The Metropolitan Division Has Dominated the NHL This Year
The Metropolitan Division has lived up to its hype as the toughest division in the NHL. Every team in the division has at least as many points as games played. This is what is often referred to as “NHL .500.” The Carolina Hurricanes lead the way as the only undefeated team remaining in the entire league, with eight wins and no losses. The Washington Capitals sit in second place – their season-opening eight-game point streak ended in a 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena on Monday. The Islanders and Penguins are the only teams with more losses than wins, although they each have two post-regulation losses worthy of a point in the standings. The season is young and things will certainly change, but the dominance of the division as a whole is not a fluke.
The Metropolitan Division has six teams with more wins than losses. For comparison, the whole Western Conference only has five. The Atlantic Division has three. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the teams in the Metro have dominated thus far. In the 2019-20 season, the last season in which the Metro Division played, the league standings saw 7 of the 8 teams in the Metro in the top-18 in the league. No other division saw more than four of its teams that high in the standings. The year before, the Metro had five teams with more than 98 points. The rest of the league only had eight, split up as equally as could be among the other three divisions. The year before that, in 2017-18, the division sent five teams to the playoffs out of eight in the Eastern Conference. The depth of the division is not new and its early dominance should not come as a surprise. They have arguably been the best division in hockey since Mat Barzal entered the league as a rookie.
The Metropolitan Division is the best division in the NHL, but what should we expect as the season goes on? Will it be revealed that there are some fakers in the division that are unworthy of their current records? Will their dominance continue? When will the Canes suffer their first loss, and the Caps their second regulation loss? As is typical with hockey and sports in general, they cannot be predicted easily. We don’t know what the rest of the long season holds (if we did, it wouldn’t be fun to watch), but we do know that the Metro will be a division to keep an eye on.
