Welcome to another edition of NHL Insights. The Regular Season is underway. There are so many surprising and disappointing teams to begin the year. We see teams come out of nowhere to be in a playoff position. While other teams have looked good under their new head coaches as they make things interesting in certain divisions. We will dive more as we look at the New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Minnesota Wild, and Arizona Coyotes.
Every season, we see teams come out of the gate flying that we did not expect. On the flip side, we see teams start slow that we had championship aspirations or at least playoff aspirations. While there have been more surprises than disappointments, we have seen two head coaches fired and those teams start to turn it around in the win column. The continuous benching of top players in the league is a storyline. While there may only be one good team in New York as the Desert Dogs continue to surprise. In this edition of NHL Insights, we look at the New York Rangers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Minnesota Wild, and Arizona Coyotes.
It’s time to dive into some NHL Insights for this week.
NHL Insights: Rangers, Blue Jackets, Wild, and Coyotes
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers continue to be the team to beat. They are a great pace to start the season. The Rangers have one of the best winning percentages on the road in the NHL. New York has a winning percentage of .804 and has a record of 10-2-1 on the road. That is impressive, considering they played most of the early part of the season without Adam Fox on the backend. Artemi Panarin is on a tear for the Rangers. Panarin has 35 points (15 goals and 20 assists). He leads all players in every statistical category.
Not only that, but new head coach Peter Laviolette is getting the most out of his players. Especially the young players. Alexis Lafreniere is having his best season of his career. He currently has 15 points (eight goals and seven assists). But the Rangers are getting contributions from everyone. They are playing good team defense. Despite what fans want to see, defensive hockey wins. It allows the Rangers to use their transition game to perfection.
Not to mention, who would have thought Jonathan Quick would turn back the clock to 2012 and be putting up the numbers he is? Quick has lightened the workload for Igor Shesterkin. The key for the Rangers will be, can they keep this pace up?
Columbus Blue Jackets
The Columbus Blue Jackets continue to be a mess. Ever since the Mike Babcock situation came and went in the offseason, there is still a residule effect. This team is looking for accountability and discipline. That is what head coach Pascal Vincent is trying to instill. However, are the players buying into that? One of the reasons why players might be tuning him out is because he was twice passed over for the head coaching job. Do the players really believe in him?
That is something you have to wonder about. And benching players like Patrik Laine and Johnny Gaudreau is not the answer, especially with injuries to their defense. Something has been off ever since Gaudreau and Laine got to Columbus. Neither player has found their stride. Especially Gaudreau. He is not the same player he was with the Calgary Flames. Similar to Patrik Laine. But Laine is a goal scorer, and he is one-dimensional. But the goals are not there like they were in Winnipeg. Both players are missing playmakers like Mark Scheifele and Aleksander Barkov.
Sometimes, the grass is not greener on the other side. Adam Fantilli is a great young player in this league. But there is only so much he can do, but he has the right attitude when it comes to losing and winning. Hopefully, things in Columbus will turn around.
Minnesota Wild
Speaking of turning it around. What a difference a coach makes. The Minnesota Wild replaced Dean Evason with John Hynes, and the offense has taken off. Hynes is with his third team now. His previous stops include New Jersey and Nashville. However, the Wild were a team expected to compete in the Central Division for a playoff spot. Unfortunately, they struggled to begin the season. The coaching change was made after a seven-game losing streak where the team looked lifeless.
With Hynes behind the bench, all three phases of the game, offense, defense, and goaltending look much better. Especially the offense. The Wild are now averaging around four goals a game. Before the coaching change, the Wild were averaging 1.5 goals per game. Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Mats Zuccarello, and the rest of the offense are clicking on all cylinders.
However, the Wild still have issues with the salary cap. Those will continue next season even with the cap going up to around $87.7 million. The Wild operate below that number because of the buyouts to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. The Wild and GM Bill Guerin still have one more season, paying those players a combined $15 million. Being $15 million behind Colorado and Dallas in that division is an uphill battle.
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Arizona CoyotesÂ
How about those Arizona Coyotes? The Coyotes are in the midst of a five-game winning streak, defeating the past five Stanley Cup Champions. What a remarkable feat. Arizona is an exciting young team that you should be watching. Nobody expected they would be competing for a playoff spot. However, André Tourigny has done an excellent job with this team. Let’s be honest, though: management and ownership have been patient in the desert.
Young players like Connor Ingram, Karel Vejmelka, Logan Cooley, Clayton Keller, Lawson Crouse, Alex Kerfoot (who has nine points in his last four games), Michael Carcone, Sean Durzi, and Matias Maccelli to go along with Nick Schmaltz and Nick Bjugstad. The Coyotes are competing despite playing in a college arena.
If the Coyotes can get that situation fixed, Arizona could become Tampa West like the NHL envisioned it could be.
That does it for this edition of NHL Insights.
Dont Understand why Coyotes are ‘competing despite playing in college arena’, would professional athletes not compete unless they are in ‘NHL’ arena? dont both teams play on the same ice? this just seems like a BS comment to insert in article about their play.