Well it's been an interesting first quarter of the year...
Hawks are consistently inconsistent and that is no surprise given all the new (and mostly young) faces brought in. But Panarin is sensational, Trevor van Riemsdyk appears to be a legitimate top 4 defenseman, and Teräväinen is coming back to his playoff form from last year. Anisimov makes a massive difference for the second line, obviously for Kane...
Speaking of the vets, Kane basically saves us offensively every other game. There have been nights where 8-9 of the forwards are incapable of doing anything well and Kaner makes a few plays (with the help of Panarin and Anisimov) to keep the hawks in the game. Toews has sucked production-wise. He needs to find some motivation. Hossa looked like crap at first but the last 2-3 weeks regained energy. Keith has been excellent, maybe a tad slow but he did have surgery not long ago. Hammer looks okay, Seabrook has picked up some slack from him and is earning the new contract. And the fourth liners are finally showing life - Kruger in particular. And that means a lot because we depend on his play much more than I'd expect for a 4th line center...
The rest of the league? The Pacific division <mostly> sucks, the Central is quite scary, the Capitals are for real (yep Dan), and the Habs are annoying. But what else is new.
I'll just leave this no-look top shelfer here.
https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CVwPoZUWUAAxrsM.mp4