NHL
NHL Regular
Season
Sidney Crosby's Penguins are one of the NHL's biggest surprises this season. Leila Devlin / Getty Images
Red Light newsletter 🏒 | This is The Athletic’s hockey newsletter. Sign up here to receive Red Light directly in your inbox.
Good morning, hockey folks. It’s 13 days until the women’s Olympic hockey tournament starts in Milan and 19 days until the men get going. Start adjusting your sleep schedule now, though, given some games begin at 6:10 a.m. ET! 😴
Advertisement
Another seven teams reached 50 games played last night, meaning 24 of 32 clubs are really into the home stretch with 32 games or fewer to go.
It’s definitely not early anymore, so as games keep coming at breakneck speed, we can start drawing some firmer conclusions. Here are six teams I find really intriguing (and hard to pin down) in that department as the Olympic break approaches.
When Pittsburgh rocketed out of the gate with a 14-7-5 start, the fifth-best record in the NHL, everyone had the same thought: It’s early.
After all, this was supposed to be a bottomed-out, tank year for the rebuilding Penguins, with much of the focus on how many of their aging stars could be shipped out for futures. So, when they lost eight in a row in early December, it was a bit of …
Instead, Pittsburgh entered last night’s traded-goalie showdown with the Oilers on a 9-2-2 hot streak since Christmas. Then they absolutely thumped Connor McDavid, Tristan Jarry and crew 6-2 in yet another impressive outing.
Unsurprisingly, Sidney Crosby chipped in another goal — he’s got 19 points in 14 games, putting him in the top eight in league scoring in that span. At age 38. I think he’s ready for the Olympics.
Maybe there’s still a world where there’s some version of a selloff coming, but at the moment, the Penguins are better than 50-50 to get into the playoffs, which would qualify as the biggest surprise of the season. If they do make it, first-year bench boss Dan Muse should get some real support for coach of the year.
They won 2-1 in a shootout last night in Winnipeg, but before that, it had been an incredibly bumpy road of late. Getting Matthew Tkachuk back this week was obviously huge, but the Panthers’ recent 4-5-1 stretch isn’t going to be nearly good enough to keep pace in the red-hot East. They’re still in seventh place out of eight in the Atlantic Division.
Advertisement
The Panthers have the second-most salary lost to injury this season — nearly $15 million — and they’re first if you don’t count Alex Pietrangelo’s potentially career-ending hip issue for Vegas. Sergei Bobrovsky has had a really tough season, with an .875 save percentage, and they have the third-worst goals against average in the East.
Maybe it all still comes together, but with second-leading scorer Brad Marchand and ace defenseman Seth Jones now on the injury list, it’s also possible they just won’t be healthy enough to go for the three-peat.
At 15-15-5 in late December, Toronto looked dead and buried, especially when the solution was to fire an assistant coach. But with Auston Matthews leading the charge, the Leafs surprisingly rattled off a 9-1-3 hot streak to get back in the playoff picture.
This week, so far, however, has brought back-to-back losses to the Minnesota Wild and Detroit Red Wings, and they’ve lost a little ground when they really can’t afford much slippage. They’re just one spot ahead of the Panthers near the bottom of the Atlantic standings.
Toronto’s schedule ahead is tough in terms of opponents and travel, and the Leafs have looked like a tired, beat-up club of late. They’ve absorbed a ton of injuries, especially on defense (led by Chris Tanev), and the Leafs just don’t have the depth to compensate if anyone else goes down.
How they play over the next seven games before the Olympic break likely determines if they can be a buyer, seller or are left sitting on their hands at the trade deadline.
That question would have looked absurd only a couple of weeks ago. But Colorado has quietly lost five of its last eight games (3-3-2), which counts as a slump for a team that was previously on a record-setting pace after basically never losing in regulation.
Advertisement
The Avs’ underlying numbers are still great, and they have a 10-point (or more) lead on the field, so this mini-malaise would have to drag on for anyone to catch them for first overall. That said, it’s not unreasonable to expect some further falloff for their two netminders, who have both been posting .918 save percentages in a .897 league — well above career norms for the Woodses (Blackwood and Wedgewood).
