jets, he was shipped to the Los Angeles Kings and signed a massive extension, an eight-year contract with an $8.5 million cap hit.
His reward to the Kings? The worst season of his career with just 16 goals and 40 points in 82 games and only one goal in five playoffs games. Dubois’ contract became arguably the worst in the league, and it wouldn’t have been out of the question for the Kings to buy it out. Instead, they found a suitor in the Washington Capitals in an exchange of damaged goods for Darcy Kuemper, and the Caps decided to take a chance on him.
The gamble paid off for Washington this season, as Dubois put up career-highs in assists (46) and points (66). On top of that, he also managed to put up the best defensive results of his career with a -0.147 regularized adjusted plus-minus for even strength expected goals against per 60 minutes (RAPM xGA/60), all while sitting in the 88th percentile in quality of competition.
Dubois hasn’t been quite as good in the playoffs with just three assists in nine games so far, and his contract still isn’t amazing, but it’s a significant improvement from where he stood one year ago. The Capitals will just have to hope they keep getting this version of him, and not the 2023-24 version.
Cam Fowler, Anaheim Ducks/St. Louis Blues
Throughout his 15-season career, Fowler has established himself as a consistent 30-40 point defenseman who was middling defensively for most of his career. However, the defensive side of his game has declined a lot as he’s gotten older and as the Anaheim Ducks have gotten worse.
His 2023-24 season was a particularly rough one, as he was thrown to the wolves in tough minutes on a weak Ducks team and finished the year with a 0.013 RAPM xGA/60. While he did put up 39 points, 18 of them came on the power play, resulting in a largely empty-calorie season for him.
That middling play actually continued into the start of his 2024-25 season, as Fowler produced just four assists in 17 games with the Ducks, and also managed a whopping 0.255 RAPM xGA/60 in that short span. A change of scenery was clearly needed, and so in December, he was traded to the St. Louis Blues.
That change of scenery worked wonders for Fowler, as his game took a complete 180 with the Blues. Still playing in relatively tough minutes alongside Colton Parayko, Fowler managed to put up the best defensive results of his career with a -0.239 RAPM xGA/60. Along with that, he put up 36 points in just 51 games, with only eight of them coming on the power play as well. And then in the playoffs, he was dynamic offensively with 10 points in seven games. The Blues making a move for Fowler scratched some heads, but buying low on him clearly paid off and played a role in their late season turnaround.
Cody Glass, Pittsburgh Penguins/New Jersey Devils
Glass may be the most surprising addition to this list because, on paper, it doesn’t really seem like he saw significant improvement in 2024-25. His points per game between this and last season was relatively the same, with 13 points in 41 games for a 0.32 ppg in 2023-24 with the Nashville Predators, and 22 points in 65 games for a 0.34 ppg in 2024-25 with the Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils.
But where Glass saw significant improvement (enough to put him on this list) was his defensive game. He was brutal defensively in 2023-24 with the Predators, with a career-worst 0.193 RAPM xGA/60 after never going above 0.016 prior to that. But he followed that up with a career-best result in 2024-25 with -0.216, although it did come in lighter minutes than other players seen on this list. He’s a restricted free agent at the end of the season, and if the Devils can find a way to keep him for cheap, he’ll make for a solid depth center if he plays like he did in 2024-25.
Filip Gustavsson, Minnesota Wild
The 2023-24 season was a massive disappointment for the Minnesota Wild, as they missed the playoffs for just the second time since 2012 while still in the prime years of a lot of their top players, particularly Kirill Kaprizov. Filip Gustavsson played a significant role in that, with an .899 save percentage, and a -17.31 5v5 goals saved above expected that was both the worst of any goalie that season, as well as the worst of his career.
In the final year of the salary cap hell that is the buyout penalties of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, the Wild needed Gustavsson to return to form in 2024-25 if they wanted to return the playoffs, and they got just that. In his first season with a starting goalie workload, he bounced back with a .914 SV% that was fourth among goalies with at least 40 games, as well as a 13.56 5v5 GSAx. He also scored a goal, not that it was considered much for him making the list.
And then in the playoffs, he played a key role in the Wild giving the Vegas Golden Knights a scare with an identical .914 SV%, as well as a 3.68 5v5 GSAx. With this being almost right in the middle of his performances in 2022-23 and 2023-24, it’s safe to say that this is about what the Wild should expect from him in the crease going forward.
