Derek Zona

As teams enter the second half of the NHL regular season, it's time to hand out some mid-season hardware. Some of the winners may surprise you, while others are certainly more obvious.

The Boston Bruins are making history every single time they step onto the ice, and it doesn't appear there's much to stop them. Meanwhile, the Ottawa Senators are the big surprise of the week, jumping into the top-10.

The Boston Bruins are the team to beat, but there are no shortage of contenders in the West. Upstarts Ottawa and Winnipeg are angling for playoff spots.

The Bruins are on fire, but the Western Conference occupies four of the top five spots in our NHL Power Rankings. The Central Division dominates the top ten.

In our Western Conference Power Rankings, the Detroit Red Wings have returned to the summit, and it's starting to look familiar up there. Can the few teams still surprising us keep their hot starts going beyond the quarter pole?

The Coyotes and Wild are the hottest teams in our Western Conference Power Rankings, and though the Stars are stumbling, the voters did not punish them. The Avalanche have collapsed.

The Stars cannot be stopped, thanks to a reborn Sheldon Souray and a team capable of ignoring ownership distractions.

In our Western Conference Power Rankings, the Chicago Blackhawks lead the way and Columbus is bad. In the middle? Well, let's just say things are different than usual.

The NHL will likely announce realignment in December. In order to solve travel and economic imbalance, the league should shift to a model that mirrors the NFL and MLB.

The list of NHL general managers is pretty steady as we enter the 2011-12 season, but that could all change very fast for seven men on our list.