FanHouse Jaroslav Spacek

The Montreal Canadiens managed to escape Thursday's season opener in Toronto with a 4-3 overtime win -- despite being outshot by a 46-27 margin -- thanks to a game-winning tally from Josh Gorges with 10 seconds to play in the extra period.

While Montreal won the game, it proved to be a very, very costly win as two-time All-Star defenseman Andrei Markov left in the third period after awkwardly colliding with goaltender Carey Price.

Multiple Canadian media outlets, including TSN, Sportsnet and RDS, reported that Markov could miss anywhere between two-to-four months early Friday, and the Canadiens confirmed Friday afternoon that the defenseman will be on the shelf for the next four months after undergoing surgery for a lacerated tendon in his ankle.

The Montreal Canadiens entered the offseason with the always dangerous combination of salary cap space and open roster spots. It didn't take Bob Gainey long to start reconstructing his roster, making the head-scratching trade for Scott Gomez and his gigantic contract on Tuesday, a move that was panned by pretty much every analyst/blogger/and fan outside of New York City.

On Wednesday, when the free agent frenzy officially opened, Gainey continued his roster overhaul, and essentially cornered the market on small, undersized forwards, and reunited Gomez with one of his former teammates from his New Jersey glory days.

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?

Devils 5, Thrashers 1: The Devils jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period and never really looked back on their way to a 5-1 dismantling of Atlanta. At one point, the Thrashers were being outshot by a 22-5 margin in the second period, while they went 0-for-7 with the man advantage. Travis Zajac, John Madden, Zach Parise, David Clarkson and Brian Gionta all scored goals for the Devils, who have now won nine of their past 10 games. Atlanta has lost five of six.

Stars 10, Rangers 2: Sean Avery's old team dismantles what could be his future team, as the Stars erupt for five third period goals on their way to a 10-2 win. Rough night for Rangers goalie Steve Valiquette who was in net for all 10 goals.

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.

Who's In: Patrick Lalime, G (FA-CHI), Craig Rivet, D (Trade-SJS), Teppo Numminen, D (Return from Heart Surgery)

Who's Out: Joceyln Thibault, G (FA), Dmitri Kalinin, D (FA, NYR), Steve Bernier, RW (Trade, VAN)

What's Changed: Not a whole lot, frankly, unless one considers the number of players the supposedly stingy Sabres have under long-term contract now. That, coupled with the lack of tragedy during training camp (*fingers crossed*) should help lighten the mood in the room just a bit. But, honestly, that's just the way this organization wants it (especially in comparison to last year's off-season). With 20 of the 30 people who suited up for the Sabres in 07-08 having been drafted by the team, this is the textbook example of a team that promotes from within.

Recently extended GM Darth Regier believes in building via the draft and come what may that's going to be how he does it. I'm sure nothing has made Regier happier than resolving the dual-affiliation with Rochester which has been hampering their ability to develop prospects properly. During this summer they finalized changing their AHL affiliation to Portland and retained the same staff that helped feed Anaheim a Stanley Cup.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

I'm sure y'all have come to expect that on nights when the Sabres are in action The Ice Sheet on Friday will feature that game, because, that's what I'll be watching. No apologies, I'd expect the same from Golbez if the 'Nucks were playing, especially if the night was mostly unevenful.

So, last week I talked about the improving Boston Bruins and this week we'll continue that theme as the Bruins earned only their 4th win over the Sabres in 17 games since the lockout. To say that the Sabres have feasted on the B's would be a kindness. So, coming into this game the Bruins were 2 points ahead of Buffalo for the basement of the NE division. Of course, in the Northeast, playing .500 hockey in October is good for last place.

The Bruins were without Patrice Bergeron while the Sabres celebrated the return of Jaro Spacek to the lineup to help their walking wounded defense corps.

After an evenly played first period the Bruins opened the scoring on a power play gifted to them because Ales Kotalik is a big man and people bounce off of him like bumper cars bounce off walls. It always seems that the worse the call the more guaranteed the ensuing power play will convert. Glen Metropolit's floater (this would be a theme for the Bruins goals all night) nicked the crossbar on the way in over Ryan Miller's shoulder. Regardless of the worthiness of the penalty called, the Bruins were the clearly better team for most of the 2nd period and should have been up 2-0, as they hemmed the Sabres in their own end for endless stretches of the period.

Actually, if the Sabres defense were decimated it would be an improvement over the current situation. First Teppo Numinnen, then Jaro Spacek and finally Dmitri Kalinin have all suffered serious injuries. Numminen's future is still completely unknown (and with good reason) and Kalinin is out another 4 to 6 weeks with an right MCL sprain on a questionable hit from Rod Brinda'mour. As for Jaroslav Spacek, he's missed 2 weeks with a sprained shoulder, but he should be ready to return Thursday against the Bruins.

In their stead Andrej Sekera had to play much higher minutes than I'm sure Lindy Ruff wanted them to. In the games over the weekend Sekera logged 17 minutes a game, as opposed to the 10-13 minutes he'd been getting before Kalinin's injury. Sekera's very green and easily overwhelmed physically down low, especially paired with Brian Campbell. I disagree with Ruff that he's played well, but he hasn't been god-awful either. He's 21 years old with 7 games at this level under his belt. Mistakes are going to happen, but he feels a step behind the play. They'll have to be very patient with him in the same way they were with Brian Campbell.

On the other hand, I liked what i saw from 19 year old Mike Weber in his first two games. He's got good size at 6'2", 205 lbs which he uses and he showed a lot of composure out there, kept the game simple and didn't make a ton of mistakes that his partner had to clean up. He gave his team 10-11 minutes of even hockey and seemed to mesh well with Nathan Paetsch. He's been returned to Rochester already, but if Spacek can't go on Thursday, expect him back up in Buffalo.