Wes Goldstein

My picks:

Hart Trophy (MVP) – Anze Kopitar: Alex Ovechkin has won the last two of these and gets into the conversation again, but as good as he’s been, the East-leading Caps didn’t look much worse for wear during the six games he missed. Several goaltenders have been the real difference makers in their teams’ fortunes so far as well, but it’s hard to imagine where the Los Angeles Kings were it not for Kopitar’s breakout season. That makes LA’s league-leading scorer the choice here.

Vezina (Goalie) – Craig Anderson: Ryan Miller has stolen games for the Northeast-leading Buffalo Sabres, Miikka Kiprusoff has kept the Calgary Flames close to the top in their division and Ilya Bryzgalov is the biggest reason the Phoenix Coyotes have been so competitive. But did anyone expect the Colorado Avalanche to be anywhere but the race for the lottery pick? The Avs have been outshot in almost every game they’ve played, but Anderson has been in almost all, but he’s near the top in all key stat categories and the Avs are in first place. That’s Vezina worthy.

Norris (Defense) – Chris Pronger: The usual suspects like Nick Lidstrom and Zdeno Chara haven’t been particularly noteworthy so far, unlike another former winner Chris Pronger. He’s the choice again this time not only for his overall game, but for the impact he’s had on what is shaping up to be a very dangerous Flyers team. Chicago’s Duncan Keith, San Jose’s Dan Boyle and Kings teenager Drew Doughty have earned their props too, but Pronger is the big man on the blue line.

Calder (Rookie) – John Tavares: Tavares was put under a microscope at age 14 and little has changed since he was taken first overall by the Islanders last June. New York has studiously avoided labeling him a franchise savior, but its getting harder to avoid it since Tavares leads the team in scoring and the Islanders are in the playoff pack. In other words, he’s done everything he is supposed to. Freshmen Michael Del Zotto of the Rangers and Ryan O’Reilly of Colorado have made impacts as well, just not as critical as Tavares.

Adams (Coach) – Jacques Lemaire: Dave Tippett took over a messy situation in Phoenix just before the season started and has the Coyotes winning more often than not and thinking playoffs, which would have been outlandish only a few months ago. Rookie Joe Sacco had two losing seasons in the minor before taking over a Colorado team that was expected to finish 30th and the Avs are first in the Northwest. So kudos to them. But give this award to Lemaire, who has come back to New Jersey and adapted his strict defensive tendencies to the talent he now has. It has the Devils in first place.

Selke (Defensive forward): Mike Richards

Lady Byng (Sportsmanship): Zach Parise

Masterton (Perseverance): Dustin Penner.

Dean Lombardi is among a number of general managers who come from the Bill Torrey school of team building and he still tries to use what he learned from the architect of the New York Islanders dynasty.

Problem is the post-lockout era has made those lessons more difficult to employ, something Lombardi has come to realize in his current job with the Los Angeles Kings.

The Torrey model was about drafting and developing core talent, something Lombardi did effectively during seven seasons as GM in San Jose starting in the late 1990s. But while the approach hasn’t really changed, the dynamics have, and Lombardi said it makes it more difficult now to hang on to players the way New York and many other teams once did.
 
Lombardi said the biggest challenge comes from the money being spent on players in their second contract. It’s the residual effect of extravagant offers made by former Edmonton Oilers general manager Kevin Lowe in the summer of 2007 to restricted free agents Thomas Vanek and Dustin Penner, offers that set new benchmarks for players coming out of their entry-level contracts.

And the upshot has been even more guesswork for GMs than the ‘crapshoot’ known as the draft.
 
“You always thought that if you get two players in a draft, you’ve done a helluva job, but now under this system, you’ve also got to make another projection after the first contract,” Lombardi said. “You didn’t have to do that in the past because a kid would move up in stages.”

Lombardi said when budding young Stars Patrick Marleau, Brad Stuart and Evgeni Nabokov held out early in their careers with San Jose, it was to get their annual salaries increased to $2 million rather than $1.5. Now because of the Oilers offer sheets, players are jumping into the $4 million to $6 million range, and teams are afraid to let their players even get to the restricted free agency stage. So they are trying to get ahead of the curve by locking up players with longer and richer deals, often well before their entry level contracts expire.

Lombardi did that recently with goalie Jonathan Quick and defenseman Davis Drewiske, and most notably last year with Anze Kopitar.

“We’re all confronted with it,” Lombardi said.

But sometimes it does work out well. Kopitar, the team’s first-round draft pick in 2005, signed a seven-year deal, $46.7 million extension just as his third NHL season was beginning and then put up decent, team-best numbers. This season though, he is leading the NHL in scoring and the Kings in their charge toward a playoff spot.

