Let’s talk about hockey, because other sports make me sad. Who’s up for some rankings?

But first, I wanted to touch on something Pierre brought up a few days ago when he quoted a GM: “This is the most competitive balance I’ve ever seen in our league.”

For the uninitiated, “competitive balance” is the term the league seems to prefer to “parity” for reasons I’m not quite clear on. When they talk about it, it’s always as a good thing. I’m not so sure, and made the case almost a decade ago that there’s such a thing as too much competitive balance. But for today’s purposes, we don’t have to pick a side. You can stay neutral on the parity question and still acknowledge … man, there is a ton of it right now.

Specifically, there’s a ton of it out east. The Western Conference features a spread of great teams, mediocre ones and a few that are just awful. One month isn’t a long time, but it’s enough to get some separation, and we see it in one conference. Just not the other.

How mediocre competitively balanced is the East right now? Let’s grab some quick stats.

Bonus five: Signs of (maybe too much) parity in the East

5. Everyone is .500 or better – Yep, all 16 teams. A bunch of them have lost more than they’ve won, of course, but this is the NHL and that doesn’t have to matter. Not one team is below the mediocrity mark, compared to six teams in the West.

4. They’re the league’s mushy middle – Of the league’s top five and bottom five teams (in terms of the standings, not the vastly more meaningful rankings below) based on points percentage, only two are Eastern Conference teams. (The Devils and Habs, tied for first with the Jets.)

3. Last year’s top teams are struggling – There were six teams in the East last year who managed at least 97 points. So far this season, only one of those – the Hurricanes – has more wins than losses. The rest – Senators, Capitals, Panthers, Leafs and even the red-hot Lightning – have all won half of their games or fewer. In other words, this thing is up for grabs.

2. Goals differential isn’t much better – There’s one team in the conference showing double digits on either side of the goals differential column. And it’s probably one of the last you’d expect: the Penguins, at +10. Everyone else is single digits in either the black or the red. In the West, seven teams are already into double digits.

1. (Almost) everyone is one point away from a playoff spot – The cutoff sits at 14 points, with several teams clogged together. The bottom six teams in the conference are all tied at 13. Hopeless, really.

I don’t know about you, but that’s too much parity for me. Let’s move on to the rankings, where we’ll focus on the teams that are actually really good or really bad. And also the Leafs. We’ll get there.

Road to the Cup

The five teams with the best chances of winning the Stanley Cup.

I’m not a big X’s and O’s guy but this feels less than ideal by Drake Batherson.

5. Carolina Hurricanes (7-4-0, +8 true goals differential*) – It’s mostly status quo in the top five this week, despite strong pushes from teams like Utah and Montreal, and maybe even Detroit and Pittsburgh.

As far as Carolina goes, the power play has now dipped below 10 percent, with just three goals to show for 32 chances on the year. The good news is that Seth Jarvis was back in the lineup in Boston after what looked like a serious injury on Thursday.

4. Vegas Golden Knights (6-2-3, +8) – Uh oh, the Oilers caught them, sort of. (The Knights still have the tie-breaker thanks to games in hand.) It’s been a weird stretch that saw them play five straight against preseason favorites. They lost to the Avs, Panthers and Lightning, but beat the Hurricanes twice. In case you’re wondering, they don’t cross paths with the Oilers for the first time until right before the holiday freeze.

3. New Jersey Devils (9-4-0, +6) – Let’s focus on the positive, which is to say not mention last night in Anaheim. It looks like the Devils may have done something on the Jacob Markstrom extension that more teams should probably be open to, especially for goalies: go a little high on the AAV to keep the term down. At 35, there’s always risk, especially for a guy who’s off to a so-so start and has already missed time with injury. But only going two years mitigates that, and is smarter than tacking on years to get the hit down further.

2. Colorado Avalanche (7-1-5, +14) – OK, I’m just going to say it: They need to cut it out with the loser points. Those are supposed to only be for the bad teams. OK, it never works out that way, but still. The other problem is that it’s confusing. Should I be impressed that they only have one regulation loss in 13 games, or shrug at a team that’s only won one more game than they’ve lost? What a weird league.

1. Winnipeg Jets (9-3-0, +15) – Hell yeah, no loser points. That’s how you earn the top spot.

Also, one of my low-level takes is that more goalies should throw their sticks to prevent easy empty-net goals. Sadly, it doesn’t work as well when a wizard like Kyle Connor gets the penalty shot.

THIS SEQUENCE IS WILD 😱

Arturs Silovs loses the puck to Kyle Connor and throws his stick to stop the empty-net attempt. The refs call a penalty shot and Connor takes care of the rest. pic.twitter.com/TEJtrSXgE0

— TSN (@TSN_Sports) November 1, 2025

*Goals differential without counting shootout decisions like the NHL does for some reason.

Not ranked: Toronto Maple Leafs – As uneven as they’ve been, the fact still shocked me when I saw it: When the calendar flipped to November, the Toronto Maple Leafs were dead last in the Eastern Conference.

That came with plenty of qualifiers – they were ahead of the Bruins on points percentage, they were actually tied with three other teams for that last place spot and only fell because of the regulation wins tie-breaker, they were still just one point out of a wild-card spot so everyone settle down, etc. And of course, they did win on Saturday, so it’s already old news. Add in those two points, and they’ve now moved all the way up to… third-last, ahead of the Sabres and Flyers on the tie-breaker.

For a team that’s theoretically supposed to be a contender, that sounds bad.

We’re not here to trash anyone, so let’s start with the positives: Their timing is immaculate. Nobody in Toronto has been obsessing about hockey for weeks now, so this is as close as the Leafs will ever come to being able to lurk in the background. They’re not flying under the radar, because they’re the Leafs. But for once, they’re not the entire radar either.

