Dear readers, the Metropolitan Division Snapshot is back. Over the years, John has run these on a weekly basis, but I am spreading them out a little bit (and combining this one with a short October review).
From this post, the Division Snapshot should come out every two weekends, while the traditional “Month in Review” posts will return at the end of November.
Today marks one month passing since the start of the 2025-26 NHL season on October 7. The Devils, of course, started on October 9. Let’s look at the standings since then:
*Note: The Weeks Won for this week of the season may be changed in the next update based on how teams perform today and tomorrow.
The New Jersey Devils and Carolina Hurricanes got off to roaring starts, while the Pittsburgh Penguins surprised many people with their resurgence under a new coaching staff. But really, did nobody think Crosby and Malkin had another surprise under their sleeve? The Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers also got off to decent, but unspectacular starts, and Philadelphia was able to leapfrog the Capitals last night. They are currently within striking distance of a playoff spot in the early stages of the season.
Rounding out the bottom of the division are the New York Islanders, Columbus Blue Jackets, and New York Rangers. All three teams are NHL .500, though the Islanders and Rangers have lost more games than they have won, including overtime and shootouts. The Islanders have lost twice in shootouts, while the Rangers have lost twice in regular overtime. Most shockingly, the Rangers have yet to win a single home game as of today, though they are 6-1-1 on the road.
That aside, here are the team schedules for the next two weeks:
With the crunch of the holidays coming and the Olympic break built into the February schedule, these are among the busiest weeks of the season. Still, the Penguins get quite a bit of a rest before they go to Stockholm for the NHL Global Series, after which they also have a bit of a break from games. Everyone else will be playing between five (Flyers) and eight (Islanders, Jackets, Rangers) games.
But how have the teams really been doing? What’s coming up? Let’s dive into all of them.
New Jersey Devils
What Happened Last Month: The New Jersey Devils have managed injury after injury to make themselves the first team in the NHL to get to 10 wins. No, they do not have the most games played. The Penguins and several Western Conference teams have played 15 games, while the Boston Bruins have already played 16. Only the Colorado Avalanche have more points than the Devils, thanks to their five overtime losses. But the Devils were very close to not being the first team to 10 wins and very close to not being the first-place team in the Metropolitan today. As Jackson recapped last night, the Devils won a dramatic game against the Montreal Canadiens in overtime. Had they lost, the Penguins would be atop the Metropolitan Division, while the Canadiens would be the only team in the league with 10 wins. Thank you, Timo Meier and Jesper Bratt.
But it was not an easy time for the Devils, despite the wins and their perfect home record. Evgenii Dadonov got hurt in the first game of the season. Zack MacEwen got hurt in the next. Jake Allen left his first start with cramping, leading to Jacob Markstrom injuring himself in the final seconds of his relief appearance. Cody Glass missed seven games. Then Brett Pesce apparently broke something in his hand or wrist, while Connor Brown started missing games with an undisclosed injury. They were still able to go on an eight-game winning streak, beating the Lightning, Panthers, Oilers, Leafs, Wild, and Avalanche in the process.
The only down-side, games-wise, was the western road trip. The Devils were a bit lost to begin the trip after Pesce got hurt on October 26, which was their eighth win of the streak, as they gave up 13 goals in their first two games to the Avalanche (eight) and Sharks (five). The eight-goal game against the Avalanche was a bit disconcerting, as it was Markstrom’s first game back from an injury. But then Markstrom signed an extension, and he promptly played his best game of the season against the Los Angeles Kings. That turned out to be their only victory of the four-game trip.
What’s Coming Up This Fortnight: The Devils will battle for the top of the division against the Pittsburgh Penguins tomorrow afternoon before facing off against the Islanders on Monday. Then, the Devils kick off on a road trip, starting with Chicago on November 12. After that, they won’t be back home until the week of Thanksgiving, but this road trip will be along the east coast after the one game against the Blackhawks.
The Devil of the Month for October: Sans the Month in Review post for October, we will discuss our Devil on the Month here. With Jacob Markstrom falling quickly to injury this season, the New Jersey Devils needed a spark from the rest of their team to get going on the kind of winning streak that they had. And, yes, Jake Allen was great in that stretch. He had a .906 save percentage and a 2.39 goals against average for a 3.20 goals saved above average and 2.89 goals saved above expected. He did very well to earn his 5-1-0 record in October.
