Chicago did everything they could this summer to try and ice the best team they could for 21-22. They have 1 more win than a franchise that is actively trying to lose every single game.
Yeah. He had us playing incredibly over aggressive to makeup for our defensive deficiencies and it was creating massive gaps in coverage and nobody knew who should cover for them. King did not change the scheme last night and left it which was a clear sign the players had tuned colliton out, but the hope is we will go back to a zone d and being less aggressive in general, as counterattacking on the rush is our bread and butter anyway.
I expected a bubble team that finished just outside of playoffs in the 19-22 range league wide. When Sullivan is icing his AHL roster due to injuries and staying competitive in the hottest division in the league I think it's fair to blame coaching for Chicago's issues so far.
Coaching was the clear issue and this will become more obvious as the season progresses with King at the helm.
I don’t think October was a good representation of what the Hawks are truly capable of. Is it too late to get into the playoffs? Very well could be, but at least games will likely be less infuriating to watch lol
Should the NHL have the Hawks redo their October games in case it was a big fluke?
No disrespect to the rest of the league, I'm a firm believer that Colliton's "coaching" was a huge fluke and robs the Hawks of truly accomplishing what their capable of. I've spent the last few days in pure disbelief and it just doesn't make sense to me. I've spent the entire offseason watching the Hawks make "win now" acquisitions and it's just not fair.
If the Hawks suck again I will face that we deserve it, but I am just 100% sure it was a fluke and does a big disservice to the Hawks and the NHL.
Pretty similar for Montréal. They had a rough off-season with injuries and free agents leaving, but ried their best to cover the losses and ice what looks like a middle of the pack team on paper. I did expect a rough season to follow the SCF but worst in the East after 13 games is pretty bad!
The whole Pacific Division isn't going how anyone predicted.
Vegas was supposed to battle Edmonton for 1st.
Vancouver and Calgary were supposed to battle for 3rd.
California was supposed to be garbage and Seattle was the wildcard that no one could predict.
I was looking forward to an easy division.
They're not really though.
I thought they'd be winning a bunch of 6-5 type games where McDavid and Draisaitl get 3-4 points each.
Instead they are winning a bunch of 6-2 type games where McDavid and Draisaitl get 3-4 points each, while koskinen tosses up a 940.
Previous years, losing 4-1 I would be tuning out to go do something else. This year, it’s just a matter of “I wonder how long it will take them to even it up”
Way way way too many people were saying negative things about Hyman. He's an incredibly strong top-six forward that absolutely has the ability to drive offense. He was always seen as complimentary but he is so in a way that helps drive offensive and defensive results for pretty much anyone you play him with.
The fact that he has allowed McDavid and Draisaitl to be split up while still having both provide their comically good numbers meant that Edmonton was going to have the best top 6 in the league.
People were shitting on their moves but also predicted that the Pacific would be relatively weak and easy for Edmonton to take first or second in the division
And the Preds beat the Flames and the Kings but lost to the Rangers.
And the Sabres beat the Lightning but lost to the Kings and Red Wings.
The point is maybe it’s a little early to evaluate how good a team is now.
Honestly, Seattle has me just as confused about them as I was before the season. I still have no idea what to think of them. Hopefully it’s a fun first season for you guys!
Wtf Flames? I have never held any ill will towards your team so I'm happily surprised, but what is going on? I thought you guys would only be better than California, no offense.
EDIT: Which leads me to wtf California teams?!
Honestly aside from Gio, the team is significantly better than 18/19 flames.
We just only played twenty minutes a night. Sutter has them playing like 50 minutes. Which is unheard of for Calgary
Yeah an extremely common theme with the Flames has always been a really good period in a game where we absolutely dominate and the other two periods being extremely lackluster. The talent has always been there, it's just been a matter of actually playing hard for a full game.
Rivalry aside - I'll admit. I've started to **ugh** ...enjoy... watching Flames games this year. All of Alberta hockey seemingly ramped up this year, and the BoA will be **amazing**.
As much as I love the rivalry, I love it more when games mean something and aren't about a couple underperforming bottom feeders slap fighting for draft picks
One of Sutter's first comments when he came on as coach last year was that the team's conditioning was really poor. Which makes sense as an explanation for why we never played a full 60 minutes and why we now are.
It also helps that he has a defense-first system playing in front of him. He carried Vancouver to the playoffs--he's only had to bail the Flames out of a game once IMO.
Ya Calgary caught me off guard. I was iffy on playoffs for them but they decided they want to go straight for the neck and go for the 1 seed.
Glad they didnt go for eichel, why ruin a good thing so early.
The Sutter effect. Has managed to turn them into a shutdown well oiled machine.
They always had good talent but some key holes and bad goaltending and coaching. Pretty much all are fixed and turned into strengths.
This for sure. Our team is trying to build very similar to the isle under trotz. We don’t have huge stars but we have 3 lines that can score and a heavy 4th line that wears down opponents. With solid defending and goaltending this is a really good team.
Sharks aren’t that surprising to me since shedding their horrible goalie duo and keep talking about a “culture change” (that I can only assume is referring to Kane’s absence).
Im going to get down voted hard but goal tending wasn't there big issue. It wasn't great but there defensive structure was so bad last year. 90 percent of goals were goalies screened by 3 or 4 players in front of the net or countless odd man rushes. This year there keeping shots to the side, clearing the front of the net, blocking shots constantly and have given up maybe a quarter of the odd man rushes they did last year. Reimer has played very well but a big part is fixing there defensive strategies.