“That was a huge contract but I had to do it with Kopitar,” Lombardi said. “Thank God he’s justifying it.”

 

 

Think of what Rich Peverley has done as working his way up from the mail room.

The Atlanta Thrashers forward is among a number of players since the lockout -- Tim Thomas, Craig Anderson, Matt Moulson and Rob Scuderi to name a few -- who have taken long and uncertain roads to the NHL, managing to find their places for the first time at what is considered an advanced age.

Perseverance, obviously, is a big part of it for these guys, but so are the economics of the NHL. And with just about every team salary cap-strapped because of big commitments to a few marquee Stars, most are far more willing to take a chance on bargain-priced players with some pro experience.

Peverley,  27, fell into that category when the Atlanta Thrashers took him off waivers from the Nashville Predators last January. Because he wasn’t deemed good enough to play major junior hockey as a teenager, Peverley was bypassed during his NHL draft year and didn't really interest the pros when he finished a good college career four years later.

“My first year was that lockout year and that took away a lot of spots in the AHL,” Peverley said. “Every team had five or six of their top young players play there for the season, and that didn’t leave much room for guys like me.”

Peverley did find steady work in with South Carolina in the ECHL, a Double-A level league that has traditionally been more of a feeder for the AHL than the NHL. And he scored 30 goals with the Stingrays as a rookie professional in 2006-07, earning an AHL contract from Nashville’s top farm team in Milwaukee for the following season as result.

“Playing in the ECHL was actually good because helped got used to the pro game and the lifestyle,” he said. “And there were a lot of good guys in the league that year who had been cut by the AHL but could have played up there if they had the opportunity.”

Peverley spent the next three seasons in Nashville’s organization, mostly at Milwaukee where he put up big numbers that he couldn’t come close to matching during the call-ups to the Predators he had during that time. So when the Predators needed to open a roster spot for veteran Steve Sullivan’s return last January, Peverley became a victim of the numbers and was waived, albeit with the idea of keeping a player who had shown some flashes in the organization for depth.

That plan didn't work though because  Atlanta coach John Anderson remembered his team being burned once for five points by Peverley in an AHL game, an offensive upside the Thrashers felt was worth taking a flyer on.

“Nashville had to get rid of someone and Rich was on a two-way (contract) so they hoped they could slide him through,” Anderson said. “It’s a different NHL now because you can only carry 23 guys so a lot of times it’s a money thing, not just a reflection on the player,

“I’ll bet if you ask Barry (Nashville coach Trotz) now, he’ll say they didn’t want to put him on waivers. But it was either than or send down a guy making a million, that’s the business. The good thing is a player Rich that will get another chance because you can’t hide guys like that in the minors any more.”

Inducting new members into the Hockey Hall of Fame isn’t always the simple process it was this year.

Giving the nod to the 2009 class of first-year eligible players Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Brian Leetch and Luc Robitaille was about as no-brainer as you can get, but the 18-member selection committee will have its work cut out next June when the choices will not be so clear cut. A maximum of four players can be inducted with 14 votes, but the committee isn’t always inclined to hit its limit.

At least they’ll have choices, although there will be no real automatic like this year from a list that includes first-timers like Joe Nieuwendyk, Eric Lindros, Dave Andreychuk and Alexander Mogilny, and a group that has been passed over several times already like
Doug Gilmour, Pavel Bure and Dino Ciccarelli.

All have cases that can be made on their behalf, but it says here that the two who should get the call next spring are Gilmour and Andreychuk with Nieuwendyk close behind. Gilmour addition to the list of all-time greats may be the most overdue since few players came through in the clutch the way he did.

Gilmour’s career point total of 1,414 with seven teams isn’t too shabby either and has him 17th on the all-time list, but it was the role he played in helping Calgary win its only Stanley Cup in 1989 and his singular efforts in getting Toronto to consecutive conference finals in the early 90s that underlined his greatness. In fact if you take a couple of guys named Gretzky and Lemieux out of the equation, Gilmour was arguably the center with the most impact in the league.

Andreychuk’s profile wasn’t quite as high even if spent a few of those seasons in Toronto alongside Gilmour and scored 53 goals in one of them. But Andreychuk was good enough to spend 23 seasons in the NHL, scoring 640 goals and 1,338 points and culminating the effort by lifting the Stanley Cup as the Tampa Bay Lightning captain in 2004.

Nieuwendyk, meanwhile, won Stanley Cups with the Calgary Flames, Dallas Stars (when he was the playoff MVP) and New Jersey Devils along with a rookie of the year award and scored 564 career goals even though he was slowed by injuries at several points in his career.

