NHL toronto Maple Leafs

Late last week, Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke made it clear that his team would not be pushed around this upcoming season. Based on his first moves this offseason, he wasn't kidding. After signing tough-guy Colton Orr to a four-year, $4 million deal earlier on Wednesday, the Leafs sent defenseman Pavel Kubina, and the rights to Tim Stapleton, to the Atlanta Thrashers for Garnet Exelby and Colin Stuart.

On the surface, it's a woefully lopsided trade in favor of Atlanta, and nothing more than a salary dump for Toronto.

The plus side? Just moments after the deal was made, word surfaced that defenseman Mike Komisarek had signed with the Maple Leafs.

It's not uncommon for sports teams, at any level, to model other successful teams in an effort to become successful themselves. Hey, if it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for us, right? Sure. Just don't expect Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke to follow another team's example unless it involves fighting and blood! OK, maybe not blood, but definitely fighting.

After the Penguins and Red Wings met in the Stanley Cup final for the second consecutive season (and not doing much fighting along the way) Burke, entering his first offseason in charge of the Maple Leafs, was quite candid when discussing the future makeup of his team.

It's going to fight.

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?

Some of the biggest stories around the NHL these days that don't involve the words "Stanley" or "Cup" center around the NHL draft, which takes place later this month. The Islanders won the right to the first overall pick at the lottery in April and are now faced with a tough choice. They can take a young stud like John Tavares, Victor Hedman or Matt Duchene, or they can trade the pick. Tavares is predicted to be the best player available and today cleared the air about where he would like to start his NHL career.

When the NHL hosts its draft lottery on Tuesday night, the highest the Maple Leafs can land is the third overall pick. That's two picks too late to select John Tavares, the consensus No. 1 pick who will go to either the Islanders or Lightning.

But you can get anything you want if you want it bad enough, and Toronto GM Brian Burke wants Tavares. Badly.

That's why Burke is making no qualms about his plans: when the ordering of picks sorts itself out through the lottery, and he knows where his team picks and who has the first-overall selection, he will do whatever he can to try to land that pick and, by proxy, Tavares.

As Gretz mentioned earlier, Christian Hanson scored his first goal in the NHL in Tuesday night's 4-1 win over the Devils. Below: visual documentation of said happening. Hanson carries the puck along the boards and feeds Jason Blake, then makes Johnny Oduya look foolish by crossing up the defender and finding a soft spot right where Martin Brodeur kicks the rebound of Blake's initial shot. A pretty play, for sure.

Former player Joe Nieuwendyk, now the special assistant to Toronto GM Brian Burke, was given a bulk of the credit for the Leafs landing the highly-coveted Tyler Bozak. All signs point to Nieuwendyk having a bright future as a GM after his training stint in Toronto is over. "(Nieuwendyk) came to watch me in Denver," Bozak said. "He was a huge influence, he was great to talk to and he helped me a lot with (the decision to join the Leafs)." Still, Burke wants to improve his NHL roster so college players like Bozak don't see job opportunities with the big club. "I hope this is the last year we're a destination for the college player," Burke said. [The Star]

Toronto Maple Leafs grand poobah Brian Burke is not wasting time. He hopes it doesn't end up looking like he's wasting money.

Earlier this week, Burke signed Notre Dame star Christian Hanson, who is likely to make his NHL debut Friday at Philadelphia. He's back at it, this time grabbing a player regarded as the top underclassman free agent in college hockey. University of Denver sophomore Tyler Bozak missed a good chunk of the 2008-2009 season with a bad knee, but he had already established himself as a hot commodity on the open market. When the Pioneers' season ended last week, the calls started coming in.

College hockey has four teams still playing, meaning NHL teams can begin the process of signing players on the other 54 Division I teams.

While some of the players who sign pro contracts are drafted talents like Jamie McBain (Carolina) and Ryan Stoa (Colorado), others are free agents who were -- for various reasons -- overlooked when they were eligible to be drafted. One of the more prominent NHL free agents, Notre Dame senior Christian Hanson, has some very special hockey bloodlines.

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The Stanley Cup won't be handed out until June, but this is the time when we see teams making runs at the playoffs. And you can't win the Cup if you don't make the playoffs. Race for the Cup is your daily check of where your favorite team stands as the season dwindles.

Wednesday night saw plenty of drama, including a huge comeback in Buffalo, another superb defensive performance by Pittsburgh, and a rare 60-minute road performance from the Minnesota Wild. How did all of this impact the playoff races? Hit the jump to find out.