The Ottawa Senators are no longer the power house team that they once were, but they go in to the 2010-2011 season as a consistent team with goaltending issues that has the skills to get hot at any time.

Last season, the Senators finished fifth in the East before getting knocked out by the high-powered Pittsburgh Penguins. The Senators Stanley Cup Odds currently sit at +3,800.

The Senators main offseason move was the signing of free agent defenseman Sergei Gonchar. Gonchar’s puck moving skills would have made the Senators an elite team two years ago, but at 36 years old he is starting to show his age. He can still help the team on the ice, but he has had injury problems of late.

The main reason the Senators picked up Gonchar was that Anton Volchenkov was asking for more than they could afford. Given Gonchar’s age, he is probably not an upgrade on Volchenkov. But if Chris Phillips can handle a top-pairing defensive role, then the addition of Gonchar should make this team better.

Gonchar won’t be the oldest key cog on the Senators. Their 37-year-old captain Daniel Alfredsson will play an important role. Last season he had 51 assists and 71 points to lead the team in both categories. Jason Spezza only played in 60 games due to injuries, but he still managed 57 points. Alfredsson and Spezza along with Milan Michalek will make a dangerous top line.

The second line should add some offensive punch with Mike Fisher at center flanked by another aging, but dangerous player in Alexei Kovalev.

Ottawa’s weakness has always been their goaltending and this season is no different. Pascal Leclaire and Brian Elliot will both compete for playing time. Leclaire has been anointed the goalie of the future, but he was outplayed last season by Elliot. The competition should at least keep the two from struggling too much with one picking up the slack when the other has difficulties.

With all of the aging talent on the Ottawa Senators, they could very easily see their season derailed by injuries. On the flip side, this is the sort of team that can punch above its weight and beat a team that is more talented on paper.

One week in to the free-agency period, the Northwest Division teams are all pretty close to set barring any unexpected high-profile trades.

The wisest long-term moves belong to the Minnesota Wild who filled some needs without breaking the bank. The Vancouver Canucks get the award for best short term moves as the team looks poised for a cup run. The Calgary Flames took the biggest gamble while the Colorado Avalanche look like they are going in to salary cap hibernation and the Edmonton Oilers picked up a great player at the draft, but they’re still trying to show players the door.

The Northwest isn’t the strongest division as evidenced by the poor NHL futures odds.

Vancouver Canucks +1500

If the Vancouver Canucks don’t win the division with the changes that they made, the season will be a massive disappointment.

Injuries exposed the Canuck’s poor defensive depth in the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs and they addressed those problems by picking up Keith Ballard and Dan Hamhuis.

The Canucks also identified a soft bottom six forward group as their other big problem and addressed that by signing Manny Malhotra.

The price in for the trades and the contracts is a little on the high side, but this is a team that is shooting for the cup now and no one will care if they overpaid if it means the team hoists the Stanley Cup at the end of the season.

Minnesota Wild +10000

The Minnesota Wild had a down year and are in a somewhat prolonged reload mode putting some good complementary pieces together on what could become a very good team in a year or two.

For starters, just getting rid of Derek Boogard already improves the team. He may have been good to have around two or three years ago when players would still fight him.

The trend has been towards tough players who can play. Boogard looked pretty silly when those tough players were beating him to the puck and scoring goals and then he looked even sillier after when they wisely refused to fight him.

The Wild held on to Guillaume Latendresse without grossly over-paying him. They picked up Matt Cullen and Eric Nystrom who may not put the Wild’s offense in to over-drive, but they will work real hard on both ends of the ice and be good examples in the Wild’s locker room.

The Wild should be competing for a playoff spot this season, but with Calgary and Colorado at a similar level the team that is able to perform in divisional match-ups will likely come out on top. With a well stocked farm system, this could be a very good team when they start graduating and making contributions.

