NHL Power Rankings: Metro Madness

Hey everyone, we here at Puck Daddy are doing real power rankings for teams Nos. 1-31. Here they are, based on only how I am feeling about these teams, meaning you can’t tell me I’m wrong because these are my feelings and feelings can’t be wrong. Please enjoy the Power Feelings.

31. Ottawa Senators (LW: 27)

Weird week for the seven worst teams in the league, because five of them were at least .500 and three of them won three games.

This is, of course, counterproductive to what they should be trying to do at this time of year, but it leads a lot of very foolish people in the media to say, “They’re playing for pride instead of tanking.” They should be tanking, though! That’s the whole thing with being this bad!

So anyway, congrats to the Senators on their (inadvertently?) doing something right for once.

30. Montreal Canadiens (LW: 25)

29. Buffalo Sabres (Last week: 31)

28. Chicago (LW: 26)

It was very satisfying to see Patrick Kane say how nice it would be for Chicago to play spoiler to the Blues. Moral victories, baby! Too bad for a nice guy like Kane to be on a bad team. You hate to see that sort of thing.

27. Detroit Red Wings (LW: 30)

26. Vancouver Canucks (LW: 29)

I think the most egregious stuff about “They’re playing for pride” I saw in the past week was out of Vancouver, because the Canucks went 3-0 and a few of their younger guys played really well.

Ah, the future is so bright, especially because the Sedins just retired (more on that tomorrow, but I’m sad and relieved simultaneously). Now they have like $25 million to spend this summer, and with this front office? You know it’s going to be spent very very very very very wisely. They’re gonna sign Tyler Bozak for $5.25 million and maybe even trade for Milan Lucic. I love it!

25. Arizona Coyotes (LW: 28)

24. Edmonton Oilers (LW: 21)

Another great thing that’s happening right now is the real looking-around everyone in Edmonton is doing like “Okay how do we fix this?” And you know Peter Chiarelli’s gonna look in the mirror and say to himself, “We gotta get harder to play against.”

23. New York Islanders (LW: 24)

22. New York Rangers (LW: 23)

21. Carolina Hurricanes (LW: 22)

20. Calgary Flames (LW: 20)

Speaking of picking through the rubble in Alberta, I really wonder what kind of solution the Flames cook up this summer, because I don’t see a way out of them fixing their depth problems, especially on defense.

I’ve seen some people float the idea that they might trade some of their useful forwards to get better on the back end and I’m trying to think of an NHL team in that province that absolutely bottled that kind of pursuit in the recent past. Can’t think of one. Sounds like a solid idea then.

19. Florida Panthers (LW: 18)

It’s wild, isn’t it, that going 19-7-2 isn’t good enough to get you into the playoffs if you start 19-22-6.

My theory is that the Panthers, who went 1-2-1 in the last week, just aren’t good in the first place. Crazy, I know, but let’s see how it plays out.

18. Dallas Stars (LW: 19)

What a disaster. This is another team where I really don’t know how you fix it this summer, except to say getting Kari Lehtonen off the books frees up a lot of money you can spend elsewhere. Maybe start with the blue line.

17. Colorado Avalanche (LW: 14)

Erik Johnson and Semyon Varlamov are done for the year. Hey what a coincidence, the Avs are about to be.

16. New Jersey Devils (LW: 17)

Taylor Hall had two goals on Sunday and the Panthers lost on Saturday, so he’s the MVP again.

15. St. Louis Blues (LW: 13)

How hard do you think the Blues guys were laughing about that Patrick Kane stuff? I know I was!

14. Anaheim Ducks (LW: 16)

13. Minnesota Wild (LW: 11)

The Wild finally seem to be cooling off a bit. They went 1-1-1 in the survey period, which is fine I guess, but also lost the game before that. This is still one of the league’s hottest second-half teams and everything, but the fact that they gotta play Winnipeg does not bode well for them.

12. Los Angeles Kings (LW: 15)

The Kings went 2-0-1 and seem to be the hottest team in the Pacific again all of a sudden. Very interesting to see how the next week shakes out.

11. Vegas Golden Knights (LW: 12)

Anyway the Knights won two of their four games in regulation this week. Big improvement for them!

10. Philadelphia Flyers (LW: 10)

Okay after looking at some stuff, I have a lot of time for the “Claude Giroux for MVP” argument. He’s not my guy (Nathan MacKinnon is) but yeah, he can be second for sure.

9. San Jose Sharks (LW: 5)

Ah, oops, they went 1-2-1 last week and Joe Thornton probably won’t be back until late in the first round, at the very earliest. To me, that’s not good!

8. Toronto Maple Leafs (LW: 8)

7. Pittsburgh Penguins (LW: 6)

6. Columbus Blue Jackets (LW: 9)

Hard to wrap your head around how tight the Metro is. The Caps have it locked up at this point, but three points separated second from fifth coming out of the weekend, and that was with the Pens being three up on New Jersey, and two on Philly and Columbus, thanks to an extra game played.

Oh, and there’s a Pittsburgh-Columbus game on Thursday. The race to see who won’t play Boston is a big one!

5. Washington Capitals (LW: 7)

4. Tampa Bay Lightning (LW: 3)

Here’s a freakin’ whopper of a stat for you: Andrei Vasilevskiy’s save percentage in March was .883.

And this is a guy who, in the media lately, has been saying a lot of stuff like “Boy I’m sleepy!” and “I wish I didn’t have to work so much because I’m freakin’ exhausted!” One assumes he was wearing one of those old-timey sleeping caps when he said all that. Maybe carrying a candle in one of those old timey candle holders.

Well don’t worry, Andrei. If you keep playing like this you’re gonna get a nice long vacation in less than a month!

3. Winnipeg Jets (LW: 4)

2. Nashville Predators (LW: 2)

Hmm, I don’t know! These fellows are 3-3-1 in their last seven and one of those wins was in a shootout. Quirk of the schedule, maybe, since that stretch included games against Minnesota twice, Toronto, Winnipeg, San Jose, and Tampa.

But then again they gave up a TD and the extra point to Buffalo, so like I said, I dunno!

1. Boston Bruins (LW: 1)

I think it’s known that I am one of the biggest Brad Marchand stans among the hockey commentariat, but boy oh boy does his dumb ass need to stop cross-checking useless defensemen in the face for no reason.

I love this Bruins team and how fun and good it is. That goal to force OT against the Flyers on Sunday, in the second leg of a back-to-back, really highlights just how impossible they are to put away, even for fairly hot teams like the Flyers. But as I said in WWL yesterday, this team has had enough absences from its top players already. Marchand doesn’t need to be courting more, especially because he scores 30 goals every season like it’s no big deal.

I know DOPS only gave him a max fine but it’s like, “Hey Brad? Cut it out!”

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Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)