NHL power rankings: William Nylander and the Toronto Maple Leafs shine in Sweden
Somebody call Dana White: we may have his next marquee matchup! We’re only just over a month into the season and Mike Gould and I are at each other’s throats over our rankings! Whether it be first place or last place, things are getting heated and it’s not going to be pretty! But enough about us, let’s get to the hockey!
Mike and I continue to navigate through the results so far with another week of our co-op power rankings. I have my same old system 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, Mike goes off his own intellect and pure vibes, and together we find a way to combine it and meet in the middle.
1. Boston Bruins
Record: 13-1-2, +24
Last Week: 1st (-1)
Mike’s Rank: 2nd
Scott’s Rank: 2nd
Scott: Mike and I are so torn over our top picks that the Bruins snuck in and managed to maintain their top spot by being both of our second-best teams. It certainly helps their case that they had a quiet week, so by winning both games they just kept steady, but if any team but my top choice wasn’t going to be picked, I’m glad it was Boston.
2. Vegas Golden Knights
Record: 13-4-2, +20
Last Week: 2nd (0)
Mike’s Rank: 1st
Scott’s Rank: 5th
Mike: It’s going to take one heck of a run for a team to dethrone the Knights from the top spot of my rankings. Sure, they’ve lost back-to-back games, but their underlyings are strong and they’ve just run into a couple of really hot teams. Top to bottom, I don’t think there’s a better team in this league. But their leaked Winter Classic jerseys stink.
Scott: What underlying numbers are you looking at? They’re 10th in 5v5 expected goals for, 17th in 5v5 expected goals against, and 15th in 5v5 expected goal share. I don’t think they’re that bad and they’re probably in the 5-10 range, and will probably return to form by playoff time, but I just don’t get what you see in this team outside of the surface-level stuff.
Mike: Going back to the start of last season they’ve just been remarkably consistent. A lot of teams have dramatic highs and lows that average themselves out. That doesn’t really happen with Vegas. They just go.
Scott: My question remains unanswered…
Mike: They’re pretty much neck-and-neck with Boston in every category of note!
Scott: So wins then. They are higher than the Bruins in one stat though… losses!
3. Los Angeles Kings
Record: 10-3-3, +19
Last Week: 6th (+3)
Mike’s Rank: 5th
Scott’s Rank: 1st
Scott: It’s a shame that the true best team in the league has to be kept this low, but alas, I can only do so much here without breaking my own rules. The Kings only had a couple games this week but they won both including one against a hot Panthers team, and they continue to overwhelm the opposition with their depth.
Mike: Is something wrong, Scott? I think you’re talking about the wrong team. This is the L.A. entry, not the Vegas one.
Scott: Possibly, I may have lost brain cells reading your argument for Vegas in first place.
Mike: We make a great team!
Scott: Yeah, love you too man!
4. Dallas Stars
Record: 11-4-1, +10
Last Week: 4th (0)
Mike’s Rank: 4th
Scott’s Rank: 4th
Mike: Scott and I have reached a consensus on this one. Dallas is really, really good. Even without the Jason Robertson line clicking at full offensive capacity, they’re still getting plenty of offense from the likes of Matt Duchene, Wyatt Johnson, Tyler Seguin, and Jamie Benn. It’s a ridiculously deep team. Even though I think Vegas is better constructed, I actually suspect the Stars might be more likely to win it all.
5. Colorado Avalanche
Record: 11-5-0, +13
Last Week: 9th (+4)
Mike’s Rank: 3rd
Scott’s Rank: 6th
Scott: I’m not as high on the Avs as Mike is, but I can’t blame him after a week where they outscored their opposition 19-6. Sure, two of those came against weaker Kraken and Ducks teams, but they also had a solid comeback win over a strong Stars team, so there’s still lots to be impressed by with them.
Mike: Gotta beat the teams you should beat. I really wonder if the Avs try to orchestrate a Nazem Kadri reunion if things continue heading south in Calgary.
