Bottoms up in the NHL standings? Some Stanley Cup contenders are struggling early this season
Peter DeBoer was worried. The experienced coach now in his fifth NHL job was concerned his Dallas Stars would get off to a slow start after back-to-back trips to the Western Conference Final.
“Is it going to take a while to get going?” DeBoer wondered. “Are we going to have some type of hangover?”
While the Stars are doing more than fine, some of the other Stanley Cup contenders in the West are not faring so well. Colorado, Edmonton and Nashville combined to lose 13 of their first 17 games, turning the league's standings upside down through the first two weeks of the season.
“There are teams that are struggling to find their game a little bit,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “I don’t think year-to-year, you can look at it and be like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe top teams are struggling.’ ... I just think it just sort of depends on a lot of details of your game.”
Those details helped Dallas start 5-1-0. They have been particularly lacking for the Predators, who lost their first five games all in regulation and are the only team yet to pick up a point going into Tuesday night's home game against Boston.
Nashville has been outscored 23-10 after a $100 million free agent spending spree to add two-time Cup champion Steven Stamkos, 2023 playoff MVP Jonathan Marchessault and others.
“Every team goes through these stretches throughout the course of a season, but it certainly gets magnified when it’s right out of the gate, especially when the expectation for our group in here is a lot higher than what we’re showing right now,” said Stamkos, who left Tampa Bay after 16 seasons to sign a four-year, $32 million contract. “You look at some of the teams that have started slow and gone on to have really good season, but we’re challenged with some adversity here and we have to find a way out of it.”
A year ago, the Oilers lost 13 of their first 18 games and were 30th out of 32 teams at U.S. Thanksgiving before a coaching change from Jay Woodcroft to Kris Knoblauch started to pay dividends. Edmonton reached the Cup final before losing to Florida.
The Oilers lost their first three games this season and have been one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league so far, even with three-time MVP Connor McDavid, freshly extended Leon Draisaitl and their full complement of offensive stars on the ice.
“We’re getting beat in a lot of different ways,” McDavid said recently. “The puck play has been bad all over. Guys have been fumbling it, guys not handling it. Passes in the air, passes behind guys, it’s just not good enough.”
The Avalanche have 100 giveaways through six games and the defense and goaltending have not been good enough to compensate. It does not help that Valeri Nichushkin is suspended, captain Gabriel Landeskog is still not back from a multiyear absence since hoisting the Cup in 2022 and injuries continue to decimate the lineup.
“We’re getting in these races against other teams right now, and we don’t have the firepower that we normally would have,” forward Logan O'Connor said. "I think it’s on us to defensively, just smarten up and figure out that that’s where we really got to focus on and bear down and frustrate other teams." Because we can’t get frustrated ourselves.”
Turnovers and other mistakes are going to happen. Stars defenseman Thomas Harley said that particularly in October “it takes a little bit to get out of shinny habits in the summer” and this is the time to “bear down and work on the less fun parts of the game.”
The hockey is pretty fun to watch right now, though, with pucks flying into nets all over. Teams are scoring an average of 6.4 goals per game through the first 89 — which would be the highest in more than three decades.
“I think the shooters are ahead of the goaltenders a little bit, and I think everybody’s checking game is not in order,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Checking to me is habits, it’s details and it takes a while: Sticks on the ice, playing through hands, angles, not stuff you work on in the middle of August and July. That’s what I think happens early in the year. There’s more chances. You’ll still see some 2-1 games. That probably means the goaltending has been very good."
Almost all the teams atop the NHL at the moment have gotten good goaltending. Dallas' Jake Oettinger leads the league with a .953 save percentage, Connor Hellebuyck of the undefeated Winnipeg Jets has the lowest goals-against average at 1.25 and the New York Rangers have gotten some stellar play out of pending free agent Igor Shesterkin, who's 3-0-1 with a 1.97 GAA and .935 save percentage.
New Jersey has played more than anyone else, but the Devils under new coach Sheldon Keefe have made the most of it by going 5-2-1 from Prague to North America. The Capitals lost their home opener to the Devils before beating them on the road and are off to a 3-1-0 start.
“I love this team,” goaltender Charlie Lindgren said. “We all came in with a little bit of an attitude and that’s a good thing.”
All eyes are on Alex Ovechkin's pursuit of Wayne Gretzky's career goals record, and he is now 41 from breaking it, but he's not even Washington's leading scorer. Dylan Strome has a team-high seven points and Tom Wilson a team-high five goals. Only four players in the league have more than Wilson.
“He’s playing really, really well, and he’s being rewarded for it,” coach Spencer Carbery said. “We need production and we needed guys to put pucks in the back of the net, and he’s leading the way right now.”
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AP Sports Writer Pat Graham in Denver, AP freelancer writer Jim Diamond in Nashville and the Canadian Press contributed.
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