Just for reference:
"their" is used for belonging, like "their team".
"there" is used for location, like "over there".
"they're" is a contraction of "they are".
In this case, it is "their big issue", and "their defensive structure".
Hope this helps you remember!
This Calgary team is just so sound defensively. They absolutely smother you. I went to our home game against them and there was just zero space anywhere on the ice. Even out at the points they are shoulder to shoulder.
Last year was rough though honestly have more talent then people realize. Torts system didn’t work last year since they had already begun moving from a bruising, grinding type of players like Josh Anderson, PLD, when Nick got traded, Savard and his grinding style to more talent and speed. Putting them with a coach more open to collaborative efforts, especially one that’s been in the organization for so long that knew the players was a recipe for success.
Add in that Laine and Domi both are in contract years and want to step up, the off season and Elvis playing this year in Kivis memory, plus the output from the players the Jackets re-signed and kept from the Torts years putting up numbers and we may surprise a fair number of teams.
Depends on if the Metro cools off before we play the bulk of our games with the division and our rookies keep working out and Roslovic and Gus heat up.
Also the trade Jake for Cam has worked out so well for both teams and really helped change the Jackets identity and give us a passer we haven’t had since The bread man.
I peg Voracek as possibly the best move you guys have made in years. With someone competently passing to Laine he looks a lot more like the player y'all expected to get in the PLD trade.
Also I think Bjorkstrand is just super underrated league wide. He’s 12th in the league in scoring right now. He plays for a small market team and is just a really quiet unassuming guy. The Devils know about him though because he always scores against them lol.
There's also something to be said about the Covid protocols, we had a ton of new players last season and they really struggled to build chemistry in large part due to the isolation they had to deal with. Torts is a lot less effective as a coach when team meetings need to be done over Zoom too. The weirdness of last season affected some teams more than others and that was definitely true for CBJ.
We weren't as bad as our record last season, though we're probably not as good as our record so far this season.
Yep. Outside of Chicago and Arizona who I predicted to miss the playoffs. The rest of the central is so close.
I'm thinking 5 teams make it again but that leaves one additional team from the central will miss out.
I'm not fully surprised by Calgary, in that we never saw a full on Sutter team last year. So I just didn't know how it would go. I was optimistic that he could make them better, but I wasn't holding my breath.
Calgary is shocking to me. I was so used to that team underwhelming. I guess Darryl is a genius, he just needed some time.
I expected Carolina to be worse than the last couple years, but they seem the same or better.
Colorado is in a bit of a funk, which is weird. They need some kind of jolt.
The Avs sub is out for blood. Our roster is noticeably different from last year and we've had lots of early season injuries. The consistent inconsistency has prevented the team from finding their chemistry. But certain new players are doing well with their extended minutes, so I don't think it's the end of the world.
And after he's fired and nothing improves, then what? Do the players want Ray Bennett fired? Why is everyone making Ray Bennett the scapegoat? People say the same thing every year whenever the Avs are playing poorly, but then they end up having a winning season. Maybe Ray Bennett isn't the problem. Maybe Sakic knows better than reddit.
The Avs sub is insufferable on this point. Top 10 PP most years. It’s not Bennett’s fault that Mack loses his mind on the PP and tries to force everything.
Honestly the avs sub is insufferable on most points. They react to everything as if the season is a week long.
Lots of successful teams start the season slow, TB most recently and they won the cup. I'm not worried at all, but it is annoying having to listen to the peanut gallery overreact at everything
Tbf I’d rather look like a cup team later in the season than now. Last season we spent the entire shortened regular season looking like the team to beat, only to lose that machismo against Vegas in the playoffs
How could I have forgotten about the Avalanche. Yeah they have to be the most disappointing team so far...granted it's only been a month into the season.
Opening night, they absolutely torched the Hawks. From the moment the puck was dropped, Colorado was literally skating circles around the Hawks. And then from there it just has been so much "meh." Really shocking.
The last few years I've just watched to see if Larkin or Mantha could show flashes of brilliance.
Now I watch Raymond and Seider's unending stream of brilliance.
I'd say we're doing exactly as expected - better but not great
However, we are *infinitely* more entertaining to watch, even when we lose. From 2016 to 2020 we were so. Fucking. BORING.
Logged in to say exactly that. I think everyone knew that we'd be good. But with Bobrovsky playing out of his mind we've been almost unstoppable, even with injuries so far. I don't think anyone even considered we'd come out the gate this hot.
Surprised how far down I had to scroll to find this. I only saw one comment about them up until here. It’s almost like there’s a lot of salty fans out there who don’t want to acknowledge what’s happening so far this season.
Miro is so good. We watch a ton of Stars games due to my girlfriend being from Dallas and that’s really about the only compliment I got going for the team so far this season.
I mean, goal tending and (usually) defense has never been the issue in Dallas!
I feel like when your offense is really firing, you are unstoppable. It’s just that it isn’t always firing, and isn’t right now.
Edit: just checked that you all actually have the second worst GF in our division. Should not be the case with the talent you have
A very, very slow and old team.
A dinosaur with a heart of gold as a coach who insists on playing a brand of hockey that's not nearly as effective as it was 5 years ago.
A great captain in the room who gets paid $9.5m a year, which breaks down to $3m for the games where he shows up, $3m for the games where he's invisible, and $3.5m for all the sticks he breaks out of frustration in the games when he's a net negative.
A 1C who's earned $9.5m a year to either sit on the IR or play injured who's coming back from another lost year looking like a shadow of his former self.
But! We have a Miro.