Scott: Nazem Kadri??? In this economy???
Mike: Retain down to $5.5m and I think there’s a market for Kadri. He’s been a lot better of late after a slow start to the year. His term is concerning but Colorado needs a legit 2C in the worst way.
6. Florida Panthers
Record: 11-5-1, +6
Last Week: 7th (+1)
Mike’s Rank: 8th
Scott’s Rank: 3rd
Mike: I’m not quite as sold on these Panthers as Scott, who is undoubtedly a big fan of their excellent underlying numbers. They’re only just getting Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour back, too. But I don’t like their forward depth one bit and Sergei Bobrovsky has been just OK in goal. If and when Sam Reinhart cools down, they could be in trouble.
Scott: Can confirm, I am a big fan of their underlying numbers.
7. New York Rangers
Record: 12-2-1, +18
Last Week: 3rd (-4)
Mike’s Rank: 7th
Scott’s Rank: 9th
Scott: I’m not quite sure how a Rangers team on a four-game win streak and an 11-game point streak slipped down four spots. Well, I know why they did for me, their underlying numbers took a bit of a hit this week in spite of their wins, but I’m willing to cut them some slack for the time being while Adam Fox is still out.
8. Carolina Hurricanes
Record: 10-7-0, +2
Last Week: 8th (0)
Mike’s Rank: 9th
Scott’s Rank: 7th
Mike: Sometimes, it takes a “down year” for a perennial contender to finally break through. That’s what happened for both the 2018 Capitals and 2019 Blues. Carolina isn’t getting many saves, their forwards have been inconsistent, and both Tony DeAngelo and Dmitri Orlov have struggled. It kind of feels like these Canes need a spark — but they should still easily make the playoffs.
9. Philadelphia Flyers
Record: 10-7-1, +8
Last Week: 14th (+5)
Mike’s Rank: 10th
Scott’s Rank: 8th
Scott: Wait, the Flyers continue to be slept on, especially because while writing this sentence, I only just discovered that they are riding a five-game win streak. Credit to this team for continuing to win, and doing so with some sustainability, something no one expected from a team they had penciled for the bottom of the standings (I know I did). I’m sure Daniel Briere is slightly disappointed that the rebuild is going terribly.
Mike: Sean Couturier is going to play for Team Canada at the next best-on-best international tournament. He is a remarkable player.
10. Toronto Maple Leafs
Record: 10-5-2, +3
Last Week: 15th (+5)
Mike’s Rank: 6th
Scott’s Rank: 14th
Mike: William Nylander is flat-out stupid good. He’s never scored 90 points in a season, but he might pass 100 by the end of February at this rate. With Willy leading the way, the Leafs have won five consecutive games and are set to return from Sweden riding a nice little high. Now would be the perfect time to trade for a shutdown defenseman, eh?
Scott: You’re right, how about Chris Tanev for John Klingberg, Alex Steeves, and a second?
Mike: You can have Nikita Zadorov for Nick Robertson and a first. And that’s me being nice!
Scott: Careful buddy, you’re going to lose a Blackberry with that kind of an ask (that’s a deep cut NHL GM Mode reference for the kiddos out there).
11. Winnipeg Jets
Record: 10-5-2, +9
Last Week: 13th (+2)
Mike’s Rank: 11th
Scott’s Rank: 10th
Scott: I think we need to start an investigation on if this team is from an alternate reality. Elite defensively with their biggest weakness being in net? This can’t be the Jets. No way.
Mike: Connor Hellebuyck is in a bizarre post-contract lull. Everyone knows he’s better than this. The big story is Nino Niederreiter, who has fit in like a glove with this Jets team. He makes his linemates look better seemingly everywhere he goes.
