Approximately 20% of the NHL season is in the books and there are certainly some teams that can reflect on their performance thus far with great pride. There have been some huge surprises so far, some big disappointments, a head coach replaced and of course some business as usual.

The winter months go by a lot faster once we hit daylight savings time and the Olympic break will be here before you know it. Plenty of questions will be answered between now and then. How much longer will Ryan Miller be a Buffalo Sabre? When will the Oilers blow up and sell off parts of their terrible team? Can Steven Stamkos keep pace with Sidney Crosby? Who will be the Colorado Avalanche goaltender for the long-term?

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, there is still plenty of hockey to enjoy in the present time and a ton to reflect upon. Here are the top five "team" performances so far this season.

Tampa Bay Lightning

All indications pointed to another power outage on the gulf coast of Florida. The Lightning failed to address their goaltending and defense this offseason and (in my opinion) whiffed by passing on Seth Jones in the NHL Entry Draft. However, there Tampa sits, at the top of the Atlantic Division. The Lightning have a couple of wins over the defending champ Chicago Blackhawks and continue to score at a feverish pace. They also happen to have Ben Bishop playing outstanding between the Tampa pipes. If the Bolts can keep enough pucks out of there own net, Martin St. Louis, Stamkos and Valtteri Filppula will score enough to get Tampa back into the playoffs.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Considering the way the season ended for the Leafs, a slow start would have been excused. However, Toronto has attacked this season like it is owed a thing or two by the hockey gods. Jonathan Bernier has been excellent in net and seems to be pushing incumbent James Reimer’s game to new heights. Phil Kessel and  James Van Riemsdyk have been a deadly combination on offense, and the defense is coming together as one of the top units in the NHL right now.

San Jose Sharks 

We have come to expect a fast start from Todd McLelland and his Shark clubs. San Jose has started the season with another big start. The Sharks are winning at home, predictably, but have also been equally unstoppable away from HP Pavillion as well. Antti Niemi continues to be one of the most underrated goaltenders in the game today.

Pittsburgh Penguins 

You can chalk the Pens success this year up to the “par for the course” category. We all expected Pittsburgh to be good, but they exceeded our expectations with amazing play from Marc-Andre Fleury. Despite missing James Neal and Kris Letang for large chunks of the season the Pens have been the class of the Metropolitan Division. Crosby and Evgeni Malkin lead the offensive charge for the NHL's highest scoring team.

Anaheim Ducks

The Ducks are another club that have attacked the season with some malice after the way they were bounced out of the 2013 playoffs. Coach Bruce Boudreau has his stars Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf playing angry which has Anaheim pushing San Jose for the top spot in the Pacific Division.

Colorado Avalanche

Easily the biggest surprise of the young season has been the Avs and their rookie coach Patrick Roy. With only one regulation loss through 13 games Colorado is starting to make believers out of the biggest skeptics (myself included). The goaltending duo of Semyon Varlamov and J.S. Giguere have been playing some of the best hockey of their careers under watchful eye of their former goaltender head coach.

Phoenix Coyotes

Possibly the best story of the year has been the early success of the Coyotes. With all of the speculation about team ownership, bankruptcy and even relocation put to rest; the club is playing at an extraordinarily high level. Mike Smith is starting to look like an all-star again in the Phoenix goal and the Coyotes are getting production from all four lines and an underrated defense. Keith Yandle and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are two of the top young defensemen in the league and anchor the blue line in front of Smith.