from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

It’s kind of counterintuitive, isn’t it, to hear the preseason raves for 3-on-3 overtime that primarily focus on how quickly it ends?

Anyway, it’s the latest gimmick for the NHL that is going to have one of two seasons this year: the one with Patrick Kane in the defending Cup champion Blackhawks’ lineup, or the one in which this singular talent is suspended.

The decision will be Gary Bettman’s, but the commissioner’s actions surely will be dictated by the western New York criminal justice system’s findings concerning the sexual assault allegations against Kane.

The Connor McDavid-Jack Eichel story moves out of the imagination and onto the ice even if the league’s national TV partner at NBC somehow has the Oilers on the schedule only once all season — March 1 against the Sabres. Pierre McGuire can’t be happy. Presumably the NHL Network, now under MLB’s direction and operation, occasionally will get to Edmonton.

A few words about power rankings, preseason and otherwise: the Blackhawks, who won their second Cup in three years and third in the last six, were never considered the NHL’s best team at any time during the 2014-15 season.

Thus, 2015-16:

continue for the rankings...