12. Vancouver Canucks
Record: 12-5-1, +30
Last Week: 5th (-7)
Mike’s Rank: 12th
Scott’s Rank: 11th
Mike: The wheels aren’t officially off the wagon in Vancouver, but it’s never a good sign to lose back-to-back games against Seattle and Calgary. Even with their offense clicking at 150 percent, the Canucks’ other percentages are beginning to wane and it’s becoming more and more clear that their high-flying start was mostly smoke. They’re absolutely good enough to make the playoffs this year, but it’s hard to project where they’ll go from there.
13. Pittsburgh Penguins
Record: 9-8-0, +10
Last Week: 10th (+3)
Mike’s Rank: 13th
Scott’s Rank: 12th
Scott: I’m sure people will continue to complain about how high we are on the Penguins here, but while their record still doesn’t quite match up with our outlooks, they’ve been one of the best teams in the league at creating offense, and they’re finally starting to get offense from their bottom six as well. They just need to start stringing wins together before they end up in the same pickle they were in last season.
14. Washington Capitals
Record: 9-4-2, -1
Last Week: 18th (+4)
Mike’s Rank: 15th
Scott’s Rank: 13th
Mike: Alex Ovechkin is beginning to score again, but the Capitals are mostly grinding their way into wins. Only the Sharks have scored fewer goals than Washington’s 39 in 15 games. These days, that’s not nearly enough. The Caps have won four in a row, but that’s not going to continue if they don’t start getting more depth scoring. One reason for alarm: T.J. Oshie has just one point in 15 games this year.
15. New Jersey Devils
Record: 8-7-1, -3
Last Week: 11th (-4)
Mike’s Rank: 14th
Scott’s Rank: 15th
Scott: The bad news? This team seems to be struggling with the changes they made in the offseason, particularly on the blueline, and have struggled at keeping the puck out of their net and putting the puck in the other team’s net. The good news? They have the third lowest PDO in the league, which is right on par with the Oilers, and they’re still well in the playoff hunt unlike Edmonton, so there’s less ground to make up. Oh, and Jack Hughes is back. That’s always good.
Mike: The Devils really need a goalie. I have to wonder whether they’ll be in the market for Jake Allen or one of the Flames’ guys before long.
Scott: I wonder if Nashville is willing to hear conversations about Juuse Saros yet.
16. Tampa Bay Lightning
Record: 8-6-4, -2
Last Week: 16th (0)
Mike’s Rank: 16th
Scott’s Rank: 16th
Mike: Have the Lightning officially arrived at the point where they’re Just Another Team? Not if Nikita Kucherov has any say in the matter. Age 30 looks good on Kucherov, who is already up to 27 points in 17 games this year after putting up a pair of goals and an assist in Tampa’s big win over Edmonton on Saturday. He might be the single most underrated superstar in the league — I’d have him really high on my Hart ballot, if I had one.
17. Ottawa Senators
Record: 8-7-0, +8
Last Week: 20th (+3)
Mike’s Rank: 17th
Scott’s Rank: 17th
Scott: The Sens may have just gotten the momentum that they needed in Sweden, winning both of their games and coming home in sixth place in the division in terms of points percentage. Then again, last time they went to Sweden in 2017, they won both games fresh off a blockbuster deal for Matt Duchene, and then proceeded to drop 12 of their next 13 games, so maybe that’s not good news for them.
18. Detroit Red Wings
Record: 8-6-3, +4
Last Week: 17th (-1)
Mike’s Rank: 19th
Scott’s Rank: 18th
Mike: At the start of the year, everyone wondered which one of the Red Wings, Senators, and Sabres would take that step forward and seize a spot in the Atlantic. Early on, it seemed like Detroit was that team. Now … It looks like the answer is none of them? The Red Wings are coming off of back-to-back overtime losses to division rivals over in Sweden and have won just three of their last 10 games.
19. Arizona Coyotes
Record: 8-7-2, +4
Last Week: 12th (-7)
Mike’s Rank: 18th
Scott’s Rank: 19th
Scott: The Yotes just keep sputtering along this season, not being hilariously bad like they’ve been in the past, but also not being surprisingly good either. They’re hanging around in a playoff spot for now, but they might want to get a hot streak going soon if they don’t want to fall behind when another team behind them gets hot.
