FanHouse AlesKotalik

The New York Rangers continued their free agency spending on Thursday by signing 30-year-old forward Ales Kotalik to a three-year, $9 million deal. It's a move that could signal the end of restricted free agent Nikolai Zherdev's tenure in New York after one, uninspiring season.

As for Kotalik, he spent the 2008-09 season with Buffalo and Edmonton, while he's scored at least 20 goals in three of the past four seasons. He's also one of the best shootout specialists in the league. General manager Glen Sather, however, continues to sign checks with a stamp. Or so it seems.

Even though the NHL's trade deadline has already passed, deals are still being announced because, as ESPN describes it, there's been a log jam at the NHL's fax machine. For some reason the idea of the NHL, in this world of modern technology, still using a fax machine on its biggest day of the regular season is somewhat hilarious. Does the league still hammer out salary cap details with an abacus? Does Gary Bettman get his trade alerts via beeper?

One of the deals being announced is a four-team trade that involves Erik Cole returning to the Carolina Hurricanes, Edmonton receiving Patrick O'Sullivan and Ales Kotalik, Los Angeles picking up Justin Williams, and Buffalo getting a draft pick. If only it were that simple.

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Brendan Shanahan made his season debut for the New Jersey Devils on Monday night, and it didn't take him long to make an impact. At the 1:38 mark of the second period, the 39-year-old forward beat Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne from right on top of the crease, giving the Devils a 1-0 lead on their way to a 3-1 win over the Predators.

Shanahan registered nearly 14-minutes of ice-time, while firing six shots on goal. His tally came on the power play, which is where he should make his biggest impact for a New Jersey team that entered play on Monday ranked 15th in the league with the man advantage.

Scott Clemmensen stopped 31 shots to pick up the win for the Devils, while Brian Rolston recorded a pair of assists.

For two periods Wednesday night's Penguins-Capitals tilt lived up to the hype -- and we certainly hyped it. Following some spirited trash talk between Alex Ovechkin and the Penguins bench prior to the start of the third period, Ovechkin transformed himself into a one-man wrecking crew, as he helped take over the game and lead the Capitals to a 6-3 win.

The Capitals scored four goals in the third period -- including two from Ovechkin -- as they snapped a three-game losing skid. Meanwhile, for the Penguins, the inconsistencies continued, as they failed to win back-to-back games yet again. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Penguins have not won consecutive games since the middle of November.

I think it would be fair to say that Steven Stamkos, the No. 1 overall pick in this year's NHL Entry Draft, has been somewhat of a disappointment for the Tampa Bay Lightning during his rookie season.

After Lightning management hyped the stuffing out of him before he was even a member of the organization, the 18-year-old has registered just four goals and 10 assists through his first 40 games. Probably not what Oren Koules and Len Barrie had in mind when they plastered his name all over billboards this summer.

Montreal's Andrei Kostitsyn recorded his first career hat trick on Saturday night, while Carey Price stopped 31 shots, including 16 in the third period to lead the Canadien's to a 3-2 victory in Pittsburgh. With the win, Montreal moves ahead of the Penguins in the Eastern Conference standings, while the Penguins failed to win consecutive games yet again -- they haven't won two in a row since November 13-15. Just sayin'.

Kostitsyn scored a pair of goals in the first period before completing the hat trick early in the third period with a quick slap shot that beat Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury through the five-hole.

Following Kostitsyn's goal, Price turned into a brick wall, as the Penguins had a trio of power plays in the final period, and peppered the Montreal netminder. Of course, if you're Pittsburgh, you have to be a tad frustrated you failed to convert on five power plays, after going 0-for-5 one night ago in New Jersey. How a power play that features Evgeni Malkin, Sidney Crosby, Petr Sykora and Ryan Whitney, among others, can consistently have so many 0-for-5 and 0-for-6 nights seems to defy all logic. Yet, here we are.

Crosby and Pascal Dupuis each finished with a goal and an assist for Pittsburgh.

What happens when the best team in the Eastern Conference hosts the worst team in the league? Well, you might expect a blowout, and for 40 minutes, that's exactly what you received. The Bruins scored three goals in the first ten minutes on Monday night and had to hold off a third period rally from Tampa Bay, before skating away with a 5-3 win.

Milan Lucic, Phil Kessel and Michael Ryder opened the scoring for the Bruins in the first, while Zdeno Chara added his fifth goal of the season in the second to help stake Boston to a commanding 4-1 lead.

Tampa Bay outshot the Bruins by a 15-4 margin in the third period, and picked up a pair of goals from Vincent Lecavalier and Paul Szczechura (his first career goal) before P.J. Axelson added an empty-netter to seal the win.

For the Bruins, it's their fifth consecutive win, and their 14th in the past 16 games. Actually, since starting the season 2-2-3, Boston has gone 17-2-1, which is just simply ridiculous. Tampa Bay, on the other hand, is the exact opposite, as the Lightning have been downright awful, losing eight in a row, and 15 of their past 17.

It's only a matter of time until they continue to shuffle the deck chairs.