The 7-Eleven Power Rankings: Tampa Bay still the team to beat

Last season’s best road team (25-9-7) with the NHL’s best overall record (117 points) took up right where they left off, winning their first two games, both on the road.

The season couldn’t have started off better with 3-0 and 5-1 wins. Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Alexander Radulov each have two goals in two games under new coach Jim Montgomery.

Auston Matthews and free agent signee John Tavares are already in great form. Between the two of them they’ve scored nine of the 13 Toronto goals in their first three games.

A great start to the season for the Avalanche with wins in their first two games. Colin Wilson scored two goals in the second game, one third of his total of six from all of last season.

Two 5-1 road games marked the season opening for the Jets. In the opening win over St. Louis they allowed 42 shots, and in the loss to Dallas they allowed three power play goals.

Forget about the Stanley Cup hangover. The Capitals won their opener 7-0 over Boston and scored 13 goals (T.J. Oshie has five points) in their first two games for new coach Todd Reirden.

With Cam Ward gone and Scott Darling injured, the Canes used backup goalies in their first three games (2-1 OT loss, 8-5 win for ex-Flyer rental Petr Mrazek, a 3-1 win for ex-Leaf Curtis McElhinney).

The Blackhawks went to OT in each of their first three games, defeating Ottawa and St. Louis on the road before losing to Toronto at home. Jonathan Toews has five goals and Patrick Kane has four.

The Ducks have been outshot 74-35 in their first two games but still won both of them. Maxime Comtois is a surprise with two goals and John Gibson made 41 saves in a 1-0 shutout Saturday.

The Canadiens opened the season on the road in impressive style, winning 5-1 in Pittsburgh and earning a point in an overtime loss in Toronto. Now they get to play five home games in a row.

It took Travis Zajac 20 games to score his first two goals last season. This year he did it in his first game, helping the Devils to a 5-2 season opening win over Edmonton in Sweden.

Two shutouts, one an embarrassing 7-0 loss and the other a 4-0 win over Buffalo, with ex-Islander Jaroslav Halak earning a shutout. Brad Marchard has assisted on every Bruins goal so far.

Allowing 11 goals in their first two games is not the way the Penguins want to start the season, but curiously it’s better than last year when they allowed 15 goals in their first two games.

A mediocre start for the Sharks, who will be tested with five of their first six games on the road. Newly acquired Erik Karlsson had an assist in an OT win over L.A., but Joe Thornton is back on IR (knee).

The Flyers opened with consecutive road games, and will play five of their next seven at home. But former Leaf James van Riemsdyk is out five to six weeks with a lower-body injury suffered Saturday.

Artemi Panarin scored the winner to give the Blue Jackets an opening OT win over Detroit. They’ll have to negotiate the early part of the season without stud D-man Seth Jones who's out at least a month.

Oft-injured goalie Roberto Luongo lasted half of Florida’s opening game before being helped off the ice with what was diagnosed as an MCL strain. The 39-year-old is out for two to four weeks.

Ilya Kovalchuk didn’t waste any time proving his value, earning two assists in the Kings’ second game playing on a line with Anze Kopitar while former undrafted free agent Alex Iafallo had two goals.

It won’t be easy for the Islanders this season without John Tavares, but they still have Matt Barzal, who assisted on the opening game OT winner and had points in three of their first five goals.

The Golden Knights, who started their inaugural season at 7-1, won’t be sneaking up on anybody this season. Marc-Andre Fleury was pulled in the opener but rebounded with a 2-1 shootout win.

The Flames avenged a 5-2 loss at Vancouver with a 7-4 defeat of the Canucks at home – scoring one shorthanded goal, two at even strength, three on the power play and two empty-netters.

Ranked dead last in our opening power rankings, the surprising Senators opened the season with points in their first two games – an overtime loss to Chicago and a win on the road in Toronto.

The Sabres rebounded from an opening shutout loss to Boston to defeat the Rangers, in large part because of new goalie Carter Hutton who faced 20 third-period shots to earn the 3-1 win.

In their opening split with Calgary, the Canucks’ newest star in Swedish rookie Elias Pettersson had points in five of the team’s nine goals and scored his first NHL goal on his first shot.

Coach Mike Yeo said the Blues loss to Chicago (5-4 in overtime) was brutal. Anything but brutal was newcomer Ryan O’Reilly. The former Sabre assisted on four of the team's first five goals.

Showing some hope for the future, 2016 first-round pick Dennis Cholowski scored his first NHL goal and Detroit’s first of the season in the opener. In the second game, the defenceman had two assists.

Milan Lucic, who scored just one goal in his last 46 games last season, scored the first goal of the season for the Oilers in their opener in Sweden but they still lost (5-2) to New Jersey.

The only good news from their 0-3 start is that Henrik Lundqvist has a .933 save percentage after his two starts. Scoring five goals against Carolina would have been good had they not allowed eight.

It was the worst possible start for the Coyotes, being shut out in their first two games. It’s an early repeat of last season when they received good goaltending but couldn’t score.