An NHL season is built on benchmarks. On expectations exceeded or unmet, on the decisions made to sway a franchise’s fortunes towards one side of that line or the other.
With a quarter of the 2023-24 campaign in the bag, we’ve reached the first signpost, where decision-makers around the league can look at their clubs and reasonably assess what they have before deciding how much or how little surgery is required to piece together a winner.
It’s still absurdly early. The catastrophic starts still have time to correct themselves, the meteoric ascents still have time to burn out. But history tells us that the majority of clubs who sprint to a post-season spot by this quarter-mark tend to find themselves there when the 82nd game of the year wraps.
That in mind, here’s a look at what we’ve learned about who’s there, and who’s not, through the first quarter of the 2023-24 campaign.
The 2023 elite are proving their staying power
Coming into the new season, conventional wisdom suggested the three teams who finished atop the 2023 pile — in the regular season (Boston), and in the post-season (Vegas and Florida) — were headed for a step back of some sort.
The Golden Knights are too deep and too talented to not be in the mix on an annual basis. Still, there was the Stanley Cup hangover chatter. And there was the Adin Hill question, of whether the former fourth-stringer-turned-Cup-champ could truly be The Guy for the club moving forward. And yet, here Hill is, a quarter of the year done, his save percentage pacing the league, his GSAA (goals saved above average) second-best league-wide. While the Knights as a whole have slowed some after reeling off 11 wins through their first 12 games — they’ve since won just three of nine — Vegas’s quick start still has the team positioned atop the West, eyeing a repeat.
The runner-up Panthers, meanwhile, were written off as a talented club set to fall back to earth amid the loss of their two most important defenders, Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour. Both rearguards missed the first 16 games of the year, only just returning for the past four. In their absence, the Cats held strong, going 10-5-1, their start leaving them second in the Atlantic and looking like they’ll have a much easier path to the post-season this time around.
And above them, leading the Atlantic again, somehow, is Boston. Last year’s regular-season kings were all but certain to take a step back in 2024, an era of Bruins hockey coming to an end with No. 1 centreman Patrice Bergeron (and No. 2 centreman David Krejci) hanging up the dream. Instead, the B’s are picking up right where they left off, sitting only five points off their haul at this time last year. They’ve hit a lull, dropping their past three games — but before that, Boston had picked up a point in 17 of its previous 18 tilts, going 14-1-3 to start the year. The division is theirs, until the end of time.
Zoom out to the other division winners from 2023, and it’s much the same story — the champs aren’t going anywhere.
Past Boston in the Atlantic and Vegas in the Pacific, the Metro’s 2023 winners, the Carolina Hurricanes, are right back in the mix, too, their slow start amounting to a stumble out of the gate that barely slowed their stride. And in the Central, the Colorado Avalanche’s elite veterans have papered over any issues working new faces into their squad — not to mention Dallas, behind them, has looked dominant from the jump, even before Jason Robertson’s fully found his form.
After a wild start, Vancouver seems set for at least one trophy in 2024
Rewind to mid-November, and there was a point when Vancouver occupied the top three spots in the league’s early scoring race. Three Canucks — Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson and JT Miller — were all knotted at 27 points through the opening 17 games of the year, leading the league. At the same time, Brock Boeser was in his own tie, for the league’s goal-scoring lead, with 13 through that span. The quartet had led their club to a 12-4-1 start, just a shade behind the defending champs’ early run of success — an opening month you could poke few holes in.
The ascent might’ve cooled for the Canucks over their past five games. Still, whether this is the year they take a meaningful step in the post-season and win some hardware there or not, it seems at least one trophy will have a Canucks player’s name engraved on it this time next year.
Maybe it’s Hughes winning the Norris (he’s currently leading all defenders in scoring), Boeser winning the Rocket Richard (he’s still tied for the league lead), Pettersson claiming the Art Ross (he’s dropped to eighth in the race, but still sits just a handful away from No. 1), or Thatcher Demko claiming the Vezina (he’s among the top five netminders in the league through this early stretch) — somehow, some way, the Canucks look on track to get their flowers in 2024.
The West’s middling clubs have a chance to make some noise
Vancouver’s blistering start is far from the only plot twist happening out West. Before the puck dropped on Game 1 of the season, the thinking was that Vegas, Edmonton and L.A. would be fighting over the Pacific crown, while the 100-point, second-round darling Seattle Kraken pushed to join that group after finding progress in their sophomore season. And on the other side of the conference, Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota seemed a good bet to do their thing once again.
But then came the Oilers’ abysmal start, Seattle seeming to stumble, and Minnesota taking a massive step backwards. Vancouver and Winnipeg have started strong and jumped into the No. 3 spots in their respective divisions, and both have what they need to stick there. The interesting question is what happens behind them, though.
Calgary hasn’t gotten the post-Darryl Sutter bump it hoped for. But with Seattle, Edmonton and Minnesota faltering, they’re in the mix. So are St. Louis and Nashville, neither of whom were expected to make much noise. Who makes the most of the West’s mess in these pivotal next few months? The most intriguing club in that pack might be Arizona. The ‘Yotes shifted their approach this past off-season, bringing in some talent to surround their young stars, and ushering in the beginning of star prospect Logan Cooley’s big-league career. So far, they’ve stuck around, sitting at .500, part of that wild-card mix. And while they’re a dice-roll on any given night, a 2-0 win over the defending champions Saturday suggests they might have something here.
