FanHouse Luca Caputi

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We'll be running our division-by-division preview of the offseason beginning later in the week, but we wanted to give the two top dogs their own space. Yesterday we took a look at the Red Wings. Today: the summer outlook for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Thanks to Max Talbot's two-goal performance in Game 7, along with Marc-Andre Fleury's buzzer-beating save on Nicklas Lidstrom, the Pittsburgh Penguins brought home their third Stanley Cup. General manager Ray Shero now has the task of dealing with 10 unrestricted free agents and finding a way to construct a team that is capable of keeping the Cup in Pittsburgh.

While the 3-0 score may not completely reflect it, the Detroit Red Wings were dominant in their win against Pittsburgh on Sunday in the much hyped Stanley Cup Finals rematch from a season ago. Detroit smothered the Penguins with a relentless defensive performance that was reminiscent of the six-game series from this past June.

It's even more impressive when you consider Detroit was without the services of Johan Franzen and Tomas Holmstrom.

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.

Avalanche 4, Flames 3: Colorado ended a four-game losing streak with its win over Calgary on Monday night, thanks in large part to a three-point effort from Marek Svatos. Svatos chipped in two goals (including the eventual game-winner late in the second period) and added an assist, while Ryan Smyth registered a pair of helpers in the win.

Peter Budaj was strong in net for the Avalanche, turning aside 36 of 39 shots to pick up his 14th win over the season.

It's always fun to look at full-season projections early in the year, and laugh at the ridiculous numbers they present (or perhaps it's just me that finds that slightly amusing. It's probably just me). Still, the Pittsburgh Penguins have played 30 games this season, and center Evgeni Malkin has produced a league-leading 37 assists. The only other player in the league to have 30 at this point is his teammate, Sidney Crosby, who has 31.

If Malkin were to continue his current pace he would finish the season with 101 assists, becoming only the fourth different player in league history to hit the century mark for helpers in a single season. The other players are, of course, the usual suspects: Wayne Gretzky (11 times), Mario Lemieux (once) and Bobby Orr (once). Gretzky did it last, during the 1990 season, when he registered 122 for the Kings.

What makes Malkin's assist numbers so impressive thus far is the fact his wingers, on most nights, are Petr Sykora and Ruslan Fedotenko. Not exactly the same as having Jari Kurri skating next to you every night, now is it?