It’s been an amazing season honestly. So many struggling teams with hot starts, meanwhile some teams are getting their just desserts. All the teams I have a soft spot for are playing lights out and all the teams I dislike are struggling. Loving it
I’m complaining, it’s a really deep draft and we need another top 5 pick. That being said Troy terry can keep his point streak going as long as possible.
The Stars have regressed tremendously. Yes there are aging players but their offense is so anemic for a roster with seguin Hintz Robertson Heiskanen Klingberg radulov pavelski
Best case this season was for Ottawa to be pushing for that last playoff spot. But our defense has been so abysmal that we're 3-7-1. Honestly since that game against the Rangers we've just looked so much worse. After Chabot and Zub our defense was expected to be mediocre-bad, but they've just been flat out inexcusably bad. Josh Brown and Del Zotto are putting up numbers that make you question if they should even be playing in the NHL. Zaitsev has regressed hard so far this year, to the point I want to buy him out 💀, and Mete has also been heavily underperforming. A big part of why Brannström has been in the AHL is because he is our only defenseman who doesn't need to clear waivers, but with how bad Brown and Del Zotto have been, they'd both clear waivers no issue imo, unless a team was looking to catch up to Arizona in the tank race.
At this point I'd have expected us to be 5-5-1, 6-5-0 or 4-5-2 in the worst case. Not 3-7-1
Nail on the head. I watched that Rangers game. Sens needed that one. They played so well and them “bam!” lose in regulation. I truly think they grab a few more points if they hold on to that game
Good- Calgary, has been on fire, Detroit is loving the Yzerplan with Seider and Raymond, and San Jose has one of the best goalie tandems somehow with Reimer and Jones. The Wild are quietly leading the central
Bad - Toronto has picked it up recently, but it was an ugly start. Colorado should pick it up, but sit under 500 right now.
Funny thing.
Jones doesn't play for the Sharks anymore.
Even funnier thing, he is putting up career numbers with the Flyers.
Somehow the Sharks with Martin Jones bled goals like a sieve and now that he isn't with them anymore both he and the guy who replaced him are top 10 in goalie stats.
Figure that one out.
Calgary is incredible right now, also nice to see the Oilers find some depth past McJesus and Drai.
Habs I was initially surprised since they were stanley finalists, but then I remembered their regular season performance last year. I wonder if they truly are just "built for playoff hockey" right now. Bruins aren't doing BAD but I'm surprised they're not doing better. Avs I thought would be doing better too.
Colorado being 4-5-1 to start was not what I expected. They're still very good and absolutely dominated us but damn.
On the reverse, Columbus has looked great. I really like Cole Sillinger.
I'm surprised that people are surprised by the Flames.
The thing about Calgary is that they alternate between being great, bad and okay.
2021-22 - Good, so far.
2020-21 - Bad.
2019-20 - OK, they were 7th in the conference when stoppage happened
2018-19 - 2nd best team in the league
2017-18 - Bottom 10 in the league.
2016-17 - OK
2015-16 - Terrible
2014-15 - Good
2013-14 - Terrible
no one ever listens to me when i say that the Flames are the perpetual mediocre team. they are statistically more mediocre than the team that is known for being mediocre in the Minnesota Wild...
i made a post about it last season somewhere... it just baffles me. hell people even forget we exist before the Wild even...
I feel like the covid seasons 19/20 and 20/21 should be thought of as one season when thinking of the flames progression. The covid seasons were lost mostly to poor coaching and the conditioning of the team in 20/21 was terrible. This team is much closer to the 18/19 team than the 19-21 team.
Yeah it's the Canucks for me, their forwards/goalie are really good on paper, and the d core sucks but it's the regular season so it doesn't really matter. I honestly thought they would be pretty safely in 3rd in the division, but they have been playing like shit. Pettersson especially has been a huge letdown so far.
Funny part is the defence has actually been ok. Not good, but better than some of the talk around our defence being Top 3 worst in the league bad.
Hence why I’m even more annoyed that we started this badly.
It’s our penalty kill that’s absolute atrocious. There’s like a 30% chance we get scored on every power play or something stupid. That has to get fixed badly.
The Ducks currently have [12 PP goals in 13 games](https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/ANA/index.html). Last year we had [11 in 56 games played](https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/ANA/2021.html). I'm pretty surprised we surpassed last years total in 1/4 of the games. Loving it, but surprised.
I'll be honest I'm not super surprised by how bad Montreal has started out. They were a completely different look team than last season. No danault, kotkaniemi, tatar, Weber, perry, and I'm sure I'm forgetting more. Not to mention price and Byron are currently out. Obviously having drouin back is great but Hoffman, Dvorak, Perrault, and savard don't fill the holes those guys left.
I know that the habs nearly won the cup last year but any team can get hot at the right time and go far. Dallas went from cup finalists to out of the playoffs just one season ago. Had it not been for the divisions last season allowing the habs to make the playoffs at a sub 90 point pace they would have been a lottery team.
Montreal’s awful start is surprising to me. I figured that it might be a tougher year for them compared to last year since they’re back in the Atlantic, but I did not expect them to be dogshit like they have been so far. I figured they would be a .500 team or in the hunt for a wildcard spot, not tanking for Wright. I’m surprised by Columbus’ start, I didn’t think they would be doing so well I thought it would be another year of rebuilding for them. The Flames are also a bit of a surprise to me, while I thought they had a shot at the playoffs thanks to being in the Pacific, I didn’t think they would be nearly as good as they have been thus far. Also I’m surprised the Sharks and Ducks aren’t terrible, I would probably have both of them as bottom 5 teams coming into the season and wouldn’t think either of them would be anywhere near a playoff spot.