If so, the path back to playoff hockey may be clearer than they’d expected.
Connor Bedard is as good as advertised, but he’s in for a long season
It’s been a few years since we’ve seen a young phenom come into the league wearing the type of pressure Connor Bedard had piled on his shoulders ahead of his NHL debut. After what seemed like a decade of stories about the greatness of the young North Vancouver product — including our own — all eyes were on Chicago’s new talisman to prove he could hang, to prove his shot was really that lethal, that his skill was really that deceptive. And most importantly, to prove he could withstand not just the physicality but the emotional rollercoaster of being a franchise saviour in the big leagues.
Through the first quarter of his first NHL campaign, he’s showed us why so many around the sport were so high on him. With 19 games in the bag, the 18-year-old’s collected 10 goals and 17 points so far for basement-dwelling Chicago, putting him on pace for a 40-goal, 70-point rookie season if he continues on at his current clip.
His detractors won’t be convinced until he hits those lofty plateaus. But for context, the No. 1 pick who preceded him, Juraj Slafkovsky, put up four goals and 10 points through his 39-game rookie effort. Alexis Lafreniere, before him, had 12 goals and 21 points through his 56-game first go-round. Maybe the better comp is the first-overall talent that came one year prior, Jack Hughes — he had seven goals and 21 points through 61 games. So far, Bedard’s trending more towards Auston Matthews’ rookie line: 40 goals, 69 points, a bona fide threat from the start.
The team around him, though, leaves much to be desired. Youthful potential aside, Chicago’s yet to string together two wins in a row, it has won just once in their past seven games, and now, already dealing with some key injuries, the team finds itself under the cloud of the Corey Perry situation.
Another lottery pick seems on the horizon, but if nothing else, the future is bright for No. 98 in red.
Sidney Crosby is quietly off to one of the most prolific starts of his career
While Connor Bedard navigates his first season in the big leagues, what of his idol, Sidney Crosby, navigating his 19th?
After his Penguins missed the post-season in shameful fashion last year — dropping a must-win game to Chicago, in fact, at year’s end, and opening the door for the eventual Cup finalist Panthers — the captain has come to play in 2023-24. While his Pens have looked inconsistent as a whole, the new pieces having yet to fully mesh with the established core, Crosby’s doing his part in the redemption tour.
Through 20 games, the captain’s potted 13 goals, a pair off the league lead. If he sticks at his current clip, he’d wind up with 53 on the season by season’s end, a shade above the career-best 51 he put up back in 2009-10 — at age 22. Even if his goal-scoring fell off a cliff from here on out, and the 36-year-old’s pace fell to half of what it’s been through this early stretch, he’d still finish the year with his highest total since he last won the Rocket Richard — also the last year his Pens won the Cup (2016-17).
Should the Pens’ power play ever round into form — it’s firing at a brutal 12.5 per cent so far, 26th in the league — No. 87’s resurgent year figures to get another boost. Without the man-advantage help to this point, Crosby’s been feasting at even strength alone — he’s currently pacing the league in even-strength scoring (21 points), and sits tied for the league lead in even-strength goals (11).
After a 93-point effort last season, his best in half a decade, the wily vet seems on a mission to pull his Pens back into relevancy — and to prove he can still score with the best of them.
The Rangers are coming for the Metro, and the East, and the league
As for Crosby’s division, though, his Pens have an uphill battle, even as the Metro’s endured its own early-season plot twists.
All talk of the division before the season started focused on just how far New Jersey or Carolina could widen the gap over everyone else, and whether Erik Karlsson could push the Penguins up the ladder and shake things up. Instead, while the Canes are right where they should be, Jersey’s gotten off to a brutal start to 2023-24, finding itself mired in the basement while Philly and Washington are holding on among the top four.
And above them all, the Rangers have been rolling over everyone.
You can excuse the 5-1 loss to Buffalo on Monday — it’s only New York’s second loss in nine games, only its third in 16 games. Through this early quarter, the Blueshirts have gone 15-4-1 on the year, boasting the best goal differential in the East (+17). They’ve looked steady defensively, punishing offensively — and still aren’t even at their best, with Mika Zibanejad yet to fully round into form, and Adam Fox missing time with an injury.
Add in the fact that their front office has shown no hesitation to swing big at the trade deadline recently — adding four pieces two years ago, and Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko last year — and you have to imagine the Rangers are going to be a problem all year long.
The Sabres’ hype train has gone off the rails
And then there’s the team that just handed New York its fifth loss in 20 games.
After a significant step forward last season, that brought progress but no playoff hockey, Buffalo’s task in 2024 was to upset the top half of the Atlantic, to bully their way into the dance, and make some real noise.
The Sabres looked primed to do it, too. Stocked with elite young talent throughout the lineup, just a point off a playoff spot last year, they seemed the young, promising club poised to take The Next Step. Instead, they’re not far off where they were a year ago at this time — a .500 club buried in the bottom half of their division, five talented teams above them, and their best hope looking like a fight for a wild-card spot. Throw in the injury to 2023 leading scorer, and breakout star, Tage Thompson, and it’s looking bleak.
And yet, then come nights like Monday at the Garden, when it all clicks, when they show glimpses of their full potential, even against the league’s current top dog. More nights like that one could mean it all works out for Buffalo by season’s end. But the inconsistent start means even if it does, they’ll have to claw their way into the mix yet again.
