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Islanders Climb in NHL Power Rankings; Parenteau vs Moulson

By Dominik

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There were plenty of links to digest in the morning bits (while we weren't sacking those responsible for site delays) and last night's postgame, but here's plenty more along with our weekly NHL Power Ranking roundup.

Media NHL Power Rankings Survey

Here is our weekly roundup of media rankings and commentary, which were compiled before last nights victorious-but-frightening scoreless draw with the Flyers.

Outlet Rank Last Week Their Commentary
CBSSports 23 25
 John Tavares continues to be one of the hottest players in the NHL, adding four more goals and two more assists over his past five games.
THN
(Proteau)		 24 26
 Matt Moulson an impressive plus-11 on inconsistent Isles; next best are John Tavares/Travis Hamonic (plus-4)
ESPN
(Burnside)		 23 28 The Isles have put together a nice run of performances, going 6-2-2 in their past 10, which is typical of a franchise that has a knack for winning games when they don't matter.
Sportsnet 24 24 John Tavares was named the NHL’s player of the month for January, and the Isles won a pair of road games last week. [Ed. note: Good talk, Russ.]
TSN
(Cullen)		 16 18 One regulation loss in the last eight games for a very top-heavy team. Their top four forwards -- John Tavares, Matt Moulson, P.A. Parenteau and Kyle Okposo -- have combined for 65 points on 40 Islanders goals since the beginning of January.
Fox 24
 26 The Isles have five goals in their last 19 power plays and rank sixth in the league at 19.8 percent.
Average
22.3
 24.5 Scott Burnside tempers praise with another insult-by-numbers shot, which is typical of a scribe who has a knack for choosing ancient punchlines over actual insight.

For reference, here is last week's power rankings post.

For a more elaborate reaction to ESPN's troll in residence, we turn to mikb and his reaction when their rankings and rank commentary were posted earlier this week:

Seriously, [Avery] this guy. The Isles are only one point behind Tampa Bay: Burnside notes that the Lightning are "capable of making a surprise charge to the postseason from back in the pack." The Lightning are still eight points back of the Panthers for the division lead with Washington AND Winnipeg between them. They have the 26th-ranked power play (with Stamkos and St Louis!), the 24th-ranked penalty kill, the second-most goals permitted in the league (only Columbus has more, and they've played one more game). Even I wasn't as much of an Avery to the Columbus Dispatch as he is to the Islanders.

The point about the write-ups for the teams surrounding the Isles (above and below) resonates.

Speaking of da media, Neil Greenberg of 25 Under 25 infamy follows through on last night's tweeted promise of some Islanders praise. He says his ESPN Insider piece [$7 please] lists Frans Nielsen as a Selke candidate. I assume Nielsen was a candidate by this criteria last year as well, since Nielsen should be a Selke candidate for the past three seasons.

Real Power Rankings

And now on to our weekly "real" power rankings courtesy of Mike, or ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles (who is the one you'll find tirelessly compiling FIG picks in the game thread), who conceived and delivers these week after week. They are calculated in true "power ranking" fashion -- i.e. how well teams fare based on their opponents' records.

These reflect figures through Monday's games. For the first time in a while we have a little disparity between the media average and our own Power Ranking tally -- but in this instance the media rankings flatter the Isles (largely thanks to TSN rating the Isles highly).
W L OTL Pts Pct PWR
1 This Thing That Should Not Be
 33 12 5 71 0.710 2128
2 St. Louis 30 14 7 67 0.657 1976
3 Detroit 35 17 2 72 0.667 1973
4 Vancouver 32 15 5 69 0.663 1960
5 Boston 33 16 2 68 0.667 1945
6 San Jose 29 15 6 64 0.640 1868
7 Philadelphia 30 16 6 66 0.635 1862
8 Nashville 32 17 4 68 0.642 1827
9 Pittsburgh 30 19 4 64 0.604 1794
10 New Jersey 30 19 3 63 0.606 1774
11 Chicago 29 17 7 65 0.613 1756
12 Florida 24 16 11 59 0.578 1722
13 Los Angeles 25 18 10 60 0.566 1712
14 Toronto 28 19 6 62 0.585 1706
15 Minnesota 25 19 8 58 0.558 1667
16 Washington 27 21 4 58 0.558 1649
17 Ottawa 27 21 7 61 0.555 1637
18 Dallas 27 22 2 56 0.549 1610
19 Phoenix 24 21 8 56 0.528 1604
20 Colorado 26 25 3 55 0.509 1563
21 Calgary 24 22 7 55 0.519 1536
22 Winnipeg 24 24 6 54 0.500 1477
23 Tampa Bay 23 23 5 51 0.500 1466
24 NY Islanders 21 22 8 50 0.490 1448
25 Montreal 20 24 9 49 0.462 1433
26 Anaheim 20 24 8 48 0.462 1413
27 Buffalo 22 24 6 50 0.481 1405
28 Carolina 20 25 9 49 0.454 1405
29 Edmonton 21 27 5 47 0.443 1400
30 Columbus 14 32 6 34 0.327 972

At the very very bottom ... my goodness, Columbus. A dropoff from 1400 to 972 is a guaranteed top-two pick, no?

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