Calgary Flames +3000

The Calgary Flames are a team whose cup window is rapidly fading and quite possibly already gone. The core of Jerome Iginla, Mikka Kipurasoff and Robyn Regeir are all starting to hit the age where they slow down. They are still good players, but they take up a lot of cap space for what they are likely to bring.

Everyone has panned GM Darryl Sutter for bringing back Alex Tanguay and Olli Jokinen, but I actually think those were good moves. With the cup window on this team almost completely closed Sutter needed to gamble and win big. Both of his prize free-agent acquisitions are cheap and you could make the argument that they have the potential to give Sutter the big wins that he needs for this team to contend for the cup.

Tanguay might find the right chemistry again now that he is back with the Flames where he had his best years as a player. He probably won’t get 70 points again, but it’s not totally unreasonable to hope for an upside of 60 points.

Jokinen’s value has tanked since the Flames picked him up, but maybe the problem was, as he has asserted, with the coaching.

Their biggest loss was Eric Nystrom who did all of the little things to help the team night-in night-out.

The optics behind the Jokinen deal are terrible considering nobody missed him when the Flames gave up on him after less than a year, but the Flames picked up the two cheapest free agents who have some hope of being incredible values for their contracts.

Colorado Avalanche +6000

The Colorado Avalanche are coming off of a season in which they surprised everyone and rode a bunch of rookies and youngsters to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Much like the Canucks, the Avalanche defense was exposed last season, particularly as the season drew on and in the playoffs.

The Avalanche, however, lost money last season and their moves so far this season seem to be about cutting payroll. They bought out Tom Preissing who didn’t play up to his $2.75 million price tag, but isn’t exactly a cap albatross on a team that has plenty of cap space. The team saved $900,000 in real dollars on the buyout.

The Avs have a lot of good young talent and they could conceivably take another step forward, but with ownership in shambles and no commitment to winning from the top, a step backward is a more likely scenario.

Edmonton Oilers +10000

The Edmonton Oilers have another year in full rebuild mode and are at least a year away from competing for a playoff spot and probably a good bit longer.

The big win for the Oilers was Taylor Hall. Everyone’s expecting him to jump in and make an impact, but on a team without a lot of leadership in a dressing room in disarray, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him struggle more than most pundits expect in his first season.

The Oilers have pretty much given up on half of their team and their main goal this season is to get rid of those players. They got a good start sending Ethan Moreau, Denis Grebeshkov and Patrick O’Sullivan packing, but Sheldon Souray is the big anchor that they are trying to move.

The Oil have a fair bit of cap space, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be spending it this season. They might try to pick up some other team’s cap problems in exchange for draft picks while they wait for their youngsters to improve a little.

Edmonton is just getting in to a deep rebuild that will probably take a couple of years. They will have overachieved if they compete for a playoff spot.

In case you missed it at the NHL Awards, the NHL posted the skit of gold medalist Ryan Getzlaf and silver medalist Bobby Ryan, both Anaheim Ducks team-mates, feuding. It is surprisingly funny and definitely worth a look.

The talented but underperforming forward Nathan Horton and Gregory Campbell was sent by the Florida Panthers to the Boston Bruins for the 15 pick in this year’s draft, struggling blueliner Dennis Wideman and a third round pick.

It is always tough to project the long-term winner in any trade, but the Florida Panthers seem to have got the better of the deal. This year’s draft has two super-stars, but it is also fairly deep in talent so there is a good chance that the Panthers will get a player who will one day contribute at the NHL level.

Both Horton and Wideman struggled this season and the Bruins and Panthers are both gambling that a change of scenery will get them going.

Nathan Horton has struggled with injury and there are questions about his competitiveness on a nightly basis. There is no denying that he has a ton of talent, but he has shown it too rarely in his young career.

Big power forwards like Horton tend to take a longer time to develop. He could turn out to be a player like Todd Bertuzzi who struggled until his late 20s before dominating physically and on the score sheet for a few years. However, if injuries and a lack of competitiveness keep hampering him, he could end up being a second or third line player.

