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Who and what is hot and cold to start the NHL season?
No one got off to a hotter start to the season than Toronto Maple Leafs rookie Auston Matthews, who scored a record four goals in his NHL debut. Andre Ringuette/Getty Images

Who and what is hot and cold to start the NHL season?

The difference between a player or team being hot or cold at the start of the NHL season is staggering.

With so few games to go off of, an individual player or team can be cold as ice or on a streak so hot he has to walk the streets of Pittsburgh shirtless like Sharks forward Joe Thornton. (To be fair, you have to figure that gigantic beard of his must conduct a ton of heat.)

Yet just over a week into the 2016-17 campaign, we can clearly see who is off to spectacular start and who is kicking off the season at the back of the pack. Here’s a look at who’s already hot, who’s not and who’s hanging around a lukewarm temperature at the start of this NHL season.

Hot: Auston Matthews vs. Every Other Young Player Out There
This isn’t a big surprise, since Matthews set a league record in his NHL debut with a four-goal game and then took the fall when Toronto still didn’t win the game. Then when that performance earned him just the NHL’s Second Star of the Week behind Oilers captain Connor McDavid, pitting Matthews in head-to-head combat with every other young NHLer really picked up steam.

Are we talking a simple Matthews vs. McDavid comparison? Not so fast — enter Patrik Laine, stage right.

The second overall pick from this year’s NHL Draft is also on a fiery tear in his first NHL season, registering his first career hat trick and the game-winner for the Winnipeg Jets in a 5-4 overtime showdown against Matthews and the Maple Leafs. Last season, a Wednesday night game between the Leafs and Jets would’ve put many viewers to sleep. This past Wednesday, the matchup was a choice topic dubbed  the “Matthews-Laine Bowl” with the Winnipeg crowd cheering “Laine is better!”

While the individual players themselves will go through hot and cold flashes throughout the season, making comparisons between Matthews and every other young gun in the league isn’t going away anytime soon.

Expect this to be headline-grabbing competition throughout the season.

Cold: Interest In The Crosby-Ovechkin Rivalry

Crosby is currently sidelined with a concussion, so the lack of interest comes more from his absence and not from him and Ovechkin slowing down. But after a decade of every outlet from big-time media to tiny fan blog gushing over the tug-of-war for greatness, it looks like “Sid versus Ovi” is going the way of “Britney versus Christina.”

Granted, the recent bout between Washington and Pittsburgh stayed interesting without the highly publicized face-off and carried all the way to a shootout, with the defending Stanley Cup champs emerging victorious. There is a possibility that Crosby’s return could resurrect the split screens of him and Ovechkin during a Capitals-Penguins showdown.

For now, however, the stand-off is at a standstill.

So Hot Right Now: Pacific Division Teams That Were Terrible Last Year
The Pacific Division standings look like something from an alternate universe right now. The Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks are atop the standings while the typically dominant Los Angeles Kings are hanging out near the basement.

Is this what the NHL looks like upside-down? What in the name of Eleven and her Eggos is going on here?

Things seem to be clicking for Edmonton, even outside of McDavid carrying the team and being a beast. The Oilers have certainly rallied to help out goaltender Cam Talbot, who kicked off the season registering a 3.32 goals-against average and .902 save percentage but still has a 4-1-0 record.

Vancouver’s record is even more surprising, particularly with the team’s 2-1 victory over a tough St. Louis Blues squad last Tuesday. Sure, the first tilt went to a shootout and the following two went to overtime, but all three games had third-period comebacks — a staggering stat given that this was the team known for blowing third-period leads last season.

Of course, you can’t get too excited since a full 82-game stretch typically has its ebbs and flows, and both teams are only a couple points ahead of the defending Western Conference champion San Jose Sharks. But that doesn’t change the current conversation that the current standings are quite surprising to see.

Cold or At Least Cooler Than Expected: Central Division Titans
Outside of the Nashville Predators' entertaining opening-night tilt against the Chicago Blackhawks — Jonathan Toews dropping the gloves was must-see TV — the Central Division isn’t imposing its dominance early in the season. Even the conference-leading St. Louis Blues got upended by the Oilers on Thursday in 3-1 loss. And the Dallas Stars, last season’s offensive wonder, had a five-goal effort swatted down last Saturday by the Avalanche, a team that is off to an unexpectedly good start despite having a very bizarre offseason.

