This edition of the Pro Hockey News Power Ranking Poll has some interesting changes in both conferences. The East continues to improve but still not as good as the West. In the West, the top five are the same but the shake-up is in the middle of the pack as it is with the East.
Adam says: I have some big swings in the middle of the pack. The Rangers and Flyers are showing life while the Red Wings, Capitals and Devils are starting to slide. The middle of the pack in the East is in constant flux.
1) Pittsburgh (+1)-I have resisted all season but I am now a believer they are the class of the East. Still not sure they could beat any of the top three West teams in a long series.
2) Boston (-1)-Starting to fall behind the Penguins in the standings, but have the team who could represent.
3) Tampa Bay (0)-This team looks like they are finding their stride as a group. Watch out now with Stamkos coming back from injury, only giving the offense more power.
4) Philadelphia-(+3)-Sometimes firing a coach early in the season pays off. The Flyers continue to rise in standings and are even in second place in the Metropolitan division.
5) Montreal-(-1)-When you have Carey Price playing as well as he is, it hides your offensive weaknesses, as well as blue line depth issues.
6) NY Rangers (+5)-Seems like their win a couple of weeks back in Chicago has gotten this team on a streak. Can they shed underachiever moniker in the second half?
7) Columbus (+3)-The Wild Card battle in the East is very tight. Giving Columbus an edge right now since they are a +3 goal differential, only plus team in the large pack.
8) Toronto (0)-Their problem is they can’t win in 65 minutes of hockey. If they get into tie breakers scenarios their nine shootout wins will hurt them.
9) Detroit-(-4)-If this team ever gets fully healthy they should sneak in the playoffs. That is a big if this season. They also need to start winning at home.
10) Ottawa (+2)-They have collected points in eight of their last 10 games and their goalies are finally stopping a few more pucks.
11) Washington (-5)-They are running into the same issues as the Leafs, too many shootout wins.
12) Carolina (+1)-They are showing signs of life on the road which is giving them much needed points.
13) New Jersey (-4)-For a team who traded for Schneider and have Brodeur neither can stop a puck in fake hockey. They are 0-8 in shootouts, leaving a ton of much needed points on the table.
14) NY Islanders (+1)-As bad as they have looked so far, two good weeks of play could push them near a playoff spot in the East.
15) Florida (-1)-The seat just gets warmer and warmer under GM Dale Tallon. They don’t score, they can’t stop the puck, they don’t have any fans showing up and they can’t win on the road.
16) Buffalo (0)-Time to start the watch on who gets the top draft spot. Will it be Buffalo, Calgary or Edmonton?
Lou says: The West continues to be the best of the NHL but there is also a sense that the East is finding its footing, finally. Is it that the East is improving or the West is finally coming back to earth? The Ducks remain the best in the NHL and the top five of the conference remain mostly intact for this poll.
1) Anaheim Ducks (0) – This past week the Chicago Blackhawks stopped the Ducks win streak at eight. It was seemingly a minor annoyance to the Ducks who went out the next game and took care of the St Louis Blues on the road. The Ducks are still without a loss in regulation on home ice; how long can that last? Through the playoffs?
2) Chicago Blackhawks (0) – We had the Blackhawks falling from the top spot in our last poll and they have since held serve while those around them have failed to gain the traction to overcome them. What has bitten Chicago is that disinterest in their opponents. That might be said for their loss to the Rangers on home ice. Not until the final minutes did they realize they were in for a loss.
3) San Jose Sharks (0) – The Sharks are 6-4-0 in their last ten and while they have slipped there is something in their game that says confidence; much of that is built on their speed and their goaltending with Antti Niemi being a steady influence in the cage. They currently sit in fourth position in the conference and are battling the Blues ahead of them and Colorado behind them. Of the teams not in first place, this Sharks team feels like a long-term winner into the post season.
4) St Louis Blues (0) – The last few games for the Blues have been marked by slowed offense and mistakes on the ice. A recent loss to the LA Kings is a case in point. A shorthanded goal was a dagger to the heart in a 3-1 loss. The Blues had been hot but their time may have come and gone; especially looking in the rear view mirror.
5) Los Angeles Kings (0) – The Kings welcomed their number one goalie back since our last poll and Jonathan Quick has lost nary a beat in his game. They are playing .500 hockey over their ten but a road swing was not kind to them. LA’s centers have been terribly inconsistent this season and the last ten games they have gone quiet again. But head coach Darryl Sutter is not one to push a panic button but neither is he willing to sit back. Look for the Kings to make some kind of move to shake off the doldrums.
6) Colorado Avalanche (+3) – Patrick Roy has seen his team survive some injuries and legal issues and come out on the other side strong and fast. In fact, the Avs have gone 8-1-1 to get back to the level they were occupying earlier this season. Can the youth hold it together through the dog days of the NHL schedule?
7) Minnesota Wild (+3) – The Wild were dreadful through the last week of December and first week of 2014. But head coach Mike Yeo has seen his squad re-collect themselves and find that swagger. After they were unable to buy an important goal in a road swing to the east they have now gone 7-3-0 and reacquainted themselves with the upper echelon of the west. They sit in a wild-card spot, four points clear of the ninth place Coyotes.
8) Phoenix Coyotes (0) – Mike Smith is the reason is the Coyotes are dangerous to play. And as Smith goes so go the Coyotes. And at 4-6-0 over the last ten this is a team that needs to find some offense to support Smith. Injuries have hurt the club but the roster is reforming back to its opening night status, look for Phoenix’s brass to shore up the side.
9) Dallas Stars (-2) – Dallas is another team with issues; only these are defensive-oriented. The Stars have been unable to hold tenuous leads late in games. The New York Rangers and Islanders both beat them with late goals in regulation or late tying markers only to lose in extra time. That does not bode well for Dallas as the intra-divisional season heats up and the losses are four-point swings.
10) Winnipeg Jets (+1) – The firing of Claude Noel since our last poll was a fait accompli once the Jets floundered. Winnipeg’s front office stayed with Noel as long as they could but finally pulled the trigger and brought in Paul Maurice as an interim coach. The Jets have won three straight, albeit against teams they should be beating. But there is jump in the skates of the players that was absent in Noel’s final days there. Shame that effort only resumed after a firing.
11) Vancouver Canucks (-5) – The Canucks are a team that showed so much promise under new head coach John Tortorella; then he went and blew up on home ice and escalated a bad situation into a nuclear exchange between heated rivals, the Calgary Flames. Tortorella may be a good coach but this recent display of ignorance cannot play well anywhere in the NHL and one can only imagine the locker room now. He has lost every locker room he has coached. We wonder when this room will be lost.
12) Nashville Predators (0) – The Preds traded for Devan Dubnyk to man their goal until Pecca Rinne returns. But that trade may portend serious issues for the Nashville net. Dubnyk is a competent number two netminder but he was unable to bail out the Oilers and it will be surprising if he can do the same for the Predators. It would have been a better decision to grad Ben Scrivens from LA.
13) Edmonton Oilers (0) – The Oilers just cannot get out of their own way. Youth is one thing but making poor decisions on and off the ice is killing this team and irritating the fan base. Edmonton has a glorious history and the current edition is sullying that memory.
14) Calgary Flames (0) – Brian Burke is the director of hockey operations for the Flames and talked about the lack of “truculence” in the play of his team when he fired his general manager and assistant GM in early December. Well, he got his truculence this week in the Vancouver debacle. There are many who see Burke’s fingerprints in the ugly incident in BC. Aggressive or not the Flames are not a very good hockey team right now and the fallout from the line brawl with the Canucks is still to be measured.