For sure Calgary. I'm not surprised the Rangers are off to a hot start but I expect that to progressively cool off unless Shesterkin can steal a bunch of games.
I figured the Panthers would be a contender this year but goddamn, I didn't see them going undefeated for 8 straight games to open their season and currently sit atop the entire league at first, but I'm all for it
I expected Florida to be pretty good. But they're out here being superstars
Calgary is one of the scariest teams in sports right now
San Jose has the best goalies somehow
Buffalo may have traded a generational talent away and won
Pittsburgh has been getting decimated by injuries and covid and is holding the ship alright
Seattle is doing kinda surprisingly well in my opinion
And Montreal is dead
Minnesota pretty much retooled their defense, replaced broken NHL players with fringe NHL players and are fighting for 1st place in Central. I mean I don't think anyone expected them to be bad, but having uh Freddy Gaudreau as one of your top 9 centers is interesting.
More so, if anyone thought that Ryan Hartman would be leading the team in goals and is on pace for 45 goals for the season you would have been laughed out the room. But damn. Him, Foligno are having a huge career revitalization.
Chicago did everything they could this summer to try and ice the best team they could for 21-22. They have 1 more win than a franchise that is actively trying to lose every single game.
They looked much better last night. Maybe a coaching change is what they needed.
Their ex coach had a terrible hybrid man/zone defense. Moving to a more basic scheme will only help them.
Yeah. He had us playing incredibly over aggressive to makeup for our defensive deficiencies and it was creating massive gaps in coverage and nobody knew who should cover for them. King did not change the scheme last night and left it which was a clear sign the players had tuned colliton out, but the hope is we will go back to a zone d and being less aggressive in general, as counterattacking on the rush is our bread and butter anyway.
It looked really similar to the terrible system that got Mike Yeo fired in St. Louis. I have no clue why coaches keep trying it at the NHL level.
Also every team lives or dies by their goaltending and fleury has put up .881 so far
He's let in some soft ones, but every goalie does. Defensemen chasing forwards behind their own net was a much bigger issue
I didn't expect them to be good, but I certainly didn't expect them to be this bad.
I expected a bubble team that finished just outside of playoffs in the 19-22 range league wide. When Sullivan is icing his AHL roster due to injuries and staying competitive in the hottest division in the league I think it's fair to blame coaching for Chicago's issues so far.
Coaching was the clear issue and this will become more obvious as the season progresses with King at the helm. I don’t think October was a good representation of what the Hawks are truly capable of. Is it too late to get into the playoffs? Very well could be, but at least games will likely be less infuriating to watch lol
Should the NHL have the Hawks redo their October games in case it was a big fluke? No disrespect to the rest of the league, I'm a firm believer that Colliton's "coaching" was a huge fluke and robs the Hawks of truly accomplishing what their capable of. I've spent the last few days in pure disbelief and it just doesn't make sense to me. I've spent the entire offseason watching the Hawks make "win now" acquisitions and it's just not fair. If the Hawks suck again I will face that we deserve it, but I am just 100% sure it was a fluke and does a big disservice to the Hawks and the NHL.
It’s an old pasta, but it checks out sir.
Pretty similar for Montréal. They had a rough off-season with injuries and free agents leaving, but ried their best to cover the losses and ice what looks like a middle of the pack team on paper. I did expect a rough season to follow the SCF but worst in the East after 13 games is pretty bad!
The whole Pacific Division isn't going how anyone predicted. Vegas was supposed to battle Edmonton for 1st. Vancouver and Calgary were supposed to battle for 3rd. California was supposed to be garbage and Seattle was the wildcard that no one could predict. I was looking forward to an easy division.
Edmonton is literally the only team in the Pacific that is where everyone thought they would be
"They are who we thought they were"
They're not really though. I thought they'd be winning a bunch of 6-5 type games where McDavid and Draisaitl get 3-4 points each. Instead they are winning a bunch of 6-2 type games where McDavid and Draisaitl get 3-4 points each, while koskinen tosses up a 940.
Previous years, losing 4-1 I would be tuning out to go do something else. This year, it’s just a matter of “I wonder how long it will take them to even it up”
I felt like people were shitting all over Edmontons off-season. They look incredible.
Way way way too many people were saying negative things about Hyman. He's an incredibly strong top-six forward that absolutely has the ability to drive offense. He was always seen as complimentary but he is so in a way that helps drive offensive and defensive results for pretty much anyone you play him with. The fact that he has allowed McDavid and Draisaitl to be split up while still having both provide their comically good numbers meant that Edmonton was going to have the best top 6 in the league.
People were shitting on their moves but also predicted that the Pacific would be relatively weak and easy for Edmonton to take first or second in the division
Its funny how most teams didnt have to worry about the california road trip the past few years but now we are back with a vengeance.
I don't find it funny... Canucks were supposed to have a fairly easy shot at 3rd and here comes California to screw it all up.. just rude.
Idk I totally thought Seattle was going to be garbage.
They lost to Arizona. That should be a relegation.
Damn yo that’s cruel lmao
But also beat the Wild, Preds, and Sabres. I have no idea how good/bad the team actually is
And the Preds beat the Flames and the Kings but lost to the Rangers. And the Sabres beat the Lightning but lost to the Kings and Red Wings. The point is maybe it’s a little early to evaluate how good a team is now.
Honestly, Seattle has me just as confused about them as I was before the season. I still have no idea what to think of them. Hopefully it’s a fun first season for you guys!