But Jack Hughes, man. Jack had 15 points in the 11 Devils games of October despite not looking quite like himself for the first few games of the season. But then he scored a big goal against the Florida Panthers, then scored two against Edmonton, and then had a hat trick against Toronto, finishing off the road trip with two crucial goals — including an overtime winner — against the Colorado Avalanche to get the winning streak to eight games. In total, he had nine goals, five primary assists, and one secondary assist in the month of October. That is Hart-pace stuff, and his 23.68 shooting percentage in October, while high, is not that far above an “unsustainable” point. It has since dropped to 20.00%. Could we be seeing a return of the lethal accuracy he showed in the 2021-22 season, when he had 15.8% of his shots hit the back of the net? Adding good team defense on top of that, and Jack Hughes was the All About the Jersey Devil of the Month for October 2025.
Pittsburgh Penguins
What Happened Last Month: The Pittsburgh Penguins are back. Evgeni Malkin is a monster on the power play again, Sidney Crosby is as good as ever in the offensive end, and the Penguins have gotten some big contributions from Anthony Mantha and Justin Brazeau. Mantha, who signed a one-year, $2.5 million deal, has seven goals and 12 assists in 15 games. Is it sustainable? I think people have been long waiting for Mantha to hit that next level of production, considering his skill that people have raved about since he was in Detroit. Malkin already has nine power play points after only having 16 in 68 games last season. Brazeau, who is in year one of a two-year deal worth $1.5 million per season, had 12 points in 12 games before getting hurt on October 30, as he has now been placed on IR with the expectation that he returns in early October. In a more fortuitous development for the Penguins, though, 18-year old and 11th overall pick Benjamin Kindel has five goals and seven points in 13 games for the club while holding his own in the faceoff circle and getting involved on defense. Kindel also currently leads all qualified Penguins forwards in expected goals percentage at five-on-five at 56.34%.
Brazeau hitting IR is another tough blow for the Penguins, who have an even longer IR list than the Devils right now. Kevin Hayes was placed on injured reserve yesterday, though he may make his season debut against the Devils tomorrow. Tristan Jarry, who was actually having a good start to his season at 5-2-0 with a .911 save percentage, will not be back until December with a lower-body injury. The Penguins now have Sergei Murashov backing up Arturs Silovs, as Joel Blomqvist has been out for the start of the season. Luckily for the Penguins, Murashov was very promising in Russia and has been very good int he ECHL and AHL since arriving in North America last season. The Penguins are also missing Caleb Jones, who was playing third pairing minutes until he hit IR with a lower-body injury in late October, in addition to Rickard Rakell, who had eight points in nine games before getting hand surgery. He won’t be back until late December. The Penguins keep chugging along.
Have the Penguins had a tough schedule so far? Not really. They have beat the Kings, Panthers, and Wild, though they have yet to face a fellow true top team. But their stars are playing like stars. Erik Karlsson and Kris Letang are playing good defense and continuing to eat big minutes. For a team who was pretty much being divvied up for spare parts by every external armchair onlooker throughout the offseason, they look set to go on a playoff run. Rather than selling this season, they look like they should be buyers. Why not go for it one more time with Crosby, Malkin, and Letang?
What’s Coming Up This Fortnight: Tomorrow afternoon should be fun. The Penguins are a bit of an elder squad, though, so they might have an easier time waking up in time for the 12:30 start time. After the Devils game, the Penguins face the Kings in Pittsburgh on Sunday afternoon before traveling to Stockholm for the Global Series with the Predators. Nashville, a team that is seemingly falling apart in the locker room (between Erik Haula and Juuse Saros angrily yelling in Finnish in the locker room after an OT loss days before Ryan O’Reilly blasts himself for not being good enough) under head coach Andrew Brunette and GM Barry Trotz, is talented enough to keep up with anyone, but they do not seem to have the right people guiding them, and I expect Pittsburgh to take three or four points in Sweden. Let’s be real, a team that has Erik Haula (I miss him) almost tripling Steven Stamkos’s point production through 16 games is a team that is almost completely broken, and Pittsburgh’s veterans should eat them up with their breakfast smörgås.
