The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.

October 12, 2009

The Hockey News - Oct-12-09

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-05118/9295555-1-eng-US/f0049-052.jpg" title="f0049-05" width="682" height="653"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE KLUCKHOHN/MINNESOTA WILD)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-04158/9295562-1-eng-US/f0049-042.jpg" title="f0049-04" width="98" height="98"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>E</span>arly returns on new third jerseys for the 2009-10 NHL season are promising and it seems subtlety is back in vogue. Minnesota, which usually does well in the uniform department, will once again look strong, this time in a high school-inspired jersey in green and wheat (not white, mind you) with a hint of red. The script logo on the front is cool and the colors work &ndash; now all the Wild needs is to deliver that new offense they promised on the ice.</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p><b>MINNESOTA WILD</b></p><p>2009-10<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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IN THIS ISSUE

JERSEY Hound

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RISTO PAKARINEN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03405/9295354-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="504" height="657"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(STUART FRANKLIN/BONGARTS/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-04306/9295347-1-eng-US/f0043-042.jpg" title="f0043-04" width="264" height="184"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>E</span>xactly one year ago, the European hockey market was abuzz with the Champions League and the inaugural Victoria Cup, a challenge between a European champion and an NHL team.</p><p>Swedish clubs were rumored to be breaking away from the Elitserien to join the best Finnish, Danish and Norwegian teams. The KHL was also rumored to be expanding to the Czech Republic, Italy or Switzerland.</p><p>Fast-forward a year later. The second Victoria Cup, featuring the 2009 Champions League-winning <b>Zurich Lions</b> and the Chicago Blackhawks, was set for late September.</p><p>But that&rsquo;s it for good news.</p><p>Champions League investors defaulted on payments, despite a three-year agreement with the IIHF. So, the CHL is now on &ldquo;hiatus.&rdquo; The situation enraged teams that had qualified and they have threatened to sue the IIHF for damages. According to Swiss sources, the clubs will want nearly $300,000 each, about $150,000 less than the 2008 participation fee they received.</p><p>Peter Gudmundson, GM of Hockey Europe, the top European leagues&rsquo; consortium, didn&rsquo;t confirm the amount, but said they&rsquo;re &ldquo;having a dialogue&rdquo; with the IIHF, hinting at a settlement.</p><p>The work towards a European league continues. Hakan Loob heads a development company that&rsquo;s doing a feasibility study on the Swedish league&rsquo;s future. It&rsquo;s also expected to lay the framework for pan-European leagues.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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PROSPECTS UNLIMITED

CHAMPS NO LONGER

<div class="byline">&#x2013; MIKE HEIKA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-06320/9294271-1-eng-US/f0030-062.jpg" title="f0030-06" width="318" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> The Stars have a tough decision to make at some point this season: Is Marty Turco the goalie of the future?</p><p>Turco, 34, can become an unrestricted free agent next July. At his current salary cap hit of $5.7 million, he&rsquo;s the second-highest paid player on the team and the eighth-highest paid goalie in the league.</p><p>But the Stars aren&rsquo;t sure he&rsquo;s their guy after last season&rsquo;s 2.81 goals-against average and .898 save percentage.</p><p>So Dallas will wait &ndash; and Turco will do everything he can to convince the team he should stick around. The Stars have no real answer for a replacement right now, but they might rather face that uncertainty than another year of Turco&hellip;if he underperforms.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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IN EVERY ISSUE

Dallas

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-031014/9293469-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="795" height="704"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>T&rsquo;S OFFICIAL:</b> Hockey players have pucks of steel. That fact was confirmed by former world heavyweight champion <b>Joe Frazier</b> when he visited Flyers goalie <b>Ray Emery</b>, whose helmet features an image of the legendary boxer. Frazier, a Philadelphia resident, had this to say when comparing his sport to hockey: &ldquo;Boxing is not close to hockey. It is a tough, tough game. In boxing, it&rsquo;s 1-on-1. In hockey, you can get hit by two or three guys at the same time. Man, that&rsquo;s rough.&rdquo;</p><p><b>HANG</b>&nbsp;<b>IN THERE Mathieu Schneider</b>. With Patrice Brisebois retiring after 18 NHL seasons, Schneider, 40, is the last player in the league to win a Stanley Cup while wearing a Montreal Canadiens jersey (with the &rsquo;93 Habs). Then again, maybe Schneider&rsquo;s Canucks will call up 42-year-old Mike Keane from Manitoba, where he&rsquo;s playing his fifth season with the AHL&rsquo;s Moose. Or perhaps we haven&rsquo;t heard the last of Chris Chelios just yet&hellip;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-04706/9293462-1-eng-US/f0010-042.jpg" title="f0010-04" width="264" height="379"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(EMERY: NORMAN Y. LONO/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>THE IMAGE</b> is burned in hockey fans&rsquo; brains &ndash; and the voice isn&rsquo;t far behind, either. Fred Cusick, the man who called Bobby Orr&rsquo;s famous flying-through-the-air Cup winner in 1970, succumbed to cancer on Sept. 15 at the age of 90. A Boston native and former Northeastern student, Cusick began calling Bruins games on radio in 1952, moved to television in 1971 and retired from the booth in 1997. His contributions to the game in the United States were recognized with the Lester Patrick Trophy in 1988.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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Snapshots

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-012099/9293006-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY DEVLIN NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>Battle of Alberta</b></h2><p>Daymond Langkow and Andrew Cogliano square off as the Flames and Oilers locked horns in the pre-season.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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THE BIG PICTURE

<div class="byline">with Jason Kay</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-012115/9293044-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="713" height="604"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(MARK WILSON)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>FOR SOME PEOPLE,</b> the thought of handcuffs is exciting&hellip;until they&rsquo;re faced with having to escape them and they don&rsquo;t have the key.</p><p>So it goes with NHL GMs, who get enticed by the leverage that no-trade and no-movement clauses can give them during contract negotiations, only to subsequently find themselves hopelessly shackled.</p><p>Exhibit A was John Ferguson Jr., ex of the Toronto Maple Leafs. He was the victim of his own generosity and a display of solidarity by five players who invoked their clauses. He eventually paid the price with his job.</p><p>For Exhibit B, consider the case of Bryan Murray and Dany Heatley in Ottawa. Heatley, part of the focal point of Adam Proteau&rsquo;s cover story in this issue, has emerged a Shark, morphing from the weasel/rat/yellow-bellied varmint the fans in Ottawa had labeled him.</p><p>But the transaction took time and a toll. Heatley, after demanding a trade from Canada&rsquo;s capital, virtually dictated his landing place. Murray executed nimble trickery under the circumstances, but we&rsquo;re pretty sure we saw him rubbing his wrists during media interviews following the deal.</p><p>Good hockey swaps are difficult enough in a salary cap world, but toss in restricted movement clauses and they enter a new realm of complicated. According to reports, approximately 150 NHL players have no-trade or no-movement clauses in their insurance portfolios.</p><p>Granted, not every player who has one will use it. Some can be offered incentives to waive theirs. But others will remain steadfast, like the Toronto Five and Heatley, to an extent.</p><p>It may be difficult and/or unrealistic to abolish them completely in the next collective bargaining agreement negotiations, but how about introducing qualifiers? Make players attain firm benchmarks before they become eligible. The league and the NHL Players&rsquo; Association could follow baseball&rsquo;s old five-and-10 model; if a player has been in the league 10 years and with the same team for five, he&rsquo;s earned the right to stay put.</p><p>Under those parameters, because he&rsquo;s only an eight-year veteran (including the lockout season), Heatley might well be an Edmonton Oiler today. And Murray would have to find another use for those handcuffs.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021792/9293037-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="476" height="254"></div><h2><b>LISTEN UP!</b></h2><p><b>THE HOCKEY NEWS RADIO SHOW FRIDAYS 3-4 EST XM 204</b></p><h2><b>NEXT ISSUE OCTOBER 26, 2009</b></h2><p>CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TO SUBSCRIBE: <b><a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a></b> CONTACT US: <b><a href="mailto:editorial@thehockeynews.com">editorial@thehockeynews.com</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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MAKE PLAYERS EARN VETO

<div class="byline">Cory Zentner, Regina, Sask.</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-021523/9293144-1-eng-US/f0005-022.jpg" title="f0005-02" width="889" height="941"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-03981/9293137-1-eng-US/f0005-032.jpg" title="f0005-03" width="179" height="179"></div><p>On a recent trip to New York City, I was lucky enough to be on the same flight as new Calgary Flames defenseman Jay Bouwmeester.</p><p>When it came time to pick up my luggage, I walked over, introduced myself and had a conversation with Bouwmeester. We talked about his trade to Calgary, training camp and the Olympics. When asked if I could get a picture with him, he had no problem.</p><p>Hockey players are the best athletes in the world &ndash; they have no egos, they are just regular people who play the best sport in the world.</p><p>Thanks Jay, for taking the time to make my trip to New York a special one.</p><div class="sidebar"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-012102/9293130-1-eng-US/f0005-012.jpg" title="f0005-01" width="247" height="204"></div><h2><b>FREE SWAG!</b></h2><p>Each issue, we&rsquo;ll give a cool THN hat to the top letter.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

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FLYING WITH JAY

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0005-04608/9293099-1-eng-US/f0005-042.jpg" title="f0005-04" width="179" height="179"></div><h2><b>OFFICIAL FAN</b></h2><p>I live in a small city, Regina, Sask., and the closest NHL team is the Calgary Flames.</p><p>I was fortunate enough to get tickets to the NHL pre-season game between the Senators and the Lightning on our ice. I got great seats for myself, nephew and sister &ndash; second row at the top of the faceoff circle.</p><p>Although it was NHL superstars I was anxious to see, it was a linesman who made my night.</p><p>During a stoppage in play, he skated over to me, motioned to my nephew and tossed the game puck over the glass for me to give to Ben. It was the best moment of the game, which is saying a lot because the game was amazing!</p><p>It is always a given the players will amaze the crowd, but to me, Mark Shewchyk will be the hero of the story I tell for many years to come.</p><p>The memory will live on forever on the shelf of my nine-year-old nephew&rsquo;s bookcase.</p><p>Thanks, No. 92!</p><p><b>Teri-Lea Knee, Regina, Sask.</b></p><h2><b>GIVING THANKS</b></h2><p>American Thanksgiving is just around the corner and every year we have the same (boring) NFL games to watch on TV.</p><p>Wouldn&rsquo;t it be great if the NHL started a new &ldquo;Original Six&rdquo; tradition on this day?</p><p>I would much rather watch a tripleheader of Rangers-Boston at 12:30 p.m. EST, Detroit-Chicago at 4 p.m. and, for our Canadian friends who may miss these first two games while they are at work, Montreal-Toronto at 7:30 p.m.</p><p>Let&rsquo;s have the same matchups at the same times every year, alternating cities. That would be much better than watching the NFL&rsquo;s Detroit Lions again.</p><p><b>Thomas A. Force, Dallas</b></p><h2><b>FAREWELL, FRED</b></h2><p>I was saddened to hear about the passing of longtime Boston Bruins announcer Fred Cusick.</p><p>Growing up in New England, he was the voice of hockey and taught me and countless lifelong hockey fans the game with his intelligence and passion.</p><p>He is truly going to be missed.</p><p><b>Steve Lourenco, Dover, Ohio</b></p><h2><b>STAND-UP STAIOS</b></h2><p>I just want to say what a great guy Steve Staios is.</p><p>I was in the Pro Hockey Life store in Edmonton the day before the 2009-10 pre-season started and was just about to leave when I recognized Staios.</p><p>He was there - just like any other parent - buying equipment for his son, when the staff asked him if he would sign some merchandise. Without hesitation, Staios agreed.</p><p>I quickly asked him if he would sign my hat and again he promptly agreed.</p><p>I just want to thank him for being such a class act and for signing my hat. I wish all athletes were just like Steve Staios.</p><p><b>Russell Hoffman, Edmonton</b></p><h2><b>PLUG IN LUCIC</b></h2><p>Like most people, I was shocked when I saw Milan Lucic&rsquo;s name on the orientation list for Team Canada. How he was chosen above the likes of Marc Savard and Jason Spezza completely baffled me.</p><p>However, now that I&rsquo;ve looked closely at Canada&rsquo;s potential lineup, it is clear they need a player like Lucic.</p><p>Canada has very few physical forwards. They have many big, strong players, but many of those players lack aggressiveness and energy.</p><p>Inserting Lucic as a 13th forward with a small amount of ice time would be a great move as he would add physicality, energy and nastiness to a lineup that greatly needs it.</p><p><b>David Fanjoy, Burlington, Ont.</b></p><h2><b>LOSING THE POINT</b></h2><p>Why should teams get a point for losing? If the NHL had a standings system like the NBA, teams would never sit back to ensure getting at least one point.</p><p><b>Clint Clark, Happy Valley, Nfld.</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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Fred Cusick taught me and countless lifelong fans the game with his passion

