St. Louis’s early-season Blues, Habs’ hot start, and the biggest NHL storylines to watch in November
As is so often the case after October’s slate of early-season NHL action, small sample sizes have given way to statistical anomalies that will self-correct in time. Nick Schmaltz, a crafty veteran playmaker on a rising Utah team, will not finish the season with 116 points in keeping with his current pace. Nor will Canucks’ middle-six banger Kiefer Sherwood finish with 56 goals and no assists, hilarious as that statline would be.
Still, these games count, and the points the quick starters have banked and the early strugglers have missed out on will have playoff implications down the road. It’s not as though we haven’t learned anything, either. Try telling fans of the St. Louis Blues that everything is fine, or, if you’re the masochistic sort, argue that the Montreal Canadiens’ flying start is an apparition with their legion of fervent supporters.
Is 30th-placed St. Louis really as bad as early results have suggested? Will the Habs one-up last season’s return to the playoffs with a top-three finish? Read on for more on the Canadiens, the Blues, and the hottest storylines to monitor as the NHL season continues into November.
Can the floundering Blues rediscover last season’s magic?
When I went out on a limb to predict the Blues would shake up the Central Division top three back in September, it wasn’t on a whim. Between Cam Fowler’s fit on the top pair, the chemistry between top-six speedsters Jordan Kyrou and Dylan Holloway, and a solid goaltending battery made up of Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer, I expected big things from the Blues after head coach Jim Montgomery’s first training camp in St. Louis. Everything that’s happened since would suggest my optimism was off the mark.
Binnington has struggled for consistency (.860 SV%, .429 QS%), and his backup Hofer hasn’t provided any relief amid a disastrous start (5.19 GAA, .829 SV%). As bad as the Blues’ netminders have been, they aren’t getting much help from a defense that has struggled to clear the net-front area, where Charlie Coyle and Sean Monahan had no trouble setting up and scoring in the Blue Jackets’ victory over St. Louis on Saturday.
The Blues’ bottom-10 scoring offense (2.82 goals per game) isn’t producing enough to cover for their leaky D, and it doesn’t help that top center Robert Thomas has missed four straight with an upper-body injury or that Jake Neighbours (6 G in 8 GP) will miss five weeks with a leg issue. Underlying numbers (fifth-best expected goal share at 5-on-5) suggest the Blues could turn it around once they start getting saves, but metrics can only offer so much comfort to a three-win club that’s dropped seven in a row. If St. Louis can’t capitalize on its upcoming four-game homestand (Nov. 8-15), even a furious finish like last season’s will be too little, too late.
The real work starts now for Montreal
The Canadiens’ ascension to first place in the Atlantic Division has been the story of the early season. The Habs boast the league’s third-best scoring attack thanks primarily to the work of captain Nick Suzuki and diminutive sniper Cole Caufield on the top line. Caufield and Suzuki are the league leaders in goals and assists, respectively, and the introduction of prized rookie Ivan Demidov (3 G, 10 P in 12 GP) to the top power play unit has helped unlock their hulking linemate Juraj Salfkovsky’s netfront game (PP goals in three straight). Life is good in Montreal, but it could be even better.
Ils font de la magie noire ou quoi? 🔮
That’s some black magic right there #GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/wvvjum7aw1
The Canadiens’ gaudy shooting percentage (14.15%, NHL best) sets off some alarm bells about the sustainability of their offense beyond the dominant Suzuki line (57.39% expected goal share, 9-3 game score). On defense, only the do-it-all top pair of veteran puckmover Mike Matheson and new guy Noah Dobson is in the black in terms of puck possession. You can’t argue with Montreal’s results after a nine-win October, but there’s room for improvement in controlling the games they can’t bust open with their abundance of high-end skill.
Very few of those games have appeared on the Habs’ schedule thus far, so consecutive tilts against fellow fast starters from New Jersey, Utah, LA, and Dallas from Nov. 8-13 will provide an early-season litmus test for Montreal’s young roster. A return to form for both goalie Sam Montembeault (-6.49 GSAA, second-worst) and the checking line of Brendan Gallagher, Jake Evans, and Josh Anderson (40.31% expected goal share) will be critical for surviving that stretch unscathed should the Habs’ hot shooting cool off.
The Red Wings are starting to look like the real deal
When the Detroit Red Wings broke camp with rookies Axel Sandin-Pellikka and Emmitt Finnie slated to take over important roles, they broke from their tradition of painstakingly patient prospect development. Perhaps trying new things wasn’t the worst idea after nine years without a playoff berth: ‘ASP’ and particularly Finnie have helped Detroit draw into a tie with Montreal atop the Atlantic Division.