One thing is for sure, he will have every opportunity to succeed with the Boston Bruins. If he can’t find any chemistry with one of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Marc Savard  at center, Horton will likely never meet his potential.

Dennis Wideman struggled this season after being demoted to the second power play unit. His points total fell for the first time in his young career dropping to 30 points after scoring 50 last season.

Wideman can move the puck well and he should help the Panthers power play.

Defensemen usually take a long time to develop and it is not unusual for defensemen to struggled a bit with his confidence particularly after seeing reduced playing time.

Of the two main players in this deal, Wideman is more likely to reach his potential, but Horton has a much higher upside. The short term winner will likely be Boston. Horton seems like a perfect fit there and he should help their offense even if he doesn’t meet his potential particularly since opponents will be paying more attention to Boston’s high end forwards.

The Bruins are currently listed at +1600 in odds to win the Stanley Cup while the Panthers are +6600 reflecting their need to improve in all areas.

The Montreal Canadiens traded goalie Jaroslav Halak to the St. Louis Blues for a pair of decent prospects in Lars Eller and Ian Schultz.

Worst blockbuster ever.

Montreal did the right thing in trading Halak who will be a restricted free agent on July 1 because Halak’s value is at its highest right now. Halak is a streaky goaltender who got hot at the right time. Everyone sees how well he did for a month and his value goes way up.

What they don’t remember is how he has gotten hot like that before only to go on equally bad cold stretches. Additionally, Montreal’s defense deserves a lot of credit for making him look good.

Halak is also going to get a bundle of money after playing his best at the most profitable time. Halak will be an over-paid goaltender for St Louis roughly the same caliber as their previous goaltender Chris Mason who also has a penchant for playing brilliantly for short stretches.

The two players coming to the Montreal Canadiens are C Lars Eller and LW Ian Schultz.

Lars Eller is the better prospect of the two. Eller has decent size, which is something Montreal desperately needs at forward, and a decent scoring touch, but he is a better playmaker and looks to be a solid two-way second line center.

Ian Schultz projects to be either a second or third line winger. He plays a very physical game and could become a power forward if he develops a bit of a scoring touch.

While there is nothing wrong with what the Canadiens got from the St. Louis Blues, you have to think that if they’d signed Halak before trading him, they could have got a whole lot more and that’s why this trade is so bad. They could have done better.

The other problem that Montreal has is the goaltender that they kept. Carey Price has a ton of potential, but he’s too fragile to play in Montreal where the fans compare every goaltender to Patrick Roy and Ken Dryden. The best thing for Price would be to get traded to some non-hockey town, preferably without any night-life, where he can quietly salvage his career.

Eller might play next season for the Canadiens, but he is still a few years from making any impact.

For the Blues this is a sideways move because they aren’t going to win more games with the hot and cold Halak. But watch for them to win in bunches with Halak in net and bet accordingly.

St Louis plays in the toughest division in hockey. As a result, they are going to have a hard time making the playoffs and are +5000 in odds to win the Stanley Cup.

Montreal has it much easier. They are +2200 to win the Stanley Cup despite trading away their playoff hero.

The NHL released a video of the top 10 plays from the Stanley Cup Finals between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Philadelphia Flyers. Chicago of course won in 6.

The Chicago Blackhawks are listed as the early favorites to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions at +450 with the Washington Capitals next at +500 even though the Blackhawks are going to have a big challenge keeping this team together with a number of players due big raises and the Hawks right up against the salary cap.

The Chicago Blackhawks finished their quest for the Stanley Cup with a Game 6 4-3 overtime victory. All of the highlights can be seen in the video.

The Philadelphia Flyers acquitted themselves well in the series, but Chicago was just too much for them.

The biggest disappointment was how anti-climactic the game-winning goal was. It was hard for people watching to tell that the puck went in the net.