<div class="byline">with MIKE COMRIE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012340/9293189-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="518" height="531"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(COMRIE: MIKE RIDEWOOD/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021573/9293182-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="127" height="127"></div><p><b>What was your &lsquo;welcome to the NHL&rsquo; moment?</b></p><p>For me, it happened pretty quick because I signed out of junior. It was <i>Hockey Night In Canada</i> against the Montreal Canadiens, so it was pretty overwhelming playing in my hometown at the time.</p><p><b>Who&rsquo;s your road-mate and how is he to stay with?</b></p><p>Actually, I have my own room so it&rsquo;s pretty nice to get your own space. Some guys have their own room. Depends if you&rsquo;re a bad sleeper or if you&rsquo;ve got enough games, one or the other.</p><p><b>What&rsquo;s your favorite movie of all-time?</b></p><p><i>Braveheart</i>.</p><p><b>What city do you think should have an NHL team?</b></p><p>That&rsquo;s a tough question. You would have to look at corporate cities. I&rsquo;m not sure if Winnipeg has enough corporate support. You probably think that Toronto could (have two), if you look around there&rsquo;s probably enough people to support it.</p><p><b>If you could play for any team in history, which team would it be?</b></p><p>I would say the Oilers in the mid-&rsquo;80s just because I grew up in Edmonton. (Laughs) I&rsquo;m not sure if there would be any room to squeeze into the lineup, but that would be a fun team to play with.</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-05455/9293175-1-eng-US/f0006-052.jpg" title="f0006-05" width="60" height="60"></div><p><b>Visit <a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a> for exclusive Q+A&rsquo;s in our &lsquo;Getting to Know&rsquo; feature</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

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2 MINUTES IN THE BOX

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03923/9293241-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="630" height="550"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHANEUF: JAMIE SABAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Adam,</p><p class="dropcap"><span>W</span>hat should the NHL&rsquo;s response be to the head shot Dion Phaneuf gave Kyle Okposo in the pre-season? If the league doesn&rsquo;t discipline Phaneuf, should Islanders GM Garth Snow hire some goons to go headhunting when the Flames and Isles play in Uniondale on March 25?</p><p><b><i>Bill B., Terrace, B.C.</i></b></p><p>Bill,</p><p>If the NHL truly cared about the short-and long-term health of its players, it would&rsquo;ve commissioned an intensive study on head shots and acted to prevent them long ago. Because they refuse to &ndash; and refuse to deal with the game&rsquo;s culture of retribution &ndash; episodes like the Phaneuf-Okposo hit can mushroom into even more violent scenes. Just ask Steve Moore.</p><p>Hello Adam,</p><p>I&rsquo;m fed up with the NHL starting the regular season in Europe. They&rsquo;ve already got enough fans in North America. If Europeans want to watch NHL games, they should get on a plane or a boat and come over here! Your thoughts?</p><p><b><i>Jayson P., Moose Jaw, Sask.</i></b></p><p>Jayson,</p><p>I have to disagree. If the shoe was on the other foot and hundreds of the best North American players worked in Europe all year, are you trying to tell me you wouldn&rsquo;t welcome a chance to see your heroes play at home? I suspect you&rsquo;d be one of the first in line for tickets. Have a little empathy.</p><p><b>SUBMIT YOUR BURNING QUESTIONS AT <a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a></b></p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="60" height="60"></div><p>Need more of your questions answered? Read Proteau&rsquo;s <b>&lsquo;Ask Adam&rsquo;</b> column every Friday at <b><a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a></b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h3><b><a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a></b></h3><h2><b>POLL RESULTS</b></h2><p>If you could have only one, who would you choose?</p><p><b>Alex Ovechkin 57%</b></p><p>Sidney Crosby 30%</p><p>Evgeni Malkin 13%</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-04581/9293227-1-eng-US/f0006-042.jpg" title="f0006-04" width="458" height="640"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(OVECHKIN: GREGORY SHAMUS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>SPIT IT OUT!</b></h2><h3><b>GET IT OFF YOUR CHEST</b></h3><p>SEND US AN E-MAIL</p><p><b><a href="mailto:letters@thehockeynews.com">letters@thehockeynews.com</a></b></p><p>OR LOG ON</p><p><b><a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a></b></p><p>SEND US SNAIL MAIL</p><p>Letters, The Hockey News</p><p>25 Sheppard Ave. W., Suite 100</p><p>Toronto, ON., M2N 6S7, Canada</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="60" height="60"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2><b>BONUS!</b></h2><p>All subscribers get exclusive access on <a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a> to digital magazine archives!<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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ASK? Adam

<div class="byline">&#x2013; KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0007-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-012096/9293279-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Pascal Leclaire and his brethren will have to measure up to new rules in 2010-11.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PHILLIP MACCALLUM/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-04660/9293286-1-eng-US/f0008-042.jpg" title="f0008-04" width="96" height="107"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>N</span>HL NETMINDERS WHO WANT</b> to continue to cover up the five-hole and hide behind pads that are too long have been given a one-season reprieve. That&rsquo;s because the devil&rsquo;s in the details when it comes to shortening the length of goalie pads.</p><p>In its constant effort to level the playing field for shooters, the NHL had hoped to see goaltenders wearing size-specific pads this season, so 5-foot-11 Tim Thomas and 6-foot-5 Pekka Rinne would not be wearing the same gear.</p><p>The NHL currently allows any goalie, regardless of the length of his legs, to wear pads up to 38 inches long. For a number of goalies, the extra length does nothing for protection, but does cover up the five-hole when they drop into the butterfly.</p><p>However, the measurements were too inconsistent, largely because each team&rsquo;s trainer was charged with the task. Forgetting about the possible conflict of interest, there was no uniform measurement. By the time the league and players agreed on one, it was too late to tell the equipment manufacturers.</p><p>So Kay Whitmore, a former NHL goalie and member of the league&rsquo;s hockey operations department, will spend much of this season measuring the leg dimensions of every goalie in the league. Next season, goalies will be required to conform to size-specific pads based on a formula devised by Whitmore.</p><p>Netminders will be measured from the floor to the middle of their kneecaps, with three inches deducted to accommodate their instep. They&rsquo;ll then be measured from the middle of their kneecap to their pelvises and the top part of the pad will be allowed to cover 55 percent of that distance. Then the distance from the top of the skate boot to the bottom of the blade will be added to make up the total length of the pad.</p><p>Let&rsquo;s use Whitmore as an example. It&rsquo;s 21 inches from the floor to his kneecap, which gives him 18 when you account for his instep. It&rsquo;s 20 inches from his knee to his pelvis, 11 (or 55 percent) of which can be covered by pads. That brings him to 29 inches and when you add seven inches for the boot, that&rsquo;s a total length of 36 inches. The boot measurement varies depending on the size of the goalie&rsquo;s feet, but any extra distance will be at the bottom, not the top.</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p>&ldquo;There was no way we were going to let this go away,&rdquo; Whitmore said. &ldquo;(The goalies) won&rsquo;t be surprised, they&rsquo;ll know it&rsquo;s coming. With this, safety is still the priority, but everyone knows that having pads that come up above the crotch aren&rsquo;t a necessity.&rdquo;</p><p>Glenn Healy, another former goalie who was the NHL Players&rsquo; Association&rsquo;s representative in the negotiations until he left after Paul Kelly&rsquo;s firing, said the league was very accommodating to the needs of the players.</p><p>&ldquo;The only reason this didn&rsquo;t get implemented this year was that I stamped my foot down and said &lsquo;No&rsquo;,&rdquo; Healy said. &ldquo;The league could&rsquo;ve pushed this down our throats, but to their credit, they were gracious working with us to make sure our side was comfortable with it.&rdquo;</p><p>Some believe this system will be an advantage to bigger goalies, but they&rsquo;ll also have a bigger five-hole with this new scheme. And Thomas already wears pads that are only 36 inches long and he won the Vezina Trophy last season. In fact, Whitmore said goalies might like the fact that they&rsquo;ll have smaller and lighter gear in the future.</p><p>&ldquo;This might blow up in our faces because goalies might end up being faster and quicker and maybe they&rsquo;ll ultimately be better,&rdquo; Whitmore said. &ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;ll end up getting fired because of this.&rdquo;</p><p>One thing is certain, some goalies wear pads that are far too big. Rinne, for example, is one of the NHL&rsquo;s bigger goalies. His floor-to-knee distance is 20 inches, which gives him 17 with the instep. His knee-to-pelvis is 26 inches, 14.3 of which can be covered under the new rules. If you add seven inches for his boot, that&rsquo;s 38.3 inches, just over the current maximum.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-012235/9293272-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="666" height="841"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>RYAN MILLER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(MILLER: GREGG FORWERCK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Whitmore thinks most goalies won&rsquo;t be sacrificing more than an inch or two off the length of their pads. Whether or not that will make a tangible difference in goal-scoring totals remains to be seen, but at least the incredible growing goalie should be a thing of the past.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0007-01

SIZE DOES MATTER

<h2><b>+ GODZILLA&rsquo;S GOLDEN YEARS</b></h2><p>After a 14-year NHL career that included the 2000 Vezina, longtime Caps stopper Olaf Kolzig hangs up his pads.</p><h2><b>&ndash; INJURED SNIPERS</b></h2><p>Fans in Chicago and Toronto have to wait until November to see any goals from banged up Marian Hossa and Phil Kessel.</p><h2><b>+ MINOR THREAT</b></h2><p>Chicago and Hershey are THN&rsquo;s picks to win their AHL conferences this season.</p><h2><b>&ndash; EASY, BOYS</b></h2><p>NHL forced to levy large suspensions against Sean O&rsquo;Donnell, Francis Lessard and Pascal Morency for pre-season goonery.</p><h2><b>&ndash; CLASSIC OVERSIGHT</b></h2><p>New Year&rsquo;s Day should fully belong to Winter Classic combatants Flyers and Bruins, but NHL schedules Sabres-Thrashers game that night, stealing some thunder.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021694/9293317-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="666" height="1009"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>OLAF KOLZIG</b><span class="photo-credit">(KOLZIG: STEVE BABINEAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0008-02

Plus/Minus

<h2><b>5 FIVE</b></h2><p><b>Jamie Benn</b> potted goals in the pre-season at a rate the Stars could definitely use in the regular season.</p><h2><b>4 FOUR</b></h2><p><b>Tuukka Rask</b> proved the wait was worth it and made a statement in Beantown; he&rsquo;s ready for prime time now.</p><h2><b>3 THREE</b></h2><p><b>Nazem Kadri</b> scored a hometown winner in London, Ont., then tied the next game late and won it in the shootout.</p><h2><b>2 TWO</b></h2><p>Back at home, <b>Mike Comrie</b> offered an offensive push to a front unit that could use it in Edmonton.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-031190/9293348-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="676" height="548"></div><h2><b>1 ONE</b></h2><p>The inspirational pre-season story of <b>Theoren Fleury</b> had the entire hockey world rooting for him.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0008-03

Starting from 5

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JOHN GRIGG</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-012009/9293379-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon022.jpg" title="common02" width="96" height="107"></div><p><b>IT SEEMS NOTHING IS EVER EASY</b> for the NHL when it comes to U.S. television.</p><p>Fox&rsquo;s laughable glowing puck in the 1990s. ESPN dropping the league. Versus being a virtual unknown when it signed on. And now, NBC getting its games for free.</p><p>&ldquo;The NHL is the league that really doesn&rsquo;t need any more problems with TV,&rdquo; said a wry Michael Hiestand, sports television columnist for <i>USA Today</i>. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a bit serious it has gotten this far. Usually in this endless bickering over pricing they decide ultimately before taking it off the air.&rdquo;</p><p>Alas, that didn&rsquo;t happen. DIRECTV &ndash; America&rsquo;s largest satellite TV supplier with approximately 17 million subscribers &ndash; suddenly dropped Versus from its lineup Sept. 1, leaving hockey fans across the U.S. out in the cold.</p><p>As of press time, talks were ongoing, with both sides expressing hope for a resolution. But from what The Hockey News was told, Versus and DIRECTV couldn&rsquo;t even agree on what they were disagreeing about. The dispute had devolved into little more than a verbal grudge match involving schoolyard he-said/she-said bickering.</p><p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;re intentionally trying to cloud the facts,&rdquo; said Versus president Jamie Davis.</p><p>In response, Darris Gringeri, DIRECTV&rsquo;s vice-president of public relations said &ldquo;They&rsquo;re throwing around a bunch of numbers to try to confuse the story.&rdquo;</p><p>What it all comes down to is DIRECTV doesn&rsquo;t believe Versus is worth as much as Versus does.</p><p>&ldquo;The dispute right now is about them (Versus) trying to impose a ridiculous price increase,&rdquo; Gringeri said.</p><p>But Davis disagreed and added another nugget of info.</p><p>&ldquo;The price we offered our service to DIRECTV for is the exact same price every other operator in the country is paying,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;What DIRECTV didn&rsquo;t tell people is they insisted on the ability to re-tier us, to take Versus away from more than six million existing subscribers and charge them more.&rdquo;</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p>Gringeri insisted that&rsquo;s bunk.</p><p>&ldquo;DIRECTV was already paying Versus more than any other non-Comcast distributor and then they asked for an additional 20 percent increase,&rdquo; he said.</p><p>As for the re-tiering of Versus, Gringeri explained all DIRECTV wants is financial flexibility, for itself and its customers.</p><p>What fun. Right, fans?</p><p>&ldquo;DIRECTV also called our network nothing more than paid programming and infomercials,&rdquo; Davis said. &ldquo;And really what they&rsquo;re doing is insulting our programming, but more than that they were really insulting our fans.&rdquo;</p><p>Ouch. Any retort?</p><p>&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve twisted our words in that respect,&rdquo; Gringeri said. &ldquo;Just to clarify, we never said hockey (was an) infomercial.&rdquo;</p><p>Comcast &ndash; America&rsquo;s largest cable provider &ndash; owns Versus. So, as Hiestand surmised, in the larger sense the dispute is also a cable-vs.-satellite skirmish. But Comcast owns the Philadelphia Flyers, too. So the league should have the leverage to be a proactive mediator, right?</p><p>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t really have much of a role other than to kind of encourage both sides to settle it,&rdquo; said John Dellapina, the NHL&rsquo;s director of media relations.</p><p>Added NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly: &ldquo;Our position is in support of our fans and their ability to watch games.&rdquo;</p><p>So how does this get resolved?</p><p>&ldquo;It comes down to a matter of money, ultimately,&rdquo; Hiestand said. &ldquo;Networks want to charge as much as they can, distributors want to pay as little as they can. The difference being in sports TV you have certain deadlines&hellip;season&rsquo;s start.</p><p>&ldquo;Someone will drop a nickel here, raise a nickel there, they&rsquo;ll compromise.&rdquo;</p><p>Millions of U.S. hockey fans hope that&rsquo;s the case. And soon.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0009-01

