With two weeks into the NHL season completed, things are already looking different than analysts expected them to. Florida is on a 4 game losing streak, Carolina is undefeated and a couple of teams have shown more promise than last season. The two teams below are teams that have exceeded all expectations thus far.
Chicago Blackhawks
The Blackhawks have struggled through a rebuild for half a decade. It was not too long ago the Original Six team dominated the league with the likes of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, but this is a new era and a younger team. In 2023, the Blackhawks secured the No. 1 overall pick and generational prospect Connor Bedard. Before the 2025 trade deadline, the Blackhawks traded defenseman Seth Jones to the Florida Panthers for young goaltender Spencer Knight. In the 2025 offseason, Chicago signed Frank Nazar to a seven-year, $46 million contract extension. With a handful of other prospects in their system, it seems this might finally be the year Chicago turns things around.
Last season, the Blackhawks finished bottom in the Central Division, and second last in the NHL with a record of 25-46-11 and 61 points. The Blackhawks currently have a record of 3-2-2. This gives them eight points in the standings, right at the top of the Western Conference Wild Card.
In every regulation loss for the Blackhawks, they only lost by a goal. In their contest against the St. Louis Blues, the Hawks exploded offensively, with the final score of 8-3. They never won a game with a five goal lead last season.
A reason for the newfound success by the Blackhawks could be new head coach Jeff Blashill. Last season, head coach for the Hawks, Luke Richardson was fired. He was then replaced by Anders Sörensen as the interim head coach. Sudden coaching changes can be a disaster, and it certainly was for the Blackhawks in 2024. Blashill, former head coach of the Detroit Red Wings, was hired for this season and appears to be doing a great job.
Nazar and Bedard are showing their dominance by leading in points in players under 23. They are both tied with seven points. Nazar has 3 goals and 4 assists while Bedard has two goals and five assists.
This is Chicago’s first full season with Spencer Knight. In the five games he is played this season, he has a record of 2-2-1, with a goals-against average of 1.96 and a save percentage of .937. Knight is a reliable goaltender, who has kept Chicago in many games in which they would have lost if they had a subpar goaltender.
“We want to win. We don’t want to win in three years. We want to win now,” Bedard said in an interview with NHL on TNT. Bedard is rejecting the timeline of the Hawks rebuild and declaring the future to be now. This Blackhawks squad is a very young roster, being the second youngest in the league with an average age of 26. Connor Bedard is only 20 years old and already plays like a star center.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about Chicago is the fact they have even more prospects. No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, Anton Frondell, is currently spending another year in the Swedish Hockey League. Once he is ready for the show, he could be a great contribution to the Blackhawks’ offense. The No.19 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, Oliver Moore is currently playing in the Blackhawks AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs. Another promising center, Moore is someone the Hawks can call up whenever they need and can prove to be another part of their young core.
Overall, the Blackhawks look like a team to watch this year and have drastically improved since last season.
Detroit Red Wings
Is this the year the Yzerplan finally falls through? The once powerful Detroit Red Wings have not made the playoffs since 2016, the longest playoff drought in franchise history. Detroit finished third-to-last in the Atlantic Division with a record of 39-35-8 and 86 points. This season they have a dominant record of 5-1-0 with 10 points and sit at the top of the Atlantic division.
If you look at last season’s records, they started their first six games 3-3-0, so 5-1-0 is a considerably better start to the season.
Center Dylan Larkin has been at the top of his game, with five goals, six assists and a +/- of +9. 36-year-old Kane is still proving he’s not done yet with two goals and three assists so far in his 19th campaign. Alex Debrincat has yet to score a goal of his own, but still has 6 assists. The 2026 Winter Olympics occur this year. Kane has said how desperate he is to prove himself for a spot on the USA roster.
“The one thing that’s kinda missing is a gold in best-on-best, right?,” said Kane. The forward already has a long list of accomplishments, with 3 Stanley Cups, an Olympic silver medal, a Calder Memorial Trophy, the Art Ross, Conn Smythe and the Hart Memorial. The only thing missing from his trophy case is an Olympic gold medal, and he will be playing his hardest for the Red Wings this season to make the cut for the final roster.
Goaltender, Cam Talbot in his 4 games played is 3-0, with a goals-against average of 1.78 and save percentage of .932. He has 82 saves on 88 shots against, proving himself to be a solid goaltender for the Wings. Goaltending is crucial for being a playoff caliber team.
This will be Detroit’s first season with Todd McLellan as the head coach. He was part of the Stanley Cup winning Red Wings staff in 2008 as an assistant coach in charge of power play efficiency. With his guidance, the Wings had one of the best power plays in the game.
With the injuries of Matthew Tkachuk and Alexander Barkov of the Florida Panthers, there is now a power vacuum in the Atlantic Division open for the taking. The Red Wings have to capitalize on that while their window is open.
- All stats from NHL.com and Statsmuse
