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. And those stay in a playoff position. While another coach pays the price for his underperforming team. And do we have a read on those borderline playoff teams? Â We will dive more as we look at the Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, St. Louis Blues, and New York Islanders.
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, there has been a third coaching casualty on the season. Not to mention, it has been difficult this season to get reads on many teams, considering we are past the quarter mark. Â In this edition of NHL Insights, we look at the Pittsburgh Penguins, St. Louis Blues, Philadelphia Flyers, and New York Islanders.
It’s time to dive into some NHL Insights for this week.
NHL Insights: Penguins, Blues, Flyers, Islanders
Pittsburgh Penguins
The Pittsburgh Penguins are sitting 13th in the Eastern Conference. That could be a shock to some, but to others, you could see the flaws in this team. It is all well and good that general manager Kyle Dubas went out and got Erik Karlsson. However, if you saw Karlsson and Brent Burns you knew it could not work with Kris Letang. But Karlsson has not been the problem for this team. And you did not get Karlsson to play defense, but he needs to. It has been the rest of the team that has been inconsistent.
Head coach Mike Sullivan is not going anywhere anytime soon unless the Penguins want to pay him $5.8 million over the next three years to go away or another team wants to hire him. Kyle Dubas put together a flawed roster with lots of holes. Did the Penguins really need Karlsson and his $11 million? No? Similar to how the Maple Leafs did not need John Tavares. But that one has worked out just fine, but again those dollars could have been spent more wisely to help fill holes on the team.
It all goes back to when the Penguins needed to make a tough decision on Letang and Evgeni Malkin. It had to be one or the other, not both. Not to mention, Richard Rakell’s contract is hurting this team as well. And what will Jake Guentzel make in the future? The only thing consistent about the Penguins is Sidney Crosby.
St. Louis Blues
The St. Louis Blues are a team that had to make a coaching change like the Edmonton Oilers, Minnesota Wild, and Ottawa Senators. Craig Berube was relieved of his duties and Drew Bannister was named the interim head coach. And Bannister is the interim head coach. However, the roster construction of the Blues is not the greatest.
The Blues played a certain way under Berube when they won the Stanley Cup back in 2019. That identity was they were tough to play against. Just look at the players on that team and the two prime examples were Ryan O’Reilly and Alex Pietrangelo. The downfall of this team came when Armstrong did not re-sign Pietrangelo and decided to go with Justin Faulk and Torey Krug. It changed the whole identity of this team.
It was a surprise move, to say the least. However, after the initial bump, the Blues have settled into the type of team they are. And it’s good to see Jordan Kyrou turn the fans back in his favor. It is always tough for a player to go through what he went through, but when you do not say much about your coach being fired, that is saying something, too.
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Philadelphia Flyers
The Philadelphia Flyers have been a good surprise to start the season. Nobody really expected this coming into the season. Let’s be honest did anyone expect the Flyers to be second in the Metro at this point. But the entire division is wide open outside of the Rangers at the top spot. So, anything was possible.
John Tortorella has got his room in order with the right guys. They are all buying into the system. Not to mention he is getting production from Travis Konency, Sean Couturier, Travis Sanheim, Joel Farabee. The young players like Cam York, Bobby Brink, Owen Tippett, Morgan Frost, and the Flyers remain a threat in the Metro Division.
It also helps to have good goaltending. Carter Hart is back to his old levels, which gives him value moving forward, like Travis Konency. The defense in front of Hart is better, which gives him confidence to play his game. Sean Walker has been a great addition, playing the best hockey of his career alongside Nick Seeler. But when Hart is not manning the pipes, Samuel Ersson has really stepped up his game as well. However, when does it get past the point of saying this team is not going to drop off?
New York Islanders
Have the New York Islanders finally turned a corner? It appears so. Look, nobody knew what to expect from the Islanders this season. They were in a category of their own coming into this season. You knew they had the talent with Bo Horvat, Mathew Barzal, Brock Nelson, Simon Holmstrom, and others on the team. But you had to wonder if the team was going to open things up offensively.
Early, it seemed like they were still playing a defensive style that got them back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals. But the issue was the team could not hold leads despite having Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov between the pipes. And it felt like the Islanders were going to waste the best years of Sorokin. When the team would score goals, they could not lead. When the team played great defensively, they could not score.
Then, all of a sudden, the Islanders started to find that right mix between playing defense and getting goal-scoring. It helps when Kyle Palmieri starts to light the lamp. He had a nice little stretch where he scored four goals in seven games. But again, he is a goal scorer, and goal scorers are streaky. The one thing that has been noticeable is the play of Noah Dobson. He has really taken his game to the next level. Dobson might be the best overall defenseman in the league right now. He tied with Barzal for the team lead in points with 33.
Again the Islanders are finding a nice mix, let’s see if that can continue.
That does it for this edition of NHL Insights.