AMERICAN TV SHOWDOWN

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012203/9293424-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="983" height="1321"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Gilles Meloche wore this California Seals jersey for five seasons in the &rsquo;70s.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(SEALS: DAVE SANDFORD/HHOF)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon022.jpg" title="common02" width="96" height="107"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>L</span>OVERS OF</b> hockey uniforms, from the wool sweaters of bygone years to the synthetic jerseys of today, will have a tough time putting down the latest collector&rsquo;s edition from The Hockey News &ndash; <i>Greatest Jerseys of All-Time</i>.</p><p>The 170-page magazine has fabulous pictorial spreads on the classic looks from hockey&rsquo;s early years, such as the Seattle Metropolitans on the cover, to the modern designs and alternate jerseys of today&rsquo;s 30 NHL teams.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021599/9293417-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="425" height="588"></div><p>Working in conjunction with the Hockey Hall of Fame and its vast archive of more than 1,600 sweaters/jerseys, the magazine tells the story of memorable jerseys and the men who put them on. The above California Seals No. 27 jersey from the 1970s, for example, was worn 250 times in five seasons by goalie Gilles Meloche without ever appearing in a playoff game.</p><p>The Oakland Seals joined the NHL in 1967 and became known as the California Golden Seals in 1970, then just the Seals in 1974. Along the way, the franchise had a variety of owners (including the adventurous Charles O. Finley); struggled with bankruptcy; had its players play in green-and-gold skates one year and white skates the next; had clear, see-through boards at its home arena; and, never had a winning season in nine years before moving to Cleveland in 1976.</p><p>Meloche? After two more ill-fated, non-playoff campaigns with the Cleveland Barons, he finally made it to the post-season in his ninth NHL season, with the Minnesota North Stars. His 351 losses rank third all-time.</p><p>Watch for THN&rsquo;s <i>Greatest Jerseys of All-Time</i>, available Oct. 19.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0010-01

GET YOUR JERSEY ON

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RYAN DIXON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-012151/9293507-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>The Canadian and U.S. women&rsquo;s Olympic teams have a full exhibition schedule.</b></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon022.jpg" title="common02" width="96" height="107"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021683/9293500-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="474" height="399"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>N THE MEN&rsquo;S DRAW,</b> how quickly players who were pounding each other mere days ago come together as teammates goes a long way in determining Olympic success.</p><p>That&rsquo;s not a problem for the women. Both the Canadian and American women&rsquo;s squads are already playing together &ndash; and against each other &ndash; in preparation for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver next February.</p><p>Unlike non-Olympic years when players are spread out across North America competing in various leagues and levels, both Team Canada and Team USA are centralized in one place as they deliberate over who will make their final 21-person roster. The Canucks are based in Calgary, while the Americans are in Blaine, Minn.</p><p>The two teams &ndash; along with Finland and Sweden &ndash; clashed in September at the Hockey Canada Cup in Vancouver. In November, Finland will host the Four Nations Cup. Aside from that, Canada has a steady diet of quality action playing against young men in the Alberta Major Midget League. Team USA, meanwhile, will face some women&rsquo;s NCAA teams and a couple clubs comprised of all-stars from different college regions.</p><p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re playing a season,&rdquo; said Canadian coach Mel Davidson. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the easiest way to put it.&rdquo;</p><p>If Canada plays for gold at the Vancouver Games, Davidson estimates the team will have competed in more than 60 games along the way.</p><p>Canada and the U.S. will also play six exhibition games &ndash; not including any Four Nations Cup action &ndash; against each other, with the final contest occurring on New Year&rsquo;s Day in Ottawa.</p><p>Davidson, who doesn&rsquo;t have to submit a final roster until Feb. 12, 24 hours before Canada&rsquo;s first Olympic game, hasn&rsquo;t imposed any hard deadlines for cuts.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to put a deadline on it, I&rsquo;m not going to put more stress on people here, where they&rsquo;re just focused on a date,&rdquo; said Davidson, who began the season carrying 26 players.</p><p>&ldquo;Whenever we decide as a coaching staff we&rsquo;re comfortable with a certain number or we&rsquo;re not comfortable with certain players, then we&rsquo;ll make our decisions.&rdquo;</p><p>Team USA edged Canada 2-1 in the Hockey Canada Cup final and has claimed the past two world titles. Davidson stressed that preparing for the Olympics is a big-picture process, noting Canada isn&rsquo;t too concerned with having come up short against the U.S. the past few times out.</p><p>&ldquo;This group, they&rsquo;re highly motivated, so the fire is already there and they just get a little more angry if they don&rsquo;t win the hockey game,&rdquo; she said.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0012-01

THE LONG JOURNEY

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JOSH FERGUSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-04648/9293545-1-eng-US/f0012-042.jpg" title="f0012-04" width="420" height="592"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>When the whistle blows, the game really begins.</p><p>That&rsquo;s the new concept behind the highly amusing and addictive <b>NHL 10</b> from EA Sports.</p><p>Fans of the popular video game know that during stoppages in play, it&rsquo;s always fun to lay the lumber on your opponent in a penalty-free environment. In NHL 10, the scrums between whistles are taken to the next level with face washes, body contact and good ol&rsquo; hacking and slashing.</p><p>Rattling your opponent has never been this enjoyable in past NHL games. The new focus on post-whistle action gives the player the chance to finish checks, retaliate for late shots on goal, draw penalties and drop the mitts.</p><p>The fisticuffs make NHL 10 special as the video visionaries at EA Sports have created a first-person fighting engine that puts you face-to-face with the toothless grins of some of the NHL&rsquo;s toughest.</p><p>EA continues to put a premium on realistic game play as they have also created a boards physics engine that allows players to shield the puck with their bodies and kick passes to teammates.</p><p>Winner of 19 sports-game-of-the-year awards since 2007, the franchise continues to deliver fresh concepts to an already innovative series while maintaining successful past aspects of the game.</p><p>Your opponent&rsquo;s anguish will sustain you.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0012-04

GAME PACKS A PUNCH

<div class="byline">with Ken Campbell</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-012126/9293597-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>RICK NASH</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JAMIE SABAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021594/9293604-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="187" height="222"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>F</span>OR MANY OF THE 16 YEARS</b> since the Central Division rose out of the ashes of the old &lsquo;Chuck&rsquo; Norris Division, it has pretty much consisted of the Detroit Red Wings and a bunch of scorched earth.</p><p>But like Chuck Norris, the Central is now not only relevant, but seems able to perform implausible feats of strength. We don&rsquo;t know if the Central Division can run around the world and punch itself in the head the way Chuck Norris apparently can, but it is quickly making the case for being the best division in the NHL.</p><p>The Nashville Predators finished three points out of the playoffs last year. Had they made it, all five teams from the Central would have qualified for the post-season. Unlike each of the other five divisions in the NHL, there is not a single soft touch in the bunch and all five teams are not only formidable in the present, but none of them look like they&rsquo;ll be going away in the near future.</p><p>When Columbus Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock was asked about his team&rsquo;s goals this season, he said the following with a straight face: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to just stay in the mix. I want to go and chase Detroit. I&rsquo;m tired of watching Detroit in first place&hellip;I mean, somewhere along the line, somebody&rsquo;s gotta make them bleed and it might as well be us.&rdquo;</p><p>That kind of talk from anyone else in the Central five years ago would have been preposterous. The division was a mish-mash of poorly run and excruciatingly slowly developing expansion teams, and the Red Wings essentially had a free pass to first place and a top-three seed in the playoffs. They&rsquo;ve punched that ticket each of the past eight seasons, but there will be no advance sales for the Red Wings in 2009-10. If they&rsquo;re going to win the Central this season, they&rsquo;re going to have to earn it like everyone else does.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>THERE ISN&rsquo;T A SINGLE SOFT TOUCH IN THE CENTRAL DIVISION</b></blockquote><p>The Wings still managed to finish fairly comfortably ahead of the pack last season when they took the division by eight points, but consider that three years ago, they finished just three points ahead of the Preds. The other six seasons they&rsquo;ve won the division, it has been by an average of 18 points.</p><p>But the thing about it is the gap is closing in the Central not because Detroit is faltering, but because the other teams in the division are getting better. The revival in Chicago continues and while there are very serious long-term concerns about the Blackhawks&rsquo; salary cap management, they look poised to continue their upward trajectory. St. Louis and Columbus are finally reaping the rewards of all those high draft picks and Nashville has the kind of defense corps and goaltending that bode well for the future.</p><p>No, there isn&rsquo;t a better division in the NHL right now. Some divisions have more star power, some have better goaltending, some have far more stable franchises, but there isn&rsquo;t a division in the league that is as strong and solid, top to bottom, as the Central.</p><p>And the league-wide numbers last season certainly bear that out. The combined record for the Central Division against the NHL&rsquo;s other five divisions was 159-101-30 and their points percentage of .600 was by far the best in the NHL. And just to prove they weren&rsquo;t feasting only on weak Western Conference teams, their record of 49-32-9 (also a .600 points percentage) against Eastern Conference teams was also best in the league for any division against the other conference.</p><p>By the way, the worst division in both of those categories, not surprisingly, was the Southeast, which was 135-116-39 (.533) against the other divisions and a paltry 38-44-8 (.467) against the Western Conference.</p><p>Not only that, but the Central looks poised to get better. The Wings have suffered some real body blows to their overall depth, but they never seem to run out of prospects and good young players. In THN&rsquo;s <i>Future Watch 2009</i>, the Central Division had the No. 1 (Nikita Filatov, Columbus), No. 4 (Colin Wilson, Nashville) and No. 5 (Alex Pietrangelo, St. Louis) prospects outside the NHL. Overall, the Blue Jackets had the fourth-best group of prospects in the league, St. Louis ranked fifth and Chicago was eighth, with all five Central teams finishing in the top 13 in the NHL.</p><p>Perhaps this is the year the Central Division pulls off the near impossible and has all five teams playing in the playoffs. If not, it will probably only be because the parity in that division will prevent those teams from gaining the points they need.</p><p>Even if the Central Division doesn&rsquo;t complete the all-five-clubs-in-the-playoffs quest, it&rsquo;s pretty clear where the best hockey is being played these days and will be in the future.</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="60" height="60"></div><p>Check out the Features section on <a href="http://THN.com">THN.com</a> for downloadable version of the depth charts.</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011883/9293583-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg" title="f0015-01" width="2178" height="2109"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>BACKES</b></p><p><b>MITCHELL</b></p><p><b>BROWN</b></p><p><b>KREJCI</b></p><p><b>TIMONEN</b></p><p><b>WARD</b></p></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon032.jpg" title="common03" width="76" height="77"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p>For Ken&rsquo;s web-exclusive <b>Campbell&rsquo;s Cuts</b> column, visit <a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0014-01

