The Hockey PDOcast - The Watchability Rankings for the 2025–2026 NHL Season

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Thomas Drance to put together their Watchability Rankings for the 2025-2026 NHL season, counting down from 32 to 1 with notes on each team and why they wound up where they did on this year's list. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich and joining me here in studio on a lovely Sunday, my good buddy Thomas Trans. Tom, what's going on, man? I'm excited. It was a great week of hockey. It was a great Sunday hockey. That Devil's Avalanche game was a thriller, like a really remarkable piece of competition between those two teams. Just fantastic. So yeah, no, I'm fired up. And this is one of my favorite shows of the year. I've been watching a lot more hockey over the course of this week, and I've found a lot of it thrilling. So this was actually, I found pretty difficult to do. A lot of the teams, you know, in the middle, even toward like the 20th sort of overall range in

our watchability rankings are still teams that I'm pretty excited to watch day to day. So state of the league is in a pretty good place, it seems. It's finally time we do it today, as you're alluding to their unveiling our watchability rankings for the 25, 26, Chelsea season. It's a special edition of the Sunday special. It's a nice wrinkle for us this year as well, right? Because we're getting to do it a couple weeks into the year versus our normal tradition of doing it in the preseason. So I think we actually have the benefit of a couple, or at least a handful of viewings for each team to work with. This is an annual tradition for us. And I think it's also a perfect opportunity to do it this week to really just get in our bag,

because as you said, no one watches more hockey than us. And the timing is immaculate with this upcoming Tuesday. We're getting the frozen friends. as well, right, with all 32 teams in action on the same night. So hopefully this can serve as a bit of a template or a guide for people trying to keep up with all the craziness that night, figure out what they should prioritize tuning into. Let's quickly run through our methodology just so people know because obviously this isn't necessarily correlated at all with the standings or how good teams are. I've got a couple points here and then maybe you can add to it or expand on on what your

rationale was or methodology was. I value entertainment value. A lot of that is playing style. and pace and high event hockey, which is just more viewer-friendly. Guys, you got to watch if there's an individual or two on these teams that you really are appointment viewing. Team intricacies, something special they do that sets them apart.

Now, this is a deep-cut one, but broadcast aesthetics. When you're watching as much hockey as we are, you really get in touch with the commentary teams, the uniforms, how the games sort of translate to the screen experience in terms of either just the crowd noise, the lighting, the camera angles. There's all sorts of unique stuff for each of these broadcasts. And then I think I'm adding a new one. I was listening to the Zach Lowe Show, and they do a watchability ranking for the NBA

before the season. And he was talking about kind of this concept of the zeitgeist, right? Like a relevance to the larger conversation in the NHL. Does it ultimately matter? Do you need to be just keeping up with these teams to be part, like in the loop and know what's going on and what matters in the NHL. Now, this is usually a two-parter for us, and so we're going to try to squeeze in as much as we can over the next hour is going to be a challenge for us, certainly with how long we go on some of this stuff. So maybe we won't really get into the

nitty-gritty of every single team, but we're definitely going to go from 32 to 1 and count it down. What we did is we each submitted a list. Yeah. We did the aggregate score. We can talk about where our discrepancies lie once we get to the sort of the big differentiators. We were both in full agreement, though. The 32 is the Calgary Flames. Yeah, and I don't even, we can go through this one pretty quick. Calgary Flames struggle immensely to score. There are things to enjoy night to night, but things like, you know, even Perak, for example, hasn't exactly come out of the gates firing Matthew Schaefer style, right?

I mean, he looks like sort of a high event third pair defenseman. Connor Zeri and Matthew Coronado do some really cool stuff. They've got guys like Klapka that are niche favorites for both of us. So there's things to watch there But it honestly just feels like you're watching someone Try to get ketchup out of a glass bottle at the diner And sort of struggle to do so all game I love Klavka so much

There was a couple instances in particular recently One was they were playing in Utah And our guy Jack McBain has to drop the gloves with them So good And he drops them and they're circling each other And it's this big sort of lead up to it And you can see in McVeyn's face He finally is realizing the task ahead of him

Just looking at the size of this lad And then he scored a goal at home recently he did the Ovechkin jump into the boards to celebrate and I thought he was going to shatter the glass slash jump over it because of just how immensely tall he is. This team scored 15 goals in nine games. Like they were 29th last year and they've gotten

so much worse at that. They've cut down, I believe they wore the blasty third jersey 12 times last year. I think they're cutting it down to just six times the state of that building as well for their home games. There was a game against Montreal the other day where they couldn't get the lights to work and so they just started playing like in the dark essentially and I was like all right, what's going on here? And then there's the like

likelihood of them being sellers, right? Rasmus Anderson is an impending UFA. He's going to be 29. Nassam Khadry, it sounds like they're going to want to keep him until he hits that thousand game mark, six games away. But after that, he's going to become a hot commodity because he scored 35 goals last year and centers like that are just hard to come by. And it pains me because this team was feisty last year, right? Like no one outkicked their coverage more than them. They were really fun to watch. They were never out of games. And yet this year, there's just, there's just no offensive juice. And they might get feisty again down the stretch, one of those like pressures off teams, but they're in an early season like pressure,

spiral, which adds to sort of that joylessness, right? Like, you can tell they're wearing it right now, which, which makes it harder to watch in some ways as well. We also had the National Predators, 31 on both of our lists, much more competitive than they were last year, seemingly more organized. I think there's stuff to get excited about there. But ultimately, when you look at my zeitgeist point, like, when you look at the construction of the roster in terms of where they're headed, what it's ultimately going to amount to,

what the plan is, doesn't matter. There's just not that much there, unfortunately. at least someone's got to be at the bottom of these lists. And so I've certainly enjoyed watching them more than I did last year, where they were a really tough watch. But Romayosi's out week to week now as well. There's just not that much there to get excited about. I do love the broadcast, though.

I love the broadcast. They've got, again, some of my niche favorites, guys like Evangelista and Spencer Stasney and Adam Wilsby. There's things that I like about the Predators. I also watched Adam, sorry, Matthew Wood, Nanaimo's Matthew would make his NHL debut against the Canucks. And I think he's got a shot to be just like a favorite as one of those six foot, you know, five sort of freakazoids with an intense offensive skill and puck skill, right? I mean, his fit is fun and will make me tune in here and there.

