Sens Week Ahead: Nov 1 to 7

After a franchise best 9-0-0 start, the Canadiens (and Carey Price) hit a wall in their trip to western Canada. Blown out in Vancouver, late collapse in Edmonton, and finally winning in Calgary in front of Mike Condon.

Prior to his last two starts, Price has been largely spectacular this season with a .960 SV% during the streak, as well as a pair of shutouts. Mike Condon has been pretty spectacular himself in the backup role. He's only seen the ice during back-to-back situations, but he's posted a .944 in those three games (including the one against the Sens).

Possession wise, the early-season success the Habs were seeing has started to evaporate. They've been out-shot in six straight games now, and their possession stats spiked after game 3 and have been on almost steady decline since then. It was a similar story last season when they started 8-2-0 and had their possession spike at game 3 with a near-steady decline afterwards until it stabilized notably below 50%. Despite the slightly better start in terms of points this season, their possession numbers have actually been dropping faster in the same number of games over last season.

Montreal's power play has seen a lot of success this season but it's fueled by shooting percentage. At almost 21%, they've got the second highest power play shooting percentage in the league. For reference, the highest shooting percentage over the full season last year was a little under 18%. It's unsustainable - their power play is not as potent as their current success rate makes it seem.

The Jets are a tough team to get a read on so far this season.

They've got a winning record in what may be the toughest division in the league, but with almost all of their games so far have been out-of-division.

They're still running with Ondrej Pavelec as their starter, at least for the moment. In turn, Pavalec is still somewhat average at best. The Jets have a .500 record so far this season in front of him as well. By comparison, in front of Michael Hutchinson the Jets are 4-0-0 and Hutchinson himself has a fantastic 0.949 SV%. Given the back to back for the Jets, this might not fall out in Ottawa's favour.

The Winnipeg power play is like lesser version of the Montreal power play - good success rate, largely driven by an unsustainable shooting percentage.

In the end, I think the Jets might be in tough to make the cut this year, but largely due to the strength of their division. Right now, they're holding on to the last wild card spot in the west ahead of Chicago...

So far, Carolina has looked very similar to last season - a solid possession team that has sub-par goaltending and a terrible shooting percentage leading to a position in the NHL's basement.

No surprise, for a team with terrible shooting percentage the power play is subsequently terrible. Their power play shooting percentage is second last in the league, as is their success rate. Their penalty kill, on the other hand, is near the league average.

As far as goaltending goes, Cam Ward is about what we've come to expect, while Eddie Lack is definitely having a down-year with his new team.

As you might expect, there isn't a whole lot of individual scoring success on the Hurricanes roster. Justin Faulk leads the team with four goals and mere seven points. By comparison, Kyle Turris has seven goals and there are six Sens with more than seven points.