DIVISION DOMINATION

<div class="byline">Ryan Dixon</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021464/9293649-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Toronto paid a steep price, but added a goal-scoring building block.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/DARREN CALABRESE)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011900/9293656-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="187" height="222"></div><p><b>THE PHIL KESSEL TRADE</b> usually wouldn&rsquo;t make sense for a team like the Maple Leafs, yet it makes perfect sense for Toronto.</p><p>Lost? Here&rsquo;s the logic.</p><p>Rebuilding teams, a term that accurately describes the rapidly changing Leafs, typically focus on asset accumulation during the outset of their home renos. The best way to build a solid base is by drafting quality players and the three picks Toronto traded to Boston in return for Kessel &ndash; first and second round selections in 2010, plus a first-rounder in 2011 &ndash; certainly represented an opportunity to do just that.</p><p>Most pundits predict the Leafs will finish somewhere between eighth and 12th in the East this season, meaning they could well have been picking around the No. 10 spot in 2010. Bank on marginal improvement the following season and Toronto is still probably making its draft pick before half the league has had a chance to walk up to the podium.</p><p>An authority no less than Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli once told me a team should expect to hit on its first two picks; meaning, in theory, if Toronto GM Brian Burke believes in his scouting staff, he just jettisoned three future NHLers to Beantown for a player with one quality NHL season under his belt.</p><p>It&rsquo;s a steep price to pay even before considering Kessel&rsquo;s attitude has required adjusting in the past and may yet require further tweaking. But a few factors make this trade more palatable for Toronto than it would be for other squads trying to transition from ramshackle to respectable, two of which Burke identified himself at the time of the swap.</p><p>First comes the basic fact that Kessel turned just 22 on the second day of the season. His prime is positioned directly in front of him, something that could rarely be said of high-profile Leaf acquisitions, seemingly forever, until Burke took over the GM&rsquo;s chair last November.</p><p>Another aspect Burke alluded to is the fact Toronto padded its prospect list last season without spending a single draft pick. Forwards Christian Hanson and Tyler Bozak both signed as undrafted free agents out of college, while Burke beat out a number of suitors for the signature of 24-year-old Swedish stopper Jonas Gustavsson. That at least tempers the sting of handing three prime selections to the Bruins.</p><p>You can also bet Burke is banking on the notion his team&rsquo;s banknotes will increasingly be in demand from free agents. Though non-Leafs fans are loath to hear it, Toronto holds high esteem in the minds of many players, a fact severely accentuated by the fact Burke has been running the ship for almost a year now. No, my brain hasn&rsquo;t been strangled up by Burke&rsquo;s brand of Irish Kool-Aid; the proof is in the rich, rich pudding.</p><p>When UFA Mike Komisarek signed with the blue-and-white, he cited the fact Burke is a &ldquo;proven winner&rdquo; as rationale for his choice. Francois Beauchemin, another highly sought-after UFA defenseman, followed his old GM north from Anaheim. After taking the Ducks job back in 2005, Burke wooed Scott Niedermayer &ndash; who gives somewhere between much and too much thought to all his hockey-related decisions &ndash; to sign on as the backbone of a team that went on to win a Stanley Cup two years into the marriage.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>KESSEL IS AS QUICK AS THEY COME, WITH A WRIST SHOT THAT&rsquo;S LETHAL</b></blockquote><p>Good players want to play for Burke and you can expect Maple Leafs bucks to become an even more treasured commodity in coming summers, as the team improves under the stewardship of an astute management crew. You can&rsquo;t forsake the draft in favor of free agency, but, if used properly, the open market is a legitimate vehicle for filling holes. And Burke drives the market like he owns it.</p><p>Speaking of holes, the Leafs now have a legitimate front-line player for the first time since Mats Sundin blew town after the 2007-08 campaign. Kessel, who&rsquo;s out until mid-November recovering from off-season shoulder surgery, is not the centerpiece to any team &ndash; it&rsquo;s hard to envision him wearing a captain&rsquo;s &lsquo;C&rsquo; one day &ndash; but it&rsquo;s still very easy to project him as a guy who will score a whack of goals over the next decade.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011672/9293642-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg" title="f0017-01" width="1347" height="1674"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(JAMIE SABAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Kessel is as quick as they come, often flying down the wing, pulling the puck slightly toward his body and unleashing a low wrist shot to the far corner that&rsquo;s as lethal as any in the league. What kind of production can the Leafs expect from him? The Wisconsin boy produced 36 goals during an injury-shortened 70-game season last year, albeit one spent mostly alongside visionary Marc Savard. He&rsquo;ll find the passes a lot less soft in Toronto, but 40-goal seasons will shortly become the rule, not the exception for Kessel, especially once the likes of &rsquo;09 seventh overall pick Nazem Kadri starts blossoming.</p><p>Fans, even some GMs, will always find it easier to focus on immediate returns rather than wondering what three faceless draft picks might bring down the road. That line of thinking usually gets teams into trouble, but in Toronto&rsquo;s case, it just made sense.</p><h2><b>KESSEL:</b>&nbsp;<b>2008-09 <i>BY THE</i> NUMBERS</b></h2><p>Phil Kessel ranked among NHL goal leaders in many categories despite playing just 70 games last year.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-021288/9293635-1-eng-US/f0017-022.jpg" title="f0017-02" width="753" height="1081"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0016-02

MAPLE LEAFS GET THEIR PHIL

<div class="byline">BY ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0018-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011776/9293715-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(DON SMITH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011533/9293708-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="2124" height="1401"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Dany Heatley&rsquo;s move to San Jose gives the Sharks a 50-goal man in his prime.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JEFF GROSS/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>H</span>YPE CAN BE A WONDERFUL THING</b> &ndash; for rapper sidekicks who only scream &ldquo;Yeah!&rdquo; and &ldquo;What?&rdquo; into a microphone; for pro sports teams and their fan bases; for monster truck rally commercials; and, for burgeoning star athletes.</p><p>But there&rsquo;s a significant downside to hype. And both Dany Heatley and his new NHL employers in San Jose have experienced an abundance of that downside this summer.</p><p>For Heatley, once the league&rsquo;s designated golden boy who appeared on the cover of a video game and was the MVP of the 2003 All-Star Game, it had to be excruciating to watch himself painted as an amalgam of Yoko Ono, Ben Linus from <i>Lost</i> and Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter saga, all because his request to be traded out of Ottawa was leaked into the public domain.</p><p>For the Sharks, who over the past few years have been the preferred Stanley Cup pick for discerning hockey writers everywhere, it had to be just as painful grinding their collective teeth in the off-season after another performance that blowed up real good in the early rounds of the playoffs.</p><p>If you believe in destiny &ndash; the concept, not your local burlesque dancer &ndash; you can see how apt it is that Heatley and the Sharks have joined forces. Together, they&rsquo;re looking to atone for past letdowns and lay to rest once and forever the multiple shots at their character.</p><p>And if you want to count them out based on past mistakes and the learning process, go ahead. They expect that kind of chatter &ndash; and they expect to shove it straight down your throat this season.</p><p><b>WHEN NEWS FIRST BROKE</b> in June regarding Heatley&rsquo;s trade request, the ensuing outcry from much of the Canadian media would&rsquo;ve made you think the former Senators winger was trying to block out the sun from the Ottawa Valley and sell it back to the locals at a premium.</p><p>Then came Ottawa&rsquo;s very public efforts to trade Heatley to the Oilers for a package that purportedly would&rsquo;ve made Senators out of Andrew Cogliano, Ladislav Smid and Dustin Penner. But after Heatley exercised his perfectly legal, collectively bargained no-trade clause to quash a move to Edmonton &ndash; you know, the way dozens of elite NHLers have decided their own destinations over the years &ndash; he was made out to be all the more heinous.</p><p>Consequently, Heatley was lampooned and lambasted in just about every media outlet in operation. By the time he arrived in his hometown of Calgary for Team Canada&rsquo;s pre-Olympic camp in August, the assaults on his reputation had turned almost everyone against him. And in a public intra-squad scrimmage at the Saddledome, he was voraciously booed virtually every time he touched the puck.</p><p>Even at that point, Heatley refused to lash out, either over the leak of his trade request, or over the reaction to the leak.</p><p>&ldquo;The Calgary thing wasn&rsquo;t a big deal,&rdquo; Heatley told The Hockey News in late September, just after he&rsquo;d played his first exhibition game with the Sharks. &ldquo;To tell you the truth, I kind of expected it &ndash; it&rsquo;s close to Edmonton and it was right after all that went down.</p><p>&ldquo;For me, the low point was when (the trade request) got out and the attacks came. And I felt a lot of those attacks, from the media especially, were unwarranted. I chose not to comment on it to make it more of a mess, but I think it was a result of just writers and people having something to talk about and be negative about. So that&rsquo;s probably my biggest regret; it all stems from how public it became.&rdquo;</p><p>Heatley was shocked by the very personal nature of the nastiness he endured.</p><p>&ldquo;There were just some writers&hellip;I don&rsquo;t know what the word would be&hellip;I guess &lsquo;unprofessional&rsquo;, that would be the word (for them),&rdquo; said Heatley, 28. &ldquo;But that&rsquo;s the result of a lot of time on their hands and having something to write about, and this (story) was a pretty easy target this summer.&rdquo;</p><p><b>ALTHOUGH HEATLEY</b> didn&rsquo;t want to elaborate on his personal and professional reasons for wanting out of Ottawa, he steadfastly maintains his confidence in his choices.</p><p>&ldquo;I just felt it was the right thing to do, for both sides to move on,&rdquo; said Heatley, who was dealt to San Jose with a fifth round draft pick on Sept. 12 in return for Milan Michalek, Jonathan Cheechoo and a second-round pick. &ldquo;Through the entire process, the people I talked to and the people I listened to were people who knew what was going on. And I think people who were shooting their mouths off and being negative were only guessing and didn&rsquo;t really know what was going on. So I felt pretty confident in the whole thing, pretty confident in myself.</p><p>&ldquo;Now that I&rsquo;ve moved on, I think the Senators got two great players. All along, it had nothing to do with the city of Ottawa or the fans. I spent four good years there, the city really treated me well, but it was a personal thing and a hockey thing, and that&rsquo;s the bottom line.&rdquo;</p><p>It is a measure of Heatley&rsquo;s competitive drive that he wanted to go to San Jose, especially considering the pressure that will be on the entire Sharks organization this season &ndash; something lost in the drive to villainize him.</p><p>&ldquo;Everyone&rsquo;s making the storyline that there&rsquo;s a lot less pressure being in California and San Jose, that it&rsquo;s not a hockey market,&rdquo; Heatley said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite the contrary &ndash; it is a hockey market and a lot of people pick this team to win the Stanley Cup every year, this year included. So I think there&rsquo;s more pressure than there is being in Ottawa.&rdquo;</p><p>Sharks defenseman Dan Boyle &ndash; who knows about acrimonious exits, what with the circus when the Lightning all but sued him out of Tampa Bay &ndash; agrees with Heatley.</p><p>&ldquo;At first glance, you don&rsquo;t think of northern California as a hockey hotbed,&rdquo; Boyle said. &ldquo;But people here are starving for a winner, and not just for a playoff team, because they&rsquo;ve had that for years. They want to win the whole thing. Management and players feel that way, too, so the expectations are very high.</p><p>&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re a player who wants to come into this kind of situation, I think it does say something about your character. Dany had a say in where he would go, just like myself, and we both chose this team because we believe in the direction it&rsquo;s going and the pieces that are here to help us get the job done.&rdquo;</p><p>Boyle is experienced enough in media matters to not believe everything said or written regarding Heatley&rsquo;s predicament.</p><p>&ldquo;Sometimes what you hear in the media isn&rsquo;t always reality, or at least the whole truth,&rdquo; Boyle said. &ldquo;I went through that in Tampa, and there&rsquo;s still a lot of stuff that only myself and my family and my agent know &ndash; what was said that never came out in the media. So as far as Dany is concerned, he&rsquo;s got a clean slate on our team. We&rsquo;re not going to worry about what was said or done in Ottawa, because the truth is, we don&rsquo;t know and we don&rsquo;t care.&rdquo;</p><p>Heatley hears the comparisons between this year&rsquo;s Sharks and the Detroit Red Wings of the mid-1990s, as well as comparisons between himself (and Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, for that matter) and Steve Yzerman &ndash; a.k.a. the Red Wings legend (and executive director of Hockey Canada&rsquo;s 2010 Men&rsquo;s Olympic Team) whose efforts were heavily questioned before he finally won a Cup in 1997.</p><p>Still, Heatley believes there&rsquo;s never a single set of steps every player has to take to be a Stanley Cup champion.</p><p>&ldquo;Everyone takes a different path,&rdquo; Heatley said. &ldquo;With Stevie in Detroit, he won toward the end of his career&hellip;some other guys win at the start of their careers and never get another shot. But being in the middle of our careers &ndash; at least for me, Joe and Patty, let&rsquo;s say &ndash; we feel there&rsquo;s still a great chance to do something big here.&rdquo;</p><p><b>SHARKS GM</b> Doug Wilson also feels the core of his team can do something big, even though after Anaheim eliminated the Sharks in the first round last season, some mistook his public frustration as a signal the roster would undergo wholesale changes.</p><p>&ldquo;At the end of last year, I had a level of frustration, because all you really want is your group to play up to their capabilities,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t make excuses and a lot of good things happened here last year, but we ran into some injuries down the stretch, like all teams do, and we played a very good team. Anaheim was a playoff-hardened team that had won a Cup a couple years before and almost beat Detroit. But I tried to look at the realities, and not let emotion cloud the day.</p><p>&ldquo;My comment at that time was that changes would take place, but change can take place in many different ways. It could be personnel changes, it could be growth through experience, it could be young guys coming up and finding their time to play, it could be a change in leadership or leadership opportunities.</p><p>&ldquo;So that was what I said then, and a lot of those things have taken place over the summer. And one of the things I&rsquo;ve been proud of our guys for is their belief that &lsquo;it&rsquo;s not what you say, it&rsquo;s what you do&rsquo;.</p><p>&ldquo;And you know what? They all came back as a group, pretty well about a month early. They&rsquo;ve all put the work in, spent a lot of time together and showed they&rsquo;re willing to do the things necessary to grow as a group. And that&rsquo;s really what this is all about, because this is still a pretty young group coming into its prime.</p><p>&ldquo;Sometimes a kick in the ass isn&rsquo;t the worst thing.&rdquo;</p><p>Prior to Heatley&rsquo;s arrival, Wilson already had made some serious maneuvers. He took the captaincy away from Marleau, shipped blueliners Christian Ehrhoff and Brad Lu-kowich to Vancouver in return for prospects and salary cap flexibility, and allowed many of the organization&rsquo;s third-and fourth-liners to move on.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011422/9293701-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg" title="f0022-01" width="1071" height="1511"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Heatley was shocked by the vitriol flung his way after his trade demand.</b></figcaption></div><p>However, once Heatley was paid a $4-million contractual bonus by Ottawa on July 1, it made both hockey sense and financial sense for Wilson to kick the tires on acquiring him.</p><p>Wilson did his homework on the two-time 50-goal scorer, just as he&rsquo;s done his homework on any other player he had interest in. But since Wilson grew up and played junior hockey in Ottawa, he and assistant GM Wayne Thomas (another Ottawa native and longtime friend of the Heatley family) were able to gain insights other NHL management teams might not have been privy to.</p><p>&ldquo;We do an awful lot of research into the people we bring here, and when you talk about Dany Heatley, he was one of the easiest players for me to do research on,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m from Ottawa and there are a lot of people in the community who are close friends and who I have great respect for. I was able to talk to people like (Hockey Canada president) Bob Nicholson, who&rsquo;s known Dany for a long time, as well as Stevie Yzerman, and (Bruins GM and former Sens assistant GM) Peter Chiarelli.</p><p>&ldquo;(Sharks coach) Todd MacLellan has coached Dany, tried to recruit him as a 16-year-old, then coached him at the world juniors. We really exhausted as many avenues as possible.&rdquo;</p><p>The results they discovered were consistently positive.</p><p>&ldquo;I was consulted by Doug before we acquired Dany and when he asked me (whether the Sharks should pursue Heatley), the answer was a very quick &lsquo;Yes&rsquo;,&rdquo; Thomas said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had a couple bumps in the road, and when that happened, friends and acquaintances really came together and the sense of the good person came out from everyone you talked to. There&rsquo;s really nothing but good stories about him.</p><p>&ldquo;What it comes down to is he wants the ball &ndash; and that maybe got him in trouble (in Ottawa), but he wants the responsibility. You want players who want the responsibility of being the difference between winning and losing. That&rsquo;s part of Doug&rsquo;s mantra and who he wants playing here.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;I understand the feeling and the reaction in Ottawa and Edmonton from the fans,&rdquo; added Yzerman. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s kind of the norm when a player asks for a trade &ndash; and the more prominent the player, the stronger the reaction. But Dany&rsquo;s a good guy. I&rsquo;ve gotten to know him at the world championships the past couple of years, and he&rsquo;s been a good teammate and a likeable person.&rdquo;</p><p>Above and beyond the testimonials to Heatley as a person, Wilson also was aware of what a financial bargain Heatley was. Indeed, once the Sens paid Heatley $4 million in July, all the team that acquired him would be on the hook for was an additional $3.5 million this year, then salaries of $7.5 million for each of the next two seasons, followed by a $6-million payout in 2012-13, and a $5-million payday in the final year of his contract.</p><p>Did we mention Michalek will earn $1 million more than Heatley in that final season of both their deals? And did we also mention the no-trade clause Heatley had with Ottawa is no longer valid now that he&rsquo;s in San Jose?</p><p>Yeah, those are both facts. Still care to argue Wilson made a risky move in acquiring a top-flight goal-scorer for $3.5 million this year and decreasing payments in seasons to come?</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-011253/9293694-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="1394" height="935"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Heatley expects the Sharks to be a winner and a Stanley Cup contender.</b></figcaption></div><p>If the answer is &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; you&rsquo;re likely one of those folks who mistakenly believed Jeremy Roenick&rsquo;s two-year stint with the Sharks was a mere publicity ploy.</p><p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s perception and there&rsquo;s reality,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;I went through that with J.R. A lot of people really didn&rsquo;t know J.R., they only knew him as a personality, but I&rsquo;ve known him since he was an 18-year-old kid. J.R. came in, his wife and his kids moved here and became part of the organization, he left everything on the ice and it was a positive experience for everybody.</p><p>&ldquo;A lot of things get said by a lot of people who read things or don&rsquo;t necessarily know people, but the people I rely on are people that have either interacted, or coached or played with and been in the trenches with people. That&rsquo;s really what matters.&rdquo;</p><p><b>THIS STORY HAS BEEN</b>&nbsp;more or less about Heatley and Wilson, but make no mistake &ndash; the Sharks won&rsquo;t thrive or dive based solely on the contributions of either man. Wilson acknowledged as much when he spoke about team expectations.</p><p>&ldquo;There&rsquo;s kind of a common theme with the people we&rsquo;ve brought in &ndash; that determination and compete factor,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got a lot of big guys coming into their primes, and a lot of people focus on the big names &ndash; Marleau, Thornton, (Evgeni) Nabokov and Boyle, and now Heatley &ndash; but we expect growth from our next level of guys, too.</p><p>&ldquo;And we don&rsquo;t expect them to be under the radar, because Ryane Clowe, Joe Pavelski, Torrey Mitchell, Devin Setoguchi and Doug Murray are as important as anybody.</p><p>&ldquo;Those guys we expect a lot from, and we&rsquo;ll also need contributions from (unrestricted free agent signings) Scott Nichol and Manny Malhotra.</p><p>&ldquo;Then there&rsquo;s some of our younger guys like Derek Joslin, Nick Petrecki, Jamie McGinn and Frazer McLaren. It is their time to come and compete as well.</p><p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited about this team in training camp, but we&rsquo;re not going to talk about it &ndash; we&rsquo;re going to line up and play. And if we can stay healthy and play up to our capabilities, we feel good about our chances to answer all the naysayers. We welcome that challenge.&rdquo;</p><h2><b>NHL&rsquo;s TOP 5 GOAL-SCORERS SINCE THE LOCKOUT</b></h2><p>Dany Heatley ranks third in goals in the NHL since the lockout, scoring 180 times in 317 games over four seasons from 2005-09.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-011247/9293687-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="669" height="886"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0018-01

