The NHL has been a wild ride since returning from the Christmas Break.

In the past 10 days, we’ve seen Montreal, Detroit, and Anaheim dominate top teams, while New Jersey and Tampa Bay look like they ate too much turkey. Alex Ovechkin returned from injury and continued his torrid chase of Wayne Gretzky’s goal record, Leon Draisaitl created a six-goal lead in the Rocket Richard Trophy race, Zach Werenski continues his quest for the Norris Trophy, and many other interesting story lines are budding as we near the halfway point of 2024-25.

Let’s start with the red-hot Montreal Canadiens. They’ve defeated Florida, Tampa, Vegas and Colorado on the road. Their only post-Christmas loss came in Chicago between the Vegas and Colorado games. Not only did they beat four playoff teams, they outscored them 13-5. Prior to Christmas the Canadiens ranked 29th in goals against/game at 3.59, but Santa Claus gave them a better understanding of how to play team defence, because they only allowed five goals in their four victories and they outshot FLA, TB, VGK and COL 125-109. It is a small sample size, but the Habs are suddenly a .500P% team and are two points back of Pittsburgh for the second Wild Card spot with two games in hand.

They were 4-10-1 on the road prior to Christmas and embarked on a road trip across the United States from Florida to Tampa to Vegas to Chicago to Colorado where they went 4-1-0 and, at least for the time being, salvaged their season.

The Detroit Red Wings lost to Toronto in their first game with new head coach Todd McLellan, but since then they defeated Washington, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Winnipeg and outscored their opponents 17-10. Like the Habs, the Red Wings were also leaking goals against prior to Christmas. They ranked 25th at 3.26 GA/GP, but they’ve only allowed 2.5/game in their winning streak. They are back in the playoff race.

The Wild Card race has nine teams separated by only five points.

Tampa Bay and Ottawa have the best P% and they have between 1-4 games in hand on the other seven teams, but Ottawa will be without Linus Ullmark for weeks, according to Senators head coach Travis Green, and Tampa Bay has lost four in a row to San Jose, Anaheim, Montreal and LA — three of the worst teams, standing-wise, in the NHL. I still like Tampa to make the playoffs, but they’ve allowed Montreal and Detroit to gain eight points on them since December 29th.

As bad as the Rangers were in a 25-game stretch in November and December (8-17-0), they aren’t out of the playoff race. They have the most talent of the nine teams in the Wild Card race, but will they play up to their capabilities often enough?

The race in the West doesn’t have as many teams, but it also looks like five teams will be battling for the final Wild Card spot. Colorado, not surprisingly, has started to win more regularly and has created a five-point lead over Vancouver for the first Wild Card spot. The Avs are also tied with Dallas for third in the Central, but Dallas has two games in hand.

Injuries to top defenders Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek as well as goaltender Thatcher Demko being banged up again has the Canucks reeling. They are 3-4-3 in their last 10, and the whispers about JT Miller and Elias Pettersson have a strained relationship have become much louder.

I think the latter is a bit overblown. Nothing has changed. Those two have never been each other’s “ride or die” and I’m not sure why it is more of a story this year. They’ve been teammates for five years. They managed to produce despite not being best friends. The bigger issue is the injuries on the backend. They desperately miss Hughes and Hronek’s puck moving and puck transporting abilities. The Canucks struggles have allowed Calgary to stay in the race and St. Louis, Utah and even Anaheim, due to their recent play which included wins over Edmonton, New Jersey and Winnipeg, to feel they are in the race.

Vancouver has the most talented roster, but they need Hughes healthy, and they need to quiet the noise about their dressing room.

Alex Ovechkin returned after missing 16 games and hasn’t missed a beat. Ovechkin had 15 goals in 18 games before getting injured, and he’s scored four goals in five games since returning. He needs 23 goals to pass Wayne Gretzky for most regular season goals in NHL history. It’s been amazing to watch and the Great Eight is showing no signs of slowing down, and neither are the Washington Capitals. The Capitals have 12 games remaining in January and the only face one team, Edmonton, who is top three in their division (top 12 in NHL). Ovechkin could be within 15 of Gretzky by the end of the month. Maybe less. Crazy.

Leon Draisaitl is riding a 14-game scoring streak. It is the longest streak in the NHL this season and ties his career high. He has a goal in 10 of 14 games and has nine multi-point games. He has 12 goals and 27 points in his streak, and he leads the NHL with 29 goals. He is six ahead of the five players tied for second with 23 goals.

Draisaitl will play his 40th game of the season tomorrow in Boston. He is already one of 10 players to score 30 goals in their first 40 games during the Salary Cap era, and if he scores in Boston he will join Ovechkin (4x), Auston Matthews (3x), and Ilya Kovalchuk (2x) as players to do it multiple times.

Draisaitl is on pace for 61 goals, but maintaining that pace is difficult as shown above. Only five times have players managed to do it, although Sidney Crosby (injury) and Matthews (shortened season) might have. Draisaitl did have 31 goals in 40 games in 2022 when he finished with 55 goals and 110 points. Draisaitl has put himself in a good position to win his first Maurice Richard Trophy (most goals), he’s right in the mix for the Hart Trophy and should be in the conversation for the Selke, if you look at his overall numbers. He’s been the Oilers’ MVP for the first half of the season.

Zach Werenski has 10 points in five games post-Christmas. He’s now second in scoring among NHL D-men with 45 points, four back of Cale Makar. Werenski is averaging the most TOI in the NHL (26:28) and he leads D-men with 23 points 5×5. He also has outscored teams 42-28 at 5×5, while Makar sits at 32-24. When he’s not on the ice Columbus has been outscored 64-52. They are +14 with him on the ice and -12 without him at 5×5. Colorado is +8 with Makar and -15 without him. Werenski is more than deserving to be in the Norris conversation with Makar and Quinn Hughes. Hughes has also played great, but he doesn’t kill penalties like the others do and that will be a factor. In the 34 games Hughes played the Canucks outscored teams 39-21 (+18) at 5×5 and were outscored 33-44 (-11). In the four games he hasn’t played the Canucks are 6-6 at 5×5.

Joseph Woll is 4-0 since the break with a .933Sv% and 2.00 GAA. The Maple Leafs needed him to step up with the injury to Anthony Stolarz and he has. McKenzie Blackwood has fit in well in Colorado and he’s 3-0-1 post-Christmas with a stellar .949Sv% and 1.49 GAA.

And a shoutout to Jason Zucker who has six goals in five games post-Santa. Zucker and his Sabres have had a rough go, but the only saving grace might be that the New York Jets are around. The Jets just missed the playoffs for a 14th-consecutive season, and the Sabres are poised to tie them later this year. At least the Sabres have some company in their constant losing.

Kendall Baker from Yahoo pointed this out regarding young basketball phenom Viktor Wembanyama. Baker wrote: “Through his first 100 NBA games Wembanyama had more points than LeBron James, more threes than Steph Curry, more rebounds than Anthony Davis and more blocks than Shaquille O’Neal.” That is unreal. Wembanyama is so good in all facets of his game.