NHL power rankings: Lightning finally alive with five straight wins
Sports suck. They entertain you all season, build up your hope as the playoffs and the championship get closer, only to rip your heart out at the perfect moment and destroy you. If there’s one thing I truly learned freezing my ass off in Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday night in Toronto, it’s that sports are about being sad in a group (credit Acting the Fulemin for that one).
Wait, is this supposed to be about hockey or baseball? I can’t remember through the fog of alcohol and depression.
Hunter Crowther and I navigate through the season with another year of our co-op power rankings. I have my same old system in which I aggregate six stats (points %, 5-on-5 goal differential, 5-on-5 xGF/60, 5-on-5 xGA/60, power play xGF/60, and shorthanded xGA/60, all coming courtesy of Natural Stat Trick) to come up with a list that eliminates my own biases, along with a rule that no team can be above a team that’s more than five points ahead of them in the standings, regardless of where the aggregate places them. On the other hand, Hunter goes off his own intellect and pure vibes, and together we find a way to combine it and meet in the middle.
1. Colorado Avalanche
Record: 7-1-5, +12
Last Week: 1st (0)
Hunter’s Rank: 1st
Scott’s Rank: 1st
Scott: Hunter and I got some backlash from Devils fans last week for putting the Avalanche in first place over the Devils despite a 4-3 (overtime) win for the Devils on the Sunday before our list.
Well that didn’t age well.
In example number 10,000 of why we don’t decide on one team over the other based on one game against each other, the Avalanche doubled up the Devils in an 8-4 win two days later, and followed that up with a 4-2 win over the Golden Knights. The loss to the Sharks isn’t great, but they got sewered by a rough season debut from Mackenzie Blackwood, and Yaroslav Askarov was fantastic at the other end. Until further notice, this is still the best team in the league.
2. Florida Panthers
Record: 6-5-1, -3
Last Week: 8th (+6)
Hunter’s Rank: 3rd
Scott’s Rank: 2nd
Hunter: Like the ice that cracks every November when Mariah Carey is informed it’s the holiday season, the Panthers are back. Their Tuesday matchup against the Ducks was one of the most one-sided efforts in modern NHL history, nearly doubling their shot total and controlling possession for what felt like the entire game. And they still lost 3-2 in a shootout. They followed that with another dominant performance against the Stars and still needed a shootout to beat them. Their record may not indicate it, but a Florida lineup with injuries is still among the best in the league.
3. Carolina Hurricanes
Record: 7-4-0, +9
Last Week: 3rd (0)
Hunter’s Rank: 2nd
Scott’s Rank: 4th
Scott: The Hurricanes have stagnated a bit with four losses in their last six games, but the first two thirds of that stretch came against equally strong teams in the Golden Knights (twice), the Avalanche and the Stars. The loss to the Bruins is a bit more concerning, but the Canes still look strong in the early going, and Nikolaj Ehlers (four assists in his last six games) and Andrei Svechnikov (three points in his last three games) are finally showing some signs of life after poor starts.
4. Montreal Canadiens
Record: 9-3-0, +8
Last Week: 9th (+5)
Hunter’s Rank: 5th
Scott’s Rank: 7th
Hunter: Only two games last week, but in both their overtime wins against the Kraken and Senators, the Canadiens looked dominant, controlling play for most of the game and generating high-quality shots. They’ve won five of their last six games and nine of their last 11, and Cole Caufield, with three goals and two assists in those two wins this week, is knocking on the door of USA Hockey, telling them he’s needed this February.
Scott: He’s 100% going to lose a spot to Chris Kreider again, I can feel it.
Hunter: And there’s a 100% chance I’m going to drink from the Johnnie Walker Blue bottle when Canada celebrates its third-straight gold medal in an Olympic tournament played by NHLers.
