The Biggest Takeaways from the Opening Week of the 2014-15 NHL Season

Hockey is back!

For the first time in three years, the NHL season will return to its regular rhythms. The last two years offered condensed schedules. First, there was the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign, which was followed by the Olympic season last year.

We'll get a bit more time to breathe between games this time around, but we've already seen plenty of action since play kicked off last Wednesday.

Here's a look at some of the key themes that are dictating the main storylines through the early days of the new campaign.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats courtesy of NHL.com.

Separation Starts Early

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Though the new season is just a few days old, we're already seeing gaps open up in the standings between the top teams and the bottom feeders in both conferences.

Through the end of Sunday's action, five teams in the Eastern Conference have posted perfect records, including two that missed the playoffs last year: the New Jersey Devils and New York Islanders.

At the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, the Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres have yet to pick up their first point.

The Western Conference standard of perfection is exactly the same: Five teams have captured every point available so far, including last year's non-playoff contenders from Vancouver and Nashville. The Minnesota Wild and San Jose Sharks have been truly perfect so far: Both teams have yet to surrender their first goal.

The situation is reversed for Patrick Roy's crop of young stars in Colorado. They're mired in last place in the West without a single goal to show for their efforts so far.

Over the course of a long season, there will be plenty of ebbs and flows in momentum all around the league, but there's no denying that two points in the bank in October count for just as much as two points in April. Early-season momentum can be especially valuable for the squads that underachieved in 2013-14.

New Coaches Bring Good Results

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Of the six teams that replaced their head coaches during the offseason, five missed the playoffs last year: Carolina, Florida, Nashville, Vancouver and Washington. The exception, of course, was the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Considering their teams' previous records, it's pretty impressive that the new bench bosses are a combined 7-3-2 through the first five days of the season. Bill Peters of the Carolina Hurricanes is the only new coach who has yet to pick up a point, and Gerard Gallant has tallied a single point from an overtime loss with the Florida Panthers but has yet to record his first win.

On the positive side of the ledger, Peter Laviolette in Nashville and first-time NHLers Mike Johnston in Pittsburgh and Willie Desjardins in Vancouver have all been perfect so far, while Barry Trotz looks like he's getting maximum mileage out of his Washington Capitals.

The Penguins are always good in the regular season, so Mike Johnston will have to wait until the playoffs before he's graded for his performance. Elsewhere, Laviolette, Desjardins and Trotz all look like they'll make their mark as early-season successes in their new jobs.

New Teammates Make Instant Contributions

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Johnny Boychuk has been a New York Islander for just over a week, but he has made an instant impact in Uniondale.

Acquired on October 4 from the salary cap-strapped Boston Bruins, Boychuk's done his best Denis Potvin impersonation with five points in his first two games as an Islander. This feat's even more impressive when you consider Boychuk's reputation as a shutdown defenseman and his career-high 23 points in 75 games last season.

Two games in, Boychuk's on pace for a 205-point season.

Boychuk's getting first-unit power-play time on Long Island and has potted four of his five points so far with the man advantage, anchoring a unit that includes snipers John Tavares, Kyle Okposo and Brock Nelson up front.

Who knew that a move from Boston to the Islanders could be such a positive?

Elsewhere around the league, free-agent signing Radim Vrbata is clicking well for the Vancouver Canucks. He has slid comfortably into a top-line role with the Sedin twins, who have looked rejuvenated both on the power play and at five-on-five.

In Pittsburgh, Patric Hornqvist looks to be fitting in nicely with the Penguins' explosive offense after a trade from Nashville, while highly touted centers Paul Stastny of the St. Louis Blues and Ryan Kesler of the Anaheim Ducks have also made instant impacts with their new teams.

Buffalo Sabres Have Plenty of Incentive to Finish Last

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There's not much subtlety about the situation in Buffalo. With potential generational players Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel coming available in the 2015 draft, and the Sabres holding three first-round picks, John Vogl of The Buffalo News reports that a substantial proportion of Buffalo's fanbase is hoping that the team will finish last in the NHL for a second straight season, which will earn the team its best chance at a first overall pick.

"I am 100 percent for finishing dead last this year to secure one of the two prizes next draft," season ticket-holder Dave Cannon of Tonawanda told Vogl. "We have watched rebuild after rebuild, been forced to put up with excuses and bad players, and I think this is our reward."

Though the NHL tweaked the draft lottery rules last spring to decrease the last-place team's odds of securing the first overall pick, locking up a spot at the bottom of the standings still offers the best possible chance.

Dave Hodge of TSN shares a simple idea that could put an end to tanking for good: "The easy and right solution is to give all 14 non-playoff teams an equal shot at winning the draft lottery. The word 'tank' need never be mentioned again."

Fighting Is on Its Way Out—or Is It?

The big bad Toronto Maple Leafs may have rung a death knell for the traditional hockey enforcer when they placed both Colton Orr and Frazer McLaren on waivers to start the 2014-15 regular season.

According to HockeyFights.com, the NHL saw 469 fights in 1,230 games in 2013-14, an average of 0.38 fights per game. That's the lowest total number since the 2005-06 season, which saw just 466 fights.

Through the first four days of the new campaign, we saw 14 fights in 32 games, which works out to a slight increase from last year: 0.44 fights per game. But what does it mean when we're seeing completely new combatants take on the rough stuff, like when the Edmonton Oilers' first-line center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins threw down with the Vancouver Canucks' Dan Hamhuis on Saturday night?

Hamhuis hasn't been in a scrap since back in 2010, when he still played for Nashville. Saturday's tilt was RNH's first in the NHL.

When emotions run high and enforcers aren't on the bench to do the dirty work, perhaps we'll start to see more skill players taking matters into their own hands.

Early Injuries Cause Setbacks

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Injuries are part of hockey, but some key NHL players have had their 2014-15 seasons derailed before they even had a chance to begin.

According to TSN, the Carolina Hurricanes and Columbus Blue Jackets have been hit especially hard. For the Hurricanes, key center Jordan Staal suffered a broken leg during preseason, while winger Jeff Skinner is now on injured reserve after suffering a concussion.

Over in Columbus, the trouble started with the news that Nathan Horton has a degenerative back condition. From there, defenseman Ryan Murray was added to the injured list with a knee problem. Forwards Boone Jenner and Brandon Dubinsky have also since joined the ranks of the wounded.

Elsewhere, health issues have prevented high-profile rookies like Sam Bennett of the Calgary Flames and Jonathan Drouin of the Tampa Bay Lightning from starting their seasons, while veterans seeking redemption like Dany Heatley of the Anaheim Ducks and David Booth of the Toronto Maple Leafs will need to recover from their latest ailments before they can show their stuff for their new teams.