Every year there comes a point in the season where all the teams in the NHL begin to sort themselves into three different tiers.
We are not quite at that point yet (it is usually around late February or early March), but with every team having already entered the second half of its schedule we are definitely getting close.
Just what are those tiers?
- At the top, there are the six or seven teams that know they can win the Stanley Cup. It starts to become clear not only to them, but also to the rest of the league and everyone watching it that the team hoisting it at the end of the season is going to come out of this group.