Back by popular demand, here are your Puck Previews: Spotlighting the key games in NHL action, news and views as well as general frivolity. Make sure to stop back here for the nightly Three Stars when the games are finished.

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Preview: Boston Bruins at Toronto Maple Leafs, 7 p.m. ET

Randy Carlyle looks to move to 2-0 as the coach of the Leafs and get the Leafs back into the playoff race, while the Bruins try to avoid their first 3-game losing streak since October. The Bruins should have the upper hand here, having won all 4 meetings between the two teams this season, but they're a different team now. For instance, fans are currently hoping Marty Turco clears waivers so he can join them, which is perilously close to rock bottom.

On Sunday night in Detroit, Robert Abraham, a city councilman and accountant in the nearby suburb of Dearborn, attended the Detroit Red Wings' game against the Chicago Blackhawks with his son and two of his son's friends from Chicago's Loyola University.

After the Red Wings lost the game, 2-1, the group stood out front waiting to be picked up by Abraham's wife and daughter. There, a Detroit fan saw the Blackhawks jerseys Abraham's son's friends were wearing and became aggressive. When Abraham tried to calm the man down, he claims he was assaulted. From My Fox Detroit:

According to Abraham, the unidentified man got out of his car to confront the young men, and when the councilman tried to defuse the situation, the man sucker punched him just as Abraham's wife and daughter were pulling up.

Last Wednesday in Massachusetts, a man was ejected from his daughter's high school hockey game for shining a laser into the eyes of the opposition.

Seriously. The next time you find yourself thinking minor hockey's behavioral education seminars for parents are unnecessary, consider this man. Apparently, the fact that it's not okay to attempt to blind the opposition is something some people need to be told.

From Y! Sports' Prep Rally:

As Medway-Ashland head coach Kurt Carter told the MetroWest Daily News, the fan started using the laser pointer when Winthrop went down 1-0 in the game. But it wasn't until after Winthrop tied the game 1-1 that others in the stands started to realize what was going on.

An assistant football coach at Winthrop was the first to notice the laser pointer shining off the boards. As the coach and Winthrop Athletic Director Peter Gobiel started to make their way to the other side of the rink, they saw a Medway-Ashland fan stand up and yell at the laser-pointing Winthrop fan.

Medway-Ashland would go on to lose the game 3-1. Feeling the laser had played a role in the outcome, they challenged the result with the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA).

They were disappointed Friday to learn that their appeal to replay the tournament hockey game had been rejected.

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One of these days, Ovie. Bang! Zoom! Straight to the moon!

When Dale Hunter replaced Bruce Boudreau as the coach of the Washington Capitals on November 28, 2011, there was some question about whether Hunter, whose 11 years of coaching experience were limited to Ontario Junior hockey, could handle the transition to the NHL.

Capitals' General Manager George McPhee dismissed the concern right away, explaining, "Coaching is coaching." He added, "The same questions were asked of [Boudreau] when he came here, and he had an outstanding record."

But, thus far, the only indication that Hunter's an NHL coach is the fact that his record bears a troubling similarity to the NHL coach he replaced. Since taking over for Boudreau, Hunter is a mediocre 20-19-4, a step backwards from Boudreau's 12-9-1 record at the time of his dismissal.

To some, this might be an indication that the problem was never coaching after all, that the Capitals simply have the wrong personnel mix. But, 43 games into Hunter's tenure, it's still difficult to say exactly how this roster would fare under the new system he was supposed to implement.

According to defenseman Karl Alzner, the Capitals don't really know what it is yet.

During a live interview with Dan Kingerski on Sportsnet Hockey Tonight, Alzner touched on life under Hunter. He noted that Hunter was a great deal quieter than Bruce Boudreau, and that he left a lot to his assistants. Then he added this wrinkle:

"We've changed systems a little bit. We've changed the lineup here and there and called guys up and sent guys down. It's been a lot of trial and error. We're still trying to figure out the one all-around system that seems to work for us."

If I'm a Capitals fan -- heck, if I'm a member of Capitals management -- this is an unnerving statement.

