FanHouse MikeKomisarek

Late last week, Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke made it clear that his team would not be pushed around this upcoming season. Based on his first moves this offseason, he wasn't kidding. After signing tough-guy Colton Orr to a four-year, $4 million deal earlier on Wednesday, the Leafs sent defenseman Pavel Kubina, and the rights to Tim Stapleton, to the Atlanta Thrashers for Garnet Exelby and Colin Stuart.

On the surface, it's a woefully lopsided trade in favor of Atlanta, and nothing more than a salary dump for Toronto.

The plus side? Just moments after the deal was made, word surfaced that defenseman Mike Komisarek had signed with the Maple Leafs.

Various media outlets are reporting this afternoon that the Montreal Canadiens have been sold to the Molson family, pending league approval (which, according to TSN, could take until mid-summer). The price tag for the NHL's most storied franchise? Depending on which report you listen to, it's somewhere between $500 million and $550 million ... or more.

How are Canadiens fans reacting to the news?

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?

After serving as the Florida Panthers general manager for the past four seasons (and head coach for three of those seasons) Jacques Martin will be named the new head coach of the Montreal Canadiens on Monday. During his four-year stint in charge of the Panthers, the team failed to make the playoffs each season, while he brings 14 years of head coaching experience to the Canadiens.

After a brief two-year tenure with the St. Louis Blues in the late 1980s, Martin took over the Ottawa Senators in 1995, leading the team to the playoffs eight times in nine years, while also winning three division titles and the Jack Adams award as coach of the year in 1999.

During tonight's game between the Bruins and Canadiens, Mike Komisarek and Milan Lucic had a couple interesting encounters. The video above is of the fight between the pair towards the end of the second period. At that point, the Habs were trailing 4-1 and maybe Komisarek was just looking to get his team jump started. Lucic dropped him with one punch this time around. Later in the game, Komisarek decided to cross check Lucic in the face (video after the jump). These two guys are really very cordial.

On Thursday, the NHL suspended Flyers forward Daniel Carcillo for his actions in the closing seconds of Pittsburgh's 4-1 win on Wednesday night. It was part of a somewhat embarrassing end to the game, as the Flyers racked up 23 penalty minutes in just 19 seconds.

Carcillo admitted that the official dropping the puck warned him not to try anything.

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

Hurricanes 4, Rangers 2: Carolina continued its winning ways with a 4-2 win over the Rangers on Thursday night, extending its current winning streak to seven games. Chad LaRose scored a pair of goals in the win, while Cam Ward stopped 36 shots, including 29 through the first two periods.

We're less than one year away from the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Once again, the NHL will take a mid-season break and allow its players to participate in the Games.

After a wonderful run to silver in Salt Lake City back in 2002, Team USA was nothing short of disappointing in Torino three years ago. The Americans went just 1-3-1 in pool play, including an inexplicable tie against Latvia, before dropping a 4-3 decision to Finland in the quarterfinals. Heading into 2010, general manager Brian Burke has plenty of decisions to make, mainly surrounding the question of age.

This might be one of the dumbest things I've read all day, but, according to Daren Dreger of TSN, the NHL is threatening to suspend players for skipping out on this weekend's All-Star festivities in Montreal. Seriously.

From Dreger:

The NHL says it will enforce an understanding that all players who decline to show after being named to the All-Star teams must miss at least one game before or one game after the All-Star weekend.

This announcement comes after Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby, along with Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk and Nicklas Lidstrom, backed out of Sunday's exhibition game. While the absence of such players takes away from whatever shine an All-Star game is supposed to have, it's really not the end of the world. It is, after all, an exhibition game, and the game already loses plenty of shine when Mike Komisarek is a starter.

The NHL All-Star game just became a little more unwatchable, as Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby has withdrawn himself from the weekend's festivities. He will be replaced by Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis.

Crosby, currently second in the league in scoring, has been bothered by a knee injury -- and he took a shot off his hand against Carolina on Tuesday night, just for good measure -- the past couple of weeks, and as recently as Wedneday was going to try and tough it out for the NHL's premier exhibition game. Sanity, it would seem, has prevailed, as Crosby will take full advantage of an extended break to rest his injuries. This should please the Penguins, even if it makes Gary Bettman gently sob into his pillow.