Most surprising impressive and poor starts?
- Thread starter aceofpace
- Start date
I'm not surprised that they came out with a chip on their shoulder after how last season ended. But they've looked flat out possessed.
kerrabria
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Nobody foresaw Columbus as a .500 team even before Jenner, Johnson, and Gudbranson were done.
Chuck Norris Trophy
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The Management
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NyQuil
Big F$&*in Q
Washington and Nashville both have some significant personnel change but one of them seems to have meshed relatively quickly while the other hasn’t.
The Capitals have been a bit of a surprise I think. Maybe Nashville too but I thought Stamkos was a bit of an odd addition.
The Capitals have been a bit of a surprise I think. Maybe Nashville too but I thought Stamkos was a bit of an odd addition.
Seriously? As someone already suggested, they don’t have a goalie and they don’t have their actual players, it’s guys from the AHL taking up a lot of spots
StumpyTown
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Colorado will be fine. They were down 3 or 4 of their top 6 forwards for a while. The only really scary thing for them is their goaltending which isn't likely to improve. When they get healthier they'll start winning some high scoring games again.
Washington is probably the most unexpected. They barely made the playoffs last spring, Ovi looked cooked and I think everyone had them pegged as going into a rebuild for a while. Pretty crazy how they turned on a dime with some good off-season moves.
qc14
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Washington and Minnesota are the most unexpected in either direction -- I think even if you thought they were playoff teams you wouldn't have expected them to be winning so many games and doing so with such great underlying processes. WPG still impressive but I think everyone collectively forgot they had 110 points last year and the exact same record as the Panthers.
As for the poor starts: having two top-5 goalies covered up a lot of bad process from Boston last year. Nashville is pretty much worst case scenario but I think something that wasn't too hard to imagine happening. Colorado ... still disappointing but everyone knew going into the year that they had massive injury risks and their goalies stunk. Pittsburgh being awful should only be surprising to people who didn't look at their offseason at all.
The big surprising disappointment to me has to be Edmonton doing literally the exact same thing they did at the start of last year.
As for the poor starts: having two top-5 goalies covered up a lot of bad process from Boston last year. Nashville is pretty much worst case scenario but I think something that wasn't too hard to imagine happening. Colorado ... still disappointing but everyone knew going into the year that they had massive injury risks and their goalies stunk. Pittsburgh being awful should only be surprising to people who didn't look at their offseason at all.
The big surprising disappointment to me has to be Edmonton doing literally the exact same thing they did at the start of last year.
TheDawnOfANewTage
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Pavelski took awhile to get going with the Stars. Could still go the other way, but if I’m a Nashville fan I’m not panicking over him in particular, agreed on the odd fit though- lookin like they shoulda rebuilt instead of adding.
Wpg is surprising from a big picture. No one wants to play there. Prospects and players force their way out. Wpg needs to overpay to get anyone to come or stay.
Jixer19
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Skidooboy
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fake narrative.
sure a couple of guys have wanted out....
BUT
many of our BEST players have signed long term contracts...some have even signed second long term contracts. and some of them signed pretty team friendly deals.
But, we just had mcgroaty force his way out this season. Pld the season before. I wonder how many teams have had as many players force their way out?
Carolina - lots of off season changes, I thought they'd struggle more this year
Winnipeg - I thought they'd be a bubble team, and I actually expected they'd end up missing playoffs vs making it
Those are probably the most surprising. Nashville looks bad yes, but they started 0-5 and are now already 4-7-1, so slowly climbing back up...Colorado and Edmonton also slow starts, but slowly climbing back up....so nothing terrible surprising there.
At the bottom of the standings, no one is truly horrible. All can stil bounce back.
Honoroble mention also to both Washington and Wild who both have a great start, better than expected. Can probably add the Kings there too. Unlike both Carolina + Winnipeg - I'm not convinced yet if those hot starts are sustainable, so we'll see.
Winnipeg - I thought they'd be a bubble team, and I actually expected they'd end up missing playoffs vs making it
Those are probably the most surprising. Nashville looks bad yes, but they started 0-5 and are now already 4-7-1, so slowly climbing back up...Colorado and Edmonton also slow starts, but slowly climbing back up....so nothing terrible surprising there.
At the bottom of the standings, no one is truly horrible. All can stil bounce back.
Honoroble mention also to both Washington and Wild who both have a great start, better than expected. Can probably add the Kings there too. Unlike both Carolina + Winnipeg - I'm not convinced yet if those hot starts are sustainable, so we'll see.
ChaoticOrange
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washington had a great offseason and rebuilt their blueline in an extremely impressive manner. The fact that they're doing what they're doing without getting .900 goaltending suggests that if anything they've underperformed.
Edmonton always sucks in the early going of the season, but it sure looks like the choices theyve made with their bottom six were dumb.
Edmonton always sucks in the early going of the season, but it sure looks like the choices theyve made with their bottom six were dumb.
Pretty sure jets were thrilled with having a line of pld and Connor. But, I could be wrong.
Skidooboy
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so lets honestly look at this...
guys who have stayed
#55, #27, #81, #44, #37, #17, #2 #22....
most of those guys were drafted, signed, and resigned.
so you are judging us because what 3 guys wanted out?
this is a joke right?
guys who have stayed
#55, #27, #81, #44, #37, #17, #2 #22....
most of those guys were drafted, signed, and resigned.
so you are judging us because what 3 guys wanted out?
this is a joke right?
