NHL Panic Time: Who are you must concerned about? (Puck Daddy Roundtable)

The season is still relatively young, but it’s also fairly apparent that some teams and players are off to better starts than others. And while there’s still ample time to turn things around, panic might already be setting in for several fan bases.

Who are the teams and players that are causing the most concern early on in the season, based on performance and prior expectations? We asked the Puck Daddy Roundtable to opine:

Greg Wyshynski, Puck Daddy Editor

Colorado Avalanche: While this might come as a surprise to Avalanche fans who, for whatever reason, believe I treat their team like tongue cancer, I was ready for the Ava-ssance. Ready for Jared Bednar to become the next Jon Cooper. Ready for all the Patrick Roy to wash away and for this team to really make a push in the west. Instead, off the hop, they’re 5-7-0 with a minus-13 goal differential and an adjusted Corsi of under 49 percent. There’s still hope – Jarome Iginla and slow starts are practically synonyms – but not the first dozen games they wanted.

Steve Mason and Michal Neuvirth (Tie). What the hell happened? I thought the Flyers had finally placed a durable Band-Aid on the festering wound that are their goaltending issues? This is a positive possession team (50.25, adjusted) getting good scoring throughout the lineup, and suddenly they’re Dallas East: All pop, no stops. The good news is that if either one can turn around their sub .900 save percentage seasons, the Flyers are primed for a playoff push.

Sean Leahy, Puck Daddy Editor

Vancouver Canucks: Willie Desjardins may not even still be head coach by the time you read this. The Canucks are falling, and falling hard. They’ve lost nine of 10, their drafting hasn’t been great and the direction of the franchise is really in question. The Sedins aren’t getting any younger, so it’s probably time to just blow it all up and rebuild and tell GM Jim Benning thanks for your time.

Filip Forsberg: The Nashville Predators are currently inhabitants of Struggleville, what with their 4-5-3 start to the season. Among those players struggling offensively is Forsberg, who despite his team-leading eight points, has yet to score a goal through 12 games. He’s not the only big star on the Preds to get off to a slow start, but after a superb 33-goal, 64-point 2015-16 season, there was hope he could build off two strong years and continue blossoming.

Will he turn it around? The entire Preds team is in a funk and their PDO is currently at 98, which means they’re in for an upswing at some point. Once the entire lineup starts pulling in the same direction, so too will Forsberg’s offensive numbers.

Josh Cooper, Puck Daddy Editor

Los Angeles Kings: Every year there’s one team that’s nailed hard with the injury bug. This season, that group is the Kings. They lost goaltender Jonathan Quick in the first game of the season for at least three months. Sniper Marian Gaborik was injured in the World Cup in late September and was slated to be out eight weeks. Defenseman Brayden McNabb, who seemed to have taken a step up this year in the team’s top-four, is also out. The Kings have spent the last several seasons trading draft picks in order to ‘go for it’ and because of this, they haven’t had a ton of high-end young depth to deal with these injuries. I think they’ll be OK, simply because they have some solid star power on this team, but they can’t fall back too far right now.

Anze Kopitar: Kopitar’s offensive game has yet to come around in his first year as team captain. Last week the Kings were shut out three games in a row, and Kopitar’s inability to put the puck in the net helped contribute to the team’s offensive woes. I think he will turn it around, but there’s always worry that players who sign big, new contracts — like him last season — tend to become complacent after their deals. He doesn’t seem like the type who would, but $10 million per-year is an awful lot to pay a player who is scoring half a point per-game.

Ryan Lambert, Puck Daddy Columnist

Loui Eriksson: I’m a bit concerned about Loui Eriksson. One goal, only four assists through 14 games. It’s a bad situation, and one that doesn’t look particularly likely to get back on track any time soon now that he’s not even on the top power play unit any more.

The good news is he’s still playing with the Sedins, but the Canucks are such a train-wreck from top to bottom that any amount of failure is statistically probable. Obviously he’s going to score eventually (unless he doesn’t, which would be very funny). But this was supposed to be his best production year for the Canucks. He’s 30-plus and on a long contract, so if he can’t produce now, when will he? It’s almost like the Canucks are……………. very bad.

Carolina Hurricanes: As for a team I’m concerned with, can I say “Carolina” with 14 underlines? They remain near the bottom of the league, and entered Tuesday’s games tied for fewest wins in the league. And okay, sure, the goaltending was always going to be a problem (which it still very much is, at .877, which is worse than I’d have thought). But they’re also not scoring at anything like the rate they “should be.” Maybe that sorts itself out, but also it didn’t last year. They added skill that “should have” sorted the perceived bad luck out.

They can still turn it around because they’re a great young team that will be dangerous in a few years, but right now they look just as bad as they were last year. Which, if you’re a rebuilding team anyway, maybe that’s fine?

Sam McCaig, Yahoo Sports Canada

Andrew Ladd: From this corner, the seven-year $38.5M deal the Islanders gave Ladd in the summer felt way too long and way too much the moment it was signed. You’ve got to love Ladd’s grit, leadership and how he plays the game, but he’s 30 years old and not getting any faster — in a league that seems to be getting younger and faster every season. Ladd managed one lonely assist in his first 11 games with Isles, mostly playing on the top line with John Tavares. He finally scored, against Vancouver on Nov. 7, and surely there’s more offense coming. But not as much as there used to be — and certainly not for the next seven seasons.

New York Islanders: Something was missing for the Isles in the first month of the NHL season, that much is certain. Longtime top-liners Kyle Okposo and Frans Nielsen are gone. Lynchpin defenseman Travis Hamonic is out for at least a month. And yet it’s the goaltending that’s the biggest problem — and that’s the kind of problem that trumps all others. The scorers should start scoring, the chemistry should come around, the defense corps should stabilize. But will Jaroslav Halak and Thomas Greiss prove to be a playoff-caliber netminding tandem? That’s the only question that matters.

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