Wes Goldstein

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.

The fans in the Bell Centre wanted to hear Montreal GM Bob Gainey announce he had traded for Vincent Lecavalier, but they settled for him making a French Canadian kid his first choice in the draft.

The building erupted when Louis Leblanc was taken by the Canadiens at No. 18. Leblanc, who played last season for Omaha in the USHL, was rated as a mid first-round pick, so his choice wasn't necessarily a surprise, but Gainey admitted the player's pedigree was a factor.

"It is important for us to have that element or that flavor on our team, and Louis fit perfectly into our wheelhouse because he was there when it was our turn to select," Gainey told TSN. "How he will develop compared to guys one or two places ahead or one or two places behind will come out in the next few years, but we're very happy that we got a good competitive player."

Still, Leblanc is at least two years away because he will spend at least that long playing at Harvard. In the meantime, the Canadiens will continue their pursuit of a big scoring center with the focus continuing to be on Lecavalier, as it has been in Montreal since the All Star game was held there in January.

The speculation intensified in the days leading up to the draft because the Lightning's principal owners Oren Koules and Len Barrie have been feuding over several issues, including keeping Lecavalier and his heavy contract. The Lightning is having money problems and Lecavalier will earn $85 over the next 11 years after his no-trade clause kicks in July. So Tampa Bay's best chance to move him is in the next few days.

Gainey said he has explored different options for centers -- San Jose's Patrick Marleau is thought to be availble as well . But Montreal's GM noted the timing may not be right for swinging a big deal, pointing to the Chris Pronger trade as being the only one involving a player made in the first round.

"Not everybody was keyed in on the draft this year," Gainey said alluding to the salary cap concerns most teams have. "Normally the draft is the catalyst to kick all this into motion, so it may just be that this will go on through the summer and we may not be able to do what we need until September or October."

Seems like the practice Montreal fans got from their extended booing of the American national anthem a few years back came in handy when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman opened the draft proceedings.

The locals were pretty lusty through the first couple of minutes of Bettman's remarks until the commissioner came up with a couple of applause lines about the city and its historic franchise. It didn't hurt the commish to have retired Canadiens heroes Henri Richard and Yvan Cournoyer on stage, so Bettman escaped unscathed.

But he did blow the name of a player involved in the first big trade of the night, calling Joffrey Lupul Jeffrey a few minutes. Philadelphia sent Lupul, with Luca Sbisa, two first round draft picks and a conditional third rounder to Anaheim for Chris Pronger.

Great deal for the Flyers, who get one of the premier defenseman of his generation without any signifcant disruption to their lineup. Pronger gives the Flyers a better shot at going deeper in next year's playoffs than they would have had with Jay Bouwmeester, whose negotiating rights Philadelphia had been trying to acquire from Florida for weeks.

That's not good news for the Panthers who may have overplayed their hand with the Flyers and lost a bidder for a player they are going to lose to free agency July 1. Looks like Bouwmeester, an Edmonton native, will playing somewhere closer to home in Western Canada.

And it looks like Scott Niedermayer is going to come back for one more season with Anaheim. Ducks GM Bob Murray said he didn't expect to have Niedermayer's decision about the future until he got to the draft table. But he wouldn't have dealt Pronger for less expensive players if his other star defenseman wasn't coming back.

Meanwhile, the first three picks went as expected, with Islanders GM Garth Snow making the fans back home in the Nassau Coliseum happy by taking John Tavares first overall pick. Next, Tampa Bay brought Victor Hedman on stage while feuding owners Oren Koules and Len Barrie kept their distance from each other and then Colorado grabbed Matt Duchene, so everyone's 1-2-3 went the way they were supposed.

During the Stanley Cup Finals, longtime Philadelphia hockey writer Tim Panaccio was working on a story about Fred Shero, the mastermind before those Broad Street Bullies teams that changed the face of hockey during their mid-70s hey day. Tim was telling me how surprised he was that people he interviewed didn't realize the late great coach was not in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

They just generally assumed he was.

I thought about that when Lou Lamoriello's name was announced as part of the 2009 nominations because the players who will be inducted with him in November -- Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Brian Leetch and Luc Robitaille -- were all obviously automatics in their first year of eligibility.

Yzerman certainly is the headliner of the group and arguably one of the quintessential franchise players of all time. He was a first round draft pick by Detroit and spent his entire 22-year career with the Red Wings, finishing as the NHL's eighth all time scorer despite modifying his game to focus on defense in his later years.  Now he's in Detroit's front office and the general manager of Team Canada's entry into next year's Olympics.

Of course everyone here has the right credentials -- Hull finished third all time in goals; Robitaille scored more than any left winger in history; and Leetch won two Norris Trophies and the playoff MVP award when the Rangers broke their 54-year drought with the 1994 Stanley Cup. This is a great class, one that rivals the 2007 group and a few others (think Gordie Howe, Jean Beliveau, Bernie Geoffrion in 1972; Bobby Hull, Ken Dryden, Stan Mikita in 1983; Guy Lafleur, Tony Esposito, Brad Park in 1988) for the title of best ever.

