At this stage of the season the NHL standings seem more like morning rush hour, with bumper-to-bumper traffic where no one is getting anywhere fast. I can’t ever recall seeing 31 of the 32 teams so clumped together at this time in November. American Thanksgiving has always been the best time to measure not only where a team stands in the rankings, but more importantly, what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Sure, Colorado is standing alone with one regulation loss in 22 games. The ever-dependable Nathan MacKinnon leads the league in points and Cale Makar leads all defencemen in scoring.

But as far as the rest of the league is concerned, there is a cluster like we don’t usually see.

With the majority of the league still neck-and-neck fighting for playoff contention at the quarter mark,

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