NHL Quarter Mark - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Now that the NHL is at the 1/4 mark, its always nice to take a look at where we are up to this point.  There's been a few surprises this season so sit back, relax, and take in what this 2014-15 season has already had to offer.

The Good

1.  Marc-Andre Fleury 

Say what you want about Fleury's performance in the playoffs, the guy is flat out one of the best regular season goalies in the NHL.  After getting a pretty solid contract from the Penguins at the beginning of the year, Fleury has proven he was worth it by having his best statistical start to the season of his career.  Stacking a 1.97 GAA / .933 SVP / 19 W (6 shutouts) line, right now Fleury should not only be in the early Vezina talks - he should be leading them.  

2.  Peter Laviolette

Turns out that Peter Laviolette is actually a pretty good coach, if you didn't know that already.  Clearly Philly didn't know that when the booted him out the door and now Nashville is reaping the benefits of his excellent, up tempo coaching style.  It also helps to have one of the best goalies in the world back and healthy after being in and out all last year with various injuries.  I don't know if they can keep this up, what with their lack of scoring depth, but right now they're the underdog story of the year so far.  Keep it up Preds.  

3. Tampa Bay's Scoring Depth

Looking at Tampa Bay's roster at the beginning of the year, I knew they were going to be a VERY good team.  They have a ton of talent up front and their third and forth lines are in the top 5 in the NHL.  Not only has Tampa Bay filled those hefty expectations, they've blown them out of the water. Johson, Kucherov, Palat, Killorn and Drouin are all playing way above their years, especially Drouin who has only been playing in the NHL for a few months now.  Um...Stamkos who? 

4. New York Islanders' Front Office 

I'm so used to the Islanders being at the bottom of the standings that always write them off at the beginning of the season just out of principal.  I may have jumped the gun here as the Islanders made a lot of really, really good moves this offseason.  Pilfering Johnny Boychuk from the Bruins is looking like the steal of the century and has helped stabilize a pretty now solid blue line and Jaroslav Halak is once again proving he can win in any place except the playoffs.  Look for these newly refurbished Islanders to make a splash in the Eastern conference this season, especially since they reside in the epic crap storm that is the Metro Division. 

6.Ryan Miller 

There was a lot of speculation coming into the season as to whether or not a fire sale was coming in Vancouver.  They're getting older and in a very competitive Western Conference, it appeared that another postless season was incoming.  Enter Ryan Miller, who, for some reason after his failure in St. Louis, was no longer considered a top tier goaltender at the beginning of the season.  Miller has helped stabilize what was a rather shoddy goaltending duo of  Lack / Markstrom last year and has provided a new source of veteran leadership in the locker room.  The Canucks hot start is not all credited to him but his impact on this team cannot be overlooked. 

7. Mark Giordano
Don't let the Flames early season success fool you, this team still is not very good.  That being said, their early season success can be attributed a lot to captain Mark Giordano who is putting together a Norris Trophy campaign up to this point and providing a great role model for a Flames team which is made up of mostly rookies.  This team will in all likely hood will not make the playoffs but that doesn't make what Giordano has done and what he could do this season any less special.

The Bad

1.  The Flyers Front Office
For the past few seasons, I've seen the Flyers trade away all their skilled players for what amounts to a steaming pile of crap.  Richards, JVR, Bobrovsky, Carter - the list goes on and on.  I knew this kind of season was coming for the Flyers, it was just a matter of time the culmination of all these horrible trades came to fruition - and here it is.  I can't even begin to describe how much I have hated the moves this front office has made the past few seasons.  Steve Mason is not a staring goaltender, no matter how well he played last season.  Vinny Lecavalier is a shell of the player he once was.  Andrew McDonald is a third pairing defenseman and is being payed like a top tier one.  Both Schenn brothers are vastly overrated.  RJ Umberger is not even close to as good a player as Scott Hartnell is - I don't care how much cap you saved trading him away.  The list goes on and on.  This team has so many holes, so many flaws that I don't think they're going to be really competitive again for a long time - even with top world talent like Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek. It's gong to be a rough year in Philly...and I don't really see it getting any better any time soon.


