Three NHL Teams Due to Plummet in NHL Standings

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The 2021-22 National Hockey League season is just over a month old and we have seen some things that were to be expected and a few early surprises as well.

The dynamic duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers are still lighting up the league and Alex Ovechkin is still the league’s best goal scoring threat. Adam Fox scores points better than most forwards. The Toronto Maple Leafs are winning regular season games and the Arizona Coyotes look lost on the ice.

All of these things were to be expected because they happen every year.

Some things have been quite surprising as well. Did anyone think the Chicago Blackhawks would be THIS bad? Are the Florida Panthers the best team in the Eastern Conference? Will Freddie Andersen ever let in a goal? Sergei Bobrovsky is back!

We aren’t quite at the point in the season where things are getting set into stone. Even the top teams in the standings right now could fall back into the pack and the teams at the bottom end could find a resurgence and be fighting for a playoff spot in a couple of months.

Okay, except for the Coyotes.

But who is for real and who isn’t? Everyone has played at least a dozen games so we can start to get a better read on teams. It is still a little early to be predicting playoff opponents but some trends are emerging that are not good for certain teams.

These three teams have gotten off to good starts and are in a playoff spot right now, but will regress and drop in the standings in the near future and ultimately miss the postseason.

Detroit Red Wings

The Detroit Red Wings have been an NHL doormat for a number of seasons. They have missed the playoffs for five consecutive seasons and their 17-49-5 record in 2019-20 was one of the worst NHL seasons of all time. That was just two years ago, so it takes time to get back into the playoffs after bottoming out so hard.

Last season saw some improvement, I guess. They weren’t good at 19-27-10 but the were not as bad as the previous season so that is a step in the right direction. This season, they started 8-7-2 and sit third in the Atlantic Division.

That means they are in a playoff spot. But it isn’t going to last.

While the Red Wings are getting some great contributions from young players like Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider, it just isn’t enough to turn this ship around this quick. Their top line of Raymond, Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi are all averaging about a point per game to begin the year.

That is a great start, but it will take depth to actually make the playoffs in the Atlantic Division.

With the strength of the Metropolitan Division this season, it already looks like just three teams are going to get in from the Atlantic. That means the Red Wings would have to be better than two of the Florida Panthers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins.

The Panthers and Maple Leafs are already ahead of Detroit and it is just a matter of time before the Bruins and Lightning pass them as well. In fact, the Bruins and Bolts both have better points percentage already, but they have just played less games than the Wings.

It has been a great start for the Red Wings and it has been a long time since they looked this good. But they just don’t have the depth and talent to compete with the other top teams in their division over an 82 game season.

Anaheim Ducks

The Anaheim Ducks are in the midst of a rebuild. They have added a few key players to that rebuild with Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale joining the NHL team this season, but they just aren’t quite done putting the building blocks together yet to compete with the top teams in the NHL.

The Ducks have looked great so far this season and are the hottest team in the league having won seven consecutive games. They are terrific at home with a 6-2-1 and solid on the road with a 3-2-2 record away from Anaheim. That 9-4-3 record has them second in the Pacific Division, but they just don’t have the weapons to sustain this pace.

Just look at where the Ducks are getting their offence. Ryan Getzlaf looks like 1980’s Wayne Gretzky with 16 assists in 16 games. Getzlaf hasn’t averaged an assist per game ever in his career and hasn’t had a point per game since 2016-17 when he played 56 games.

Troy Terry is a great young player and is having a breakout season, but his 11 goals in 15 games are a pace that is impossible to continue. While it is possible for a 24 year old like Terry to have a career year, I think he is going to fall off his 60 goal pace pretty quickly.

When Getzlaf and Terry slow down, where will the offence come from? Zegras started slow but has been putting up more points recently. Isac Lundestrom has some offensive upside as the 21 year old already has ten points in 16 games. But there aren’t many more options to score goals.

In their division, the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames look built for a playoff berth and are playing great hockey to begin the season. Also, the Vegas Golden Knights have turned a corner by going 8-2-0 in their last ten after a sluggish 1-4-0 start to the season.

The Oilers, Flames and Golden Knights all appear deeper and better than the Ducks. It is just a matter of time before the Ducks drop off their current pace.

Nashville Predators

The Nashville Predators appeared ready for a rebuild last season. There were plenty of Mattias Ekholm trade rumours and Filip Forsberg’s name was tossed around out there as a potential trade candidate. Then Pekka Rinne retired.

The Predators brought back Mikael Granlund and brought in David Rittich to play goal but they didn’t really make a big splash in the offseason. That is, other than trading away Viktor Arvidsson and Ryan Ellis. After a 2020-21 season that saw them just sneak into the playoffs, a playoff berth didn’t look in reach for this season.

However, thanks to Matt Duchene dialling back the clock, the Predators are off to a great start. They are 9-5-1 on the strength of Duchene’s nine goals and 16 points and some incredible goaltending from Juuse Saros. Duchene scored just 19 goals in his first 100 games with the Preds so his offensive breakout is a bit of a surprise.

But will it last? And if it doesn’t, where will the goals come from? Romano Josi is second on the team in goals with six and Tanner Jeannot is next with five. A once dominant blue line is leaning extremely heavily on Josi and Ekholm and then asking a lot out of Matt Benning and Mark Borowiecki.

The Predators just don’t have the depth to keep up this pace. They are behind the Minnesota Wild and Winnipeg Jets right now in the Central Division and are just ahead of the St. Louis Blues and Colorado Avalanche. The Blues and Avs have far deeper teams and more impressive lineups and will surely blow past the Preds in the near future.

It was a great start to the season, but don’t expect the Nashville Predators to hang on to this NHL Playoff spot for much longer.

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