If there is going to be a real debate, it will be over Lindros, whose credentials have been debated since retired. Lindros, whose career was shortened by a series of concussions, does not have stats that rank in the top 100, but his defenders will justifiably tell you that during his peak, he might have been the most dominating player in the league.

Then again Lindros has alienated a lot of people throughout his career and that may very well play against him not only next June, but in years to come.

 

In the quiet confines of the Florida Panthers Bank Atlantic Center, away from the media glare he has dealt with for the last few years in Montreal, and these days in Ottawa, Alexei Kovalev has the relaxed air of someone who is comfortable with the big picture.

He’s 36 and in his 16th season in the NHL, a possible Hall of Fame player down the road who is about to hit the 400-goal mark for his career, and he has another year left on the free agent contract he signed with the Senators in July. Kovalev got $10 million in what might be the final deal of his career, yet despite his offensive talent, the dollar figure raised some eyebrows because there is a sense around the league that he floats a little too often.
 
Kovalev naturally takes umbrage at the charge, though he does so in an it-is-what-it-is kind of tone.

“I’ve never focused on the outside because the media have their job to do and we have ours,” Kovalev said. “Not everything is perfect. In life, people they hate you or like you, so whatever people think or do as long as it’s true or fair, that’s fine.”

Still, there is one thing that Kovalev can’t conceal his disdain for, the perception that he steps up his game when he is wearing the captain’s “C.” Kovalev has been a 40-goal scorer once in his career, a 30-goal man twice and he has had nine season of better than 20, never as captain. But after hitting a hot streak when he took over briefly from injured former Canadiens captain Saku Koivu and then wearing the letter for the East in last January’s All-Star game in Montreal when he was MVP, the impression wouldn’t got away.

 “People don’t realize that when somebody gets hurt, everybody has to step up,” Kovalev said. “But they don’t say put the ‘C' on this guy or that guy and maybe he’ll play better

“They don’t look at it from that perspective. They think that because Kovalev gets ‘ C,’ he’s playing better. They don’t think that when someone is out, everyone has to play harder. That’s what I did.”

 

The Detroit Red Wings are back to .500, so they get a temporary pass.

The Boston Bruins? Well, they’ve managed to be a little better than the mediocre mark and they’re missing a few key guys, so it would be reaching to call them the biggest disappointments of the season. Same thing goes for the Vancouver Canucks.

But the Anaheim Ducks? No slack there. The Ducks get first dibs on the bummer distinction after losing at home this week to the last winless club in the NHL. The 6-3 embarrassment administered by the Toronto Maple Leafs was the Ducks fourth loss in a row, all in their own building, and it guaranteed they will finish October at the bottom of the Pacific Division.

That’s not where this team is supposed to be right now. Not after an intimidating 10-2-1 finish made the Ducks the team no one wanted to face in last spring’s playoffs. Anaheim justified those fears too by upsetting the Presidents’ Trophy winning San Jose Sharks in the first round and taking the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings to a seventh game in the second. Now you can’t recognize them.

Which is surprising since there was reason for a team that still had several important pieces from the 2007 Stanley Cup winning roster to be excited heading into the season. Even with the losses of Chris Pronger and Francois Beauchemin from the blue line.

Anaheim’s back end had Scott Niedermayer returning after all, younger defensemen James Wiesniewski and Ryan Whitney were emerging, and the goaltending was solid too with playoff star Jonas Hiller and Conn Smythe winner Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Meanwhile the offense looked capable of being diversifying beyond first liners Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan with the additions of Joffrey Lupul and Saku Koivu up front.

Instead, the Ducks find themselves in an early hole, one that could easily and quickly get deeper. Anaheim can find some comfort by reminiscing about a similar start last season when it was essentially a playoff bubble team until everything clicked late. But turning the same trick might not be possible this time around with a difficult and compressed schedule ahead to accommodate the Olympics.

“It’s a disturbing thing,” said GM Bob Murray told the Los Angeles Times. “We got ourselves in this position but I think this group has to realize we can’t wait as long because those other teams have improved.”

To the point where several of them are moving forward dramatically while the Ducks look like they are heading backward, especially after allowing 11 power plays in their ugly last loss. Those chances turned into five goals for Toronto and at the same time, exposed what may be Anaheim’s biggest problem going forward.

They can’t just beat up teams any more.

And they’re still trying to.

The Ducks won their Stanley Cup by muscling teams, not only in fights but with hits and bumps and shoves all over the ice. Anaheim didn’t mind playing close or beyond the edge either, because the Ducks were great penalty killers, had the goaltending and didn’t need to score a lot to win games.