2. Colorado's Regression
Last season, a young, talented Avalanche squad surprised a lot of people (myself included) by taking the top spot in the Central Division - before swiftly falling in the playoff to the Minnesota Wild. The team showed a lot of promise considering how young they are and with a little bit more veteran leadership they could be a really great time.  Then the offseason hit, and they lost one of their best centermen in the form of Paul Stasney - and then replaced him with a rapidly aging Jarome Iginla.  That's where their problems began.  The Avalanche quickly showed at the beginning of the season that it is in fact no longer 2013.  They limped out of the gate, showing incredible regression in all aspects of the game.  They can't score even close to as much as they did last season - and their defense is no where near good enough to make up for it.  Semyon Varlamov hasn't played badly, just not up to where he was last season - and no where near well enough to make up for the rest of the team's slack.  Colorado can be a good team, the pieces are there - but in a insanely competitive Western Conference it's very unlikely that they'll be able to rebound from this putrid spot they've found themselves in.  Hey, there's always next year.

3. Boston's Offensive Woes 
The Bruins are built around is defense - specifically Zedno Chara.  Chara is getting older, and with his former fellow blue liner Johnny Boychuk shipped of to New York he is being looked upon to provide even more than he did in the past.  You can only ask so much from a guy who's pushing 40.  There's been noticeable regression in the defensive side of the game because of it - and it's brought to light just how offensively impotent this team really is. Their top line of Krejci, Eriksson and Lucic just does not have enough firepower to be effective night in and night out, especially since how bad Eriksson has been since he got to Boston. This team is still very good, especially on the back end and in net but they may need shake things up on the offensive front if they hope to make it back into the postseason race.

4. Dallas's Defense 
Before the season began, I had the Dallas Stars listed as one of my dark horses in the Western Conference.  They had a solid showing in the playoffs last season despite being eliminated in the first round and had plenty of room for improvement in the offseason - something that GM Jim Nill took very seriously.  Trading for Jason Spezza and signing Ales Hemsky early on proved that Nill was serious at taking a shot this season. One thing Nill forgot to address is the gaping hole in defense after Alex Goligoski.  I mean it's really really bad.  Despite how good their offense is, what with two of the best players in the league in Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin - their defense is that much worse.  The only way the Stars win is if they put up 7 goals a night.  And even then it's a struggle to keep the puck out of the net (especially of Lindback is in net). Unless a move is made, and made soon, Dallas will sadly miss the playoffs despite having one of the moss successful offseasons in the NHL.

5. The Injury Ridden Blue Jackets 
When a young Blue Jackets squad pushed the big, bad Penguins to their limit last postseason, a lot of people thought it was the beginning of something in Columbus.  With a lot of their team returning, Columbus was poised to make a run in one of the top 3 spots in a very weak Metro Division, as opposed to sneaking in as a wild card as the did the previous year.  Then, the shit hit the fan.  I believe at the worst of it as many as 12 regulars were out of the lineup, many of which were top line players.  Only time will tell of the Jackets can recover from this absurd brash of injuries (they're in the right division to do it), but they better hope that some of their terrible luck turns around and they start getting some of their key players back soon.

The Ugly 

1. The Oiler Crapstorm
You know, I could go on and on about just how poor this team is run.  But if you follow hockey at all you know that.  The Oilers are just, terrible.  There's no way else to put it.  Just prepare yourselves everyone for the impending fire-sale, because it has the chance to be a legendary one.

2. Staaled in Carolina
I said it when the Hurricanes signed Jordan Staal and I'll say it again, YOU CANNOT BUILD AN ENTIRE TEAM AROUND THE STAAL BROTHERS.  Yet the people Hurricanes still try, year in and year out and the results are about what you'd expect.  This team, much like the Oilers, are very very bad and there's really no hope in sight. Ya, it's going to be a rough season.

3. Buffalo and the Race for McDavid
Buffalo is not a good team, we all knew this at the beginning of the year.  A lot of that though is by design, as the Sabers, presumably, planned on tanking this season in order to get first dibs on future NHL franchise savior Connor McDavid (aka. the next Sidney Crosby).  One thing they did not expect is that they'd have so much competition in the form of the Hurricanes and Oilers.  Listen Buffalo, if you're going to tank, tank.  Stop winning.  McDavid is worth tanking for as this team desperately needs a player of his caliber.  So get to losing.