
Weekend NHL rankings: Avalanche, Red Wings and way too many teams in crisis
So many teams are in various states of disaster that even a bonus five can't adequately cover the mayhem this week.


It’s mid-December. Do you know what level of crisis your favorite team is in?
Chances are the answer is “pretty darn high.” This is the time of year when we normally see a few teams figuring out that reality isn’t going to match their hopes; that’s just how the season works.
But this? I’m not sure I can remember a season where this many teams felt like full-fledged disasters. I’m not even referring to teams like the Sharks that have bad records like we expected. That’s business as usual for a rebuilding team. I’m talking about the seasons that get many people fired.
How bad is it? Bad enough that we need more than our usual five spots, and we still won’t be able to cover everyone.
Bonus five seven: Mid-December crisis rankings
7. New York Islanders — Despite the optimism of Patrick Roy’s first season, their ceiling seems to involve bouncing around .500 and hoping that’s enough to stay in the East race. The sad thing is, they may be right. But just a few months after finishing dead last in our front-office confidence rankings, the Islanders are barely living up to extremely meager expectations.6. Vancouver Canucks — They’re north of .600 and sitting comfortably in a playoff spot despite just recently getting their starter back, so in the big picture they’re not in bad shape. But then you see stuff like this and you wonder:
5. Pittsburgh Penguins — That four-game win streak offered some hope, but since then they’re back to being a very mediocre team with the second-worst goals differential in the conference. I’m not sure there’s a plan here, although we could suggest “play the Habs as often as possible.”
4. Detroit Red Wings — More on them down below.
3. Nashville Predators — It’s been so bad in Nashville that it already feels like you can just forget about them for the year. Barry Trotz didn’t want to overreact to a slow start, which is fair, but now it seems like their season has already blown past “it’s too early to panic” and right into “it’s way too late.”
2. New York Rangers — It’s just not getting any better, and Arthur (and everyone else) is trying to figure out what comes next.
1. Buffalo Sabres — They’ve lost 10 games in a row and the team is having to clarify club policy on their own fans making fun of them with prop comedy. I feel like back when I wrote this piece is now the good old days.
Honorable mentions: The three(!) teams that have already had to fire their coach and yet somehow still don’t crack our top seven, which is to say Boston, St. Louis and Chicago. That’s a third of the league either in or (maybe) just exiting some level of crisis. Fun league, am I right?
In a stunning turn of events, none of these teams make this week’s top five. Let’s see who did …
Road to the Cup
The five teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.I really enjoyed this list of mock trades for each team, but fair warning: These dumb writers obviously don’t watch your favorite team enough, and don’t realize that all your players are amazing and cool. Skip your team’s entry and read the other 31 and you should be OK.
5. Edmonton Oilers (18-10-2, +13 true goals differential*) — Screw it, they’re back. With five straight wins, which includes outscoring the Wild and Knights by a combined 13-4, I’m putting them back in the top five after a seven-week absence. And it’s just in time for tonight’s Stanley Cup rematch with the Panthers.
4. Washington Capitals (21-6-2, +38) — Attention Caps fans: The Friday rankings guys had them at No. 1 this week. Are they intentionally swapping a new team into the top spot every week in a case of blatant pandering to as many insecure fan bases as possible? I would never say that, don’t put words in my mouth, this press conference is over.
3. Minnesota Wild (20-7-4, +19) — We love an old-school glove save, don’t we folks? And if you want old school, you turn to the oldest player in the league.
2. Florida Panthers (18-11-2, +7) — As you know, we do the long-term-view thing here, so back-to-back shutout losses aren’t going to weigh too heavily on a team that can also boast back-to-back conference championships. But if they can’t score in Edmonton tonight, they’re done for and should rebuild.
1. Vegas Golden Knights (20-8-3, +16) — An impressive win over the Wild was their ninth win in their last 12, and they’re the only division leader with any type of cushion. In a league with about eight contenders all squished near the top of my list, that’s enough to let them enjoy top spot for one week at least.
*Goals differential without counting shootout decisions like the NHL does for some reason.
Not ranked: Colorado Avalanche — They’ve addressed the goaltending. Now what?
By trading for Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood, the Avalanche haven’t just swapped out both opening-night goaltending spots, they’ve done it quicker than any team in history.
That’s a neat piece of trivia, and one that reflects well on Chris MacFarland. NHL GMs are constantly whining about how hard their job is and how even the simplest trades need weeks or months to percolate, but MacFarland took what was an obvious flaw and addressed it quickly.
You’ll notice I’ve written “addressed” twice now, as opposed to something a little more definitive, like “fixed.” Can we be sure that Wedgewood (a career backup) and Blackwood (who seemed to be playing his way right out of the NHL not all that long ago) are the answers? Of course not, because they’re goalies, and you just never know. But at least MacFarland has given himself time to find out and to revisit the situation if he needs to.
Is it enough to get the Avalanche into the playoffs? Sure. They’re pretty much there already, hovering in and out of a wild-card spot for a while now. With all their talent, and the possibility of Gabriel Landeskog returning at some point down the road, I can’t imagine anyone thinks they’re going to miss. Even early on, when they were injured and struggling, nobody really thought they were in danger.
