Exactly 1,230 regular season games have been played. We're down to the best eight teams in each conference. The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Wednesday night with four series lid-lifters.
The Western Conference is home to the league's best team (San Jose), the defending champion (Detroit), and the two most intriguing Cinderella stories in the league (St. Louis and Columbus). Can Cinderella put off the stroke of midnight, or will an established power advance their way to the Finals?
Weeks of rumors, innuendo, and e5s will finally come to a head on Wednesday. At 3pm Eastern, the NHL trade deadline will pass. You can follow all the activity with our NHL Trade Deadline Tracker.
Entering play Tuesday night, 23 NHL teams are either in a playoff position or within six points of one. While this is great for the playoff races, it's not so good for the deadline. It minimizes the number of potential sellers, drives up the trade market for the few players who should be available, and leaves us wondering if any big deals will go down. Here's a look at how the Western Conference looks heading into the deadline.
Every season since 2000-2001, Jarome Iginla has led the Calgary Flames in goals. In many of those seasons, it hasn't really been close. While he's a wonderful player and all, this isn't necessarily a good thing. You could argue that Calgary's lack of balance has played a role in their inability to advance past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs more than once in Iginla's career.
With that in mind, general manager Darryl Sutter found Iginla some help last summer. He acquired Mike Cammalleri from the Los Angeles Kings, hoping he had found someone who could take all the heat off Iginla and Daymond Langkow.
Brian Burke's acquisition of tough-guy Brad May helped add to some of the intensity and entertainment value in Thursday's Montreal-Toronto game, as the two teams beat the snot out of one other physically, while the Canadiens dominated on the scoreboard, pulling out a 6-2 win. The victory for Montreal is its third in a row, and eighth in its past 10 games.
Bruins 6, Senators 4: Boston snapped a brief two-game losing skid on Thursday night with a 6-4 win over Ottawa. The Bruins let a 3-1 lead slip away late in the second period, and then scored three consecutive goals of their own in the third, as Ottawa goalie Martin Gerber had a rather forgettable start in goal, stopping only 16 of 21 shots. Marc Savard scored what proved to be the game-winning goal, while also adding two assists.
I don't know what the Thrashers give-a-crap level was at, but the Penguins certainly kicked their give-a-crap level up a few notches as they snapped a five-game losing streak with a 3-1 win over Atlanta. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 28-of-29 shots, while Petr Sykora scored a pair of goals in the win.
It was a costly win of sorts for the Penguins, as Ruslan Fedotenko and Pascal Dupuis left the game with injuries and did not return. Both players had been playing, perhaps, their best hockey of the season in recent weeks.
Fedotenko appeared to suffer a hand injury when he punched outColby Armstrong in the first period. It was perhaps the shortest fight of the season, as it consisted of one Fedotenko punch to the jaw, and Armstrong attempting to throw one when both players were on the ice. Fedotenko could be seen shaking his hand as he went to the penalty box, and then headed directly to the locker room and did not return.
Alex Goligoski was again a healthy scratch, as head coach Michel Therrien used the same lineup he used in New York the night before, with much better results. Evgeni Malkin recorded three assists, while Sidney Crosby scored his 16th goal of the season.
Ilya Kovalchuk scored the lone goal for Atlanta late in the third period, ending Fleury's shutout bid.
Okay, so maybe the title is a bit of an overreaction. Still, that doesn't change the fact the New York Islanders are a terrible, terrible third period hockey team, and they proved it once again on Tuesday, giving up four goals in the final 20 minutes on their way to a 5-4 loss to the Rangers.
The Islanders actually entered the third with a 2-1 lead, only to watch the Rangers beat Joey MacDonald -- starting in place of Rick Dipietro -- four times on their final 12 shots. Petr Prucha, playing for the first time in eight games, tied the game just 49 seconds into the third period, while Michal Rozsival gave the Rangers their first lead of the night two minutes later. Markus Naslund and Nigel Dawes also tallied late goals for the Rangers, while Scott Gomez tapped in a tic-tac-toe pass from Nikolai Zherdev and Brandon Dubinsky in the second period, opening the scoring for the Rangers.
