Positive and negative surprises at the Halfway Point of the NHL Season

[Jay26]

This season's Caps are one of the biggest hockey surprises for me in quite some time, not just for this season. I had them as a lottery team this year or pretty close to it. Props to everyone on that team and in the organization for finding the recipe for a great season amidst their downward trajectory as a team. Their quality, winning farm team is a big factor, I suspect. They're getting great value out of their Bears graduates.

 

[Akrapovince]

Dylan Holloway has been amazing.

 

[Captain97]

A little misleading in that an 82 point pace normally puts you a long ways from competing for playoffs.

Not really, the sens (WC2) are on pace for 91 points currently which is what the caps made the playoffs with last year. At this point in the season a winning two games in a row is the difference between an 82 point pace and a 90 point pace

 

[5cotland]

The Rangers need to be studied.

I can't remember a more precipitous drop from season to season, especially without any major injuries to point to.

The Habs literally went from the Stanley Cup final to dead last & 1st OA pick (Slaf) the following season, 2/3 years ago.

Rangers ainec. Never seen a roster quit on the home fans for an extended period of time. Generational d man one of the quitters, which is a surprise to me.

It's a suprise to me that you think that as he has been probably the only positive player on the team just now.

 

[GMR]

Which doesn't mean anything. They missed the playoffs by a hair last year. Maybe you should question your own biases if you think a 90 points team turning into a bottom 5 team was a plausible presumption.

They've taken a major step back.

Last year they had Gostisbehere who provided scoring from the blue line and the power play. They replaced him with Gustafsson who is useless. They traded Walman away for nothing. They lost Sprong and Perron who both provided scoring. They brought in washed up Tarasenko and no other offensive FAs.

On paper, this team is worse than last season's squad.

 

[Domonsky]

The Habs literally went from the Stanley Cup final to dead last & 1st OA pick (Slaf) the following season, 2/3 years ago.

But that year we lost Price, Weber and Danault.

Also Stall and Perry were a decent part of that run...

 

[Nogatco Rd]

Negative surprises:
-NYR
-Bedard not living up to expectations
-Vancouver’s struggles

Positive surprises:
-Winnipeg’s early dominance
-not the Flames, I knew there was too much talent/pride on the team for them to just completely collapse
-not the Caps, I predicted they’d win the Presidents’ Trophy this year

 

[Agent37]

As a caps fan I don't think a team torpedoing and imploding under Laviolette in his second season is a surprise. He alienated the crap out of our younger players, often leading to them being traded out of the team and succeeding elsewhere or just not getting play time (see Siegenthaler, and I'm forgetting other examples) underperformed with the roster, and then management started making terrible decisions & trading them. I am no hockey expert nor do I know what's going on with the Rangers but as a fan base we were overall happy when the Rangers signed Lavi as their coach. If Kakko starts lighting it up with Seattle it would be a repeat of history. And it doesn't surprise me (even though it's perfectly possible I have all my facts on the matter wrong since I haven't a clue why a quality roster like NYR is completely pooping the bed thus far)

Honestly the Capitals shouldn't be a surprise given the changes they made:

Acquiring Chychrun, Mangiapane, Raddysh, Roy, Thompson.

I will admit I was concerned about PLD, but head coach Carbs is once again proving his history of helping formerly underperforming players get their game back.

Also nobody predicted Aleksei Protas and Connor Mcmichael suddenly becoming bonafide 1st/2nd line talents THIS SEASON (especially Protas). I had Mcmichael pegged as an eventual 2nd liner and Protas as a career 3rd liner. Those 2 are honestly the 2 most positive surprises (apart from Ovi tearing the league apart like we haven't seen him do out the gate in a decade.

 

[Schennanigans]

Absolute insanity that the Rangers are 2nd last in the East. Might be the biggest shock in the last 10+ years.

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Rangers is a huge shock. That club’s gone right off the rails.

Surprised at how good the rookie class has been.

Thought Vancouver would be a lot better.

 

[johan f]

I do not get the yo-yoing some players do when it comes to scoring. Karlsson, Tage T, Forsberg to mention a few. A coach thing, lack of chemistry with team mates, competes with others for same spot and ice time?

 

[Ghost of Murph]

I thought the Caps would be better than many people expected, but certainly didn't think they would be THIS good. Amazing how Ovi was leading the league in goals when he got injured, yet the team kept winning without him.

NYR being as bad as they've been is the biggest shock of the season by far. Nuts that a roster this talented can underachieve this bad. The Preds being as rotten as they've been is a surprise as well, but nothing compared to the Rangers being such a gong show.