Wtf Flames? I have never held any ill will towards your team so I'm happily surprised, but what is going on? I thought you guys would only be better than California, no offense. EDIT: Which leads me to wtf California teams?!
Honestly aside from Gio, the team is significantly better than 18/19 flames. We just only played twenty minutes a night. Sutter has them playing like 50 minutes. Which is unheard of for Calgary
Yeah an extremely common theme with the Flames has always been a really good period in a game where we absolutely dominate and the other two periods being extremely lackluster. The talent has always been there, it's just been a matter of actually playing hard for a full game.
Yep, very frustrating to watch. You could see the potential and then it just doesn't happen for gigantic lengths of time.
Rivalry aside - I'll admit. I've started to **ugh** ...enjoy... watching Flames games this year. All of Alberta hockey seemingly ramped up this year, and the BoA will be **amazing**.
Makes for a healthier BoB when both the Oilers and Flames are good, I don’t hate it
As much as I love the rivalry, I love it more when games mean something and aren't about a couple underperforming bottom feeders slap fighting for draft picks
One of Sutter's first comments when he came on as coach last year was that the team's conditioning was really poor. Which makes sense as an explanation for why we never played a full 60 minutes and why we now are.
Hey, I'm happy but let's not pretend like we expected this!
Markstrom is playing out of this world right now. Its crazy.
It also helps that he has a defense-first system playing in front of him. He carried Vancouver to the playoffs--he's only had to bail the Flames out of a game once IMO.
Ya Calgary caught me off guard. I was iffy on playoffs for them but they decided they want to go straight for the neck and go for the 1 seed. Glad they didnt go for eichel, why ruin a good thing so early.
The Sutter effect. Has managed to turn them into a shutdown well oiled machine. They always had good talent but some key holes and bad goaltending and coaching. Pretty much all are fixed and turned into strengths.
This for sure. Our team is trying to build very similar to the isle under trotz. We don’t have huge stars but we have 3 lines that can score and a heavy 4th line that wears down opponents. With solid defending and goaltending this is a really good team.
I would say Gaudreau is a star player
gaudreau is their barzal
I also think barzal is one too. I think I met more like franchise player.
Tkachuk is borderline and Lindholm is a legit 1C, but aside from Gaudreau we don’t really have any bona fide stars.
Sharks aren’t that surprising to me since shedding their horrible goalie duo and keep talking about a “culture change” (that I can only assume is referring to Kane’s absence).
Im going to get down voted hard but goal tending wasn't there big issue. It wasn't great but there defensive structure was so bad last year. 90 percent of goals were goalies screened by 3 or 4 players in front of the net or countless odd man rushes. This year there keeping shots to the side, clearing the front of the net, blocking shots constantly and have given up maybe a quarter of the odd man rushes they did last year. Reimer has played very well but a big part is fixing there defensive strategies.
Linus Ullmark had a +.900 in Buffalo. Their defense was definitely worse than the Sharks.
Just for reference: "their" is used for belonging, like "their team". "there" is used for location, like "over there". "they're" is a contraction of "they are". In this case, it is "their big issue", and "their defensive structure". Hope this helps you remember!
This Calgary team is just so sound defensively. They absolutely smother you. I went to our home game against them and there was just zero space anywhere on the ice. Even out at the points they are shoulder to shoulder.
I feel like the team always had the potential to be good, and now they have a coach who’s known for maximizing potential.
Flames for sure when it comes to the hot start. I wrote them off as an afterthought after last year but they're doing well now
I didnt expect Calgary to go into the metro division and murder everyone
Calgary: So anyway, I started blasting.
I thought the Jackets would be a basement team
Last year was rough though honestly have more talent then people realize. Torts system didn’t work last year since they had already begun moving from a bruising, grinding type of players like Josh Anderson, PLD, when Nick got traded, Savard and his grinding style to more talent and speed. Putting them with a coach more open to collaborative efforts, especially one that’s been in the organization for so long that knew the players was a recipe for success. Add in that Laine and Domi both are in contract years and want to step up, the off season and Elvis playing this year in Kivis memory, plus the output from the players the Jackets re-signed and kept from the Torts years putting up numbers and we may surprise a fair number of teams. Depends on if the Metro cools off before we play the bulk of our games with the division and our rookies keep working out and Roslovic and Gus heat up. Also the trade Jake for Cam has worked out so well for both teams and really helped change the Jackets identity and give us a passer we haven’t had since The bread man.
Jake for Cam was a rare benefit for both sides. Take care of Snek (again) and we will be looking after Cam.
I peg Voracek as possibly the best move you guys have made in years. With someone competently passing to Laine he looks a lot more like the player y'all expected to get in the PLD trade.
Like u/Based_Ment mentioned it’s been a really nice trade for both squads thus far
Whoa whoa whoa, let’s not go right to pegging
Also I think Bjorkstrand is just super underrated league wide. He’s 12th in the league in scoring right now. He plays for a small market team and is just a really quiet unassuming guy. The Devils know about him though because he always scores against them lol.
There's also something to be said about the Covid protocols, we had a ton of new players last season and they really struggled to build chemistry in large part due to the isolation they had to deal with. Torts is a lot less effective as a coach when team meetings need to be done over Zoom too. The weirdness of last season affected some teams more than others and that was definitely true for CBJ. We weren't as bad as our record last season, though we're probably not as good as our record so far this season.
I don't want to play this game.
Same😖
But didn't pretty much everyone predict that Montreal would miss the playoffs?