BREAK–THROUGH OR BUST

<p><b>DETROIT RED WINGS</b></p><p><b>155</b> WINS</p><p><b>SAN JOSE SHARKS</b></p><p><b>153</b> WINS</p><p><b>NEW JERSEY DEVILS</b></p><p><b>146</b> WINS</p><p><b>PITTSBURGH PENGUINS</b></p><p><b>139</b> WINS</p><p><b>ANAHEIM DUCKS</b></p><p><b>137</b> WINS</p><p><b>Playoff wins over past three years</b></p><p><b>DETROIT RED WINGS</b></p><p><b>41</b> WINS</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02910/9293760-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="66" height="139"></div><p><b>PITTSBURGH PENGUINS</b></p><p><b>30</b> WINS</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-03686/9293753-1-eng-US/f0023-032.jpg" title="f0023-03" width="66" height="139"></div><p><b>ANAHEIM DUCKS</b></p><p><b>25</b> WINS</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-04509/9293746-1-eng-US/f0023-042.jpg" title="f0023-04" width="66" height="139"></div><p><b>SAN JOSE SHARKS</b></p><p>&nbsp;<b>14</b> WINS</p><p><b>OTTAWA SENATORS</b></p><p><b>13</b> WINS<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

REGULAR SEASON VS. ‘REAL SEASON’

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0024-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011370/9293798-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin have voiced their intention to play in the 2014 Games &ndash; regardless of the NHL&rsquo;s Olympic plans.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-02989/9293805-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="162" height="104"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-03704/9293791-1-eng-US/f0024-032.jpg" title="f0024-03" width="293" height="792"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>L</span>IKE SHEILA BROFLOVSKI,</b> the overbearing fictional parent from <i>South Park</i>, Mark Gandler has adopted a &lsquo;Blame Canada&rsquo; philosophy when it comes to the possibility of a Russian player revolt surrounding the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.</p><p>The Russian-born player agent who represents Washington Capitals star Alexander Semin, opines that Russian NHLers have been fed a constant dose of zealous Canadian hockey passion and that, along with Russia&rsquo;s recent success on the international stage, has fuelled a renaissance of national pride. And unlike their predecessors who felt few emotional ties to their homeland, these players want to represent their country.</p><p>&ldquo;They have learned well from their Canadian teammates,&rdquo; Gandler said. &ldquo;In the past, it&rsquo;s true there were a lot of recalcitrant players who did not feel the need for their careers to play for the Russian team. But now it&rsquo;s considered an unsurpassed honor to play for the Russian national team.&rdquo;</p><p>And that sense of pride, which just happens to be shared by some of the most talented players on the planet, has the potential to cause a public-relations nightmare for the NHL. Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin, generally regarded as two of the top three players in the game, have already publicly stated they intend to play in the 2014 Games &ndash; and are willing to accept the consequences that come with it &ndash; whether or not the NHL decides to continue its participation beyond the Vancouver tournament next February.</p><p>Ilya Kovalchuk, a two-time 50-goal scorer and five-time 40-goal man, added his voice to the choir in an interview with THN.</p><p>&ldquo;Having the Olympics is the biggest thing ever (for hockey) in Russia,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We have to play. There&rsquo;s no choice. Your team is important, but you have to be loyal to your country. We must play, no matter what the NHL does. Having the Olympics in Russia means so much.&rdquo;</p><p>It certainly means enough, at least four-and-a-half years prior to the fact, for some of the best players to thumb their noses at the league and the contracts that bind them to it. However, that might be posturing in an effort to pressure the league into continuing with Olympic participation. Although there has been no formal survey done, it&rsquo;s believed the players overwhelmingly support NHL Olympic participation. The International Ice Hockey Federation, which wields some power in all of this, is solidly behind the concept, but the NHL has been non-committal.</p><p>There&rsquo;s probably a good reason for that. Olympic participation is something that is collectively bargained between the league and players. With the current agreement likely expiring in 2012 &ndash; although both sides could decide to extend it on a year-by-year basis beyond that &ndash; why would the NHL declare its intentions three years before the fact when it could potentially use Olympic participation as a negotiating chip at the bargaining table?</p><p>The IIHF also has a stake in all of this and it&rsquo;s not even clear whether the international federation would allow players to break valid NHL contracts to play in the Olympics. But the IIHF desperately wants the NHL to remain a part of the Olympics and, while its clout might be minimal, it could throw a major crimp in the NHL and NHL Players&rsquo; Association&rsquo;s plans to stage a World Cup in 2011 by not allowing the teams to use their federations&rsquo; logos in the tournament.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&lsquo;IT&rsquo;S NOT SOMETHING WE ARE PREPARED TO CONSIDER &ndash; UNTIL AFTER THE VANCOUVER GAMES&rsquo;</b><br><b>&ndash; BILL DALY</b></blockquote><p>There&rsquo;s also the notion the league isn&rsquo;t getting the kind of long-term bump from the Olympics it was hoping to get when it first committed to the idea in 1998.</p><p>Hockey fans, of course, love watching best-on-best in the Olympics, but the whole idea of exposing the NHL&rsquo;s best players on the world stage was to get more casual sports fans to turn on to hockey. People care about sports such as rowing and rhythmic gymnastics every four years, too, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean they&rsquo;ll become permanent fans.</p><p>There&rsquo;s also the Kontinental League to consider. The NHL, which shares relations with the league that could be charitably described as strained, has long believed the KHL is being politically propped up to give the Russians the best chance to win the gold medal in 2014. There has certainly been a resurgence of hockey in Russia, spurred in large part by the KHL and the fact Russia has won the past two World Championships. But with the NHL essentially at war with the KHL over contracts, it&rsquo;s also believed the NHL would love nothing better than to deprive the Sochi Games of the best players in the world as a form of payback.</p><p>All of this puts the league and the teams who employ these players in a very difficult spot. There&rsquo;s little doubt there are very serious breach-of-contract issues at work here and the NHL would be well within its rights to discipline the players, but we&rsquo;re talking about some of the best players in the world here. What good does it do the Capitals to further suspend Ovechkin for taking two weeks off to play in the Olympics?</p><p>Perhaps for that reason, the NHL currently wants no part of speculating on what kinds of sanctions players might face for bolting from their teams in the middle of the season.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not something we are prepared to consider &ndash; one way or the other &ndash; until after the Vancouver Games,&rdquo; wrote NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly in an email. &ldquo;For that reason, I&rsquo;m not prepared to comment on how the league or the teams might deal with a hypothetical situation that is more than four years off. I wouldn&rsquo;t even be prepared to speculate.&rdquo;</p><p>Let&rsquo;s say the tournament in Sochi lasts 13 days. The players will probably need at least three days at both ends, which would make them unavailable for a total of 19 days. Based on Ovechkin&rsquo;s $9.5-million salary in 2013-14, he would be forfeiting just under $1 million dollars, not including any fines or suspensions he might incur. Based on Malkin&rsquo;s $8.7-million salary, he would be giving up somewhere in the neighborhood of $870,000 to play.</p><p>A significant chunk of change to be sure, but in reality, it&rsquo;s just a small fraction of what those players will make through the course of their careers. And it just might be worth it for them to play for Olympic gold in their homeland.</p><p>&ldquo;When their careers are over, I&rsquo;m assuming they&rsquo;re going to go back and live in Russia,&rdquo; said Toronto Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson, who&rsquo;ll guide Team USA in Vancouver. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t want to appear to be taking and never giving back and (the Olympics) would be, from their point, the ultimate in giving back. But if the NHL decides not to go, I think those guys would see the Olympics almost as a farce. You don&rsquo;t have the best players playing in what&rsquo;s supposed to be a best-on-best event.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0024-01