Mike: I have no idea what to make of this Coyotes team. They’re on an utterly bizarre streak of alternating between wins and losses in their last 11 games. Seriously, they’ve gone back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. They’ve had exactly one two-game winning streak and one two-game losing streak all year. Other than that, it’s been baaaack and forth.
20. St. Louis Blues
Record: 9-7-1, 0
Last Week: 22nd (+2)
Mike’s Rank: 20th
Scott’s Rank: 21st
Mike: On a recent episode of Frankly Speaking with Frank Seravalli, Blues GM Doug Armstrong freely admitted that his team is heading toward a rebuild. These Blues don’t have the same pieces they did when they were making deep playoff runs. Yes, they just beat the Ducks, but before that, they lost to the Kings and Sharks (!!). I think Scott would agree that there’s a big drop-off in these rankings from the Coyotes down to the Blues — most of the teams in this tier are either focused on the future or nearing desperation mode as they look to get back into the hunt.
Scott: The only teams with a significantly bigger gap in my rankings are the Sharks from the Blackhawks, so yes, I agree with that sentiment.
21. Buffalo Sabres
Record: 8-9-1, -6
Last Week: 23rd (+2)
Mike’s Rank: 21st
Scott’s Rank: 24th
Scott: The Sabres snapped their three-game losing streak on Sunday by beating up on a significantly weaker Blackhawks team, and the fact that that’s what it took is making it harder and harder for me to be convinced that this Sabres team is legit. I’m still rooting for them, but they’re starting to fall into the same pattern as the past couple seasons where they start slow and then play well in the final two-thirds of the season and only just miss out.
22. New York Islanders
Record: 6-6-5, -12
Last Week: 19th (-3)
Mike’s Rank: 26th
Scott’s Rank: 20th
Mike: These Islanders are just bad, man. They’ve invested a ton of money in assembling what might be the most “mid” team in recent league history. Anders Lee has three points in 17 games this year. Scott Mayfield, in year one of a seven-year extension, is barely averaging 18 minutes a night. Ilya Sorokin looks troublingly beatable. Not great!
23. Seattle Kraken
Record: 7-8-4, -17
Last Week: 29th (+6)
Mike’s Rank: 22nd
Scott’s Rank: 25th
Scott: The Kraken are really starting to look like the 2022-23 Blues: a team everyone thought would continue to shoot the lights out with their forward depth, only for regression to come creeping along and bring them back down to Earth. They did at least get a couple wins to end the week, but their offensive generation at both 5v5 and the power play has been very bleak for a team that relied on it last season.
Mike: That’s a really good comparison. Both teams have a problematic goaltending contract on the books, too. Seattle just doesn’t have the star power to stand out in the Pacific.
24. Minnesota Wild
Record: 5-8-4, -16
Last Week: 25th (+1)
Mike’s Rank: 25th
Scott’s Rank: 22nd
Mike: Marco Rossi has been good. Brock Faber is terrific. But the list of unreserved positives pretty much ends there. The Wild haven’t been scoring nearly enough and their goaltending tandem of Marc-Andre Fleury and Filip Gustavsson has been among the league’s worst. Matt Boldy has just one goal in 10 games this year. Is this the year the Wild will finally bottom out and make a high draft pick?
25. Anaheim Ducks
Record: 9-9-0, -5
Last Week: 21st (-4)
Mike’s Rank: 23rd
Scott’s Rank: 27th
Scott: The Ducks losing five of their last seven has certainly cooled off what was looking like this year’s fun, young team that would surprise everyone. They’re still in the conversation, and they’re still fun and young, but they’ve still got some stuff to work out before they can be consistently competitive.
