Preview/Prediction

All season long, the NHL's rumor mill has been churning out potential deals involving the Washington Capitals' Alexander Semin, but as things stand today, it appears that Semin wil

Discounting empty-netters, the Boston Bruins have allowed three goals or more in regulation on four consecutive occasions and in six of their last nine outings. They have been outscored 31-25 over those last nine games, amounting to a nightly median of 2.78 goals for and 3.44 in their own cage.

Is it too early to start talking Stanley Cup? If you’re like me or most the Red Wings fans I know—it’s never too early. We talk rivalries in the off season, playoffs during pre-season, and certainly the Cup all year round.

I generally refrain from making such drastic statements as the title of this article, but with the way Detroit is currently playing it's hard not to see them making a deep run in the playoffs.

In the San Jose Sharks' post-game show, a graphic showed just how one-sided the team's series with the Dallas Stars has been: three wins, no losses, 14 goals scored and five yielded, 5-for-14 on the power play.

Against the rest of the division that the Sharks have dominated for four years running—including two teams lower in the standings than Dallas—they are 4-5-0 with 18 goals scored, 19 yielded and a 5-for-42 power play.

The All-Star break marks the beginning of the end of the NHL's regular season.

With most teams having already played 50 games, the remaining schedule becomes even more important for every club with hopes of making the postseason. With so many teams having a statistical possibility of making the playoffs, this point in the season is the most competitive of the year.

No one has clinched, no one has been eliminated, and yet every team is running out of race track.

Rumors are swirling that Jeff Carter may be on the trading block (h/t Edmonton Journal). The rumor claims that the Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets are working on a trade, the core of which is Carter and this year's 2012 first round pick to Toronto for Mikhail Grabovski and Luke Schenn.

One of the best things about All-Star Weekend has to be the Bridgestone Fastest Skater Competition. Past winners include Michael Grabner of the New York Islanders and Andrew Cogliano of the Anaheim Ducks.

The NHL All-Star break is upon us. It is another checkpoint in the season that is ideal to gaze into our collective crystal balls and predict how the season will turn out.

This is particularly challenging in the Western Conference, where the top six teams are within two games of one another. Adding to the difficulty, four of those teams are in the Central Division.

Translation: A single point could separate someone from a division title and a sixth seed.

With the captain, coaching staff and Conn Smythe winner from last year’s Stanley Cup champions on their side, Team Chara may want to Xerox portions of the 2010-11 Boston Bruins’ playbook in their pursuit of bragging rights Sunday afternoon.

Actually, the smaller-scaled parallels to last year’s title series go beyond the Bruin-laden bench.

The San Jose Sharks suffered their worst home loss of the season Thursday.

They absolutely dominated the opening minutes with the first several shots and a goal. Great teams expose pretenders like this...sorry, Ottawa Senators fans, a team with a journeyman goalie and a single line worth worrying about is a pretender.