RUSSIAN STARS: 2014 OR BUST

<div class="byline">with Adam Proteau</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-02997/9293857-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011383/9293864-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="187" height="222"></div><p><b>OF THE MANY ODIOUS ASPECTS</b> of the Phoenix Coyotes ownership fiasco, the reprehensible treatment of Wayne Gretzky may stink most of all.</p><p>If it wasn&rsquo;t bad enough that all but one ownership group with serious interest in the money-bleeding franchise didn&rsquo;t include Gretzky&rsquo;s coaching contract as part of its bid, the hockey world has also had to hear: (a) what a shabby job he&rsquo;s done behind Phoenix&rsquo;s bench; (b) how his legendary name and on-ice legacy didn&rsquo;t do diddly to bump local ticket sales; and, (c) what a self-involved egotist he was for not attending the Coyotes&rsquo; training camp while bankruptcy court proceedings &ndash; in which he has a huge personal and professional stake &ndash; dragged on interminably before he finally resigned Sept. 24 and was replaced by former Dallas Stars coach Dave Tippett.</p><p>I guess being the greatest NHLer of all-time and the most dedicated ambassador the sport has ever seen only gets you so much slack. I suppose all the work Gretzky put into keeping the franchise in Phoenix isn&rsquo;t worth a tinker&rsquo;s damn unless he single-handedly resuscitated what remained of the Coyotes organization and personally purchased 17,000 season tickets at <a href="http://Jobing.com">Jobing.com</a> Arena each and every season.</p><p>It&rsquo;s despicable the way so many deserted Gretzky in the Arizona desert. But this could be a blessing in disguise, because if ever anybody deserves a break from the back-alley politicking and day-to-day pressures that are tied to the front lines of professional sports, it&rsquo;s a legend who has remained in the heart of the NHL fray since he retired a decade ago.</p><p>Stepping back is a message that Gretzky has been hearing from close advisors for a while. But it&rsquo;s another of countless credits to his renowned competitive spirit that he&rsquo;s ignored them and stuck it out for this long &ndash; and wanted to keep sticking it out, in spite of all that&rsquo;s gone on this off-season.</p><p>&ldquo;All of Wayne&rsquo;s advisors suggested the same thing &ndash; be the president, work with (Coyotes GM) Don Maloney, continue to build the franchise in a different role, hire another coach or bring (associate coach) Ulfie (Samuelsson) in as your head coach, and leave the organization in great shape, just as he did after leading Team Canada to glory,&rdquo; said former Coyotes TV analyst Darren Pang, a close confidante of Gretzky who watched him toil and boil behind the Coyotes bench since 2005.</p><p>&ldquo;If he&rsquo;s not the coach this year, he should have no regrets,&rdquo; said Pang, who spoke to THN a couple of days prior to Gretzky&rsquo;s resignation. &ldquo;The easy thing for him would be to play golf everyday and be a team president or an ambassador, and not do anything. But that just shows you how competitive Wayne really is. I think people are losing sight of the fact he&rsquo;s willing to let people question the legacy of Wayne Gretzky the hockey player, because he&rsquo;s a competitive person who wants to create another legacy as a great coach.&rdquo;</p><p>Amazingly, Gretzky has never once uttered a nasty word about the NHL&rsquo;s brass, despite the league hanging him and Mario Lemieux out to dry during botched negotiations to end the 2004-05 lockout, and despite the prolonged public defacing of his good name this summer.</p><p>It would be easy for lesser legends who&rsquo;ve been put through what No. 99 has to lash out with bitterness &ndash; especially when, as is happening for perhaps the first time in Gretzky&rsquo;s adult life, the legend has misplaced his Midas Touch and is stuck in a stretch where he can only turn water into whine.</p><p>For a prime example of such a legend and such an outburst, look no further than the recent, utterly disgraceful speech NBA all-time great Michael Jordan made during his induction into basketball&rsquo;s Hall of Fame.</p><p>I never want to see Gretzky get to that point. In fact, considering all he&rsquo;s done for hockey over the years, I think an extended break from the NHL&rsquo;s front lines not only is richly deserved, but vital to his health and well-being.</p><p>A sabbatical would recharge Gretzky&rsquo;s mental and emotional batteries and put him in an excellent position to contribute to another NHL franchise when he&rsquo;s good and ready. It also would allow him to be as close to a full-time dad as he&rsquo;s ever been. And don&rsquo;t think that after sacrificing so many personal moments during (and after) his playing days, family time isn&rsquo;t precious to the man.</p><p>&ldquo;Wayne&rsquo;s got one son (Ty) at Arizona State University and he&rsquo;s got another son (Trevor) in California who&rsquo;s a tremendous athlete,&rdquo; Pang said. &ldquo;This summer, Wayne spent more time at his sons&rsquo; baseball games than ever, and he&rsquo;s a devoted dad through and through. Sometimes being a father all the time, there&rsquo;s nothing wrong with that.</p><p>&ldquo;The guy is the most unselfish and giving human being I&rsquo;ve ever been around in the NHL. If you ask hockey people who know what he&rsquo;s done for the sport, they&rsquo;ll tell you he needs and deserves a little support here.&rdquo;</p><p>Pang was disgusted by the outburst of vitriol against Gretzky.</p><p>&ldquo;What Wayne has had to endure isn&rsquo;t fair,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s had to endure people who don&rsquo;t know anything about his situation questioning what (ticket) income he was bringing in. Questioning his coaching record is one thing, but even that&rsquo;s not fair, because for his first four years of coaching, he basically had to change over an entire roster and he brought in young players who the team decided to quickly develop. You&rsquo;re not going to win a lot of games that way.&rdquo;</p><p>According to Pang, Gretzky&rsquo;s absence from Phoenix&rsquo;s training camp was perfectly understandable.</p><p>&ldquo;Wayne and everybody associated with the team were so unsure of the situation&hellip;what was he or anybody else supposed to do?&rdquo; said Pang, who left Phoenix this summer to become the TV analyst for the St. Louis Blues. &ldquo;He (was) in such a bad position&hellip;If he went and sat in at Coyotes practice, certain people would&rsquo;ve said or written that&rsquo;s the right thing to do, because he was there when the ship&rsquo;s going down.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&lsquo;GRETZKY TAKES ALL OF THIS VERY PERSONALLY&hellip;IT&rsquo;S DIFFICULT ON HIM&rsquo;</b></blockquote><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-011300/9293850-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="1108" height="1392"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>In simpler times, Wayne Gretzky just had to jump over the boards to try and make things right. That option wasn&rsquo;t available to him in Phoenix.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(STEVE BABINEAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>&ldquo;But the legal side means that there&rsquo;s a lot at stake there for him, personally and professionally, and the prospect of a new owner coming in and potentially removing Wayne from his (coaching) sweatsuit at some point wasn&rsquo;t an enviable position for a person of his stature.&rdquo;</p><p>Pang has seen the toll this summer has taken on his friend and isn&rsquo;t happy about it.</p><p>&ldquo;I feel terrible for Wayne,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I know this tugs at him, and for people out there to think he&rsquo;s out somewhere golfing and having a good old time while this is happening, that&rsquo;s not right.</p><p>&ldquo;He takes all of this very personally and it&rsquo;s very difficult on him.&rdquo;</p><p>That&rsquo;s all the more reason Gretzky deserves a nice, long break. He&rsquo;s too good for these legal shenanigans and craven corporate vultures. He should enjoy his family and a near-total absence of microphones, cameras and notebooks shadowing him at every turn.</p><p>He&rsquo;ll always have a high profile in the hockey community, but enough was enough.</p><p>After 45 years of taking hits inside and outside North American ice rinks, it&rsquo;s time Gretzky discovered his inner Dave Semenko and shielded himself from further needless abuse.</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon032.jpg" title="common03" width="76" height="77"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p>For Adam&rsquo;s web-exclusive <b>Screen Shots</b> column, visit <a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a></p><h3><b>DOGS</b></h3><h2><b>DOWN & OUT</b></h2><p>Wayne Gretzky took over as coach of the Coyotes following the NHL lockout. In Gretzky&rsquo;s four seasons behind the bench (2005-09), only two teams &ndash; Los Angeles and St. Louis &ndash; had a worse points percentage than Phoenix.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-02914/9293836-1-eng-US/f0027-022.jpg" title="f0027-02" width="678" height="795"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0026-02

CALL A TIMEOUT, WAYNE

<div class="byline">&#x2013; PETER KERZEL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-011363/9293916-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="364" height="413"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-03725/9293909-1-eng-US/f0028-032.jpg" title="f0028-03" width="320" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>Y</span>ANKED</b>&nbsp;<b>AS THE</b> Capitals&rsquo; starting goalie after one playoff game last spring, and with youngsters Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth nipping at his heels, Jose Theodore experienced a tragic loss just weeks before he was to report to training camp, hoping to erase memories of an uneven debut season in Washington.</p><p>Theodore&rsquo;s two-month-old son, born two months premature in June, died in August. Theodore, entering the final season of a two-year, $9-million contract, arrived at training camp on Sept. 12 with the loss fresh in his mind.</p><p>&ldquo;As a parent, there&rsquo;s nothing worse in the world,&rdquo; said Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau. &ldquo;Nobody ever gets over that. But he&rsquo;s a professional and he knows what he has to do to succeed.&rdquo;</p><p>Boudreau anointed Theodore as the Caps&rsquo; No. 1 goalie entering the pre-season and the veteran reported to camp determined to prove he can still play at an elite level and stave off Varlamov and Neuvirth.</p><p>&ldquo;Redemption is a big word&hellip;You play to play in the playoffs and last year that didn&rsquo;t happen,&rdquo; Theodore said. &ldquo;So that&rsquo;s something I will keep in the back of my mind.&rdquo;</p><p>Acknowledging his infant son&rsquo;s death weighed heavily on him, Theodore asked fans and media to respect his privacy while he went about his job.</p><p>Washington GM George McPhee thinks being around the rink with the emotional support of teammates will assist Theodore in the grieving process.</p><p>&ldquo;Sometimes people go through things like that, lose family members, and hockey is sometimes your sanctuary,&rdquo; McPhee said. &ldquo;You can get away from everything else and play.&rdquo;</p><p>Theodore needs to be strong from start to finish. Last year, he struggled early in the regular season &ndash; and early in games &ndash; before finding his groove. He finished with a record of 32-17-5, ranking 12th in the league in wins, 36th in goals-against average (2.87) and tying for 37th in save percentage (.900).</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-02963/9293902-1-eng-US/f0028-022.jpg" title="f0028-02" width="2242" height="2237"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(MITCHELL LAYTON/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>Time To Step Up</b></h2><p>After enduring a family tragedy in the summer, <b>Jose Theodore</b> wants to turn his attention to the ice and return to form as a top goalie on one of the league&rsquo;s top teams</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-04528/9293895-1-eng-US/f0028-042.jpg" title="f0028-04" width="103" height="103"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2><b>CHECK IT OUT!</b></h2><p>For daily updates on all 30 teams, visit <b><a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">TheHockeyNews.com</a></b></p><h2><b>JUST THE</b>&nbsp;<b>Facts</b></h2><p><b>The Capitals won 50 games in 2008-09, tying the franchise record for most wins in a season. The mark was set in 1985-86 with Rod Langway as captain.</b></p><p><b>50</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0028-01

Washington

<p class="dropcap"><span>W</span>ashington left winger Alex Ovechkin (56) and blueliner Mike Green (31) combined to score 87 goals for the Capitals last season, which was easily the most among the 30 NHL teams&rsquo; top-scoring forward-defenseman combos.</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-08208/9293947-1-eng-US/f0029-082.jpg" title="f0029-08" width="96" height="107"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2><b>MOST GOALS: FORWARD & &lsquo;D&rsquo;</b></h2><p>Washington Capitals <b>87</b></p><p>&nbsp;<i>(F-Ovechkin 56, D-Green 31)</i></p><p>Carolina Hurricanes <b>56</b></p><p><i>(F-Staal 40, D-Babchuk 16)</i></p><p>Detroit Red Wings <b>56</b></p><p>&nbsp;<i>(F-Hossa 40, D-Lidstrom 16)</i></p><p>Nashville Predators <b>56</b></p><p>&nbsp;<i>(F-Arnott 33, D-Weber 23)</i></p><p> Boston Bruins <b>55</b></p><p><i>(F-Kessel 36, D-Chara 19)</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0029-08

CAPITAL COMBINATION

<div class="byline">&#x2013; CURTIS ZUPKE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0029-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-011209/9293985-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Anything less than a career 59-point season will be a downer for Nik Antropov.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(SCOTT CUNNINGHAM/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02828/9293978-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="307" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> Steve Eminger isn&rsquo;t looking for a fresh start with the Ducks: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had three fresh starts,&rdquo; he said.</p><p>After bouncing through three teams last season, Eminger signed a two-year, $2.5-million contract and was promptly penciled in as a topsix defenseman. That&rsquo;s a lot of pressure for a 25-year-old who already qualifies as a journeyman, but it&rsquo;s also an opportunity for Eminger to find a home.</p><p>With 283 games under his belt and an ability to play special teams, he brings experience and versatility.</p><p>The Ducks don&rsquo;t need anything fancy &ndash; just solid puck-moving with a touch of offense to help offset the loss of Chris Pronger and Francois Beauchemin.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0029-01

