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The St. Louis Cardinals open the season on top of the TSN.ca MLB Power Rankings, ahead of the defending champion Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers. After losing to the Red Sox in the World Series, the Cardinals upgraded their outfield defence, adding centre fielder Peter Bourjos, and made moves to improve their batting order, including the addition of shortstop Jhonny Peralta and opening up room at first base for Matt Adams. The Red Sox are obviously still formidable, with rookie shortstop Xander Bogaerts helping to refresh the roster, but there have been enough questions about their pitching staff from year-to-year to like St. Louis ever-so-slightly better. The Tampa Bay Rays and Pittsburgh Pirates round out the Top Five. Among teams that struggled last season, the San Francisco Giants and Milwaukee Brewers are both ranked among the top dozen teams, after some interesting offseason additions and the New York Yankees open in a middle-of-the-pack 16th. The Yankees are an upwardly-mobile team if they can stay healthy and get the kind of pitching they would like from CC Sabathia, Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda (among others), but the roster is still old and the spectre of injuries hangs over them as Derek Jeter enters his final season. The Toronto Blue Jays, ranked third in the preseason last year, open much more modestly this year, ranked 25th, with massive questions about their pitching staff. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. http://www.atleticomadridpro.com/Kids-Vitolo-Jersey/ . His head snapped back from the impact and hit the floor. The All-Star power forward was all right afterward, a relief for the Minnesota Timberwolves. http://www.atleticomadridpro.com/Kids-Gelson-Martins-Jersey/ . -- Keith Aulie has joined the Tampa Bay Lightning. http://www.atleticomadridpro.com/Kids-Antonio-Adan-Jersey/. Pierre last November, only to watch St. Pierre leave the UFC octagon with his welterweight title belt and a split-decision victory. http://www.atleticomadridpro.com/Kids-Thomas-Partey-Jersey/ . 5 Trade Deadline is drawing closer and teams will be deciding on whether to buy or sell. http://www.atleticomadridpro.com/Kids-Lucas-Hernandez-Jersey/ . The (35-35-10) Jets have 80 points and are also playing .500 hockey on home ice this season with a 17-17-6 record. Michael Hutchinson will start his second straight game in goal.The Montreal Canadiens host a surging New York Islanders team that has been busy making statements lately tonight. Montreal (27-13-3) is in a 1-2-1 stretch after winning nine of 10 and is coming off Thursdays 4-1 loss at Ottawa. Max Pacioretty was again a bright spot, scoring a goal in a sixth straight game with seven total in that span. Hes bidding to become the first Canadien with goals in seven consecutive contests since Denis Savards nine-game run from Feb. 7-March 1, 1991. Pacioretty was held without a point in last months win over the Islanders, but has eight goals and three assists in his past 12 matchups. Montreal coach Michel Therrien will want to see a more complete effort from his team after seven forwards failed to even register a shot Thursday. We need contributions from more than one line, Therrien said. Right now, we only have contributions from one line and thats not good enough. After Pacioretty, Montreals most effective player lately has been goaltender Carey Price, who has a 1.67 goals-against average in his last 12 starts. However, Price did not face the Senators and could sit out again with an upper-body injury. Joey MacDonald was called up from Hamilton of the AHL on Friday, likely to back up Dustin Tokarski. Former Canadien Jaroslav Halak stopped 21 shots against the Penguins and tied Anaheims Frederik Andersen for second in the league with 24 wins. Chad Johnson, though, could get the start in the second half of this back-to-back. The Canadiens have won four of five against the Islanders and are 8-1-4 in the last 13 meetings at the Bell Centre. Just reaching the playoffs wouldve been a good way tto send out Nassau Coliseum in the Islanders last season there before moving to Brooklyn, but the team seems intent on doing much more.dddddddddddd With the midpoint of the season having just passed, the Islanders (30-13-1) find themselves in very unfamiliar territory. They lead the East by one point over Tampa Bay and their 30 wins are tied for the most in the NHL. Were in first place now, but that can change real quick, captain John Tavares said. All these wins are big wins, but youve got to go out there and continue that. After road victories over New Jersey and Columbus on back-to-back nights, the Islanders headed to Madison Square Garden on Tuesday to face a Rangers team that had won 13 of 14. All the Islanders did in that game was post a 3-0 shutout and register 44 shots against a club that hadnt allowed more than 38 all season. Their latest victory was just as impressive. Entering the third period down one against Pittsburgh on Friday, the Islanders scored four goals - three from Kyle Okposo after he tallied in the first - and rallied for a 6-3 victory. Tavares had three assists to help New York open a three-point lead over the Penguins atop the Metropolitan Division. To score four is pretty special, said Okposo. The atmosphere - it was awesome out there. I havent really heard it that loud since we played these guys in the (2013) playoffs. The Islanders outshot an opponent for the 15th consecutive contest and lowered their league-best total to 26.8 shots allowed per game. Theyll now try to improve to 6-1-0 on the second game of back-to-backs and avenge a 3-1 home loss to the Canadiens on Dec. 23. ' ' '