Darcy Kuemper, Los Angeles Kings
To demonstrate how well that “exchange of damaged goods” worked out for the Kings and Capitals, Dubois and Kuemper both managed to have bounce-back seasons in 2024-25. After signing with Washington in 2022, Kuemper had fallen out of favour with them, especially in 2023-24 where he had an .890 SV% and a -2.19 5v5 GSAx, eventually losing the starting gig to Charlie Lindgren. As a result, the Caps swapped Kuemper with Dubois, and Los Angeles decided to take a gamble on him while in desperate need of a starting goalie, hoping that he could rebound.
Not only did Kuemper bounce back, he ended up having a career year with the Kings. In 2024-25, he managed a .922 SV% (the second-best among goalies with 40 games played), a 20.91 5v5 GSAx (seventh in the league), and found himself as one of three goalies named as a Vezina finalist. He played a massive role in making the Kings look like one of the better teams in the league, or at least making them look like they have the capability of finally beating the Edmonton Oilers in the first round.
Of course, that’s not what happened, and Kuemper was responsible for their early exit as well with an .889 SV% (although his 3.17 5v5 GSAx indicates that a lot of that was on the Kings’ defense and the Oilers’ power play). Kuemper probably won’t have a year like this year going forward, but it’s safe to say that the Kings at least have some stability in between the pipes for the next couple seasons, something they haven’t had since Jonathan Quick’s prime years.
Jonas Siegenthaler, New Jersey Devils
The Devils made a savvy move when they acquired Siegenthaler for a third-round pick in 2021, as since joining New Jersey, the defenseman has evolved from a depth role to one of the more underrated defensive defensemen in the league. He’d proven to be an excellent complement to Dougie Hamilton in the Devils’ 2022-23 resurgent season, giving them one of the best defense pairs in the league that season.
But like a lot of the players operating in the “preventing goals” department for the Devils in 2023-24, Siegenthaler took a massive step back. He went from scoring 21 points to just nine that season, and defensively, his 0.088 RAPM xGA/60 has been the only time in his career that he’s finished in the positives in that stat. While the Devils goaltending got the most flak that season for their struggles, their defense wasn’t a lot better and Siegenthaler was a part of that.
Thankfully for New Jersey, Siegenthaler managed to bounce back in 2024-25. He still only had nine points, but his defensive game not only went back to normal, it actually improved. Instead of playing with Hamilton, he ended up making up one of the better shutdown pairings in the league alongside Johnathan Kovacevic, and Siegenthaler finished the year with a -0.292 RAPM xGA/60 while facing the 82nd percentile of competition. It was much needed for the Devils, and as a result, they returned to the playoffs, even if injuries caused them to go out with a whimper.
Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay Lightning
Vasilevskiy may be the only player on this list who had a reasonable excuse for his poor performance in 2023-24. He had to miss the first two months of the season to rehab from a back surgery that he underwent during the preseason, and when he came back, he never really looked the same. That showed up in his end-of-season stats, as his .900 SV% that season was the first time he’d fallen below .910, and his -7.64 5v5 GSAx was the worst mark of his career since 2016-17.
At 30 years old, there were plenty of concerns surrounding Vasilevskiy’s future and if this was the beginning of an age-related decline. But he proved all his doubters wrong in 2024-25, finishing the season with a .921 SV% and a career-high 21.19 5v5 GSAx, and as a result, he ended up as a finalist for the Vezina.
But like the other Vezina finalist on this list in Kuemper, Vasilevskiy did see a dip in his performance in the playoffs with an .872 SV% and a -3.44 5v5 GSAx. Regardless, he played a big role in making the Tampa Bay Lightning look like a wagon again, and it looks like he may be back to an elite level for the time being.
Tom Wilson, Washington Capitals
We may be saving the biggest improvement for last with Wilson. Fresh off signing a questionable seven-year extension with a $6.5 million cap hit at 29 years old in the summer of 2023, Wilson responded with only 35 points in 74 games in the 2023-24 season, his worst output in a full season since the Capitals’ 2018 Cup-winning season. It certainly seemed like the team was about to be paying for Wilson’s past performances with this new contract.
But like his linemate in Dubois in 2024-25, Wilson not only saw a return to form, but he actually took another step further and was even better. He managed to set career-highs in goals (33), assists (32) and points (65), and on top of that, he had one of his best defensive seasons with a -0.129 RAPM xGA/60, playing a big role in the Capitals being the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
And now in the playoffs, he’s one of the few Caps whose play hasn’t taken a step back, with seven points in nine games. On top of that, his unique power forward style continues to wreak havoc in the postseason, and it might be what truly makes him worth that contract.
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