For many hockey fans, the midway point in the NHL season is when they get less interested in what happens on the ice and more invested in what's happening in the executive suite as the trade deadline approaches.

This is incomprehensible to me, someone who just plainly enjoys NHL hockey, because this is right around when the sample size at the team and player levels become significant. The numbers that inform much of my analysis settle down, and you can start to draw some meaningful conclusions about the way skaters and goalies are driving their team's results.

It can be easy to overreact in the first few months of the season, but we know at this point that the data you're often looking at around the 20-game mark can tell a misleading story or be altogether contradicted in just a month's time