Power Feelings: Ring-a-Ding-Ding!

This may look to you like a standard NHL “power rankings” but let me assure you, friend, that it is anything but. These rankings are based entirely on how I feel about a team’s chances of winning the Cup, meaning you can’t tell me I’m wrong because these are my feelings and feelings can’t be wrong.

Please enjoy the Power Feelings.

32. Chicago (Last time: 31)

Hard to remember the last time I had someone other than the Sharks 32nd in the league, but here we are. The hockey's bad, the vibes are worse. Mostly the vibes are worse because for some reason they and the local media thought this team would be more competitive than last year. They must have missed the offseason. It went badly, I seem to recall.

31. San Jose Sharks (LT: 32)

Sure the hockey is still mostly pretty bad but since that long losing streak to open the season, they've won more than they've lost. Which, hey, it's better than nothing. They're still one of the worst teams in the league (not good) but they're "fun" bad (good), as opposed to "horrible-to-watch" bad (which would be bad). But they're also maybe hurting their draft position with all these wins… which would be bad. Probably won't last much longer.

30. Montreal Canadiens (LT: 30)

Don't really know what the answer is here which puts me in good company, because their coach and GM don't seem to know what the answer is, either. I think sometimes you just hit the skids and get some bad lottery bounces at the wrong time; in some years your top-five picks get you Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid in consecutive years, and sometimes they get you Juraj Slafkovsky and David Reinbacher. Not to speak ill of the latter two guys but they're not two of the four or five best players on earth, y'know?

29. Columbus Blue Jackets (LT: 26)

The CBJs are .417 — second-worst in the NHL — since the last Power Feelings. That feels spiritually correct, and there have been some bright spots, but the David Jiricek thing feels like it symbolizes something, doesn't it?

28. Anaheim Ducks (LT: 29)

They're dead-even .500 since Oct. 29 and that's about as good as you can reasonably expect from this roster. Will they ever take a step?

27. Utah ???? (LT: 23)

These guys have five regulation wins in their last 19 games. That's gotta be considered just a crushing disappointment. Being pretty rotten in Year 1 of a new market has to feel like a gut punch for the guy who just spent 10 figures on the team. You can take the Coyotes out of Arizona, but…

26. Pittsburgh Penguins (LT: 21)

I've been thinking about writing a "they should trade everyone with any value, including Sidney Crosby" take for a while now and I just keep not doing it because it'll never happen. But they really should. I know they're winning more lately but everyone has enough games in hand on them that we can project they're not gonna make the playoffs in all likelihood. And do we really want to see Crosby leading a tanking team, or something close to it, in his twilight years? It sucked with the Chicago guys, and it would feel like 100 times worse in Pittsburgh.

25. Ottawa Senators (LT: 19)

Looks like we've officially hit the "Weren't we supposed to be better than this? Better trade someone out of the middle of the roster and see if that fixes anything," section of the PFs. They want to make a change but they won't give up one of their top guys to do it. Then why bother? No one wants to trade a good roster player for like Josh Norris or Shane Pinto. Just how it is.

24. Seattle Kraken (LT: 25)

I think it's really cool that Joey Daccord seems like the real deal. Awesome story for him, came out of nowhere and got a lot of "Four Nations" talk. Really sick. The rest of the franchise, however, I mean, what can you say? Their dedication to being mediocre is really admirable.

23. Philadelphia Flyers (LT: 28)

People are gonna be mad about this because they've actually been winning a bit but I have a lot more faith the Rangers will figure it out than the Flyers will keep up this quality of play. It's possible but not likely. The East is in rough shape once again this year but they just don't seem to have the horses to be much better than .500 over a long enough timeline. Is that crazy? There's a lot to like about the future here and you're seeing it almost every game. But for the full 82 this year, I dunno.

22. Nashville Predators (LT: 18)

What can ya say? They just keep losing. I didn't think they were a Cup contender after the summer but they felt like a top-10 team. This is inexplicable, honestly. Literally almost nothing is going right, except Juuse Saros has overcome a middling start to once again be one of the better goalies in the league and they're still losing all the time. They're only this high in the rankings because maybe they do have the horses to rip off an .800 record over any 20 games they care to play, but that feels a little more remote every day.

21. Detroit Red Wings (LT: 20)

They're doing the thing where every time they win two or three games and you're like, "Maybe this is it…" they then lose two or three games. They're sub-.500. What can you even say?

20. Buffalo Sabres (LT: 27)

I have to account for that little spurt of winning they did for a minute there, but now they've lost four in a row and it feels like someone might get in trouble.

19. New York Islanders (LT: 17)

Is it good if, for the second time since the start of the season, their coach is making public statements that are along the lines of "I'm doing the best I can with a bad roster?"

18. St. Louis Blues (LT: 24)

The record so far this season would not indicate that this should be a team on the fringe of playoff contention, but the coaching change and the results since that day (3-0-1, outscoring opponents 14-6) make it feel possible. They might be boxed out just because of how strong the division is and how slow their start was, but if anyone can push the right buttons, it does feel like it's Jim Montgomery.