5. Pittsburgh Penguins
Record: 8-3-2, +10
Last Week: 11th (+6)
Hunter’s Rank: 10th
Scott’s Rank: 3rd
Scott: I’m not entirely shocked that the Penguins are rated so highly by my model. Even in the past three years where they’ve been outside of the playoff picture, my model always enjoyed their performance under the hood, so the fact those numbers have taken a step forward along with the on-ice results means a third-place ranking for me. I am a bit surprised that those numbers carried over after Mike Sullivan left, but Dan Muse has either found a way to improve on that performance or managed to stay out of Sid, Geno and Co.’s way.
6. Vegas Golden Knights
Record: 6-2-3, +7
Last Week: 5th (-1)
Hunter’s Rank: 4th
Scott’s Rank: 9th
Hunter: The Golden Knights cooled off a bit since their four-game winning streak, dropping three of four, two of those coming against the Florida-based squads whom many had beside them on their preseason Stanley Cup contender lists. I thought Mitch Marner would have scored in more than two games at this stage of the season (watch those words come back to bite me). Adin Hill’s injury is clearly affecting the team’s results, and there’s no timeline as to when he’ll return. There’s a chance they won’t have a legitimate starting NHL goalie until Dec. 1 when Carter Hart is eligible, and there’s no telling how rusty he’ll be upon return.
Scott: I hope he’s extremely rusty. To unplayable levels even.
7. New York Rangers
Record: 6-5-2, 0
Last Week: 12th (+5)
Hunter’s Rank: 8th
Scott’s Rank: 5th
Hunter: Last week I wrote that, despite three straight losses and a 3-5-2 record, the Rangers were Actually Good ©. Since then? Three games on the west coast, winning all three, including a 4-3 overtime win over the Oilers that included a comeback from being down 3-1. They’ve got some juice; now imagine how good they would be if Artemi Panarin could break a five-game pointless streak.
8. Utah Mammoth
Record: 8-4-0, +8
Last Week: 4th (-4)
Hunter’s Rank: 9th
Scott’s Rank: 6th
Hunter: I watched most of the Mammoth’s Sunday afternoon matinee against the Lightning, and while the Lightning earned a regulation win with a Jake Guentzel goal midway through the third, it felt like Utah did a great job of suffocating Tampa’s breakouts and frustrating them in their own zone. Logan Cooley’s freshly signed eight-year extension with a $10 million AAV turned heads this week; some may think that’s way too much for someone they’ve heard of in passing, but today’s $10 million AAV is yesterday’s $6.5 million. It’s a whole new NHL.
9. New Jersey Devils
Record: 9-4-0, +6
Last Week: 2nd (-7)
Hunter’s Rank: 6th
Scott’s Rank: 10th
Scott: While the Avalanche have managed to maintain the top spot with how they’ve performed this week, the Devils haven’t shared the same fate. They’ve lost three of their last four, and while one was that rematch with the Avs, two were to the Sharks and Ducks. New Jersey also saw their play step back, which is why this slump has dropped them so far down. Well that and the competition is so close right now.
Hunter: I came into the season expecting them to improve off of last season’s 91-point performance, and I still expect that to happen. They looked downright atrocious last week, both with the eye test and in the numbers, but what’s most important is that each of New Jersey’s NFL-based teams (look it up) are also very bad.
10. Winnipeg Jets
Record: 9-3-0, +15
Last Week: 17th (+7)
Hunter’s Rank: 7th
Scott’s Rank: 11th
Scott: It genuinely impresses me how badly this Jets team is playing right now. Do you want to guess how many games this season has seen them win the expected goal battle? TWO! And that was with percentages of 50.15% and 52.73%. Yes, they should see some improvement when Adam Lowry, Cole Perfetti, Gustav Nyquist and Dylan Samberg return, and they can get away with this when you have Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor shooting the lights out and Connor Hellebuyck playing like Connor Hellebuyck. But still, this poor play is staggering, and I don’t think Hellebuyck can save them all season from that.
