It’s the last October Sunday of the year, and just like that we have teams approaching double-digit games played in the NHL. The season is still young, but more data and games are rolling in.
Let’s go around the circuit to check on all the teams in the Metropolitan Division and check on the week that was. So far, this division is off to a great start, almost every team is on target or exceeding what was expected of them through the first few weeks of the season (the Rangers may be the sole exception
and certainly aren’t in a comfortable spot at the moment).
New Jersey — Seven straight wins for the Devils! This week New Jersey came out on top against Toronto, Minnesota and San Jose, by a combined score of 12-4. Impressive stuff going on in NJ, it’s all systems go for them right now. Things don’t get any easier with a home-and-home starting today against Colorado.
Pittsburgh — Anyone else noticed the Pens lead the NHL with an all situations 13.97% shooting percentage? No matter! The vibes are sky high, let’s see how long this hot roll will continue. Maybe it goes for a while, and Pittsburgh fans deserve feeling good after a few years of just kinda hanging around. It’s a credit to them so far that they’ve been able to convert so many chances to goals and get off to a much stronger start than anyone could have expected.
Carolina — The Hurricanes were on the road and took on three elite Western Conference teams this week in Vegas (4-1 loss), Colorado (5-4 shootout win) and Dallas (3-2 loss). Tough road to go down there. As an aside and only place to ramble on this tangent; the game against the Avalanche featured them wearing Quebec Nordiques jerseys and Carolina wearing the Hartford Whalers getup. Many loved it, and obviously they are great jerseys and primo nostalgia but I did not like it. That’s just rubbing it in. You’re not the Hartford Whalers, you killed the Whalers by moving them. Imagine if the Penguins moved to Kansas City and played a game with the old logo? Awful. Hardly the biggest deal and maybe the point was a surface level ‘oh that’s nice’ reaction, just not a fan of teams reverting back to their franchise’s past that they were the ones who destroyed.
Washington — The Caps sandwiched two wins around losses to Vancouver and Ottawa to start and end the week. Last night’s game was fun, Alex Ovechkin celebrated game 1,500 with Washington in a 7-1 loss. Linus Ullmark lost his mind and skated all the way down the ice to get involved in a scrum. We could use more goalie fights these days.
NY Islanders — Over the past few years the Islanders have been scrappy, resilient, stubborn but typically boring or a chore. Now with Matthew Schaefer (and to a lesser extent Emil Heineman and a healthy Mat Barzal) are the Islanders…frisky and fun? It’s quite the turnaround from being a team to slog through games to now being an exciting one. This week will be a huge one to find out just where NYI stands, they have a road trip that takes them through Boston, Washington and Carolina.
Philadelphia — The Flyers might be getting their legs under them, after losing three of the first four games to start the season, they’ve now won three out of four including a shootout win over the Islanders yesterday. The Trevor Zegras experiment is going well out the gates, Zegras has eight points in the first eight games with Philadelphia. Goalie Dan Vladar has been playing some really good hockey lately too, strangely enough with his history.
Columbus — Last night was a nice response game in Pittsburgh for the Blue Jackets, who absorbed a tough 5-1 loss the night before to Washington. Columbus is another team on the rise that is a fun watch. Two or three times their defensemen had to pull pucks off the goal line to prevent goals, everyone is pitching in!
NY Rangers — Mike Sullivan is not having a good time so far in New York. The Rangers need to “learn how to win” and have played some situationally terrible hockey. The ironic thing is that Sullivan has gotten NYR above water in chances and shored up their awful defensive play from last year. They still have a lot of work to do to get things settled in, Sullivan hasn’t been able to erase the turmoil.
