Every Monday morning The Ice Sheet will take a close look at everything that's happened in the NHL since Friday night at 5:00 p.m. To read them all, click here.

On Saturday morning when I passed along the news that Petr Prucha was actually going to get into the lineup for Saturday's Rangers-Lightning tilt in Prague, I also made a point of linking to a rather angry Larry Brooks column where the Slap Shot columnist let loose with every little complaint he had about the way the Rangers were handling their pre-season. After giving it a read, you could be forgiven for thinking the team was in a bit of disarray:

It's all about Renney coaching a team without Jagr and Shanahan to lean on, and it's all about this group filling the huge voids created with the decision to dispose of the team's post-lockout identity as if it were toxic.

It's all about one of the most vanilla Rangers teams in memory bonding in order to form a unit greater than the sum of its underwhelming parts.

Well, here we are a little less than 48 hours later, and all is forgotten in the wake of a pair of 2-1 victories over the revamped Lightning. Rangers newcomers Markus Naslund and Wade Redden combined for two goals and two assists over the weekend, as the New Yorkers pretty easily dominated the run of play as the Lightning played against type. While new owners Oren Koules and Len Barrie spent most of the Summer stacking the team with loads of new offensive weapons, it was their goalies, Mike Smith and Olie Kolzig, who kept things close, stopping 76 of 80 shots over the course of two games.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Miroslav Satan, F (FA-NYI), Ruslan Fedotenko, F (FA-NYI), Matt Cooke, F (FA-WAS), Eric Godard, F(FA-CGY), Janne Pesonen, F (FA-Kärpät, Finland)

Who's Out: Marian Hossa, F (FA-DET), Ryan Malone, F (FA-TBA), Jarkko Ruutu, F (FA-OTT), Gary Roberts, F (FA-TBA), Georges Laraque, F (FA-MTL), Ty Conklin, G (FA-DET), Adam Hall, F (FA-TBA)

What's Changed: Everything is different but nothing has changed in Pittsburgh. Hossa, Malone, Roberts, and Ruutu are gone, but this was Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin's team when they were all in Pittsburgh and the team still belongs to them with those four gone. A lot has been made about the guys that have departed, especially Malone and Hossa, but Malone's breakout was greatly aided by Malkin and the Penguins earned the second seed in the playoffs last year almost entirely without Hossa's help. At this point, there's no use in talking about the guys that are gone because they're gone.

I think the guys at The Pens Blog got it right a few minutes ago when they warned Pittsburgh fans to "buckle up."

What else can you say now that the news has leaked that Sergei Gonchar, one of the most talented offensive defenseman in all of hockey is going to miss the next 4-6 months thanks to a separated shoulder he suffered in Pittsburgh's pre-season opener against Lightning. It was initially thought that he'd only miss 2-3 weeks if he could avoid surgery, though others thought that a bit too optimistic.

Gonchar's loss comes on top of the extended absence of Ryan Whitney, who will be shelved until at least December recovering from off-season foot surgery. With both Whitney and Gonchar out of the lineup, it's time to ask some difficult questions about the Penguins power play.

Over the past four preseason games, youngsters Kris Letang, Alex Goligoski and veteran Daryl Sydor have been seeing plenty of power play time, with Goligoski making the most of his minutes by compiling five assists over those four games. Still, you'd figure if any team in the league could make do in the absence of a power play QB, it would have to be Pittsburgh.

Yes, I know it's August.

And yes, I know we're still about a month out before training camp.

Still, if The Hockey News can put most of its hockey yearbook to bed complete with predictions in August, what's the harm in checking in with people who actually have some skin in the game if they get things wrong? In particular, I'm talking about the folks at Bodog who have just published odds for winning the conference championships and the Stanley Cup Finals for the 2008-09 NHL season.

Up top, there's not much of a surprise, as Bodog has installed the Red Wings (10-3) and the Penguins (5-2 6-1), as co-favorites in their respective conferences -- see those odds after the jump. Rounding out the top 10 are San Jose (9-1), Montreal (10-1), Anaheim and the Rangers (12-1), Washington (15-1), New Jersey (16-1), Ottawa (16-1), Chicago, Dallas and Philadelphia (18-1).

For those of you looking to lay your money on a long shot, Atlanta and Los Angeles are at the bottom of the board at 100-1, followed by Toronto (75-1) and Columbus (65-1). For a complete list of odds on the Stanley Cup as well as the winners of both the Eastern and Western Conference, look after the jump.

Readers of one of the more popular spots in the hockey blogosphere -- The PensBlog -- got a rude surprise this morning when they discovered that the most recent update was a screen capture of a warning from Blogger that the blog's account had been frozen due to a possible violation of Blogger's Terms of Service.

The Pens Blog writes that they're stunned, but they shouldn't be. Every so often, Blogger does an inventory of its blogs in order to weed out spam blogs -- blogs that are operated automatically and designed to raise the search engine ranking of other sites. My guess is that Blogger uses some sort of secret algorithm to determine which blogs to lock out.

Why do I know this? Well, my personal blog, Off Wing Opinion, started life back in February 2002 on Blogger. And before I had a chance to switch to Movable Type in December of that year, I also got a nasty-gram from Blogger telling me that I was suspected of violating Blogger's TOS too. After some grumbling, I filled out their form and was reinstated. In the six years since then, we know that Blogger has grown rather extensively, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have plenty of applications for unlocking to review right now.

