The 6 Most Pleasant Surprises from the Start of the NHL Season
We're about two weeks into the 2023-24 NHL season, and any weathered fan knows this is the perfect time to start overreacting.
You see, there's a method to the Olympic sport of takes. The art is in the timing. You want to deliver the take early enough to be smug about it if you're right, but late enough to avoid being wrong.
Preseason is for the amateurs. Canadian Thanksgiving is for the cowards. Two to four weeks in is the perfect time to unleash your big hill to die on for the season—early enough that you can say you called it, yet inconspicuous enough that it feels genuine.
The best way to do this? Instead of going for the obvious, take a look at some early surprises around the league and run with your favorite. I don't know about you, but I prefer to prove the naysayers wrong instead of the haters right, so here are the six most pleasant surprises to kick off the NHL season.
The Bruins Don't Stink!
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Remember when the Boston Bruins had the best regular season in NHL history last season? Then remember when they suffered a first-round exit at the hands of the No. 8 seed Panthers, and no one knew what to do with any of it? Then remember when captain Patrice Bergeron and longtime leader David Krejci retired in the offseason, leaving the cap-strapped Bruins without not one, but two top centers?
Look, I don't think anyone thought Boston was going to immediately crumble. As I wrote this offseason, the Bruins were still too good to start a rebuild. They had the best goalie tandem in the league returning, they locked down David Pastrnak, the defense was still solid and Brad Marchand was still Brad Marchand.
But who had them one-upping last season with a 6-0-0 start in 2023-24? They matched their franchise record with the undefeated start, falling one game short of breaking the record held by the 1937-38 team with a shocking come-from-behind overtime loss against the Ducks Thursday. Still, 6-0-1 ain't too shabby, and it's the second-best start in the NHL this season, behind only the reigning Cup Champion Golden Knights.
How are they doing it? We have to acknowledge the weak season-starting slate, featuring the Blackhawks twice, the Sharks, the Predators and the Ducks. But every point is going to matter in the stacked Eastern Conference, and good teams don't let these opportunities slip away.
Then you've got your best players being your best players, with Pastrnak netting six goals and 10 points in seven games, followed by Marchand with four goals and seven points. You've got newcomer Morgan Geekie holding down the two-way play with a plus-six rating, and you've got one of the most surprising and fun rookies in the game so far with Matthew Poitras racking up three goals and five points as he has seamlessly entered the lineup.
Of course Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman are proving how gigantic of a role they played last year, Swayman with a perfect 3-0 record in net, Ullmark with a 3-0-1 mark. As for save percentages, Ullmark's dropped from .962 to .937 after the 4-3 loss to the Ducks while Swayman is holding a .957.
One remarkable thing about the 2022-23 Bruins was their ability to bounce back quickly after any rare loss, so we'll see how Boston performs in the next game. But the jury is in early, and at the very least, this team doesn't stink.
The Yzerplan Is Yzerplanning
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Checking the temperature of Detroit Red Wings fans during the offseason, it seemed like the majority would've been OK with a little more patience and another season or two out of the playoffs if it meant sustainable success in HockeyTown. And with the stacked East, things still might pan out that way.
But the fun part of the Steve Yzerman era (the GM one) is you can see where he thinks the team is at with the moves he and the front office have made over the past few seasons. Whether it was letting go of veterans and some key players, giving the future more ice time and ushering those players into bigger roles, or adding a supporting cast, patience has been the theme as cap space grew.
This offseason featured the biggest move in the "almost ready" direction yet—the acquisition of Michigan-born Alex DeBrincat. The $7.85 million cap hit was a hometown bargain for the goal-scoring winger, and so far he's blown even higher expectations of him out of the water.
The beauty of a player like DeBrincat is when he's on, and when you give him a longer leash and a vote of confidence to play on a top line, he's going to bump up linemates' and power play units' offensive production. Suddenly the Red Wings boast two of the top three scorers in the league, with Dylan Larkin at No. 2 with four goals and 15 points in eight games and DeBrincat at No. 3 with a league-leading nine goals to go with 13 points in eight games. Not to mention, defensemen Moritz Seider and Shayne Gostisbehere are at or above a point per game.
The whole team is No. 2 in the league in goals-per-game average with 4.38, and the power play is clicking at a second-best rate of 38.7 percent. They're 5-2-1 to start the season, and two of the three losses were only by one goal.
Is this sustainable? Who knows, and teams with high power-play percentages early on often run into trouble when other teams start studying film and learning their tricks—especially with a new star in the equation.
But sometimes we forget a very simple truth when it comes to centers and offensive production: The assists have to go to someone who can actually score the goals for them to count. Larkin now has a goal-scoring machine on his wing, the rest of the team can and has exhaled a bit, the defense also rocks, and life is good in Detroit.
Joseph Woll? More Like Joseph Wall
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Goaltending is a fickle position, susceptible to more ebbs and flows than any other in the sport. But it is never a bad thing for a goalie controversy to emerge out of a No. 2 having a solid start to the season, especially when you're the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Joseph Woll has always been an enticing option for the Leafs, and he's made the most out of the intrigue and this opportunity to start the season with Matt Murray out.