11. Tampa Bay Lightning
Record: 6-4-2, +2
Last Week: 21st (+10)
Hunter’s Rank: 11th
Scott’s Rank: 8th
Hunter: We made so much about the Lightning’s horrid start to the season, winning one game in their first seven, only for them to follow it with five straight victories. What a weird sport. The reports of Andrei Vasilevskiy’s decline were greatly exaggerated, as he’s allowed just four goals in his last three starts. Once Nikita Kucherov gets back to his “recording a stupid amount of points” stage of the season, the Lightning will be back in the top 10.
Scott: I still have plenty of concerns about their back end, but they’ve at least returned to their form last year, which was “really good team with an obvious flaw that needs fixing” instead of “this team is a disaster.”
12. Detroit Red Wings
Record: 9-3-0, +3
Last Week: 18th (+6)
Hunter’s Rank: 13th
Scott’s Rank: 12th
Scott: While the California road trip (plus the Blues) still isn’t the gauntlet that it used to be, the Red Wings should be happy with taking three of the four games, and a win against St. Louis before that gives them four wins in their last five games. Still, the Red Wings have always had hot starts. The actual good sign of the season so far is that they’re driving play much better than past seasons. Keep that up and they may have a much better chance of sneaking into the playoffs this season.
Hunter: Part of me still wonders if reality will come crashing down on the Red Wings, or if this team is legitimate. I would feel a lot better about their playoff chances if they had better goaltending, especially since the combined goals saved above expected between Cam Talbot and John Gibson is 0.4 and their combined save percentage is .886. If one of them breaks out or Steve Yzerman spends assets to get someone, now we’re cooking with gas.
13. Washington Capitals
Record: 6-5-1, +2
Last Week: 6th (-7)
Hunter’s Rank: 14th
Scott’s Rank: 13th
Scott: Alex Ovechkin still hasn’t hit the 900-goal mark, as his two goals through 12 games feels a lot more like 2023-24 Ovi and not 2024-25 Ovi. That’s bad news for almost the entire hockey world – except for our lovely editor Matt Larkin, who hasn’t had to remove Ovi getting 900 from his This Week in the NHL series yet. Then again, there’s been some inconsistencies in his linemate recently, especially with Dylan Strome and Pierre-Luc Dubois in and out of the lineup.
Hunter: Their next game is Wednesday against a Blues team that’s allowed the most goals in the NHL. I say he doesn’t do it, but he will the following night in Pittsburgh against Crosby and the Penguins. It would be fitting to do it against the player he’s been tied to for more than 20 years.
14. Anaheim Ducks
Record: 7-3-1, +7
Last Week: 13th (-1)
Hunter’s Rank: 16th
Scott’s Rank: 14th
Scott: You can’t complain about what the Ducks did last week, beating three teams that have been performing really well so far this season in the Panthers, Red Wings and Devils. Anaheim is still horrible defensively, but they make up for it in both their high-octane offense and having one of the most underrated goalies in the league in Lukas Dostal. At the very least, the Ducks know how to put on a show.
15. Dallas Stars
Record: 6-3-3, -3
Last Week: 7th (-8)
Hunter’s Rank: 12th
Scott’s Rank: 20th
Hunter: It feels like we’re getting repeats of the Stars’ 2024-25 season, where they would win three straight, lose three straight, win two, lose four, win four, etc. Don’t let the one-goal results fool you, as they were outplayed badly by the Lightning and Panthers this week, and things only stayed close because of impressive performances by Jake Oettinger and Casey DeSmith. Beyond the top line of Jason Robertson-Wyatt Johnston-Mikko Rantanen, this Stars group is lacking “oomph.”
Scott: Shockingly, it’s not the Stars’ defense causing the problems this time, as their offense just can’t get anything going right now as far as chance creation goes. They’ve enjoyed the luxury of insane forward depth the past couple seasons, and they miss it right now.
