Teams in the NHL have played about 10 games so far, so it seems fitting that we take a look at where things stand now.  As could be expected, the Detroit Red Wings and the San Jose Sharks are at the top of their divisions. The New York Rangers are kings of their division at the moment, with 10 wins and 2 losses (they’ve played a total of 13 games so far). The 2nd place team in their division has a mere 5 wins and 2 losses.  The Northeast Division looks exciting this year: all the teams, except for one, are above .500 right now and all within a couple games of each other.  Likewise in the Northwest Division, where the leading team, Minnesota, is ahead of their 2nd place team by a mere half-game.  There will certainly be more interesting things to come, and it’s still very early in the season, but sometimes the trends that begin early keep going throughout the entire year.

Thanks to Ryan Miller’s 4 saves in the shootout against the Boston Bruins Tuesday night, the Buffalo Sabres have improved to 5-0-1.  The team trailed  2-1 going into the 3rd period and came back to tie it with 14 minutes remaining in regulation.  After a scoreless Overtime period, Thomas Vanek scored the decisive goal during the shootout with a nice shot against Manny Fernandez.

The news isn’t all good for Buffalo, however.  The Sabres learned that one of their best players, Craig Rivet, will be off the ice for at least two week while he recovers from arthroscopic surgery on his knee.  Rivet has made 3 assists in 6 games, including one in the game against the Bruins on Tuesday.  His replacement, Nathan Paetsch, has played occasionally this season, but will have to step up his game to make up for Rivet’s absence.

The Blackhawks may have finally got the missing piece of the puzzle when new head coach Joel Quenneville took over a few days ago. Quenneville, a seasoned and disciplined hockey coach, instantly garnered the respect of the Blackhawks players. Though his first win should have come against the St. Louis Blues Saturday, match they lost eventually in a penalty shootout, Quenneville and the Hawks pushed past the Vancouver Canucks last night 4-2. See the players’ and coach’s reactions to this win at nhl.com.

After shutting down 25 shots on goal from the Atlanta Thrashers and leading his team to a 1-0 win, Martin Brodeur tallied up his 97th career shutout. For him to hit the century-mark on shutouts would be impressive enough, but he’s also got a chance to become the NHL record-holder for most shutouts. Currently, Terry Sawchuk holds that distinguished title with 103 shutouts. If Brodeur, 36, can accomplish this feat only 7 more times, he will secure his spot in the NHL history books.

Wayne Gretzky is no stranger to hockey talent. Suffice to say, he is the standard for hockey greatness. So when the Coyotes head coach, “The Great One,” is both excited and impressed by the play of Phoenix Coyotes newcomers Kyle Turris and Mikkel Boedker, these two rookies have reason to believe they’ve got talent. His encomium is only reinforced by the fact that each scored a goal in their 4-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night.

But Gretzky’s praise also extends to the team captain, Shane Doan, who has been a key factor in helping to develop these two younger players and acclimate them to the team. Doan, by the way, also happened to score the other two goals.

A huge part of the team’s success is the potent combination of youth and experience. Having the older players such as Doan to help guide and mature the younger guys creates a strong connection both on and off the ice. The feeling that your teammates always have your back, in good and bad times, is huge boon to confidence and the way the team plays. Further evidence of this is the Phoenix Coyotes record, which stands at a perfect 2-0.

Score one for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Rather, make that score three for the Leafs. When the smoke from the Def Leppard concert cleared and the Stanley Cup presentation ceremony was over, all that was left was the actual game of hockey between the defending Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Let’s start with the end first. 3-2 Maple Leafs win. While the Red Wings held the Cup over their heads for press photos, the Maple Leafs sat stoically on their bench. Their time would come 60 minutes of play later after scoring a goal in each of the three periods. Though the momentum seemed to favor the Red Wings early on, a misplaced pass in the Red Wings zone led to a Toronto goal with only 25 seconds left in the first period.

From that point on the Toronto Maple Leafs neither lost the lead nor dropped to a tie with the Red Wings. They played with a great sense of attack and intensity, and their goalie Vesa Toskala held his ground during the last minutes of play when the Red Wings offense began to surge and pressure hard–especially during the power play for the final 30 seconds of the game.

The Maple leafs are on a quest to show that this is a brand new Toronto program. So far, in beating last year’s best team, they have proved just that.

Moments after being rushed out of Prague and hurried on to an awaiting charter plane back to the United States, the New York Rangers were able to finally reflect on their whole foreign experience. After a week or so of adjusting to the new climate and surroundings of the Czech Republic (including a fair amount of tourism), the Rangers finally got down to business on Saturday and Sunday night and stole a pair of victories from the Tampa Bay Lightning in their first two regular season NHL games.

The entire experience overjoyed all of the Rangers players who expressed sincere interest in returning for a similar situation next year. However, there was no time to reminisce or loiter around the Prague arena. The Rangers needed to literally jet out of there in order to hopefully readjust to their native Eastern Coast Time Zone in time for their Friday night home opener against the Chicago Blackhawks.

But heading home 2-0 in the season after back-to-back 2-1 victories has the Rangers feeling mighty contented. They played extremely well together on both sides of the puck and their transitional game was executed very tightly. Fans can’t wait to greet their Prague Champions at the Madison Square Garden this Friday in New York.

In Prague, Czech Republic, both the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning hockey teams have been practicing and acting as tourists for the past week. Now that their October 4th and 5th showdowns are approaching, there is little time for tourism anymore. Each team needs one more day of good practice and one more night of good sleep.

Then, it’s showtime.

To the players and coaches, these matches must be treated as just another day at the office. Very simple math actually: Win and take your two points. They can’t afford to be distracted by the foreign land, signs, or people. They need to even put out of their minds the fact that the very ice they will be playing on will be different; slightly smaller than an NHL rink.

To the NHL executives, on the other hand, these matches are part of the attempt at NHL globification; the hopes of spreading the popularity of the NHL overseas and to open up new markets of sales. The executives aren’t necessarily concerned with the way the game plays out, provided it generates a lot of buzz and excitement. Other than that, they could care less who wins, loses, or does what.

The players will want to give the crowd their money’s worth, however. Both the Rangers and Lightning are coming into the new season as enigmas. Experts can’t really figure them out. They’ll both want to make a strong charge out of the gates and give the experts something to talk about.