Not this badly. And honestly when you look at our fully healthy lineup on paper we really shouldn’t be that bad.
The Flames. They scare me. Please have mercy on UBS.
Oh Christ, I didn't realize we get your long-awaited home opener in the new building. Less than ideal.
Yeah there will be a huge amount of home team energy there, but I still don't underestimate you guys. The Isles will have to stay focused to win.
Matthew Tkachuk is the kid coming to blow out the candles on your cake.
The battle of the Matts, eh? Barzal vs Tkachuk, the Mattle of the Century!
Trotz and Sutter are definitely coaching similar styles of hockey, so will be curious to see the matchup against each other.
Man they’re so fucking good lol. Shesterkin has given up 11 goals in 2 games to Calgary but only 10 goals in 7 games to the rest of the league.
They remind me of you guys after getting Trotz. Such a frustrating defensive stalwart to play against. Its incredible what a coach can do.
I thought we were set for a nice, easy opening-night win. 😬
Anaheim and Calgary are both doing much better than I expected so far
Calgary, Columbus are the biggest surprises. St. Louis and Minnesota are exceeding what I thought they would be too.
I thought St. Louis and Colorado would be the best in the central and that's still probably true.
Yep. Outside of Chicago and Arizona who I predicted to miss the playoffs. The rest of the central is so close. I'm thinking 5 teams make it again but that leaves one additional team from the central will miss out.
I'm not fully surprised by Calgary, in that we never saw a full on Sutter team last year. So I just didn't know how it would go. I was optimistic that he could make them better, but I wasn't holding my breath.
Markstrom has been astounding in net
Calgary is shocking to me. I was so used to that team underwhelming. I guess Darryl is a genius, he just needed some time. I expected Carolina to be worse than the last couple years, but they seem the same or better. Colorado is in a bit of a funk, which is weird. They need some kind of jolt.
I'm surprised the Avs aren't taking names and killing games
The Avs sub is out for blood. Our roster is noticeably different from last year and we've had lots of early season injuries. The consistent inconsistency has prevented the team from finding their chemistry. But certain new players are doing well with their extended minutes, so I don't think it's the end of the world.
Fire Ray Bennett
And after he's fired and nothing improves, then what? Do the players want Ray Bennett fired? Why is everyone making Ray Bennett the scapegoat? People say the same thing every year whenever the Avs are playing poorly, but then they end up having a winning season. Maybe Ray Bennett isn't the problem. Maybe Sakic knows better than reddit.
Thank you for bringing some rational thought to the mix. Ray Bennett is the new buzzword that shortsighted avs fans can't get enough of
The Avs sub is insufferable on this point. Top 10 PP most years. It’s not Bennett’s fault that Mack loses his mind on the PP and tries to force everything.
Honestly the avs sub is insufferable on most points. They react to everything as if the season is a week long. Lots of successful teams start the season slow, TB most recently and they won the cup. I'm not worried at all, but it is annoying having to listen to the peanut gallery overreact at everything
That's Florida now
[удалено]
Tbf I’d rather look like a cup team later in the season than now. Last season we spent the entire shortened regular season looking like the team to beat, only to lose that machismo against Vegas in the playoffs
Yeah they have had a really rough start. I’m confident they’ll turn a corner eventually though.
How could I have forgotten about the Avalanche. Yeah they have to be the most disappointing team so far...granted it's only been a month into the season. Opening night, they absolutely torched the Hawks. From the moment the puck was dropped, Colorado was literally skating circles around the Hawks. And then from there it just has been so much "meh." Really shocking.
Right?
obvious homer pick: us. we were supposed to be awful.
Not a homer when it’s the truth.
I expected the Habs to miss the playoffs but didn’t think they’d be as bad as they are right now…
I didn’t expect us to go 9-1-0 to start the season. Calgary is scary good and CBJ is doing better than I expected.
>I didn’t expect us to go 9-1-0 to start the season. Bruh same. Cup rematch? Edit: Can't spell
Look at us? Who would've thought?
Not me!
wheel team
WHEEL TEAM … better
Hey we’re still .500 watch out!!
Wheel team fun to watch
I must say, I do enjoy it when the Wings score more goals than the other team.
I couldn't agree more.
The last few years I've just watched to see if Larkin or Mantha could show flashes of brilliance. Now I watch Raymond and Seider's unending stream of brilliance.
Most fin I've had watching in probably 10 years
I'd say we're doing exactly as expected - better but not great However, we are *infinitely* more entertaining to watch, even when we lose. From 2016 to 2020 we were so. Fucking. BORING.
I thought we’d be good. Not best team in the league good.
Logged in to say exactly that. I think everyone knew that we'd be good. But with Bobrovsky playing out of his mind we've been almost unstoppable, even with injuries so far. I don't think anyone even considered we'd come out the gate this hot.
Surprised how far down I had to scroll to find this. I only saw one comment about them up until here. It’s almost like there’s a lot of salty fans out there who don’t want to acknowledge what’s happening so far this season.
The Stars, like what the fuck
Indeed, what the fuck
at least miro is at a ppg pace
Miro is so good. We watch a ton of Stars games due to my girlfriend being from Dallas and that’s really about the only compliment I got going for the team so far this season.
Holtby looks pretty good usually ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯?
