If the salary cap has brought with it an era known for its parity, Saturday night can be considered an outlier.
Just three of 11 games played finished with a one-goal differential, and there were several blowouts, one of which was a dominant performance by Montreal.
Even in the games that weren’t complete routs, we saw the Leafs get taught a lesson by the Cup champs, while Sebastian Aho showed why he was so highly regarded coming out of Finland in Carolina’s 5-1 win over the Capitals.
Here are five things we learned.
Flames just can’t get going
We’re starting to get into that odd part of the season where it’s still too early to panic, but it’s OK to show at least a little bit of concern.
The Calgary Flames have yet to find their stride and Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the New York Rangers wasn’t pretty.
It’s bad enough that the goaltending hasn’t been there when needed, but for a team with young talents Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, and Sam Bennett, the offence has yet to really take off either.
The Flames have scored more than two goals in a game just once in their last seven, which was, go figure, their only win in that span.
The power play has been awful, though Micheal Ferland did manage to score the team’s first home power-play goal of the season with under nine minutes left in Saturday’s loss.
Canadiens reaching historic levels of dominance
The Montreal Canadiens are absolutely on fire right now, and they put on quite the performance against Detroit.
There’s really not much that can be said right now. This is a team that has bigger goals than being the league’s best after a month and a bit of play, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the show so far.
Carey Price is now the first goalie in league history to win his first 10 starts of a season.
Bombs away!
Just what is going on with the Columbus Blue Jackets?
They came into their game against the St. Louis Blues ranked 15th in the league in goals for with 37, largely buoyed by a 10-goal outburst against Montreal.
Without that one game, their goals per game would’ve ranked 22nd in the NHL at 2.45 coming into Saturday.
Now they didn’t quite reach double digits against the Blues, but an 8-4 drubbing was impressive nonetheless.
This is a team that likes the sound of its own cannon; they’ve been held to less than three goals just once at Nationwide Arena this season (where they average 4.6 goals a game), compared to four times on the road, where they score 2.17 goals on average.
Grabner has found his scoring touch
This is starting to get silly.
Michael Grabner scored just nine goals in 80 games last season while playing on the last-place Leafs, but has turned into quite the sniper with the New York Rangers.
The 29-year-old opened the scoring against Calgary, showcasing his trademark speed down the wing before wristing a shot past Brian Elliott.
He’s found the back of the net eight times in the season’s first 15 games, and is on pace to set a new career high in goals (he had 34 for the New York Islanders in 2010-11).
The Austrian speedster will most certainly cool down, but at a meagre $1.65-million cap hit, the Rangers have themselves quite a bargain in Grabner.
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Preds could be turning it around
Perhaps no team in the league got off to a worst start relative to expectations this season than the Nashville Predators, who entered the year with arguably the deepest blue line in all of hockey.
Don’t look now, but Honky Tonk Hockey is starting to make a charge.
A 5-0 thrashing of the Anaheim Ducks has given the Predators a three-game win streak (and a five-game point streak), to double their win total from their first 11 games.
Nashville’s 6-5-3 record is good enough to put the Preds within striking distance of every team in their division save for Chicago.
And that blue line seems to be settling into a groove.
The Predators haven’t given up more than two goals in regulation since Oct. 29.