The Early Goings in the NHL

The NHL, a league already riddled with random variance, is in the midst of playing a compressed 48-game season after taking over three months of would-be game time off. Things could get messy and weird. Here are five thoughts on the first few weeks of action:

11.  We’ve seen this before from Thomas Vanek. The Austrian winger has jumped out incredible starts in the past (2009, 2011) only to falter down the stretch due to injury or other circumstances. Albeit, he’s never started like THIS before. Perhaps he’s changed; perhaps he’ll be able to keep up his mind-boggling pace through the shortened season. But he should not be surprised if he has a major slowdown soon.

22.  Canisius College alum., Cory Conacher, looks like the favorite for rookie of the year. Nothing against Nail Yakupov or Vlad Tarasenko, who have been nothing short of incredible, but Conacher has 12 points through just 10 games along with the luxury of playing alongside one of the best in the game. Conacher has played with Stamkos at center for the most part this season but even if he was dropped to the second line or something happened to Stamkos, he’d be lucky enough to play with Lecavalier. It appears the chips are stacked in Conacher’s favor this season.

33.    The Panthers might drop 10 spots in the Eastern Conference standings from last year…and not be much worse. Florida fell ass-backward into the third seed in the East last year when both Washington and Tampa Bay steadfastly refused to win hockey games. When it was all said and done, the Panthers won 38 games and had a -21 goal differential. This year, their goaltending is a total mess and they don’t seem to be getting the overtime luck they got last year. Both Theodore and Clemmensen have been brutal and they’re sorely lacking secondary scoring. Even goaltending improves; they appear to be about a 13^th-seed type team. But they likely wouldn’t be much worse than last year.

44.    St. Louis’s recent skid no cause for concern. In 2012 the Blues made their bones as a tough, defensively-minded team with two stellar goalies. This year, Brian Elliot has shocked no one by majorly regressing in Jaroslav Halak’s absence. Elliot’s struggles give the illusion the Blues are no longer a sound defensive team. However, we won’t know this until Halak returns (which could be the next week). The good news for the Blues is they’re now third in the NHL in scoring, mostly through the efforts of d-men Alex Pietrangelo and Kevin Shatternick. I’d wager they’ll be fine if Halak returns at 100% health.

55.   You’re guess as to what happened to the Capitals is as good as mine. While their goaltending has been weak and they were only a seven seed last year, it’s not enough to throw out those reasons as a total explanation. In 2010, the Caps won the President’s Trophy and scored well over 300 goals. Most of that scoring core is still in-tact and young yet they’ve, for some reason, fallen apart. That year Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green and Niklas Backstrom combined for 286 points. Through 12 games this year, they have 22 and only seven goals. So yes the goaltending has been rough, but the young, should-be stars have not played to expectation either. 

 Stay Hungry, My Friends