These are two things that I think are kind of cool

1. Last night, as you may have noticed because Jason "Is that seriously what you're putting on your mask?" LaBarbera was in net for the Coyotes, Ilya Bryzgalov was ill. That's not interesting yet. But apparently he got sick too close to game time to fly someone out to New York from San Antonio (or from their EHCL team, the greatest hockey team ever, the Las Vegas Wranglers). As you know, an NHL roster generally contains exactly 2 goalies, and Phoenix sure didn't have a third with them on this trip (why would they?). As it turns out, Bryzgalov was too sick to even sit on the bench as a backup. So, they needed a backup. So, they called some guy who hasn't played hockey since he was the goalie for American International College a year and a half ago, and they signed him so he could sit as the backup. That's pretty sweet.

2. As you no doubt know, one of the weird ways in which the NHL is trying to be the NFL is that the division winners now get the top three spots in each conference for the playoffs (unlike the NFL, we don't actually play our division rivals enough more than we play everyone else for that to make sense). It's been true for a number of seasons now, and it's not interesting by itself anymore. But because of this, you can sometimes end up with teams in 4th, or even 5th or lower, that have earned more points on the season than a team in 3rd or 2nd. Combine that with the crazy disparity between, well, our division and the rest of the NHL, and you end up with the Rangers currently being ranked 5th in the Eastern Conference, but 4th in the whole of the NHL. Here's how it works: Flyers - 47, Penguins - 44, Red Wings - 43, Rangers - 41, Canadiens - 40, Capitals - 40. So, in the East, Montréal and the Caps get bumped up above the Pens, leaving the Rangers down in 5th.

Also of note: if the Rangers were to gain 2 more points on the Wings, the top 3 teams in the Atlantic would be the top 3 in the league, and the bottom 2 in the Atlantic would be the bottom 2 in the league. Not likely, due to the large game disparity we're looking at right now (Detroit has four games-in-hand over us), but it's still kinda neat.