Now that we're a month into the season, I'm not sure there's one team at the NHL or collegiate level whose season is going quite as planned...
Pre-season #1, Miami is in last place in the CCHA with a 2-6 record and winless in the last five.
North Dakota is 3-4-1 while UNH is 2-4-1.
On the flip side, Colorado College (4-0) and Merrimack (6-0) are the only undefeated teams with the exception of the Ivy League schools that have just joined the party. Minnesota is 7-1, Michigan Tech is 5-2-1 with big time wins against Wisconsin and Denver, Lake Superior State is 7-1, Western Michigan is 5-0-3, Michigan is 6-1-1....The only team that is on top that people expected to be on top is Boston College who holds a 7-1 record.
There's a lot of hockey yet to be played, but all these non-conferece games at the start of the season could have a huge impact on the pairwise rankings that determine who is in and who is out of the NCAA Tournament come March.
On the NHL front, Boston and Vancouver are struggling, Edmonton, Colorado and Toronto are thriving. A retooled Columbus with so much promise is on the verge of cleaning house and Detroit has lost four games in a row for the first time in years. This is why I'm not the biggest fan of pre-season rankings....too many what ifs that usually don't pan out, but the beauty of sports is that anything can happen on any given day in any given season. That's why we watch! That said, should we really be surprised that things are a bit upside down right now?
The true bright spot are the rookies who are quickly coming into their own. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog, Matt Read, Craig Smith...all averaging close to a point per game and earning time on their team's top lines.
The other bright spot is that we're only four weeks into the season and we've already had some epic hockey games with some surprising players emerging into the spotlight like Brian Elliott, Phil Kessell and Jaromir Jagr.
They say that you can't win the Stanley Cup in October, but you sure can lose it. Now that we're a day away from November, this is when I think we'll see the true resolve of a team. We've already seen a bit of it from teams like Ottawa who stumbled out of the gate, but have quickly found a way to right the ship and start winning some games even if it's in a rather ugly manner. A win is a win...they don't ask how, they just ask how many.
So buckle up...This next month will show the true character of team. Will Boston be able to figure it out and start winning some games? Will the kids continue their early season success in Edmonton? Will Colorado be able to win a game at home? Will Toronto continue to do just enough to win games? We can speculate until we're blue in the face, (for the record, I vote yes all around) but I find it much more exciting to watch the games and discover the answers in realtime and I'm pretty sure you do too.
Cheers to November!
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Julie
Julie
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