From their first few moments on the ice, young hockey players tend to adopt a pretty simple strategy: find the puck, get the puck, shoot the puck. But when is the right time to introduce youth players to a more nuanced approach to the game?

Depending on their age and skill level, players can be taught the basic points of breakouts, zone play and special teams. And learning these systems can potentially increase both their appreciation and aptitude for the game.

"There are a lot of differences in opinion here. The coaches in travel hockey want to use systems. Whereas coaches and parents in house hockey just want the kids to have fun," says Dick Bertrand, a former head coach at Cornell and Ferris State who most recently served as the director of hockey for the East Grand Rapids Amateur Hockey Association. "You need a less formal way of using systems. Put them all in position and just walk them through different breakouts. Practice it until they get it and then move on from there. Really, that's what the game is all about."

While youth house league teams might not necessarily have the time or experience needed to employ diagramed hockey systems, traveling teams at the peewee [12 years old and younger], bantam [14 and younger] and midget [16 and younger] are generally considered ready for a more strategic take on the game. The key, especially with younger players, is to keep things simple.

With the start of the 2012-13 NHL regular season days away, fantasy owners find themselves in the midst of the most exciting yet anxious time of year -- draft week.

Entering a normal fantasy draft, owners typically reflect on the past season, injury history surrounding their targeted players, and other factors such as potential line changes.

But considering the unique landscape entering a 48-game season, fantasy owners face more dilemmas than ever when deciding on players.

So as you consider draft strategies, mull trade offers and monitor the waiver wire, fantasy insider Pete Jensen is here to point you in the right direction with NHL.com's Fantasy Hockey Mailbag. The most compelling fan-submitted tweets will be answered all season long in an effort to provide you with the best chance to succeed in your league.

Exactly one week before Christmas 2011, the Minnesota Wild had the best record in the NHL at 20-8-5.

Fast forward to July 4, 2012, and the same club that finished the season at 35-36-11 was at the top of the NHL heap again -- for its twin signings of the most coveted free agents on the market, left wing Zach Parise and defenseman Ryan Suter.

Now they just need to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

After its sensational start, Minnesota collapsed and missed the postseason for a fourth straight season, finishing 14 points out of the eighth seed in posting its worst record since 2001-02. The team was saddled with 395 man-games lost to injury and used an NHL-high 47 players last season as key cogs Mikko Koivu, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Devin Setoguchi, Guillaume Latendresse and Greg Zanon spent time on the injured list.

The injuries were the biggest reason the Wild averaged a League-low 2.02 goals per game and they fueled an 11-28-7 finish that dropped them to 12th in the Western Conference.

"It was," general manager Chuck Fletcher said, "a tale of two seasons."

New coach. New phenom. Is it the dawning of a new era for the Edmonton Oilers?

General manager Steve Tambellini certainly hopes so after selecting Russian wing Nail Yakupov with the No. 1 pick in the 2012 NHL Draft on June 22 and hiring Ralph Krueger to be the 11th coach in franchise history five days later.

Along with the signing of defense prospect Justin Schultz as a free agent on July 1, those were the major offseason moves by the Oilers, who chose to stay the course with their rebuild rather than make a big trade or chase an established player on the open market.

Instead, Edmonton will look to a nucleus that includes No. 1 picks Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, up-and-comers Jordan Eberle and Devan Dubnyk, and veterans including Ryan Smyth to snap a skid of three straight last-place finishes in the Northwest Division and six consecutive seasons missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

With three weeks to play in the 2011-12 NHL season, the Colorado Avalanche were in the mix for the final Western Conference playoff spot.

Then, all of a sudden, they weren't.

Six losses in the final seven games meant the Avalanche missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for a second straight season and fourth time in the past six.

However, the early summer didn't translate into a lost season. The Avalanche continued to develop a very strong core of young players in 2011-12, finishing with 88 points and a 41-35-6 record, 20 points higher than they finished 2010-11.

