Story Archive

Chicago is 2-1 with Connor Bedard and 1-5 without him, but the shots against barely move. The blue line has been the problem for two years, and Knight is no longer hiding it.

Last season Stamkos and Forsberg scored 24.5 goals more than their chances were worth. This season they are scoring about what they should, and the team underneath them is showing through.

Colorado has the hottest finishing in the NHL and a 1-3-1 record in one-goal games. The two pieces of luck cancel out, and what is left points at the crease.

Ottawa is 7-1 when Linus Ullmark starts and 0-3 with Samuel Ersson. Ullmark is on injured reserve, and the team in front of him is closer to average than the record says.

Boston has the best goal differential in the NHL and an expected goal differential of zero. Goaltending and finishing make up the whole gap, and this time more of it looks real.

Los Angeles finally won in Washington after an 0-4-2 start. The expected goals say the Kings were close to even, with finishing and goaltending costing nine goals. The real worry is on the blue line.

Jake Oettinger has three shutouts and leads the NHL in goals saved above expected. Dallas has allowed the fewest goals in the league, but at five-on-five it ranks 28th in creating chances again.

Kirill Kaprizov leads the NHL with 11 goals, but Jesper Wallstedt is the reason Minnesota's start can last. With Gustavsson on LTIR, the Wild should plan their crease around the 23-year-old.

Montreal is fifth in five-on-five shot share and 28th in five-on-five save percentage. The Canadiens are 1-2-2 when Jakub Dobes starts and 3-1 with Jacob Fowler. The crease decision is not hard.

Carolina is 8-2-1 and first in the NHL without Seth Jarvis, Jordan Staal or Taylor Hall. It is second in five-on-five expected goals share with bottom-third shooting and goaltending.

Macklin Celebrini has eight points in four games, but San Jose is last in five-on-five offence and all three of its wins needed overtime. The young forwards around him are being outplayed badly.

Vegas was 29th in goaltending last season and still reached the Cup Final. This season the skaters are the same, the goaltending is merely average, and the Golden Knights are 6-2.

Seattle is 5-2, but three wins came against Calgary and Philadelphia. The Kraken are 25th at five-on-five and more than ten goals ahead of expected on shooting and goaltending.

New Jersey has scored first once in six games. It also leads the NHL in five-on-five chances. The real problems are finishing, goaltending and the penalty kill, and they show up in the first period.

Winnipeg is 4-1-1 with Connor Hellebuyck suspended. Stuart Skinner has been above expected and the special teams are elite, but the Jets are 26th at five-on-five again. Why the trade price should hold.

A history test says only six teams can win the 2027 Cup. Five of them hold up on the underlying numbers. Florida, 19th at five-on-five without Barkov, does not, and Tampa Bay should take its place.

Toronto says Auston Matthews is skating better than in five years. The numbers agree, but his chances were never the problem. His finishing fell from 16.2 to 12.3 per cent, and that is what Toronto needs back.

Edmonton is 3-0-1 with 22 goals and Bouchard has six. The goaltending is 6.2 goals below expected, Andersen is on IR until December, Jarry has not started since the opener, and the plan is down to Devon Levi.

Calgary is 0-4 with six goals scored and 23 allowed. Last season the Flames scored the fewest goals in the league and leaned on a backup goalie. Four top scorers are gone, so Frost and Whitecloud should follow.

Philadelphia is 0-3-2 with six goals in five games. The goaltending is fine, with Joseph Woll saving 3.5 goals above expected. The five-on-five share has fallen from 50.6 to 32.4 per cent, last in the league.

Alex Ovechkin starts his final season on 929 goals. He was still a top-25 five-on-five scorer last season, but Washington has cut him to 13 minutes a night, and the minutes decide whether he reaches 950.

Dylan Larkin was booed, then scored in his season debut. Five straight 30-goal seasons make the case for Detroit's price. His five-on-five numbers explain why nobody has paid it.

Barkov is out six to eight weeks and Marchand was helped off in Los Angeles. Florida already played a season without its captain, and it says Sam Reinhart belongs on the wing.

The Rangers are 4-1 and Alexis Lafreniere has a hat trick. Their goaltending leads the league, but at five-on-five they are almost the same team that finished last in the East.

Vancouver has scored 19 goals in four games, the most in the NHL, on 10 expected. Paul Cotter has four on seven shots. The chances still rank near the bottom of the league.

Knies and Marchenko finished one point apart last season. At 5-on-5 one sat in the 90th percentile for shot attempts and the other in the 10th. Here is what each club bought.

We rebuilt the standings on 27 November across nine seasons. Teams in a spot made it 78 per cent of the time, but the gap from eighth tells you far more than the line.

Florida spoiled Carolina's banner night 1-0 in overtime. The regular-season rivalry is even. The playoff one is 8-1, and Carolina's Cup came the spring Florida missed.

Buffalo lost its opener 6-3 and the market expects a 12-point drop from 109. The opener means nothing. Alex Tuch's departure with his finishing means a lot.

Utah's plus-28 goal differential was worth about 100 points last season. Dylan Guenther's 40 goals came on 27.6 expected. One claim holds up and the other is a stretch.

Pucky weighted every rostered player's age by the minutes he played, then checked it against the table. The correlation with points is 0.11. The useful number turns out to be a different one entirely.

Charlie McAvoy is serving six games in October for a slash delivered on 1 May. The carry-over rule is defensible. What it does to the punishment, and to Boston's 24th-ranked penalty kill, is a separate question.

Brock Faber had surgery on a fractured skull and is out indefinitely. Minnesota's fourth-ranked defence was built on two men playing 24-plus minutes. The honest accounting is stranger than the headlines.

Bouchard opened with a hat trick and five points and Edmonton still lost 6-5 after leading by three. The Oilers have been seventh or better in scoring in three of the last four years and were 25th in goals against last season. That is the whole story.

Los Angeles opened with an 8-4 loss in Denver and the 2028 cap-space theory took off. The cap maths is real. The plan was never reported. The warning was in last season table all along.

The Canucks finished 32nd for the first time since 1971-72, and they deserved to: 44 percent of the chances at 5-on-5, 31st in the league. But they were also the second-unluckiest team in hockey, 38.9 goals below expected, worth twelve to fifteen standings points. The summer's moves were right. The bounce back is the problem.

Detroit missed the playoffs for a tenth straight season, four points short, and the only real flaw was finishing: 19 goals below expected at 5-on-5, 29th in the NHL, concentrated in Marco Kasper, Andrew Copp and Emmitt Finnie. That corrects itself. Instead the summer brought a new GM, a captain's trade request and an unsigned Simon Edvinsson.

Ilya Sorokin saved 25 goals above expected, fourth in the NHL, and the Islanders still missed the playoffs. At 5-on-5 they finished 31st of 32 in finishing, and most of that gap belonged to one player: captain Anders Lee, nine goals on 21 expected. He signed in Utah. Every replacement is on a one-year deal.

Dallas finished third overall with 112 points and created chances at even strength like a wild-card team: 2.36 expected goals per 60, 22nd in the NHL and last among the eight 100-point teams. Then the cap forced it to sell Mavrik Bourque, one of its few even-strength drivers, for picks.

Tampa was the fifth-best team in hockey by chance share and lost a Game 7 to Montreal, a 48 percent team with the best finishing luck in the NHL. Then it let Darren Raddysh sign an eight-year deal in Toronto and replaced him with 36-year-old John Carlson at the same cap hit. Kucherov has one year left.