FanHouse JamesNeal

Blues 2, Rangers 1: A day after getting crushed on their home ice, the New York Rangers dropped a 2-1 decision in St. Louis, losing for the eighth time in their past nine games.

At this point, it's anybody's guess as to how long Tom Renney remains behind the bench, as the Rangers continue to slide down the Eastern Conference standings.

Red Wings 8, Oilers 3: Here's a fun fact: at the end of the first period of Saturday's Detroit-Edmonton game, the Red Wings had as many goals (five), as the Oilers had shots. One word can sum this up: domination. The Wings continued to pour it on, completing an 8-3 thrashing of Edmonton at Joe Louis Arena.

It's the second time in just over a week that the Oilers have been on the wrong end of a blowout, getting steamrolled by Buffalo, 10-2, back on January 27. The Oilers have now lost four of six, while the Red Wings extended their modest winning streak to three as they head into their NBC tilt with the Penguins on Sunday.

Capitals 5, Devils 2: The Washington Capitals took advantage of their three power play chances on Tuesday night, converting on all of them on their way to a 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils. Mike Green and Brooks Laich scored a pair of goals with the man advantage just three minutes apart in the first period, while Michael Nylander picked up his second goal of the game at the 10:59 mark of the third period.

Jose Theodore stopped 32-of-34 shots in net for Washington, including 16-of-17 in the third period. The loss for New Jersey snaps its eight game winning streak, despite receiving another goal another Jamie Langenbrunner, who has now picked up seven goals in his past four games.

There are certainly at least two really good teams in the NHL's Western Conference. Defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit and fast-starting San Jose appear in the clear to duke it out for the right to play for the Stanley Cup later this year.

Of course, we know that anything can happen in a best-of-seven series. In addition, we still have half a season left to play. What we don't know is which team in this conference is set up to challenge either the Red Wings or Sharks. They've beaten - at least once - pretty much everyone who has stood in their way, including each other.

While the top of the conference appears to virtually locked in place at this point, there are still serious battles to be fought, especially for the last four positions in the West. Currently, eight teams are separated by just six points. St. Louis, the last-place team in the West, is just nine points out of eighth.

The Florida Panthers scored three third period goals, including a game-tying score from Radek Dvorak with 1:38 to play, to force overtime at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Sunday afternoon. Defenseman Andrei Markov, one of four Montreal players voted to start in the All-Star game, scored the lone goal in a shootout helping lead the Canadiens to a 6-5 win.

The Panthers jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period thanks to goals from Brett McLean and David Booth, only to have Montreal come out in the second period and take over the game, scoring four goals -- including a pair in the first two minutes of the period -- while outshooting the Panthers by a 19-5 margin.

Florida rebounded in the final frame with goals from Dvorak (two) and Jassen Cullimore, sending the game to overtime. .

As long as we're on the subject of the Panthers, Greg Wyshnyski over at Puck Daddy passes along the report (from George Richards of the Miami Herald) that Brett McLean thinks Sidney Crosby is a liar, and that no challenge was ever issued prior to the drop of the puck in Saturday's game. So, basically, it's all coming down to a bunch of he said, she said. Moving on ...

What a dreadful month of December for the Penguins. After their 2-0 loss to Tampa Bay on Tuesday night, the Penguins find themselves with a 4-6-1 record this month, and have dropped back-to-back home games to Toronto and Tampa Bay by a combined score of 9-3, while getting outshot 69-38 in the process. There's no way to sugarcoat it -- that sucks. Even worse, the Penguins haven't won two straight games since November 13-15. Ouch.

Tampa Bay picked up goals from Matt Pettinger and Paul Szczechura, while Mike Smith turned aside all 15 shots he faced. Though, he received a little help from the Penguins, when Petr Sykora honked a pair of shots wide of the goal when he had Smith beat, and then Evgeni Malkin inexplicably attempted to make a pass when he had a breakaway. Perhaps he's serious about that century mark with the assists, I don't know.

Though, the save of the night was when Malkin, shorthanded, had another breakaway in the third period -- in what was still a one-goal game -- and was stoned by Smith. Tampa Bay turned it around the other way and Szczechura redirected a pass from Jussi Jokinen passed Marc-Andre Fleury to ice the game.

It's important to realize it's only December and that the Penguins had a similar record a year ago today -- and, hey, that season turned out okay -- but that doesn't change the fact this is some really bad hockey right now.

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.

Marty Turco's awful season continued on Thursday night against Chicago, as the Dallas Stars goalie gave up five goals on 29 shots, as the Stars fell 6-3. After another dismal performance in the crease, Turco finds himself 42nd in the NHL (out of 43) with a 3.67 Goals Against Average, and 43rd with a .867 save percentage. It's difficult to get much worse than that.

Patrick Kane scored a pair of goals for the Blackhawks, giving him ten on the season, while they also received goals from Martin Havlat, Kris Versteeg, Ben Eager and Brian Campbell. Nikolai Khabibulin earned No. 1 start honors in the game, turning aside 31 shots.

With the win, Chicago improves to 9-4-5 on the season, and 8-2-4 since the firing of coach Denis Savard following the fourth game of the season.

The Stars, meanwhile, find themselves near the bottom of the NHL just one year after playing in the Western Conference Finals.