But yeah, bottom of the list, I don't think it's all that difficult to explain or understand why. We also had the Boston Bruins at 30 on both of our list. And I'm going to say this, I feel like when you tune in on sports and now to Bruins broadcasts, I don't know what's going on, but it's so dimly lit that every time I'm like trying to like, turn up the brightness setting on my laptop and I'm like, oh, it's already maxed out. This is just, I guess, what the viewer experience is going to be. So I find that to be a nightmare. They've played some really fun games so far. Pasturnak is absolutely phenomenal. Mason Lora is an absolute chaos agent where you look at the micro stats and he does everything, yet you look at the actual results and you're like, it has amounted to nothing. I know he had a bunch of assists in a game over the weekend,

but so many mistakes. I mean, there's, I think there's massive room here for this team completely bottoming him out as the year goes along and trying to sell off parts as well as they kind of engage in this retool or rebuild or whatever that it initiated last year. There's certainly a lot of talent on this team, but you look at the depth chart and all the moves they made in the offseason as well, and it's a lot of guys. And unfortunately, I'm not, I'm not framing that as our guys. Just guys. A lot of guys. Yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of players that are fun to watch that I enjoy, but, you know, I think we all know where this is going. And so it does feel like, eating your greens, you know, they're the salad part of the plate. They're what I'm coming to

last for the most part. The Chicago Blackhawks, 29. I was very curious to see where they come in on our list. I had them 28th. You had them 27. Obviously, I've gotten on to a much more encouraging star. We've noted the vibe shift from the last year, obviously what you're seeing from some of the young defensemen and the upside of that. Also, Frankie Nazar, certainly Connor Bedard looks just so much stronger and more involved without the puck. And I think he's been stacking to together some promising games here. Spencer Knight has been phenomenal. They're winning games, but I do wonder part of that vibe shift might just be the fact

that their PDO right now is just absolutely off the charts. They're getting not only high in finishing, but also that remarkable goaltending, I noted, and that's probably not going to continue with what their underlying metrics look like. And so it could get ugly pretty quickly. But at the start of the year, I probably would have had this team 32, I think, just because last year was such a grind. getting through their games, and so I think this speaks to the fact that things are on the way up. Absolutely.

And, you know, things like Ilya having his burst back makes them more fun. Obviously, Frankie Nazar being just kind of a dog very early in his career makes them a lot more fun. The fact that it doesn't feel joyless around them makes it more fun to watch Connor Bardard. You know, I think Jeff Blaschell deserves a real tip of the cap. They feel like a professional operation. There's much more professionalism for sure. in a way they didn't last season. And, you know, that makes for a much easier viewing.

And then you add guys like Wyatt Kaiser. Wyatt Kaiser, I think, quickly becoming a favorite of mind. You've been texting me nonstop about him. You're like, I'm already constructing my R guys list for next year, and he's going to be on it. I'm pretty in. I'm pretty in. I mean, they have a lot of young D to choose from, but I touch after touch, read after read, like he just does good stuff every shift.

I think he's in that Will Borgantier. He's going to be perpetually underrated. until someone trades way too much for them. Now, this is where it gets interesting. 28 on our list, the Vancouver Canucks. I had them all the way down at 29. You with your local homerism covering this team. The homerism I'm famous for.

Yes. Glass half full approach with this team, certainly in the organization as a whole. You had them 24th. So this is the first of a series of teams that we're going to bump into where I fundamentally bump into a floor of how low I can rank a team

because they have one guy or two guys. that I just think matter in terms of like this moment in the league and the history of the league, guys whose stories you want to understand if you're going to understand this era of hockey and like fundamentally I couldn't rank Quinn Hughes's team lower than 24

he's just too good to watch. That said, this hasn't been Apex Quinn Hughes to open the season for whatever reason and I think on merit this team deserves to be closer to where you're ranking them. They don't look structured at all. I don't have

any sense of what they're trying to do on a game to game basis, aside from attack off the rush a little bit, which they, you know, in fits and spurts, we saw it against Dallas, we saw it against Washington, we saw it in the first period against the HABs, can look good, but it's not consistent. They're surrendering a lot of chances. I don't know what they're supposed to be, and it's not a lot of fun watching them not supposed to be that. Yeah, I don't know what the plan is. And also, if the new coaching staff has a good grasp of of the personnel they have. And the reason I see that is you just look at the usage.

I was speaking about this with Harmon on Friday, how they're divvying up the forward minutes at 5-1-5. And it's a VanderCain leading the way. And then you get into Brock Besser. And then all of a sudden, we could have a full podcast talking about Elias Pedersen and his usage and his 5-15 shot generation at this point. Then all the way down to Connor Garland.

And like the highs are you watch that game in Dallas with the comeback. And Connor Garland had like six or seven glorious scoring. He's out of the net trying to do wraparounds, tuck it in, doing his Connor Garland stuff, and it out moves. And it's very fun when it looks good. Unfortunately, those viewings are few and far between the two games they played recently on the road. And I know it was the end of a road trip, but in Pittsburgh and Nashville, those were just absolutely horrendous to watch. I think also I'm so embedded in the local conversation that like the conversation around Elias Pedersen, he has a three-point game against the Habs and, you know, people in Vancouver are celebrating. And it's like when you watch Jack Hughes versus Nathan McKinnon today in that Sunday game that the devil's played against Colorado, like you don't have to argue it, you don't have to pretend, it jumps off the ice, it grabs you by your lapels and shakes, like we're the best players on the ice.

And there's just not a moment where Pedersen has looked like one of those dudes at any point this season. Certainly. And I think the Hughes thing is big because the way he looked last year on tape, I would have them higher. The way he's looked in my first handful of viewings, it hasn't had the same pop. I'm going to give Quinn Hughes the benefit of the day. I will certainly as well. And that's why I'll be tuning in and watching and why I didn't have them bottom two, which is where their results so far, I think, should have them. On merit, yeah.

27, the San Jose Sharks. I had them 23rd. You had them 29th. For me, purely, this is A, I want to go along for the ride with Mackin Celebrity and Will Smith. And I know there were a couple early tough games, but that performance in New York, in MSG resulting in the overtime winner and the Celebrityaureania Hattrick were absolutely phenomenal. the state of this team in terms of you talk about the professionalism for the Blackhawks, I think partly because of the personnel they have on the back end, it's just such a chaotic mess.

And I think that actually lends itself to watchability because every team that plays them just gets whatever they want offensively. And so it's a nice foil for whoever they're playing because you know they're going to get off their looks and get into their sets pretty unencumbered. And then they have enough pop at the top of the lineup to at least get into some theoretical back and forth shootouts and some high-scoring games. So I couldn't dock them any lower, even though they are quite bad yet again, just purely because of that upside on a night-to-night basis of getting into a 7-5-6-4 type of game pretty

much every time they play. Yeah, and I mean, that Rangers Sharks game, for example, this week was a perfect example of sort of the upside case of the sharks. But I ding them because I do feel like they're, the vibes are not, the vibes are good off the ice. I mean, you saw that TikTok video with Celebrini and Will Smith. And obviously, those. guys are incredible.

You know, I'm excited to see what Misa looks like as the season goes long. Your guy, Colin Graf has really been popping every time I do him in. I know. He's awesome. So, I mean, there's stuff that I like watching, but I thought, you know, 29th seemed about fair. Just sort of given what they've looked like in the early going, I don't, I guess I'm maybe a little biased in my ranking of them because they didn't take the step that I was hoping for.

I think that's fair. And I think some of those personal biases, we're going to talk about a team here in a second that that was certainly the case. For me, the number 26, the Seattle Cracken, you had them 25, I had them 26. Exactly. They've exceeded my expectations so far, especially you watch that game on Saturday against the Oilers and maybe partly this is the Oilers who we'll talk about later, are trying to figure their own things out five on five.

