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Which team off to a slow start should be most concerned?

October 11, 2019, 12:55 PM ET [10 Comments]
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In this edition of the hotstove, we share our thoughts on which team off to a slow start should be most concerned.

Todd Cordell

You can certainly make a case for San Jose and New Jersey, amongst others, but I do think they have the high-end pieces to eventually overcome some of their early-season issues. I’m going to go with the New York Islanders.

Though they’ve only played three games, they’ve been out-chanced at 5v5 in each of them. That’s not good news considering a) their goaltending won’t be as good this year and; b) they should struggle to score goals as they didn't bring in any real help from the outside and regression is expected to hit several meaningful contributors from last year's squad.

Prior to the season I penciled the Islanders in as one of the teams I expected to take a step back. I’ve seen nothing to change that stance thus far.

Sean Maloughney

Despite the 2 goal performance from Marleau last night in the Sharks first win of the season, it would have to be San Jose.

The Sharks have two of the best defenseman in the league in Burns and Karlsson and a strong group of forwards, but the team is still trying to find themselves in the post Pavelski era. Timo Meier has taken the spot previously held by Joe on the powerplay and has yet to truly make an impact; either there or at five on five.

The largest red flag for the Sharks remains their extremely suspect goaltending. Martin Jones has allowed 12 goals throigh three starts and has a mere .856 SV%. The Sharks backup Dell also cannot be counted on to play too many impact games.

The Sharks will start to put some wins together because the rest of the roster is too good, but their poor goaltending will keep them from being a real contender.

James Tanner

I think of all the teams having a bad start, the Sharks should be the most concerned because they don't have their first round pick, and they're a pretty old team.

If your answer to starting the year 0-3 (wrote this before last night's game) is to get sentimental and bring back Patrick Marleau, who last year scored below a fourth line rate while playing appalling defense, then you are obviously out of ideas.

Also, their goalies sucks a lot, so they should be pretty scared.

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