uncleben
Global Moderator
I guess now is as good a time as ever to do an update.
- I wasn't giving too much weight to it this year, because rosters are complicated with taxi squads and flat caps, but currently 4 teams sit without a first-goal so far this season: Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, and Washington; keep an eye out for names such as Byram, Timmins, Lagesson, and Russel - neither Calgary nor Washington have any immediate/roster-active candidates to break the goose egg
- There is a three-way tie for most first-goals for, with 5 goals, between Chicago (Kurashev, Suter, Mitchell, Beaudin, Hagel), Florida (Luostarinen, Heponiemi, Lammikko, Marchment, Lomberg), and New Jersey (Smith, Sharangovich, McLeod, Kuokkanen, Maltsev); names like Carlsson, or Stillman could help one of them take the lead - New Jersey doesn't have an strong/roster-active candidate to pull ahead
- Three teams have given up a generous 5 goals against, so far: Anaheim (Kaliyev, Leonard, Joshua, Handemark, Pederson), Nashville (Foote, Carlsson, Lorentz, Marchment, Gardner), and Philadelphia (Studnicka, McLeod, Frederic, Friedman, Fogarty)
- On the flipside, four teams have made this far into the season without a first-goal against: Dallas, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Vancouver
- With those numbers laid out, New Jersey is rocking a league leading +5 (5-0) rating, while Philadelphia has a sour -4 (1-5)
- We are currently pacing for about 98 first-goals, which is what we hit in last year's shortened season, and which prorates to about a crazy 144 goals over 82 games, not even counting the potential of first-goals in the playoffs... I don't think that is reasonable or sustainable
The highest since I started tracking is 123.
