We’re a month into the season, having closed the book on October. The season’s first month is usually a time for sorting teams into vague tiers, with the good and bad and the mushy middle. The intriguing part is that sometimes the results don’t match expectations, and a team and its fan base are faced with having to reckon with what might be a new reality.
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That said, it’s only one month, so there isn’t room for all that many twists and turns. A team has time to settle into a tier, let the rest of us form an impression, and then spend the season figuring out if we were right.
Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. But this year feels different. It’s been strange, right? There seem to be a whole lot of teams that, just a few weeks into the season, have already gone through at least two phases, if not more. And while we talked about the Devils’ ascent to a (maybe?) unstoppable powerhouse in last week’s rankings, there are also a whole lot of teams going in the other direction.
How many? Enough that I’m not sure I can even fit them all on this list…
Top five teams that have already been both good and bad this year
5. Ottawa Senators – We’ll get into the Sens down in the bottom five section, but they’ve gone from winning four straight to get to 4-2-0 while looking like they could be right in the early playoff mix in the Atlantic to five straight regulation losses and staring up at everyone other than Columbus.
4. New York Rangers – You could argue that the Rangers have already had three or even four distinct phases. They looked good early on, including wins over the Lightning and Wild. Then they lost four straight. Then they won three. Now they’ve lost their last two, so who knows? Maybe the Rangers don’t even belong on this list, but I want to include them just for the sheer weirdness of it all. Pick a lane, guys.
3. Calgary Flames – The Flames have been holding down a spot in the top five all year long, thanks to a hot start that saw them at 3-0-0 and 5-1-0. But this week saw four straight losses, including to teams like the Predators and Kraken that they should be beating. I’m not an expert on technical lingo, but I feel like the phrase “a complete lack of energy” is bad for hockey players. (It is OK for sportswriters.)
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2. Pittsburgh Penguins – Two weeks ago, I had the Penguins in the top five on the strength of a 4-0-1 start that had seen them outscore the opposition by an average of three goals a game. Tristan Jarry looked great, Sidney Crosby was eying another Hart Trophy, and it was all good. Since then, it’s seven straight losses. Also, Jarry has turned into a pumpkin. The beginning of the end? That seems drastic, but it’s kind of the vibe right now.
1. St. Louis Blues – Top spot on this list isn’t a hard call. The Blues started the season 3-0-0, and were actually the last team left standing with a perfect record (in part due to a schedule that had them lagging behind everyone in games played, but still). They looked good enough that I felt the need to justify leaving them out of the top five in week two.
It turns out that was the right call because two weeks later the Blues are a mess, Doug Armstrong is doing emergency damage control, the goaltending stinks, Craig Berube might be on the hot seat, Ryan O’Reilly’s UFA value is plummeting in front of our eyes, and the Blues have lost six straight in regulation while being outscored 30 to 10. They’re absolutely flat-lining, and while we can point to a dozen different explanations, it’s at least possible that the simplest one is correct: They’re just not that good.
Honorable mentions go to the Predators, who started with a pair of wins in Europe but took three weeks to get a second win back in North America; the Leafs, who have already been through at least two distinct crisis situations but then run off a winning streak every time you’re ready to write them off; and the Flyers, who might be coming back to earth after a hot start that nobody really seemed to buy.
And for the record, I’m not ready to pull the chute on any of those teams. It’s still early-ish, and as long as you haven’t gone full Canucks then all it takes is one good week to flip the script. But man, it’s been a tough few weeks for those of us in the business of pretending we have any real idea of what’s going on in this league.
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On to the rankings…
Road to the Cup
The five teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.
This sure seems like ugly stuff from Matthew Tkachuk here on Saturday night against Jonathan Quick and the Kings.
Matthew Tkachuk appears to poke his stick into the mask of Jonathan Quick and chaos ensues shortly after. pic.twitter.com/ov5fhrpbbI — Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 6, 2022
It earned him a two-game suspension, which is one of those calls that seems to have been designed in a lab to make everyone angry. If you’re a Panthers fan or you like Tkachuk or you’re just the trusting sort, you think the play was a fluke and any suspension at all is unfair. If you think it was intentional – and the league apparently did – then I’m not sure how a measly two games is a fair penalty for trying to stick a goaltender in the eye. So everyone’s mad, which apparently is the Department of Player Safety’s corporate mission statement.
