The 7-Eleven Power Rankings: Deep Leafs rise back to top spot At the one-quarter mark of the 2018-19 NHL season, the Toronto Maple Leafs remain one of the league’s elite teams and are this week's No. 1 team in TSN's weekly 7-Eleven Power Rankings.

At the one-quarter mark of the 2018-19 NHL season, the Toronto Maple Leafs remain one of the league’s elite teams.

Despite missing injured star centre Auston Matthews, the young and restless Leafs are deep, deep, deep: Mitch Marner is fifth in league scoring with 26 points; blueliner Morgan Rielly has nine goals and 16 assists to sit in eighth in NHL scoring; prized off-season acquisition John Tavares has 23 points, including 12 goals, to hold down 16th spot in the scoring race; and Frederik Andersen leads the league in wins (11), has a stellar save percentage (.934) and an impressive goals-against average (2.08).

Toronto is playing like a Stanley Cup contender and Mike Babcock’s charges are on track to top their franchise-best regular season from a year ago when they recorded 49 wins and 105 points. The Leafs, who swept their three-game West Coast road trip last week and were ranked first in our third 7-Eleven Power Rankings of the season, move up five places to No. 1 this week, according to consensus rankings formulated by the TSN Power Ranking panel of Ray Ferraro, Jeff O’Neill, Jamie McLennan, Craig Button and Darren Dreger.

The Nashville Predators drop out of top spot and into No. 2 following two straight weeks atop the rankings after going 1-2-1 last week. The Predators are tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning for the overall standings lead with 29 points apiece. The Lightning, who are missing star goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy (broken foot), move down one spot to No. 3 after going 2-1 last week.

Winners of three straight, the Columbus Blue Jackets leap nine spots to No. 4 following a 3-0 week. The Blue Jackets have earned a point in seven straight games and are just ahead of the sizzling Buffalo Sabres, who jump to No. 5 from No. 12 a week ago after five straight victories to round out our panel’s top five. Last season 20 games into the 2017-18 campaign, the Sabres were 5-11-4 and mired in a five-game losing skid.

Aside from the top-ranked Leafs, the best Canadian teams this week include the Winnipeg Jets at No. 6, the No. 9 Montreal Canadiens, the No. 13 Calgary Flames and the improving Ottawa Senators at No. 17. The Senators make the biggest jump of the week in our rankings, leaping 11 spots with two straight wins after sitting in the bottom five of last week’s rankings at No. 28.

Struggling teams north of the border this week include the Vancouver Canucks, who have lost five straight to plummet 13 spots - the most noteworthy decline of this week's rankings - to No. 20 after our panel ranked Elias Pettersson and company No. 7 a week ago, and the Edmonton Oilers, who were No. 6 two weeks ago but are 0-4 in their last four games on the road, have lost two in a row and six of their last seven to drop two spots to No. 26.

The five worst teams in the NHL this week include the Anaheim Ducks, stuck at the No. 27 spot as they continue to have major difficulties scoring; the No. 28 New Jersey Devils, who went 2-1-1 last week but are just 2-8 on the road this season; the St. Louis Blues at No. 29, falling five places after being shut out in two of their last three games, the No. 30 Pittsburgh Penguins, who drop 11 spots from No. 19 a week ago after losing three straight to sit dead last in the Eastern Conference, and the Los Angeles Kings at No. 31, missing in action with an offence that just can’t score this season, managing a league-worst 38 goals in 19 games.

The Kings were 11-6-2 after 19 games last season and captain Anze Kopitar had 14 points in October, 14 points in November and finished the season with 92. A struggling Kopitar has just eight points in 18 games this season.