In January of 2010, high school hockey player Matt Brown of Norwood, Mass., broke his neck on a collision with the boards. The incident left him paralyzed from the chest down. It was 102 days before he was released from rehab to return home.

Brown has since become close with the Boston Bruins organization and their players, who have raised money for his treatment and equipment at the annual Matt Brown Gala, hosted by the Boston Bruins Foundation and the TD Garden. This year, the Foundation was able to provide Brown with a state-of-the-art wheelchair that allowed him to stand upright, and Brown debuted that wheelchair at Saturday's tilt between the Bruins and the New York Islanders, dropping the ceremonial puck to a standing ovation from the 17,565 fans in attendance:

The new wheelchair will help Brown with day-to-day functions, as well as remedying some of the issues posed by the "sip and puff" wheelchair he was given in 2010, such as potential skin problems. From Wicked Local:

"The wheelchair drives and tilts," Brown said. "There is a button by my head to tilt. If I sip (on a straw attached to the chair) hard, it goes back, a hard puff drives it forward, a soft puff moves it right, and a soft sip moves left. It took a while to get used to."

Every 30 minutes he has to do a "weight shift," where he tilts the chair back for two minutes.

"It prevents skin breakdown," Susan Brown, Matt's mother, said.

Brown will also be using the new wheelchair to participate in the Boston Marathon, with the help of friend and Army Ranger Lucas Carr. From Bruins.com:

Carr will push Brown's wheelchair in this year's Boston Marathon on April 16. The duo, which will join the Boston Bruins marathon team to raise money for the Boston Bruins Foundation, recently took part in the Hyannis Marathon.

The Army Ranger pushed Brown from beginning to end and crossed the finish line in the time necessary to qualify for the upcoming Boston Marathon.

Just a great story here.

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The New York Islanders headed into their four-game road trip likely needing 6 of 8 points to keep a playoff spot within the realm of possibility. They got three, their only win coming Saturday afternoon in a face-saving victory over the Boston Bruins to close the trip.

The most heartbreaking loss had to be a 3-2 overtime collapse in Washington. With only four minutes to go in the game and the Isles leading 2-0, Troy Brouwer scored twice before the final horn and Alex Ovechkin won it in the extra frame. It was like a metaphor for the Islanders' entire season: close, but not close enough.

If that wasn't deflating enough, the Islanders had the wind knocked out of them once again Thursday in Philadelphia, opening the scoring just over a minute into the first period only to surrender two straight goals, then tying the game up less than a minute into the second, only to surrender three straight goals. Their eventual 6-3 loss effectively ended even the longest of longshot hopes to make the postseason.

But it's not like there's nothing left for this team to play for.

GettyMaxim Lapierre and David Perron share an intense and adorable moment.

No. 1 Star: Evander Kane, Winnipeg Jets

The Jets issued a massive statement Thursday, crushing the Southeast-leading Florida Panthers with a 7-0, home-ice rout to move into 8th place in the East and only two points back of the division lead. Kane led the way with 2 goals and 2 assists, and Mark Stuart, Kyle Wellwood and Blake Wheeler all chipped in with 2-point nights. Ondrej Pavelec made 33 saves for the shutout. It was a total team effort, as evidenced by this asinine 5-on-1:

With just under a minute remaining in Thursday's game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Minnesota Wild, and the Canadiens leading 4-3, Max Pacioretty streaked up the ice towards the Wild's empty net. He was hooked from behind by Kurtis Foster -- enough to draw a whistle, in my opinion -- but, rather than continue to fight through it, Pacioretty tried to sell the call, hopping to his belly like there was a slip n' slide in front of him. The officials didn't buy it, and play continued.

Then the Wild scooped up the loose puck, brought it down to the other end, and, with the net still empty, Devin Setoguchi tied the game.

What an odd sequence.

Considering the strange game that preceded everything above, this was a fitting end to regulation. But I it ends differently if A) Pacioretty makes the conscious choice to stay on his feet and B) his great leap forward isn't the second such incident in the game.

If the officials hadn't already been burned by Wild winger Cal Clutterbuck on a blatant dive in the second period, I think Pacioretty gets this call. But officials can be sensitive about such things, you know.