After tonight, 43% of the regular season (566 of 1,312 games) will be complete, and we are starting to see which teams are contenders or pretenders. Some teams gave their fans an early Christmas with some great play in December, while others gave their fans lumps of coal.

The Western Conference has seen a few changes in the standings, with some pre-season prognostications starting to come true, while the Eastern Conference experienced some seismic changes that will be fascinating to watch over the final 57% of the season.

Let’s start in the West. Vegas and Edmonton have the top two P% in the NHL in December. Vegas is 7-1 (.875P%) and they host 26th place Anaheim. Edmonton went 8-2 (.800) and is now tied with Minnesota for third in points and P%. But did you know the Utah Hockey Club has the third best P% in the NHL in December? They went 6-1-2 and are right in the playoff conversation.

Utah is now ninth in P% in the West, but they are tied in points with Dallas at 38 (Stars have one game in hand). They are one point behind Vancouver, and they are four points back of Colorado with three games in hand. Utah has become a legitimate playoff contender, which is impressive considering they’ve played the entire season without half of their projected top-four defenders.

John Marino has yet to play a game, while Sean Durzi was injured in the fourth game of the season. Acquiring Olli Maatta from Detroit for a third round draft pick on October 29th, has been the most impactful in-season trade of the year thus far. Maatta has been minute muncher for Utah. He’s averaged 21:47/game, and he’s played the most 5×5 minutes at 416. Michail Sergachev is next at 399.

Maatta has played top-pair minutes for two months, despite never being a top pair defender on any other team. It is fair to ask if it is sustainable, but his play, along with that of many other teammates, has Utah firmly in the playoff mix, and that’s a great story.

The Edmonton Oilers are who many thought they were. They had a tough start (0-3), but still finished October at 5-5-1, and since November 1st they are tied for the most wins in the NHL and have the second-best P% at .717 (16-6-1) trailing only Vegas at .727 (15-5-2). Edmonton has the best record in the NHL over the past 20 games. Many expected the Oilers and Vegas to be in the playoffs and competing for first place in the Pacific and the Western Conference, and that’s exactly where they are right now.

Winnipeg and Minnesota had amazing starts, but over their last 20 games they rank 20th and 17th respectively in P%. Minnesota is 10-8-2 while Winnipeg 10-9-1. If that continues over their next 20 games, that will keep the door open for Utah to make the playoffs in their inaugural season.

Colorado was 10 points back of Minnesota on November 30th and this morning they are only two. Home ice advantage is slipping away for the Wild, who are on a four-game losing streak. They miss Filip Gustavsson. He hasn’t played since the Oilers beat Minnesota 7-1 on December 12th and the Wild are 1-4 without him. Marc-Andre Fleury is 1-2 with a .877Sv% and 3.04 GAA while Jesper Wallstedt is 0-2 with a .843Sv% and 4.09 GAA.

The Jets rank 15th in GF/GP and 13th in GA/GP over their last 20 games. Both teams are playoff contenders, but at this moment they look like Stanley Cup pretenders.

Dallas is 5-5 in their last 10 games and pointwise they are currently ninth in the West, but they rank sixth in P% and third in the Central. They can’t score. They are 24th in GF/GP at 2.50 over the past 10 games. Tyler Seguin had 20 points in 19 games before getting injured on December 1st. They really miss him. In December Jason Robertson does have nine points, but he only had two goals and has seven in 32 games this season. Mavrik Bourque and Logan Stankoven have combined for one goal so far in December. Dallas has played the second fewest games in the NHL. If their young guys are struggling now, what happens when rookie fatigue kicks in with a condensed schedule in the New Year? GM Jim Nill has been looking to improve his roster, and I wonder if he does it sooner than later.

Los Angeles quietly continues to remain consistent. They were 6-3-2 in October, 8-5-1 in November and they are 5-2-2 so far in December. They’ve been quite consistent, even without Drew Doughty. They have the third-lowest GAA/GP this season at 2.56, but I believe their main issue still exists: Do they score enough? I don’t think they do, and if they are going to add at the deadline, they need a scoring winger. Hard to find.

Vancouver remains in a playoff spot, despite lackluster production from Elias Pettersson and JT Miller. The rumblings of them not being great buddies has resurfaced, but it isn’t new. Not all teammates are great pals, but when they aren’t producing the story gets brought back up. Something is amiss in Vancouver and until they fix it, I view them as a playoff contender but a Stanley Cup pretender.

The East has seen some crazy swings the past month. Ottawa went from 15th to a playoff spot, while the New York Rangers tumbled down the standings from sixth at the end of November to 11th today.

Ottawa has the best record (8-2-1) and P% (.778) in the East so far in December. It was much needed, because when December began their quest to end their franchise record seven-year playoff drought looked dire. But Linus Ullmark found his game and the Senators started winning. Ullmark went 7-0-1 with a .956Sv% and 1.30 GAA. He left yesterday’s game v. the Oilers after the first period, but early reports are it shouldn’t be serious. He just tweaked something in his back/hip so they erred on the side of caution. The Senators don’t play again until Saturday so he will get some rest. Of course, we’ve seen many “not serious” diagnosis for injuries this season, that lasted a month, so until he returns Senators fans will be nervous. The Senators have put themselves in the playoff contender category.

