FanHouse VictorHedman

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.

The first round of the NHL Draft saw the league's general managers clean out the Swedish cupboard, as seven players from Sweden were selected on Friday night. Massive defenseman Victor Hedman led the way, going to the Tampa Bay Lightning with the No. 2 pick, while Leksand's Oliver Ekman-Larsson went to Phoenix at No. 6.

Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson, projected by many as a top-six pick going in, slipped down to Edmonton with the tenth overall pick, while David Rundbald, Jacob Josefson, Tim Erixon and Marcus Johannson rounded out the Swedish invasion.

After the jump, more thoughts and observations on what happened (and what didn't happen) during the opening round.

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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?"

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.

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.

The bad news continues to pour in for the New York Islanders on Thursday, as Greg Logan reports the team has signed goaltender Wade Dubielewicz to a one-year, $500,000 deal. Such a move would likely indicate Rick DiPietro, out for much of the season with a knee injury, will be shut down for the remainder of the season.

The Islanders goaltending situation is a mess right now, as DiPietro's absence, combined with the recent injury to Joey MacDonald, leaves New York with Yann Danis and Peter Mannino as its options in net for Thursday night's game against the top team in the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins. Good luck, gentlemen, you'll need it.

Entering this season, expectations around the Pittsburgh Penguins were at an all-time high, or, if nothing else, as high as they've been since Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr were suiting up for the team. Here we are in the middle of January, and the Penguins are closer to getting John Tavares or Victor Hedman in this summer's draft than they are to getting the top spot in the Eastern Conference. That's a problem.

To say the team is falling shot of expectations would be a disservice to understatements everywhere. Simply put, this team stinks right now.

Naturally, when a team struggles, everyone looks to make any and all changes to right the ship, and it usually begins an ends with the man behind the bench, in this case, head coach Michel Therrien.

What a dreadful month of December for the Penguins. After their 2-0 loss to Tampa Bay on Tuesday night, the Penguins find themselves with a 4-6-1 record this month, and have dropped back-to-back home games to Toronto and Tampa Bay by a combined score of 9-3, while getting outshot 69-38 in the process. There's no way to sugarcoat it -- that sucks. Even worse, the Penguins haven't won two straight games since November 13-15. Ouch.

Tampa Bay picked up goals from Matt Pettinger and Paul Szczechura, while Mike Smith turned aside all 15 shots he faced. Though, he received a little help from the Penguins, when Petr Sykora honked a pair of shots wide of the goal when he had Smith beat, and then Evgeni Malkin inexplicably attempted to make a pass when he had a breakaway. Perhaps he's serious about that century mark with the assists, I don't know.

Though, the save of the night was when Malkin, shorthanded, had another breakaway in the third period -- in what was still a one-goal game -- and was stoned by Smith. Tampa Bay turned it around the other way and Szczechura redirected a pass from Jussi Jokinen passed Marc-Andre Fleury to ice the game.

It's important to realize it's only December and that the Penguins had a similar record a year ago today -- and, hey, that season turned out okay -- but that doesn't change the fact this is some really bad hockey right now.

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.