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LHH Power Rankings: Halakless And Dangerous

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The Isles maintain a rather high spot in our power rankings, thanks to depth at the goaltender position.

By ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles
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"Promise me you'll power on without me..."
"Promise me you'll power on without me..."
Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports

Last week, I wrote about how the opinion polls ranked the Rangers significantly higher than the Isles more often than not, despite the fact that the Isles had a better record (being three points behind the Rangers, but having three games in hand).

This week? Not so much.

After defeating the Rangers at MSG and the Penguins at Barclays (and getting three out of six points in other games over the past week), all is now right with the universe, as most lists have the Isles 9th, while the Rangers are usually 10th and the Pens 14th or 15th.

Weekly Roundup of Opinion Polls

Site Updated New Ranking Prior Ranking Comments
CBS 3/15/2016 9 11 The Isles have won eight of their last 11 games and now sit just one point behind the Rangers with two games in hand. Losing goalie Jaroslav Halak long-term to injury remains a big concern, though.
ESPN 3/14/2016 9 10 The Islanders are 7-2-1 in their past 10. Jaroslav Halak will be sidelined at least six weeks with a lower-body injury, which means Thomas Greiss should see the bulk of action between the pipes. Captain John Tavares became the first member of the 2009 draft class and the 11th player in franchise history to reach the 200-goal plateau.
TSN --- --- 10 Bye week.
THN 3/9/2016 3 10 No specific comments. Isles in the "Cream of the Crop" (Top 10) section.
SI 3/15/2016 9 9 The Isles are 8-2-1 in their past 11 and closing quickly on the Rangers and the second spot in the Metropolitan Division. Thomas Greiss stole two points for them against the Panthers on Monday night. He'll need to play at that level, or something close to it, for this team to have a chance down the stretch.
Average 7.5 10 Halak of concern, despite Halak of winning.

That being said, the Isles moved up only one spot on most lists. Note that Fox Sports, which hasn't updated their power rankings in over a month, has been replaced by THN (stick tap to @meyersMMA35 on Twitter, who suggested their weekly article). Apparently, they're very good at updating their page. Unfortunately, they update later today, and this article can't wait for the new data, so their opinions will be slightly behind the curve.

Anyway, our rankings have the Isles down one spot, as the victory over the Rangers was already factored into the prior week's rankings. They were still over NHL .500, but with a little less luster.

LHH Power Rankings

Games through 3/14/16, so that "other" game against the Pens doesn't factor in.

(6) (4) (3) (2) (0)
Reg OT OT Reg LHH LHH
GP W W SO L L Pts Rating
1 Washington Capitals 68 40 5 5 4 14 283 124.7
2 Dallas Stars 70 33 6 4 7 20 248 112.9
3 Chicago Blackhawks 70 31 9 2 5 23 238 110.4
4 Los Angeles Kings 68 29 10 4 3 22 232 109.9
5 New York Islanders 67 31 4 7 4 21 231 109.2
6 San Jose Sharks 68 30 5 6 3 24 224 108.9
7 St. Louis Blues 71 29 7 9 5 21 239 108.7
8 New York Rangers 69 32 4 4 5 24 230 107.5
9 Anaheim Ducks 68 33 2 7 5 21 237 107.4
10 Florida Panthers 69 30 1 10 6 22 226 107.4
11 Tampa Bay Lightning 69 30 7 6 2 24 230 106.1
12 Boston Bruins 70 30 5 4 7 24 226 105.2
13 Pittsburgh Penguins 68 30 4 6 4 24 222 104.0
14 Nashville Predators 70 31 1 4 12 22 226 102.5
15 Colorado Avalanche 70 30 2 3 4 31 205 100.9
16 Philadelphia Flyers 67 21 9 9 5 23 199 100.7
17 Minnesota Wild 69 30 1 3 8 27 209 100.0
18 Detroit Red Wings 69 23 9 7 6 24 207 99.6
19 New Jersey Devils 70 22 9 8 1 30 194 96.4
20 Carolina Hurricanes 69 22 8 4 9 26 194 95.1
21 Montreal Canadiens 69 25 2 8 3 31 188 93.5
22 Buffalo Sabres 70 23 3 8 3 33 180 91.8
23 Winnipeg Jets 69 25 2 5 2 35 177 91.5
24 Ottawa Senators 70 21 5 12 2 30 186 91.1
25 Arizona Coyotes 69 24 5 2 6 32 182 89.1
26 Columbus Blue Jackets 69 22 1 9 4 33 171 88.6
27 Vancouver Canucks 68 19 4 7 9 29 169 88.1
28 Calgary Flames 69 18 9 4 3 35 162 85.5
29 Toronto Maple Leafs 68 16 1 12 5 34 146 83.4
30 Edmonton Oilers 72 17 7 5 5 38 155 79.9

The Isles are still in a lofty place, and again probably a bit higher than they deserve to be, thanks to stellar goal tending (but that never stopped other teams from showing up higher than they should be, so I make no apologies). I'll leave it at that, for now. We just agreed to purchase a house and I have a metric ton of paperwork to fill out. But leave questions in the comments. I'll get to them at night.

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