Carolina Hurricanes
What Happened Last Month: The Carolina Hurricanes started their season with a five-game winning streak. Since then, they are 4-4-0. Their injuries on the back-end may be starting to catch up with them, to some extent. Jaccob Slavin has not played since their second game of the season, and Shayne Gostisbehere had seven points in four games before leaving on October 18 with an injury after just four minutes of ice time. He tried to come back on October 28, but left after just seven minutes of ice time. Now, he has “no timetable” for return. K’Andre Miller has also missed six games, but is now back in the lineup playing top pairing minutes with Sean Walker. And in another unfortunate turn for their blueline, Jalen Chatfield left yesterday’s game with a head injury after an illegal check from Tyler Pitlick. In addition to their injuries on defense, they are missing William Carrier and Eric Robinson, who are on injured reserve.
At forward, Jackson Blake has fit like a glove in Carolina, disguising Andrei Svechnikov’s continued premature decline. Jordan Staal may be playing the best defensive hockey of his life, as the Hurricanes have only given up two goals in 13 games with him on the ice at five-on-five. But Taylor Hall has been slow since a hot start, with just two points in his last 10 games. The big fish of the offseason, Nikolaj Ehlers, only has two goals and six points in 13 games, finally scoring in a 3-0 win against the Rangers on November 4.
Their wins have largely come against struggling teams so far, losing twice to the Golden Knights and once to the Stars, while Frederik Andersen stole a shootout win against the Quebec Nordiques Colorado Avalanche for one of their three wins against playoff teams who have more wins than losses (also the Devils and Ducks, which they won before Gostisbehere’s injury). They also beat the Kings in overtime, who are technically in a playoff spot, but have lost nine of their 15 games.
What’s Coming Up This Fortnight: The Hurricanes have two real challanges over the next two weeks, playing the Maple Leafs in Toronto on the back-half of a back-to-back on Sunday before facing the Edmonton Oilers in Raleigh on the back-half of a back-to-back next Saturday. Otherwise, they have home games against the Sabres, Capitals, and Canucks over the next week, while they go on the road to face the Bruins and Wild later in the fortnight. I am still waiting for the Wild to turn it around, given their talent, but they have yet to do so. Might it happen by the time they play Carolina?
Philadelphia Flyers
What Happened Last Month: I will say it right now: I do not believe in the Philadelphia Flyers. Do you want a team to put on the “fraud watch” board? It’s the Flyers. They currently possess the second wild card spot, but they are tied with the Canadiens, Senators, Rangers, and Sabres for the fewest regulation wins in the Eastern Conference. Their five regulation and overtime wins are better than just the Senators and Sabres. Even the Sharks, who have two regulation wins as the second worst team in the whole league, have as many ROW as the Flyers. The Flyers have the 26th ranked offense in the league by goals per 60 minutes played in all situations as well as in five-on-five play. They have had good special teams so far, but take more penalties than they draw. Most of all, I do not believe Dan Vladar will continue to run with a .917 save percentage, and there is only so long that the team can lean on Travis Sanheim for over 26 minutes a game to keep chances against down.
Trevor Zegras is doing well to lead their offense, but Matvei Michkov is off to a much worse start under Rick Tocchet, who is giving him nearly two fewer minutes of ice time per night than John Tortorella did. I guess Michkov really doesn’t want to play the dump-and-chase game. What a shock it is that the coach who almost managed to ruin Clayton Keller is now doing it again with one of the most talented players in the league. The Flyers will continue to play muck-up, mediocre hockey until they finish sixth or worse in the division. But for now, they are in a decent spot. They did beat the Panthers, Wild, and Kraken in October. I won’t give them too much credit for the shootout wins over the Penguins and Canadiens. Until they start playing Michkov on the top line and modernize their offense enough to get out of possession hell, I won’t believe in them.
What’s Coming Up This Fortnight: The Flyers play Ottawa tomorrow afternoon, but their real tests are next week with a home game against the Oilers and a road back-to-back against the Blues and Stars that Friday and Saturday. Then, they get a four-day break before a home game against the Blues. So, they’ll be nice and rested for when they face the Devils in Philadelphia beyond this fortnight. Will they still be in a playoff spot? I doubt it.
