Well the first month of the 2014-2015 NHL season is coming to a close we thought that it would be fun to look at some of the largest surprises of the early NHL season. Which players have had the most surprising start (good or bad)? Which teams have been the biggest surprise thus far? Who did we expect more from at this stage of the NHL season?
10 Biggest Surprises of the 2014-15 NHL Season
- Jonas Hiller – goaltender of the Calgary Flames. How many of you predicted that after the first month of the season that Hiller would be leading all NHL goaltenders in Goals Against Average 1.63 and Save Percentage at .948. We sure didn’t.
- Strong early play of Les Habitants – the Montreal Canadiens are off to their best start since the 1961-62 season and at one point were 7-1 to start. We thought they would do well but to lead the NHL after the first month is in fact a surprise.
- Rick Nash with nine goals in nine games to start the season – I have to admit I thought that Rick Nash was a little washed up. His firery starts says otherwise. Nash is currently tied with the Ducks’ Corey Perry for the League lead in goals after the first month.
- The strong play of rookie Devils defenseman Damon Severson – I was fortunate to get a chance to watch Severson play for my hometown Kelowna Rockets for a few seasons and I knew that this kid was going to be a good player in the NHL. Severson has 7 points in the Devils first 10 games and is a plus six. Some of said that this guys is going to be a Shea Weber type d-man and be the best defenseman in New Jersey since Scott Nidermayer.
- Poor Start of the Colorado Avalanche – with only 3 wins in their first 11 games, the Avs have been slow out of the gate. With all of that talent in the forward position we expected the team to be a little stronger at this point of the season.
- Ryan Miller with seven wins – I wasn’t sure how well the Canucks would do this season, but with new management and some new talent the Canucks are off to a great start. Ryan Miller has already compiled 7 wins in the early going. He had 25 wins all of last season. If he keeps playing the way his is, he could eclipse that by February.
- Tyler Toffoli is fourth in league scoring – with 14 points in ten games only Tyler Seguin, Sidney Crosby and Jakub Voracek have more points than Toffoli.
- The poor play of the Carolina Hurricanes – at the time of this writing the Hurricanes were the only NHL team without a win. Nearly a month into the season and this team could be out of the playoffs for good by mid-November. We thought that the Canes would be a little better than this, but then again we did not expect this team to be a playoff team this season.
- The New Jersey Devils finally end shoot out futility streak – on Halloween night, the Devils finally ended their losing streak in shootouts at 18 games with a 2-1 victory on home ice over the Winnipeg Jets.
- Anze Kopitar is 265th in League Scoring – lots of hype over this guy in the off season yet Kopitar only has 3 points in the Kings first 10 games. He’s a minus one and is on pace for a 32 point season. I know its early but really three points?
Let us know what you feel are the biggest surprises this NHL season and follow us on Twitter @hockeyfanatics.