But the makeup here is different now, even if the Ducks are trying to get time to stand still. The organizational mindset still revolves around a rough edge type of game, yet Anaheim now has the league’s second-worst penalty kill, which would seem to suggest the Ducks might be better served exercising some self control, particularly when it comes to retaliation penalties. The Ducks have taken 55 penalties, the third highest total in the league, and drawn 34, the third lowest.

“It hasn’t been an issue up until tonight,” coach Randy Carlyle said after the Toronto loss. “And the frustration level goes with the lack of success we’ve been having. When you start to see players like (Saku) Koivu or Scott Niedermayer, those players in reaction mode, then you start to question if we’re putting ourselves in a can’t-win situation as our attitude that frustration is getting the better part of us.

“And I’d have to say yes some of those circumstances.”

That’s not a good thing for the Ducks. Aside from being unable to kill penalties very well these days, Anaheim isn’t scoring very much, ranking 24th in goals per game. Perry, Lupul and veteran Teemu Selanne have been producing, but Getzlaf is still rounding into form after off-season hernia surgery while Ryan and Koivu have struggled. And neither Hiller nor Giguere have been particularly distinguished to this point, which doesn’t bode well for a team that might be counting on putting it all together at crunch time.

"I hope not, because it's a long climb," Getzlaf said. "That was a tough battle last year and we don't have that mentality this year, that's for sure."

 

Through the early stages of this season, the Boston Bruins have been doing their best to make the Northeast a much tighter division than it was a year ago. Now with another key player added to the injured list, they may not have to try so hard.

 

Funny how quickly things change for a team isn’t it? Boston had just about everything go right in 2008-09 when it ran away with the Northeast and finished first overall in the conference. But after a disconcerting five-game home stand to start this season, and the important personnel losses, the Bruins find themselves in danger of undermining their season before it gets into full swing.

 

The general assumption around the league was that with the Vezina winner Tim Thomas in goal, the Norris winner Zdeno Chara on defense and the coach of year Claude Julien directing things from behind the bench, Boston was deep enough with talent and would use the motivation of an early playoff exit to be even better this season. Instead, GM Peter Chiarelli and Julien have been complaining about the team’s intensity level since day one, and quite loudly for that matter.

Now with Marc Savard joining Milan Lucic on the sidelines for at least the next month, the Bruins find themselves in the position of having stay above water until they can plug the leaks.

 

That would have been easier last season when the Bruins had the league’s best defense and second best offense, and their only real Northeast competition came from a Montreal team that effectively imploded around the All-Star break and ended up 23 points behind Boston. The Canadiens have struggled even more in the early going of this season and the Toronto Maple Leafs have already proven they won’t be a factor in the division, but the Ottawa Senators are better in key places and currently hold first place, while the Buffalo Sabres are always competitive and have had one of the NHL’s best starts.

 

The real problem for the Bruins, other than the slow break from the gate by several key players, is that in a schedule tightened up severely to accommodate the Winter Olympics break, they are vulnerable to sacrificing key standings points they may not be able to make up later. The visible trend over the last several seasons has been for teams to move in packs in the standings after Thanksgiving, making it difficult if not impossible to get out of holes dug early.

 

That sets up a serious challenge for the Bruins, who have been outscored and generally outplayed in winning only three of their first seven games. Savard though, an unrestricted free agent after the season was an anomaly in that sense, with a strong individual start. He was leading the team in scoring when the Bruins disclosed a broken foot would sideline him for four to six weeks like Lucic, who broke his finger last week in Dallas, which means Boston has two thirds of the top line that triggered much of its success last season sitting on the shelf.

 

The other member of course was Phil Kessel, Boston’s leading goal scorer who as a restricted free agent effectively forced a trade to Toronto last month. Heading into the season there was some concern about how the Bruins would cope with the offense of the speedy right winger, but now with the forced trade of free agent Phil Kessel, their leading goal scorer last season, but the bigger issue at the moment may be staying in the conference playoff race until the troops return.

 

Chiarelli started to shake things up over the weekend by trading away well-liked Chuck Kobasew, a move that was done in part to send a message and to loosen up some cap space. And in the aftermath of the injuries, the Bruins GM picked up Daniel Paille, a left wing who was a healthy scratch four times already this season for Buffalo, and recalled journeyman Trent Whitfield from the minors.

 

In other words, Chiarelli is bailing water as fast he can. But in the meantime, the Bruins season seems to be unraveling as fast as it came together a year ago.

The Philadelphia Flyers showed no signs of rust from their few days away in Florida. In fact the Flyers got off to a brisk start for a team that hadn’t played in nearly a week but managed to work in some practice time around deep sea fishing and sailing expeditions.

Philadelphia thoroughly dominated the first period against the lowly Panthers, even if it managed to finish with only a 1-0 lead. But the Flyers lost defenseman Ryan Parent early in that period, and being forced to go with just five blue liners the rest of the way took its toll in what became a 4-2 loss.