5. Tampa Bay Lightning (7-4-1, +3 true goals differential*) – As we just saw, a bunch of teams that we thought were good are struggling these days. And since I certainly don’t have the guts to give a top-five spot to the Devils, let alone someone like Dallas or Winnipeg, I’m going to go back to a familiar team to round out this week’s top-five. The Lightning haven’t looked great lately – that win over Ottawa was almost comically sloppy – but they’ve picked up nine of their last ten points. That’s enough for now, if only because they’re a top-five pick that probably won’t make me look ridiculous in a few weeks.
4. Vegas Golden Knights (11-2-0, +19) – I was getting a little worried that we had a fifth-slot curse going after Florida and (especially) Pittsburgh fell back after getting the honor. Not the Knights, though, as they’ve now run off seven in a row. They haven’t exactly done it against top competition, but wins are wins, and Vegas is banking a ton of them while the Alberta teams spin their wheels and lose ground.
3. Carolina Hurricanes (8-3-1, +3) – Last night, a Leafs/Hurricanes game was won by the team that was forced to use a third-string goaltender, which I’m pretty sure has never happened before.
2. Boston Bruins (10-2-0, +20) – They’ve got the best record in the East and the best goals differential in hockey, and just about nobody has anything good to say about them right now.
We can thank Don Sweeney for that one, after the Bruins’ GM decided that now was the time to sign Mitchell Miller. That kicked off a disastrous few days that saw the team’s own veteran core push back on the move while Gary Bettman suggested that Miller may not even be eligible to play in the NHL. The public reaction, as you might expect, was not positive, and late Sunday night the Bruins reversed course and announced they’d part ways with Miller. The announcement cited “new information,” and notably was released under the name of team president Cam Neely, not Sweeney.
So why did the Bruins do it? And why now? The answer to that second question is almost certain that some other team would have beaten them to it, and as much as you’d like to think that it wouldn’t be your favorite team, don’t be so sure. The first question is even easier: Miller is good at hockey. He’s a solid prospect, the Bruins don’t have a ton of them, and so a team might figure that the rest of it can be hand-waved away with empty talk about character and teachable moments and second chances.
Most of that is nonsense, but second chances are important, especially for young people. Second chances are also supposed to be a second step, though, where the first is showing some genuine remorse and accountability. We can’t know for sure how much of that has happened here, if any, although the evidence of any is in short supply. If you’re on the fence, be sure to read Fluto’s piece on how this news landed with the family of Miller’s victim. And then feel free to wonder how any of this could have possibly felt worth it for Sweeney and the Bruins.
1. Colorado Avalanche (6-4-1, +8) – I took a bit of a risk in keeping the Avs on top of my long-term rankings even as they stumbled out of the gate. They kept me from looking dumb this week, taking care of business with apparent ease in Finland against the Blue Jackets. They’ve got Carolina later this week in what should be a good one.
Also, this was pretty great:
*Goals differential without counting shootout decisions like the NHL does for some reason.
Not ranked: Dallas Stars – I said I didn’t have the guts to put them in the top five, but we have to at least point out that at 8-3-1, the Stars are sitting second in the West. They won three straight this week, and maybe the most impressive fact about that is they did it without Jake Oettinger. He could be back soon, but in the meantime, they’ve been just fine with Scott Wedgewood. (They also signed Matt Murray, which is confusing for me but we’ll allow it.)
There are two main things I want to touch on with Dallas. The first is that Jason Robertson is ridiculous, racking up 18 points in 12 games after missing just about all of camp. He’s combining with Roope Hintz and Joe Pavelski to form maybe the most dangerous line in the league. And if he can keep it up through his new four-year deal, he’s going to make a ton of money by betting on himself on a shorter contract rather than just jumping at whatever max-length deal the Stars put in front of him.
The other thing I wanted to mention was that this was very funny:
Jamie Benn and Zach Hyman’s friendship is dead 😢 pic.twitter.com/ZcfJVS5ZAR — B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 5, 2022
Hockey players are the best and also simultaneously the worst.
The bottom five
The five teams that are headed towards dead last, and the best lottery odds for Connor Bedard.
If you missed the end of regulation between the Canucks and Predators, you missed… nothing.
In football, basketball, and baseball, games are great when they’re tied late in the contest. The NHL’s points system not only incentivizes teams to be boring, but also ensures that teams that dig a hole are virtually unable to pull themselves back into the playoff race. https://t.co/uHAi8ImFkJ — Cam Charron (@camcharronyvr) November 6, 2022
Thomas is absolutely right. (Cam too.) Look, NHL GMs, I know you love the free points and easy path to putting “my team was .500” on your resume, but could you please get rid of this stupid loser point that sucks so much fun out of the league?
