Eight early-season stats that actually matter in 2026-27 NHL season
Often, the numbers lie to us when the NHL calendar hasn’t yet exited October. As of Week 3 in the 2025-26 season, the Chicago Blackhawks held down a playoff spot. They missed the big dance by 18 points. Recency bias could’ve steered you wrong if you thought they were suddenly a competitive team after half a dozen games.
It’s thus difficult to understand which early-season statistics we should take seriously. But there are paths toward doing so. Some numbers might confirm hunches we had going into the season. Others are backed by some underlying data, positive or negative, which can tell us what and what not to believe.
Here are some early-season stats, through games played Oct. 13, that have already caught my eye in the 2026-27 season. What do they mean?
Linus Ullmark leads the NHL in goals saved above expected.
I wrote the following in DFO’s 2026-27 Ottawa Senators team preview over the summer:
“Before Ullmark’s leave of absence, he labored through the worst season of his career, posting an .881 SV% across 28 starts. He later revealed in an interview that he was dealing with panic attacks, sometimes between periods of games.
But if we zoom out at Ullmark’s entire career, his first-half struggles last year are the outlier. From 2015-16 through 2024-25, he posted a .917 SV% across 291 games, seventh-best among all goalies with 100-plus appearances. Not only did he right the ship down the stretch last season, but he was amazing in Ottawa’s sweep playoff defeat, posting the highest goals saved above expected rate of any netminder to start in the 2025-26 postseason. The 2022-23 Vezina Trophy winner has absolutely earned the benefit of the doubt.”
Bad Ullmark was the small sample relative to the rest of his career. Good Ullmark, which we’re seeing right now, is the larger sample. He appears to be back to his stellar self, and that’s great news for a Sens team grinding through injuries to several crucial players right now. It’s too bad Ottawa hamstrung itself by bringing in Sam Ersson, perhaps the NHL’s worst goalie, as Ullmark’s backup.
Darren Raddysh leads the NHL in shots 90-100 mph.
Raddysh’s first seven games living out his dream with his hometown team have been shaky, to say the least, calling to mind the Larry Murphy nightmare. The Toronto Maple Leafs have been outscored 9-3 with Raddysh on the ice at 5-on-5. And after scoring a career-high 22 goals last season, ranking third among all NHL defensemen, Raddysh has yet to pot one as a Leaf.
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That said, his bomb of a shot hasn’t gone anywhere, as the NHL EDGE numbers tell us. His individual expected goals and scoring chances are actually up year over year at 5-on-5, too. He’s not getting good looks as frequently on the power play as he was last season, but he’s still getting plenty, sitting second on the Leafs in individual power-play chances. Offensively, Raddysh looks like a player who should bust out of his slump soon. The defensive side of things is more of a question mark, but Raddysh was well above average in his own end last season, so it may be a matter of coach Jim Hiller finding the right partner for him.
Egor Chinakhov sits top-10 among NHL forwards in max shot power AND max skating speed.
Chinakhov was an absolute steal of a midseason trade acquisition for the Pittsburgh Penguins last season, producing at a 34-goal, 68-point pace in 43 games. So far this season: just one goal and two points in seven games. The underlying data actually support the slow start; his individual scoring-chance metrics have regressed to his Columbus Blue Jacket levels. But we have to consider how small the sample size is, especially when, according to NHL EDGE data, we know he’s still one of the fastest players in the league, armed with one of the deadliest releases. The tools haven’t gone anywhere. His talent should prevail and lead to more chances going forward.
The Flyers have the NHL’s worst expected goal differential.
This stat shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it’s a reminder of how bad things really are for the 0-5-3 Philadelphia Flyers. This isn’t a snakebitten team getting horrible bounces early in 2026-27. The Flyers average the fewest shots on goal and allow the most shots on goal in the league per game. They really are this bad so far. General manager Danny Briere may need to shake his roster up with an early-season trade or two.
The Kings sit last in the NHL in shooting percentage.
Normally, when a team riding five consecutive playoff berths has a low shooting percentage in a small sample size, we shrug it off as an anomaly. But it’s the same as it ever was for the Los Angeles Kings. Seemingly every season since the start of the Darryl Sutter era, L.A. has iced stingy teams that drive the play but can’t finish chances. The Kings average just 2.20 goals per game early this season, with one player scoring more than once across their winless first five games.
The Kings are actually the best team in the league so far at preventing 5-on-5 scoring chances, but with goaltenders Darcy Kuemper and Anton Forsberg also really struggling early this season, it hasn’t mattered. If you can’t score and can’t stop the puck, you’re going to lose a lot of games. We should expect the goaltending to normalize, but the finishing may remain a problem for a team that was 27th in shooting percentage last season, and the Kings could be in tough to make the playoffs if they dig themselves too big of a hole early on.
Mason McTavish leads the NHL in individual expected goals per 60 at 5-on-5.
The St. Louis Blues were confident enough in a post-hype McTavish breakout to surrender two 2026 first-round picks for him, and the move looks prudent so far. It’s not simply encouraging to see McTavish already at four goals and seven points through six games; what stands out is the way he’s achieving his production. If he keeps garnering scoring chances at a personal-best rate, he could deliver a career year.
Sergei Murashov is saving 0.399 goals above expected per 60.
The takeover is happening. I was all-in on Murashov, the Penguins’ prized netminding prospect, taking the Pens’ No. 1 goaltending job from Arturs Silovs by December. So far, so good. Silovs hasn’t played poorly, but Murashov has been markedly better. Naturally, then, Silovs has won three of his four starts and Murashov has yet to win one. If Murashov, who has dominated at every level in his career so far, keeps up his play and gets better run support, the wins will come, as will a larger share of the playing time in Pittsburgh.
Elias Pettersson (the forward) ranks eighth in the NHL in hits.
Pettersson is on pace for 284 hits, which would more than double his career high of 125. Why do the bodychecks matter? Because they represent a more engaged version of ‘Petey’ than we’ve seen in years. It hardly feels like a coincidence that he’s also averaging more than a point per game thus far. He’s more confident and assertive overall if he’s playing a physical game, and it’s translating to his success in the offensive zone.
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