Washington Capitals
What Happened Last Month: The Washington Capitals have some great top-end forwards. Tom Wilson and Dylan Strome are both scoring at over a point per game, and they also have Aleksei Protas and Alex Ovechkin not too far off. Ovechkin, of course, recently scored his 900th career goal in the NHL, and he may even reach 1700 points if more of his shots start hitting the back of the net (currently at 1633). Unfortunately, they will be without Pierre-Luc Dubois for a large chunk of the season, so it may be difficult for them to replicate last year’s regular season success. Their success will be built off of their solid defense, which includes John Carlson, Jakob Chychrun, Martin Fehervary, and Matt Roy, as the four provide a great mix of offense in both shooting and passing ability from Chychrun and Carlson, while Fehervary and Roy play incredibly solid defense. Their goaltending has been very good to start the season, as well, as Logan Thompson is playing at an insane .938 save percentage and 1.45 goals against average, while Charlie Lindgren has struggled in a more defined backup role than the split platoon he played last season. Thompson has been so consistently great in net that he has a 1.45 GAA despite not yet recording a shutout this season.
Like other teams mentioned here, the Capitals have not yet had quite the difficult schedule that the Devils have had to play through. They did beat the Lightning in overtime, and they handily beat the Wild and Kraken. But with losses to the Canucks, Stars, Senators, Islanders, and Penguins, they have largely not done as well against equally skilled or better competition. The Capitals currently struggle down the lineup, with very little production from their bottom six. If Dubois ends up being out multiple months, I can imagine them being out of a playoff spot down the stretch. They do not have the centers to make up for his absence, unless maybe Nicklas Backstrom (currently with 13 points in 18 SHL games in his first hockey in about two years) were to make an unexpected return to the NHL. The trade market might not open up until Dubois is closer to a return, and some serious damage might be made against their playoff hopes by then.
What’s Coming Up This Fortnight: The Capitals have a chance to right the ship and prove themselves in a brutal stretch here. They are currently in the middle of a road trip, which features games against the Lightning, Hurricanes, and Panthers over the next week. Then, they return home to play the Devils, Kings, and Oilers before finishing the fortnight with an away game in Montreal the night after they face Edmonton. If they rise above here, they will have established themselves as resilient enough to compete for a playoff spot even without Dubois.
New York Islanders
What Happened Last Month: Matthew Schaefer is very good. With five goals and 11 points in 13 games, Schaefer is displaying his incredible skating and offensive abilities to at least make the Islanders a very interesting watch. With a robust offense that features Bo Horvat, with nine goals and 15 points, alongside good starts to the year by Mat Barzal, Kyle Palmieri, and others, the Islanders should actually be disappointed they are this far down the standings. In short, Ilya Sorokin has been bad. He is 3-4-2 with an .879 save percentage. Is some of that due to bizarrely trading Noah Dobson away for Emil Heineman, thinking they could replace Dobson on the right side with Tony DeAngelo? Probably. I was not with Mathieu Darche on that one — a mistake that I don’t think Lou Lamoriello would have ever made, no matter if Heineman is a serviceable third-line scoring forward.
(Noah Dobson is Noah Dobson. But a first-round pick could be anything! It could even be Noah Dobson!)
The Islanders had a great run in the middle of October, beating the Oilers, Senators, Sharks, and Red Wings in a stretch of four games where they scored 20 goals. Aside from that, it has been mostly rough, as they only have 23 goals in their other nine games. They started the year with a three-game losing streak against the Penguins, Capitals, and Jets, while they followed their winning streak up with a shootout loss to the Flyers and two more in regulation to the Bruins and Hurricanes. They did get back on the board with a win over Washington on Halloween, and they continued to improve their divisional record with a win over Columbus a couple days later. The Islanders, I think, are an unpredictable team, who can both beat or lose to anyone in a much more random fashion than most teams in the league.
What’s Coming Up This Fortnight: Like the Capitals, the Islanders have a tough stretch ahead. They kick off a back-to-back tonight at home against the Wild before playing tomorrow night against the Rangers at the Garden. Then, they go to Newark on Monday night to play the Devils before going on a western road trip. They will face the Knights and Mammoth in a back-to-back before playing the Avalanche, Stars, and Red Wings the following week. Needless to say, they would probably be happy with a .500 points percentage in these two weeks, as their schedule lightens up with a long home stand afterwards.