But to my eye, this team has been quite efficient and precise with moving the puck up the ice, with getting out in transition, not necessarily playing like a conservative plotting type of game, you've seen some of their young guys either show flashes or take legitimate steps. And so I do think there's more firepower here maybe than we thought of them having in years past. I mean, just that Oilers game alone, like there were at least four or five, like two on one opportunities where they just broke out seamlessly and then started cooking off the rush. And so it's not like that sort of low event, dump it in, nothing's really happening for extended periods of time team that they were the past couple years. There is a bit more pop to it, I think.

Yeah. No, the, I mean, And they're doing a lot of this too with some injured guys, right? I mean, one of the things that I enjoyed watching from the cracking down the stretch was like Capo Caco's emergence is like a down low playmaker, like a proto Andrew Brunette type. And obviously he hasn't been in the lineup. You know, Berkeley Caton's only played, what, three or four games now? I mean, he's looked really fun when he's been in the lineup, but he hasn't been a mainstay of the viewing experience. But yeah, I mean, I think the Cracken are playing really good hockey, to be totally honest with you. surprisingly good hockey.

We're seeing Baneers play with some swagger again, too, which is a big thing for me. Shane Wright, you know, his speed plays incredibly in the middle of the ice. I mean, he's been one of the more impressive sort of under the radar breakout candidates for me in the early going. And then you get all the good stuff you often get from like Vince Dunn and Montour, just sort of throwing caution of the wind and joining the rush and, you know, playing offense beneath the goal line in the offensive zone and on and on.

And you get Joey DeCourts puck handling. No, I'm in. I'm enjoying the cracking experience in the early part of the season. Now, this is going to be one that's going to make a few waves. Maybe not for our listeners because we've been pretty critical of them after the offseason they had and sort of the wasted potential. But the L.A. Kings, at 25, a team that I think I had in my top 10 at this time last year, what if I told you there was a game last night where the Kings were up 12-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-5-1-5?

minutes in Nashville. And yet he finishes the game fifth in ice time amongst King's defensemen playing five fewer minutes than Cody C.C. You watch that game and you just see the potential in terms of his reads in the offensive zone moving the puck. He gets that nice setup where he takes space that's afforded to him and then finishes it off to Kempe. Later on, he does the same as well on a goal. He's third on this team in 5-1-5 scoring and yet he's being used as a third pair defenseman. We haven't really seen the usage bump up as well. And so for me, maybe this is just a personal thing, but I can't help watching this team and just feeling every step of the way bummed out about what it could have or should have been if things had gone slightly differently

and if they had better decision making behind the scenes. And so, yeah, I'm just watching this and I'm almost just every time saying, I'm just like, look at how they massacred my boy. I mean, this is a team that I was so excited about and it's just a shell of what it used to be. Yeah, they look so slow on the back end. You know, the Kopitar injury is, I think, thrown things, like, has to stabilize things a little bit. The, you know, I mean, the power play is still fun. Kuzmenko doing crazy stuff is still fun, right? Kempay, Fiala, and Byfield are still fun.

Brandt Clark's still fun, but, I don't know. They just feel so mid, and they still have their defensive orientation. It's just they're playing that defensively oriented hockey at, like, 10 kilometers per hour more slowly than they did last year when they, you know, had a warp speed element to them that made them oppressive and suffocating. This year it just feels a little more, a little more absorb-based, and I don't like it. They're three, three-and-three with 16 goals for, 16 goals against a 5-1-5. It's literally the definition of mid right now.

I'm offensively, their 25th and goals scored 24th in expected goals generated, and that's with the team that boasts Adrian Kempe, who's an absolute monster. He's got five goals, seven assists. the back-to-back overtime winners. I don't know if you caught this. You certainly saw the memes from the one in Dallas after his celebration. But even the night before in St. Louis, I believe, where he just scores and he just does such a cool celebration.

I'm like, man, Adrian Kempe is just on one right now. He always delivers. And yet the entire, I guess, vibe of this team and everything around them just does not match that in any sense of the word. All right. Number 24 on our list. Philadelphia Flyers, who you had actually up at 22, so you were a bit higher on them than I was. What do your flyers take so far?

I mean, the truth is, like, Trevor Segris is responsible personally for what, three of the best highlights in the first month of the season? I mean, they've got that funny Kate's line with Brink and Forster that just is absolutely dogged, right? has some sort of proto Tampa Bay Lightning, John Cooperera, Tampa Bay Lightning vibes when they're on the ice. You know, they've had Tippett and Kineckney playing together for long stretches. And Mishkoff hasn't even gotten going yet, right? I mean, I look at this team and think, man, they're surprising me with how skilled they look, frankly, up and down their forward group. And I think you can see it most nights, even though they are playing, you know, Rick Talk at hockey.

know what that means, but, uh, yeah, but there's like, there's a certain thought, there's a certain thought to it and like, it's applied, right? It's not just like randomly going out there and skating around and being like, all right, we're going to finish 25th this season. Like, there's legitimate thought being applied to it. Maybe the, the wear and terror a full season and reality, the situation with their town level is going to hit them eventually the way it has the past couple years, but right now, like they're playing pretty entertaining games. Yeah, and they, yeah, I mean, so when we say the Rick talk at hockey thing, too, it's like, they're going to manage the puck, right? Like, that's going, there's going to be an emphasis on managing the buck.

It's not going to be super high event hockey because they're going to be super selective in terms of when they shoot. There's going to be a lot of point shots. You know, there's going to be a lot of traffic in the neutral zone for teams trying to come at them. But, you know, Rick Talk and hockey played at speed, which they're doing, I think is a lot of fun. And I think they're upside to be very fun by the midway mark once Mitchkov, you know, sort of clicks into gear the way he did after the Four Nations break. last season. I think is really high. I think so, too. 23, the Minnesota Wilde. You had them 19th.

I had them 25th. And I think the only reason I had them that high was just a sign of respect for how fun and how much I respect. Coral-Kavrizov. And Matt Boldy, how dominant they've been the fact that if you tune into a wild game, you might just see them play for nearly half the game, which I think eliminates all the other riff-rap and you're going to get more viewings of them. But, man, they've had a couple of the worst performances I've seen so far. They bounce back a little bit in that game against Utah over the weekend, but just going down by such a big deficit that early off a couple bounces. There's been so many stinkers in here.

Their PK is once again horrific. The 5-1-5 play, there's just not that much going on. No. And so I'm really not sure beyond the top guys what you're going to get there, and that's why I had them as low as I did. Yeah, I just thought Caprizov specifically couldn't be ranked lower than 19th. He's just, you know, what, one of the 10 most entertaining individual skaters in the world.

And so I had to rank them 19th, but I haven't been impressed by what I've seen in the early going. And as good as he is, I would argue Matt Boldy has been the more fun player to watch. And that's saying something certainly. All right, 22 on our list.

This is a big gap for us. The Ottawa Senators. I had them up at 16th. You had them down at 28th, Thomas. All the way down. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I view the senators as being kind of like

L.A. King's East, you know, so I sort of rank them pretty close. Like I had the Kings 27 and the Senators 28. These are teams that are defense first and are likely on any given night to shut you down. Now, they are, this is a tough podcast to be recording after they hung what seven, a full touchdown with an extra point on the Washington Capitals. Absolutely laid the beat down on them. You laid the beat down on that.

