Which is the best team in hockey? The four teams on the radar are the Philadelphia Flyers, the Ottawa Senators, the Detroit Red Wings and the Dallas Stars.

Let’s start with the Flyers. After their worst season in franchise history, the Flyers had a great start going 7-3 in October. However, November has not been as friendly to them. The Flyers haven’t lost their winning ways, but their scoring has slightly diminished. They are 7-5-2 in November, but have been outscored 45-41. Still, Philly is one of the NHL’s best because it has beaten some of the best teams in the East several times this season. The Flyers are 4-0 against Carolina and Ottawa and have the fourth best power play in the league. Their solid top line is led by Daniel Briere, who has 29 points in 23 games. Their second line is just as good, led by Mike Richards who is finally playing up to his potential with 28 points in 23 games. The Flyers have the potential to do some serious damage in the playoffs.

On to Ottawa. For seasons, if you’re able to take out their ‘Big Three,’ Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley, then you beat them. With that in mind, still teams cannot beat this Senators team. The ‘Big Three’ have a combined 79 points in just 23 games this season. For the first month of the season, the Sens were the best team in the NHL, posting a league best 13-1-0 record. Since reaching that point, the Senators have gone 3-5-2 and are winless in their last four games. Even though they are 16-5-2 overall, it seems that their opponents are finally starting to figure them out. Teams are beginning to exploit Ottawa’s weaker lines and on top of that, Ottawa’s goalies are starting to falter. They have surrendered 15 goals in their last four games; those are numbers you can’t put up if you want to be the best.

The Detroit Red Wings have put out amazing teams consistently for the past 10 seasons. This team breeds winners. Like the Senators, the Wings started out hot, but have fizzled as of late. To begin the season, Detroit was 13-2-1 and right on the trail of Ottawa for the league’s best record. They have gone 3-4-1 since and have allowed more goals than they are accustomed to allowing. The Wings thrive on allowing very few shots per game, but when they fail to do that, they lose. But the thing that differentiates them from a team like Ottawa is their balance. There are too many weapons on this team: Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski, Kirk Maltby, Tomas Holmstrom, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg just to name a few. And with Zetterberg finally having the year everybody expected him to, the Wings may be bringing home another Cup this season.

Unlike the last two teams mentioned, the Dallas Stars started the season slow and, as of late, have developed into the most dangerous team in the NHL. The Stars began the season with a 5-6-2 record, due to a combination of bad breaks and close games that the Stars just didn’t have go their way. But Dallas has gone 8-1-2 and has gotten its record to 13-7-4 overall, which has also given it the lead of the Pacific Division ‘ not an easy division to grab the lead in. They don’t have a lot of big scorers. Brenden Morrow leads the team with just 23 points in 25 games, but they do have big-time players. The difference between the two: big-time players don’t need to score every game, they just need to score at important points of the game. Against the Islanders on Nov. 26, Mike Modano scored two goals, including the game-winner just 35 seconds into overtime. He is the definition of a big-time player. Also, the combination of All-Star goalie Marty Turco and his backup Mike Smith has tremendously helped Dallas along its recent six-game winning streak.

So who’s the best team in the NHL? It all comes down to consistency. Ottawa and Detroit were hot and now they’re cooling down. Dallas started slow and then picked up some speed. But Philadelphia has been more consistent than these other teams and is therefore the best team in the NHL right now.