The Lineup is a new weekly series by Sporting News to bring you everything you need to know about the upcoming week in the NHL.
The Buffalo Sabres head into this week's NHL action atop the entire league's standings. How many of you would've predicted that for the final few days of October?
Buffalo has used a perfect home record and a very good set of performances on the road to jump out to the front of the pack in the Eastern Conference. This week the Sabres play two more games within the friendly confines of the KeyBank Center — along with a trip to Washington, D.C., to take on the Capitals — as they look to continue their surprising ealy-season run.
MORE: Once a long shot for roster spot, Oilers' Bear coming into his own
Speaking of surprising, who had John Carlson among the league leaders in points in the closing week of October? The Capitals' defenseman, playfully nicknamed "John Norris" by Alex Ovechkin in an attempt to kickstart Carlson's Norris Trophy campaign, added another three points over the past week to keep himself near the top of the NHL scoring race, although he's (finally) been passed at the top spot by an elite offensive talent.
With 21 points (five goals, 16 assists), Carlson enters the week tied for second on the scoring charts with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The Edmonton duo reached the 21-point plateau in a 6-2 loss to the Florida Panthers on Sunday. All three players were then leapfrogged by David Pastrnak Sunday night, as the Boston Bruins star racked up five points to boost his season total to 23.
If it wasn't hot aready, the scoring race is definitely heating up now.
Here's everything to get you primed for the week of Oct. 28 in the NHL.
Game of the Week
Friday, Nov. 1: Buffalo Sabres at Washington Capitals
An early-season matchup between the Sabres and Capitals wouldn't normally elicit much more than a yawn of anticipation, but this Friday's contest actually pits the two best teams in the Eastern Conference.
Led by a red-hot Jack Eichel and the superb one-two combination of Carter Hutton and Linus Ullmark in goal, Buffalo has taken the entire NHL by storm — racking up a 9-2-1 record heading into Monday's meeting with the Arizona Coyotes.
With due respect to the 'Yotes, the Sabres' real test comes when the calendar turns to November, as they'll head to Capital One Arena to face Ovechkin and the rest of the Washington squad. The Caps have been neck-and-neck with the Sabres all through the young season thus far, and as of Monday morning they're only behind the league-leading team from Buffalo due to a tiebreaker.
Milestone watch
Ryan Getzlaf will be the next player to skate in 1000 regular-season games if he plays in all of the Anaheim Ducks' contests this week. The career Duck has 930 points in 997 total games.
Steven Stamkos is just two goals shy of the 400 mark for his career. The Lightning star has an excellent chance of reaching the milestone in the New York City area, as Tampa Bay embarks on a three-game road trip against the New York Rangers (Oct. 29), the New Jersey Devils (Oct. 30) and New York Islanders (Nov. 1).
For posterity, here's Stamkos' 398th goal, which came against the Nashville Predators on Saturday:
Trending topics
The aforementioned Pastrnak and Brad Marchand led all scorers with eight points each during the Oct. 21-27 period, most of which came during Sunday's 7-4 goalfest against the Rangers. Pastrnak is on a run of nine straight games with at least a point, and seven of those have been multi-point performances. The man known as "Pasta" will look to extend his point streak to double-digit games when Boston hosts the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday.
Aleksander Barkov also had himself a week, piling up seven points in three games played. All seven points came in the form of assists, as the Panthers center tallied two helpers in a 4-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins (Oct. 22), four against the Calgary Flames (Oct. 24) and a lone assist against the Oilers on Sunday. The 24-year-old is now up to 13 points (all assists) on the season.
Following closely behind Barkov over the past seven days were Eichel and Roman Josi, who each had six points. Eichel put up his half-dozen over three games (two wins and one loss for the Sabres); the Buffalo captain has amassed 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) through the first 12 games of the season.
Josi, the 29-year-old Predators d-man, recorded two goals and four assists as his team put together three straight victories.
At the other end of the ice, Brian Elliott led all goaltenders with three wins last week, helping the Philadelphia Flyers to three consecutive wins. Elliott turned aside 78 shots over the three games, good for a .918 save percentage as he continues the battle with Carter Hart for the No. 1 job in Philly.
The title of "busiest goalie in the league" went to Joonas Korpisalo of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who faced 100 shots in the three games he played during the Oct. 21-27 stretch. Korpisalo was the only netminder to face triple-digits shots over the week, and while he came away with a pair of wins in that span, the Jackets will surely look to cut down on the number of attempts on the 25-year-old's net.
Stemming the tide
The NHL will certainly hope that this week has fewer injuries to its top-end offensive talent than it did in the seven days that just ended.
Mikko Rantanen, Matt Duchene, Vladimir Tarasenko, Sidney Crosby and Auston Matthews were all forced to leave the ice for their respective teams at some point over the past few days and no doubt leaving their coaches each with a few more grey hairs as their statuses were determined by medical staff.
Between them, the quintet of players have accounted for a combined 60 points (23 goals, 37 assists) through the first three-and-a-half weeks of the campaign. While Crosby and Matthews were able to return within moments of sustaining their injuries — Matthews even scored Toronto's final goal in a 4-1 Maple Leafs win over the San Jose Sharks — Rantanen, Duchene and Tarasenko are on the shelf for the foreseeable future and will be big losses to their respective clubs.
Let's hope we don't see another glut of elite forwards go down again this week, as their absence makes the game far less enjoyable.