Jonathan Toews won the Conn Smythe trophy as the playoff MVP. He was definitely the MVP through the first three rounds, but he was kept in check in the final. I’m not sure who is more deserving, but I’m not sure anyone really distinguished themselves as a clear playoff MVP.

The Chicago Blackhawks look to end their 49-year Stanley Cup drought with a Game 6 road win against the Philadelphia Flyers. The puck drops at 8 PM ET on NBC.

The Game 6 Stanley Cup odds are a pick ‘em with both teams listed at -110.

The Chicago Blackhawks are coming off of their most dominant performance of the playoffs after a 7-4 victory in which pretty much every aspect of their game looked good.

Dustin Byfuglien ended his scoring slump with two goals while Patrick Kane reasserted himself in this series with a goal and an assist.

Chicago’s power play went 2 for 4 after being 0 for the series through the first four games and they were perfect on the penalty kill for the first time.

The Philadelphia Flyers will need to ignore all of the hype surrounding the Blackhawks and do the things that won them Games 3 and 4 and kept them close in Games 1 and 2.

Chris Pronger has been public enemy number one for Blackhawks backers, but he was -5 in Game 5. Pronger will need to be a rock on defense and a contributor on offense for the Flyers to stave off elimination.

The other key for the Flyers is goaltending. It hasn’t been good enough for them in the finals and that has to stop tonight.

The Flyers are 9-1 at home in the post-season and the home team has won every game in this series.

Finally, we see the Chicago Blackhawks that everyone was expecting to see as they attacked the Philadelphia Flyers net in waves to get a 7-4 victory.

The Blackhawks best players performed as they split up the top line to get some of their best players away from Flyers star defender, Chris Pronger. Patrick Kane and Dustin Byfuglien combined for three goals and six points on the night after being virtually invisible for the first four games.

The Hawks power play was lethal for the first time in the series connecting twice on four opportunities. They furthered their special teams advantage by killing all three penalties that they took after letting the Flyers connect on nearly 30 percent of their power plays in the first four games.

While most of the pundits are questioning whether the Flyers have another comeback in them, the odds-makers seem to like their chances of evening the series at three on home ice. They are listed as -125 favorites in Stanley Cup odds over the Hawks who pay -105.

The Philadelphia Flyers hope the trend of the home team winning in the Stanley Cup Finals continues as they face a Chicago Blackhawks team that is desperate to not let their advantage in the series slip away. The puck drops at 8 PM ET on Versus.

The Stanley Cup odds list the Flyers as slight favorites at -120 with the Blackhawks paying +100. The total is 5.5.

All of the games so far in the series have been very close with Chicago taking Game 1 6-5 in a wild back-and-forth affair before prevailing again at home 2-1 in a tight defensive battle. Game 3 in Philly went the home team’s way 4-3 in overtime.

Chris Pronger has been the best performer for the Philadelphia Flyers so far in the series. He has been dominant on the defensive side of the game holding Chicago’s top line to just one goal through three games. The Flyers penalty kill has been perfect so far thanks in no small part to Pronger’s ability to keep the front of the net clear.

Philly’s second line led by Danny Briere has contributed most of the offense. Briere has two goals and four assists through three games in the series and he leads the Flyers in points (24) and goals (11) in the playoffs.

Philadelphia has been very strong at home in the playoffs with an 8-1 record.

The Chicago Blackhawks are turning to the media to get an edge on Pronger and the Flyers. They have been pointing out all of the calls that he gets away with since their Game 3 loss hoping that it will influence the officials and give them some more space.

With their top line silent, the Blackhawks have been relying on their secondary scoring to get them their wins. Troy Brouwer leads all Blackhawk scorers with two goals and two assists through three games while Marian Hossa has come back from the dead with a goal and three assists.

Antti Niemi has been winning the goaltending duel for the Blackhawks with a .917 save percentage in the playoffs and, most importantly, he’s given up fewer soft goals than his Flyers counterpart.