Written here a few days ago was "Power Rankings Revisited"... a look how the teams I arbitrarily perceived to have the best shot at the Cup have fared in month one.
While I felt that it mattered to have a good start (or in the odd case of Anaheim, a terrible first five games followed by excellent second five), I'm now inclined to think it matters even more after reading "Down and Out: The numbers show that a weak October haunts teams that have Stanley Cup ambitions" from the Nov 3 issue of Sports Illustrated. One point made in the the article is that a fast start to the season establishes a team's confidence so that they can emerge fairly unscathed from any low ebbs that the season may provide (as happened with Detroit last spring).
Tieing this idea to the current (as of last Tuesday) Power Rankings from Scott Wraight at CNNSI and Ross McKeon at Yahoo! Sports, teams that aren't towards the top of the the rankings now may well have a tough go at getting there come next June.
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