FanHouse David Krejci

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?

For three periods, Boston's Tim Thomas proved why he was one of three NHL netminders nominated for this year's Vezina Trophy. He singlehandedly kept the Bruins in a game in which they were getting dominated.

The Bruins managed only 23 shots on the night, doubled by Carolina's total of 46. That included only four shots in the third period as the Canes continued to pour it on. Thomas gave the Bruins a chance to win, but finally, in the first overtime, Jussi Jokinen scored to give Carolina the win and a 2-1 lead in the series.

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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?

The defending champs claim the top spot in this week's power rankings, while the Anaheim Ducks and Carolina Hurricanes make jumps of their own as they look to earn playoff berths in their respective conferences.

There's also a new team taking over the basement, thanks to a pair of blowout losses on home ice in the past week.

Penguins 4, Lightning 3: I feel as if I've said this before, but this could be the game that turns the Penguins season around. It has to be. If it doesn't spark something with this group, nothing will.

Trailing 3-0 in the third period, Evgeni Malkin transformed himself into a one-man wrecking crew as he scored a pair of goals -- including the game-winner in overtime -- and assisted on another in Pittsburgh's 4-3 overtime win against Tampa Bay. After Malkin scored the Penguins first goal of the night, Mark Eaton and Petr Sykora scored a pair of goals in the final six minutes of regulation to send the game to overtime.

Sykora's goal came on the power play after Gary Roberts -- who became a cult hero of sorts during his year-and-a-half stay in the 'Burgh -- was suckered into a foolish penalty by Matt Cooke.

The Bruins and Capitals helped kick off the second half of the NHL season on Tuesday, and the top two teams in the Eastern Conference did not disappoint in Boston's 3-2 overtime win.

While it was an exciting game for much of the night, the best action came in the overtime period as goaltenders Tim Thomas and Jose Theodore exchanged incredible saves at each end of the ice. Following a Niklas Backstrom hooking penalty, David Krejci sent a pass through the slot only to have it bounce off Shaone Morrison's skate and find the back of the net behind Theodore for the game-winner.

It was a great night of rivalries in the NHL on Tuesday, including a classic original six tilt in Boston, where the Bruins pulled out a 3-1 win over Montreal.

Tim Thomas stopped 34-of-35 shots, and even inserted himself into the rough stuff when he clobbered Montreal's Andrei Kostitsyn just moments after he sent Aaron Ward into the boards.

Kostitsyn gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead early in the second period, until Zdeno Chara added a pair of power play goals later in the period. David Krejci put the game out of reach late in the third period, scoring 17th goal of the season, helping lead the Bruins to their third straight win. Montreal had won four in a row, and eight of its past nine entering the game.

When I was in high school, we would always ask "Who did you kiss?" when we found out someone we knew had mononucleosis. I'm a bit older now, and I understand that you don't just get mono from kissing, so I'll avoid the sophomoric joke when reporting this story. I'm sure you appreciate this.

It's been a season of great play and great fortune for the Boston Bruins. Young guys have stepped into key roles and played really well, and they have gotten great goaltending from an unlikely veteran tandem. The news they got Monday is probably the first real bad news they have received all season.

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.

Pavel Datsyuk's goal (shown above) was perhaps the highlight of a great day of hockey in Chicago, and we have to give a well-deserved tip of the cap to Eric McErlain for giving us all a front row seat for the festivities and excitement around Wrigley Field.

Chicago jumped out to an early 3-1 lead after the first period, looking like it was out to send a message after Tuesday night's loss in Detroit, only to have the Red Wings roar back with five consecutive goals -- including a pair from Jiri Hudler -- to take the Winter Classic, 6-4. The Wings are now 4-0 against their original six rivals this season, while improving their record to 25-7-5.

This year's version of the classic, I thought, was far better than last season's game in Buffalo, mainly because this game wasn't played in blizzard conditions. Sure, that was exciting and awesome to look at, but it definitely hurt the on-ice play, while the ice itself was in horrible condition, resulting in multiple stoppages in play to fix massive holes. No such problems this year, just exciting hockey in a historic stadium between two classic teams wearing some awesome, awesome uniforms. Not a huge fan of the rendition of take me out to the ballgame, however. The hockey song would have been a nice touch, but, really, if that's the only negative throughout the event, well, that's a great, great thing for the sport.

Ty Conklin, playing in his third outdoor game in the NHL, stopped 33 shots in the win, while Chicago's Cristobal Huet had to be lifted early in the third period after giving up six goals on 30 shots.