The Colorado Avalanche are an ABSOLUTE WAGON | NHL Tier List Week 3

The Colorado Avalanche are an ABSOLUTE WAGON | NHL Tier List Week 3

If you had the Pittsburgh Penguins being among the best teams in the Eastern Conference with the Tampa Bay Lightning being among the worst, you are a goddamn liar. Uh, but if you had the Sharks being the worst team in the NHL, then congratulations. You’re a human being with a functioning breed. Welcome to the week three NHL tier list where we’re going to be counting down the best and worst teams in the NHL. And we’re starting with the worst of the worst, the San Jose Sharks. No surprise, they did finally manage to win a game. Great for them. But this team is basically just Minelbraney, Will Smith, and William Ecklund in a trench coat posing as an NHL team. I mean, my god, if they could ever actually get goalending and defense, they’ll look like a competent team. But for right now, it’s just three young kids and a bunch of guys just floating along trying to not embarrass themselves on a nightly basis. But hey, they at least beat the Rangers, so thanks for that. And speaking of beating the Rangers, the second worst team in the NHL is the Calgary Flames, which is not on my bingo board, I have to put my hand up on this one. When I said before the year that I thought that the Flames would be a sneaky team, I meant with regards to contending for the playoffs, not in the Gavin McKenna sweep stakes. I mean, that’s what happens when Dustin Wolf plays like a mere mortal and nobody on your team can score. Like, literally, can anybody on this team actually score a goal? But yeah, this team is about to be sold off or scrapped. So, Nasam Cadri, Rasmus Anderson, and Blake Coleman. Hope you enjoyed the scenes of Calgary because they’ll be in your rearview mirror pretty soon. Now, the third worst team in the NHL after 3 weeks is no surprise New York Rangers who lost to those two absolute atrocities. And I guess I got to apologize to Peter Lavlet because it wasn’t coaching that was holding back the Rangers last year. I mean, how on earth does a team this talented look absolutely terrible? And don’t be blaming Igor Sherkin for putting up one bad game against Calgary. You need to be able to overcome your all-star goalender having one clunker of a game. This team can’t score. They can’t defend. Zabanagad still can’t hit water from a boat. But as a fan of another Metro Division team, boy, it’s just the greatest comedy that’s ever been written. Now, the fourth and fifth worst teams in the NHL are in their own pathetic tier. That’s the Blues and the Blue Jackets. Neither of these teams did I have very high expectations for, but you know, the Blues made a run for the playoffs last year, so I thought that they would be at least competitive. Cut to Boston Bruins fans laughing at how Jim Montgomery’s already worn out his welcome and been exposed. But for the Blue Jackets, just like the Flames, C, can somebody on this goddamn team score a goal? I mean, you have a rookie in Jet Greavves playing outside of his mind, and you have a Norse Trophy caliber defenseman in Zack Winsky. Somebody on this team needs to score. And don’t think too long, Blue Jackets fans, about the fact that you could have Demagod and Dylan Gunther on this team if your GM was actually competent in the last few drafts. So, there’s your bottom five. But where does the rest of the NHL stack up? Well, above the pathetic teams, I had a you can’t fool me tier. These are teams that are winning right now, or at least performing better than I thought that I think are just about to come down. We got the Blackhawks, Flyers, Islanders, Ducks, Canucks, and Predators. All these teams are having some varying degrees of success, but there’s an explanation for it. Either they’re getting great goalending, they had an easy schedule to start the season, they’re getting kind of unsustainable performances from some key players. The long and the short of it is while I acknowledge that they are performing well to start the year, I don’t think it’s going to be sustained, and they still need to show me a lot more before I believe in them. In the next tier, we have kind of the inverse of those I don’t believe in you teams. And these are teams that are struggling, but I believe in their talent. Teams like the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Buffalo Sabres, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Minnesota Wild. All these teams should be good. They don’t really have any significant injuries. Maybe they lost a little bit of talent over the offseason or they’re bouncing back from a pretty bad year last year, but these teams have got talent. Like, they should not be at the bottom of the standings so far. And while I do have faith that they can kind of stabilize, they’re falling out of things quickly in October and that might come back to bite them later in the year if they miss the playoffs. They might be thinking, man, if we had just had a better start to October, we would be in the postseason right now. Above those teams, we have the Pittsburgh Penguins on their own in their own tier. And that is nope. Still on fraud watch. I do not believe in the Pittsburgh Penguins quite yet. They have been getting outstanding goalending from Shield Sanjari and I don’t know how long that’s going to continue. getting Malin did not quantum leap back into his body from 10 years ago. And guys like Justin Brazio will eventually stop scoring. Yes, I know Sydney Crosby is playing great to start the year. He always does. But my point before this year, and I still stand by it, is that this team is too talented to tank for McKenna, but they’re not talented enough to make the playoffs. Dan Muse deserves some credit for what he has done to start the year, but I don’t necessarily think this is sustainable. Again, they’re at the top of the standings, but I’m not ready to say that I believe in them just yet. Above them, I have three teams that I think are just mid in the Kings, Panthers, and the Senators. This is for one reason or another. Obviously, the Panthers are the two-time defending champions, but their current iteration without Kachchuck and Barkov is pretty mid. The Senators I thought were going to be very good and they’ve kind of bounced back, but Lenus Omar has turned into an absolute pumpkin. and the LA Kings are just kind of a jackal and hide team to start the year. I thought these three teams would be varying degrees of good going into the year and they’ve been varying degrees of good to start the year. But I do think that Ottawa with average goalending is a much better team than the other two. Above those three teams in the mid division, we’ve got two teams who are just kind of sleeping in. The Oilers and the Stars. Sleepy starts to the year, but I think these two teams are among the best in the NHL from the talent perspective. I’m not willing to rate them off and say that they are not going to be among the best teams in the NHL when the playoffs come around just cuz they kind of got off to an underwhelming start. Above them, we’ve got six teams who are solid, including two of the top five teams in the NHL. Those teams just outside the top five include the Red Wings, Golden Knights, Mammoth, Capital, and Kraken. A lot to like about all those teams, but maybe one or two big flaws that they need to overcome, but they’re not in the top five like the Canadians and the Carolina Hurricanes. Both of these teams have been outstanding to start the year. For the Hurricanes, I expected that they would be one of the best teams in the NHL. For the Canadians, I really didn’t, and they’ve been very surprising in that regard. I thought that their forwards would be a weakness, but between demigod, Cfield, Suzuki, and Slakovski, they got more than enough firepower to overcome kind of lackluster depth, especially when they’re getting contributions from the blue line. But those two teams, I think, still have a few flaws, which keeps them out of the elite tier, which is three teams. First, the Winnipeg Jets. I think that this is just top to bottom one of the most complete rosters in the NHL. They don’t have the high-end talent of some of the other teams, uh, outside of goal, of course, but there are just no holes on this team when they are completely healthy. And Connor Hellbuck hasn’t even been playing at his peak level. Then you’ve got two teams in the Colorado Avalanche and the New Jersey Devils. And I give the Devils the edge just because as of this recording, they’ve only played once in the Devils won it. Maybe the ABS will win their second matchup. And in that case, maybe you can make the argument the ABS are the better team. But both of these teams are kind of in the same boat. elite high-end talent, good goalending, at least solid enough, and they have just been on a tear to start the year. So, the Devils and the Abs, two of the top teams in the NHL, both elite [Music]

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