American Thanksgiving is upon us, and apparently we are now supposed to know each team intimately enough to say "This is who they are."
Just a game or so over the 20 game mark, officially past the quarter mark, and it's time to pile on the judgement. Open the trade flood gates, pick up the phones, cause this is who they are.
I guess.
Me? I'm more of a 30-40 game person until I start making judgements on what a team is and who they are. Obviously at this point you can tell which teams are good and which teams are bad, but the NHL is highly competitive and there is an incredibly close group in the middle echelon of the league. Sometimes that separation of playoff team and top half draft team doesn't become clear until February or even March.
But, this is basically the first milestone of the 2014-15 season so let's take a look at how the league looks. I have a certain way of looking at it, and it generally doesn't revolve around points.
Here is a screen cap of your NHL Eastern Conference standings as of today, November 27th.
And here are your Western Conference standings.
To go along with that, here's your top half of the league in corsi for %
aaaaand the bottom half as well
Let's talk about the East first. I like to use a lot of things when evaluating teams. Including goal differential, X-goal game wins and losses, and corsi for %, overall save percentage. Why? Goal differential is pretty simple. You're likely outscoring teams, or at the least keeping goals against down or goals for high. Most the time that translates to wins. Not all the time though, and there is potential that you have run up the score on more than one occasion or been blown out significantly on one or two nights and that skews the GD. That's where one goal games comes in, and where corsi for comes in. The X-goal games W/L gives me an idea of how the team is winning or how they have won and lost. The corsi is to try and see how often the team has possessed the puck or out attempted the other teams. With score effects though it's good to keep in mind that you don't always have to win the corsi battle to be a team that wins games. Just look at Colorado last year and Calgary this year. With save percentage, sometimes you just get great/bad goaltending that makes a massive difference.
The top 5 of the East look, at least to me, pretty for real.
Montreal, Pittsburgh, the resurgent Islanders, Tampa Bay, and Detroit all have real good all around numbers. No arguments here, I'd say they are legit.
The bottom three also look equally as compelling as non-playoff teams but there is interesting stuff with 2 of 3. I think everyone is fairly convinced that Buffalo is a No. 1 overall potential team, and I don't dispute that. Carolina is interesting because they come in obscenely high in the corsi for %. They also have a very questionable overall save percentage at 90.75%. They have had some injuries to key players like Skinner and both Staals, so I don't think Carolina is nearly as bad as some are making them out to be. They've also had EIGHT one goal losses of both the full 60 and OT variety, couples with just two wins. There is a lot of inexperience with Carolina and they aren't getting very good goaltending or clutch goals. Other than that aren't actually too bad of a hockey team. If the tandem of Ward/Khudobin can sort themselves out they could be a middle of the pack team.
Columbus has also had their struggles with injuries, and i'd be surprised if they didn't lead the league or worse close to it in man games lost so far. One of the injuries was Sergei Bobrovsky. No surprise that Columbus are behind only Edmonton in goals allowed. They've lost a staggering 11 games by a margin of two or more goals, six of those of three or more. They also allow a ton of rubber on net. They are bottom three in shots allowed, and in his 13 games Bobrovsky has face 30+ shots eight times. However, they aren't AS bad as it seems. I don't think they are a playoff team this year in unless they shore up the defense, but having Curtis McElhinney start eight games in which he posted a very positive .887 save percentage with a 1-5-1 record is not helpful. They will turn it around a bit, but they got a lot of work to do.
The 6-13 group in the East is a toss up honestly. Quick and dirty on this one.
Florida will not keep this pace and I don't feel like they are a playoff team. They will come close but reality has to set in eventually. Washington will also turn it around under new coach Barry Trotz, and I think a justifiable feeling out period in the beginning has seen them drop out of the top 8. They will be in the midst of the playoff 8, especially when you consider how weak the Metro is this season outside of the top 2.
The Flyers have the same old issues: Goaltending and defense. I think you are looking at a bottom half team.
Boston are a playoff team.
I'm not feeling New Jersey, and I think riding Corey Schneider this hard early on with no viable back up option is going to hurt them down the stretch.
They remaining teams of Toronto, Ottawa, and New York are hard to judge, and are definitely a team I'm revisiting later. Toronto and Ottawa might be playing a bit above their heads right now, but this is a wait and see one to me.