I think the caps are like three or four shots on goal like more than halfway through that game. Right. And so, but you know, you see a lot of Senators games where they do that to a team and also aren't capitalizing on their chances. So that's sort of why, you know, it's like, they're kind of an under machine, right? Like they have a lot of players that help you set the table. Sometimes they can struggle to capitalize off all the good things they're doing territorially.

But because they're doing that, your team, their opponents also don't get a chance to shine. So for me, anyway, they're kind of like watchability poison. Just from the perspective of, like, respect to them, I think they're a good team. I think they control play well. I just think they control play a little too well, given that they've got a lot of players who, you know, I think are better at sort of helping them generate that territorial edge as opposed to really sort of putting the boot in

and scoring off of what they do well. So that's why it was honestly a measure of respect that I had them so low. Yeah, the thing is, is like, they've been really fun to watch at 5-15 to my eye this year. I think there's a certain pace up and down the lineup that they can play with. Part of that is having defensemen who can just get the puck. to their forwards and they have guys who can certainly skate and move. The PK has just been a mess.

And the goaltending early on was tragic. And so it was really, I think, encouraging to see them go into Washington and play the game the way they did. It was just about as thorough a beating as you're going to see. So maybe that was kind of clouding my judgment a little bit. But I do generally enjoy watching the senator since that's why I was higher on them than you were. Let's do one more team here before we go to break. Number 21, the New York Rangers. I had them 19th.

You had them 23rd. I just did a full deep dive of them on Friday, so don't necessarily need to rehash all of those things. I think part of it is the novelty for me after the coaching change because they're just playing so fundamentally differently than they did the past couple years, and they're not necessarily getting the results to reflect that. And so I can see why people would be underwhelmed or disappointed. I think there's certainly a lot of red flags on this team in terms of the lack of dynamic creators,

some of the lack of depth up front as well. But in just seeing the way they're really, playing now and contrasting it. I just like that it's it's giving me a different viewing I guess than I'd add in the past so it feels new, it feels different. And I kind of want to see like whenever you get a team with such extremes in terms of process and results where they start the season with that drought at home, they're getting all these shots and chances but not getting goals, I want to see how that's going to turn out and develop and whether they're going to be able to figure it out and at least get to a certain baseline where they're going to be a playoff team in the metro. Yeah. The

I mean, their 5-on-5 games been good, like better than I would have expected. And they've got some stuff down-line-up that's fun, too, right? Some of those big-bodied forwards that are making noise here. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Adam Edstrom. I've been talking about them a lot on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, as we should be, right? And then obviously, you know, their power plays cagey and they do some fun stuff.

I mean, you know, their performance is just, I don't know, are they tracking to really keep pace in the metro this year? I kind of. Well, everyone is playing in the metro right now. That's what I'm saying. Building a hole for themselves. I just don't know that they have enough juice. Yeah.

So they, I'd say like in some ways, I think Mike Sullivan's had a really good start. And in some ways, I just think they don't have enough juice to hanging with some of these teams that are young and up-and-comers in who we ranked 10 spots ahead of them. So they just, this ranking sort of is like, I think they're, I think they're fun. I think they have fun players. They have some guys that I like watching. but it feels a little inconsequential right now. Yeah, I think that's fair.

I just want to see how the next 10 games go in terms of whether we keep going down in this way, whether the 5-1-5 play slips or whether they start scoring more goals. And so we'll see, I think, getting Vinit Trojic back. I bet both occur. Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair.

All right, Tom, let's take our break here, and then when we come back, we will jump right back in our watchability rankings. We're inside the top 20 now, which is very exciting. We're getting to the good stuff. All right, we'll be back soon. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedia.

podcast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hocompediocast, joined by Thomas Trance, doing our watchability rankings for the 25, 26 season. Tom, we're at 20 now with the Pittsburgh Penguins. A team that I've been very pleasantly surprised watching this season, offensively in particular, some of the cool wrinkles to their game. I'll start with the power play, which is ranked third in the league right now under Todd Nelson. I was watching the game on Saturday against Columbus, which was just an exceptionally fun back-and-forth game.

Columbus tends to do that, dragging it out of teams, but the Penguins were certainly game for it. And the Penguins had this power play. I think it was in the second period where Cindy Crosby gets it at the right flank, and he executes an East-West pass that you see typically in an angel powerplay to get it to the opposing flank, except he does so with a hard pass off the end wall. The perfectly pool shot style just winds up getting to Rust, I believe, and they get a scoring chance off of it. And the movement on these power plays has been incredible. A team that used to be so stagnant and predictable with their top guys,

like just everyone being in the same spot playing their role. All of a sudden now the puck is just, it's humming. Like it's moving around. They're getting into great spots, creating scoring chances. 5-1-5. That has been the case as well. And I love that 6-5 line with Manta Brazo and- Really good. And Malkin.

I love what I've seen. I know he had the load management for a rookie that we saw with Carlson a couple years ago for Ben Kindle on Saturday, but I've loved the pop I've seen from him playing with Tommy Novak, and so there's a lot of fun parts here all of a sudden. And Hunter Brunachie, I mean, the nicest thing you can say about those two is they don't, they haven't looked like 18-year-old players, and that's impressive. I also like, the Penguins' breakouts are really fast. They really very rarely go D-to-D, and when you contrast that, remember how they looked like a half-court team last year and would just get torn to shreds? They're playing really fast.

I don't think they're a fast team in terms of raw team speed, but they're playing really fast. There's not a lot of East West stuff on the breakout. They are making contested passes up ice, and everyone's really bought into doing that with discipline. And what you'll see is they're really bought in to the passer chases their own pass so that even though you're taking a risky pass, at least there's going to be someone arriving. So you don't have, you know, the turnover with the other team streaking back at you a million miles per hour. It's scrappy, it's hard to defend. I think it's worked really well for them and given them some neutral zone juice

that I'm shocked that they have after what we saw the last couple seasons. Especially with the personnel they have. I think they're certainly maximizing every single ounce of it they have. Number 19, let's go 1918 here back to back, two central teams. The Winnipeg Jets and the St. Louis Blues,

two teams we were in unison on. For the Jets, I mean, certainly more final watch last year. It's an early season ranking, and they haven't had a lot of the guys we enjoy watching, like Cole Perfetti, like Dylan Sandberg, Adam Lowry as well, and what a dog he is. They're going to get those guys back. I think it's impressive that with the goaltending and the power play, they've been able to not only survive this stretch, but bank a bunch of wins

after how ugly that season debut was against the Dallas Stars. And then for the Blues, the goaltending has been so bad that there's been a couple of games here, both the Red Wings won most recently and the one on TNT against the Chicago Blackhawks. where it's put them in these holes. I guess you could add the Utah game as well, where Logan Cooley goes off, they're down 4-0 within minutes of the game, and then they have to play catch-up mode,

and I think they do have the transition juice and the forward talent to make those games interesting. And so I've really enjoyed watching that. Rob Thomas went down in the most recent game, a truly disappointing game for them because they were up, what, 4-0 against the Red Wings, completely dominating them, and then the wheels completely came off that,

and they lose 6-4. And so I do think they're in a bit of trouble here, especially if he's going to miss any time. But I still think there's enough parts with these two teams that they kind of belong around kind of the middle of the pack here. Yeah, no. The, I mean, the Jets miss Eilers from watchability perspective just enormously. And you're right. It's not fair to judge sort of where they're at.