16. Edmonton Oilers
Record: 6-4-3, 0
Last Week: 14th (-2)
Hunter’s Rank: 15th
Scott’s Rank: 18th
Hunter: What’s frustrating about putting together these lists and reviewing how these teams play is that, for a lot of them, early-season struggles are to be expected, and how they look in March and April will look nothing like they did in the previous week. When it comes to the Oilers, while they still have pressing issues like goaltending and what appears to be a lack of speed deep in the lineup, they showed flashes of themselves in their three games this week, especially after the first period against the Mammoth. That being said — should we be concerned about McDavid only scoring one goal in his first 10 games and now only having three? Ehhhh, probably not.
17. Columbus Blue Jackets
Record: 7-5-0, +4
Last Week: 16th (-1)
Hunter’s Rank: 17th
Scott’s Rank: 17th
Scott: At times, the Blue Jackets can look like one of the better teams in the league, and then at other times, they look like one of the worst. They’re a tough team to nail down, so the middle of the pack seems to be the perfect spot for them. Kirill Marchenko and Dmitri Voronkov have certainly impressed so far, and the fact that Adam Fantilli and Kent Johnson haven’t quite hit their stride yet tells me that this team still has another gear to them, especially if their goaltending continues to be as good as it’s been.
18. Ottawa Senators
Record: 6-5-2, -3
Last Week: 10th (-8)
Hunter’s Rank: 18th
Scott’s Rank: 16th
Hunter: It’s hard to envision how a team that was 10th last week, then won their first game of the week 7-2, could crash to 18th in just a few days. But that’s life with the Senators, who looked putrid for large chunks of their losses to the Blackhawks and Canadiens. Drake Batherson has been great this season, recording points in all but two of the team’s first 10 games of 2025-26. In fact, check out this beautiful pass against Ottawa in overtime from Saturday. *listens to earpiece* Wait, I’m told he plays for Ottawa.
FRISSONS GARANTIS
WICKED#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/h8AG3RE3RB
19. Toronto Maple Leafs
Record: 6-5-1, -1
Last Week: 23rd (+4)
Hunter’s Rank: 19th
Scott’s Rank: 21st
Hunter: You know what? It doesn’t matter. This team got a free pass from their mediocre play to start the season with another Toronto-based team in the Blue Jays getting as close to winning a championship as humanly possible, only for it to be ripped from them in the most heartbreaking way imaginable. I’m typing this and I’m still in shock, replaying the key moments from Games 6 and 7 in my head, over and over and over. Oh the Leafs power play is 29th in the league? I just watched my favorite team blow a World Series ring with two outs remaining in the ninth.
But with the Blue Jays’ magical run over and the NBA’s Raptors not exactly a barnburner, fans will turn their attention to the Leafs, and there will be nowhere to hide.
Scott: It’s not even been 36 hours and I’m already seeing Leafs hot takes. The people of Toronto are traumatized and angry, and after watching Vlad and Bo actually show up in the playoffs, they aren’t going to be happy watching this group.
20. Los Angeles Kings
Record: 5-4-4, -7
Last Week: 19th (-1)
Hunter’s Rank: 21st
Scott’s Rank: 19th
Hunter: Speaking of the World Series, the city of Los Angeles is not really a city, but merely hundreds of scattered suburbs and millions of failed actors who still screw up drink orders. Hollywood is overrated and I’ve never cared for the Lakers, the Clippers, the fake NFL teams in the Rams and Chargers, but I especially hate the Dodgers. Screw Freddie Freeman and his Joe Biden-like veneers, or Blake Snell, who looks like the grown-up version of Beans from Even Stevens. Tell Shohei Ohtani I want the hat and the dog jacket he got during his Blue Jays visit back. I wish the Dodgers and their fans who skip the final innings to beat traffic a very rainy championship parade.
As for the Kings, I don’t know how you can get utterly destroyed in expected goals by the Sharks of all teams, but still win, only to follow that up by whooping the Devils in expected goals and lose.
