Boo! No, really, boo. Celebrate Halloween with some of the NHL's scariest starts

It’s Halloween, which means it’s time to settle in and watch a scary movie. Have you considered highlight clips of your favorite player?

That probably wouldn’t work, at least if your player is someone like Cale Makar or Kirill Kaprizov or Nikita Kucherov. Those guys have been great through October, and other stars are at least living up to expectations. Not everyone is, though, and that means it’s time for our annual team full of starts that are scary, or at least disappointing. We’ll pick a full roster, with a max of one player per team and some honorable mentions to round out the field. (Is it dumb to pretend that every team has a player having a bad start worth singling out? Yes, of course, but you guys get mad when I don't include your favorite teams, so here you go.)

A scary start doesn't doom a season – last year’s list included names like Juraj Slafkovsky, Matt Duchene and Stuart Skinner, and they all ended up having good years. There was even a passing mention of Connor Hellebuyck, and he won the Vezina. Then again, some players never really recovered from a slow first month. And we won’t know who’s who until much further down the road.

For now, let’s get in the Halloween spirit, building from the net out. (Side note: It's also an annual tradition that at least a few of these guys have big games immediately after I write this piece, so feel free to send thank you notes if it happens for your team.)

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NHL weekend rankings: Jets unbeatable, Bruins a question mark, Penguins a mess

If you’re a hockey fan and you love power rankings, you got some great news a few days ago: The Friday rankings have returned.

There’s a common misconception out there that there’s some sort of rivalry between those rankings and these ones. But there isn’t, because we’re trying to do different things. These rankings are the long-term view, while the Friday boys are more of an immediate snapshot. I do my thing, Dom and Other Sean do theirs, and the readers win. A rivalry? Not even close.

They were a few weeks late to the season, though, especially since we’ve already been hard at work on two weeks’ worth of rankings under our belt. I wonder why that was. Let’s see what they had to say about that:

“Sure, we could’ve assembled our little list last week — but there were teams that had only played three games. It felt wrong. Integrity counts, professionally and personally, and some sample sizes are simply too small.”

(Does an extended Kubrik Stare off into the middle distance like Gary Roberts before a playoff game.)

Integrity? Right, screw those guys, a rivalry it is. Here are five issues I had with the first set of rankings from those two Taylor Swift lyric-loving weirdos.

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DGB Mailbag: Thoughts on te red-hot Jets, Gretzky to the Red Wings, and The Amulet

It’s two weeks into the season, and we’re all still trying to get our bearings. When it comes to those questions you might have percolating in your hockey fan brain, there’s nothing better than having a forum where you can ask a well-informed expert. Unfortunately, you have me instead, but ah well, we’ll make the best of it.

It's mailbag time. Which early-season storylines were on your mind? What kind of crazy hypotheticals were you able to dream up for me? Will I be able to make it all the way through without being asked about The Amulet? Let’s find out.

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Remembering your team’s worst season start (that didn’t really end up mattering)

We’re a few weeks into a new season, and there’s a good chance your team is off to a bad start. Maybe it’s simply disappointing, or maybe it’s bordering on disastrous – these things come in different flavors. But when it happens, it leads to panic and a sense of impending doom, as you can’t help but hear about looming milestones like November 1 or US Thanksgiving, and how the season will be a total writeoff if your team isn’t back on track by then. A slow start is the worst.

Also, it might not matter.

The “might” is a key word here, because a slow start can absolutely torpedo a season. But it doesn’t have to, as history often reminds us. So today, let’s see if we can calm a few nerves for fan bases in Colorado, Nashville, Buffalo and elsewhere, and maybe rekindle a few memories for others. Let’s look back at your team’s worst start to a season that ended up being just fine, thanks.

We’re going to define a bad start a little loosely here, which allows us to play around with some arbitrary end points, although we want a team that’s at least under .500. For some teams, that cold streak will only last a few games, while others might take months to get going. And of course, the “didn’t matter” part will be in the eye of the beholder – for some of these teams, a few extra points in October could have meant home ice, or a better playoff matchup, or who knows what else down the road. But the larger point remains: Often, a few bad games is just a few bad games, and good teams find a way.

There is hope. You just need to know where to look. Let’s remember some bad starts.

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Weekend rankings: Five early-season storylines I don’t believe in (yet)

We’re two weeks into the season. Do you know what to believe?

Probably not, unless you’re delusional. A typical NHL season doesn’t tip its hand this early, and will even toss a few decoys our way to throw us off the scent of what’s really going on. Nobody should be quite sure what they believe, unless it’s you guys having zero faith in Sam Reinhart. Who leads the league in scoring, by the way.

So no, I’m not quite sure what I’m buying into yet. But I’m starting to narrow down the list, which is where we’ll start with this week’s bonus five.

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