NHL Opening Night

Opening night of the 2016-17 NHL season felt like a long overdue gift to all of us hockey fans. Only four games were featured. However, we had the pleasure of watching some great hockey. To drop the puck on our season coverage is a short post on what we learned from opening night.

     1. Auston Matthews is a star.

The greatest first game performance we have seen in NHL history. Matthews became the first player in NHL history to score four goals in his first NHL game. General consensus among experts was Matthews was the best player of a weak draft class. The thought was he would be a very good NHL player, but not on the level of a Sidney Crosby. Well, in his first game he has already accomplished something Crosby never has... a four goal game. I am not saying Matthews is going to be the best player in the world or even a Hall of Famer, but he has already proven he belongs in the NHL and is a very good hockey player.

     2. Toronto is still a bad team.

Even with Auston Matthews amazing performance, the rest of the Toronto roster combined for zero goals and lost in overtime to Ottawa. If one of your players has a four goal night, there is no excuse for losing the game. Outside of Matthews, Toronto looked weak. They had six rookies in their lineup on opening night and it showed. Regardless of how good Matthews is throughout the season, I see no way the Maple Leafs compete for a playoff spot. 

     3. Chicago needs to stop taking penalties.

The Blackhawks are supposed to be great at killing penalties. They have elite defenseman and some special defensive forwards. However, they lost the marquee matchup of opening night to the St. Louis Blues, all due to penalties. Outside of the Blues powerplay chances, it was a very balanced game. The problem for Chicago was allowing St. Louis to capitalize on three of five powerplays. This included four penalties over five minutes of game time. If Chicago played discipline hockey, they win their season opener. 

     4. Calgary needs more defensive help. 

The Flames led the NHL in goals allowed last season. So this offseason they added Brian Elliot to be their starting goaltender. It does not appear to have helped. Giving up seven goals, including an empty netter, to the Edmonton Oilers on opening night was not how they envisioned starting their season. Maybe the Oilers were energized by the opening of their new arena, maybe they are just that good offensively or more likely the Flames are just as bad as last season. 

     5. The Oilers and McDavid are the team to watch.

A lot of "bold" predictors had Connor McDavid as the dark horse to win the scoring title this season. Whether or not he can score enough for that remains to be seen, but it is already obvious that McDavid will be the most exciting player to watch every night. He tallied two goals, including a successful penalty shot. McDavid is not the only special player on the Oilers roster. Jordan Eberle, Milan Lucic, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jesse Puljujarvi are all impactful and exciting players to watch. They probably will not score seven goals every night, but they could easily average between four and five per night. 

     6. The Sharks and Kings are still the Sharks and Kings.

Nothing new to report on these teams. They both are defensive minded with great goalies. They played a typical Kings vs. Sharks game. It was physical, back and forth action, low scoring and came down to the wire. It is always good hockey when these two teams get together. I am looking forward to more of the same. Hopefully Jonathan Quick's injury is not too severe and he will be back soon.