NFL
By: Jesse Rosales
Hockey is back and so am I! It’s good to be back in the saddle again and I’m ecstatic for the 2023-2024 NHL season. So many storylines to follow and everyone still is full of hopes and dreams of hoisting Lord Stanley. Who is off to a blazing hot start, and which teams are the NHL coldest teams? We have the Connor Bedard hype, questions on McDavid’s production, and if he can duplicate what he did last year. We have the Ovi chase of Gretzky’s all-time goal record and which second-year players are going to take that huge step forward?
So much going on and I must say the product that the NHL is putting out is the best that I can ever recall. The sport is healthy and through streaming services like ESPN+, you can literally watch about 90% of the out-of-market games. Let’s GO!
I was going to start with my first rankings of the new season, but I really feel like we need about 8-10 games per team before we really have a good idea of where teams are headed. We are only about halfway to that mark, but we can certainly talk about who is hot, and who is not. We will get to the hot teams later this week, but these are the bottom 5 cold teams to start the 2023-2024 NHL Season.
Bottom 5 NHL Coldest Teams
The Oilers were expected to be one of the hottest teams coming out of the offseason and yet they find themselves in the opposite situation. Goaltending has certainly hurt them as they have yet to find a solid and dependable #1 goaltender. Jack Campbell isn’t the answer, and there’s no obvious fix for that on the open market either. To add to that, the offense is not clicking either. Edmonton has scored 13 goals through 4 games, but since of those came in a single blowout win against the Predators, their only win of the season. The Oilers are 1-3-1 through their first 5 games.
Their goal differential on the season is -7 so far and with last year’s MVP Connor McDavid out for 1-2 weeks with an upper-body injury, this team is in early trouble.
This was supposed to be the season the Sabres put it all together and make a legit run at the playoffs. Young stars like Dylan Cozens, Owen Powers,Tage Thompson, and Rasmus Dahlin were all going to take huge steps forward and pair nicely with the veteran presence of guys like Alex Tuch and Jeff Skinner. On paper, this team is stacked and there is no reason they shouldn’t be competitive every single night. Through 5 games they are 2-3. They are losing a lot of close games, but those are the games you need to win if you want to take things to the next level.
I’m confident this team will turn things around, but it’s certainly not the start they wanted.
After the incredible playoff run, the Kraken had last year, including the pummeling of my Colorado Avalanche, the Kraken have come out completely flat to start the 2023-2024 season. They have the second-worst goal differential in the West through 5 games and have only produced 11 goals. With a record of 1-4, that is simply not going to get it done. To add to that, one of their main offensive weapons, Andre Burakovsky is out 6-8 weeks with a new injury. Burakovsky has missed a significant amount of time in the past few seasons with various injuries. Last year’s Rookie of the Year winner, Matty Beniers has yet to score a goal and only has one point.
This team needs to get going after their cold start, but I’m not sure where the production is going to come from.
I was big on the Ducks coming into this season. I expected (and still do) big things from their young core with guys like, Mason McTavish, Trevor Zegras, and Troy Terry. They also have one of the better goaltending duos in the league with all-star veteran John Gibson and highly touted prospect Lukas Dostal, who will be getting some serious game time this season. The Ducks have started 1-4 but have faced some talented and experienced teams such as the Bruins, Stars, Hurricanes, and defending Cup champions, Las Vegas Golden Knights.
I’m not ready to give up on this team, but they definitely need to start catching a bit of fire to avoid falling too far behind in the standings this early on into the new season.
The Capitals were never talked about seriously as a Cup contender this season, but there was still a lot of excitement around the team given Alex Ovechkin’s continued chase of Wayne Gretzky’s 894 all-time goals record. Unfortunately, nothing has gone right for the Capitals through 4 games going 1-2-1. They have a -9 goal differential and no one, including Ovi is putting pucks into the net. Things don’t get easier for the Caps coming up with their next 3 games coming against Toronto, New Jersey, and Minnesota. The core of this team is another year older and you really have to wonder how much time they have left before they need to make some significant changes to this roster.
It’s natural to be cold playing hockey, but this might turn into a dumpster fire sooner rather than later.
For more NHL news and updates, be sure to follow me on Twitter @5280Jesse and Team NBS Media
Comments 1