It's still early into the 2015-16 NHL campaign but there are quite a few stories already emerging among teams including the early firing of Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Todd Richards (John Tortorella comes in as the new coach) and the 7-0 start by the Montreal Canadiens.
In both of the previously mentioned situations, goaltending is a pivotal factor behind the stories. For the Blue Jackets, their star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky has yet to bail them out of games with a 0.840 save percentage, which is significantly worse than has been expected from him in past seasons (.918, .923, .932 - previous three seasons). For the Canadiens, it has been the lights out performance of Carey Price with a .966 save percentage including 2 shutouts.
Now it is very unlikely that Bobrovsky and Price with their current paces (as well as the overall team performances) but we decided to look at how each teams save percentage at this point in the season.
Teams with significant differences this season vs. last year are either going through a structural change at the position leading to big changes over the season or teams are just going through a short-term run that will likely revert back towards the mean.
For example, the Edmonton Oilers who with two new goalies are likely going to have much better numbers this season than last so the recent performance is likely a more accurate indicator than last seasons numbers while the Blue Jackets are more than likely to be going through a poor stretch and should see improved save percentage numbers moving forward.
Here is a chart detailing the changes of each team:
