FanHouse JohnTavares

John Tavares has yet to step on the ice for the New York Islanders, but he's already making an impact for the once-proud franchise that has been aimlessly stumbling along a path of mediocrity for the past decade-and-a-half. This is, after all, a franchise that hasn't won a playoff series since David Volek beat Tom Barrasso in double-overtime way back in 1993.

Can Tavares, an 18-year-old phenom, change all of that? Well, he certainly can't hurt. Heading into Friday's NHL Entry Draft, there were rumors that the Islanders might be leaning toward either Swedish defenseman Victor Hedman or Brampton center Matt Duchene with the top pick. In the end, the team selected Tavares, and already Islanders fans are roaring their approval in the form of cold hard cash.

Here's a bucket of cold water right to the face. ESPN has a poll up right now asking the question: Who is John Tavares? The choices: Emergency starter for the Mets, U.S. Soccer midfielder, Ricky Rubio's agent, or NHL draft prospect.

The answer, of course, is NHL draft prospect (and he's likely to go No. 1 to the New York Islanders in about four hours). Unfortunately, based on the 6,062 responses as of 3:15 PM ET, only 22 percent of ESPN's readers know that, while an incredible 38 percent(!) are living under the assumption that he is a midfielder for the U.S. Soccer team. The only individual state that knows Tavares' true identity is, of all places, Rhode Island. My goodness is that embarrassing.

Frankly, I don't know if that says more about the popularity of hockey in the U.S., or Soccer.

The NHL Lottery is a serious exercise in television programming. It takes an event that could be completed in less than five minutes and stretches it out into a 30 minute program that makes the jitters that much worse for the fanbases and teams involved.

That doesn't mean the Draft Lottery live on TSN Tuesday night was a bad thing, though. TSN did a nice job filling the other 25 minutes with interviews, prospect analysis and John Tavares vs. Victor Hedman hype tonight. But, at the end of the day, all we came to find out is the answer to the question "who will pick No. 1?"

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.

The New York Islanders, playing without Trent Hunter, Kyle Okposo, Dean McAmmond, and Andy Hilbert were simply in over their heads on Tuesday night against the runaway locomotive that is the Carolina Hurricanes, falling 9-0. Amazingly, the score isn't the most incredible series of numbers to come out of this game.

Honestly, we haven't seen a hockey game this one-sided since the Slovakia Women's National Team annihilated Bulgaria, 82-0, earlier this year. OK, maybe it wasn't quite that bad.

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

Avalanche 4, Canucks 1: This is a loss that could come back and bite the Vancouver Canucks. When you're fighting for a division title, losing to teams fighting for the first overall pick in the draft -- especially when said team entered the game on a franchise-worst eight-game losing streak -- is not something you want to do.

Vancouver has now lost three in a row, and has a monster game on Tuesday against the Calgary Flames -- a game that could go a long way toward deciding the Northwest Division crown.

Each Friday throughout the season, I'll provide you with my predictions on whose stock is on the rise and whose is failing miserably like the American job market pretty much everything these days. It's a neat little segment entitled Buys and Sells. There are a few teams/players/issues to buy and a few to sell.

It's that time of the year again, the time when everyone is fixated on playoff races, who's going to make it in and who isn't. That's all well and good, but for a few teams in the league, there's another race going on which their fans are preoccupied with -- the race for the first pick in the draft.

We're in the home stretch of the NHL season, and both conference playoff races are heating up as the standings change on a daily basis. The Eastern Conference has seven teams separated by just seven points in the No's 4 through 10 spots, while everybody except Phoenix and Colorado is still competing for a playoff spot in the West.

Hurricanes 3, Rangers 0: The good news for the Carolina Hurricanes is they seem to be playing their best hockey of the season at the absolute right time. The bad news is they still can't seem to gain any separation in the tight Eastern Conference playoff race.

Thanks to the Hurricanes 3-0 win over the New York Rangers on Monday, they jumped over three teams to move into a tie with Montreal for the No. 5 spot in the conference, but are guaranteed to fall as low as the No. 7 spot on Tuesday, depending on what happens in the Pittsburgh-Florida game. It's going to be like this every day for the rest of the regular season.

Penguins defenseman Ryan Whitney was out of the lineup on Wednesday night for what was described as "family matters." As it turns out, Whitney was traded to the Anaheim Ducks for forwards Chris Kunitz and Eric Tangradi.

Update: Whitney did have family matters to attend to in Boston. The trade happening on the following day was simply a coincidence.

For the Penguins, they finally get some help on their wings as Kunitz can provide immediate help up front, while Tangradi instantly becomes the best prospect in a depleted Pittsburgh farm system. According to Hockey'sFuture, he was the No. 2 prospect in Anaheim prior to the trade.