NHL Power Rankings - Head West, Find The Best

The Eastern Conference has struggled out of the gate, and the power rankings reflect that.  9 of the top 11 teams are from the Western Conference and 8 of the bottom 10 are from the East.

My power rankings use a model based on underlying statistics and their predictive ability. The rankings were built on points earned, special teams, even strength play and goaltending, so they were constantly in flux. I'm still playing around with the model, and I've added opponents remaining this season. I've also updated the special teams evaluation so it's shots-based, not solely conversion based. Here is my best effort at predicting the standings and playoff pairings at the end of the season. One item of note - 38% of the game is luck; I don't attempt to predict or model that 38%, and I don't plan to.

• The Coyotes have played extremely well thus far, good enough to be 3rd-best in the East, but sit 9th in the West.  Their special teams have been atrocious thus far, 27th on the power play and 29th on the penalty kill.
• Speaking of atrocious penalty kills, the Dallas Stars are surrendering 21 more shots/60 than they are attempting on the power play.
• The Oilers have replaced the early trend of outshooting and terrible goaltending with being outshot and great goaltending.
• Colorado is an interesting team - they have the early hype, but Semyon Varlamov and Jean-Sebastien Giguere's combined .959 ES save percentage have helped drive their success.  As that corrects, will the Avs hold up?

• This conference is a mess right now.  Traditional powers in the Metropolitan Division are nowhere to be found and the Atlantic looks good by comparison, which is damning with faint praise.
  
• Fenwick update:  The East comprises 13 of the bottom 16 teams in the league by Fenwick Close thus far. 
  

The rankings predict the following playoff matchups:

The Pacific Division Champion should receive a special merit award.