FanHouse Christian Hanson

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We begin our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Northeast Division.

Brian Burke begins his rebuild of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Dany Heatley wants out of Ottawa and just what is Boston going to do with Phil Kessel and a limited amount of salary cap space?

In our final installment of this season's power rankings, we take a look at how the teams might finish in the NHL standings. The San Jose Sharks have yet to claim the President's Trophy, but a win in their regular season finale, or one loss by the Boston Bruins, will give the Sharks the best record in the NHL for the first time in franchise history.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the standings, the New York Islanders are hoping that all of this losing will mean a big win in June.

As Gretz mentioned earlier, Christian Hanson scored his first goal in the NHL in Tuesday night's 4-1 win over the Devils. Below: visual documentation of said happening. Hanson carries the puck along the boards and feeds Jason Blake, then makes Johnny Oduya look foolish by crossing up the defender and finding a soft spot right where Martin Brodeur kicks the rebound of Blake's initial shot. A pretty play, for sure.

Newsmakers in the NHL is a weekday morning attempt to clear yesterday's rebounds and look to the day ahead.

Rangers 3, Canadiens 1: It was called the most critical regular season game since the lockout for the New York Rangers, and the team responded by picking up a 3-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens, thanks in large part to a pair of goals from captain Chris Drury.

Henrik Lundqvist turned aside 24-of-25 shots to pick up the win, while the Canadiens lost their second game in a row.

Toronto Maple Leafs grand poobah Brian Burke is not wasting time. He hopes it doesn't end up looking like he's wasting money.

Earlier this week, Burke signed Notre Dame star Christian Hanson, who is likely to make his NHL debut Friday at Philadelphia. He's back at it, this time grabbing a player regarded as the top underclassman free agent in college hockey. University of Denver sophomore Tyler Bozak missed a good chunk of the 2008-2009 season with a bad knee, but he had already established himself as a hot commodity on the open market. When the Pioneers' season ended last week, the calls started coming in.