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Welcome back to the NHL, here’s what you missed

By Steve Paulus

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 12: Fans celebrate a first-period goal by Kaapo Kakko #24 of the New York Rangers, the first of his NHL career, during a game against the Edmonton Oilers at Madison Square Garden on October 12, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 12: Fans celebrate a first-period goal by Kaapo Kakko #24 of the New York Rangers, the first of his NHL career, during a game against the Edmonton Oilers at Madison Square Garden on October 12, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images) /
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NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 03: (L-R) Artemi Panarin #10, Jacob Trouba #8, Brady Skjei #76, Pavel Buchnevich #89 and Mika Zibanejad #93 of the New York Rangers look on during the singing of the national anthems prior to the game against the Winnipeg Jets at Madison Square Garden on October 3, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 03: (L-R) Artemi Panarin #10, Jacob Trouba #8, Brady Skjei #76, Pavel Buchnevich #89 and Mika Zibanejad #93 of the New York Rangers look on during the singing of the national anthems prior to the game against the Winnipeg Jets at Madison Square Garden on October 3, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images) /

At long last, the New York Rangers will really begin their 2019-20 season.  While the Blueshirts were mostly off practicing, a lot happened in the two weeks since the season started. Here are some observations.

The three games played by the New York Rangers have  been analyzed endlessly.  There’s only so much you can say about three games and the discussions about the  lack of secondary scoring and defense pairings have become totally repetitive.  However, a lot has happened around the NHL and there are some things worth talking about.

The Devils are a horrorshow.

Wednesday, the Devils announced that Assistant General Manager

Tom Fitzgerald

will be going behind the bench as an assistant coach to John Hynes. The team explained that this was done at the request of Hynes which is pretty bizarre. The Devils are yet to win in six games.  They have scored all of two goals in their three  losses and they have blown some big leads including a 4-1 lead to Florida on Tuesday.  It makes their game against the Rangers all the more interesting and important.

Full Devils season preview. light. Related Story

  • The best so far – The elite of the East look to be the 5-1-1 Buffalo Sabres, the 5-1 Boston Bruins and the 6-2 Carolina Hurricanes.  The best in the West are the 6-1 Edmonton Oilers and the 5-0-1 Colorado Avalanche.
  • Undefeated – The Avalanche was the last team to be undefeated this season, sporting a 5-0 record, but lost in overtime to the Penguins on Wednesday.
  • Winless – The Devils remain the only team without a win this season with a record of 0-4-2.  There are a number of teams with only one win on the season including Ottawa, Dallas, Chicago and Minnesota.
  • What’s changed?  –  If the season ended today, four teams that missed the playoffs last season would be in.  Buffalo and Detroit in the East and Edmonton and Anaheim in the West are off to excellent starts and would qualify with  Columbus, the Islanders, Dallas and San Jose on the outside looking in.  Of course, the schedule is totally unbalanced and the sample size is ridiculously small.
  • Some players don’t need a preseason.  Here are the players who signed late in or after training camp ended and what they have done:
  • That wacky schedule – When the Rangers take the ice against the Devils, they will have played the fewest number of games of any team in the NHL.  Even Philadelphia with five and Chicago with four have played more games and they flew over 4,000 miles to Prague to play one of their games.  The next fewest are Vancouver, Arizona and Ottawa with five games played.
  • Advanced stats could be wrong!  Greg Wyshynski of ESPN is reporting that the NHL is looking at how they collect the data that the analytics community uses for their analyses. It’s apparently how shots are measured in terms of distance from the crease.  A change in  how they do that will affect analytics on high dangers shots, saves and expected goals.
  • Ex-Rangers excelling – J.T. Miller is leading the Vancouver Canucks in scoring.  Neal Pionk is playing over 23 minutes a game for Winnipeg and has two goals and five points in eight games .  Vlad Namestnikov has turned into Wayne Gretzky with the Senators. He has two goals and two assists in three games with Ottawa. That’s as many goals and points  he had in 19 games when he was traded to the Rangers in 2018.  Kevin Shattenkirk has three goals and an assist in six games with Tampa.  A reminder that he had two goals in 73 games in New York last season.
  • Ex-Rangers not so good – Kevin Hayes has one point (a goal) in five games for the Flyers and is minus one.  Mats Zuccarello is minus six in four games with the Minnesota Wild and is now out indefinitely with a lower body injury. Jimmy Vesey has yet to get a point with the Buffalo Sabres after seven games.
  • The Capitals have a goalie controversy – Braden Holtby has been awful with a 4.27 GAA and a .846 save percentage.  Rookie Ilya Samsonov has a 1.43 GAA and .944 save percentage.  The Caps are still starting Holtby first…but for how long.
  • From across the pond – The Philadelphia Flyers signed a player who skated in England last season. After 10 years in the NHL, Chris Stewart took his game to the U.K. where he played for the Nottingham Panthers.  He had six goals and 13 points in 23 games, not exactly a barn burner of a season.  He got a Professional Tryout with the Flyers and lo and behold, he made the team.  This one has Alain Vigneault‘s fingerprints all over it as Stewart is a tough player who has twice exceeded 100 penalty minutes in the NHL. It’s just a little strange.
  • The injury bug – Some pretty prominent names are on the Injured Reserve list and look to be for at least a few more weeks.  They include Evgeni Malkin, Brandon Dubinsky, Kevin Miller, Michal Kempny, Alex Galchenyuk, Brian Rust,  Nick Bjugstad, Conor Sheary and Zach Bogosian.
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