FanHouse Manny Fernandez

July 1 is a significant day in the National Hockey League. It's the day that unrestricted free agents are finally able to negotiate with any team they want. Even with a fading economy, it's a safe bet that money will be spent, and it will probably be spent freely by at least some teams. With this big day in mind, FanHouse offers up a position-by-position look at the top free agents, as well as some guys you may want your team to avoid.

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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?

Right about now fans of the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes have to be wondering which version of their teams will show up tonight. This Eastern Conference semifinal has seen both teams go through the motions and take their turns dominating the series.

Four of the six games have been decided by three or more goals. Each team has won at least two in a row at some point during the series and neither has had a huge home ice advantage.

As entertaining and closely competitive as the Penguins-Capitals semifinal was, the Hurricanes and Bruins have provided us with a series that leaves most fans scratching their heads. It's really hard to get a feel for who has the advantage tonight for Game 7 in Boston.

Wild 3, Ducks 2: Thanks to a pair of goals from Stephane Veilleux and 35 saves from Niklas Backstrom, the Minnesota Wild picked up a huge 3-2 win in Anaheim. The Wild had lost eight of their past 11 games entering play on Sunday, and moved to within one point of No. 8 seed Nashville. The Western Conference race is every bit the logjam the east is, as six teams are separated by just four points.

Entering play on Sunday, the Ducks held a slim one-point edge over Minnesota, and now find themselves two points back of a possible playoff spot. Anaheim has been slumping as of late, losing seven of its past 10. It's not getting any easier in the coming week with games against Vancouver, San Jose and Nashville.

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.

Who's In: Manny Fernandez G (Trade-Minn), Peter Schaefer LW (Trade OTT), Claude Julien HEAD COACH (FA NJD)

Who's Out: Shean Donovan W (Trade OTT), Stanislov Chistov (FA RSL), Petr Tenkrat (FA SEL), Jason York (FA Unsigned), Hannu Toivenen (Trade: StL), Brad Stuart (FA LAK).

What's Changed: Not a whole helluva lot, frankly. The mostly inept management in Beantown have continued to put together a lackluster group of players for a top-notch coach to struggle with and eventually become unemployed over.The old hockey adage, "It's easier to fire the coach than the players," was never more applicable than to the perpetually "just good enough to suck" Broons. This year's candidate for not reaching the end of his contract is Claude Julien, he who was summarily dumped by Evil Lou in New Jersey at the end of March heading into the Playoffs. At least he's got experience in taking abuse from management, a trait that will be needed now that he's the bench boss for a rebuilding (perpetually, it seems) Boston club. At least Peter Chiarelli stayed out of the free agent market this off-season, which may be a sign that they've finally learned that good organizational structure leads to a good hockey club. If anything, that might be the biggest change of all for the Bruins.

On the plus side for Julien, he'll have a legitimate #1 goaltender to put out most nights, in newly-acquired Manny Fernandez. On the other, though, is the now-grossly-overpaid backup in Tim Thomas. Maybe he'll ape the strategy used by Jacques Lemaire in Minnesota, pitting the two goalies against each other. Part of me really pities Manny Fernandez, really.

Peter Schaefer is a solid, chippy, if unspectacular player in the mold of B's veteran P.J. Axelsson. Acquiring and developing people of his temperament and work ethic is key to turning things around in Boston.