FanHouse Nikolai Zherdev

Newsmakers in the NHL: During the regular season it's our daily look at the previous night's action. During the offseason, it's our link dump that looks at some of the storylines and moves taking place around the league three times per week. Have a tip or something you want linked? Send it in to nhlfanhouse@gmail.com.

"As Of Now, Nobody Is Our Captain"

Those are the words of San Jose Sharks head coach Todd McLellan, via David Pollack of the Mercury News. After another early playoff exit this past season, a first-round loss to the No. 8 seed Anaheim Ducks, McLellan has decided to rattle a few cages in the leadership department and will wait to see who steps forward during training camp before naming a new captain. That, of course, means Patrick Marleau no longer owns the C. The 29-year-old Marleau has spent all 11 years of his career in San Jose, amassing 276 goals, and has been the team's captain since January, 2004.

Newsmakers in the NHL: During the regular season it's our daily look at the previous night's action. During the offseason, we'll look at some of the storylines and moves taking place around the league three times per week. Have a tip or something you want linked? Send it in to nhlfanhouse@gmail.com.

Rangers Part Ways With Zherdev

After being awarded $3.9 million in his arbitration hearing, the New York Rangers decided they would rather part ways with Nikolai Zherdev, allowing him to become an unrestricted free agent, than invest nearly $4 million in a streaky, one-dimensional forward. He has the talent, but he's been somewhat of an enigma his entire career, and his one-year stint in New York was no exception. Newsday's Steve Zipay reports that Zherdev's top priority is to find another NHL team before turning to the KHL as an option. He has his flaws (inconsistency being the big one) but he should still be able to sign on with another NHL club in need of offense.

Newsmakers in the NHL: During the regular season it's our daily look at the previous night's action. During the offseason, we'll look at some of the storylines and moves taking place around the league three times per week. Have a tip or something you want linked? Send it in to nhlfanhouse@gmail.com.

The Heatley Rumor Mill Continues To Spin

The Edmonton Oilers have finally given up on the idea that disgruntled Ottawa Senators forward Dany Heatley will waive his no-trade clause to play for their team, and with that comes the rumor of a potential deal involving the Senators, San Jose Sharks and Montreal Candiens.

Joe Thornton feeding passes to Dany Heatley? Yes, please.

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.

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We continue our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Atlantic Division.

It will be an interesting summer for the five teams in the Atlantic. Four teams made the playoffs, including the eventual Stanley Cup champion, and the one team that didn't make it -- the New York Islanders -- holds the first pick in Friday's draft, which isn't a bad consolation prize. All around it was a pretty successful season for these five teams.

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.