And then the Blues, I mean, the Blues have played some really fun games, I will say. And, you know, there's still a ton of stuff to like up and down their lineup that's fun to watch. but I just feel like both of these teams have gotten off to fitful starts and we'll kind of see where they go. They just haven't put enough that's entertaining on tape, partly because of absences and partly because I think of how they've performed, to like really tilt one way or the other for me. These teams are on watch. I wouldn't be shocked if we sort of revisit this at some point midseason and are like, hey, now this team's peaking our interest in a different way. Yeah, there's a certain comfort, especially with the team like the Jets of like that continuity that we loved so much last year.

you see it paid evidence on the power play where it's a bunch of guys who have played together for an extended period of time and they just know exactly where the puck's going to go and how to play off with each other. And I think that's really fun to watch, especially early in the season where you typically see a lot more disjointed play and teams that are kind of trying to iron out, either integrating you guys or figuring each other's tendencies out. Number 17, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Now, on the one hand, the reason I found him quite entertaining is probably a reason that's going to make Craig Brubay very upset and it's because they've turned into this rush team all of a sudden. I believe they're top

five in the league in rush chances generated. They're getting looks themselves certainly. The issue is that they're giving up so much on the other end. And you even watch, I know they wound up salvaging the second leg of the home and home with the Sabres with the overtime win. But there's so many plays where they're slow getting back, where there's odd man rushes. They're conceding. And it doesn't look at all like the team. from the regular seasons at least that we saw in the past to a point where like the team speed perspective for me um you know they go out they bring in all these guys that are theoretically going to be big and physical and going to be able to get the most out of them from craig broube and then you watch and they're so slow getting in on retrievals and on four checks i think they're like 25th in the league and for check chances something they used to be really good at um they're getting burned by pretty much everyone's breakout that they face and they're and so I have a lot of logistical concerns there with them, but they're creating enough on their own.

And I think that they have to be here this high, especially from the Zikeis perspective, of keeping up with what the Leafs are doing. Yeah, I mean, you want to know where Mitch Martiners really missed for the Maple Leafs. It's in the watchability perspective, right? Or it's from the watchability perspective. They've been better, I think, than their results in moments, but they're not.

I don't know if they have. I mean, they play a couple of stinkers. And something they used to be so good at is, and I don't want to speak out of both sides of my mouth because there were times where they would do this so well in terms of being a half-core team offensively. And then I'd be like, man, I wish they were a bit more dangerous off the rush the way they were in their early years with this core four.

And they transitioned to being this half-court offense where they would just cycle the puck down low, live in the high-danger area. And that was clearly effective strategy for them. And now there's such a one-and-done team, partly because of that speed, partly because of how they're choosing to play, I guess, in the early going.

And so it's turned into a bit of a track meet. And I think you're really seeing them struggle to keep up as soon as they take their own rush shot. And it goes like either gets kicked out by the goalie or goes around the boards. And all of a sudden they're scrambling and guys are just late getting back. And so I think it's created like you watch that devil's game and some pretty fun game environments of like back and forth, almost three on three-esque hockey at five-on-five where like we get a rush chance. You get a rush chance. Let's see who scores. But I can't imagine Craig Rubie is watching this and being like, man, I love this.

I want to keep playing this way. So I'm curious to see how that shakes out. Even within that, though, they profile in a lot of those game states, like they're the putties from Power Rangers. Like, they're there to lose, you know? Yes. So I don't find fun. Yeah. Number 16.

The New York Islanders certainly has to be the highest they've been on this list for us since we've been doing this over the years. I had them 21. You have them 10. Yeah. You're all in. I'm all in. I mean, if you have an 18-year-old defender who, you know, we're what, 10 games-ish into his NHL career. and when I watch him play, I'm like, oh, man, that's what Drew Doughty looked like at 18,

except you're bigger and have more offense in your toolkit. I think that's pretty cool. Like, I'm now pretty all in on Schaefer as a guy I need to pay attention to because he's going to matter in terms of the story of this season, the story of potentially Canada's Olympic team, the story of like the league over the next five to 10 years. I mean, this is special, special stuff. the way that they look when they've got both him and Barzell on the ice is wild. And then you've got, you know, guys like you've got a lot of credible NHL talent with offensive tools who are filling the net and playing in a ton of high event games and their seesaw games and the Islanders are winning more than their fair share of them.

I mean, what's not to like here? Yeah, getting 25 minutes of that fast pace pushing the tempo from Matthew Schaefer is incredible. as we've noted the minutes where him and Burzell are out there and they're kind of playing off of each other with some of the exchanges high in the zone are so fun to watch. I was watching, you can get away with this against the sharks because it doesn't really resemble NHL hockey, but like Schaefer makes a breakout pass.

He joins the rush. They lose possession or kind of goes behind the net, and he just stays at the side of the net. The puck winds up working its way back to him. He cuts out front and then either scores or helps set it up. I forget how the play ended, but I was like, man, I love the offensive instincts from this of staying in the play and kind of seeing it through as opposed to being worried about making a mistake and getting caught.

And I think part of it is he knows with his skating ability, he can be a step behind and still catch up and join the play defensively. And so he just gets away with stuff that a lot of other guys, even if they wanted to or their coaches allowed them to, you just couldn't. I'm just thinking about Thursday, right? Thursday night where, I mean, I've obviously got to keep an extra eye on Canucks Predators, which felt like a chore as the game went along. I obviously have to keep an eye on Thursday night football. Of course. And then I've got, you know, one more screen, and I'm flipping between a variety of games, you know, really giving my game center a workout. And as much as I was interested in, like, that Sharks Rangers drama as closely as I was tracking, you know, the mammoth throttling the blues and then allowing the blues back into the game and then putting the boot down.

Like, as much as I was tracking that stuff closely, I just found that I couldn't stop watching Islanders Red Wings, which is a testament to both of those teams. but for me anyway, it's the Islanders that are the more surprising part of that equation. Number 15, the Florida Panthers. I was actually down at 20 on them and no one has enjoyed watching the Florida Panthers more than I have historically the past couple years. You had them up at 11th.

Part of it for me is a bit of a fatigue factor of having watched so much of them in the playoffs that I don't think there's, even with the absences, that much that is going to shock you. I think because of those absences, you watch that game against Vegas, for example, and if they're going to survive here for the time being,

they're going to have to play a very specific type of game, and that's going to be a very sort of defensively disciplined, lower event type of style. I think the offense, as you'd expect, when you subtract two of the best playmakers in the league, is going to take a hit. And so you see that on the power play. I think you certainly just see it in terms of the creativity

and what they can manufacture offensively. I think there's players, obviously, with Gus Foresling. Lundell, Lusterina, Samiskevich, so Marshan having as much juice as he has, out of the gate, like, there's a lot of parts here you like, but I think the combination of having seen so much of it the past couple years and then it not necessarily being the most back and forth style of hockey, I feel like I had to have them a bit lower than you did on this list.