5. Montreal Canadiens (5-6-1, -6) – Last week, I had Montreal and Chicago both teetering on the edge of bottom-five status. I gave both teams the benefit of the doubt, which is to say that I doubt either is good. I still do, but we have a new team deeper down this list, so I have to bump one of them. That will be the Hawks, who did beat the Kings this week while the Habs went oh-for-three. It’s been the Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki show in Montreal, which is its own kind of fun for the fans but not for Martin St. Louis.
4. San Jose Sharks (3-8-3, -10) – They lost three straight, although all three came in the shootout, so does that even count? I’m not supposed to call those losses, so let’s rephrase. They… uh… they winlessed three in a row. Is that a word? That isn’t a word. They lost three in a row.
All that said, Erik Karlsson is crushing it this year and that rocks.
The San Jose Sharks have scored 32 goals this season. Erik Karlsson has.. •Been on the ice for 24 of them
•Registered a point on 18 of them
•Scored 10 of them himself — Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) November 4, 2022
3. Anaheim Ducks (4-8-1, -22) – Man they give up a lot of goals. More than anyone else in the league, to be specific. Five or more on six different occasions, including seven to the Islanders and eight to the Canucks. For a young team that was going to need a return to form from John Gibson to do much of anything, it’s been a rough first month.
2. Columbus Blue Jackets (3-9-0, -25) – A mess of a Europe trip means we can’t hold off on the Blue Jackets any longer. They make their bottom five debut, with a bullet.
Oh well, as long as the players are staying positive…
#CBJ Patrik Laine after losing both #NHLGlobalSeries games to #GoAvsGo: “It sucks. I’m kind of wishing that this trip had never happened after this. I feel like it was just a waste of time for us. It sucks. That’s all I’ve got to say.” — Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) November 5, 2022
Ah. Well. Nevertheless.
1. Arizona Coyotes (4-6-1, -14) – With their four-game Mullett Arena preview done, they’re back on the road for a brutal 14-game trip. They got it off to a decent start with a win over the Capitals on Saturday, but you wonder how much gas they’ll have left by the time they return home in the second week of December.
At least the Mullett will have a visiting locker room by then. The Coyotes might head for it out of force of habit.
Not ranked: Ottawa Senators – Hot Pierre Summer. Lukewarm Pierre Fall?
As we touched on above, it’s already been a season of contrasts. They ran off those four straight wins early, including a home-opener win over the Bruins that was the only blemish on Boston’s record for weeks. After a busy offseason that saw them add Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux to a young roster that was already poised to improve, the Senators looked like the rebuild was finally over. For real this time.
Maybe not. They’ve followed that win streak by losing five in a row, all in regulation, leaving them dead last in the Atlantic. This is one of those cases where the win-loss record can be deceiving, as the Senators underlying numbers at five-on-five are solid and even their goals differential is even. They’ve also been fun to watch, which should count for something after years of losing. But they’re giving up too many goals, and the offense has already lost Josh Norris for months, if not the season. And maybe worst of all, this is playing out in a conference where it seems like every other projected bubble team is surging. The Devils are dominating, the Red Wings look good, the Sabres are a great story, the Flyers are winning, the Islanders are back … somehow, everyone is overachieving. Everyone but Ottawa, the one team that absolutely needed a strong start to justify all that well-earned optimism.
There don’t seem to be a ton of cards available for Pierre Dorion to play right now. Jakob Chychrun is still the big name out there among defensemen but wouldn’t help right away. A coaching change is a possibility, especially if the defensive struggles continue, but this hardly feels like a D.J. Smith problem. Dorion could choose patience, and he might not be wrong. not counting empty-net goals, every loss in this five-game streak has been by a single goal, so this team is right there. And Cam Talbot has only just recently returned after missing the start of the season, so maybe he can get the goals against under control.
You’d like to see this team get at least another week or two to sort things out. They don’t play a 2022 playoff team in their next seven, so there’s a chance to grind points here. There’s also a chance to fall out of the race completely, which would be brutal for Senators fans, who went into the year expecting to at least get to watch some meaningful hockey in the second half for the first time in years. We get an intriguing matchup with Vancouver tomorrow, one that sees two struggling teams that are desperate for a win. One of them will get it, and one will have even more to think about.
(Top photo of Craig Berube: Jeff Curry / USA Today)