NHL weekend rankings: Change in Boston, déjà vu in Ottawa, and expected storylines

We’re a quarter of the way through the NHL season, which means it’s time for two things: Saying “quarter-pole” around your most pedantic friends just to annoy them, and writing pieces about how nothing is going the way we expected.

We’ve been covering that latter ground for most of the season around here, including last week’s reminder that you were wrong about all this stuff too. So this time, let’s switch it up. Sure, this is a league where almost nothing is playing out the way we thought: the Oilers are bad, the Flames are good, the Predators are terrible, the Capitals and Wild are great, the Jet are dominant, the Avalanche are .500, and the Bruins are collapsing. Connor McDavid is outside the top ten in points, Connor McMichael is unstoppable, and Connor Bedard is regressing in year two. None of it makes any sense. But if we dig deep enough, surely we can find a few things that are actually playing out pretty much the way we all expected, right?

Of course we can. I’m not sure we can find five, but let’s try.

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