If there is one thing that the 2017-18 National Hockey League (NHL) season will forever be remembered for, it’s going to be the addition of Las Vegas Golden Knights. The rumors were running wild for years, the expansion draft created an off-season like no one other and finally Las Vegas got their first professional major sports team.
Former Capitals GM George McPhee was quite possibly the busiest man of the summer, spearheading the mission to lift this organisation to existence from the Nevada desert. Once all the talk and trading was done and the puck dropped, few expected the Golden Knights to be as competitive as they have been.
With James Neal leading the way, a team which was seen somewhat as a group of renegades has surprised many people with their performances. Their record at the time of writing (20 October) is 5-1-0 and they are the first expansion team to do this well after six games since…you guessed it, Montreal Canadiens in 1917-18. That’s right, literally a century has passed since this feat, so it can be considered as rather special.
Their success has been helped immensely by their two superstars, James Neal and Marc-Andre Fleury performing as superstars should. With Fleury now injured, the rookie Malcolm Subban has started and won both his starts. Golden Knights have also concluded the Shipachyov -saga as happily as possible and as a result, the KHL superstar scored his first NHL goal in his first NHL game.
Another team which has been the talk of the league after the first games has been New Jersey Devils. They finished last in the Eastern Conference in points, goals scored, goals per game, shots on goal and second to last in goals against as well as penalty kill. As a result, they won the Draft lottery and used their pick to select the Nico Hischier as the first ever Swiss #1 pick.
He is yet to score but him, the Hobey Baker winner Will Butcher and the Swedish teenager Jesper Bratt have been impressive. Butcher is the top scorer of the team (as a defender!) with nine assists, Bratt has six points (3+3) and Hischier has four (0+4). Devils are second in the league in goals per game, only second to Toronto Maple Leafs at the time of writing (20 October), but the betting market is reacting to their early success cautiously.
Not many significant statements can be made prior to the 20 game mark and rightfully so. Hence It doesn’t come as a surprise that major betting sites such as BetWay still consider Pittsburgh as the favorites for the cup (and the three-peat) with 8/1 odds as of 23rd October. With the Metropolitan Division and Eastern Conference being as stacked as it is, they’ll have their hands full with Washington, Tampa Bay, Columbus and of course Toronto.
Alongside the two standout teams, the start of the season has been the highest scoring in a while. On 18 October, the average number of goals per game was 6.11, compared to 5.53 of last season, an increase from 5.42 goals per game of the 2015-16 season. The fans are surely far more excited of this progression than coaches, and the reasons for it are several. One of the suggested reasons is a better conversion of broken plays in the offensive zone. One of them is Alexander Ovechkin scoring two hat tricks in the first two games.
Another reason is undoubtedly the surge of young, faster than ever, more dynamic than ever offensive players such as McDavid, Matthews, Nylander and Laine, resulting in higher scoring. Looking further in to the statistics, three of the top four teams in shots on goal have a win percentage of .400 or lower, meaning they have just not had great puck luck. This is a trend unlikely to continue, so keep an eye on Montreal and Florida, teams who are elite puck possession teams.
As Mike Babcock has lifted Maple Leafs from disappointment to a serious Cup Contender and if teams such as Columbus, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Dallas and Edmonton continue to perform, the upcoming season is near impossible to predict. Penguins are as strong as ever, but are Sidney Crosby’s troops strong enough to fend off the full assault for the third straight year?
Even if it’s too early to make predictions, one thing is for sure. It’ll be one of the most exciting seasons in a while.