Boy, that escalated quickly.
We're at the official halfway point of the NHL season, according to Sportsnet's David Amber, and look what we have here.
(Courtesy: NHL.com)
There's still a very long way to go, but for the time being, six of Canada's seven NHL teams are in playoff position.
Granted, the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, and Calgary Flames are the only ones with records above .500 when you consider shootout and overtime losses as true defeats, but it's still a vast improvement over last season, when none of the nation's squads qualified for the playoffs.
The Canadiens have been resurrected by the return of a healthy Carey Price, as well as the play of newcomers Alexander Radulov and Shea Weber. Likewise, the Edmonton Oilers are benefiting from having a healthy Connor McDavid again.
The young Toronto Maple Leafs have seen their rebuild accelerated due to the unworldly play of phenoms Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander, while the Vancouver Canucks have overcome a disastrous first quarter of the season and now boast the league's longest active win streak at six.
It's been a roller-coaster season so far for the Flames, who withstood the early-season struggles of supposed goaltending savior Brian Elliott and the loss of Johnny Gaudreau to a broken finger earlier in the campaign.
The Senators, meanwhile, have performed reasonably well without starting netminder Craig Anderson, who's been away from the club for about a month while attending to his wife, Nicholle, who was diagnosed with cancer in late October.
Even the Winnipeg Jets, Canada's seventh franchise, are within striking distance of a playoff berth, sitting two points behind the Canucks for the second and final wild-card spot in the Western Conference - albeit with two other teams to leapfrog and two more games played than both of them.
Whether or not the standings hold the way they're currently constructed, it's a positive sign for Canadian franchises, and it's clear that optimism has returned north of the border.