So, it at least appears possible that the Avs slow down some here, if only enough to miss out on becoming the fourth team to ever hit the 130-point mark in a season.
Our current projection? 127.
After last night’s games, Detroit has 67 points, tying it for second place — in the entire NHL. The Red Wings lost in overtime against the Wild but again showed they can hang with some of the league’s best teams.
While it’s true the standings remain bunched up, this is all still pretty remarkable, given how few people had the Red Wings as anything more than a possible wild-card team. With netminder John Gibson on fire (16-2-0 in his last 18 games) and Moritz Seider looking like a Norris contender, however, they appear to have really leveled up.
If there’s a red flag, it’s that their goal differential is pretty close to even, but they’ve built enough of a cushion that a top-three slot in the Atlantic (and first playoff berth in a decade) is looking mighty likely.
They’re healthy, and Connor Hellebuyck is back and playing more like his old self. But even with a 5-1-2 stretch that includes last night’s shootout loss against Florida, the Jets are third-last in the league with 47 points and six points back of the second wild-card spot in the West.
It’s not exactly a Murderers’ Row ahead of them, but making that kind of a leap is daunting with the way three-point games are piling up around the league.
Advertisement
Our projections have them with just a 28 percent chance to make the playoffs, largely because they’re not getting enough from their depth pieces, with only three forwards potentially going to hit the 30-point mark.
What a change from a year ago, when they finished third in scoring, had the league’s top PP and won the Presidents’ Trophy.
I thought the following was a nice stat to highlight just how good a player Rasmus Dahlin has been on some awfully crummy Sabres clubs.
Dahlin is just four points back of 400 for his career. Given he played his 555th game last night in another big win (over Montreal this time), he will very likely become the fourth-fastest defenseman born outside North America to get to 400 points.
Can you name the other three?
Answer below.
🤕 The Olympic injury watchlist is getting mighty long, which is really tough to see for all of these players who have waited, in some cases more than a decade, for this chance. The schedule is certainly feeling overly condensed right now, which isn’t going to be helped when it expands from 82 to 84 games (next season) and jams a World Cup in there (the year after).
♨️ The NHL’s 10 most improved players of the season include my guy Darren Raddysh, who’s leading my team to victory in the company fantasy pool with his ridiculous point-per-game stat line. (I’m coming for you, Duhatschek.) Read on for Harman Dayal’s full list of guys you wish you drafted.
🤔 One growing trend in the NHL you may have missed: Player agents are starting to run teams — and have a lot of success. But why? I had fun working on this one with Max Bultman.
💥 Vince Mercogliano has a fascinating timeline of the Rangers’ decline, as they hit the reset button yet again under GM Chris Drury.
🏒 With the women’s hockey tournament set to get underway at the Olympics in two weeks, Hailey Salvian has a brand-new player poll with plenty of insight from more than 25 percent of PWHL players.
Advertisement
🪫 What if your favorite team wasn’t injured? Sean Gentille and Dom Luszczyszyn look at the ramifications of injuries to each team while also naming a new No. 1 in the Power Rankings.
🎤 On the latest episode of “The Athletic Hockey Show,” our multitalented hosts dig into the rash of injuries to Olympians around the league and discuss Linus Ullmark’s comments on his leave of absence and the rumors around the Senators.
🥶 Weekly reminder: There’s a roster freeze before the Olympics beginning the afternoon of Feb. 4, so that is acting as a second deadline and encouraging some early player movement. The real trade deadline is March 6, only 10 days after players return from the Games. Our latest Chris Johnston trade board is here.
The three European defensemen who were the fastest to 400 points in NHL history are:
What a legend Salming was. RIP.
That’s obviously some pretty good company for Dahlin, who will hopefully get his first taste of the playoffs in his eighth season in Buffalo this year. And, maybe, at some point, some more Norris consideration?
📫 Love Red Light? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.
James Mirtle is a senior writer covering the NHL for The Athletic. James joined The Athletic as the inaugural editor in Canada in 2016 and served as senior managing editor of The Athletic NHL for four years. Previously, he spent 12 years as a sportswriter with The Globe and Mail. A native of Kamloops, B.C., he appears regularly on Sportsnet 590 The Fan and other radio stations across Canada. Follow James on Twitter @mirtle
Hockey News