Now to the West.
It's not as ambiguous as the East that's for sure.
Are we really surprised that Colorado or Edmonton are struggling? I think most people felt that Colorado was way above their heads by making the playoffs last year, and rode an unbelievable year by Semyon Varlamov about as long as anyone possibly could. This year they aren't getting as fortunate.
Edmonton...*sigh*...it's the same thing every. Single. Season. They don't play defense. They don't have goaltending. Different front office, different coaches, off-season moves, but in the end it's always the same results. This team is looking at a potential top 5 pick AGAIN. It's starting to border on insane with how poorly this team has been for such a long time. They the most goals on average, and have lost seven games this year by a margin of 3 or more goals. They've lost quite a few close ones as well though. What matters is they are still losing. People have brought up the fact that they are a top half corsi team though, most the time in an attempt to destroy analytics. What you need to be looking at with the Oilers instead of CF is the teams overall save percentage coupled with how many shots they allow. The Oilers have the lowest save percentage in the league, at .895. The tandem of Scrivens and Fasth have been nothing short of a train wreck and generally allow 3.46 goals against per game on an average of 30 shots. Ouch. Build from the back out. It matters.
In a similar vein, Arizona is realizing that Mike Smith was a flash in the pan. However, the Yotes continue to ride him, as he has played 17 games now with a save percentage that is under .900. Unless they get that sorted this isn't a competitive team.
Alright, then how do you explain Vancouver being No. 2 in the West.
Answer: They are the new Anaheim Ducks in a way. And by that I mean "Unsustainable."
Remember that Ducks fans?
Vancouver has a goals for average of 2.45 goals a game at even strength and a goals against of 2.80. So how are they getting it done? The good old hockey adage of "Finding ways to win." Vancouver is an impressive 7-0-1 in one goal games. Anaheim is equally impressive at 10-0-5. Will these numbers balance out? I don't know. I am not convinced that Vancouver will stick around. Anaheim tends to make it happen with Boudreau at the helm, but I think we are looking at two teams that are very similar to each other. The question for Vancouver is can Miller be better? He's 14-3-0 despite holding a .909 save percentage. The Canucks are definitely not winning because of him right now.
Chicago, St. Louis, and Nashville are all for real teams and will be in the hunt come April. Getting Pekka Rinne back for the Preds has been unbelievable. The team of misfits have come to play this year, and the pickups of Ribeiro, Neal, and Jokinen look great. They also have phenomenal young talents who continue to impress like Josi, Craig Smith, and Filip Forsberg. You know, that guy that Washington traded for Erat and Latta. I'll never get over that.
Then you get Calgary. I don't know how to define Calgary. Bad in corsi, decent in goals for/against, decent in save percentage, high powerplay/low penalty kill. They are a conundrum. Put them in the wait and see category but they definitely could be in the hunt for a playoff spot. I can't fathom them being where they are at now later on, but they may have SOME staying power. I'd be surprised if they hold up though.
The L.A. Kings are doing some classic L.A. Kings things, and by that I mean finding ways to struggle in the regular season. The offense struggles one night, the defense struggles the next. Last year they were a pretty strong away team and a questionable home team. This year it's the opposite. There is hardly a predictable moment in how the Kings carry themselves in the regular season, except that it won't be easy and that the powerplay will be bad. Still, with Jonathan Quick playing out of his mind and several key players not playing up to snuff, the Kings are a playoff team. Maybe a 4-8, but that's not unusual. Also note that they are 4-2-5 in one goal games, which isn't overly impressive.
And then you hit the middle. Winnipeg, San Jose, and Minnesota. It's the wait and see group of the West. My money is on Minnesota. Don't ask me what's going on with San Jose, but do be sure to ask @FearTheFin on twitter, because he will likely have a colorful answer for you that has to do with Adam Burish or John Scott.
Dallas and San Jose both confuse me a little bit and more time is needed. Same with Winnipeg, which is still a team in my opinion that doesn't really have an identity. I don't know what Winnipeg is about.
It's the quarter mark, and as usual there's a pretty distinguishable group of good and bad. There are a couple of pretenders in there and a bunch of wait and see candidates. More will unfold before the New Year, when we have a much clearer view of the murky Eastern and Western Conference standings.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving everyone!
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