Three teams and five players off to slow starts that won’t last

Nov 5, 2025, 13:30 EST

Toronto Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies (23) scores a goal against New York Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin (31) and defenseman Will Borgen (17) in the first period at Scotiabank Arena.

Credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images

Every NHL season, the first month to month-and-a-half are always the toughest to navigate and analyze. With such a small sample size to work from, there is a lot of noise, and very few conclusions can be made, as we’re only just starting to see what teams and players are capable of this season.

But one thing we can start to look into is the sustainability of some of these performances. Teams and players get off to surprisingly hot or cold starts all the time, but while some of them are products of adjustments made in the offseason or natural development, some of them are also just products of luck on either side of the coin. But the signs that it’s the latter and not the former are still easy to find in the early going of the season.

With that, I’m going to dive into three teams and three players who are starting the season surprisingly slowly but are dealing with bad luck and will likely see their performances regress up to normal at some point this season.

Also as a side note, I will not be looking at goalies for this list, largely because their results are so volatile early on in the season that this list could have easily just been goaltenders. The likes of the Frederik Andersen, Jordan Binnington, Joel Hofer, Darcy Kuemper, Jacob Markstrom, Sam Montembeault, Anthony Stolarz, Jeremy Swayman, Linus Ullmark and Dustin Wolf all could have been considered for this list, and with luck playing an even larger factor in their results, I wanted to look at the players in front of them instead.

Nikolaj Ehlers/Andrei Svechnikov, Carolina Hurricanes

The Hurricanes had high expectations entering the season, as they were coming off an appearance in the Eastern Conference Final and had landed one of the top free agents of the summer in Ehlers. So far, Carolina has lived up to that with a 8-4-0 record, and most of their players have been performing as expected. But there are two players in the Hurricanes’ core that have stuck out from the rest and not quite performed at the level that Carolina needs: Ehlers and Svechnikov.

While Ehlers and Svechnikov have started to produce a bit more recently with a respective five points in seven games and three points in four games, but both of their starts to the season were stunning given how they normally perform. Ehlers had gone pointless in his first five games (and is still without his first goal as a Cane), while Svechnikov was pointless in his first eight games, something that can’t happen from players making a combined $16.25 million. But with respective shooting percentages of 2.9% and 7.7% and on-ice shooting percentages of 8.71% and 5.96%, Ehlers and Svechnikov should see much larger bouncebacks than what we’ve already seen.

Sam Reinhart/Carter Verhaeghe, Florida Panthers

Reinhart and Verhaeghe are another duo of forwards that haven’t started the season on the right foot. While Reinhart’s six goals in 13 games is around his usual rate for scoring, he has just one assist on the season, while Verhaeghe is at just two goals and six points in that span. A step back was expected from both players amidst the injuries to Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, but Reinhart and Verhaeghe do need to find a way to step up and be the top players on the Panthers when they need it.

Out of the 292 forwards to play at least 150 minutes this season, Reinhart and Verhaeghe find themselves in the bottom 50 in terms of on-ice SH% at 7.35% (44th-lowest) and 7.31% (42nd-lowest). While Reinhart’s individual shooting percentage is at his normal rate, Verhaeghe’s 6.1% rate (49th-lowest) is also a concern. Reinhart should see his luck swing the other way soon enough, but Verhaeghe is slowly starting to drift into “trend” territory, especially after last season also saw him deal with bad luck. The injuries make this a weird year to evaluate the Panthers, but it is still something to worry about with Verhaeghe.

Roman Josi, Nashville Predators

Unlike the players we’ve discussed so far, Josi’s struggles haven’t entirely been on-ice issues. There was already concerns about his play entering the season after he was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, and he’s only played eight games this season due to an upper-body injury. Given he’s now 35 years old, expecting prime Josi after all this would be expecting too much of him.

But there is more than just age and injuries bogging down his modest one goal and five points through eight games, and that’s been bad luck. The Predators as a whole are off to a horrible start again with a 5-6-4 record, and their 2.53 goals per game is the third-lowest in the league, so Josi isn’t exactly operating in an ideal environment to generate offense. Nashville’s 9.13% SH% is the fifth-lowest in the league as well, and they’re even worse when Josi is on the ice at 6.29%. That said, Josi also produced at a similar rate last season (38 points in 53 games), so perhaps this is just what we should expect from him at his age.

New York Rangers

The Rangers are a fascinating team to analyze this season, because if you aren’t paying attention, you’d think they are just continuing on from last season. The 2024-25 season saw significant struggles defensively, and along with some off-ice drama fuelled by their general manager publicly shopping some of the core that had brought them to two Eastern Conference Finals, they were just never truly in the playoff hunt.

This season’s slow start would have you think that this is the same case, but despite the Rangers’ inability to score, they’ve actually seen significant improvement under the hood. Mike Sullivan has provided this team with a sense of structure that they haven’t seen since Alain Vigneault’s earlier seasons in New York, and they’ve been clicking at a 55.63% 5v5 expected goal share. Once they improve upon the second-worst shooting percentage in the league (8.01%) and some of their stars like Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad pick up the pace, New York may find themselves being one of the better teams in the Eastern Conference (although it does feel like their depth needs a bit of improvement still). But they’ll need to start winning at Madison Square Garden to do that.

St. Louis Blues

The Blues were one of the league’s biggest surprises last season, as a red-hot second half propelled them to the playoffs. They were even three seconds away from advancing to the second round. But they have not been able to carry that momentum into the 2025-26 season, as they have the second-worst record in the league at 4-7-2. However, this isn’t nearly as big of a concern as you might think… yet.

No team has seen a bigger gap in their expected goals to actual goals so far this season than the Blues. They have been about as unlucky as a team can be, with their 41.94% 5v5 goal share (second-worst in the league) far below their 54.15% 5v5 expected goal share (eighth-best). This has been largely due to their goaltending being the worst in the league so far this season, with both Jordan Binnington (.868 save percentage) and Joel Hofer (.829) struggling significantly. But even with regression seeming to be inevitable, the Blues can only dig a hole so deep before they can’t climb out of it. Their 3-2 comeback win over the Edmonton Oilers is a good start, but they need to string some wins together before the season is lost.

Tampa Bay Lightning

The Lightning seem like an odd choice for this list, since their regression is already underway with their five-game winning streak before Tuesday’s loss to the Colorado Avalanche. While this stretch has certainly salvaged them from their 1-4-2 start, there’s still a bit more to go with this team, as their 56.15% 5v5 expected goal share indicates that they aren’t just better than that slow start, they’re actually one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

You may think that the Lightning are getting luckier during this streak, but that’s not quite the case. While a 59.98.8% 5v5 goal share is a lofty total to maintain, their 5v5 expected goal share is actually keeping pace at 61.73%. There’s still some structural concerns with this team, particularly with how easily their aging blueline is beaten on the rush, but they’ve even adjusted there by using their forwards to support them more. Still, some roster improvement in that regard, and the likes of Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point returning to their usual levels, the Lightning should return to being the class of the Eastern Conference again.

POST SPONSORED BY bet365

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