So it seemed anti-climactic when the new names were announced one by one on a HHOF conference call today. But when Yzerman let it slip during his thank you that the New Jersey Devils general manager was going into the Builders' Division, it felt like a double-take moment. Probably for Lamoriello too, since he was waiting to be announced by the Hall chairman who was hosting the call.

"It was a complete surprise," Lamoriello said moments later about his nomination, not Yzerman's faux-pas.

For me too. I just assumed Lamoriello was already in the Hall because guys like him usually are. In many ways the Hall is an old boys club run at the discretion and in secrecy by the induction committee, who tend to honor themselves in that Builders' section. And Lamoriello is one of the NHL's most influential and respected executives, so why wouldn't he be there?

Lamoriello took over a franchise Wayne Gretzky once called "Mickey Mouse" and created a program that has produced perennial contenders for nearly two decades, winning three Stanley Cups.  Before that, Lamoriello was athletic director and hockey coach at Providence College, and played an instrumental role in creating the NCAA powerhouse division, Hockey East.  And Lamoriello served as GM when Team USA beat Canada for the 1996 World Cup gold, a little appreciated title that was the biggest boost for the sport at the grass roots level in the the United States since the Miracle on Ice.

The World Cup win proved that the U.S. produced pro players on par with anyone else's and sparked an amateur development process that has made it common for the number of Americans drafted in recent first rounds to be in double digits. So it's actually fitting that when Lamoriello finally got his due, it was alongside Hull and Leetch, who were both key cogs in the 1996 World Cup team.

"For sure Brett and I were part of a group that were old enough to remember 1980 and to be spurred on that from a country standpoint," Leetch said.

And now they'll all be going into the Hall together on Nov. 9 in what is the best collection of American talent inducted at one time.

"Over my career, I've been fortunate to have been associated with great players and coaches, and this recognizes their contributions to my career," Lamoriello said. "Its humbling."

Just a surprise that it took so long.

Not to go all John Kerry on everyone, but I was right before I was wrong. See for yourself on our Finals series page. Before the Stanley Cup rematch started I picked the Penguins to win in seven games.

So I was right.

Of course I declared them dead -- I believe the terms I used were 'done, kaput, fini,' -- so I was wrong too. Not that I was the only one among the media types covering the series to think that, just the only one to actually write it.

Oh well.

I've taken a lot of heat from all those rabid Penguins fans since then and deservedly so. But I figured the Penguins had to win one of the first two games in Detroit when the Red Wings were banged up and still worn after a short turnaround from the Chicago series. My logic, if you can call it that now, was that since Pittsburgh had to win at least one game on the road, that was the best opportunity to do it. I couldn't see them beating Detroit four out of five after that, particularly since Pittsburgh played as well or better than the Red Wings in both of those games, yet could not find a way to win.

It seemed like a sign of inevitability for the Red Wings. And it made me think of something Mario Lemieux said after last year's finals, alluding to what is essentially hockey conventional wisdom about needing to learn how to lose before you can learn how to win. My original prediction was based on my belief that Pittsburgh had indeed learned what it would take to beat a veteran and savvy team like Detroit, but I had serious doubts after the first two games because it was the Red Wings who found a way to come out on top when they probably should not have.

The Penguins, of course, kept insisting they were a different team this year, and the confidence they exuded coming home obviously turned out to be not misplaced. Still I think it might have been a different final outcome had Jordan Staal not scored a shorthanded goal that turned Game 4 around and triggered a series tying win that sent Pittsburgh on its way.

Staal, along with other role players Tyler Kennedy and certainly Game 7 hero Maxime Talbot turned out to be the catalysts for the Penguins as the series got down to crunch time, really stepping it up after Detroit had essentially shut down Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. But what is really interesting to me about the series was how good the Penguins were defensively.  Pittsburgh's game took on a more aggressive tone after Dan Bylsma replaced Michel Therrien as coach, and it suited its talent much better. and led to a strong finish and even stronger playoff run. 

The hard forechecking forced the Red Wings into several uncharacteristic and critical turnovers during the Finals, but  more impressive was the way the Penguins stopped Detroit by keeping it to the outside and refusing to give up lanes. Pittsburgh absolutely shut down the Red Wings over the last two games, a tribute not only to its underrated group of defenseman and two dynamite clutch efforts by Marc-Andre Fleury, but also of the willingness of the forwards to come back and sacrifice their bodies to block shots.

The Penguins physicality also played a big role in all this, with their constant pounding wearing down the Red Wings over the course of the series until Detroit really was running on fumes at the end. Still, with the exception of the Penguins win in Game 3 adn Detroit's Game 5 blowout, this series was close enough and had enough momentum shifts to have gone either way.

Which means that clearly the Penguins did learn the hard lessons from last year, the ones I doubted they did after Game 2. They figured out what it takes to win and earned this Stanley Cup victory with their hard work, will and their guts, as much as with their talent. Now they get to reap the glory and I get to reap the scorn.

So enjoy it all Pittsburgh fans. I'm going to get some sleep.