17. Calgary Flames (LT: 22)

Do I think the Flames are as good as the record? I don't. Do I think Dustin Wolf is this good? It's a real possibility. And if he is, there's a glimmer of a chance that they finish fourth in the division.

16. Boston Bruins (LT: 14)

On the one hand, they fired their coach. On the other hand, they were fluctuating between third, fourth, and fifth in their division when they did it. If Joe Sacco can right the ship — and so far they're 6-2-0 under him — the fact that they "underperformed" by hanging around the playoff bubble means they should be fine to at least make the cut, and the way they're playing lately suggests that's the barest of bare minimums. Whether that's the best thing for the long-term health of the franchise is a different question.

15. Tampa Bay Lightning (LT: 11)

Some tough sledding of late (5-6-2 since the start of November) but I'm not too worried about them. They just have so much talent.

14. Washington Capitals (LT: 16)

The quality of their play has dropped off pretty substantially since the early "...and the way they're winning is actually pretty sustainable!" talk. They're 24th in the league in all-situations xGF% since Nov. 1. Probably to be expected. Maybe they can turn that around, but they keep winning regardless.

13. Los Angeles Kings (LT: 15)

They are currently second in the division by points percentage, which is a more precarious position than they might like. They're playing great hockey but do we think the Oilers aren't gonna figure it out, and the Canucks aren't gonna keep pace? Because if the answer to either of those questions is "they will," then that puts the Kings in rather a bad spot. They're rooting for the Flames drop-off to continue, basically. We'll talk about them in a minute.

12. Vancouver Canucks (LT: 12)

I said all along, if they can weather the storm and not completely stink with Thatcher Demko on the shelf, they'll be fine. The latest news is that he's pretty close to returning, and the Canucks are third in their division by points percentage. Basically all they could have asked for.

11. Edmonton Oilers (LT: 13)

I know they're lower than the Canucks in the standings but let's not act like they're not a hot week from McDavid and/or Draisaitl from winning seven straight and everyone forgetting all about the first 20ish games of the season.

10. New York Rangers (LT: 4)

I really don't think the on-ice problems on Broadway are as bad as they're being made out to be, even internally. I make no comment here about all the off-ice stuff. But I was warning people in the offseason that they're maybe not as good as people perceive them to be, either. The idea that this roster is a perennial conference finalist kind of ignores some fundamental issues with the bottom of it, and let's not forget that it wasn't so long ago the Islanders went to two straight Eastern Conference Finals. How did that work out in the long run?

9. Colorado Avalanche (LT: 9)

Can you imagine how good these guys would be if they could get a save? They're currently dealing with an .870 team save percentage. Unbelievable.

8. Toronto Maple Leafs (LT: 10)

They're just a plain old good team. Don't know how much more than that they are, but you can't knock 'em for playing like this.

7. New Jersey Devils (LT: 6)

I'm still having trouble with what I think the Devils' ceiling is. They are a self-evidently good-to-very-good team. But do they have the Star Power to believably make a deep playoff run? I lean toward "yes," but I'd like a little more evidence.

6. Minnesota Wild (LT: 8)

These guys are a lot like the Devils in that the quality of their play (almost percent of the xGs) is about what I expected, but they're being fueled by a psycho-mode performance by one of the best players alive. As long as Kirill Kaprizov keeps this up, and most of the rest of the division isn't quite as good as we might have expected it to be, the sky kinda does feel like the limit.

5. Dallas Stars (LT: 3)

I know the records don't suggest the Stars should be ahead of the Wild but this sport is, at the end of the day, still more about having the best players and I don't think there are many teams with better on-paper rosters than Dallas. That said, you'd like to see "on-paper" translate to "on-ice" sooner than later.

4. Carolina Hurricanes (LT: 7)

Nobody in the league had a better November record than the 'Canes. Only four teams have a better expected-goals percentage, too. As long as they keep playing this well and Martin Necas scores at this MVP-like rate, they're all set. Hey, remember when his name was out there in trade rumors? It was like three months ago!!!

3. Florida Panthers (LT: 1)

Kinda surprising they're only 4-6-1 since Nov. 12, but that followed a seven-game winning streak. So going below .500 for almost a month still has them comfortably in second place in the Atlantic by points percentage. Which says more about the division than their own team, I'd think, and the Bruins are on a run right now. But can we count these guys out as a legit threat to repeat because of one subpar month? We cannot.

2. Winnipeg Jets (LT: 5)

This is more by-default than anything. I guess at this point we have to believe Connor Hellebuyck is just this good. The other thing, though, is that as they've come back to earth a bit recently, so too have many of the other top teams in the league. If I wanted the Power Feelings to work where a bunch of teams are tied for like third and fourth, and no one was first or second, that's probably how I'd do it. I have very slightly more believability in the Jets than the Wild and Stars right now, but only because they seem to have the best goalie on the planet.

1. Vegas Golden Knights (LT: 2)

With all due respect to the Kings, these guys are kinda-sorta running away with a division that was supposed to be a lot tougher than it has been. There are issues to iron out, for sure, but here again we kinda just defer to star power up and down the lineup and say, "Ehh, they'll be fine." Maybe that's all it takes in that particular division this year. And given the playoff format, that might be all Vegas needs to get to a Conference Final again.