DCHL Monthly Roundup: October

5 stories from around the league during the month of October

Barkov’s Domination

Aleksander Barkov has long been one of this league’s best players, and though he’s often been a point per game player, many tend to focus on his defensive game and fail to give him credit for his offensive game. Clearly, the 2024 Hart Trophy winner is looking to reclaim his trophy, as in 11 games played so far, Barkov has scored a staggering 10 goals and 13 assists for 23 points in 11 games. He leads the league in goals, assists, points, shots on goal, game winning goals, even strength points, and power play points. The closest teammate to Barkov’s 23 points is defenseman Evan Bouchard, who has 12 points. If you took away all 10 of Barkov’s goals, he would still lead the team in points. Barkov has been unreal this year and is on a mission to prove that he is the best player in the league, and can anyone even dispute that at this point? 

Toronto’s Hot Start

Toronto has been one of the league’s biggest surprises so far this year, starting off with an 8-2-1 record for 2nd in the Atlantic, behind only the Senators who have also had a great start to the year. Offensively, Tyler Seguin leads the way with 7 goals and 12 points in 11 games alongside defenseman Kris Letang who also has 12 points in 11 games. In net, Toronto has Jordan Binnington who has been stellar thus far. Among goalies with 5+ starts, Binnington ranks 3rd in GAA with a 1.72 and 6th in save percentage with a .926. The Leafs also signed Pheonix Copley back on September 9th, and he’s only played 3 games so far but has looked like a very solid backup in those 3 games. He was stellar in his most recent win where he posted a shutout against the Columbus Blue Jackets. All in all, Toronto is looking very strong to start the season. It’s always exciting when new teams emerge in the standings, so I hope Toronto can keep their momentum going. 

Minnesota Wild’s Special Team Issues, Defensive Woes

The Minnesota Wild are off to a strange start so far. They’re 5-4-3, and lead the league in goals for, which are obviously very good things. Forwards Sebastian Aho and Matthew Joseph are even among the league leaders in +/-. So, what are the issues for this team? Well, let’s start with the penalty kill. The Minnesota Wild rank 2nd in the league for most PK attempts and are the league leaders in penalty kill goals against, letting in 14 goals on 51 PK attempts. It’s not just on the penalty kill, however. Their powerplay has also struggled, scoring only 5 goals on 37 attempts for the 4th lowest PP% in the league. Back to defensive issues, though, the Wild despite leading the league in goals for have a negative goal differential of -2. Both of their goaltenders have struggled out of the gate. Logan Thompson has been somewhat serviceable, putting up a .899 with 5 wins in 9 games. Lukas Dostal, however, has struggled immensely in his 3 games played, putting up a .806 sv% and 5.84gaa. The Wild are clearly a very strong team offensively, but their defense and goaltending have not been good, and if this team wants to make a run at the DCHL cup, they’re going to need to clean up the play in their own zone. 

More Teams Off to Interesting Starts

A lot of teams have gotten off to interesting starts that very few people may have predicted, for better or for worse. The Bruins have gotten off to a rough start, going 4-8-1, and look to be out of a playoff spot for the first time in quite some years. The combination of building a younger team and other Atlantic teams finally starting to take shape will make it very difficult for the Bruins to make the playoffs. The Red Wings are one of those Atlantic teams that are finally starting to take shape, but they’ve also started off slow going 4-7-1. Luckily, 3 of those wins came against divisional rivals, so that has helped the Red Wings in not falling too far behind, but they’ve got some work to do. In the Metro, it’s hard not to point at the Carolina Hurricanes. A team who were expected to be among the top teams in the entire league, they are currently tied in 25th and have not been themselves. As mentioned, they did make a coaching change, so let’s hope for this team (and my predictions) that they’ll be able to get rolling now. Out west, it’s difficult to say they’ve had a good start, but the Edmonton Oilers certainly look better than I expected at 5-6-1. Meanwhile, you see how the mighty have fallen when looking at their provincial rival in Calgary. The Flames have started off 3-8-1 after being incredibly dominant for quite some time. Their goaltending, despite looking like the league worst tandem on paper, has actually been fine, with Joel Blomqvist somehow putting up a 1.85GAA despite having 2 wins in 7 games played, their issue has been putting the puck in opposing teams nets, ranking among the bottom 6 in goals. The Seattle Kraken also made many changes to improve their team, though so far they’ve been for naught, as they’ve gone 3-6-1 in October. Much like the Hurricanes, they also made a coaching change, and so far, so good. Lastly, in the Central division, the Dallas Stars, who I think are one of the more underrated teams in the league, have not looked the part going 4-6-1. It’s still early in the season, and I think these teams will get there eventually, but you hate to have a poor start to the season. The cup isn’t won in October, but you can certainly lose the opportunity to play for it in that time.

The Great Coach Culling of 2025

Coaches don’t tend to be on the hotseat too often in the DCHL, so when so many coaches are fired in such a short span, a lot of people tend to notice. This past week, we’ve seen the Seattle Kraken fire Marco Sturm after a rough start to the season and have brought on Andrew Brunette. Then, the Detroit Red Wings fired coach John Tortorella and brought in Todd McLellan. Then yesterday, the Carolina Hurricanes fired Peter Laviolette, which was then followed by the Winnipeg Jets firing Darryl Sutter. Both the Jets and Canes seemed to have a similar idea in mind for a replacement in Scott Arniel, but it looks like he’ll be signing with the Jets while the Hurricanes have made offers to Rick Bowness. Is this the last of the coach firings for the season? Who’s on the hot seat now? There are some interesting coaches that are still available, such as Jay Woodcroft, Ryan Huska, Dan Muse, etc., or maybe some teams are interested in signing one of the coaches who’ve recently been let go. Should be interesting to see what happens next!