NHL Power Rankings: Pacific trio taking flight

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Tue, Jan 15, 2019

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Hey everyone, we here at Yahoo Sports are doing real power rankings for teams Nos. 1-31. Here they are, based on only how I am feeling about these teams, meaning you can't tell me I'm wrong because these are my feelings and feelings can't be wrong. Please enjoy the Power Feelings.

The Golden Knights are red hot, but so are the Calgary Flames and San Jose Sharks. (SI)

31. Philadelphia Flyers (Last week: 30)

30. New York Rangers (LW: 29)

David Quinn was real pissed about how the Rangers played on Sunday night and even though they're tanking (and should be), that's the right attitude for a coach to take. You want guys to play to the absolute height of their abilities regardless of how bad your GM wants you to be in the standings, so as a coach you gotta peel the paint sometimes even if you know your team sucks.

And don't get me wrong, this team sucks and it's only going to get worse when the sell-off comes, but that's how you're supposed to tank. Players shouldn't take shifts off, they should just be surrounded by so little talent that everyone trying 110 percent still only gives you like 60 points at the end of the season.

29. Los Angeles Kings (LW: 28)

These guys purportedly don't want to trade Doughty, Kopitar, or Quick, and while it may be easy to go, "Well sure, those guys are expensive, old, and signed long-term," why wouldn't they at least WANT to trade them? Sure, other teams might not be interested, but Kopitar and Doughty are impact players who, perhaps in the summer, get you a pretty nice price from a team that thinks it's a Doughty or Kopitar away from competing.

When you're as bad as this team is, everything should be on the table.

28. Chicago (LW: 27)

27. Anaheim Ducks (LW: 26)

Not gonna fire the coach (which is nuts), so they make a trade instead. And it's like, okay, they offloaded the Cogliano deal and Cogliano wasn't doing anything. That's good.

So is getting a better, younger version of Cogliano (albeit one who doesn't move the needle possession-wise). But if this is the start of a "retool" then I don't know how much you can expect results to improve any time soon.

26. Detroit Red Wings (LW: 25)

25. Ottawa Senators (LW: 31)

Big move up for the Senators this week, mainly because every team behind them either went .333 or .250 in points percentage. They moved up by default, but when you're one of the worst teams in the league, you take the Ws where you can get 'em.

24. New Jersey Devils (LW: 23)

23. Florida Panthers (LW: 18)

At some point there has to be a change. They can't keep playing like this.

22. Arizona Coyotes (LW: 21)

21. St. Louis Blues (LW: 22)

20. Vancouver Canucks (LW: 24)

Games in hand and all that, but the fact that these guys are even remotely in the playoff conversation in mid-January is honestly shocking. Plus, they just won their first regulation game without Elias Pettersson in the lineup, and it only took 10 tries and a terrible Florida team to make it happen.

19. Dallas Stars (LW: 16)

18. Edmonton Oilers (LW: 19)

Imagine going to an Oilers skills competition event and they tell you day-of, "Ah by the way, no McDavid at this one." Why do you even stick around?

17. Colorado Avalanche (LW: 15)

Nathan MacKinnon took the L in the "yelling at the coach so hard I fell off the bench" incident about as well as he could, but his larger point that the Avs aren't doing anything when MacKinnon and Rantanen are on the bench should be well taken.

16. Montreal Canadiens (LW: 20)

As with the Senators above, these guys really only moved up because everyone that moved below them really had a bad week. These guys had a just-fine week and hey as long as you're holding onto playoff contention, I guess that's fine.

15. New York Islanders (LW: 17)

14. Minnesota Wild (LW: 14)

13. Buffalo Sabres (LW: 12)

Jeff Skinner has 30 goals. Not news.

Jack Eichel has 15. Sam Reinhart and Jason Pominville have 10 each. After that, no one else on the team has more than seven goals.

Or, how about this one: Those four guys are the only forwards on the team with more than 20 points. They've played 45 games.

Truly amazing, but at this point it's no surprise they're not holding down a playoff spot anymore.

12. Carolina Hurricanes (LW: 13)

The 'Canes are 7-1-0 in their last eight, but weirdly they're getting outshot pretty hard (big reversal from earlier this season) and getting .900-plus goaltending (even bigger reversal).

If they can start outshooting teams to the tune of 55 percent again — which strikes me as very possible — while still getting even only-a-little-below-league-average goaltending, they're gonna make a big run at the playoffs.

11. Winnipeg Jets (LW: 10)

10. Pittsburgh Penguins (LW: 9)

9. Columbus Blue Jackets (LW: 11)

Kind of amazing how fast we forgot that this team suspended its All-World goalie for a game in the same season that's expected to be his last in Columbus. You wonder if the full story will get out any time soon, but I really really really want to know what happened there.

8. Boston Bruins (LW: 8)

Worth noting that the Bruins lineup is finally at its full power for the first time since about this point last season, and all of a sudden Tuukka Rask is playing out of his mind. Pretty interesting occurrence, to me, a person who has no long-term stated interest in trying to run Rask out of town.

7. Toronto Maple Leafs (LW: 4)

6. Washington Capitals (LW: 7)

Okay they're back to winning. That was a scary week.

5. Nashville Predators (LW: 6)

It's a tough bounce that going 2-1-1 in a week and generally being a really good team doesn't get you in the top four but you'll see why in a second.

4. Vegas Golden Knights (LW: 3)

3. San Jose Sharks (LW: 5)

2. Calgary Flames (LW: 2)

In this week's 31 Takes, I noted that all three of the teams atop the Pacific are playing lights-out over the last quarter of the season, but it's really wild, so let's restate and clarify:

The Golden Knights are 14-3-3 in the last 20. The Sharks 15-3-2. The Flames are 14-4-2.

But the thing is, one of those Sharks losses was to Calgary. And one of Vegas's losses was to San Jose. So, even better then.

1. Tampa Bay Lightning (LW: 1)

Anyway, Tampa only has nine regulation losses the entire season so far. Two of them were in the last week and a half, but I don't think that's a particularly big deal.

They're still the best team in the sport and probably of the cap era by a mile. Have a good one.

Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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