The Chicago Blackhawks are good, but they’re not this good. They might be the best team in the NHL, but they aren’t this much better than the rest of the league.

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I mean that as a compliment.

Because when you put it in context, you realize just how incredible their 21-0-3 start has been. Even with their superstars, even with their supporting cast, even with their goaltending, this should not be happening. The talent is too even. The games are too close. The schedule is too crazy.

The reason this is so impressive is not because the Blackhawks have shown they cannot be stopped. It’s because it’s so improbable.

The streak doesn’t mean the Blackhawks will win the Stanley Cup. But it could help them in the end.

“It’s an amazing run,” said Blackhawks senior advisor Scotty Bowman, who coached some of the best teams in NHL history and has just about seen and done it all.

The Blackhawks are halfway through this lockout-shortened 48-game season without a regulation loss. It would be remarkable even if they were a little more than a quarter of the way through a normal 82-game season. It might be more remarkable considering they had only a week of training camp and no preseason games.

They have started the season on a 24-game point streak. The previous NHL record was 16.

They have won 11 consecutive games, a franchise record. They entered the league in 1926.

They have a .938 points percentage. The NHL record is .875, set by the 1929-30 Boston Bruins, who put up 77 points in 44 games. The best points percentage last season was .677, by the Vancouver Canucks.

They have 45 points, giving them a 10-point lead on the rest of the league. Opponents don’t even include them in conversations about the race anymore. They start with a qualifier now: “Besides Chicago …”

The Blackhawks, said Colorado Avalanche coach Joe Sacco, seem to be “on a different cloud right now than everybody else.”

Yeah, Cloud Nine.

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To put the 10-point lead in perspective, consider that 10 points separate the next 16 teams in the standings – the equivalent of a full playoff field.

What’s that, you say? The Anaheim Ducks, the next-best team, have two games in hand? True. But let’s assume the Ducks win those two games, get those four points and cut the lead to six.

Six points is still a huge lead in today’s NHL. Six points separates first through sixth in the Eastern Conference. Six points separates third through 12th in the West.

The Blackhawks have pulled ahead of the pack even though this is a different era.

The NHL’s longest undefeated streaks came in 1979-80, when the Philadelphia Flyers won 25 and tied 10, and 1977-78, when the Montreal Canadiens won 23 and tied five. But the league had no salary cap then, and it didn’t award points for overtime and shootout losses. There was a significant gap between powerhouses and weaklings. The scores and standings were far looser than they are now.

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