21. Buffalo Sabres
Record: 5-4-3, -1
Last Week: 26th (+5)
Hunter’s Rank: 26th
Scott’s Rank: 15th
Hunter: You know what? The Sabres deserved a win against the lowly Bruins, but at least they got points in all three games last week, despite losing two of them. Josh Doan had goals in back-to-back games, and Alex Tuch is having flashes of the nearly 80-point campaign he posted for Buffalo in 2022-23. I ranked them pretty low this week, but I’ll be curious to see how they perform against a Mammoth squad that’s lapping them in terms of youthful teams succeeding, as well as a floundering Blues lineup.
Scott: I didn’t rank them low though, this team still continues to intrigue me, and the potential may be there for this to finally be the year. There’s still lots of runway left, but I like what I see.
22. Seattle Kraken
Record: 5-2-4, -2
Last Week: 15th (-7)
Hunter’s Rank: 20th
Scott’s Rank: 23rd
Scott: The Kraken have slowed down a little bit since their 3-0-2 start, now 2-2-2 in their last six games, but what might be more impressive is how much close hockey they’ve played this season. Only four of their 11 games haven’t been decided by one goal, and of their 679:53 minutes of hockey played this season, 538:45 of it has been played in a one-goal game situation. They’re still 2-2 in two-or-more-goal games, but this feels like something that won’t sustain itself all season.
23. Philadelphia Flyers
Record: 6-5-1, +2
Last Week: 20th (-3)
Hunter’s Rank: 22nd
Scott’s Rank: 22nd
Scott: Not much has really changed in Philadelphia since last week. They’ve gone 2-2-0 last week, so they’re still playing above where they probably want to be, and Trevor Zegras is still playing some entertaining hockey and looking like his old self. I think Flyers fans are just happy they’re actually getting some goaltending this season, as Dan Vladar just playing like normal has been well above the standard in recent years in Philly.
24. New York Islanders
Record: 6-5-1, -2
Last Week: 25th (+1)
Hunter’s Rank: 24th
Scott’s Rank: 25th
Hunter: I don’t want to spend each week talking about Matthew Schaefer, but it’s worth mentioning an impressive two-goal performance against the Blue Jackets on Sunday. Head coach Patrick Roy cut his ice time after Monday’s loss to the Bruins, but that could also be Roy realizing that giving an 18-year-old defenseman between 22 and 27 minutes a night during a five-game stretch may not be helping anyone.
25. Chicago Blackhawks
Record: 5-4-3, +3
Last Week: 27th (+2)
Hunter’s Rank: 25th
Scott’s Rank: 24th
Hunter: Having covered the Blackhawks in a previous job, I’ve always had a soft spot for the group, and seeing them get better as the season goes on is a treat. Despite losing two of three last week, they matched the Jets and Oilers — two strong Western Conference teams capable of making deep playoff runs — shot for shot, despite what the results show. One quick shoutout to Tyler Bertuzzi, who signed a long-term deal with Chicago but struggled in his first season with the team. This season, he’s looked more dangerous around the net and is winning more puck battles along the boards.
26. Vancouver Canucks
Record: 6-7-0, -6
Last Week: 22nd (-4)
Hunter’s Rank: 23rd
Scott’s Rank: 26th
Scott: The Canucks are a tough team to crack right now. On one hand, I don’t want to get too worried about their performance so far due to all of their injuries, especially the ones to Quinn Hughes and Conor Garland. But then even when Hughes has been playing, he’s looked a step below what he usually brings to the table, and the rest of the team has been just as underwhelming. Keifer Sherwood is looking like their best player right now, and while he’s had a hot start, that’s not a good sign.
Hunter: One positive about this group is Thatcher Demko finding the form he carried through the 2023-24 season, with an even-strength save percentage of .931, despite giving up three 5-on-5 goals against the Wild on Saturday. Selfishly, I want them and the other Canadian teams to at least compete for a playoff spot, but that won’t happen with the likes of Garland and Sherwood leading in scoring.
