Tampa Bay will, in all likelihood, find itself among the best teams in the NHL by the time this season is completed. Goaltending is volatile and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Vasilevskiy has a down year, but if he can provide the Bolts with just average goaltending, they should begin to stabilize and climb the table. Andrei Vasilevskiy, the reigning Vezina Trophy winner, has a -9.61 Goals Saved Above Expectations (GSAx) in 12 games, the fifth-worst mark in the NHL. Tampa’s biggest flaw is pretty easy to diagnose. Tampa has the seventh-best expected goals share (xG%) and sixth-best high-danger chance percentage in the NHL. The good news for the Lightning is that their underlying metrics look solid. After blowing through the regular season only to get swept out of the first round last season, it was fair to question whether Tampa was pacing itself for the stretch run. Questions were asked of the Lightning pretty quickly, as the Bolts won just six of their first 13 games this season.

Boston is now the sole Stanley Cup favorite at 7-1, followed by Tampa (8-1), Vegas (9-1) and Toronto (11-1). But the same four teams that had the best Stanley Cup odds when the season started - Tampa Bay, Boston, Toronto and Vegas - still top the board at the season’s first turn. Outside of the Boston Bruins, it’s been a rocky start for the four preseason Stanley Cup favorites. Thanks to the NHL’s points system, it takes a while for teams to start separating themselves from one another, but at least by this point we have a decent chunk of data to work with. Most of the league has played at least 20 games, meaning the season is entering the second quarter. We’ve reached the first real checkpoint of the 2019-20 NHL season.

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