The Rookies

All’s right in the Northeast Division-Toronto’s winless and only has 1 point so far, Boston have been OK but not exactly world-beaters, Ottawa’s leading the division by all of a point, and Buffalo’s undefeated in regulation and coming off of a 6-2 win over Detroit. The standings might not exactly match up with most preseason projections but the more competitive division races the NHL has the better.

Good news, bad news for Islanders fans-good news: John Tavrares is off to an excellent start, with 2 goals and 5 points in his first 4 games. Bad news: the Islanders are still the Islanders, so they haven’t won a game yet. Holding a 3-0 lead on Boston before losing 4-3 last weekend does count as progress though.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot-Scott Hartnell may or may not have bitten another player, Colorado is off to a 4-1-1 start, which is surprising but has happened before, Los Angeles finished Thursday 4-2, which is a little surprising and hasn’t happened in a while but was bound to happen eventually, and Phoenix was 3-2 as of Thursday, which is just plain weird, given how many distractions they’ve had lately.

Game to watch-Vancouver-Chicago on Wednesday, Luongo’s having another good year, so are Kane and Toews, Vancouver’s getting some good scoring from the Sedin twins, and Anti Niemi’s starting to look like the real deal in net for the Hawks. So naturally, VS isn’t touching this game and U.S. viewers will have to watch on the NHL Network. At least the Leafs don’t have any nationally televised games here this week.