The end of every month is a great time to look back and reflect on the previous month of hockey and see which way teams and players are trending. A one month sample is usually obfuscated by hot and cold streaks, so it’s valuable to find ways to separate the signal from the noise. Those at the extreme ends of the spectrum also make for some great stories.
The end of October is an especially interesting time because all we have is a small sample of games and our pre-season perception to compare it to. The Athletic has a model we use for projections and probabilities that are updated daily and this is the first look at how much has changed under the hood since the season started.