One month in - The Atlantic Edition

So we're about a month into the season now and what a month it has been.  Scoring is up for sure, roughly 6.5 goals per game.  Individual break outs and team breaks.  We have surprises in all different ways as well.  Some teams doing what was expected and then some, while others are in the dumps that we didn't expect.  So instead of doing this power rankings style, I'm going to just go over the standings broken down by division.  But I will compare based on my preseason power rankings to see how things are shaking out.  So lets go....

The Atlantic:

So above is obviously a look at the standings at this point. A few things look as they should and a few don't at this point.  

Toronto has been one of the best teams in the league and that was as expected.  Auston Matthews has been a beast all year, but now he has a shoulder injury and I think it is safe to say no one in the league wants him out long term...just for when you're team plays them.  But even without him last year they still won .600% of their games, so it isn't like he has to carry the team alone like McDavid does in Edmonton, but that is another story for another time.  The team has played 11 games to date and already have 5 players with 10pts or more and an equal amount with at least 4 goals.  A bit of a better goal differential would be good but its a positive and that is the most important thing.  Basically they're just riding the wave. 

Tampa Bay, the defending division champs, are sitting in 2nd place early on and have been doing it very quietly.  Not only has the team been off to a quiet start, so has Stammer who only has 1 goal, 5 pts and is a minus -3 as of now.  They don't seem to be scoring at a crazy pace like Toronto has been but they're doing it more by committee as virtually everyone has contributed at least a point.   I wouldn't expect them to stay in the Leafs shadow for to long though.  Consider them a sleeping giant who is still a little drowsy as we're early in the season. 

Montreal has been one of the surprise teams early this year as they sit in 3rd place in the division. I'll be the 1st to admit I didn't expect them to come out of the gate like this.  With a 6-2-2 record, I would have expected something more like a 2-6-2 record.  But led by their youth, they're playing hard and fast.  Domi, acquired in the off season for Galchenyuk, is leading the team with 11pts in 10 games.  He is followed by Petry and Drouin.  Petry leads the way on the back end, while Drouin looks to finally be the guy they expected when picking him up from Tampa. Tatar seems to be fitting in nicely as well after coming over in an off season trade as well.  And how can I not mention Kotkaniemi?  He has been playing solid as a center, though only 4 pts, he is a plus-3 and has been incredibly dependable. 

Boston...I don't know how they do it.  Tied with Montreal in points but playing 1 more game, they fall to 4th.  They are led by arguably the best line in hockey right now in Bergeron, Pastrnak, and Marchand.  They have some shown some solid depth on offense as well, but it will have to pick up if they wanna hang on and stay in the race.  Rask has not been himself and Halak has stolen a few games from him lately, even putting up a recent shutout.  If Rask doesn't find his game Halak will steal his starting job, and I don't know if he can get it done long term.

Buffalo.  As predicted in my most improved teams post, Buffalo is finally putting it together, though they're not 100% there yet.  Officially led by new Captain Jack Eichel they're going to be a force to reckon with this season.  Jeff Skinner has proven to be one of the best acquisitions of the off season as he leads all players on the team in points with 12, 1 more than Eichel.  Pominville is looking like he is in his mid-20's again as well.  Hutton though has played all 8 games thus far and is .500 and could have better numbers, but he is keeping them afloat so far.  And of course Dahlin has not really looked out of place, as he has 4pts and is only a minus -1 early on. 

Ottawa came out of the gate pretty hot after a rough off season and even rougher year last year.  But they have been competitive all year so far and hold a .500 record for now, but they've dropped 3 straight...so maybe the hope that they had is gone and reality is now setting in.  Brady has been out with an injury though and that has clearly hurt them the most as he had 6pts in 4 games to start off his career.  Thomas Chabot has just about made everyone forget about that Karlsson guy though with 13pts in 10 games.  Duchene has played very well too and Chris Tierney has found another level.  But don't expect the fun ride to last much longer.

Florida has definitely been the disappointment of the season.  2 wins in 9 games with 3 OTL...ouch.  They're a minus -7 goal differential too...only 1 worse team in the division.  It looks like one of their biggest problems is Special teams.  15% on the PP and 71% on the PK...worst in the division.  Goal tending has clearly been bad as the offense seems to be doing what they need.  They're out shooting opponents on average and they're getting pretty goo production from all the guys you'd expect.  I don't think they'll stay at the bottom for to much longer...but it may be to little to late once again for the playoffs. 

Detroit...ugh.   So whats been good here as they're sitting in the corner of the basement?  Larkin is beginning to look like a number 1 center.  AA has been explosive and looks like a solid number 2, even back checking.  Bert has been putting the puck in the net. Mantha is starting to figure it out. And Cholowski seems like a future number 1 D-man, something I didn't think he would ever be.  So whats the problem?  The PP is in the middle of the pack and the PK is actually 2nd in the Atlantic.   They just haven't been able to find the back of the net playing 5-on-5.  2.3 GF/G and 3.8 GA/G...that doesn't make a winning formula.  They also are being out shot by about 7 shots per game...I remember the good ole days when we were out shooting teams by 10 or more. Well...#lose4Hughes should be in full effect. 

So with that we clearly have 5 teams already pulling away from the pack and should stay pretty tight in the points race through most of the season.  They'll need to if they want a shot at playing through mid-April.  As we know, American Thanksgiving is a major marker in the season and has shown us who will and wont make the playoffs the majority of the time.  With the top 3 teams in every division guaranteed a spot, the 4th and 5th place teams will have to keep it up and be better than the teams in their rival division within the conference.  For the Atlantic, that means the Metro,  who is home to the last 3 Stanley Cup Champions.  The race will only heat up from here.  