Gabriel Landeskog, 20 years old, won the Calder Trophy, and linemate Ryan O'Reilly, 21, led the Avalanche in assists (37) and points (55). Colorado's most productive defenseman, Erik Johnson, and its starting goalie, Semyon Varlamov, are 24.

Cory Schneider has been biding his time since being the Vancouver Canucks' first-round pick in the 2004 NHL Draft.

It appears his wait is over.

Despite winning the Presidents' Trophy in back-to-back seasons and going to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in 2011, the Canucks are expected to have a major change at arguably the most important position on the ice this season. Schneider, 26, likely will take over for Roberto Luongo as the No. 1 goalie in Vancouver after signing a three-year, $12 million contract this offseason.

The fate of Luongo, who is 33 and has 10 years left on his contract, is up in the air.

"Every chance I got to play in the past, I handled it as a No. 1," Schneider said when he signed his contract in June. "Every game in the NHL is pressure. Just being in the NHL is pressure. I don’t think the contract or the dollars or your role on the team adds more pressure."

When the Calgary Flames last took to the ice in 2011-12, they defeated the Anaheim Ducks to complete an eighth consecutive regular season with 90-plus points.

And as in the prior two seasons, the Flames failed to reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Hanging around the bottom playoff seeds in the grueling Western Conference only to just miss out has become all too familiar for Calgary. The team certainly was reminded of what may have been by watching former general manager and coach Darryl Sutter take the Los Angeles Kings, who finished five points ahead of the Flames for eighth place in the West, all the way to the Stanley Cup.

As a result, the Flames' 2012-13 season will be greeted with few, but concrete, changes engineered by general manager Jay Feaster.

Coach Brent Sutter and the organization parted almost immediately following a third playoff-free campaign under his command. Feaster's most significant move came one month later with the hiring of former Stanley Cup-winning coach Bob Hartley away from Swiss League champion Zurich on May 31.

The wait for the 2012-13 season is nearly over. What questions do each NHL team need to answer to be successful, and do they have the resources to provide said responses? Well, let's take a division-by-division look at some of the key quandaries for each NHL franchise as the campaign beckons. Up next is the Northwest Division, where everyone has been chasing Vancouver in recent years, but some key additions for the other clubs could make this a race worth watching.

CALGARY FLAMES

Though Calgary Flames general manager Jay Feaster has been at the helm for a short period of time, he is not eager to break up the team and start a rebuild. After three playoff-free seasons, 2012-13 will be pivotal for the Flames organization. All of the team's key figures will feel the pressure to end the Stanley Cup Playoff drought and put off any thoughts of a roster makeover.

1. Can Bob Hartley get this group into the playoffs?

The former Avalanche bench boss has not coached in the NHL since the first six games of the 2007-08 season with the Atlanta Thrashers (he's the only coach to get that franchise to the playoffs). Hartley inherits a team that played a grinding style of hockey under Brent Sutter, and one not rife with the immediate talent to fuel the up-tempo style he wants.

The race for the Stanley Cup is going to be a sprint instead of the usual marathon, with teams preparing for a 48-game season instead of the typical 82 games. Since 1941-42, the only other time the season has been this short was 1994-95, when teams also played a 48-game schedule following the end of a work stoppage.

With the shorter schedule and teams playing entirely within their conference, the importance of each game figures to be magnified. But just how much difference will there be between the shorter schedule and the regular 82-game version?

With the 2012-13 NHL season ready to begin, teams will be scrambling on a nightly basis to earn points and clinch a spot in what is primed to be a wild 48-game race to the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

A condensed schedule means more games in a short amount of time, and teams will be relying on every player on their roster to contribute. NHL.com takes a closer look at the players who will need to be major factors for Northwest Division squads:

Roman Cervenka, Calgary Flames -- Deemed top-six ready by Flames general manager Jay Feaster, this 27-year-old forward arrives in North America under some pressure. With Olli Jokinen now with the Winnipeg Jets, it might be up to Cervenka, who signed this summer after spending his entire professional career overseas, to dish the puck to likely Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla.