The Red Wings are no longer a dominant team, they’re under .500 so far and it sure looks like they underestimated the effect of Shanahan leaving. Things are far from bad though, they’re now in that group of 10-12 teams that looks to kill off the next five months, grab a 5th – 8th spot and hope to get hot come playoff time. Betting against them come April still seems iffy.

Three of my top picks got off to slow starts. Two of them, Carolina and Nashville, are already much improved, and serve to show just how important chemistry is in the NHL. It takes a few games for new lines and new players to get accustomed to each other. The third pick, Calgary, I’m no longer so confident in. This is a team that doesn’t have chemistry problem, it has a scoring problem, which is a hell of a lot harder to fix. By the way, would I be the first person if called Dion Pheneuf overrated? Well I just did. His hits are great for sportscentre, not so good for his team. He could be an incredible player in say three more years, but how about we hold off on the accolaides until he earns them? I'll admit that I prefer go-for-broke, dynamic forward lines and a stay-at-home defence core, so he'll never be my ideal player. That said, right now Phaneuf's barely an all-star on the good nights, and he's showing a habit of playing his team out of winnable games on the bad nights.

I talked myself out of getting too crazy about the Thrashers and Wild, but both of those teams look really really good so far. Also, the Blackhawks are proving my estimate of a modest improvement wrong, get it done without the help of Ruutu. Havlat looks like a world-beater so far, and if the Bulin Wall can get his save % up another 10 points, look out for Chicago.

The Sabres are doing something the elite teams seem to do every year – win the ugly ones. Four of their first 6 games featured what I would call sub-par efforts, and yet they still picked up the two points every night. Much like the Wings did last year, this team could quickly be the even odds favorite to win the President’s trophy, using the combination of a solid team and a terrible division to puff up that point total.

Speaking of the Northeast, what is going on in Ottawa and Boston? At least the Bruins have the excuses of playing only a single home game, and having notable players on the injury lists. Even still, who would have predicted both team averaging two goals a game so far?

No surprise at all, the Coyotes and Flyers are by far the worst teams in the league. The only competition they may get for that spot will come from the Panthers and Islanders.