26. Montreal Canadiens
Record: 7-9-2, -14
Last Week: 24th (-2)
Mike’s Rank: 24th
Scott’s Rank: 26th
Mike: The bar is lower for Juraj Slafkovsky than other recent No. 1 overall picks, but the big winger is finally starting to pick up the odd point here and there after an underwhelming start to his sophomore year. These Habs have a bigger core group of veteran players than most teams in this range, and they should be able to pick up some decent returns by selling high on guys like Mike Matheson, Sean Monahan, Jake Allen, and Tanner Pearson — but it’ll come down to their desire to do so.
Scott: At least the pressure to win will be low for a bit now that the Alouettes have satisfied the championship desires of the city of Montreal.
27. Calgary Flames
Record: 6-8-3, -12
Last Week: 28th (+1)
Mike’s Rank: 27th
Scott’s Rank: 23rd
Scott: Two wins in three games last week is a solid sign, especially by this team’s standards, but there’s still a lot up in the air about the direction of this team, especially with a player or two seemingly halfway out the door already. Jonathan Huberdeau has three points in the last two games as well, but it’s not a good sign when that’s the bar he’s set for himself.
Mike: Martin Pospisil is a firecracker. He’s this generation’s Micheal Ferland, and it’s truly a sight to behold. Love watching that guy play.
28. Nashville Predators
Record: 6-10-0, -6
Last Week: 26th (-2)
Mike’s Rank: 28th
Scott’s Rank: 28th
Mike: I thought the Preds might be the worst team in the league coming into this season. They haven’t been, but they also aren’t far removed. After losing to the Coyotes and Ducks, the Preds proved they’re not quite a bottom-three team with a win over Chicago on Saturday. But this is a team with almost zero depth and a struggling star goaltender in Juuse Saros. The outlook ain’t great.
29. Edmonton Oilers
Record: 5-10-1, -14
Last Week: 29th (0)
Mike’s Rank: 30th
Scott’s Rank: 29th
Scott: The Oilers have won two of their first three games in the Kris Knoblauch era, and it goes to show how much of a hole they still have to climb out of when a winning week still has them seven points out of a playoff spot compared to last week when it was… eight points. If anyone can do it, it’s Connor McDavid, but McDavid isn’t even McDavid right now, so they are still in a tough spot to come back.
30. Chicago Blackhawks
Record: 5-11-0, -16
Last Week: 30th (0)
Mike’s Rank: 29th
Scott’s Rank: 31th
Mike: Connor Bedard looks like the real deal. Unfortunately, he’s just about all this Hawks team has going for it. Lukas Reichel and Kevin Korchinski still have loads of promise, but they’ve struggled to remain afloat in the NHL this year. It’s largely been up to Chicago’s vets to carry the mail, but they also haven’t done much. It’s basically going to be a one-man show in the Windy City until further notice.
31. Columbus Blue Jackets
Record: 4-11-4, -19
Last Week: 27th (-4)
Mike’s Rank: 32nd
Scott’s Rank: 30th
Scott: I see Mike’s being edgy again by not picking the team that is far and away the worst in the league for last place, but losing nine games in a row isn’t a good thing either. The Blue Jackets aren’t great by any means, but there’s at least some signs of life even amidst all these losses, while the Sharks are making a strong case for the NHL to go the soccer route and introduce relegation.
Mike: I’m actually correct!
32. San Jose Sharks
Record: 3-13-1, -47
Last Week: 32nd (0)
Mike’s Rank: 31st
Scott’s Rank: 32nd
Mike: I think there’s a very real chance San Jose catches up to Columbus before long. Something’s gotta give in Ohio. Now that the Sharks have won a game, I think they’ll be Normal Bad instead of Apocalyptic Bad from here on out. I don’t have that same feeling about the Blue Jackets. But either way, it’s like comparing a raging tire fire with a pool of spent nuclear fission rods. Whatever you do, stay away.
Scott: The Sharks managed to achieve something I thought was impossible and managed to place last in all six categories that I use for my rankings. Say what you will about the recent struggles of Columbus and the Sharks getting a few wins recently making it a conversation, it shouldn’t be. This Sharks team continues to be historically bad.
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