Yeah, what's kept me going is things like Lundell on the power play and the Panthers evolution into without Kachuk and Barkov here. This is Gus Forseling's team now, and I've enjoyed that. So out of respect for the back-to-back-to-back champs, And the fact that they're more than keeping their head above water, given the circumstances, I had to have them high, so I had them 11. 14, the Detroit Red Wings. Now, I wish we could split this list up on teams at home versus team away.

Right. Because at home, they'd be much higher for me, on the road, much lower. I do think, though, ultimately, like, the home games are so fun to watch. The most recent one on Saturday, what they did when they turned it on, being the most notable example, the level Dylan Larkins playing at, the fact that as we've talked about, they're finally incorporating some younger players that we can see develop in real time. I was talking about Brube and sort of the way the Leafs are playing and how frustrating that must be for him. I mean, Todd McClellan, and you could see it when he called that time out to turn that game around on Saturday,

he must be absolutely losing his mind watching how poor they are identifying the trailer on some of these defensive sequences and applying the necessary back pressure to get there defensively and impose some resistance. I mean, a lot of these plays are like very manageable three-on-threes, for example, where the fourth guy on the other team just beats the other redwing up the ice and all of a sudden is at the circle with a rebound opportunity and they're just like, they got destroyed by the Islanders, that exact way, for example. So I think there's a lot of weak links defensively, but ultimately I wanted to see them increase their risk profile a little bit offensively and this is going to be a net result of it.

And I think I'll take the good with the bad. And so I think there's going to be. a lot of highs and lows as we go along. On the road, it's going to be a struggle when they can't just play Dylan Larkin against the other team's best players. But at home, it's really fun to watch. Yeah. They got bonus points for me for all the Edvinson cider minutes, right?

The fact that at least one giant defenders patrolling the blue line at all times, you get bonus points for me, too, from the ability to tune in and just watch to Brinkett Kane do the stuff that they do, you know, when Kane's been in the lineup. So yeah, no, I'm pretty in. I'm in on them generally, and I've enjoyed the, you know, shot sort of, sorry, not the shotgun, the like high event sort of roller derby games that they've been playing on a regular basis. It feels like more regularly than everyone else. They've been in crooked scoreline games almost every time out, them in Anaheim.

Number 13, the Buffalo Sabres. Now let the record show, I actually had them at 13. You were down all the way at 16. So you're not buying. all the Sabres stock after three very miserable games to start the year without a guy. It's pretty high. Yeah, I think, I'm just giving you a hard time. Without,

without Zach Benson in the first three games, it looked entirely different. They were an absolute mess offensively, had an identity crisis in terms of how they were trying to play. You all of a sudden reinsert Benson there and his playmaking with all the assists he's racking up, but even just the chances beyond that. And then having him and Josh Dohn out there as far as often as they do on separate lines. I mean, I tweeted this over the weekend,

but Don's game-by-game stats so far of how dominant they've been with him on the ice at 5-1-5. Those guys are just absolute dogs. You're seeing Tage Thompson's regression hit with how much he was shooting the puck. He's finally starting to score some goals as well. And so I think it's very exciting here. You know, the special teams is carrying it a little bit so far. I think they're going to be better at 5-15 now that Benson is back. But they're playing much more, I guess, a closer approximation of the team I fell in love with in 2020.

22, 23, or whatever that year was, where they really burst onto the scene. And so I'm encouraged by these last, whatever, four or five games they've played. Yeah, that Don McLeod, Alex Tuck line has got to be, if not the fastest in hockey, it's damn close in terms of how all three guys move. And then, you know, I've been enjoying the, like, the Kulik-Thompson chemistry building that you've seen.

And obviously, with Benson fitting in there, I mean, yeah, look, this is the Sabres team. It felt like we were promised two and a half years ago. and haven't seen in a while. Hopefully it keeps going. Sabers fans deserve it. Number 12, the Tampa Bay Lightning. I had them 11th,

which I was shocked to find out as I was putting together my list because they've just been such a lock for the top five. You had them down at 15th, which is why they wind up 12th here. I mean, on the one hand, their most recent game, you could tell like...

Don't you feel like 15, though, also is like respect more than it is form? I think so. Yeah. I think so. Now, there's like extenuating circumstances. Guys out of the lineup. Nick Paul still hasn't played.

Kuturov misses a couple. J.J. Mose. or misses a couple. There's things that are going to work themselves out from a results perspective. But you could tell, and maybe this is a cool thing about a team like the Lightning that's been here for as long as they have and has the guys who've been as successful as they have, where they blow that backbreaking game the other night at home in the last minute against the Blackhawks.

And you could see what their approach heading into the next one at home against Anaheim. They treated it as a playoff game, especially late. Like it was a really fun back and forth game, but Anaheim's pushing for a tying goal. And Tampa just would not let them. get out of their zone and pull the goalie. They were trying harder than I've seen them at any point this season. You could see the urgency from them on display. And so I thought that was really cool.

The power plays, obviously. If we had a Red Zone-style channel for hockey, I would want to watch every single second of Kutrov, cooking on the half wall. And that's why they're rated the way they are for me. Like, I just can't. They look to me like they might be in real trouble. To be honest with you, it's early and you can absolutely still pull out of the sort of start

that they've had. But it looks to me like they're in real trouble. and yet if I get a chance to watch, you know, Kutrov and Point and Hagle and company, I'm going to take it more nights than not. Yeah, the defensive foot speed is just, it's a problem. It's a problem. And that seems into the quality of play at 515. All right, number 11, the Washington Capitals.

Now, I love so much about tuning into this team. One, we can talk, and we didn't mention it for the Leafs in terms of the regional TSN broadcast, but just how good Gordon Miller and Mike Johnson are together and the exchanges between them, like even like, before a faceoff just during a dead player coming out of a TV timeout like I just I wish I could just listen to a podcast of just them talking that's how I feel about this local broadcast of Joe B and Locker just the continuity with those guys having worked together as long as they have it really translates into the viewing experience I love the little intricacies of what Spencer Carper he's doing with the usage where he did this last year but just using the top line exclusively for offensive zone draws like just knowing what you need to do is doing. at this point to get the most out of Ovechkin to the point where the two goals he scored have both been the exact same play with Dillonstrom just beautifully winning the drawback to him standing at the edge of the circle and him just ripping it past the goalie and I feel like if he wants to he can

probably do that till he's 65 years old. Ovechkin hasn't started a single shift in the defenses in this season. Yeah. Nick Dowd's like, I got this. Don't worry about it. Yeah, I mean. How about this though? One thing that docks them a little bit for me, I'm not sure if you feel the same way.

I feel like they're so close with their uniforms with like them being elite and I think they have some in their catalog and stuff available to them and for whatever reason there's like little details with anything they choose to do that falls a little bit short of being perfect and that's just like the OCD version of me

is just getting irritated by that I mean those the game they played on the road against Islanders where they were like the dark helmets and they're essentially matching what the Islanders are wearing And I'm like, why are they doing this? This is so unnecessary. I'm probably the only person in the world that cares about this sort of stuff in terms of my watchability rankings.