“It’s tough when you go down to five that early, especially in a hot climate like it was out there with bad ice,” said the Flyers top defenseman Chris Pronger. “It’s no different than the playoffs when the bench gets shorter and the ice gets worse and worse but it’s taxing.”

It was on Pronger, who played a little more than 30 minutes, and was victimized on a shorthanded goal by Radek Dvorak in the third period that proved to be the winner. Pronger was unable to control a bouncing puck at the point, and then didn’t have enough gas to catch up to Dvorak who had a step on him.

 “I tried to slow him up a bit and hoping (Simon) Gagne could get over,” Pronger said. “But he made a good play.”

Still the Flyers had enough time to get the equalizer, but they had really stopped generating any sustained pressure midway through the second period. Even so, Philadelphia nearly took a 2-1 lead into the dressing room, but Nathan Horton scored with 54 seconds left to create another tie. And much like the power play goal Stephen Weiss earlier in the period, Horton’s marker was the result of a great screen Florida created in front of Flyers goalie Ray Emery.

“That’s the secret,” said Flyers coach John Stevens. “Tonight special teams made the difference. We don’t score on the power play, they do and they get a short-hander, and that’s the difference.”

So was the motivation for a Panthers team that came in without a win in regulation.

“We knew they were desperate and looking at this as a statement game,” Pronger said. “We started off well, but they started coming at us in waves in second period and we didn’t answer the bell.”

You could have had gotten good odds betting the San Jose Sharks to have losses to the Colorado Avalanche and Los Angeles Kings along with a blowout win over the Anaheim Ducks after three games.

The Sharks have a lot of people thinking they can finally win the Stanley Cup this season, opinions that were reinforced when they added one of the game’s best goal scorers as training camp began. Dany Heatley’s arrival raised the level of firepower for a lineup that was already big, balanced and skilled, just been unable to fulfill its vast potential in recent years thanks to a disconcerting habit of failing to show up when it counts in the playoffs.

And so far it looks like the Sharks are getting ahead of themselves.

San Jose might have been given a mulligan for its opening game stinker on Joe Sakic night in Colorado because the Sharks did bounce back impressively against the Ducks. But San Jose looked like anything but an elite team against the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday as it again played down to the level of an opponent it should handle with relative ease

The real problem here has been some negative common denominators in both early-season Sharks losses – sloppy defensive play, turnovers and the like – but the most glaring issue has been the struggles of Evgeni Nabokov in goal. Nabokov, a lifer in San Jose since winning the rookie of the year award there in 2001 is in the last year of a contract that pays him an average of $5.3 million a season, and is arguably the player most under the gun in San  Jose. Which is why his response to that pressure has not been very encouraging.

Like many of his teammates, Nabokov looked late for the opener against the Avs, allowing five goals on 14 shots, although he rebounded  against the Ducks when he wasn’t tested much. But in what you might call his personal rubber match of the week,  Nabokov looked awful, getting caught out of position on a couple of goals, allowing a bad rebound on another and misjudging a floater by Anze Kopitar that that resulted in coach Todd McLellan yanking him from the game.

Nabokov’s replacement Thomas Greiss didn’t exactly distinguish himself on the Kings winning goal, prompting McLellan to state the obvious with his “we won’t win with that kind of goaltending,” comment.

If there is a bright side for San Jose, it is in at least being in good company because a number of other first string goalies around the league looking worse than even their weak numbers would suggest in the early going.

Take Martin Brodeur in New Jersey for example. He was victimized by softies in each of his outings so far, raising the kind of questions about his game that have rarely been asked before. Meanwhile Roberto Luongo’s apologists in Vancouver are insisting that he always starts slow, while in Chicago, Cristobal Huet’s slow hand on his glove side is making rookie Antti Niemi  a viable alternative.

Similarly in Washington, the bloom already seems off the rose of Semyon Varlamov, the 21-year-old who had a breakout playoff run for the Caps last spring, while the net problems of Detroit and Dallas have kept them out of the win column so far. And there’s veteran Nikolai Khabibulin, who had an inauspicious debut for the Edmonton Oilers by fanning on a clearing attempt in the final minute that led to Calgary’s winning goal.

“It’s October and for goalies, that’s when life is kind of like what it for pitchers at the beginning of the season,” says broadcaster and former goalie Darren Pang. “You see a lot of batters around .400 then and in hockey, the shooters have been practicing firing pucks, chomping at the bit and they’re ready to go right away.”

 

Pang suggested that some of the goalie trouble early in the season comes from them trying to overcompensate for struggles in their team’s overall game. Traffic tends to move more east to west at this time of season than later, and with many teams still trying to figure out their defensive systems, that has resulted in more quality scoring chances.