This is not to say that all of that will remain the same in the next couple weeks or months. Remember, the Blackhawks' 12-game run last season took place midseason. Plus Nashville, who made big additions in the offseason, hasn’t even played a handful of games yet and could get a lift if Pekka Rinne rebounds from his performance in the 2015-16 campaign.

For the time being, however, the Central is not its “hot topic”-type self.

Hot: Teams Winning Despite a Laundry List of Injuries
We aren’t talking about the teams with injuries haunting them early in the season. This is about the teams who are overcoming the odds early on.

Think the defending Stanley Cup champion Pens. They have been without key pieces of their lineup for the first week of the season but have a 3-1-1 record. Or the Boston Bruins, who were without Patrice Bergeron until Thursday but were already shaping up to be a tough team to beat in the East.

Every season there is at least one club that can grind through and win games despite having a depleted roster. That was the St. Louis Blues last February, when they were short a goalie and a couple forwards but still managed to claw their way up Central Division standings. This season it's been the Pens and Bruins thus far, and other teams are sure to follow suit at some point this year.

Cold: Hype Over This Year’s Outdoor Games
Maybe it is because the NHL is focused on celebrating its 100th anniversary that's overshadowing the whole spectacle of the cluster of outdoor games that we see around the new year. But even with outlets trying to hype up this year’s calendar of hockey games played in football stadiums, the event has lost some of its wonder and pizzazz.

The decline in interest isn’t new. Maybe it’s because there are so many of them now. Or maybe it’s because the same teams play these games every year, and they don’t seem as special.

Hype will more than likely build up as the Oilers-Jets alumni game approaches and everyone gets to see Wayne Gretzky take to the ice to represent Edmonton in what he says will be his last hurrah on skates.

But there are more pressing topics at hand in October. The outdoor games just aren’t among them right now.

Constant Temperature Change: Carey Price Saving the Habs
Fans were cautioned ahead of the start of the season to not put too much weight on Price’s return, but that didn’t hamper the excitement of the star netminder returning between the pipes at the start of the regular season.

Then, Price was sidelined with the flu so his return was postponed a week, and the talk of him leading the Canadiens to many victories simmered.

When he finally returned to the crease this week, Price was victorious, as he made 27 saves in Montreal’s 5-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes. It didn’t hurt that the Canadiens scored four unanswered goals in front of him or that his career record against Arizona is 8-0-0 with a 1.49 goals-against average and .949 save percentage.

So the “Welcome Back Carey” tour can officially begin, and he will continue to have a glowing spotlight on him. That conversation will continue depending on how he faces the upcoming opponents, including the rival Boston Bruins and gritty clubs such as the Flyers and Isles.

At least for the next couple of days, however, Price is what the cool kids are talking about.

Lukewarm but Rising: Talk About This Season’s Technical Upgrades
Whatever technology the NHL is using nowadays to improve the game is always a topic of conversation, not to mention great for Twitter banter. Recently, Mark J. Burns of SportTechie.com highlighted upgrades to look for over the 2016-17 season, with the most interesting being the addition of tablets on teams' benches. The practice of having readily available devices was tried out during the World Cup of Hockey this past September and is now under experimentation in the NHL. As Burns reported, easier access to tablets is meant to help with watching game footage and making decisions on coach’s challenges, and whatnot.

However, the NHL doesn’t have a designated tablet provider, like how the NFL has Microsoft and the MLB has Apple, and it is up to the home teams to provide this access for both themselves and away clubs. Burns suggested that, although the NHL might have a single provider soon, that a “lack of uniformity” may cause some issues.

Another issue? Having more electronics around could slow down the game more, with so many different people watching replays in-game.

What this comes down to is another effort by the NHL to get calls right and doing so in a more productive manner. Sure, there will still be calls that the coaches don’t agree on, like Stars coach Lindy Ruff not being fond of his goalie taking an elbow to the head facing the Kings on Thursday evening, but expect the issue of more access to game footage to be a major topic.

It’s anyone’s guess how this one might develop.

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