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LHH Power Rankings: Rising, then Falling Edition (featuring a little Jekyll and a little Hyde)

The Isles got as high as 10th over the past fortnight, but are now 13th.

By ICanSeeForIslesAndIsles
One of these is a sure fire Maple Leaf. The other is John Tavares.
One of these is a sure fire Maple Leaf. The other is John Tavares.
John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

With the All Star break, this article was on hiatus last week. Since the prior article, the Isles had risen in our rankings as high as 10th after the recent quality wins vs. the Caps, Flyers, and Leafs. Since then, they came back down a bit after drubbings to those same Leafs and Sens. But first...

Weekly Roundup of Opinion Polls

Site Updated New Ranking Prior Ranking Comments
SportsNet 2/16/2017 18 14 [This week is their Things We Didn't See coming edition] "Free agent afterthought Dennis Seidenberg and free agent priority Andrew Ladd being neck-and-neck in scoring."
ESPN 2/13/2017 17 19 John Tavares heads to his hometown of Toronto for a game on Tuesday night against the Maple Leafs. He'll be bracing himself for the line of questioning about his future -- although he pretty much answered it all at the All-Star festivities in Los Angeles last month.
TSN 2/14/2017 16 17 A 9-2-2 record in the past 13 games has changed the perspective on this Islanders season. The emergence of LW Anders Lee, who has 16 points (7 G, 9 A) in those 13 games, has made a difference.
THN 2/15/2017 16 8 With a chance to take over a playoff spot, the Islanders did a face plant with a 7-1 loss against Toronto Tuesday night that coach Doug Weight called, "an ass kicking."
Average 16.8 14.5 These comments are what you'd call a steep gradient.

Since these rankings were released both during both the Jekyll and the Hyde phases, we see quite the gamut in comments, but all seem to agree they are a playoff bubble team. Our own rankings put them a bit higher.

LHH Power Rankings

For all games through 2/15/17 (so not including Thursday's win over the Rangers):

LHH LHH
GP W L T Pts Rating
1 Washington Capitals 56 32 11 13 77 126.9
2 Minnesota Wild 56 31 13 12 74 124.1
3 Pittsburgh Penguins 54 27 13 14 68 118.5
4 Columbus Blue Jackets 56 27 15 14 68 117.3
5 New York Rangers 56 32 18 6 70 117.2
6 San Jose Sharks 58 27 18 13 67 109
7 Ottawa Senators 54 22 19 13 57 106.8
8 Anaheim Ducks 57 26 17 14 66 106.6
9 Chicago Blackhawks 57 25 17 15 65 105.9
10 Montreal Canadiens 58 25 19 14 64 105.4
11 St. Louis Blues 57 23 22 12 58 105.2
12 Toronto Maple Leafs 56 21 19 16 58 102.4
13 New York Islanders 55 21 20 14 56 102.3
14 Edmonton Oilers 57 21 19 17 59 102.1
15 Boston Bruins 57 24 23 10 58 101.2
16 Nashville Predators 56 24 21 11 59 99.3
17 Tampa Bay Lightning 56 21 24 11 53 99.1
18 Carolina Hurricanes 53 18 22 13 49 97.8
19 Buffalo Sabres 57 17 23 17 51 97.5
20 Los Angeles Kings 55 17 23 15 49 93.9
21 New Jersey Devils 56 16 22 18 50 93.6
22 Calgary Flames 58 21 26 11 53 93.4
23 Florida Panthers 55 15 20 20 50 92.1
24 Philadelphia Flyers 57 16 23 18 50 89.8
25 Dallas Stars 58 20 26 12 52 89.2
26 Detroit Red Wings 56 13 25 18 44 88.5
27 Winnipeg Jets 59 21 29 9 51 86.6
28 Vancouver Canucks 57 16 26 15 47 83
29 Arizona Coyotes 55 10 29 16 36 75.9
30 Colorado Avalanche 54 10 37 7 27 69.2

This Isles end up a bit better than in the opinion polls and official standings, given their higher strength of schedule. If all games tied after regulation were considered ties like in the good ol' days, then the Isles would be one point behind eighth (the Sens), but with one more game played, by the way. I've been tracking that as I had my month-long crusade against the current standings points awards system.

Speaking of those articles, they were kinda long, so this one is going to be kinda short as I shake the rust off.