FanHouse Tomas Plekanec

Remember Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final when Pittsburgh managed to skate with six men on the ice for about 20 seconds, while none of the on-ice officials noticed it? Well, we had a replay of it on Thursday night in the Montreal vs. Colorado game. Only Montreal played with seven players.

With the Canadiens trailing, 3-2, and desperately trying to tie the score in their home opener, goaltender Carey Price went to the bench in favor of the extra attacker, which coincided with defenseman Hal Gill coming out of the penalty box. Instead of going to the bench, Gill remained on the ice and joined the play. The result? A 7-on-5 power play to close out the game.

Video, of course, after the jump.

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?

Sabres 5, Canadiens 1: Patrick Lalime faced 39 shots on Wednesday night and turned aside all but one in Buffalo's 5-1 thrashing of Montreal. Derek Roy and Paul Gausted each scored a pair of goals for the Sabres, as they raced out to a commanding 5-0 lead.

Lalime weathered the storm in the first period, turning aside 18 Montreal shots, until Roy started the party for Buffalo netting a power play goal at the 17:53 mark of the period.

Rangers 3, Islanders 1: For one night, everything was great at Madison Square Garden as the Rangers picked up a much needed 3-1 win over the Islanders. Scott Gomez, Nigel Dawes and Fredrik Sjostrom all scored goals in the win, while Chris Drury picked up an assist on each score.

Henrik Lundqvist stopped 25-of-26 shots in the win, which is only the Rangers second in their past 10 games.

Blues 2, Rangers 1: A day after getting crushed on their home ice, the New York Rangers dropped a 2-1 decision in St. Louis, losing for the eighth time in their past nine games.

At this point, it's anybody's guess as to how long Tom Renney remains behind the bench, as the Rangers continue to slide down the Eastern Conference standings.

In the second period of Wednesday's Montreal-Edmonton game, Canadiens forward Tomas Plekanec was handed a two-minute minor for tripping Denis Grebeshkov. As you can see from the video, it not only appears to be a trip, but the always dangerous slew foot maneuver.

The NHL apparently agrees, as it has announced Plekanec will be suspended two games without pay.

Nikita Filatov, the No. 5 overall pick in this year's Entry Draft, entered play on Saturday night for Columbus with one goal in his first five NHL games. During the Blue Jackets 4-2 win over Minnesota, the 18-year-old rookie notched his first career hat trick -- and recorded an assist -- helping lead Columbus to its second straight win and sixth in its past eight games.

Steve Mason continued his strong play in net for the Blue Jackets, turning aside 21 of 23 shots to pick up his 15th win of the season. It's a big win for Columbus, as it entered the game trailing the Wild by one point in the Western Conference standings.

Mason is still leading the league in goals against average and save percentage, and he is still not an all-star. Crazy.

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.

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: Alex Tanguay, F (Trade-CGY), Georges Laraque, F (FA-PIT); Marc Denis, G (FA-TB); Robert Lang, F (Trade-CHI)

Who's Out: Mikhail Grabovski, F (Trade-TOR); Michael Ryder, F (FA-BOS); Mark Streit, D (FA-NYI)

What's Changed: The Canadiens are hoping that a couple minor tweaks and the experience of last year's run combine to make this year's team all the more dangerous. Montreal made no changes to their defensive top six, they signed Denis only to compete for the backup job behind Carey Price, and the top forwards are all back.

Honestly, Montreal shouldn't have to change much. Price melted down in the playoff series against Philadelphia (more on that in a bit), and the defense didn't play terribly well. However, the Canadiens fielded a pretty young team, had a great season, and they return practically everyone while making a couple of potentially significant additions.

Well, I don't really know if they are offended. But they might be. Consider the following quote from Montreal's Tomas Plekanec reflecting on his team's loss to the Bruins in Game Three:

A puff of refreshing honesty came out of Tomas Plekanec's mouth when discussing his play so far in the postseason.

"The last two games, I played like a little girl out there," the Montreal Canadiens centre said yesterday, the day after his team suffered a 2-1 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins. "I didn't respond the way I liked."

I, for one, salute Mr. Plekanec for the honesty. While he may have offended little girls, it's certainly nice to see a player not give a bland, ordinary response. All too often we hear typical responses like these:

"We'll just have to play better next time."

"Tonight we didn't do what we needed to do to get the job done."

Those two lines alone make me want to put a pillow over my face and scream like demons are trying to escape from my body. They're so atrocious and over used it's disgusting. Of course, I'm not endorsing the defamation of little girls. That's not something anyone should endorse and little girls should, in fact, be encouraged to play hockey. I bet some of them can play better than Plekanec has during the series (two assists, -2). But nonetheless, thank you to Plekanec for stepping away from the norm and giving me something to write about.