EP Rinkside 3 Stars: Another strong start

One of the best things about the early part of the NHL season is that teams aren't good at defense yet, so you get more random 6-5 games out of these October games. It breaks people's brains a little bit, because big goal numbers are like skydiving: exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. The idea of seeing 12 goals scored in one game is good. The idea of your team giving up six or seven goals is bad.

This is a contradiction that cannot be resolved.

Through the first 19 games of the 2024-25 campaign, entering the weekend, the league as a whole is averaging about 7.4 goals per game, or 3.7 goals per team per game. When people talk about how they'd like to see the NHL get back to the kind of scoring rates that existed in the 80s, this level or scoring is basically what they're advocating for. From 1986 to 1989, the league averaged between 3.67 and 3.74 goals per team per game — and in the few years before that it was closer to 4 goals per team per game. Maybe 3.25 is the sweet spot, higher than the 3.1ish seen the last few years but with goalies still being able to play their position competently.

I truly don't get why you would want to return to the times when you were getting scores like this in, like, February. I think it would be psychotic to approach this kind of scoring rate for a full season, but I'm also not 50 years old so I don't remember when it was not-impossible for guys to score 150 points or whatever. I guess if you want that, you should be hoping the league adds another four expansion teams in the next decade. And great news: It probably will.

Let's go:

3. Debuts

One of the really cool things at the beginning of every season is the chance to see a ton of guys get to make their NHL debuts. I'm obviously thinking of this because we saw Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith make their big debuts in Thursday's late game, but less celebrated players like Toronto's Dennis Hildeby, LA's Andre Lee, and Montreal's Oliver Kapanen — to name just a few of Thursday's debutants — got to do the same just a few hours earlier. Those guys aren't likely to have the same kinds of careers and Celebrini or Smith, or even what Rutger McGroarty or Seamus Casey will.

Hopefully they get to stay in the league for a long time, and make a ton of money, but obviously that won't be the case for all of them. But they all get the rookie lap, the little TV feature between plays during the first period — and in Casey's case, a Rolex — and I bet that rocks for those guys. Playing in the NHL is something they've been working for their whole lives and then they got to do it. Even being a "cup of coffee" guy is better than not getting anything at all, and so we simply have to salute these players.

2. Early conclusions

I know I wrote a whole thing about the Buffalo Sabres being a disaster already this season (marked as "confirmed" by Thursday night's result against the Kings, surely) but the stuff you see people saying at the beginning of every season remains very funny.

Linus Ullmark or Sam Montembeault having exactly one great game each? This could shift the entire Eastern Conference playoff picture!!! Personally, I will wait until they have put together, say, 10 or 12 good games before I declare the fourth spot in the Atlantic a completely unsafe seat. Right now I can't even say I'm leaning toward the Sens or Habs being good. It's within the realm of possibility (for Ottawa much more than Montreal) but let's be serious here.

And to highlight that I'm not just doing this out of a sense of self-preservation for my own personal takes, I will say the same thing about the Canucks. I said before the season that there will be a lot of questions about how well they can play while Thatcher Demko is sidelined, and of course they immediately went out and gave up six goals on 26 shots to the Calgary Flames, which isn't the kind of team that should be scoring six on anyone, let alone a team that at least gets to say it has Stanley Cup aspirations this season. Score one for me — which they should be fine with since they let everyone else score in Game 1 — but I cannot view this as being part of any larger trend.

That said, Nov. 1 is rapidly approaching, isn't it? Winning is always better than losing, whether it's a small or big sample, but if you're drawing conclusions from Detroit getting smoked by the Penguins, or the Penguins getting smoked by the Rangers, I might advise you to take a deep breath. But I'm not the boss of you, either.

1. Funny stats

I wish there was a way to quickly and easily look up how many days someone has led the NHL in various stats over the history of the league. Like, if an NHL season is 190 days, Connor McDavid has probably led in points for something like 1,200 days over the course of his career, Auston Matthews has led in goals for about 500 days. That sort of thing.

But while the big numbers for the best players in the world would be interesting to consider, the real fun would be the guys in single digits. For example, right now, Ivan Barbashev is in a six-way tie for first in the league in points at four, Dylan Guenther leads in goals with four, and Montembeault is your league leader in GAA, save percentage, and shutouts. And that's not to say any of those guys are even approaching being bad players or whatever, but they're not exactly guys you'd expect to be up there in April or even November.

I know some guys have played three games and some have played zero and that's not really the point here. The point is that Mason Appleton is tied for second in the league in points right now with Johnathan Kovacevic and Alex DeBrincat, and if you don't think that's funny, I don't have anything for ya.