FanHouse NikolaiZherdev

The New York Rangers continued their free agency spending on Thursday by signing 30-year-old forward Ales Kotalik to a three-year, $9 million deal. It's a move that could signal the end of restricted free agent Nikolai Zherdev's tenure in New York after one, uninspiring season.

As for Kotalik, he spent the 2008-09 season with Buffalo and Edmonton, while he's scored at least 20 goals in three of the past four seasons. He's also one of the best shootout specialists in the league. General manager Glen Sather, however, continues to sign checks with a stamp. Or so it seems.

Before the Rangers made a whole host of changes to their team in March -- the additions of Sean Avery, Derek Morris, Nik Antropov and a coaching switch -- they had a few problems; their high paid stars weren't producing, they played with no emotion many nights and they couldn't score at all, depending on Henrik Lundqvist to win games.

During last night's loss to the Capitals and in their other three losses during the series, the Rangers fell prey to these same faults. Blame coach John Tortorella's distractions and GM Glen Sather's letter all you want, but this was still the same that struggled mightily before the bandaids were applied.

Exactly 1,230 regular season games have been played. We're down to the best eight teams in each conference. The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Wednesday night with four series lid-lifters.

In the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins rallied from a bit of a swoon around the All-Star Break to easily win the top seed. Even if you subscribe to the idea of Boston being favored because of their strong overall record, there are no sure things in these here playoffs. Who will threaten to knock the Bruins off their pedestal?

With the NHL playoffs just around the corner, FanHouse takes a look at some of the lesser-known teams that qualified. Thursday's installment: the Columbus Blue Jackets

On Saturday, October 7, 2000, the Columbus Blue Jackets played their first ever regular season game. It was a 5-3 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, and the team would know nothing but losing for the next eight seasons. No playoffs. No winning seasons. Nothing. They have been, simply, the most anonymous, unknown team in the NHL.

On Wednesday, all of that changed as the Blue Jackets, for the first time in franchise history, qualified for the postseason thanks to a 4-3 shootout win over, coincidentally, the Chicago Blackhawks, their very first regular season opponent. So, who are these guys, and what can we expect from them in the playoffs and beyond? Here are five key players, the head coach, and everything else there is to love about this once unknown franchise.

The playoffs might not start for another week, but Tuesday's throw down in Madison Square Garden between the Rangers and Canadiens might as well be a playoff game. How big is this game? Well, if we believe Larry Brooks of the New York Post, this is the biggest regular season game the Rangers have played since the lockout. Yeah. It's that big.

In what was the New York Rangers' weekly appearance on the NBC game of the week, Nikolai Zherdev scored the game-winning goal late in the third period when he pounced on a fortunate bounce off the end boards and fired it into a wide open net, giving the Rangers a 4-3 win over Boston.

With the game tied, 3-3, late in the third, Rangers defenseman Marc Staal carried the puck into the Boston zone and fired an innocent shot off the boards. Boston goalie Manny Fernandez, who struggled all day, found himself out of position well out of his crease, giving Zherdev the entire net to shoot at.

Flames 5, Flyers 1: The Calgary Flames were the big winners during the NHL's trade deadline, picking up Olli Jokinen from the Phoenix Coyotes and Jordan Leopold from the Colorado Avalanche. It didn't take the two newcomers long to make an impact for the Flames, as they each scored in the first period of Calgary's 5-1 win in Philadelphia.

Jokinen scored a pair of goals in the first period, while Leopold added his seventh of the season to help the Flames race out to a 4-0 lead.

Okay, so maybe the title is a bit of an overreaction. Still, that doesn't change the fact the New York Islanders are a terrible, terrible third period hockey team, and they proved it once again on Tuesday, giving up four goals in the final 20 minutes on their way to a 5-4 loss to the Rangers.

The Islanders actually entered the third with a 2-1 lead, only to watch the Rangers beat Joey MacDonald -- starting in place of Rick Dipietro -- four times on their final 12 shots. Petr Prucha, playing for the first time in eight games, tied the game just 49 seconds into the third period, while Michal Rozsival gave the Rangers their first lead of the night two minutes later. Markus Naslund and Nigel Dawes also tallied late goals for the Rangers, while Scott Gomez tapped in a tic-tac-toe pass from Nikolai Zherdev and Brandon Dubinsky in the second period, opening the scoring for the Rangers.

Mike Sillinger, Kyle Okposo, Blake Comeau and Mike Comrie scored for the Islanders.

Physical game between the crosstown rivals, resulting in a pair of fights in the first 10 minutes, and capped off with a crushing hit by Ryan Callahan on Trent Hunter early in the third. Callahan smashed the Islanders forward into the penalty box door, forcing it open, resulting in Hunter's midsection smashing off the boards. He was down for quite a while, and appeared to be in severe pain, resulting in a stretcher being brought on the ice. Hunter, however, managed to bring himself to his feet and skate off because, you know, he's a hockey player.

Bizarre game in Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon, as the Capitals fired 48 shots at Flyers goaltender Antero Niittymaki -- including 25 in the first period -- only to get their lunches handed to them on the scoreboard in the form of a 7-1 dismantling at the hands of Philadelphia.

The Capitals went into the third period with a 39-13 edge in the shots department, yet trailed on the scoreboard 3-0. Perhaps their spirit was crushed, or something, because they allowed the Flyers to strike four more times in the final frame.

Scott Hartnell recorded a hat trick for Philadelphia in the win, which was its sixth victory in the past seven games. Jeff Carter added two goals, giving him 24 on the season, while Simon Gagne and Joffrey Lupul also joined in the goal-scoring fun, tormenting the Washington goaltending duo of Brent Johnson and Jose Theodore.

Brooks Laich scored the only goal for Washington, as Niittymaki made 47 saves for the Flyers.