Columbus Blue Jackets
What Happened Last Month: The Columbus Blue Jackets are just not all there yet. They have some good players. Kirill Marchenko and Dmitri Voronkov are fun to watch on offense, and Zach Werenski is fantastic on the back-end. Sean Monahan and Charlie Coyle is looking like a good top six center duo. But some of their younger players, like Adam Fantilli, are just not ready to bring the team to the next stage of competitiveness, while one of their veterans in Boone Jenner is not what who he once was. They are getting good blueline play from Ivan Provorov, Denton Mateychuk, and Damon Severson, but depth among the defense is as hard to come by as it is at forward. Through a month, they still have not settled on a third pairing due to a lack of quality personnel, leading to a combined 2.93 goals against average for their goaltenders despite a .912 team save percentage.
The Jackets did have some impressive wins in October. They beat the Wild, Lightning, Stars, and Maple Leafs, though they lost to the Devils, Avalanche, and Capitals. They are now coming off of a resounding loss to the Calgary Flames, and they will have to reset themselves while in the midst of a western Canadian road trip.
What’s Coming Up This Fortnight: The Blue Jackets next face the Canucks on Saturday night before facing the Oilers and Kraken in a back-to-back on Monday and Tuesday. Then, they have a home set against the Oilers, Rangers, and Canadians. Then the NHL schedulers massively screw them over with a road back-end to a back-to-back on November 18 in Winnipeg, just 24 hours after they play the Canadians. Then, they continue a four-game road trip with a game against Toronto to end their fortnight.
New York Rangers
Oh boy.
What Happened Last Month: Big thanks to James Dolan for being too preoccupied to see how poorly Chris Drury is running his team. Despite the propaganda of the worst hockey minds of the internet, trading K’Andre Miller for a first-round pick and Scott Morrow was an incredibly poor decision for a team who presumably wants to win before Artemi Panarin leaves in free agency. (K’Andre Miller is K’Andre Miller. But a conditional first-round pick could be—). Mika Ziabejad is still terrible at even strength, and Vincent Trocheck has been out with an upper-body injury. Artemi Panarin only has seven points in 14 games. J.T. Miller looks like a slow version of the kid the Rangers traded away for Tampa Bay to properly develop instead of the 100-point center he became in Vancouver. Alexis Lafreneire got his bag and decided to go full-Yakupov. If the Rangers didn’t have Adam Fox, Igor Shesterkin, and Jonathan Quick, they might have zero wins.
As someone who was glued to the television for the entirety of Cory Schneider’s tenure with the New Jersey Devils, I know how it feels, but the Rangers should be ashamed of having the league-worst offense while having the names they have on their roster. But maybe it’s just their fault. Maybe Chris Drury and Peter Laviolette never knew what they were doing, and now Mike Sullivan has the worst roster of the Drury era to work with. Meanwhile, Chris Kreider has nine goals in nine games in Anaheim, while Jacob Trouba has a league-leading +13 rating with three goals and eight points in 13 games without much power play usage to speak of.
As of today, the Rangers are winless at home. They have only won on the road, winning good games agains the Penguins and Canadiens while beating the Oilers in overtime in a good western Canada-plus-Seattle performance, where they took six of eight points. The Rangers should be better than this, but they have been shutout in four of their six road games, and the only times they scored at home were against the Wild (31st-ranked defense) and Sharks (31st-ranked team). Based on their first month, I would say they could tank for Gavin McKenna, but they would probably need to trade Shesterkin and Fox to pull that off, and that is obviously not on the table and would also be very sad to watch.
What The Next Fortnight Looks Like: The Rangers have a back-to-back starting tonight in Detroit, followed by a match with the Islanders tomorrow night. Then, they play Nashville at home before playing two road games against the Lightning and Blue Jackets, coming back home for a back-half of a back-to-back against the Red Wings. Then, they go west to play the Knights and Avalanche. They have some winnable games, but some more tough contests. If they falter, they will likely still be at the bottom of the Division on Thanksgiving, by which point Trocheck might be returning. They are in a tough spot.
Your Thoughts
Thus concludes the first Metropolitan Division Snapshot of the 2025-26 season, which will proceed to be updated on a bi-weekly/fortnight basis. What do you think of the state of the Division right now? Do you think anyone is performing well above or below their ability? Will the Devils still be atop the board in two weeks? Will the Flyers fall down the standings? Will the Penguins stay where they are? How will Carolina continue to manage their injuries? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.
