Just one month into the NHL season, stories are already beginning to come into focus.
We’ve seen clubs that were written off in the summer finding life in the fall, starting strong and upending the hockey world’s predictions. And we’ve seen the opposite too, with a few battle-tested contenders coming out of the gates sluggish and finding themselves mired in the middle of the pack.
It’s early — teams around the league are just making their way to the 15-game mark. Still, history suggest this early stretch can be a more accurate indication of what’s to come than it might seem.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman often draws on a stat that seems to confirm as much: the Nov. 1 benchmark. Clubs that are four or more points out of the playoffs after Nov. 1 face a slim chance of making it back into the playoff picture by the season’s end. In the salary cap era, 72 teams have been in that position, and only 10 have ended up making the post-season.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at who’s in, who’s out and the biggest surprises we’ve seen through the season’s early going.
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EASTERN CONFERENCE
Pittsburgh, Montreal enjoying dominant starts
There’s little question which club’s start has been the biggest surprise of the season to this point. Prognosticators across the hockey world wrote the Pittsburgh Penguins off after a difficult 2024-25 campaign that saw the black-and-gold miss the playoffs for the third straight year. Conversation about the organization seemed to focus more on when a Sidney Crosby trade might come than how his team would fare. Fast forward to November, and Crosby’s Penguins sit tied for second in the league and tops in the East. Whether they can sustain that level until April remains to be seen, but so far, the Pens are flying, with new head coach Dan Muse’s early impact looking immense, the club’s off-season recruits impressing and Evgeni Malkin turning back the clock. For frame of reference, a year ago at this time, Pittsburgh was already outside of the playoff picture, sitting closer to the East’s basement than its throne.
While the Penguins vie for the Metro crown, in the Atlantic it’s the Montreal Canadiens who’ve been tearing it up. The Habs weren’t in the type of dire straits Pittsburgh found itself in last season — Montreal managed to make its way back into the playoffs, claiming the East’s second wild-card spot. But this year, they appear on the hunt for far more. No NHL club has won more than Martin St. Louis’s squad to date — the Habs have collected twice as many wins as they had by this point last season. Their leading duo has been central to that strong start, with Cole Caufield tied for the most goals league-wide and captain Nick Suzuki a handful off the league scoring lead.
Detroit, Columbus in mix after missing out
Just a hair behind Montreal in an Atlantic Division that’s been turned on its head early this season, the Detroit Red Wings are similarly on par with the league’s best. It’s been nearly a decade since the Wings reigned as a perennial playoff participant. On the cusp of reaching 10 straight seasons without playoff hockey, Detroit’s strong start has it level with Pittsburgh, Montreal and New Jersey atop the Eastern Conference, with The Yzerplan looking like it might finally turn the corner. A dominant opening month from Dylan Larkin has been pivotal to the promising start, with No. 71 level next to Suzuki among the game’s top scorers.
Meanwhile, in the Metro, the Columbus Blue Jackets have built on their strong showing last season and kicked off 2025-26 in fine form, too. The Jackets came agonizingly close to ending a four-year playoff drought last season, but ultimately wound up just two points out of the East’s final wild-card spot. Now, they’re on par with Carolina and the New York Rangers in the Metro. That said, this season hasn’t seen teams in the East pulling away and staking their claim on post-season spots. While last year at this time both wild-card clubs held a lead over the group of teams below them, this year’s Nov. 1 saw six clubs — the third-ranked teams in both divisions, and three teams battling for wild-card spots — all sitting level on points.
Trio of East’s presumed contenders all sitting outside playoff picture
For a few of the East’s supposed best — the Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida Panthers and Washington Capitals — that logjam of clubs could be taken as a positive or a negative. On one hand, there are a number of teams in the East wading through mediocre starts to the season, meaning each of them hasn’t yet been buried by other squads pulling away in the standings. On the other hand, the fact that most of the conference sits roughly level on points means the season could get away from them quickly if other clubs manage to right the ship quicker.
