10 thoughts from around the NHL: Is the Atlantic Division all that great?

As we move into November, some NHL trends are starting to make themselves clear. Some thoughts after three weeks of the 2022-23 NHL season:

An eye on the Devils

Every year some teams that aren’t very good start hot, and we can either overreact, or patiently wait for things to level out. With all due respect, the Philadelphia Flyers are 5-2-2, tied for sixth in the NHL in points percentage. I doubt that holds up.

But that ain’t the Devils. The Devils – who incidentally are fourth in the NHL in points percentage behind just Boston, Vegas and Carolina – are bulldozing teams, outshooting them by gaping chasms, and have now won four in a row. By some underlying shot metrics, they’ve played like one of the best teams of the past decade.

For balance, their schedule has been fairly soft, and I’ve seen their roster – it’s hard to imagine them as a legit Cup contender. But many analytically inclined people picked them as a dark horse candidate this year, and they’re certainly going to be in the race.

It’d be hard to see a team that can play as they have for 10 games now miss the playoffs. So while the Devils may not be what their numbers so far make them appear to be, those are certainly all good signs.

The Sabres are in a fandom sweet spot

Our producer of Real Kyper and Bourne is Sam McKee, a lifelong Leafs fan. Right now, he pines for the feeling Leafs fans had in about 2016 or 2017, which is exactly where Sabres fans are right now.

Buffalo is a team that entered the season with few expectations, but it’s becoming clear they’ve got some real talent on the roster now, and should play meaningful games in their near future — if not this year then next. And with the lack of expectations, they’ll have the chance to play underdog, where everything they win is just gravy. Nothing to lose, everything to gain. It’s a great time as a fan when “hope” turns into “maybe we’re actually good here?”

A question related to the Sabres success…

Is the Atlantic Division all that great?

In the pre-season it was easy to paint the picture of the Atlantic as the league’s juggernaut division. The Panthers won the Presidents’ Trophy, the Lightning went to the Cup Final after winning two championships, the Leafs were a 115-point team, the Bruins still have all their stars, and hey, we figured the bottom four teams might all be better.

But right now as you step back… the Bruins are better than expected, that’s legit. But the Lightning are just 6-4 with a plus-1 goal differential and haven’t looked great. The Leafs have just four wins in 10 tries. The bottom teams have gotten better, but that just means Detroit, Ottawa, and Montreal are all about .500 rather than outright bad. And the Panthers, boy, they’ve been pretty close to bad themselves, at 5-4-1 with a minus-1 goal differential.

About that…

Wait, Brandon Montour is fourth in the NHL in TOI?

I don’t have an overly strong opinion of Montour aside from that if he’s playing the most for your hockey team, and nearly the most in the league, your defence may have some issues. He partners with Gustav Forsling (17^th in league TOI, near 24 minutes) and plays special teams, but he’s at 26 minutes per game, well more than Victor Hedman and Roman Josi and Adam Fox (all in the 24s).

Florida still has good underlying numbers, plenty of talent and is a good team that will be in the playoffs. But that D-corps is awfully thin without Aaron Ekblad, and Montour is eating the brunt of that time.

They aren’t alone though…

A number of teams are struggling versus their expectations

I mentioned Tampa’s ho-hum start, and Florida’s, and the Leafs’ is well documented. Well, last year’s Cup champion Avalanche are just 4-4-1. Last year’s 113-point Minnesota Wild are 5-4-1 (minus-1 goal differential), Pittsburgh is just 4-4-2, and St. Louis is 3-5-0. These are good teams – I think? – or at least they were supposed to be.

My theory is that usually good teams could add or keep good players as the salary cap would tick steadily up. The flat cap for years just makes it impossible to stay good. You have to take a step back almost every year as a good team, fall into the pack with the rest of the average teams, and hope to get more bounces than the next group. While the league loves this “parity,” I personally don’t. Hopefully the cap goes up as Bettman theorized (possibly $4 million by next season) so we can better reward teams that compile good rosters, rather than forcing them to get worse.

But in looking for good teams…

The Alberta teams have a real shot

When you do a scan of the league for the legit teams — the teams you think can win the Cup that are dangerous — boy, the province of Alberta catches your eye, doesn’t it?

I know the Flames have dropped a couple in a row, but they’re a positive goal differential team with a .625 winning percentage and great talent all throughout the roster. Playoffs didn’t go as planned last year, but it’s easy to see a group that could be tougher to eliminate this time around.

As for the Oilers, that offence is impossible to contain. They’ve got physical forwards, they’ve got good depth, and two of Earth’s best hockey players. They have the potential to get good goaltending every night, even though that’s misfired a couple times thus far. Their D are fine enough, but given where they’re at, if they could add a guy or two there at the deadline, I’m not sure they wouldn’t enter the post-season as the West favourites.

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While we’re in the West…

Erik Karlsson’s bounce-back

I was toggling through some pages of SportLogiq data, and you can’t sort a list that measures how involved someone is without seeing Erik Karlsson’s name. He’s all over the rink right now. With Brent Burns leaving San Jose for Carolina, Karlsson’s way more involved. Yes, he’s second in the NHL with nine goals in 12 games, as a D-man(!). But he’s also top-10 in ice time, and top-three in categories like successful passes, time with the puck through the neutral zone, and what SportLogiq calls “total activity” (presumably things like touches, breakouts, defensive plays, etc). He’s busy, and he’s been having scads of offensive success.

San Jose isn’t good, that’s a fact. But Karlsson is a delight to watch so far this season. (And to answer your question before you ask it, yes, his defensive metrics are still a mess too. That happens partially when you’re on a bad team playing against the best players, but we know his game by now. He’s fun to watch both ways.)

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With Karlsson’s numbers up so much, it is worth noting…

Goals per game are still up

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A dumbed down version of that tweet is: on average, there are 6.34 goals per game in the NHL right now. That’s the highest it’s been since 1993-94, and even higher than last year’s elevated rate.

The speed and skill wave many saw coming has arrived, good luck defencemen (who are more-commonly styled as forwards now that just stand a little farther back.)

But apparently you don’t have to score to win…

The Leafs keep losing to the teams who don’t score

One of the dramas in Leafs land these days has been around their struggling D-corps, which misses Jake Muzzin and awaits the return of Timothy Liljegren and Jordie Benn.

Some of the worst offences in the league are San Jose (31^st), Anaheim (30^th), Montreal (25^th), and Arizona (23^rd), all of whom beat the Leafs. This will be a fun story to follow, as the Leafs have the Flyers on Wednesday (27^th in goals for per game), then see Boston, Carolina, Vegas, and Pittsburgh. It’ll get harder for that group from here.

And we’ll close with something I see kicked around on Twitter a lot for fans of that team…

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Would the GM be allowed to fire/hire a coach … with no contract past this season?

This to me is an under-discussed factor in the “Would the Leafs fire Sheldon Keefe if they don’t start winning” conversation. Kyle Dubas has no contract beyond the 2022-23 season. If they’re not sure about him, would they want him to hire the Leafs next coach on the way out the door? And if they wouldn’t want that to happen (you usually want your GM to get the coach he wants), maybe the team will have to make a grander assessment after they see if this Leafs team turns it around or not in the weeks ahead.

If they don’t, is it more likely to be both guys out than just one? And if they do turn it around by Christmas, are both guys extended to avoid the perils of lame-duck leading? I have no insight on that aside from wondering if Dubas’s contract status here doesn’t effect the Leafs’ greater decision on what to do with their coach.

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