The Rangers are teetering on one the most unexpected collapses I can recall. Many believed the Rangers were a lock to make the playoffs and many had them as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender when the season began. They don’t look like one today, and they are now just trying to remain in the playoff contender category. They are playing the New Jersey Devils as I type this, and if they lose, they will be below .500. Stunning.

Washington continues to play great, even without Alex Ovechkin. The Great Eight had 15 goals in his first 18 games and the chase to catch Wayne Gretzky for the all-time goal record was the talk of the NHL. Ovechkin needs 27 goals to break the record. He’s been skating and is close to returning and if he has 43-45 games to score 27 goals, he could do it this year. The Capitals are 10-4-1 without him and they’ve shown no signs of slowing down. The race for first in the East and Metropolitan will be great between the Capitals, Panthers, Devils, Maple Leafs and Hurricanes. Those five teams are all legit playoff contenders and right now the Capitals, Panthers and Devils are Cup contenders.

The Hurricanes aren’t there yet, for me, due to their goaltending injury issues and lack of a true offensive superstar. Martin Necas had an unreal start with 37 points in his first 22 games, but he only has seven in his last 11. With 44 points already, he should set a new career high (currently 71 points), but he’s not a consistent game-breaker yet. He’s only scored more than 54 points once. Sebastian Aho is their most proven score (81 and 89 points), but he isn’t an elite scorer. He’s very good, but not elite, and he’s never had a breakout playoff. He has 70 points in 74 playoff games. Very solid, just not game breaking.

Toronto isn’t there for me today due to health concerns, and previous playoff struggles. Until Auston Matthews is deemed fully healthy, the Leafs won’t be in my legitimate Cup contender conversation. If he is healthy when the playoffs begin, and so are both of their goaltenders, then they could enter that conversation. But those are two big BUTs.

New Jersey is playing their league-leading 37th game today. They’ve been consistent all season, and they have a busy schedule until April. They only play six games in April and only two in the first 10 days of the month. They should have a bit of a rest advantage when the playoffs begin. They have top-end scorers in Jesper Bratt and Jack Hughes, they have a very sound defence and two quality goalies. They are second in GA/GP at 2.53. They are a bonafide Cup contender. The one slight concern is their top players, outside of Timo Meier, don’t have loads of playoff success, but Ondrej Palat should be a great sounding board to keep them calm. I’m fascinated to see what GM Tom Fitzgerald does leading up to the trade deadline.

Florida is still the best team in the East. Tampa Bay went to three-consecutive Cup finals in 2020, 2021 and 2022, but they had shorter regular seasons due to COVID. I’d expect GM Bill Zito to improve his third defence pairing. Their blueline really misses Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. OEL was their best D-man in the playoffs last year. Nate Schmidt and Uvis Balinskis don’t possess the skill of OEL and Montour. If Zito adds a solid defender, it won’t be a surprise to see Florida go on another deep playoff run.

What an awful December for Buffalo. The Sabres were in the second wildcard spot on November 26th. It looked like they might finally compete for a playoff spot. But since then, they’ve been the worst team in the NHL, by a large margin. They are winless in 13 games since and have plummeted out of the playoff race and into the draft lottery lead. This morning, they were tied with Chicago for the best draft lottery odds. What a putrid month for the Sabres.

They are now a lock to extend their record for longest playoff drought in NHL history to 14 seasons. Gawd, I feel for Sabres fans.

The Art Ross scoring race is down to six players.

We shouldn’t be surprised as all six rank in the top-10 most productive scorers the previous four seasons. Nikita Kucherov is sixth in points this year, but he has the highest pts/game. He’s missed a few games, and Tampa has played the fewest games in the NHL thus far. Don’t count him out.

Leon Draisaitl, Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid lead the NHL with 39 points since November 1st. Mikko Rantanen has 37. Those two sets of teammates have been on fire lately and McDavid and Draisaitl have two games in hand to try and close the gap. It won’t be easy as the Avalanche star has the most points in the 2024 calendar year thus far with 139 while McDavid (133), Kucherov (132), Draisaitl (118) and Rantanen and Kirill Kaprizov each have 111. MacKinnon has played six more games than McDavid and eight more than Kucherov, but he’s been able to avoid injuries, and when the scoring race is this close, being healthy will play a big part in who wins the trophy in April.

Today is our final day. We are trying something we’ve never done before. We are calling it the Christmas Challenge.

Tune in between 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.  on Sports 1440 and Oilersnation YouTube and Facebook to find out how to join and help the Christmas Bureau. You can help by texting or calling 1.833.401.1440. 

I’m away for the next few days and wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.