NHL Power Rankings Through 20-25 Games

[Larry Fisher]

With American Thanksgiving now in the rear-view mirror, here are my latest NHL Power Rankings through 20 to 25 games. Spoiler, there's a new team on top! Your thoughts? https://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-power-rankings-through-20-25-games/

Click to read more...

 

[Riseonfire]

"My team is too low" - Everyone, probably.

 

[rynryn]

wherever the Wild are, it's too high.

 

[Stopsight]

I just find it funny that going into the season blues were just out of your bottom 5 and thanks to vegas aren't even the biggest climber

 

[LetsGoBLUES91]

Why did you have the Blues 24th???

 

[IamNotADancer]

Those are some great odds for Washington and Nashville to win the cup.

 

[KingBran]

"My team is too low" - Everyone, probably.

Blues definitely should be 0 or at least -1. This whole thing is a travesty!

 

[BeastoftheEast85]

5 of the top 10 teams are in the Metro (not to mention Pittsburgh), this division is way too stacked.

 

[PunkRockLocke]

Good article, nice work

 

[Larry Fisher]

Why did you have the Blues 24th???

Good question, in case you haven't read my Preseason Predictions, here was my analysis of the Blues:

"I wasn’t high on the Blues even before all these injuries. I don’t have much faith in Mike Yeo as a coach, but St. Louis is one of the non-playoff teams that could prove me wrong. The Blues are still going to be fairly deep and if Jake Allen picks up where he left off in the second half of last season, especially in the playoffs, St. Louis isn’t going to be a pushover. Even in the toughest division in hockey — yes, I feel the Central is now tougher than the Metro by the slightest of margins — the Blues might be able to exceed expectations again. Remember, this is a team that was supposed to fall off a cliff after trading Kevin Shattenkirk, yet managed to get better down the stretch. That was largely thanks to Allen, but the jury is still out on whether he’s blossoming into an elite starter. I’m not sold on Allen or St. Louis."

So, in short, I had concerns about coaching, goaltending, injuries and a perceived lack of puck-moving defencemen/Shattenkirk replacement. Obviously, the Blues are proving me wrong and looking like the team to beat in the West thus far.

 

[rumrokh]

Remember, this is a team that was supposed to fall off a cliff after trading Kevin Shattenkirk, yet managed to get better down the stretch.

According to whom?

 

[GTislanders]

The isles at 9 and below the rangers is hilarious.

 

[Spotty 2 Hotty]

Stars are a bit too high, unless you're putting more weight into their home record vs road record, which is like night and day.

 

[BrockLobster]

So according to the chart isles/blues cup finals? I'll take it!

But 9th on the list. Lol

 

[BrockLobster]

NYI also 4-0 vs top 4. 4 of them on road. Just saying...

 

[KingBran]

Good question, in case you haven't read my Preseason Predictions, here was my analysis of the Blues:

"I wasn’t high on the Blues even before all these injuries. I don’t have much faith in Mike Yeo as a coach, but St. Louis is one of the non-playoff teams that could prove me wrong. The Blues are still going to be fairly deep and if Jake Allen picks up where he left off in the second half of last season, especially in the playoffs, St. Louis isn’t going to be a pushover. Even in the toughest division in hockey — yes, I feel the Central is now tougher than the Metro by the slightest of margins — the Blues might be able to exceed expectations again. Remember, this is a team that was supposed to fall off a cliff after trading Kevin Shattenkirk, yet managed to get better down the stretch. That was largely thanks to Allen, but the jury is still out on whether he’s blossoming into an elite starter. I’m not sold on Allen or St. Louis."

So, in short, I had concerns about coaching, goaltending, injuries and a perceived lack of puck-moving defencemen/Shattenkirk replacement. Obviously, the Blues are proving me wrong and looking like the team to beat in the West thus far.

Don't feel bad. Lots of people had it wrong about them. I think it was only the people and fans close to the team that couldn't really figure out why people would see the Blues so low in the standings. I think they soured a lot of people with predictions of winning it all the past few years and them blowing it. So people got sick of getting high on the Blues. Then the Cinderella story of NAS tainted a lot of peoples views, they still thought CHI would be good, all the talk in the offseason was about how great DAL would be and then most people believe in WPG... Everyone thought MIN would take a step back and nobody thought COL was going to make a huge jump.

So I understood people thinking bubble team, just no idea why a team that played so great with Yeo and how well they played in the playoffs and competed so well against the eventual WCF team would suddenly drop to the bottom 5 or 6 in the league.

I mean if they were good for a week or even 3 after Yeo okay, honeymoon is over. But they really didn't show any signs of being one of the best teams in the West to suddenly drop to the bottom of the standings with hardly any player moment in the offseason. Oh except for trading an anchor in Lehtera for Schenn who lets face it nobody thought he would be THIS good but he was still an improvement over Lehtera. They have really just been who they were since Yeo took over and Shatty was traded... and better.

 

[John Eichel da GOAT]

Wasn't plugging your own site on here illegal at one point?

Also purposely came into here just to say I wont click that crap after the joke they started the season with. They purposely throw teams in stupid spots for clicks/views.

My NHL site would certainly get a ton more views too if I was allowed to post links on the main page.

 

[jasonleaffan]

1/4 season rankings, but you place the Leafs based in their last 2 games? Waste of time. And I'm pretty sure you can't be plugging your site for clicks.

 

[M2Beezy]

Interesting. Too bad some Blues fans tried making this thread all about their team tho

Think Id have Tampa Nashville as 1-2 and would have the Islanders Toronto and Pittsburgh higher and i think the Canucks at 17 is accurate so far but predict they will fall gradually as the season goes on. Hope not tho hope we can suprise and sneak in

 

[HugginThePost]

"A case can certainly be made for Calgary to be ranked a couple spots higher — or even a handful — with the Flames falling five places through no real wrongdoing of their own. Would Calgary beat San Jose and/or Los Angeles in a seven-game series starting tomorrow? It’s entirely possible, especially with the way Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan have been filling the net lately and essentially all season. Perhaps the Flames and Kings should be swapped here, but we’ll see how Calgary fares in its two games against Toronto and in the second installment of the Battle of Alberta after getting blanked by Edmonton in their season opener."

You actually come out and say that they probably should be higher in the rankings, as many as five places, yet want to see what they do in the next few games before deciding.

I'm not one for Power Rankings on the whole, seem more like a giant ego stroke, but I am pretty sure they are based on the body of work to date, not about what they may or may not do in the future, no?

Seems like lazy ranking to me.......

 

[stepdad gaary]

looks like you put way to much weight on the last 5 games.

 

[Mickey Marner]

I'm curious as to how Boston has better odds of making the playoffs than Toronto, as shown in that money puck tweet.

 

[JustaFinnishGuy]

Gotta love 60% NSH odds to Vegas' 90%. Vegas is 0 points ahead of NSH and have had everything going for them. They also have had arguably the easiest conference to date. That skews the odds somewhat, but shouldn't be that big of a gap.

 

[TheGoldenGod]

Mike Yeo should be a Jack Adams contender.

Team was self destructing before that guy came in.

 

[Larry Fisher]

NYI also 4-0 vs top 4. 4 of them on road. Just saying...

The Isles are definitely growing on me. Their goaltending is still average, but the rest of the roster is deep and that power play is potent. Another strong 5-10 game segment and they could potentially crack the top five in the next edition of my Power Rankings.