But when you're getting into the nitty-gritty, the details, it all counts. Absolutely. You know, Ryan Leonard's been what was promised, too. Yeah, and I love that they've been playing around with him and Protis on the same line. Yeah. And they've looked awesome. And I think such complimentary skill sets. And Leonard has really popped off the page and I write you in.

Yeah. Then they're another team, too, where like, check in 40 games in. And I think they've got, they're going to have a chance to be even higher. bar ranking. Number 10, the Columbus Blue Jackets. Yeah. I had them nine, you had them 13. They are going to drag a fun game out of you, regardless of the opposition.

The pace they play at, especially with the top six, is must watch theater right now. I love some of the unique passing sequences they have in terms of like these indirect passes either into space or off the boards to set up a guy like either Fantilia or Marchenko to skate into it and utilize their burst. argue that there's nothing more exciting in the NHL right now than when you see Marchenko winding up in the neutral zone and getting the puck because he's just weaving through the fenders and getting a rocket off off the rush the game as I said they played against Pittsburgh like that was one of the more fun games I've watched in a long time and so

yeah I think the blue jackets the combination of Johnson and fantilli and what they're doing together and the growth at fantilly in particular they're just so fun to watch right now they are a ton of fun to watch I like the Matechuk element too which is just sort of given them like some nitrous in the overall machinery of how they attack. Yeah, I mean, Columbus is one of the, I mean, they play heavy metal hockey, right? It's heavy metal, they're all big bodies, they're all fast, they, you know, are playing loud every game. And what's better than that? They play the game the right way, but not typically the way that's thought of in the way that I want to see it played.

Yes, agreed. Speaking of that, number nine, are Anaheim Ducks? Now, I tweeted this out the other day. These are their averages so far. Combined 64 shots on goal for them in the opposition. 29 high danger chances. Seven and a quarter of goals scored. They're creating so much.

They're giving up so much. They're a mess defensively. I think part of that is the youth. Part of it is the way they're playing. You could see some of that exposed, as I mentioned in that game against the lightning late. But, man, there's so much juice here. And I think I mentioned the novelty aspect. when you just compare it to what it looked like last year,

it is just night and day right now in terms of the environment, and we're seeing a lot of these young guys get the most out of their skill sets and be put in a position to succeed. Troy Terry looks phenomenal again in this environment, and so I've almost made it appointment viewing at this point to tune into a duck's game regardless of who they're playing because I know it's going to be high event with a lot of chances and goals, and cool stuff's going to happen.

So you can't ask for more. Yeah, that power play one, too, got to shout it out. And then Lucas Dostal, it's like, hey, let's take one of the NHL's most underrated goaltenders and put him in an absolute fire drill at least three times a period and see what it looks like. And you know what it looks like? Awesome.

Number eight on our list, the Montreal Canadiens. Yeah. Who have played, especially those back-to-back games at home where they tied it up late, pulled the goalie, wound up winning it in overtime. We're so fun. You got to see them recently here with the comeback win against the Canucks. That power play was nasty. Well, the note I'll add, we know

about the top line and how well Suzuki's been playing with his point streak and Caulfield's goal scoring. the six minutes we've seen now of Ivan Demidov on the top unit power play and how the puck is moving. Some of the reads he made on the first power play goal where he has the shot that a lot of players would probably force it into traffic. He just passes it off for an easy tap in, then getting into the middle of the ice on the second one. I mean, that's high level stuff. That touch on the second one was incredible. Yeah.

Great problem solving. No, I mean, you know, he's an interesting player because I don't think he's ready. I mean, he does so much special stuff. I don't think he's ready to drive play in a way that helps you win at the top of the lineup five on five. But his- Yeah, carrying line mates, like that's going to be the next step. It's just understandable for a guy who's played less than 10 in age. Yeah, who's his age. It's not criticism to say this.

It's just he's at this, you know, precocious stage of his development where he's an absolute gamebreaker with space. And you're beginning to watch him figure it out five-on-five. And that's part of the fun of investing in an ascending team like the Habs. the Noah Dobson impact has also upped I think their overall watchability I mean you know that blue line has just a ton of fun players on it and that's you know where we've only seen

Caden Gully here and there so you know there's also the element to which at some point we'll see more regularly the habs add like one of the funnest most physical hitters on the back end into their lineup so arrows only pointing one way and it's up number seven the Utah Mammoth I think there's a good portion of our fan base that's tuning into this show specifically to see how high up the list we could jam them. I honestly experimented with going even higher. I think this

just speaks to the wealth of talent we have in the league right now and how many fun teams there are that I think they belong at seven. They in previous years probably could have been higher, but just being the top ten alone is a great sign of respect. After being slow out of the gate offensively, they've won six in a row, scored 29 goals in that stretch. Logan Cooley, five goals and seven points in his last two road games against division rivals, St. Louis and Minnesota, and all of that essentially was in the first period, just completely tilting those games. Here's a fun stat for you. With their top six out there, so either of the top two lines, 165-15 minutes, they're up 15 to four. Now, that's 5.7 goals per hour. That's better than seven NHL teams on the power play.

So far this season, they're not getting much offensively from the bottom six, but I think that's okay because those guys are winning their minutes territorially and doing a lot of this stuff to move the game along defensively that's led to them being a top five defensive teams and this is with out a power play that's necessarily fully gotten going yet. I think you're 16th. We're seeing Simashev get more on his plate.

He had that game. It was so fun against Colorado where they just give them 25 on five minutes next to Sergachev and it was just high event, really fun hockey. And so I think we're going to see more of that as the year goes along.

And I mean, this team is living up to I think all of our wildest dreams right now. Yeah, no question. And, you know, I'd add they're living up to all of our wildest dreams. And I think there's a level that we're going to see, for example, Dylan Gunther get to that, you know, like right now we're seeing the nuke version of Cooley, contract year Nick Schmaltz. Obviously, Clayton Keller's been great. But, you know, I still expect there to be like 20, 30 game stretches where we're talking about,

you know, Dylan Gunther having 18 goals across, you know, 25 game point streak, sort of, runs here. And, you know, so I still think there's another level to this. Peturka has been good, but he's been supporting good. I think he's really good. So I think Utah is just getting started. And I think this is a team to be like, not only that we should be watching, but that we need to be taking seriously as a team that could upset the pecking order in the Western Conference. The future is now. Never wrong. Just early. Number six, the Dallas stars, whether and we've had this debate before, whether it's the personnel, the coaching, or just early season effort, I think the state of them defensively

is creating these situations where they're going to have to create a lot and maximize the weapons they have, which they're in abundance of moving forward. I love the commentary team with Josh and Razor. I do want to quickly note this is another nerdy nitpicking corner, but the tragic state of these Victory Plus broadcasts right now where they're just filled with ads all the time coming out of the scorebug, just jamming up the screen. I don't know what they're doing with the sound mixing.

Like I was watching that game on Saturday against the hurricanes, and it sounds like Josh and Razor are recording in a phone booth, and they've completely muted the crowd noise to allow us to hear them. And then intermission panels, we're doing like a podcast format, essentially, where two guys just sitting in a room on microphones, and I'm like, I don't even know what I'm tuning into right now, but this doesn't seem as professional as it should be for a top teeth. And so those are some of my nitpicks, but I mean, the weaponry itself and some of these games are going to have to get into because of that defensive stuff, they're number six in our list.

