Buffalo’s Surprising Edge: What Early NHL Weekend Rankings Reveal—and What They Conceal
Welcome back to the weekend rankings. By my count, this is the eighth year of this column’s lifespan at The Athletic, and it had a few homes before that. How long is eight years? Put it this way: In that debut edition on this site way back in 2018, the very first team to be listed in the Stanley Cup contenders section was the San Jose Sharks. They’d just acquired Erik Karlsson, you see, and we all knew there was no way that trade wouldn’t work out great.
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That’s a long time ago. But it fits with the theme, because these are the long-range rankings. That makes them a bit different from most of the power rankings you’ll see out there — we’re not trying to measure who had the best week, or who’d win a game between two teams right now. Instead, it’s about trying to unravel the future and figure out which teams are best positioned for a Cup run and which are headed toward the bottom of the standings.
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