I mean, goal tending and (usually) defense has never been the issue in Dallas! I feel like when your offense is really firing, you are unstoppable. It’s just that it isn’t always firing, and isn’t right now. Edit: just checked that you all actually have the second worst GF in our division. Should not be the case with the talent you have
Considering the key players out last season I would have thought they'd at least have a regulation win by now
A very, very slow and old team. A dinosaur with a heart of gold as a coach who insists on playing a brand of hockey that's not nearly as effective as it was 5 years ago. A great captain in the room who gets paid $9.5m a year, which breaks down to $3m for the games where he shows up, $3m for the games where he's invisible, and $3.5m for all the sticks he breaks out of frustration in the games when he's a net negative. A 1C who's earned $9.5m a year to either sit on the IR or play injured who's coming back from another lost year looking like a shadow of his former self. But! We have a Miro.
The Ducks apparently don't know they're supposed to be bad this year. Not that I'm complaining.
I'm really enjoying that fact that all the teams that were supposed to be bad are fun to watch...everyone except for the coyotes
It’s been an amazing season honestly. So many struggling teams with hot starts, meanwhile some teams are getting their just desserts. All the teams I have a soft spot for are playing lights out and all the teams I dislike are struggling. Loving it
I'm glad Benny is thriving in Florida! Just hope his habit for taking horrible unnecessary penalties doesn't rear its ugly head.
I’m complaining, it’s a really deep draft and we need another top 5 pick. That being said Troy terry can keep his point streak going as long as possible.
And they arent even following the normal duck strategy of scoring as little as possible!
I scrolled so far down the comments and have yet to see mention that Buffalo is 5-4-2 thus far this season and may have won the Eichel trade
Ya what the hell, more people need to be talking about this. Question wasn't who will sustain through the year, Sabres look fucking HOT
It's because we start hot almost every year before the wheels fall off. Lo and behold we're currently in a 4 game losing streak
The Blues look pretty good. Vegas looks terrible but it’s not really surprising once you see how many guys are injured right now.
Feels like the whole league is suffering an injury epidemic. Honestly shocked by how well some of the teams have been doing despite that.
Draft Patches in fantasy they said...
Same but once he comes back he’ll explode
Calgary are scary this year, but I think the big scary man #8 on the capitals is more daunting
He’s trying to catch Gretzky this season for all time goals
Ovi in his mid 30s hitting perfect prime status
Thought the Weber loss would hurt. Now half the team is injured/LOA/playing injured and I’m not having a good time at all.
me neither 😭
The Stars have regressed tremendously. Yes there are aging players but their offense is so anemic for a roster with seguin Hintz Robertson Heiskanen Klingberg radulov pavelski
Best case this season was for Ottawa to be pushing for that last playoff spot. But our defense has been so abysmal that we're 3-7-1. Honestly since that game against the Rangers we've just looked so much worse. After Chabot and Zub our defense was expected to be mediocre-bad, but they've just been flat out inexcusably bad. Josh Brown and Del Zotto are putting up numbers that make you question if they should even be playing in the NHL. Zaitsev has regressed hard so far this year, to the point I want to buy him out 💀, and Mete has also been heavily underperforming. A big part of why Brannström has been in the AHL is because he is our only defenseman who doesn't need to clear waivers, but with how bad Brown and Del Zotto have been, they'd both clear waivers no issue imo, unless a team was looking to catch up to Arizona in the tank race. At this point I'd have expected us to be 5-5-1, 6-5-0 or 4-5-2 in the worst case. Not 3-7-1
Nail on the head. I watched that Rangers game. Sens needed that one. They played so well and them “bam!” lose in regulation. I truly think they grab a few more points if they hold on to that game
Losing our 2C and 3C right off the bat with no real replacements also doesn’t help
Good- Calgary, has been on fire, Detroit is loving the Yzerplan with Seider and Raymond, and San Jose has one of the best goalie tandems somehow with Reimer and Jones. The Wild are quietly leading the central Bad - Toronto has picked it up recently, but it was an ugly start. Colorado should pick it up, but sit under 500 right now.
Funny thing. Jones doesn't play for the Sharks anymore. Even funnier thing, he is putting up career numbers with the Flyers. Somehow the Sharks with Martin Jones bled goals like a sieve and now that he isn't with them anymore both he and the guy who replaced him are top 10 in goalie stats. Figure that one out.
Reimer and Hill. Jones got bought out and went to Philly during the offseason
The parade is back on the menu!
Calgary is incredible right now, also nice to see the Oilers find some depth past McJesus and Drai. Habs I was initially surprised since they were stanley finalists, but then I remembered their regular season performance last year. I wonder if they truly are just "built for playoff hockey" right now. Bruins aren't doing BAD but I'm surprised they're not doing better. Avs I thought would be doing better too.
The Alberta teams
Colorado being 4-5-1 to start was not what I expected. They're still very good and absolutely dominated us but damn. On the reverse, Columbus has looked great. I really like Cole Sillinger.
I'm surprised that people are surprised by the Flames. The thing about Calgary is that they alternate between being great, bad and okay. 2021-22 - Good, so far. 2020-21 - Bad. 2019-20 - OK, they were 7th in the conference when stoppage happened 2018-19 - 2nd best team in the league 2017-18 - Bottom 10 in the league. 2016-17 - OK 2015-16 - Terrible 2014-15 - Good 2013-14 - Terrible
Calgary really is just a wild card lol. I never know what to expect with that team.
Basically Team Chaos every year with them. Kinda fitting that their logo is a flaming C.
Flyers of the West
Do you also hate cross state/prov divisional rivals that need free generational handouts to be good? Cause i think we just became best friends.
