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When it comes to some news about these teams directly, you have to start with the Flames, who are, well, on fire right now. After overperforming last season, reality has set in again and proven that it might be time for a bit of a midseason retool for Calgary. Elsewhere, the Lightning had their worst start in franchise history through seven games, the Wild have gone from a pre-season favorite to scraping the bottom of the barrel on this Rankings, the Rangers continued playing joyless hockey at home, and both the Maple Leafs and Blues had rough weeks where two teams I thought would be at least middle of the road this season looked like they might be in the lottery hunt again. Also, I just have to shine a spotlight on the Rangers one more time before ending this section. In a somewhat unlikely statistic, they lost to the worst team in the NHL in back-to-back games. It just keeps getting worse in New York somehow. 15-12: NHL’s Disappearing Middle Class 15. Edmonton Oilers (Previously: 17) 14. Chicago Blackhawks (Previously: 19) 13. Dallas Stars (Previously: 7) 12. Florida Panthers (Previously: 16) It’s been a bit of an odd week across the NHL. Typically, there’s a pretty defined best, worst, and middle section of the Rankings where I have teams I like but know are flawed at this point of the season. In my three seasons writing these Rankings, this middle section is usually the largest early on, as I can argue that teams 11-25 are all good in their own ways and may be bad in others, but I still like where they are heading in the first few weeks of the season. The 2025-26 season has been an outlier to this theory, as I simply think most of the teams across the NHL have looked bad, and they are only beating each other to get their rare wins. This has left me with only four teams in the middle of the Rankings, and you can argue there should be fewer. However, that doesn’t detract from how these teams are playing right now. First, the Blackhawks are defying all early-season expectations with some all-around great play so far. I’m especially impressed by Spencer Knight, who is looking like a genuine number-one goaltender to start the season.