Through four games, he's No. 2 in the league in save percentage with a .961. He's averaging 1.33 goals against with only five goals allowed on 127 shots. Woll handed the Stars their first regulation loss Thursday, 4-1, in an effort that was an A-plus on the eye test.
This time of year can get tricky when assessing relative goalie stats considering there are so many different numbers of games played, so per 60 can be particularly valuable. According to MoneyPuck.com, Woll is leading the league in goals saved above expected per 60, with 2.280, which is even more impressive when you consider many in relation have only played one game or have played six.
It's far too early to declare Woll the Leafs' starter, but he's had the kind of start that creates a good problem for the team. The Leafs offense has been absolutely buzzing led by Auston Matthews and his season-opening back-to-back hat tricks, but as we've seen when it comes to the Leafs, they need solid defense to have full confidence when playoffs roll around. An (unexpected?) option in net could change a lot when it comes to mentality for a team with tons of pressure.
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Rebuilding Not so Painful for the Habs
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The early Kirby Dach loss (MCL and ACL) was probably the worst news throughout the entire league to start the season. He was playing so well, had a great opportunity to grow into himself while the rest of the roster was being constructed, and maybe above all else, he gave Canadiens fans something to watch in real time while keeping one eye on the future.
Maybe, even despite Dach's brutal absence, Habs fans will still have something surprisingly fun to watch this season. Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves—often, rebuilding teams will have a "pressure's off, let's have fun" unsustainable run at some point during their season.
And let's remember that this is the NHL, and especially with the current cap situation forcing NHL-level players out of the league, even players on the worst teams are still going to be competitive. You're not going to lose every game.
With all that out of the way, Montreal has looked better than expected early on. The Habs are 4-2-1, a better record than the Senators, Panthers and Sabres in the Atlantic. They're averaging 3.14 goals against per game, which is around league average at No. 14. Cole Caufield's got four goals, five assists and 27 shots in seven games, putting his new contract to good use already.
Look, we aren't saying Montreal is going to win the Cup, or even make the playoffs. But the team is perhaps more watchable than we anticipated, and that's more than we can say for the Atlantic bubble teams so far. At the very least, we've gotta keep an eye on these Habs and see where they're at come Canadian Thanksgiving.
What If the Canucks Are Canada's Team?
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The problem with the contemporary Vancouver Canucks has never been outright incompetency on the ice. It wouldn't be a hot take or even a pleasant surprise to say they look good this season. This is how they get you—they have a stretch where they can hang with anyone, and you wonder why you ever doubted them. Then they'll have a stretch where it looks like they're actively trying to lose the most important games. Then they'll fall one game short of playoff contention and the front office will fail to make any big changes in either the rebuild or go-all-in direction, and we'll question what we're all doing here.
We've seen that film before.
But, with Quinn Hughes in his new captaincy role, and with Elias Pettersson in a contract year (whether he ends up in Vancouver or elsewhere), something seems different to start this season in Vancouver.
You had the opening-night pumping of the Oilers, 8-1 (then another 4-3 win against Edmonton). There have been a few other convincing wins, and the losses haven't been overly Canucks-y. Don't look now, but they're second in the Pacific with a 4-2-0 record, behind only the 7-0-0 Golden Knights. Pettersson is tied for No. 9 overall in points with 10 in six games. Thatcher Demko has been OK in net with a .923 save percentage and a 2.57 goals-against average.
Maybe these Canucks can string together one season with few surprises, and maybe that will be the most pleasant surprise of all.
Your Metropolitan Division-Leading Flyers
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Roses are red, goals are fun. The Philadelphia Flyers are No. 2 the Metropolitan Division with a record of 4-2-1.
We all know the division rankings are fickle, and they barely matter until they really matter with about one month left in the season. But seriously, who had the Flyers at No. 1 in arguably the most competitive division in the league two weeks into the season, a feat only changed by the Rangers beating the Oilers late Thursday in Edmonton?
Head coach John Tortorella had a great quote after the latest win, a 6-2 thrashing of the Wild.
"We were chasing a lot of games last year and we'd come back," he told reporters postgame. "A little different story here, where we're leading. I think the biggest improvement with our club right now—and it will be tested, because we won a few games here, haven't gone into a losing streak yet—but I think the room is together. I think that's the biggest improvement we've made from last year. I don't think our room was awful last year, but our room needed to change.
"That's what helps you in those situations, we'll find out more when we lose two, three, more in a row. It'll happen, and we'll find out who the people are in those situations. But right now I think there's a belief, and belief is a very strong thing. If we can just keep that type of mindset, we'll stay competitive."
Strong words from a coach who's never been afraid to criticize his team.
So far, Travis Konecny is leading the team with six goals and nine points in seven games, Travis Sanheim's got 1-7-8 in seven, and Cam Atkinson is averaging a point per game with four goals and three assists in seven. Carter Hart is also having a solid start to the season in net, with a .924 save percentage and a 2.21 goals-against average.
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