 

“Coaches may be telling players to back check and block shots and do all things they’d do in a playoff stretch and the players might think they’re doing it,” Pang said, “but their not giving it that 100 percent commitment and that’s the fine line between a puck getting through.”

 

Not that Pang thinks the big names are at their best mind you.

“Luongo, Brodeur, some of those guys, their focus has been off and they’re not really playing as well as they can,” he said. “But one thing I’ve learned about great athletes is that when you question them, they come back and shove it down your throat.”

 

Things that make you go hmmm. The schedule makers for example – wonder if they made a conscious effort to start the season with some of the league’s most compelling current rivalries.

It felt that way with the Boston Bruins and the Washington Capitals kicking things off. They were two of the East’s top three seeds last season and probably will be again and each has reason to believe they can win the Stanley Cup. Possibly by going through the other.

The Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames are on their own level in the Northwest Division and might well have to go through each other to come out of the West. That’s more likely than the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs being better than playoff bubble teams. But Montreal and Toronto are Original Six originals so they were a good fit for opening night.

And actually Colorado hosting San Jose wasn’t bad either, mostly because the Avs retired Joe Sakic’s number 19. The rebuilding Avs are in store for an awful season so this game is quietly likely to be the high point for Colorado. Especially since the Avs got into the spirit of things by spanking one of the league’s best teams 5-2. 

The Sharks didn’t do anything to answer questions about character by sleep walking through the proceedings, but in terms of opening night statements, those came from the Caps and the Flames.

Washington had that shot-out-of-the-cannon look and embarrassed a very good Bruins  team 4-1 in their own building. Watching this, you’d get the feeling that the Caps, and obviously Alexander Ovechkin, couldn’t wait to get started, probably because they spent the summer seething at the Penguins celebrating the Stanley Cup. Washington almost derailed Pittsburgh in a seven-game second round series. And now getting even by winning for themselves seems personal for them.

Ovechkin was a bull that couldn’t be moved off the puck and the Caps were swarming all over the Bruins. Even in their own end. Washington’s offense is always what you notice, but the Caps really did a good job of keeping Boston from getting good shots through, at least after Jose Theodore kept the team alive with 10 first-period saves.

Meanwhile, Canadiens goalie Carey Price did more than keep his team alive, he stole the game. Montreal was outshot 46-27 and beaten up a little too by the bigger, tougher new look Maple Leafs, but Price let the Canadiens hang around long enough to win 4-3 in the dying seconds of overtime. 

Leafs newcomer Mike Komisarek wasn’t serving time on that one, but he took 13 minutes in penalties against his old team and was in the box for two of Montreal’s goals. And that should be good for a few snickers in La Belle Province, but only until everyone realizes Price might have to get used to seeing 40 plus shots a night under new coach Jacques Martin. The Florida Panthers allowed that more than any one when Martin was running his system there, so this isn’t new.

Neither is the electricity in games whenever the Canucks and Flames meet. Vancouver won the division by two points last season, but Calgary made some big changes since then and looked very crisp winning their home opener 5-3. The Flames seemed to be on the ice 20 minutes before the Canucks, jumping off to a 3-0 lead in the first period and then holding on as the Canucks, undefeated in pre-season, fought back to make it a game.

Roberto Luongo did get better in goal for Vancouver as the game went on, while Miikka Kiprusoff was very big in Calgary’s net, but this game might be remembered as the coming out party for Mark Giordano. He’s a journeyman depth type of defenseman who was shut down last season by shoulder surgery, but he was extremely effective quarterbacking the power play that connected twice on three chances. That’s a big deal for the Flames, who were 21st with the man advantage last season.

Finally, while I realize the NHL is busy with the mess in Phoenix, trying to keep the team in a place where there aren’t that many fans, it really should find a way to mediate a settlement between the Versus network and Direct TV.  A significant portion of subscribers get the Center Ice package on Direct TV, which dropped Versus on Aug. 31 because of a fee dispute. But Versus is the NHL national cable network with exclusive rights to many games, and the league just can’t have them blacked to so many fans.

There’s enough about its broadcast set ups for the NHL to be embarrassed about.

 

This is about fun as much as it is about the Games. But mostly this three-day gathering of NHL players who could be on the Team USA roster at the Vancouver Olympics is about everyone getting to know each other better because there won't be much time to do that before the tournament actually starts.

The Americans will play their first Olympic tournament game Feb. 16 at noon, less than two full days after the NHL schedule is put on hold. In other words, creating chemistry among players plying their trade in various league precincts won't be easy, so USA Hockey officials are hoping the connecting opportunities taking place in the Chicago area over the next few days will help the process along.

