What if five is the wrong number?
This came up in the comment section of last week’s post, but it’s worth exploring in a bit more detail here. I do a top and bottom five every week in this column, because that seems like a good number to let us explore the most newsworthy teams without getting bogged down in the mushy middle that’s often just not that interesting in this league.
But the thing is that it’s five teams every week, no matter what. That might seem to imply that there’s always a five-team tier at each end of the spectrum, and of course that’s not always true. Often, the gap between fifth and sixth is a small one, if it’s even there at all. Sometimes, there isn’t much gap between third or fourth and ninth or tenth.
That’s kind of what’s happening so far this year, at least for one of the rankings. At the bottom, we really are starting to get some separation with five bad teams. But on the good side of the ledger, there’s a very strong case to be made for a handful of teams we don’t have room for. I think we’d all agree the Panthers and Hurricanes are still safely top-five teams. My long-term view means the Avalanche have to be there, and the Lightning should get some benefit of the doubt. I’ve mostly bought into the Oilers. That’s five teams right there, and I don’t think anyone would argue that any of those are controversial picks. But it still leaves us with at least five teams that have an extremely strong case for a spot. The “really good teams” club is a very crowded place right now.
I can’t fit everyone in, but in the interest of inclusion (and a futile attempt to limit the number of angry “BUT WHAT ABOUT” screeds in the comment section), let’s make the case for five more teams.
Calgary Flames: They’ve already won four in a row twice this year and are so good defensively that they’ve yet to go more than three games without a shutout. The underlying numbers are very good, the way they always are with Darryl Sutter teams. If the Oilers are going to get a spot each and every week, a Flames team that’s been keeping pace with them all year should be there too, right?
Vegas Golden Knights: They’ve been inconsistent all year, but at their best, they can look scary good. We didn’t see that on Saturday, but they’re getting healthy again, and if we’re looking long-term then we should probably discount the stretch where they were missing Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty. Oh, and Jack Eichel is waiting in the wings. If everyone’s in place by the time the playoffs start, do you really think there will be five teams with better Cup odds?
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