Keep an eye out for my next breakdown which will focus on the Metropolitan Division before moving off to the Western Conference. 

Most Improved Teams of the Off-Season.

This off-season has seen plenty of players joining new teams either via trade, free agency, and almost most importantly the draft. With all these players changing places most teams should have a different outlook coming into the season, for better or worse.  So, I'm going do a breakdown of a few teams I think have improved the most and not just on paper.  These teams I think are really going to have a significant improvement in the standings as opposed to last season.

Let’s start with the easy one, the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Are the most improved as a whole, probably not.  Defense was never really addressed here, but offense?  That's another story.  They landed arguably the biggest free agent available in the last 10 years by bringing in the home town kid in John Tavares.  They now have top-3 center depth reminiscent of the 2009 Penguins.

Penguins had Crosby, Malkin, and Jordan Staal at center the year they won the cup, now the Leafs have Matthews, Tavares, and Kadri!  This is scary, not think about Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and Patty Marleau on the wings.  That's a lot of high-end talent, each line just needs a gritty and physical guy to go in the corners and really help dig out that puck to get it into space, and these guys don’t need much. As far as D goes, not much happened, but look for Timothy Lilgren to crack the lineup. He was scary good last year when I saw him at USA Arena and thought he was NHL ready then, he definitely should be now.  Look for the Leafs to battle for top spot in the League this season.

On to the Buffalo Sabres.  Another easy choice, but on a deeper level than just picking up Rasmus Dahlin.  They have made some remarkable trades!  In the process they had to give up a bit, and even gave up one of the best centers in the league when he is on his game in Ryan O'Reilly, but they got back so much more the team is pretty fantastic on paper.

They have added Skinner, Thompson, Berglund, Sobotka, and Connor Sheary all via trade this off season,  On top of already having Eichel, Mittelstadt, and Okposo...thats a pretty formidable top-6 no matter how you put it together, and their 3rd line shouldn’t be too shabby either. On D they have Ristolainen, Dahlin, Bogo, and Scandella; which makes for a nice top4 set of D-men.  Now the worry is in goal, which isn’t much of a change from last season.  The question now is can Carter Hutton carry the load of being a number 1 goalie for the 1st time at 32 years old?  If he can look for the Sabre to battle anywhere from wild card to 2nd overall in the Atlantic Division.

In the west, we have the Arizona Coyotes up first. I don’t think that they had the biggest F.A. signings but they definitely locked up a good player in Grabner. He will be a good fit on the 2nd or 3rd line for them, bringing a little bit of size, but a hell of a lot of speed and some goal scoring ability.  He'll also be vital on the PK where he had 2 shorty’s and has had 15 so far in his career.  More importantly than signing Grabner, they were able to resign some key players in Raanta, Dvorak, and Hjalmarsson. When healthy last season Raanta was stellar in goal winning 21 of the teams 29 victories, with only 46 starts. Dvorak is a young player with a high ceiling that he began to show last season earning himself a substantial raise.  And Hjalmarsson is just a solid, hardworking defense man who has "been there and done that" and provides tremendous leadership to a young D-core.

The biggest move they made was trading, straight up, Max Domi for Alex Galchenyuk.  While Domi has a lot of upside, Galchenyuk is a bit bigger and a proven goal scorer who most would expect about 30 goals a season out of. Not to mention he has been great on the power play when he is on his game.  Combine that with a young and promising group of forward I would expect a solid top 9 and at least 3 20-goal scorers this season...could there be more or someone even to get 30 goals?  Only time will tell.  Goaltending is in good shape with Raanta as mentioned before, but how will the D-core perform? A pretty good top-4 led by OEL, but will it stay healthy and the depth players rise up?  We'll see but expect to Yotes to be in it till the end this year battling for a wild card spot.

And to finish things off we have the St. Louis Blues. An already solid team, though the just missed the playoffs, really shook things up this off season in a big way.  Most of all quite a lot was lost in the Ryan O'Reilly trade that was already talked about back up in the Sabres talk, so I'm going to leave that alone.  Other than that, they made some key free agency deals that should help to off-set the loss of a few players. Key signings made were of Bozak and Perron returning from Vegas...I think Perron has been moved from the team and came back now 3-4 times at this point, its nuts.  Bozak will now give the Blues solid top-3 center depth with O'Reilly and Schenn, who had his own breakout year last season.  Down the wings you have one of the best snipers in the game, Tarasenko, along with Steen, Fabri, and big Patty Marron. With a few younger players who'll be looking to make an impact we have another team with a very solid top-9.

The Defense of the Blues is the real key though, they have likely the 3rd, maybe 4th ,best D core in their division, yet it is still likely in the top 3rd of the league. The top-4 is about as solid as it comes being led by Pietrangelo and Parayko.  Though that don’t have much in the way of depth or prospects in the system it will be very important that they stay health and play well.  Back in goal they have Jake Allen so has been able to stand on his head often, and with the number one spot secured, it will be gravely important that he plays to his best especially late into the season.  In a stacked division they will need every victory they can get to make it into the playoffs, the west really looks like it will be the wild, wild, west again and I would expect the Blues to push for the 3rd place spot trying to avoid the wildcard.

I had 2 honorable mentions until today though...now I have 3.  I'm not going to go in depth at all, you can do the work and let your imagination run wild.  Number one, the Carolina Hurricanes, and no its not because of Mrazek (though it totally helps).  Second the Calgary Flames...funny I think these teams did some business this summer.  And Third as of about 2:30 EST this afternoon...the San Jose Sharks...Eric Karlsson, what more needs to be said.