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The NHL regular season officially hit the quarter mark last Thursday. So far, it's been Colorado and everyone else as the Avalanche have won nine in a row to run their record to 16-1-5 and open up a seven-point lead on the rest of the league. Meanwhile, 25 of the other 31 teams are within six points of each other heading into tonight's action.

Here's a look at some other early-season trends around the league:

The list of stars currently out of the lineup with significant injuries includes Toronto's Auston Matthews, Ottawa's Brady Tkachuk, Florida's Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov, Vegas' Mark Stone and William Karlsson, Tam

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