But this is the Colorado Avalanche, and the season was never about making the playoffs. This team is supposed to be one of the top contenders for the Stanley Cup. That’s the bigger question in Colorado, which all gets back to the goaltending. Is a Wedgewood/Blackwood combo good enough to beat, say, the Wild, Stars and Knights on the way to the Final? Jesse thinks it’s possible. I’m not as sold.
So this is where I want to turn it over to the Colorado fans. Now that you’ve had a chance to see your new duo in action for a few games, where are we at? Can the Avs emerge from what is currently the most top-heavy division in the league? Is this .563 team a real Cup contender? Or is this now something else, maybe a transitional year where you hope for some playoff success but don’t necessarily expect it?
The bottom five
The five teams that are headed toward dead last, and the best lottery odds for James Hagens, or maybe someone else.The Senators have won three in a row to move back into the playoff race on the strength of Linus Ullmark heating up, but my favorite Ottawa goaltending highlight of the weekend didn’t come from on the ice. Or even inside the arena.
x.com

5. Anaheim Ducks (11-14-4, -19) — I like the Cam Fowler trade for Anaheim. They get out from under a tough contract while picking up assets instead of dumping them. To do it, they had to eat a healthy chunk of the remaining deal, but that’s only through next year which lines up with their timeline for emerging from this rebuild. Eric has more on the Ducks’ thinking here.
(As far as the Blues go, they’re betting on a change-of-scenery boost, but I’m not sure they’ll get it. The price wasn’t prohibitive, but even the opportunity cost of passing on other options probably makes this one a miss unless Fowler can really elevate his game.)
4. San Jose Sharks (11-17-5, -23) — Yeah yeah, Macklin Celebrini is great and they traded their goalie and blah blah blah. Far more importantly, the holiday song is back!
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3. Nashville Predators (8-17-6, -28) — Let’s find something positive to mention: Justus Annunen has looked good in his two games since coming over from Colorado, including stopping 35 of 36 in an upset win in Dallas. If he keeps this up, the Predators may have found their guy for the seven games Juuse Saros doesn’t play every year.
2. Montreal Canadiens (11-16-3, -31) — That third period against the Penguins was one for the ages, and not in the good way. The effort was better in Winnipeg on Saturday, even as the result didn’t change; they have just one regulation win in their last 11.
1. Chicago Blackhawks (10-19-2, -22) — OK, false alarm, it’s possible Connor Bedard might still be good after all.
Not ranked: Detroit Red Wings — Do they have palm trees in Detroit?
Last week, we talked about the crumbling Sabres, a team spiraling so badly their fans were waving inflatable palm trees around and chanting for the GM to be fired. It didn’t help, because the Sabres are still a mess, but it probably made other teams feel better about themselves. That includes the Red Wings, who snapped a five-game losing streak with a win over those Sabres. OK, fine, it was a shootout win, which basically means a tie and a coin flip, but two points is two points.
And the Wings need those points, badly, because their season is collapsing before we even get to the halfway mark. That would be a disaster given expectations heading into this season after last year’s 91-point effort fell just short of a playoff spot. There were reasons to doubt the Wings could match that total this year, and apart from optimistic Detroit fans, the consensus was they’d take a step back. But few of us saw them being this bad.
Thirty games in, this team can’t manage much of anything at five-on-five, the penalty kill is terrible and they’re largely a one-line team. Cam Talbot had been solid in goal, but he’s hurt. Veterans like Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko aren’t scoring. And while the younger players are producing, their success hasn’t moved the needle much because there just isn’t enough blue-chip talent coming into the system.
It all leads back to Steve Yzerman and his rebuilding plan, which has somehow been both too aggressive (when it comes to UFA spending on veteran depth) and too patient (when it comes to shaking up a core that just isn’t good enough). I’ll be honest, I’m hesitant to write about the Red Wings much these days, because it feels like we’ve all been recycling the same basic takes for years now. The ceiling isn’t high enough, they don’t have an elite player to build around and the reinforcements Yzerman keeps bringing in are too old, too expensive or both. Then Red Wings fans ask what he should have done instead, and everyone just kind of mumbles about lottery luck.
That’s why this week’s matchup with the Sabres felt meaningful, and not just because it meant one of these two teams would have to snap a losing streak. With the Senators showing signs of life, the Wings and Sabres are basically tied at the hip as the two Atlantic pretenders stuck in neutral, entering the weekend with identical records. When Harman and Murat put together their panic rankings, the Sabres were at 9.5 out of 10, with only one team ranked even worse. I bet you can guess which one.
So it was bad. But then you get a game like Saturday night, when the plan comes together and the Wings beat a good Toronto team. Ville Husso is sharp, they get a big goal from Moritz Seider, and even one of those maligned veterans pays off as Jeff Petry scores. The Wings look like a playoff team again. Right up until the next game rolls around, and they don’t.
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So maybe that buys them a few days of feeling better than Buffalo, where the fans are begging for the GM to be fired. But I can’t help but wonder how far behind Wings fans might be. As hard as I try, I just can’t imagine a “Fire Stevie” chant ringing out in Detroit … right? Derek Lalonde seems like a more logical target for fan wrath, but then we circle back to Yzerman’s patience — remember that Jeff Blashill got seven full seasons despite winning just a single playoff game back in Year 1 and finishing under .500 every year after. Is Yzerman going to move on from Lalonde before he’s even had 200 games? You wonder just how bad this can get.
Red Wings fans, two questions for you: Do you still believe in Steve Yzerman? And is there any chance he’s not the GM this time next year?