NHL Teams at 10

October 23, 5:02 PMNHL ExaminerChris Morgan

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Heatley's doing fine. Blake? Not so much. (AP Photo)

(Be sure to check out this week's look at Who's Hot in the NHL. That is, if you like to be up to date on what's going on in the NHL.)

Normally, I don't start really paying attention to a team's record until 20 games into the season. However, I am going to fly in the face of that as I start a series of articles right here. Every time a team hits a 10 game interval (10, 30, 50, etc) I am going to write about their season up to date. Some days I might be writing up five or six teams, sometimes I won't be writing up any. Other times I will write up three. You get the picture.

This first set of team capsules, regarding the first ten games, won't be as substantial as the latter entries. Like I said, I don't put much stock into a team's performance until game 20, and even they I just barely start to deduce anything. It's all about sample size.

So far, four teams have played 10 games: The Rangers, the Kings, the Stars, and the Sharks. Here's how they all look through 10 games.

New York Rangers: 7-3-0, good for 14 points. The Rangers appear to be a different beast than last season, when they struggled to score for the most part. So far, they are one of the higher scoring teams in the league. However, they owe that partially to fast starts for Marian Gaborik (13 points) and Vinny Prospal (12 points). Gaborik is a legitimately great player, but he's an injury risk. Come game 40, we could be talking about the Rangers having been without Gaborik for 20 games. As for Prospal, I know he's back playing under John Tortorella, but I don't think he'll keep up this pace.

Also drawing big time accolades thus far is rookie Michael Del Zotto. He has nine points to date, seven of those on the power play. The addition of Del Zotto (and Gaborik, I presume) is a big reason why they've converted 27.3% of their power plays thus far. Last season, they had the second worst power play in the league. Like I said, and will continue to say, there is a long way to go this season, but Del Zotto looks like he could be a huge boost for the Ranger defensive corps. Also, Henrik Lundqvist is still around and still playing well. That's not going to change anytime soon.

Los Angeles Kings: 6-4-0, good for 12 points. It has been a good start to the season for the Kings, and that can be mostly chalked up to two players: Anze Kopitar and Ryan Smyth. Kopitar, who is tied for the league lead with 16 points, has been a prominent figure in all my Who's Hot articles thus far (you saw the link at the top of the page, right?) and he's just coming into his own as a player. Smyth, meanwhile, is at the complete other end of the spectrum with his career winding down, but he's still got 14 points on the season.

The Kings will need to improve in some areas of they want to keep up this good start. They'll need better secondary scoring, for example, in particular they need to get Alex Frolov turned around (or traded). Additonally, while they've scored 33 goals on the year, LA has also let up 33 goals, and Jonathan Quick has a sub .900 SV% right now. The Kings have some good young defensemen who can help him out, but he'll have to do some of it himself.

Dallas Stars: 4-2-4, good for 12 points. Four overtime losses already is a bit fluky, and also not particularly good. A couple of things go the right way and they could be 6-2-2. Plenty of season to make up for those lost points, however. If they want to do that, though, they'll need better special teams. An 18.4% power play and particularly a 71.0% penalty kill won't cut it. The Stars, like last season, have had injury issues, with Brad Richards, Mike Modano, Jere Lehtinen, and Steve Ott all missing time. However, that hasn't stopped Brad Richards from scoring 11 points thus far, and the rest of the offense looks pretty solid as well.

James Neal also has 11 points, and unlike his rookie campaign he's actually contributing assists. Loui Eriksson is also playing well after his excellent season last year, and rookie Jamie Benn (three goals, five assists) looks like this year's James Neal. Plus, Brandon Morrow is healthy and Marty Turco looks better. If they can turn around their injury woes, this will be a much better season that last for the Stars.

San Jose Sharks: 5-4-1, good for 11 points. Oh no, the Sharks playoff woes have infiltrated the regular season now! All is lost in San Jose! Nooooo! Or not. This team is overloaded with talent, at least on the offensive side of things. Dany Heatley is situating himself well (six goals, 12 points), Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau are still awesome, Devin Setoguchi isn't pulling a Cheecho, and even some guy named Jason Demers is contributing assists.

On the flip side, Ryane Clowe (one assist so far) is struggling and Joe Pavelski is hurt. Rob Blake and Marc-Edouard Vlasic are having defensive troubles. Things aren't perfect in San Jose, but they should get better. An iffy start to the season, but there is absolutely zero reason to be worried.

That's the four teams at 10 so far. That means there's 26 more that will be hitting that mark soon. Stay tuned for their capsules.