This Week in the NHL: Week Three

We are three weeks into the NHL season, and this article will focus on what happened in the past week from Friday, October 21st to Thursday, October 27th.

— Another week means more players heading to the IR or LTIR. Jacob Chychrun suffered a setback and is out indefinitely according to Coyotes GM, Bill Armstrong. Chychrun has battled injuries much of his career and his health will be a concern for any GM interested in acquiring him. Ottawa’s Josh Norris injured his shoulder and might miss the rest of the season. Brutal blow for the Senators and Norris. Cam Talbot will miss a few weeks with a rib injury.

The Flyers will be without James van Riemsdyk for a month with a broken finger. They also listed Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson as out indefinitely with a back and upper body injury respectively. Seattle placed goalie Philipp Grubauer on IR with a lower-body injury. Pavel Buchnevich and Brandan Saad are on IR with the Blues

Chicago placed Tyler Johnson on IR with an ankle injury. Minnesota will be without Jordan Greenway indefinitely with an upper-body injury. He played his first game of the season, after starting the year injured, and got hurt early. He has played a total of 2:58 this season. Darren Helm is out indefinitely in Colorado with an undisclosed injury, while Ottawa’s Artem Zub will miss a few weeks with an upper-body injury.

Columbus had a rough week with injuries. Justin Danforth is out until April, Adam Boqvist is out until mid-December with a foot injury, and Joonas Korpisalo will miss a few weeks with a hip injury.

And the injury bug bit Vancouver hard with Quinn Hughes out until early November, and Brock Boeser, Tucker Poolman, Curtis Lazar, Riley Stillman and Travis Dermott all out with various injuries. Dermott suffered another concussion, unfortunately.

— David Pastrnak had the most productive week scoring 3-4-7 in four games. Dominik Kubalik had 3-4-7 in four games. Jared McCann led the league with four goals. Timo Meier had 22 shots on goal, and finally got rewarded with his first goal of the season for San Jose. Connor McDavid picked up his second hat trick of the season and the ageless Joe Pavelski tallied his first hat trick since February 24th, 2019.

— Boston went 3-0 to improve to a league-best 7-1 on the season and the Bruins got Brad Marchand back in the lineup. He promptly picked up three points in his season debut. Tampa Bay, Edmonton, and Chicago were 3-1 and Minnesota rebounded after a tough start and went 2-0-1. At the opposite end, the Rangers struggled going 0-2-1 and Anaheim went 0-2 and extended its winless streak to six games (0-5-1). They have been outscored 27-11 in those six games.

— Columbus, Montreal, and Anaheim all went goalless on the PP this week, and Columbus still doesn’t have a power play goal this season. They are 0-for-20. Brutal.

— The New York Islanders remained perfect on the penalty kill. They killed off all 10 penalties this week and are a perfect 25-for-25 this season. Quite the start for the Islanders’ penalty kill. However, their PP scored two goals this week and allowed two shorthanded goals, so they finished even on special teams. On the season, their special teams are even at goals for/against, despite the perfect penalty kill. That has to be a tad frustrating.

— Speaking of penalties, the Edmonton Oilers were shorthanded 10 times last night in their 6-5 victory over Chicago. We’ve only seen six other games in the past decade where a team was on the PK 10+ times. Vancouver was shorthanded 11 times in January 2015, while the Rangers (January 2019), Devils (March 2017), Canucks (December 2015), Canadiens (December 2013), and Penguins (February 2013) had to kill off 10 power plays.

All seven teams were on the road when they were penalized 10 times.

— The Atlanta Thrashers own the NHL record for most times shorthanded in a game with 16. (The NHL has tracked this since the 1977/1978 season.) Toronto scored seven PP goals on October 14th, 2005 to defeat the Thrashers 9-1 in Atlanta.

St. Louis (October 1995 at home v. Edmonton), Washington (October 2005 in Atlanta) and Florida (December 2005 in Carolina) were all shorthanded 15 times.

— The Oilers and Hawks combined for 17 power plays last night. Both teams have been penalized more than they’ve been on the power play early this season. Here is a look at team PP-PK differential.

Edmonton has been shorthanded the second most times at 40 behind LA at 41. But the Kings have drawn the same amount of power plays. Their games have the most combined power plays by far at 82. Florida is next at 70 followed by Edmonton 69 and Seattle at 66. At the other end of the spectrum, St. Louis has only had a total of 28 power plays in their games.

— Here’s a look at how teams fared last season in PP chances and times shorthanded.

Colorado had the most PP opportunities, but they were also shorthanded the 12th most. They had a total of 515 powerplays in games they played.

Nashville led the NHL with 542 total man advantage situations in their games, and were on the PK (284 times), the most. Montreal was second at 522 followed by Florida (521), Colorado (515), Tampa Bay (511) and Carolina 508.

Interesting to note that Colorado, Tampa Bay, Florida and Carolina — a few of the best teams in the league last season — were also the most penalized. But Colorado drew the most penalties.