By Nick Obergan The first month of the 2011-12 NHL season is in the books, and the standings aren’t nearly as clear as they will be in March and April. Some teams dubbed as contenders have started real slow, particularly the defending champion Bruins. On the other end of the spectrum are the teams who had the top two picks in the draft last year, Edmonton and Colorado. Some stats that jumped out over the first month: - San Jose is out-shooting their opponents by 10 per game, while the Rangers are being out-shot by 10 per game. - Edmonton, behind Nikolai Khabibulin, is allowing merely 1.46 GAA per game; Philadelphia, behind Ilya Bryzgalov, is allowing 3.27 GAA per game. - Two teams are averaging fewer than two goals per game (Anaheim, Minnesota), and Washington is almost doubling them (3.78 goals per game). - Ottawa has the best power play in the league (31%), while St. Louis has the worst (8.3%). - Pittsburgh, Chicago and Buffalo are killing off more than 90% of their penalties; Ottawa and Columbus are killing off less than 72% of theirs. - Colorado is 6-0 in one-goal games (including 4-0 in overtime/shootouts); Columbus is 0-4 in one-goal games. Many of these numbers are unsustainable, so you will no doubt see a lot of movement after next month’s power rankings. As always, the rankings are derived from the OCTR (click here for more details). All stats and information include all games played through October 30, 2011.

Rank	Team Name	OCTR Total	10-11 Final Rank	Change
1	San Jose Sharks	70.748	3	+2
2	Washington Capitals	70.636	6	+4
3	Pittsburgh Penguins	63.414	5	+2
4	Chicago Blackhawks	61.760	7	+3
5	Philadelphia Flyers	60.503	4	-1
6	Colorado Avalanche	59.776	27	+21
7	Detroit Red Wings	58.280	8	+1
8	Los Angeles Kings	58.173	14	+6
9	Edmonton Oilers	56.238	30	+21
10	Dallas Stars	55.874	18	+8
11	Buffalo Sabres	55.413	10	-1
12	Vancouver Canucks	55.185	1	-11
13	Toronto Maple Leafs	53.219	21	+8
14	Phoenix Coyotes	52.632	12	-2
15	Ottawa Senators	52.156	29	+14
16	Florida Panthers	51.118	26	+10
17	Montreal Canadiens	49.947	16	-1
18	St. Louis Blues	49.830	17	-1
19	Tampa Bay Lightning	43.590	11	-8
20	Boston Bruins	42.404	2	-18
21	Anaheim Ducks	40.825	19	-2
22	New Jersey Devils	40.185	22	--
23	Minnesota Wild	39.767	23	--
24	Calgary Flames	39.097	15	-9
25	Nashville Predators	36.615	9	-14
26	Carolina Hurricanes	36.212	20	-6
27	New York Islanders	35.549	28	+1
28	New York Rangers	32.879	13	-15
29	Winnipeg Jets	32.239	25	-4
30	Columbus Blue Jackets	28.151	24	-6

Nick is RealGM’s NHL Feature Writer. You can reach him by email [email protected] or on twitter @NickObergan