Weekly Power Rankings: Here come the Lightning; Avalanche running out of players

In this week’s NHL Power Rankings the Tampa Bay Lightning start to make a big climb, while there is little change at the top with Boston, New Jersey, Toronto and Vegas continuing to put up impressive results.

Elsewhere, the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche are going through an insane run of bad injury lucky while some Western Conference teams deal with some major goaltending issues.

Let’s get into it.

Where does your team rank?

To this week’s NHL Power Rankings!!

1. Boston Bruins. Just give David Pastrnak a blank check and be done with it. What a player. He on a 58-goal pace and is head and shoulders above everybody else on the roster. You can not let this guy get away in free agency if you are the Bruins.

2. New Jersey Devils. After dropping their first two games and hearing their fans chant for the firing of head coach Lindy Ruff the Devils are 20-2-1 over the next 23 games. The young talent has arrived.

3. Toronto Maple Leafs. Their big four of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, and John Tavares is all dominating, and they are continuing to get a big — and very surprising — performance from their goalies. As long as those two things keep happening they have a chance to end that run of playoff misery. But again, they have to actually do it.

4. Vegas Golden Knights. They have slowed down a bit from their initial pace but they are still collecting points. Chandler Stephenson still baffles me. He was a non-factor with the Capitals and has blossomed into a top-line producer in Vegas.

5. Tampa Bay Lightning. They are starting to get rolling. Sometimes I think we take Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos for granted. Like, we are so used to them dominating that we do not even give it a second look when they have 36 (Kucherov) and 29 (Stamkos) points in 24 games to open a season.

6. Seattle Kraken. The Penguins really should not have let Jared McCann get away. There is a ton of potential here with this team. The goaltending is still only average and they still have one of the best records in the league.

7. Dallas Stars. Jason Robertson would be my MVP pick right now. This team is no joke.

8. Carolina Hurricanes. They still have another level they can reach. I think they will get there eventually.

9. Colorado Avalanche. This is a really difficult team to evaluate right now because injuries have completely rocked this lineup. It is a fraction of what it should be. Now Nathan MacKinnon is out.

10. Winnipeg Jets. We know the goalie is great, we know they have some top-tier forwards, but it is a little surprising to see defenseman Josh Morrissey leading the team in scoring.