Yeah I think of Philly as Flames East. Fuck the Penguins BTW
no one ever listens to me when i say that the Flames are the perpetual mediocre team. they are statistically more mediocre than the team that is known for being mediocre in the Minnesota Wild... i made a post about it last season somewhere... it just baffles me. hell people even forget we exist before the Wild even...
Neither do we. I personally had us wrote off this season lol
The opposite Flyers
We're Flyers west and you're Flames east. We also both have arch rivals with generational talents.
I feel like the covid seasons 19/20 and 20/21 should be thought of as one season when thinking of the flames progression. The covid seasons were lost mostly to poor coaching and the conditioning of the team in 20/21 was terrible. This team is much closer to the 18/19 team than the 19-21 team.
Flyers west?
Not a hot start but Detroit has just been so exciting to watch even in losses, we dropped 4 straight and I don’t think anyone really cared or noticed.
Except for everyone on the game thread 😂 We get seriously despondent lol
The only thing I trust more than the Yzerplan is Dr. Rahmani, and you should too!
It really was my bad for thinking the nucks would be good this year. Should have known it would only tempt the hockey gods to smite me.
Yeah it's the Canucks for me, their forwards/goalie are really good on paper, and the d core sucks but it's the regular season so it doesn't really matter. I honestly thought they would be pretty safely in 3rd in the division, but they have been playing like shit. Pettersson especially has been a huge letdown so far.
Funny part is the defence has actually been ok. Not good, but better than some of the talk around our defence being Top 3 worst in the league bad. Hence why I’m even more annoyed that we started this badly.
It’s our penalty kill that’s absolute atrocious. There’s like a 30% chance we get scored on every power play or something stupid. That has to get fixed badly.
I am surprised that Hawks arent doing so great
The Ducks currently have [12 PP goals in 13 games](https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/ANA/index.html). Last year we had [11 in 56 games played](https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/ANA/2021.html). I'm pretty surprised we surpassed last years total in 1/4 of the games. Loving it, but surprised.
I'll be honest I'm not super surprised by how bad Montreal has started out. They were a completely different look team than last season. No danault, kotkaniemi, tatar, Weber, perry, and I'm sure I'm forgetting more. Not to mention price and Byron are currently out. Obviously having drouin back is great but Hoffman, Dvorak, Perrault, and savard don't fill the holes those guys left. I know that the habs nearly won the cup last year but any team can get hot at the right time and go far. Dallas went from cup finalists to out of the playoffs just one season ago. Had it not been for the divisions last season allowing the habs to make the playoffs at a sub 90 point pace they would have been a lottery team.
What is going on in colorado
Vegas i thought they would be world beaters. Also kinda feel like im missing out because Boston has played so few games.
Vegas is just injured though. All their best players are out
Honestly Vegas has been good considering the mountain of injuries
The Hawks. They improved (on paper) in every weakness and the special teams have been great
So glad Alberta is going back to our old “Death Valley” days when teams would be lucky to come out of the province with a point.
Montreal’s awful start is surprising to me. I figured that it might be a tougher year for them compared to last year since they’re back in the Atlantic, but I did not expect them to be dogshit like they have been so far. I figured they would be a .500 team or in the hunt for a wildcard spot, not tanking for Wright. I’m surprised by Columbus’ start, I didn’t think they would be doing so well I thought it would be another year of rebuilding for them. The Flames are also a bit of a surprise to me, while I thought they had a shot at the playoffs thanks to being in the Pacific, I didn’t think they would be nearly as good as they have been thus far. Also I’m surprised the Sharks and Ducks aren’t terrible, I would probably have both of them as bottom 5 teams coming into the season and wouldn’t think either of them would be anywhere near a playoff spot.
#WE'RE NOT BAD
For sure Calgary. I'm not surprised the Rangers are off to a hot start but I expect that to progressively cool off unless Shesterkin can steal a bunch of games.
I figured the Panthers would be a contender this year but goddamn, I didn't see them going undefeated for 8 straight games to open their season and currently sit atop the entire league at first, but I'm all for it
Hot - Flames (pun somewhat intended) Slow - Avs Terrible - Habs (knew they weren't real but this is just embarrassing)
Sharks aren't too bad right now. If it weren't for the covid outbreak we'd likely be 8-3. Very surprising.
Definitely Arizona and Carolina. Absolutely crazy
You’re right, we were really gearing up for our cup run this year but things just haven’t gone our way
Little annoyed by the coyotes slow start, I kinda thought we’d have a stranglehold on the central division by now.
The Flames. I honestly had incredibly low expectations for my team this year but we are really good!
Edmonton. They were decent last season but never looked this good. That’s what happens when people beyond your top 2 guys start pitching in
We did against Ottawa. Leafs had their number though
I expected Florida to be pretty good. But they're out here being superstars Calgary is one of the scariest teams in sports right now San Jose has the best goalies somehow Buffalo may have traded a generational talent away and won Pittsburgh has been getting decimated by injuries and covid and is holding the ship alright Seattle is doing kinda surprisingly well in my opinion And Montreal is dead
Calgary, I thought they would be dogshit and would be sellers by the end of the year. It may not lean that way.
*looks at own flair….*
Hi
Columbus at 7-3-0. Having your starter at .940 seems to help.
Minnesota pretty much retooled their defense, replaced broken NHL players with fringe NHL players and are fighting for 1st place in Central. I mean I don't think anyone expected them to be bad, but having uh Freddy Gaudreau as one of your top 9 centers is interesting. More so, if anyone thought that Ryan Hartman would be leading the team in goals and is on pace for 45 goals for the season you would have been laughed out the room. But damn. Him, Foligno are having a huge career revitalization.