And in the meantime, logistical issues such as registering passports and enrolling in the Olympic anti-doping program can be taken care of as well.

"It seems a little mundane, but getting all that done and out of the way in this camp is huge for us," said Jim Johansson, USA Hockey's assistant director of hockey operations.

Oh yes, there is a little ice time involved as well for the 34 players here in suburban Woodridge, where 1250 fans, including several dozen who camped out overnight for the first-come, first-served free tickets, jammed the Seven Bridges Ice Arena to see them put through some paces by head coach Ron Wilson.

It obviously wasn't very intense, but that was the plan since this wasn't designed to be a try out camp and at least a third of the players here won't be on the final 23-man roster.

"It has to be pretty basic, so we'll probably do more off the ice than on," assistant GM David Poile said. "Hopefully the players will get to know each other and to bond through dinners and things like that. This is as much social as anything."

Dale Tallon has gotten pretty good at making a big free agent splash, so his signing of Marian Hossa to a mega deal probably shouldn't come as a surprise.

The Chicago Blackhawks are an organization that made remarkable strides last season and reconnected with its fan base, and keeping the momentum going through the ticket selling time in the summer is important to it. Naturally landing the biggest name out there helps, but it doesn't always work. Tallon is still trying to extricate himself lately from the big contracts he gave Cristobal Huet and Brian Campbell just last summer, and now he's decided to lock into another expensive player who has yet to prove he's a real difference maker. 

Neither Huet or Campbell really justified their salaries, and this latest signing has the potential to be a similar handcuff for Tallon because Hossa has an annual cap hit of $5.23 million for the next 12 years and the Chicago GM will soon have to re-sign young core Stars Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith.

Hossa may be an elite forward, but he moved to Detroit las season because he thought he could win a Stanley Cup with the Red Wings and didn't because he pulled a Houdini in the playoffs. The disappearing act could have been overlooked if it was an anomoly, but those kinds of post-season efforts have been the biggest knock on Hossa's career, first in Ottawa and then in Atlanta.

Hossa did have a great 2008 playoffs as what turned out to be a rental for Pittsburgh, but he reverted to form this spring for the Red Wings, scoring only six goals -- a pair in three different games -- and none in the seven-game final against the Penguins. Still Detroit made an offer to keep him before the market opened, but the Red Wings needed the cap hit to average $4 million and Hossa turned to Chicago where he'll carry more expectations than he did before.

But when it comes to money, and it has to now for Hossa, he did get an incredible deal given the times. And he's fortunate because he left around $80 million on the table last summer to pursue his Cup dreams with a one-year, $7.4 million contract from Detroit. Now the salary cap is trending downward, yet Hossa still managed to get a franchise type contract, and one that is heavily front-loaded so his take-home pay actually goes up for the next few years.

That should give Hossa time to try for a Stanley Cup. The Blackhawks aren't that far off, a really talented team that in many ways resembles the Penguins a couple of years ago. Hossa will have to be a big piece of the puzzle, but first he'll have to prove he's a better fit in the Chicago room than Martin Havlat was.

Havlat led the Blackhawks in scoring and more important stayed healthy last season. He was a key part of Chicago's surprising run to the Western Finals and liked by teammates. Havlat earned $6 million last season and wanted to come back on a shorter term too. But the Blackhawks decided to put their money on Hossa.

So for Tallon's sake, Hossa has to make a much bigger impact than the free agents he brought in last year.

Canucks GM Mike Gillis went all the way to Sweden this week and ended up convincing the Sedin twins to stay right where they were.

In Vancouver that is.

Gillis got both Daniel and Henrik to re-up with the Canucks for five-year terms, with each foregoing unrestricted free agency for $6.1 million per season. He signed them only about an hour before the market opened, and for a term and a dollar value that was far less than what the Sedins had been rumored to be seeking in an open bidding process. In the end, the brothers stayed with the only NHL team they have known, a sign that the market could be as tight as many general managers have suggested.

"We spent the last 24 hours going over all the options," Sedin agent J.P. Barry told Vancouver's CKNW radio station. "They're happy that this deal got to the range that it was fair."

No doubt.

The Sedins were drafted together -- second and third overall in 1999 by the Canucks -- so there is a comfort level for them with the team. And vice versa. Daniel and Henrik, who will be 29 when the season begins, are Vancouver's top skaters, two-thirds of the top line and point-a-game producers. What they ended up with is likely to be as much, if not more than anyone else would have offered.

"The more they analyzed things, the more they truly wanted to remain in Vancouver," Barry said.