Until right about now, which is where the bad news starts. And there’s plenty, because these guys look bad. Not awful, let’s be honest. Not “write off the season right now” bad. Not even “no path to the playoffs” mediocre. But also definitely not good. Even when they win, like they did in Philadelphia, they don’t look like they’re clicking.

And of course, Saturday’s win came with some bad news of its own, with Chris Tanev stretchered off after what looks like a head injury. Given that it was his first game back from a previous concussion, it’s safe to assume he may miss some significant time.

So what else has gone wrong? We can start with Auston Matthews, who hasn’t looked like his old self for a season and change now, although he did score on Saturday. The goaltending’s been OK, at least when it’s Anthony Stolarz, but not as good as last year. Secondary scoring has been inconsistent at best and they haven’t found top-six line combinations that work. And for all the talk of finding a Craig Berube-approved identity, there just isn’t one. Or at least not a good one.

Mirtle dug into what’s gone wrong after the loss in Columbus and has the early grades, featuring more bad than good. But in short, this feels a lot like a team that was good but not elite last year, lost one of their best players, and now isn’t getting top-tier goaltending to paper over the problems. Just in time for the league’s largest market to start paying attention to them again.

The bottom five

The five teams headed towards dead last and the best lottery odds for Gavin McKenna.

OK, one last Leafs thing: As mediocre as they’ve looked, they did provide maybe the best highlight of the week, as Stolarz has apparently had just about enough of Trevor Zegras.

lmao pic.twitter.com/XJsKzQgLCl

— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) November 2, 2025

5. Boston Bruins (7-7-0, -3) – I had to have some sort of Eastern representation, so despite three straight wins, the Bruins get the spot on the strength(?) of some truly awful underlying numbers. They did look good on Saturday, though.

4. Chicago Blackhawks (5-4-3, +4) – Losses in three of four keep them in the bottom five for another week, but they’re clearly making solid progress this year. Mark has more on the forging of an identity.

Also: This was sick.

3. Nashville Predators (5-6-2, -11) – Good news guys, you made it into your own SNL sketch. Bad news: it was this one.

2. Calgary Flames (3-9-2, -17) – As we’ve pointed out more than a few times, this is a very old team given their spot in the standings. One bright spot: 19-year-old defenseman Zayne Parekh, the No. 9 pick in the 2024 draft. He was in the lineup last night for the 10th time on the season, which will cost the team a year of his ELC but gives him a chance to keep developing at the NHL level. The other news: Jonathan Huberdeau had both goals in a 2-1 win.

1. San Jose Sharks (4-6-3, -10) – It was cool while it lasted, but we can no longer say that a pair of brothers were each GMs in different leagues. Mike Grier still has his job, but brother Chris is out as Miami Dolphins boss. Meanwhile, the Sharks have beaten the Devils and Avs and took the Wings to a shootout, and are pretty clearly just keeping this spot warm for the Flames.

Not ranked: St. Louis Blues – There’s a good case that they should skip this step altogether and drop straight into the bottom five. We’re trying to do the slow-and-steady thing around here, which often means giving a struggling a team a “Not Ranked” warning shot to get their act together, and we’ll stick with that here. But man, these guys are spiraling.

The losing streak is now at seven, after they went into Columbus on Saturday and lost 3-2 to the suddenly surging Blue Jackets. They’ve only won twice on the road, but that’s twice as often as they’ve won at home, and you know the old line about running out of places to play.

There’s no shortage of problems to dig into, and the goaltending is the obvious place to start. The Blues came into the season with what seemed like a solid situation: a proven veteran, backed up by a well-regarded youngster who could push him. It worked for the last few years. Safe to say it’s not working this year, with Jordan Binnington and Joel Hofer putting up video-game numbers, and not in the good way. The news in net is so bad that it almost wraps itself around to the other side to become a positive, since there’s simply no way it can stay like this all year. So yeah, maybe the Blues are mathematically destined to get better, especially given that the five-on-five numbers are better than you’d expect.

5v5 xGoals For vs. Against – November 2 pic.twitter.com/wkMtIe9gLO

— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) November 2, 2025

You wonder if “better” that would be enough, though. The Blues are already seven points out of a wild-card spot. And with Utah ascending to join the Jets, Avs and Stars as Central powerhouses, there’s no realistic path out of the division for a team like St. Louis.

So now what? The Blues are a fascinating team, with a well-respected GM in his last year on the job before the Alex Steen succession plan kicks in. That might mean Doug Armstrong can’t or won’t do as much as his gut might be telling him to. Or maybe he decides to go out guns blazing. Jeremy doesn’t think he’ll make any moves involving the core, which is struggling badly. A coaching change is off the table with Jim Montgomery not even hitting his one-year anniversary yet. And this team looks so out of sorts on some nights that you wonder if tinkering around the edges would do much of anything.

Meanwhile, the fans are frustrated, to put it mildly. Jeremy’s recent mailbags tell that story. By the middle of last week, the headline was whether the core was “broken.” By the weekend, the situation had become far, far worse, with a string of words that should send chills down the spine of any Blues fan: “Was Dom right after all?” There’s no need to go that far, obviously, but it’s a sign of just how badly the first month has gone.

The news doesn’t get much better, at least in the short term. They’re back at home tonight, where they’ve won just one game out of seven, and they’re facing Connor McDavid and the Oilers. After that it’s on the Washington for the suddenly struggling Capitals. Those are two tough matchups, but this team needs to find a way to bank some points right now.

If they can do that, they start the already-longer-than-you-think journey back playoff relevancy. If not, well, we’ll be writing about them again down in the bottom five section next week. Just not as the “not ranked” pick.