The 2025-26 season is upon us. Most teams have played about and at least five games at this point, giving a first look. Overreactions or over-emphasizing the early games can be a struggle — who could forget the Penguins last year started 3-2-0 before hitting a skid — but for now we only have so much to go on. The standings will never matter less in a season than they do right now, we’ll scan them anyways. Everyone in the division had reason to wake up happy this morning, all eight teams won their last game. Five of the clubs are on at least a two-game winning streak, the top-three teams have all chalked up victories in at least their last four games. Lots of winning early on across the Metropolitan.
Below, a note or potential surprise for each team’s first impression on the 2025-26 season
Carolina: Surprise — uneven star scoring. The Hurricanes have won all five of their games, no huge surprise to see them start off strong. Here’s a head-scratcher, though — Nikolaj Ehlers and Andrei Svechnikov both recorded 0 points in the first five games. Meanwhile, Seth Jarvis has six goals and Sebasitan Aho is over a point per game with seven. The lack of balance between slumping players vs. red hot performers on the same team (and even same line in some cases) is an interesting early season anomaly.
New Jersey: Surprise — injuries strike already. The common caveat attached to the Devils is that they need to stay healthy. That is already proving to give them some problems, starting goalie Jacob Markstrom is out for a “couple of weeks” due to a lower body injury that he picked up. That’s barely phased NJ so far, who have won four out of their five games with some impressive victories against Tampa, Florida and Edmonton already under their belt. All systems go so far even moving forward without their primary goalie.
Washington: Surprise — still good. It seemed like this off-season a lot of model makers and observers looked for reasons or excuses to drop the Capitals down a notch from their first place finish in the division and conference last season. So far so good, Washington has opened the season with a 60% expected goal share and the wins keep rolling in. Washington is getting it done defensively and in the net, the eight goals they’ve conceded so far is by far the best in the division, and even in the NHL as a whole.
Pittsburgh: Surprise —goalies playing well. The Pens endured some dreadful goaltending last year (sitting at 29th in the NHL with a .899 5v5 save%). There were of course underlying defensive reasons that contributed to that poor goaltending, but no matter who Pittsburgh used last year they couldn’t keep the puck out of the net. That’s turned around in the early going (their .922% 5v5 save percentage ranks 10th in the opening days of the season), Arturs Silovs has done pretty well and Tristan Jarry has stabilized, for now at least. It’s debatable how long the uptick will last but the increase in goaltending performance is a big reason the Pens have won four out of their first six games.
New York Rangers: Surprise — no one can score goals. The Rangers are 0 for 3 at home. Not just at winning games, but for even scoring one single goal. Pretty shocking to see a team go ice cold like that, right at the beginning of the season. They look cleaned up in the defensive zone and Igor Shesterkin is back into his typical stellar form, but now they have to figure out how to put the puck in the back of the net. It could be considered a wonder they are even at 3-3-1 at this point of the season, outside of the game that NYR dropped six goals on the Pens, they’ve only scored nine total goals in their other six games.
Philadelphia: Surprise — stars gone cold. Matvei Michkov, who scored 63 points last season as a rookie only has a one point (a goal) in the first five games. Travis Konency, the Philadelphia leading scorer with 76 points last year has zero goals and two assists to start the season. As a result, the Flyers have the least goals scored in the division as of today, though they’re not far from the pack. You’d expect those guys are talented enough to where will get it going sooner than later, however the lack of production has led to only two wins in their first five games.
Columbus: Surprise — goalies have arrived. The Blue Jackets’ biggest question mark coming into the year was in net, and to re-use a note from the Penguins, CBJ’s goaltending has been great in the first five games of the season. Both Jet Greaves and Elvis Merzlikins have overall save percentages north of .920% and they have been very tough to beat at 5v5, allowing only five goals in five games and good for a .960% save percentage there. Despite the quality goaltending, Columbus has endured a pair of one-loss games to Nashville and New Jersey this season to squander some early chances to stack up a few more victories.
New York Islanders: Surprise — Matthew Schaefer is an insta-star. The first overall pick from a few months ago has made a seamless transition into the NHL. That’s no easy task for a defenseman that just celebrated his 18th birthday in early September. Schaefer has recorded one point in all five games, making him the youngest NHL player ever to start his career with a five-game point streak. In two of the games he’s played 26+ minutes. It’s no surprise that a No. 1 overall pick would figure to be very talented, but this start is rightfully turning heads.