The NHL glass is half full

On the final weekend of 2016, something happened in the NHL that had never occurred in the four major North American professional sports leagues. Two teams on win streaks of 12 or more games played each other – a collision of emerging, unexpected early-season powerhouses.

If you were wise enough to predict that the two opponents in the Game Of The Century would be the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Minnesota Wild, then the rest of what was an upside-down first half of the NHL season probably didn't surprise you, either.

But for the rest of us, those lacking the Nostradamus gene, it was an eventful start to a year that featured a handful of uncommonly long win streaks and many weirdly one-sided games (Columbus 10, Montreal 0!?).

We deconstruct first-half developments and search the crystal ball to predict what may lie ahead:

Three top stories

1. Playing for the Florida Panthers, the ageless Jaromir Jagr moved past Mark Messier into second place on the NHL career scoring list, leaving him just under 1,000 points shy of catching the leader, Wayne Gretzky.

2. The World Cup produced a lingering hangover for many of the stars of the preseason tournament, most notably Anze Kopitar (Los Angeles Kings) and Patrice Bergeron (Boston Bruins), who played spectacularly well in September and have hardly been seen since.

3. The rise of Columbus. Admit it. After the John Tortorella-led Americans flamed out so badly in the World Cup, you had $10 on Tortorella being the first coach fired this season. Instead, he's overseen a Blue Jackets' turnaround for the ages, a 16-game win streak, the second-longest in NHL history, which extended from Nov. 29 to Jan. 5. Vegas odds-makers recently made Columbus the Stanley Cup favourites, meaning they think there's a decent chance Mike Foligno's boy, Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno, will be hoisting the Stanley Cup in June.

Three scary-good individual performances

1. The Penguins' Sidney Crosby missed the first six games of the season recovering from a worrisome concussion, but returned with a flourish. Determined to score more goals, Crosby is on pace to lead the league in goals for only the second time in his career.

2. Everyone knew Connor McDavid was the real thing but, in his second full NHL season, he is chasing the league scoring title. The last sophomore to do that was Crosby (120 points in 2006-07).

3. Carey Price, Mr. Everything for the Montreal Canadiens, was getting pressed for his all-world goaltending crown by Minnesota's Devan Dubnyk and Columbus's Sergei Bobrovsky, two remarkable turnaround stories. As recently as the spring of 2014, Dubnyk was the No. 4 man on the Habs' goaltending depth chart, while Bobrovsky – the 2013 Vézina Trophy winner – was back on track, after a 15-win, 19-loss campaign a year ago.

Three discouraging setbacks

1. After finishing first in the Atlantic Division last season with the best regular-season performance in franchise history, the Florida Panthers stumbled out of the gate amid injuries to some key players and made coach Gerard Gallant the fall guy. Officially, Gallant was fired in the hopes of changing the franchise's "direction," making Florida one of the first teams to plot a downward trajectory.

2. After finishing in the middle of the Pacific Division pack last season, the Arizona Coyotes – under the 27-year-old advanced stats guru, general manager John Chayka – plunged to the bottom of the standing. Unlike Florida, the Coyotes are still running the numbers, trying to figure out why.

3. After missing all but one playoff game last spring recovering from a blood clot near his right collarbone, the luckless Steven Stamkos – 17 games (and 20 points) into his eight-year contract extension – tore a ligament in his right knee and could miss most of the rest of the regular season. This latest run of misfortune came three years after a broken leg forced him to miss 45 games, plus the Olympics, in 2013-14.

Three fresh faces

1. Auston Matthews, Toronto Maple Leafs.

2. Patrik Laine, Winnipeg Jets.

3. Zach Werenski, Columbus Blue Jackets.

Matthews is part of the Leafs' impressive kiddie corps (three of the NHL's top four rookie scorers wear Toronto blue and white). Laine is the interloper, a 20-goal scorer in the first half and the closest thing to Teemu Selanne since, well, Teemu Selanne. At 19, Werenski made Columbus and is anchoring the No. 1 power play in the league, allowing Seth Jones, Jack Johnson and Ryan Murray to play the heavy defensive minutes that have helped the Blue Jackets scale unimagined heights.

Three early MVP candidates

1. Brent Burns, San Jose Sharks.

2. Sergei Bobrovsky, Columbus Blue Jackets.

3. Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers.

Burns has emerged from the shadows of Erik Karlsson and Drew Doughty to become the most dynamic and effective defenceman in the game, a catalyst offensively and defensively for a Sharks' team aiming for top spot in the Pacific. The Columbus miracle features about six separate components, but the anchor in goal has made the biggest single difference. McDavid was the league's scoring leader and had the Oilers chasing a worst-to-first turnaround.

Three things you didn't see coming

1. The unexpectedly competent New York Rangers. After a meek first-round playoff exit, and a concerted effort to get younger, the Rangers were contending in the toughest division in hockey, thanks to some mystifyingly successful reclamation projects (Michael Grabner, Nick Holden, Brandon Pirri) and emerging youngsters (Kevin Hayes, J.T. Miller, Brady Skjei), all of whom are contributing to one of the most balanced attacks in the game.

2. The alive-and-kicking Los Angeles Kings. The Kings lost perennial Vézina Trophy candidate Jonathan Quick in the first period of opening night, but have stayed in the playoff hunt, thanks to the goaltending of Peter Budaj, who started the year in the AHL and is among the league leaders in wins and save percentage.

3. Toronto as a playoff contender. The Leaf strategy, under president of hockey operations Brendan Shanahan, is to under-promise and over-deliver – and the decision to hold back Mitch Marner and William Nylander for most of a year seems wise in hindsight. Along with Matthews, the energy of the team's youth has invigorated the veteran core and, after a so-so start, Frederik Andersen looks as though he'll get the job done in goal.

Three things you could have predicted

1. Montreal, competitive again after Carey Price's return.

2. Washington, faltering slightly after a 120-point regular season a year ago.

3. Coaches, complaining about the newly compressed schedule, which has kept practice time to a minimum.

Three things that keep Gary Bettman up at night

1. An Olympic decision, expected this month.

2. The pending concussion lawsuit, expected to go to trial in February.

3. Seeing if the Vegas expansion gamble pays off. Odds are 8 to 5 it might, short-term anyway.

Three things that will make the NHL's 100th-anniversary season worth paying attention to

1. Detroit's attempt to make the playoffs for a 26th consecutive season. Five points out of a wild-card spot at the first of the year makes it a long road back.

2. Pittsburgh's attempt to become the first team in two decades to repeat as Stanley Cup champion.

3. All seven Canadian teams either in – or within range – of a playoff spot, after none qualified for the postseason a year ago.