The biggest storyline in this 58th season has to be the seeming arrival to true contendership of Toronto and Texas. Both teams have been committed to a thorough rebuild over the last decade or so and are now looking ready to earn their place among the league’s true elite for the foreseeable future. They have spent years collecting and developing high potential players through the draft and have lately begun to also augment the few remaining areas of weakness through a few smart trades (most notably for elite defenseman Adam Barron by Toronto and young goaltending phenom Cillian Kavanagh by Texas) to bring in some crucial final pieces to really kick their contendership into high gear. While last season was still a bit of a warning shot by both, they have both really stormed out of the gates in their respective conferences this season, Texas stringing together 9 consecutive wins and Toronto topping even that with a whopping 10-game win streak to start the season. While Toronto has since been caught up by one of their bitter Great Lakes division rivals Hamilton in the Eastern conference, Texas leads the Western conference by a fair 5 points at the 1/3 mark of the season. Neither team can afford to let up though, as the competition for those top spots is now perhaps stronger than ever with them in it as well and they need to keep up their pace to prove their worthiness of being considered true contenders from now on. The way they are built now, though, inspires confidence that they will succeed in proving it for a long time to come.

(275 words)