Physical game between the crosstown rivals, resulting in a pair of fights in the first 10 minutes, and capped off with a crushing hit by Ryan Callahan on Trent Hunter early in the third. Callahan smashed the Islanders forward into the penalty box door, forcing it open, resulting in Hunter's midsection smashing off the boards. He was down for quite a while, and appeared to be in severe pain, resulting in a stretcher being brought on the ice. Hunter, however, managed to bring himself to his feet and skate off because, you know, he's a hockey player.
After setting an NHL record for the best start through 30 games, the San Jose Sharks ran into a brick wall on Wednesday by the name of Steve Mason. The Columbus rookie netminder stopped 47 shots in a 2-1 overtime win for the Blue Jackets.
For the Sharks, the loss snaps a three-game winning streak, though, they still haven't lost a game in regulation since November 9, so they've gained at least a point in 15 straight games. The Blue Jackets have now won three of their past four, all of which have come with Mason in net, who seems to be cementing himself as the team's No. 1 goaltender. The 47-save performance against San Jose improves his save percentage on the season to an impressive .929, while his record goes to 9-5-1.
The game remained scoreless through the first two periods, until San Jose's Devin Setoguchi scored at the 3:41 mark of the third period. Later in the frame, Mike Peca picked up his second of the season, tying the game, ultimately sending it to overtime.
The Blue Jackets registered only one shot in the extra period, though, they made it count as R.J. Umberger scored his ninth goal of the season to give Columbus the win.
On Monday, we told you about former Lightning head coach Barry Melrose who openly admitted that he is taking great delight in the struggles of the organization that fired him, not to mention the fact he's openly rooting for them to lose every game they play. Well, Melrose has to be loving this current nine-game losing streak Tampa Bay is on, as it dropped another one on Wednesday night in Buffalo, 4-2.
The Lightning actually jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first period, thanks to goals by Mark Recchi and Martin St. Louis.
With less than a minute to play in the opening period, Buffalo's Drew Stafford picked up a power play goal, which set the stage for Thomas Vanek to tie the game and, ultimately, give the Sabres the lead in the second period with a pair of goals, giving him a league-best 22 on the season. Vanek has four goals in his past three games, all Buffalo victories.
Jason Pominville picked up an empty net goal late in the third, while Ryan Miller stopped 26 shots in the win.
Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.
What's Changed: The backbone of this team hasn't been touched. 50-goal scorer Jarome Iginla is still the rock of the offense. Cammalleri should help bolster the Flames' top line, and Daymond Langkow is expected to remain the center. The signing of Bertuzzi is an interesting one for the Flames. Calgary has plenty of tough guys, and Bertuzzi struggled mightily at times last year in Anaheim. He did stay healthy for 68 games and tallied a not-terrible 40 points, but he still has a penchant for really dumb and irresponsible penalties.
While I know Mike Keenan wants a tough hockey team (hence the decision to let Tanguay and Huselius go elsewhere), I can't imagine he'll be happy watching Bertuzzi take a dumb penalty late in a close game. Unless Bertuzzi starts playing smarter hockey, it's not destined to go well for him.
Weeks of rumors, innuendo, and e5s will finally come to a head on Wednesday. At 3pm Eastern, the NHL trade deadline will pass. You can follow all the activity with our NHL Trade Deadline Tracker.
Every season since 2000-2001, Jarome Iginla has led the Calgary Flames in goals. In many of those seasons, it hasn't really been close. While he's a wonderful player and all, this isn't necessarily a good thing. You could argue that Calgary's lack of balance has played a role in their inability to advance past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs more than once in Iginla's career. 
I don't know what the Thrashers give-a-crap level was at, but the Penguins certainly kicked their give-a-crap level up a few notches as they snapped a five-game losing streak with a 3-1 win over Atlanta. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 28-of-29 shots, while Petr Sykora scored a pair of goals in the win.
Okay, so maybe the title is a bit of an overreaction. Still, that doesn't change the fact the New York Islanders are a terrible, terrible third period hockey team, and they proved it once again on Tuesday, giving up four goals in the final 20 minutes on their way to a 5-4 loss to the Rangers.
On Monday, we told you about former Lightning head coach Barry Melrose who openly admitted that he is taking great delight in the struggles of the organization that fired him, not to mention the fact he's openly rooting for them to lose every game they play. Well, Melrose has to be loving this current nine-game losing streak Tampa Bay is on, as it dropped another one on Wednesday night in Buffalo, 4-2. 