But had they left, the Sedins would have given Gillis plenty of cap space to vie for some of the other high scoring free agents on the market, so in effect the Canucks GM was negotiating from a position of strength. Still Gillis went the extra mile -- many of them actually -- to get a deal done.

"They are players we want to build around," Gillis said.

With this kind of deal, he can.

As they say in Hollywood, get me re-write.

My column yesterday talked about the Anaheim Ducks being the big winners at the draft for the windfall of talent they took away, with the Philadelphia Flyers getting an honorable mention for picking up Chris Pronger in a trade between the teams. But now that the Calgary Flames have actually signed Jay Bouwmeester, they look like they did as well or better than anyone.

Bouwmeester was going to be one of the top prizes of the upcoming free agent market, certainly the best defenseman available, a 25-year-old with wheels, offense and six years NHL experience already to boot. He was fed up from spending his entire career with the sad sack Florida Panthers, and made it clear he wanted to play closer to his home town of Edmonton.

But apparently Calgary was on his list of favored destinations, so the Flames would have had a pretty good chance to big alongside Edmonton had Bouwmeester gotten to the open market Wednesday. Instead, Calgary worked a deal that cost it very little -- a third-round draft pick and the rights to pending free agent Jordan Leopold -- to get a shot at signing Bouwmeester ahead of anyone. And the Flames made it pay off with a five-year deal worth around $33 million.

There are some serious cap issues for the Flames to sort through because of this deal, but they have some time. More important, they are adding an All-Star caliber defenseman to a blue line that has a couple of those types already in Dion Phaneuf and Robyn Regehr, all in front of Miikka Kiprusoff in goal. With the way new coach Brent Sutter's teams play defensively, you have to think that puts Calgary seriously into the Western Conference mix next season.

Philadelphia wanted Bouwmeester badly as well, but the Flyers weren't willing to pony up Joffrey Lupul and more. That was Florida's asking price at the trade deadline and for his negotiating rights now. So the Flyers turned to Anaheim and instead got a Norris Trophy-winning future Hall of Famer in Pronger, who still has it and will make Philadelphia an extremely viable contender in the East next season.

Thing is Pronger is only signed for one more year and he cost Philadelphia Lupul and Luca Sbisa, two young players both drafted in first rounds, and two more first round picks. And Pronger will be 35 when the season starts, while Bouwmeester is maturing into a franchise type defenseman and will just be entering his prime.

Those kind of players don't come around too often.

There's no guarantee the Calgary Flames will sign pending free agent Jay Bouwmeester, but the extra few days they'll get to try are worth the cost of trading for his exclusive negotiating rights.

Calgary gave up a third round pick and expendable pending free agent Jordan Leopold, which really isn't much for a shot at getting a high end defenseman before he hits the open market. Bouwmeester has been with the Florida Panthers since he entered the league at age 18 and is just now entering his prime. And he has made it clear since last summer than he has had enough of Florida.

The Panthers gambled by not moving him at the trade deadline because they were in the playoff race and figured getting there might help convince Bouwmeester to change his mind about Florida. But the defenseman tanked down the stretch and as did the Panthers, so Florida was put in a position of trying to salvage something at the last minute for their one time first round pick.

Calgary stepped up even as Bouwmeester's agent continued to insist his client will wait to test the market before making a final decision. But if the Flames can find a way to add the 25-year-old Edmonton native to a blue line that already has Dion Phaneuf and Robyn Regehr, they'll end up with one of the draft's top coups.

They already have the top headline from the second day of an event that generally had little to excite anyone but scouts and familly members after the New York Islanders drafted John Tavares first overall and Anaheim traded Chris Pronger to Philadelphia.

This was considered a deep draft for teams looking to restock their systems and it turned out to be a good one for the U.S. National Development program, which has six players taken in the second round and 10 overall among the 55 American born players drafted over the seven rounds. And it was a proud time for former NHL players Ray Ferraro, Len Barrie and Ray Bourque, who all had sons chosen. But the frenzied trade activity that was widely anticipated never materialized, so the Flames move to get a player they may not sign at least created some buzz.

The real challenge for Calgary will be in fitting Bouwmeester under the $56.8 million salary cap that has been set for next season. Calgary already has more than $47 million in salaries committed, with nearly $38 million of that going to seven players -- Jarome Iginla, Phaneuf, Regehr, Miikka Kiprusoff, Olli Jokinen, Cory Sarich and Daymond Langkow.

Bouwmeester is probably worth around $6 million per season on the open market, which means the Flames will have to shed salary. Otherwise they will potentially face the same kind of problems they had last season when Calgary played some games undermanned because they couldn't fit 18 position players under the cap on a given night. Flames GM Darryl Sutter took a worthwhile gamble trading for Bouwmeester, but now he really has his work cut out for him.