Anaheim

<div class="byline">&#x2013; GUY CURTRIGHT</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03592/9294016-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="310" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> When Atlanta signed Nik Antropov to a four-year, $16-million deal, Thrashers star Ilya Kovalchuk sent a text message to GM Don Waddell saying, &ldquo;Great job.&rdquo;</p><p>Kovalchuk played with Antropov in Russia during the NHL lockout and knows what kind of talent Antropov possesses. But is Antropov ready to realize his full potential and be a big-time contributor?</p><p>He has the size and skill to be a perfect complement to Kovalchuk on the top line, which also features Bryan Little. But without a 30-goal or 60-point season on his resume, the 6-foot-6 center has never fully reached his potential. He needs to exceed both those totals to justify the trust of Kovalchuk and Waddell.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0029-03

Atlanta

<div class="byline">&#x2013; MIKE LOFTUS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-04444/9294047-1-eng-US/f0029-042.jpg" title="f0029-04" width="289" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> With Phil Kessel traded, the B&rsquo;s must replace his goals on the wing. Marco Sturm tops the list of players who can provide them.</p><p>Sturm scored between 21 and 29 goals for six straight seasons &ndash; until last year, when knee surgery limited him to 19 games (seven goals). Although a left-hand shot, he&rsquo;s a candidate to replace Kessel on a line with No. 1 center Marc Savard, because he&rsquo;s the only Boston winger with Kessel&rsquo;s speed.</p><p>Even if he stays at left wing, Sturm &ndash; presuming he&rsquo;s back to full strength &ndash; will skate with a top center (David Krejci, coming off hip surgery and Patrice Bergeron playing behind Savard) and coach Claude Julien is bound to restore him to special teams duty.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0029-04

Boston

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JOHN VOGL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-05370/9294078-1-eng-US/f0029-052.jpg" title="f0029-05" width="314" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> Tim Connolly is being counted on to carry the Sabres&rsquo; top line and power play. As he proved in 48 games last season, he can do it, recording 47 points and a career-high 18 goals. But the problem is the same &ndash; he played just 48 games, tied for his most over the past three seasons.</p><p>Buffalo believes the 28-year-old pivot is past his injury woes and gave him a two-year, $9-million extension.</p><p>&ldquo;We think he&rsquo;s one of the top players at his position in the NHL,&rdquo; said GM Darcy Regier, &ldquo;so the bet for us is on his health and it&rsquo;s one that ownership is willing to make, it&rsquo;s one that I was willing to make on the management side, and the coaches certainly wanted to make it.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0029-05

Buffalo

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RANDY SPORTAK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-06307/9294109-1-eng-US/f0029-062.jpg" title="f0029-06" width="301" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> How &ldquo;bad&rdquo; Dion Phaneuf was last season has become a myth. Depending on who&rsquo;s talking, the Flames defensemen went from a Norris Trophy finalist to one of the NHL&rsquo;s worst blueliners.</p><p>It wasn&rsquo;t <i>that</i> bad for Phaneuf in 2008-09 &mdash; 11 goals and 47 points were career lows, but still decent numbers. His minus-11 rating was a major disappointment.</p><p>Phaneuf is far too talented to believe he&rsquo;s already hit a career plateau, plus the arrival of coach Brent Sutter and blueliner Jay Bouwmeester will have a major impact. Sutter coached Phaneuf in junior, while J-Bo&rsquo;s arrival will take pressure and ice time away from Phaneuf, which will help him be more effective.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0029-06

Calgary

<div class="byline">&#x2013; LUKE DECOCK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-011373/9294147-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="318" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> It&rsquo;s hard to believe Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour has anything to prove after more than 1,400 games. But he does.</p><p>Coming off an injury-riddled 51-point campaign, Brind&rsquo;Amour wants to show he has plenty left, even at 39. Ironically, the Canes have more depth at center than at any time in recent memory, with Eric Staal, Matt Cullen, Jussi Jokinen and Stephane Yelle, meaning they&rsquo;re less dependent on Brind&rsquo;Amour now.</p><p>But they are substantially better when they can rely on Brind&rsquo;Amour as a lockdown center and at one point last season he had the worst plus-minus in the league. A return to Selke Trophy form would bode well for Carolina&rsquo;s chances this season.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-02936/9294140-1-eng-US/f0030-022.jpg" title="f0030-02" width="1071" height="1359"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Jimmy Howard will never get a better chance to make an NHL impact than now.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(TOM TURRILL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0030-01

Carolina

<div class="byline">&#x2013; TIM SASSONE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-03682/9294178-1-eng-US/f0030-032.jpg" title="f0030-03" width="320" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> It&rsquo;s no secret the Blackhawks need more from defenseman Brian Campbell.</p><p>For Campbell, Year 1 in Chicago was a learning experience, especially when it came to dealing with the expectations of living up to the eight-year, $56.8-million deal he signed in the summer of 2008.</p><p>Campbell didn&rsquo;t have a bad year. He had 52 points, ranking 10th among NHL defensemen, and was plus-5. But there were stretches of inconsistency and coach Joel Quenneville often wouldn&rsquo;t put Campbell on the ice late in games. The blueliner simply pressed a little too hard at times.</p><p>&ldquo;Sometimes you come and you trying to live up to something,&rdquo; Campbell said. &ldquo;I feel a lot more comfortable now.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0030-03

Chicago

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ADRIAN DATER</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-04505/9294209-1-eng-US/f0030-042.jpg" title="f0030-04" width="303" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> For the Avalanche to have any chance of escaping the Western Conference cellar, Paul Stastny will need to stay healthy and be more selfish.</p><p>The 23-year-old center missed 53 games the past two seasons, including 37 last year because of broken bones sustained blocking shots. Stastny said he&rsquo;ll be more selective about shot-blocking and do it differently. He&rsquo;s too important to the team to risk missing half the year over a shot block.</p><p>Named an alternate captain, Stastny will center the top line and see a lot of power play time. With Joe Sakic fading into retirement, Stastny also needs to focus more on scoring than playmaking, with so few established snipers on the roster.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0030-04

Colorado

<div class="byline">&#x2013; AARON PORTZLINE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-05388/9294240-1-eng-US/f0030-052.jpg" title="f0030-05" width="319" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> The patience is waning and the kid gloves have been removed &ndash; small, speedy defenseman Kris Russell must stand and deliver in this his third NHL season.</p><p>&ldquo;He has to get better at not getting discouraged so easily,&rdquo; said coach Ken Hitchcock.</p><p>Too often, Hitchcock said, Russell allows his physical disadvantages &ndash; he&rsquo;s 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds &ndash; to overwhelm the rest of his game. Russell, 22, can control a game from the back end with his skating and puck-handling skills. But those games have been too few and far between.</p><p>&ldquo;This is a big year for me,&rdquo; Russell said. &ldquo;The organization has been very patient. I want to show them I can be a top player in this league.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0030-05

Columbus

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ANSAR KHAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-07257/9294302-1-eng-US/f0030-072.jpg" title="f0030-07" width="319" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> Ty Conklin won 25 games as the Wings&rsquo; backup last season, stepping in when Chris Osgood struggled. Conklin is now with St. Louis, but expectations for the position have not changed. The team is counting on Jimmy Howard to make the jump to the NHL.</p><p>Howard, 25, is embracing the challenge. Drafted 64th overall in 2003, his journey to the NHL has taken longer than anticipated. He spent four years developing in Grand Rapids (AHL), where he enjoyed an outstanding rookie season, but lacked consistency the past three years and has battled conditioning issues.</p><p>He finally has the chance to prove he belongs in the NHL, entering the season as the undisputed backup.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0030-07

Detroit

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ROB TYCHKOWSKI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0031-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-011259/9294340-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>DUSTIN PENNER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PENNER: NORM HALL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="mon022.jpg" title="common02" width="96" height="107"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02841/9294333-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="303" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> New coach Pat Quinn is up to his neck in small forwards and dearly needs a top-six winger with size.</p><p>They don&rsquo;t come much bigger than Dustin Penner, a 6-foot-4, 240-pounder with the hands of a 30-goal man. But getting him to be assertive and consistent has been a challenge. It&rsquo;s no secret former coach Craig MacTavish didn&rsquo;t like Penner&rsquo;s work ethic and the soured relationship and reduced ice time translated into a sub-par season last year. But with a new coach comes a clean slate.</p><p>At the top of his game, Penner can make a nightly impact physically and on the scoresheet, while creating space for his smaller linemates. If not, the Oilers will be a lot easier to play against.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0031-01

Edmonton

<div class="byline">&#x2013; GEORGE RICHARDS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-03639/9294378-1-eng-US/f0031-032.jpg" title="f0031-03" width="320" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> When the Panthers signed left winger Rostislav Olesz to a six-year, $19-million deal in 2008, they thought he had yet to reach his potential &ndash; and that they would reap the benefits when he did.</p><p>Well, last year, Olesz didn&rsquo;t live up to expectations. One year after scoring a career-high 14 goals, his production slipped as he suffered through another injury-plagued season. Olesz ended up with four goals and nine points in 37 games. Before being hurt, he hadn&rsquo;t scored in a month; upon his return, he scored twice.</p><p>However, Olesz is terrific defensively; one of the best penalty-killers the team has had in a while. But the Panthers need offense from him, too. And they need it all season.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0031-03

Florida

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RICH HAMMOND</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-05393/9294409-1-eng-US/f0031-052.jpg" title="f0031-05" width="312" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> GM Dean Lombardi criticized Anze Kopitar last season for his conditioning. Is Kopitar now fit and ready to lead the Kings to the playoffs for the first time since 2002?</p><p>At 22 and entering his fourth NHL season, the center is primed to succeed. On his left wing is Ryan Smyth; on his right, Justin Williams. Both are proven 30-goal veterans.</p><p>Kopitar, who netted 27 goals last season, also needs to return to the 30-goal plateau.</p><p>Kopitar took Lombardi&rsquo;s criticism to heart and showed up at training camp in good shape. That&rsquo;s important, because he will again log heavy minutes in all situations.</p><p>&ldquo;I did everything in my power to prepare for this season,&rdquo; Kopitar said.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0031-05

Los Angeles

<div class="byline">&#x2013; MICHAEL RUSSO</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0031-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-04494/9294447-1-eng-US/f0031-042.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>BENOIT POULIOT</b> <span class="photo-credit">(POULIOT: TOM DAHLIN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-06330/9294440-1-eng-US/f0031-062.jpg" title="f0031-06" width="320" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> The talent is obvious. The commitment level hasn&rsquo;t always been. Benoit Pouliot must deliver if he wants his NHL career to continue, at least in Minnesota.</p><p>The underachieving center, drafted fourth overall in 2005, has been granted one final reprieve. Given umpteen chances to stick in recent years, Pouliot has had the slate wiped clean by new GM Chuck Fletcher.</p><p>&ldquo;He has a new opportunity to make a positive impression on people who are hoping he&rsquo;ll do well,&rdquo; Fletcher said. &ldquo;He has size and skill and speed and a lot of elements that make you want him to be successful.&rdquo;</p><p>For the first time, Pouliot, 23, needs to clear waivers to be sent down to the AHL.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0031-04

Minnesota

<div class="byline">&#x2013; HERB ZURKOWSKY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-011344/9294478-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="315" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> Who is the real Carey Price? Is he the rookie who burst onto the scene two seasons ago and won 24 of 41 starts? Or the sophomore who bottomed out last season?</p><p>&ldquo;It always kind of comes down to goaltending in the end,&rdquo; Price said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s going to be a lot of pressure put on me to have a better performance. I think I&rsquo;m ready for it.&rdquo;</p><p>The Habs placed much of their future in Price when they drafted him fifth overall in 2005, but he was wildly inconsistent last year and struggled badly for stretches.</p><p>Montreal has made it clear what it wants and needs from Price. With his contract expiring at the end of the season and restricted free agency looming, he&rsquo;ll be motivated.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-01

Montreal

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JOHN GLENNON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03655/9294509-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="316" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> The Predators have made no secret they&rsquo;re looking for more offensive production from linemates Martin Erat and David Legwand. The two are both under contract through 2013-14 and will earn more than $10 million combined this year.</p><p>In &rsquo;08-09, Erat put up 50 points and Legwand collected 42, their lowest totals in the past three seasons.</p><p>&ldquo;Based on their compensation, 50 points isn&rsquo;t acceptable,&rdquo; said coach Barry Trotz.</p><p>The two will have to increase their production despite the absence of a proven scorer on the right side, a situation that&rsquo;s remained static for a couple of seasons. Prospect Mike Santorelli looks like the leading candidate to fill the spot.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-03

Nashville

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RICH CHERE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-05383/9294540-1-eng-US/f0032-052.jpg" title="f0032-05" width="286" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> If Brian Rolston had known the hardships that awaited him in New Jersey last season, he might have passed on that $20-million contract that brought him back to his original NHL club.</p><p>There was a severe ankle sprain that sidelined him for 18 games early on. Worse, there was a strained relationship with coach Brent Sutter, who never had enough faith to give Rolston a significant role with regular linemates.</p><p>Few coaches have more faith in the speedy winger than Jacques Lemaire, so now it&rsquo;s up to Rolston to return to his 30-goal form and prominent place on the power play.</p><p>&ldquo;I want to get back to 30 goals,&rdquo; said Rolston, now 36. &ldquo;I think I will.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-05

