When can we look at the standings and say, with some reasonable degree of confidence, that a given team is going to be good or bad? Or more specifically, that their 2019-20 season is going to be good or bad, regardless of what their true talent might look like?



When it comes to the good side of the spectrum, we run into some obvious problems. Injuries, for one. Take any team in the modern salary cap era, then have an injury take their starting goaltender away. They’ll get worse very quickly, and probably a lot worse. The same is often true for their best skater. With maybe a handful of exceptions, even the very best teams are a torn ACL away from seeing it all crumble.



And of course, we know that even the most uninspiring teams can get hot for a few weeks – remember last year’s Sabres, or the 2016-17 Flyers, both of whom won ten straight during the season. Were they good? For a few weeks, sure, but not beyond that. When it comes to definitively...