It’s an interesting year for all three squads. The Maple Leafs entered without Mitch Marner, with a number of new faces to work in, and with Auston Matthews trying to bounce back from injury. But so far, the changes haven’t fully taken. Florida is navigating life without two of its most important leaders — both Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk are sidelined with injuries — but the assumption is the Cats just need to find their way back to the playoffs one way or another, where they’ll wreak havoc once again. And after a season that saw the Capitals finish second in the league, a year removed from finishing 17th, all eyes are on D.C. to see whether their sterling campaign was a sign of real progress or a flash in the pan. As it stands, that trio is tied with three others (the Islanders, Sabres and Flyers) at the bottom of the Eastern Conference.
WESTERN CONFERENCE
Utah, Seattle starting strong after missing playoffs last season
Utah’s looking like the Pittsburgh of the West so far — through the early weeks of the new season, the Mammoth have earned the second-most wins of any club the West and ranking third overall in points. The key for Utah, though, will be making it last. Clayton Keller’s club started well last season too, sitting in a wild-card spot a year ago at this time, but ultimately finished the year seven points out of the playoffs. The Mammoth have already built a bigger early cushion, led by a productive opening month from Nick Schmaltz, but holding off some of the teams nipping at their heels will be no small feat.
The same goes for Seattle. With eyes on charting a path back into the post-season after two seasons out, the Kraken have kept pace in the West to this point, and currently find themselves part of the playoff picture. If there’s a worry for the Kraken’s chances, it’s the fact that they’re mired in a logjam of their own, with the Pacific’s top three clubs, and the wild-card club above them, all sitting level on points. This time last year, the Kraken were in a similar group of clubs milling around the wild-card spots before ultimately missing out by 20 points, with four teams between them and a playoff berth. The question this time will be how long the Kraken can hang around, and whether they can perhaps push any higher.
Early struggles have Vancouver, Minnesota sitting outside playoff mix
Vancouver Canucks fans need no reminders of what’s at stake this season. After a difficult 2024-25 marred by off-ice tension, the Canucks are hoping for a bounce-back effort, a return to the form that earned them a Pacific Division title just two years ago. The fate of captain Quinn Hughes is no small part of that equation, as the blue-line phenom suggested his future will be determined at least in part by how much success the team can find this year. A month in, it hasn’t exactly been a return to dominance — the Canucks find themselves outside of the post-season picture, albeit only by two points. But with five losses in their past seven tilts, the pressure to right the ship as soon as possible is mounting.
And then there’s Minnesota. At this time last year, the Wild sat second in the West, not far behind the eventual Presidents’ Trophy-winning Winnipeg Jets. They finished the season in a wild-card spot, surpassed by Dallas and Colorado in the Central Division, but entered the new campaign looking to make even more noise. Instead, they’re struggling to string wins together, having managed only four victories on the year so far and none in back-to-back games. On Nov. 1, they sat three points out of the playoffs, barely avoiding that post-season threshold. At the moment, they’re closer to the conference basement than a post-season berth, and time is running out to get back on track.
Calgary, St. Louis, San Jose all four-plus points out on Nov. 1
That brings us to the trio below Minnesota in the West. Only three teams in the league currently fall into the danger zone tied to the Nov. 1 benchmark: the Calgary Flames, St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks. A reminder of the stat: of the 72 teams who’ve been in that position, 62 of them — or 86 per cent — remained on the outside looking in at the year’s end. That leaves the above three clubs in a difficult position — on Nov. 1, the Sharks sat four points out, the Blues sat six points out and the Flames sat eight points out.
St. Louis is surely the most surprising member of that group. The Blues’ late surge last season — which included a 12-game win streak through parts of March and April — catapulted them into the playoffs after two years on the outside. And after taking the No. 1-ranked Jets to Game 7, the expectation was that the Blues would be a handful for the rest of the West again this season. For the Sharks and Flames, it’s a different brand of disappointment. The Flames found some magic last season, but missed out on a return to the playoffs by a hair, finishing with the same number of points as the wild-card Blues. Now, that magic has deserted them — with just three wins in 14 games so far, the Flames’ season already looks lost. The Sharks are no strangers to this position, having finished at the bottom of the West for three straight years. But with young Macklin Celebrini on fire to start the campaign, the Sharks faithful is surely hoping for a different ending this time around.
It could still come. November benchmark aside, there are months of games still to be played and myriad roller-coaster plot-twists still to navigate. But history tells us that a strong start is crucial to a post-season finish, and for the trio mired in the West’s basement, the road back is only going to get steeper.
