CNNSI.com's David Vecsey tackles three issues from around the league:

1	Can Mario lead the league in scoring over the long haul?

Mario Lemieux AP With 23 points (six goals, 17 assists) in 10 games, Mario Lemieux leads the league in scoring and looks like the two-points-per-game Super Mario of old. But 72 games from now, will we be saying the same thing? That's a lot of plane rides from now, a lot of Scott Stevens hip checks. Even with refs keeping the grapplers off his back, even with strategic nights off, it'll be tough for a 37-year-old, ex-retiree, cancer survivor to keep up this kind of scoring pace. Then again, he's Mario. Did you see him bank that goal in off Trevor Kidd's pads from behind the net a couple weeks ago? "I'm feeling healthy, good condition," Lemieux said last week. "So far so good, I guess." The biggest concern has been playing on consecutive days, and Lemieux addressed that early this season. This past weekend, he had two assists in a 7-3 loss at Detroit on Friday and two assists in a 5-2 win at home over Buffalo on Saturday. How did he hold up after the back-to-back games? Pretty good, because two days later he had a goal and an assist in a 3-2 win over Washington. And two nights after that, it was a goal and two assists in a 4-1 win over Ottawa. Pittsburgh is extremely top heavy with its first line of Lemieux, Alexei Kovalev (8-7-15) and Aleksey Morozov (7-7-14) accounting for more points than the rest of the team combined. The Pens want to be real careful about standing around and watching Mario, as they did in that humilating 6-0 season-opening loss to Toronto. Of course, they haven't lost since. "I think everybody was embarrassed obviously," Lemieux said. "The home opener to lose 6-0, it was embarrassing for the franchise. That's something we talked about. We can't let that happen in our building. It started on the second game against the Rangers. We came out flying. We've been playing some great hockey since then. Guys are paying attention to their work, being professional. That's what we need to be successful."

2	How did Minnesota get so good?

Marian Gaborik Donald Miralle/Getty Images/NHLI Among the things I thought I'd never be -- the guest of honor, out of debt, appropriately dressed -- I most certainly never thought I'd be the only hockey writer in North America not trumpeting the Minnesota Wild. Take two days off around here and you miss the bandwagon, as I did upon discovering that SI's Daniel Habib and SLAM! Sports' Ken Fidlin are among the dozens of writers who also have taken public notice of the fact that Minnesota leads the NHL in points. Nobody's ready to dub them contenders just yet, but at the very least -- the very least -- they are playoff contenders. The problem with the Western Conference, however, is that it won't be built to scale until Steve Yzerman returns to the Red Wings, until Chris Pronger returns to the Blues, until Jason Allison returns to the Kings, until the Sharks get Brad Stuart signed. Even Chicago still thinks it's getting Theo Fleury back at some point. Teams will really find out how good they are -- or aren't -- down the stretch. Until then, let's at least hash out why Minnesota is enjoying this little bit of success at the start of its third season while Atlanta, Nashville and Columbus are still banking on their status as novelty acts. "We had a good speech last year at the end of the season saying we would raise the bar," said goalie Manny Fernandez. "I think every player kind of understood that. We came to camp ready to work. I don't think there's a key somewhere where you can say, 'This is what happened.' We came in, we gained a little confidence in exhibition games. From there, we haven't stopped working hard and trying our best." When they built this beast, they started at the head and tapped into the bloodlines of the storied Montreal Canadiens. General manager Doug Risebrough, coach Jacques Lemaire and assistant coach Mario Tremblay barely have enough fingers for all the rings they've won. And by hiring them, Minnesota said it was not joining the NHL just to play the part of lovable loser. This wasn't Phoenix or San Jose or Nashville. This is not an expansion fan base that needed Hockey 101. They went straight to a PhD. In their first two seasons, the Wild muddled their way to 68 and 73 points and two last-place finishes in the Northwest Division. And yet they were never accused of not pulling their weight in the NHL. They seldom stole anybody's headlines, but they never embarrassed themselves, either. Along the way, they have sold out every home game to date, playing for fans who are still rabid even after the ignominy of losing the North Stars to Dallas, the Moose to Manitoba and the Fighting Saints twice to history. In short, Minnesotans have learned to love more hockey teams than Anna Kournikova. The Wild, from the start, was a team they could love. Risebrough assembled a nice roster by scooping up players who were highly regarded but not quite in the bigger picture with other teams. Players like Fernandez and Filip Kuba, Darby Hendrickson and Antti Laaksonen had been on fans' radar screens in other places before hitting their stride as regulars in Minnesota. They've drafted well, as exemplified by first-ever pick Marian Gaborik, who leads the team in scoring and is emerging as a bona fide star. And Risebrough has ignored the $3 million free agents, instead snatching up handfuls of the $1 million players like Andrew Brunette and Cliff Ronning. All of that adds up to an estimated $22 million payroll, which is probably the lowest in the league. And suddenly, it sounds like we're talking about the Minnesota Twins again. Get Gary Bettman to start talking contraction, and the Wild are in.

3	How can the Bruins be unbeaten in eight games?

P.J. Stock AP Year after year, the Boston Bruins let their best players take the money and run ... away. The tight purse strings of Team President Harry Sinden and the hard-line negotiating of GM Mike O'Connell has driven away many popular and talented stars. Yet the Bruins survive. Last year, after dealing holdout Jason Allison to L.A., Boston posted the best record in the Eastern Conference. Then they let Bill Guerin walk. They declined to offer a contract to Byron Dafoe. And they're dangling holdout defenseman Kyle McLaren as trade bait. And they can't be beaten. To borrow a phrase from Jerry Seinfeld, what's the deal with thaaat? Bruins fans predicted grave things for this club, especially after a 5-1 whacking from Minnesota on opening night. But since then the Bruins are 6-0-2, the latest victory a 7-2 rout of Washington in which seven players scored goals. A total of 12 players scored at least one point, including P.J. Stock, whose two assists marked the first multipoint game of his six-year career. Every player who has played a game has a point, including 20 from the defensemen. The team is in the top 10 in goals for (33) and goals against (23), despite being in the bottom fourth in power play (27th at 12.5 percent) and penalty kill (25th at 79.6 percent). The goalie tandem of Steve Shields and John Grahame has been much more solid than people predicted. And when Grahame went down with an injury, rookie Tim Thomas showed up and won his first two starts. It's still a team game, this hockey. And if Lou Lamoriello can keep taking the Devils to the finals every couple of years without giving into the free spending, then apparently Sinden thinks he can do the same eventually.