(Michael Rozleja is a BPL Citizen Journalist.)

The new National Hockey League season is well and truly underway and the Pittsburgh Penguins have hit the road running with a successful road trip to western Canada in the first week of the regular season.

But the big news for me leading into the pre-season was the return of the Winnipeg Jets. The franchise first moved to Phoenix in 1996 but, in the off-season, returned to the competition at the expense of the Atlanta Thrashers who in their 12-year existence managed to reach the play-offs only once. With renewed enthusiasm and a striking new look, the sky's the limit for the newcomers.

The other big pre-season story was the return of Jaromir Jagr. The former Penguins captain (who also had stints with the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers) returns to the NFL as a Philadelphia Flyer - at the tender age of 39. Jagr's pre-season form has looked solid and his experience could well prove invaluable to the Flyers.

While Pittsburgh pursued Jagr's services, they won't be too concerned about not securing him because both Sidney Crosby (concussion from last season) and Evgeni Malkin (lower body injury) look ready to start the season in flying form.

With a 4-3 shootout win against Vancouver Canucks and a 5-3 victory over the Calgary Flames, Pittsburgh have started the season well. The Penguins third hit-out, against the Edmonton Oilers, resulted in a 1-2 shootout loss but nevertheless they took five out of a possible six points from the road trip.

The Penguins showed a lot of depth, with the rise of defenseman Kristopher LeTang from the blue line supporting the efforts of Jordan Staal, Pascal Dupuis, Tyler Kennedy and the other rising star for the Penguins in Matt Cooke. Added to that is Marc-Andre Fleury in goal and probably the best back-up goal tender in the league Brent Johnson. At this stage, the Penguins boast better depth than their rivals and look good things to capture another Stanley Cup.

Pittsburgh has just completed its fourth game in six days with a 4-2 victory over the Florida Panthers. Fleury made 32 saves out of the 34 shots on goal by the Panthers who have further problems in being 0 from 16 in power plays. Dupuis, Cooke, Park and Neal were the scorers for Pittsburgh and Joe Vitale with two assists.