 

[Randyne]

Positive:
Ovechkin 17 goals in 20 games

Negative:
Ovechkin 16 games injury

 

[banks]

The Maple Leafs have 2 players currently in the top 10 for goals scored. Auston Matthews isn't one of them.

 

[I am not exposed]

Negative:

Ovi breaking the goal scoring record.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

IMHO:

Surprised that Cellebrini is frankly better than advertised.

Thought that the Preds would mess up their team chemistry with so many changes, and they did, but thought that they would have gelled by now, and they haven't.

Surprised that the Flames have done as well as they have with the mess that Treliving left behind.

Surprised that Dallas has seemed to have lost a step.

Surprised that the Jets have done so well.

Not surprised that Florida has struggled to stay near the top, considering that every team circles the Cup champions on their calendar.

Surprised that Ron Francis still has an NHL job as the Kraken muddle through yet another unremarkable season.

Not surprised that the Rangers took a fall -- always throught they had a flawed build -- but surprised by the depth of their fall.

 

[sbhnur]

Positive surprise:
Rangers

 

[Nogatco Rd]

The Habs literally went from the Stanley Cup final to dead last & 1st OA pick (Slaf) the following season, 2/3 years ago.

nyr fall is way more shocking. Everyone knew the Habs caught lightning in a bottle that playoffs, and barring covid likely wouldn’t have made it in the first place.

 

[Volica]

Positive surprises:
-not the Flames, I knew there was too much talent/pride on the team for them to just completely collapse

I mean they were the 9th worst team last year.
Traded all their trade-able veterans.
Played a bottom 5 pace after the veterans were sold off.
Traded their franchise goalie.

And yet here we are, the second cheapest team in the NHL sitting in a playoff spot off the backs of some excellent play from their young players and having Jonathan Huberdeau, maybe not return-to-form, but at least play at a high end level.

 

[StreetHawk]

Not really, the sens (WC2) are on pace for 91 points currently which is what the caps made the playoffs with last year. At this point in the season a winning two games in a row is the difference between an 82 point pace and a 90 point pace

Correct. New 0.500 is not 82 points. What you need to do is take all the OTL awarded and divide by 32 teams. Add that number to 82 and that is new 0.500 because if you don’t get your share of extra points you are behind the rest of the NHL’s. Think it was like 8 extra points per team last season. So right now each team would need to be 4 points above their games played. So you would need 42 points if you played 38.

WC2 is about that pace or slightly better. Not making the PO at 82 points.

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

Not really, the sens (WC2) are on pace for 91 points currently which is what the caps made the playoffs with last year. At this point in the season a winning two games in a row is the difference between an 82 point pace and a 90 point pace

Yes really. We have years and years of history to lean on. 82 is nowhere close.

 

[Zalos]

Positive Surprises
- Tavares
- Eichel
- Monahan
- Werenski
- Stolarz
- Ovechkin
- Necas
- Washington
- Winnipeg
- Calgary
- Columbus

Negative Surprises
- Pastrnak
- Matthews
- Pettersson
- Dach
- Shesterkin
- Swayman
- Nashville
- NY Rangers

Those are mine.

 

[Lshap]

Negative:
Rangers: The near-unanimous choice. Nobody saw this coming.
Nashville: I didn't think they'd be contenders, but I never imagined they'd fall that far.

Positive:
Ovechkin & Washington: I cautiously hoped Ovi would score 25-30...lol... he'll probably surpass that by February - after missing a month. The guy's a freakin' cyborg. And can we finally retire the meme that the Caps are sacrificing the team's success for his record?

But that year we lost Price, Weber and Danault.

Also Stall and Perry were a decent part of that run...

Montreal also lost Edmundson, Toffoli, Lehkonen, Byron, and Chiarot during the next season. 2021 was a really strong roster, but when you lose half the guys – including its two best players – it wasn't a shock they dropped like a stone. It was like one of those fitness ads... in reverse - lol!

 

[RabbleMasterBlaster]

Bruh... At this point I'd consider starting a go fund me for Buffalo fans on suicide watch. Imagine waking up every day being a fan of that team.

Trump ain't go nothing on Buffalo for disappointment dealing.

 

[Rants Mulliniks]

Montreal also lost Edmundson, Toffoli, Lehkonen, Byron, and Chiarot during the next season. 2021 was a really strong roster, but when you lose half the guys – including its two best players – it wasn't a shock they dropped like a stone. It was like one of those fitness ads... in reverse - lol!

Many of us were on record before they lost anyone stating that roster wouldn’t make the playoffs the following year. That 2021 roster paced for 86 points.