Side note: Sherwood having nine goals and zero assists through 13 games is the funniest statline in hockey. How does someone have a hand in more than a quarter of a team’s offense and have no assists to show for it?
Scott: I believe people would say he’s in the running for the Cy Young.
27. Nashville Predators
Record: 5-6-2, -10
Last Week: 28th (+1)
Hunter’s Rank: 28th
Scott’s Rank: 28th
Scott: I don’t have a lot to say about the Predators right now. They’ve been very mediocre right now, and outside of Roman Josi’s injury and the fact that they only had an 8.78% 5v5 score-adjusted expected goals share in their 5-2 loss to the Lightning, there isn’t a lot happening in Nashville. Instead I’ll just plug our colleague Kyle Morton’s piece on how Barry Trotz has not been a very good general manager after more than two years.
28. Boston Bruins
Record: 7-7-0, -3
Last Week: 31st (+3)
Hunter’s Rank: 27th
Scott’s Rank: 30th
Hunter: Just like the Kings, I don’t know how the Bruins can get manhandled in expected goals by the Sabres, then beat them in overtime, only for them to do the same to the Hurricanes and squeak out a 2-1 win. Such a fickle game we love so dearly. The four wins in five games mask a lot of the issues they have, and they’re in the bottom third of the league in stats like goal differential, expected goals and shot attempts. I think they’ll crater soon.
29. Calgary Flames
Record: 3-9-2, -17
Last Week: 30th (+1)
Hunter’s Rank: 32nd
Scott’s Rank: 27th
Scott: It may be a bit surprising that I’m high on the Flames (if high means I don’t think they’re the worst team in the league), but that’s solely because their underlying numbers have actually been decent so far this year. However, I don’t think that means this team will bounce back at some point. Dustin Wolf has struggled, they don’t have any finishing talent, and if this keeps up right now, they’ll get even worse once they offload players like Rasmus Andersson, Blake Coleman and Nazem Kadri. For Mike Gould’s sake, I hope this team gets Gavin McKenna.
30. San Jose Sharks
Record: 4-6-3, -11
Last Week: 32nd (+2)
Hunter’s Rank: 31st
Scott’s Rank: 29th
Scott: OK, so the Sharks bucked the trend that I had mentioned last week where they had at least one 10+ goal game every week. But they’ve been playing spoiler this week, snagging wins against the Devils and the Avalanche during a four-game homestand. I’m not going to pretend like they play good hockey, but they continue to be entertaining.
31. St. Louis Blues
Record: 3-7-2, -17
Last Week: 24th (-7)
Hunter’s Rank: 29th
Scott’s Rank: 31st
Hunter: *SCENE: Seymour Skinner, pointing at the St. Louis Blues*
“Good LORD what is happening in there?!”
It’s not just that the Blues have lost seven straight, or that they won only one of seven home games in October, it’s that … well, those two things have a big part of it. Dylan Holloway has just two goals in his first 12 games and Jordan Binnington looked horrendous this past week. Speaking of, is he playing himself out of a starting role with Canada in Milan?
Scott: *checks notes* Well, Doug Armstrong is still the general manager for Team Canada, and we all know how much GMs running Olympic teams operate with a tiebreaker of going with their guys. That and his play at the 4 Nations Face-Off pretty much locked him into a spot for this year anyways, although the leash will likely be a lot shorter this time.
32. Minnesota Wild
Record: 4-6-3, -12
Last Week: 29th (-3)
Hunter’s Rank: 30th
Scott’s Rank: 32nd
Scott: My god, this Wild team has been bad this season. There is almost nothing redeeming about this group, as even their red-hot power play has cooled down in recent weeks and hasn’t carried them to wins like it did in those first three games of the season. Part of me wonders if Kirill Kaprizov has any regrets about signing a new deal so quickly, and part of me wonders how safe John Hynes and Bill Guerin’s jobs are at this point, because I don’t see how both survive if this continues.
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