Leafs second, Sens pull past Jets in NHL Power Rankings

By Sportlogiq Staff (@Sportlogiq)

It’s a three-peat for the Vegas Golden Knights who sit atop our Power Rankings for a third straight week.

Vegas went 2-1-0 last week with wins over the Colorado Avalanche and Arizona Coyotes. The Golden Knights have won 11 of their past 12 games and rank first in goal differential and points percentage. They are No. 1 in our rankings for good reason. 

The Toronto Maple Leafs are back in our top three this week, jumping six spots from eighth to second. The Leafs have had solid underlying numbers all season and are coming off a 3-0-0 week. Toronto has won its past five games overall.

There is no doubt the Maple Leafs are the class of the North Division, but skeptics will likely need to see Toronto win a playoff round against an out-of-division opponent before buying the hype. 

The Edmonton Oilers are up one spot from last week to sit in ninth. The Oilers rank inside the top 10 in goal differential and expected goal differential and look more and more like they will finish second place in the North.

The biggest question remaining: Will Connor McDavid reach 100 points this season? Edmonton has four games this week against a fatigued Vancouver Canucks team. McDavid needs 13 points to hit the milestone. He might do it by Sunday.

Moving up two spots from 18th to 16th are the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs are showing some signs of life, posting a 3-1-0 record last week.

Montreal had been stuck in a rut, struggling to score goals, but multi-goal comeback wins against the Winnipeg Jets and Ottawa Senators have Canadiens fans feeling good. We’ll see if Montreal can carry this momentum into a busy week that sees the Habs play four games, including three against the division-leading Maple Leafs. 

Never say never, but it looks like the Calgary Flames will be on the outside looking in when the season wraps up. Calgary is eight points back of the Canadiens for the final playoff spot in the North with six games to go.

The Flames sit 11th in expected goal differential despite ranking 17th in our Power Rankings and 22nd in points percentage. Jacob Markstrom wasn’t able to find the elite level he played at in Vancouver last year and the Flames’ offence lacks gifted goal scorers.

In perhaps the biggest shocker of the season in our rankings, the Senators are ahead of the Jets. Thanks to a 2-0-1 week, the Sens move up four spots from 23rd to 19th.

While our model does weigh recent performance, it weights overall performance even more. So this is a surprise, but keep a couple of things in mind: since Feb. 13, the two teams have an almost identical record. Winnipeg has 40 points in 37 games, Ottawa has 38 points in 36 games. The Sens had a disastrous first month of the season but have been a middle-of-the-pack team since. 

As for the Jets, they drop from 17th to 20th in our rankings. We’ve said for much of the season that if Connor Hellebuyck’s play dropped from elite to even average, the Jets would be in trouble as they are one of the leakiest defensive teams in the NHL.

That has happened and with injuries to Nikolaj Ehlers and Adam Lowry, the Jets find themselves mired in a six-game losing streak. The good news for Jets fans who disagree with our model ranking Ottawa higher is that the two teams face each other tonight. I guess we’ll see who deserves to be higher on the list. 

That leaves the Vancouver Canucks in the 28th spot as our final Canadian team. The Canucks have lost four straight games, but pretty much everything this team does should come with a grain of salt considering their lengthy COVID layoff and condensed schedule down the stretch.