Finnie, a seventh-rounder who spent most of last season in the WHL, has filled the hole Marco Kasper left opposite Lucas Raymond on Dylan Larkin’s left wing with stellar results. Like Kasper, who now centers the second line, Finnie is a pitbull in the corners who can do the dirty work for his talented linemates while still contributing on the score sheet (4 G, 8 P in 13 GP). As a defenseman with limited experience in the North American game, Sandin-Pellikka has experienced a few more growing pains in his development (-9, worst on team) than Finnie has. Still, the recent combination of ASP’s puck skills with veteran Ben Chiarot’s physicality has been good enough to give coach Todd McLellan a long-awaited excuse to reunite defensive bulwark Moritz Seider with big Simon Edvinsson on one heck of a top unit (64.51% expected goal share, 5-2 game score).
Sorting out the blueline and finding a left winger for Larkin were the top two items on the Wings’ agenda all summer, and, for now, they’ve solved them internally. That’s a major boost for a club whose reluctance to swing big for outside help is well known. Perhaps the locker room has earned a greater buy-in from the top brass anyway; Larkin looks like a man on a mission (8 G, 18P in 13 GP) after some offseason friction with GM Steve Yzerman, and a home-heavy month full of winnable games should only strengthen the Red Wings’ position in the standings.
Can the Devils finally maintain their October form?
The New Jersey Devils are tied for the Metropolitan Division lead with Pittsburgh, but you’d forgive their fans for not falling over themselves with optimism. They’ve seen this movie before. As my colleague Paul Pidutti recently pointed out, no team has had more misleading starts over the past four seasons than the Devils, who always seem to play well for a month or two, then struggle to keep their head above water after the 20-game mark (Nov. 18). Can Jersey finally keep it together for a full season?
On one hand, the Devils have their big guns healthy and firing with Jack Hughes tied for the goal lead (10) and Dougie Hamilton looking refreshed on the blueline (4 G, 7 P, 21:49 ATOI in 13 GP). Dawson Mercer’s hot start (8 G, 14 P in 13 GP) is also significant given the speedster’s scoring regression since his 2022-23 breakout, and Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt are also at or near a point-per-game pace. Then there’s the bad news: stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but New Jersey has already been hit hard by the injury bug. Two-way center Cody Glass and veterans Connor Brown and Evgenii Dadonov were expected to provide much-needed scoring depth this season. Instead, all three men are on the shelf with injuries, along with top shutdown defenseman Brett Pesce.
The shorthanded Devils aren’t controlling play at 5-on-5, where they rank in the bottom 10 of expected-goal and scoring chance share, and their cracks are already showing in recent results (1-3 in L4, outscored 19-11). New Jersey has to circle the wagons if it expects to avoid the “fraud” label. The Devils host a trio of top-12 offenses (MTL, PIT, NYI) on their upcoming homestand, a significant opportunity for top goalie Jacob Markstrom (4.17 GAA, .875 SV% in 5 GP) to round into form and for Sheldon Keefe’s men to display the resolve that has been missing in past seasons.
The Utah Mammoth keep clearing hurdles
After another busy offseason by GM Bill Armstrong, the newly christened Mammoth expected to force their way into a crowded Central Division playoff picture with German playmaker JJ Peterka on board. Though that picture isn’t as crowded as expected given St. Louis and Minnesota’s dreadful starts, it has the third-placed (COL, WPG) Mammoth front and center.
I wondered after the Peterka trade whether the former Sabre would be pushed down to Nick Schmaltz and Barrett Hayton’s second line with the top unit of young sniper Dylan Guenther, newly extended top center Logan Cooley, and silky captain Clayton Keller seemingly locked into place. Instead, coach Andre Tourigny has Peterka teeing up Guenther and Cooley (13 combined G) in the Keller role. Keller himself (4 G, 12 P in 12 GP), meanwhile, has helped elevate the Hayton line thanks in part to his leftover chemistry with long-time teammate Schmaltz (7 G, 17 P). Tourigny is also pressing all the right buttons on “D,” where Nate Schmidt is turning back the clock in first-pair usage alongside righty John Marino; no pair in the NHL (min. 80 minutes) has been better at controlling scoring chances (62.39 SCF%).
Seriously what do they feed this kid? Gunner stays hot!
🚨 3-2, Utah! pic.twitter.com/PbpwoE3bOr
As great as Utah looked in October, it dropped the first contest of a six-game gauntlet of Atlantic Division competition against Tampa on Sunday. Tilts against the Maple Leafs and Senators will make demands of the Mammoth’s physicality as well as their skill, while a pair of games against Buffalo have the potential to get personal after Peterka’s forceful push to escape Western New York. If Utah fares as well on its Eastern Conference vacation as it did against a mixed bag of early competition, the new kids on the block’s playoff destiny will become that much clearer.
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POST SPONSORED BY bet365
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