Yeah, I'm a little concerned about them, to be honest with you, but Miko Ratan, like, this is another respect ranking for me. And I had them far lower than you. I had them at eight, you had them at four. I'm really concerned. I'm really concerned about what the stars look like. I think they look like a team that misses Pete DeBore more than they should. We both have the Vegas Golden Knights and number five. Yep.

The power play is absolutely scintillade. Obviously, removing Mark Stone from that hurts it a little bit. I know Hanofin is out as well, but with the level Ikels playing at right now in a game in Florida where they weren't getting much offensively because of how well the Panthers played defensively, Ico still broke through for a couple near misses. And yeah, I'm loving mixing and matching with getting Marner playing with Hurdle and Dorofaev, Dorofiav's goal scoring and just willingness to shoot from wherever, whenever is awesome. And so there's a level of precision here as well where I think there's going to be games

where they probably, they might not be able to maybe now without Patrangelo and the hand of an injury, like just lock stuff down defensively and play a bit more of a boring style. But there's a lot more offensive juice than there was the past couple years, and it's fun to watch. Yeah. Add top line,

ad elite playmaking winger onto the same team as Jack Eichel and the results are going to speak for themselves, and they do. The New Jersey Devil is number four. I had them six, and I regretted. They should have been higher. Yeah. You have them number three. That game you mentioned against the abs was so fun.

I think they won eight in a row now. Yeah, they have. Jack Hughes has been an absolute monster, capped it off with the overtime winner, seeing our guy Arseni Gritsuck in a top six role, just absolutely flourishing as well. I think the special teams for this team as well. I noted some of the poor PKs

and how it can be a tough watch sometimes. Their special teams is so electric, and they're so likely to create something on the PK as well that there's no down periods in their games. Like regardless of what's going on, what the game state is, you're going to get fun stuff. We're seeing strides from Nemitz

with the three assists against the abs, the beautiful play he made, springing Connor Brown. I believe for a breakaway goal. And so, yeah, similar what we said about Utah. They're kind of realizing our dreams, I think, right now in terms of distilling what made them so fun and special in previous seasons and ironing out some of the limiting factors from that back then. A resuscitated Andres Pallat? No.

I'm not going to give you that. No, look, they're a ton of fun to watch right now. They seem really well drilled and thoughtful, too, in terms of how they're supporting some of their pucking. carriers with speed through the neutral zone. I mean, you could see it against the abs, a team that attacks off the rush better than anyone else. And for the most part, it felt like devil's puck carriers had more options. And it's hard to imagine having more options than the apps managed to give McKinnon

and Natchez. But I think the Devils managed it in that win on Sunday. They're a wildly impressive team right now. Yeah. Number three of the Carolina Hurricanes. I had them for the record second on my list. Wow. And that's saying something because in the past,

I was having them in like late teens. Yeah, I'd have to defend them. Yes. It's just a different team. Yeah. Like the Euler's effect coming in, you know, they have some injuries, so they bring up Bradley Nadeau. He's off the rush, like ringing it off the bar on Saturday night. Jackson Blake and what he's doing playing on that second line with Stankov and Hall.

There's so much more juice and thoughtfulness offensively here in terms of the way they're playing. I thought that road trip, I know they lost the game after going up to two nothing against Dallas. But the quality of competition on that road trip, with all the guys they're missing from the lineup, especially in the back end. And for them to be as game against those opponents and be as competitive as they were was, I think, as impressive as all the wins they had early on against some software competition. And so the puck's going to start going in more for that top line, and Eelish is going to get his points.

He's already creating enough to do so. And I just think it's a fundamental difference for me from the team that was racking up wins, but not being his final watch in years past. Yeah, they're, I mean, they look like they're playing faster than anything. anyone else. The avalanche are playing faster than everyone else with the puck, but in terms of the overall game speed, and I thought you could see it in that awesome Hartford-Wailers versus Quebec Nordiques game this week. Just in terms of overall game speed, it's the Hurricanes. The overhaul on their blue line with Nekishin and Kandre Miller has made a world a difference

too on this score. It's also such a buzz saw where you can just remove guys from the lineup and plug someone in and you're going to get very similar playing style. All right, number two, the Edmonds Noilers. Oh, hail, McDavid, we can move on. They'll figure it out.

The October Edmonton Oilers should be ranked like 25th, but we all know that they're going to be a different team in December, January, February,

March, April, May, June. So, yeah. Yeah, their 30th and 5-on-5 offense right now shooting sub-7% the way they were for much of last year

as well. They're just not scoring when McDavid and Dr. are not out there. They just hate October. They hate the fall. Yeah. You know what?

You know what? I think, man, I think they're soaking up the last of like the Edmonton weather where it doesn't hurt to be outside. And then the moment winter comes, they're just like, okay, now we'll dial it in. It's got to be something like that. They were just on the road for like six straight game.

No, no, but what, I mean, how else do you explain this? They are clearly one of the three or four best teams in the league. And they are clearly the 29th best team in the league every October. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. And this could be a glass half full or glass half empty depending on your perspective. But with all the new players they have up front, the line blending right now is crazy. where you tune into a game,

you just have no idea who's going to be playing with who. And so on the one hand, it's interesting because it's new. On the other, I think there's just so little stability. It's a bit disorienting. Sure.

Tuning in. Number one, the Colorado Al-Wanche, we both had them, indisputably, the most appealing team to watch right now. And I say that, despite the fact that I cannot stand

their broadcast. Like, I like a certain level of homerism, but as I've talked about, it just ratchered up to such a high level that it's not even charming anymore. And yet the talent, the playing style, some of the trademark elements of their game,

the way they cook, 5-15. If they get boxed into some of these game scripts where they're down and they have to push, the fastball is absolutely incredible. 110 miles per hour. And they just, they do everything right offensively. They attack the middle, funnel everything through there, the waves of offense, the quick neutral zone regroups. We've talked about compressing the defensive zone. It's almost like a book, a constrictor just feeding on its prey where it's like the walls are just caving in on the other team and they're just getting closer and closer to each other. And all of a sudden, it looks like it's a 5-13, but there's five defenders in this closely knit box. I mean, it's so fun, and this is with

30th-ranked power play, a second line that hasn't really gotten going yet, and yet still, it's just the best show in hockey right now. The way that they were attacking the Carolina Hurricanes when they were trailing on Thursday night, that's unlike anything else you'll see in hockey. Avalanche is appropriately named. I mean, they are coming downhill and they are constantly, constantly, constantly finding sort of the edge against defenders off the rush. It is terrifying to watch. It is terrifying to watch. Their best thing, I think, just remains the best thing in the league.

All right, brother, we did it. The 25, 26 watchability rankings and other Sunday special in the books. What do you got to promote? Lots of stuff covering the Canucks at the Athletic and, of course, Canucks talk. Monday to Friday, noon to 2 p.m. on 6.50 a.m. in Vancouver or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, buddy. That's beautiful. Subscribe to the P.D.O.

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