NHL

8 teams that outperformed expectations in the first month of play

Now that the calendar has flipped to November and teams are approaching the 10-game mark, we figured it was a good time to reflect on how they've performed so far. Every year, we do the same dance of trying to project how everyone will do, making predictions and picks. 

Then the games start, and we suddenly have a whole new set of information with which to work. It's up to us to find a good balance between our priors, and more recent results, to figure out what's real and what's not in the early stages of the season. While it can be foolish to simply overreact to a handful of games, if something has fundamentally changed, then we may need to recalibrate our expectations. 

Let's try to do that by taking a closer look at a bunch of teams that have outperformed our preseason projections for them, what's been driving that success so far, and how likely it is to continue moving forward. We'll look at the other side of the coin later on the week, with part two focusing on the underperforming squads.

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NHL Buffalo Sabres Calgary Flames Carolina Hurricanes Columbus Blue Jackets Edmonton Oilers Washington Capitals NHL Frederik Andersen Jack Eichel Alexander Ovechkin Andrei Svechnikov Vladimir Tarasenko Darryl Sutter
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