And how do we know that The Pens Blog was singled out by some mysterious enemy? Well, because this is happening to plenty of other people out there now too.

You'd think by now that Google, the owners of Blogger, would have figured out how to handle this in a way that wasn't quite so heavy handed. I guess not. In any case, I suspect The Pens Blog -- and any other blog that might have been wrongly victimized -- will be unlocked enough.

It's been a while since I bothered watching the ESPYs. Though I can't exactly remember how long ago it was, I can distinctly recall changing the channel after suffering through yet another lame attempt at humor by one of the WWL's talking heads. Safe to say, I've found something better to do in subsequent years. I hope you have too.

But now that fans of ESPN have bestowed the ESPY for best NHL player on Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby after a season where Washington Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin simply dominated the entire league, I feel compelled to comment. It's only been a few weeks since Ovechkin cleaned up at the NHL Awards, going home with the Hart Trophy as the regular season's most valuable player; the Lester Pearson Trophy for most outstanding player as voted by the league's players; the Art Ross Trophy for most total points; and the Maurice Richard Trophy as the league's leading goal scorer.

When you clean up like that, I like to think that Ovechkin won't miss an ESPY.

But really, it's worse than that, isn't it? After all, Crosby, who was injured for a good chunk of the season, might not have even been the best player on his team during the regular season. That honor would go to Evgeni Malkin, the man who carried the Penguins offensively in Crosby's absence, and earned himself consideration for both the Hart and Pearson all on his own. As for the playoffs, while Crosby led his team in scoring, it was Marian Hossa who stole the show, scoring 12 playoff goals compared to Crosby's six.

In the end, I can't help but think this vote is an incredible indictment of the way ESPN covers all sports, not just the NHL. After all, if you can't figure out who the best athletes in the world really are after watching countless hours of SportsCenter and digesting endless amounts of content online at ESPN.com, it's pretty clear ESPN is falling down on the job. Then again, I'm not the first person to make note of that. It's clear I won't be the last either.

Oh, our silly hockey loving Pittsburgh brethren. From the epic 'WWGRD?' to the Pensblog's daily shenanigans and the Flyers/Penguins statue jersey wars, they always have something creative and a little out of the ordinary up their sleeves. So naturally, when Marian Hossa defected to Detroit after losing the SCF to the Wings -- the ultimate slap in the face an athlete could give to his fans -- the folks in Pittsburgh responded in a way only that only the folks in Pittsburgh can. They set his jersey on fire and put it on YouTube for all to see. After all, nothing says 'I hate you' like a fireworks laced burning effigy. I think I can safely say that any of us would have done the same given the circumstances, if of course, we had pyromaniac tendencies.

And clearly, FanHouse recommends that you DO NOT try this at home.

Much was made Wednesday of Marian Hossa's decision to sign a one-year deal with Stanley Cup champion Detroit, rather than take one of several lucrative multi-year offers that were available to him.

While Detroit is a fine team with fine fans, it's hard to get past the idea that Hossa simply didn't want to play for Pittsburgh anymore.

Once Hossa bolted, attention turned to Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr, who started his NHL career in Pittsburgh. While he was booed lustily during the Rangers' playoff series against the Penguins, it was still assumed that the Pens had a good shot at signing Jagr.

After all, who doesn't want to play with Sidney Crosby?

Evidently, Jaromir Jagr is going to pass on that chance.

The biggest name on the free agent market this summer has found a new home, and it's not a home many people expected him to end up in. As he promised, Marian Hossa did indeed sign a contract for less than market value to win a Stanley Cup. The surprising part? It's a one year deal with the Detroit Red Wings.

In many places this will be spun as "Hossa just wants to win." This is complete and utter horsepucky. Hossa wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Prior to Detroit's one-year, $7.4 million offer, it looked like Hossa's choices were to take a monstrous deal from Edmonton or Vancouver, or sign for slightly less money with a more serious contender like Pittsburgh or Montreal. He seems to have definitely left a seven-year, $50 million offer from the Penguins on the table. Now Hossa gets his shot at the Cup this year, and if it works out he gets his huge payday next year. In the all-time Mercenary Move Hall of Fame, this one is a first-ballot inductee.

As many have already noted, Hossa fits in perfectly with the Wings. He's a great two-way player and this one year deal lets them shoot for a repeat in 2009, then leaves plenty of cap room to deal with Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen, who will be UFAs after next year. In purely hockey terms, it's a great move for Hossa and Detroit. In terms of karma? Hossa's really tempting the universe on this one.

No matter what happens this afternoon, it appears that the Pittsburgh Penguins are going to take care of at least one huge part of their off-season puzzle today. Word has leaked out that Evgeni Malkin is expected to finalize his extension with the team and an announcement should be forthcoming either sometime this afternoon or tomorrow.

According to TSN, the deal is a pretty simple one in that it exactly mirrors Sidney Crosby's deal at 5 years and $8.7 million. Since Malkin's at about the same point in his career that Crosby was last summer (a good rookie year and a breakout second year), it makes a lot of sense. It works out to a discount for the Penguins over market value, since Malkin could probably make in excess of $10 million a year if he were to test free agency.

Malkin's deal takes effect starting with the 2009/2010 season since his rookie contract applies to next year, so Ray Shero should have some idea of what kind of cap space he's got to work with when dealing with guys like Brooks Orpik and Marian Hossa today. As it looks right now, it's going to be about a $17 million yearly hit for Malkin and Crosby, which isn't too bad for two of the best players in the world.