New Jersey

<div class="byline">&#x2013; PETER BOTTE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-07270/9294571-1-eng-US/f0032-072.jpg" title="f0032-07" width="280" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> With all eyes fixed on John Tavares, Josh Bailey no longer is the new kid on the Island or the No. 1 center of attention.</p><p>Forget for a moment about defenseman Luke Schenn, who was taken fifth overall by Toronto after the Isles traded down from that spot to No. 9 in the 2008 draft. Bailey&rsquo;s career is linked for now to the other forwards taken between spots No. 6 and 10 &ndash; Nikita Filatov, Colin Wilson, Mikkel Boedker and Cody Hodgson.</p><p>Bailey, 20, showed poise, but posted only seven goals and 25 points in 68 games as a rookie. Coach Scott Gordon expects the playmaking pivot to improve those numbers and solidify himself as the Isles&rsquo; No. 2 center.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-07

NY Islanders

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ALAN HAHN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02900/9294602-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="267" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> No Blueshirt faces more scrutiny than Brandon Dubinsky, who was criticized for missing the first half of training camp while in contract negotiations. The loudest came from coach John Tortorella, who called it &ldquo;stupid.&rdquo;</p><p>Dubinsky eventually got his money &ndash; $3.7 million over two years &ndash; and now he has to prove it was all worth it as the Rangers try to get their newest era underway. The 23-year-old, who scored 13 goals and 41 points in 82 games last season, is a critical piece in a Rangers offense that is very thin down the middle.</p><p>The team lacks a legit No. 1 center that not only can properly set up the centerpiece, Marian Gaborik, but also help revive an anemic power play.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-02

NY Rangers

<div class="byline">&#x2013; BRUCE GARRIOCH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-04489/9294633-1-eng-US/f0032-042.jpg" title="f0032-04" width="264" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> The time is now for center Jason Spezza; there is a lot of pressure on the 26-year-old to lead the Senators back to the playoffs.</p><p>The no-movement clause in his deal kicks in July 1, 2010 and Spezza has to show he&rsquo;s a player who can again take Ottawa to a high level. He was on the 2007 Cup final team, but roster turnover puts more pressure than ever on him.</p><p>Spezza is motivated by the fact he&rsquo;s on the radar for the Vancouver Olympics. He had a wake-up call last summer when he was originally passed over by Team Canada executive director Steve Yzerman for the summer orientation camp and wants to make the most of being added as an injury replacement.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-04

Ottawa

<div class="byline">&#x2013; WAYNE FISH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-06324/9294664-1-eng-US/f0032-062.jpg" title="f0032-06" width="286" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> Paying nearly a million dollars per goal isn&rsquo;t exactly cost efficient in this age of salary cap economics.</p><p>But due to injuries to Daniel Briere, that&rsquo;s what the Flyers gave the talented center last season. A pair of abdominal surgeries limited the 31-year-old to 11 goals (in 29 games), not a big return on $8 million.</p><p>This season, the Flyers expect to move Briere to right wing with the hopes he&rsquo;ll return to the 30-goal level.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been knocked down before, got put on waivers early in my career&hellip;I take pride in getting back up and proving this was just a fluke,&rdquo; Briere said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done that in the past. Now it&rsquo;s the same kind of mindset I&rsquo;m going into this season with.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-06

Philadelphia

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JIM GINTONIO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-08230/9294695-1-eng-US/f0032-082.jpg" title="f0032-08" width="274" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> The Coyotes lack a major scoring threat, which puts more pressure on the defense &ndash; which puts more pressure on goalie Ilya Bryzgalov.</p><p>Bryzgalov, who led Russia to victory at the World Championship, said his goals-against average last year (2.98) was too high. He needs to stop more of the routine shots he let slip by last season. It&rsquo;s as simple as this: If he doesn&rsquo;t pick up his game, the Coyotes surely will miss the playoffs a seventh-straight season.</p><p>The recent hire of former NHL goalie Sean Burke to replace Grant Fuhr as Bryzgalov&rsquo;s mentor will help.</p><p>&ldquo;I think both guys (Bryzgalov and Jason LaBarbera) will benefit from a new take on the position,&rdquo; said GM Don Maloney.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-08

Phoenix

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JOE STARKEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-011360/9294733-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="320" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> Before the 2008 Stanley Cup final, a decorated member of Detroit&rsquo;s brain trust took note of rookie Penguins defenseman Kris Letang.</p><p>&ldquo;I think they had a big change when they got the young kid in the lineup,&rdquo; said NHL legend Scotty Bowman.</p><p>Letang was a healthy scratch in that final, but had four goals and 13 points in Pittsburgh&rsquo;s 2009 playoff. He&rsquo;s poised for a career season, especially if he settles in on a star-studded power play.</p><p>Improved defense is a must for a team that lost some of its top shutdown blueliners. Letang also needs to shoot more to help the power play achieve its potential. He&rsquo;s in a contract year, so don&rsquo;t be surprised if it all comes together.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02932/9294726-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="1047" height="1341"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Vinny Lecavalier has the &ldquo;right&rdquo; stuff again after a summer of injury recovery.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PHILLIP MACCALLUM/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0034-01

Pittsburgh

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JEREMY RUTHERFORD</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03741/9294764-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="301" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> For the second time in his career, Chris Mason is an NHL team&rsquo;s starting goalie.</p><p>Mason was Nashville&rsquo;s No. 1 in 2007-08, but a slow start by the Predators led to Dan Ellis supplanting Mason. After a trade to St. Louis, Mason began as the backup to Manny Legace last season. But halfway through the year, Legace was demoted to the minors.</p><p>Mason started the final 38 games, posting a 23-8-6 record with a goals-against average under 2.20 and a save percentage above .920. Those stats were a big reason St. Louis made the playoffs.</p><p>To return, the Blues need Mason to do it again. In a contract season, if Mason proves himself, the Blues have a job he&rsquo;ll be interested in.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0034-03

St. Louis

<div class="byline">&#x2013; DAVID POLLAK</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-04596/9294795-1-eng-US/f0034-042.jpg" title="f0034-04" width="308" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> The Sharks need second-tier scoring to take some pressure off of Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Dany Heatley.</p><p>That group includes Joe Pavelski and Devin Setoguchi, but the player most under the microscope is Ryane Clowe. The 27-year-old power forward parlayed 22 goals and 52 points last season into a four-year, $14.5 million contract that raises expectations.</p><p>Clowe must have a more consistent crease presence, especially in the playoffs. His four goals and eight points led the Sharks in their Round 1 match-up against Calgary in 2008, the last series San Jose won. But in 12 post-season games since, he has just two goals and three points.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0034-04

San Jose

<div class="byline">&#x2013; DAMIAN CRISTODERO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-05489/9294826-1-eng-US/f0034-052.jpg" title="f0034-05" width="292" height="168"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> His surgically repaired right shoulder has healed. His surgically repaired right wrist has been rehabbed. And the incessant and spirit-sapping trade rumors have finally ceased. Vincent Lecavalier is ready to reclaim his spot as one of the world&rsquo;s best players.</p><p>The upgraded Lightning will need him if it is to challenge for a playoff spot. It goes beyond the 40 goals and 90 points the team hopes Lecavalier can supply. The Bolts are paying the center $10 million this season and spent $2.5 million to sign Alex Tanguay to play on his left wing.</p><p>If it works, Tampa gets a second scoring line behind the unit of Steven Stamkos, Martin St-Louis and Ryan Malone.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0034-05

Tampa Bay

<div class="byline">&#x2013; TERRY KOSHAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-06439/9294857-1-eng-US/f0034-062.jpg" title="f0034-06" width="300" height="167"></div><p><b>STEP UP</b> Vesa Toskala can sway a lot of doubters if he demonstrates that 2008-09 was a blip.</p><p>Toskala&rsquo;s numbers &ndash; an .891 save percentage and 3.26 goals-against average &ndash; left fans and the club wanting more. He&rsquo;ll make $4 million this year and can become an unrestricted free agent next July. And he has to rebound with the knowledge the kid playing behind him, Jonas Gustavsson, is the Leafs&rsquo; goal-tender of the future.</p><p>Toskala must show he&rsquo;s a big-game goalie who can save his team&rsquo;s bacon on off-nights. If he can&rsquo;t get it done, coach Ron Wilson will be pressured into rushing Gustavsson. With a much-improved defense, Toskala won&rsquo;t have excuses.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0034-06

Toronto

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ELLIOTT PAP</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-07385/9294888-1-eng-US/f0034-072.jpg" title="f0034-07" width="311" height="167"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TEP UP</b> The Canucks showed great faith in Alex Edler last October by signing the young defenseman to a four-year, $13-million extension that kicks in this season. Now, he needs to deliver.</p><p>At 23 and with 186 NHL games (including playoffs) under his skates, Edler will be counted on to perform like a top-four blueliner. His partner last season, Swedish countryman Mattias Ohlund, is gone, so Edler won&rsquo;t have his mentor and security blanket.</p><p>Edler is coming off a fine 37-point season in which he was plus-11. Those are quality numbers, but Edler is capable of more and, if the Canucks are to repeat as division champs, he&rsquo;ll need to bump up his total, especially on the power play.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0034-07

Vancouver

f0035-01

Your Inside Edge

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0036-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-011258/9294964-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Grin and Bear it: Hershey is all smiles after capturing the AHL&rsquo;s 2009 Calder Cup.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JUSTSPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02837/9294957-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="166" height="166"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-03687/9294950-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg" title="f0036-03" width="157" height="153"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>W</span>ith the NHL season</b> underway, the American League and ECHL are feeling the trickle-down effect as players begin to find their places in organizations for the 2009-10 season.</p><p>The following pages offer in-depth reports from AHL correspondents Kevin Oklobzija and Phil Janack, including Calder Cup hopefuls and players to keep an eye on as the season unfolds. Mike Mastovich takes a close look at the ECHL, with conference predictions and top Kelly Cup contenders as well as some of the league&rsquo;s brightest prospects.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0036-01

MINOR PRO PREVIEW

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN OKLOBZIJA</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-011124/9294995-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="847" height="1092"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>BRETT STERLING</b> <span class="photo-credit">(ROSS DETTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02780/9295002-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="196" height="195"></div><p><b>FOR MOST OF A</b> quarter century, the Rochester Americans were pretty much synonymous with the Calder Cup playoffs.</p><p>Diehard fans didn&rsquo;t dare schedule a vacation during April or May for fear they&rsquo;d miss a playoff sweep &ndash; or a parade.</p><p>But that changed in recent years due to a dual affiliation with two lacking-for-depth parent teams, the Buffalo Sabres and Florida Panthers, and a squabbling ownership group teetering on bankruptcy. The result was last-place finishes in 2007-08 and &rsquo;08-09 and total embarrassment for the Amerk crest.</p><p>Enter second-year owner Curt Styres and the clout and determination of Ted Nolan.</p><p>Styres, a lifelong resident of the First Nation of the Grand River Reserve, demanded a roster stocked with high-quality veterans. The demand was met by Nolan, the team&rsquo;s vice-president of hockey operations, and director of player personnel Jody Gage. The single affiliate Panthers signed right winger Graham Mink, centers Jeff Taffe and Jamie Johnson and defenseman Clay Wilson to two-way contracts, while Mike York and Chris Taylor accepted AHL deals.</p><p>&ldquo;This is one of the most storied franchises in the AHL,&rdquo; Nolan said. &ldquo;We have to bring back the tradition.&rdquo;</p><p>Even with the talent brought in, getting past the Chicago Wolves come playoff time might not be possible &ndash; for anyone.</p><p>Here&rsquo;s a pre-season conference ranking:</p><p>1. CHICAGO WOLVES There&rsquo;s no doubt Chicago has a lot of everything, including 2008-09 second-team all-star goalie Drew MacIntyre. On defense are veterans Joel Kwiatkowski and Nathan Oystrick, as well as sophomore Arturs Kulda. Up front, coach Don Granato&rsquo;s job is to find ice time for everyone. Jason Krog, the AHL&rsquo;s leading scorer in 2007-08, is back after a year in Manitoba. Goal-scoring magician Brett Sterling, John Pohl and Tim Stapleton are budding all-stars and Thrashers prospects Angelo Esposito, Spencer Machacek and Riley Holzapfel will be given time to mature.</p><p>2. ROCHESTER AMERICANS Even if Taffe spends time in the NHL, scoring won&rsquo;t be a problem with York, Taylor, Mink and Johnson alongside prospects Michal Repik and Evgeni Dadonov. On defense, Wilson will quarterback the power play and youngsters Keaton Ellerby, Jason Garrison and Mike Caruso will develop. The one question is in goal: Can newcomer Alexander Salak or holdover Tyler Plante make saves on a consistent basis?</p><p>3. ABBOTSFORD HEAT The league&rsquo;s first West Coast team will make a great first impression &ndash; and it starts in goal with Leland Irving. Calgary&rsquo;s &ldquo;goalie of the future&rdquo; became one of the league&rsquo;s most reliable young netminders last season. Jason Jaffray, Kyle Greentree and Kris Chucko form the AHL&rsquo;s best set of left wingers; rookie Mikael Backlund and veteran Carson Germyn will get them the puck. The blueline boasts stalwarts Brett Palin, Matt Pelech and Anton Stralman.</p><p>4. HAMILTON BULLDOGS The roster features power forward Mike Glumac and gritty center Kyle Chipchura with talented youngsters Ben Maxwell, Ryan White, Ryan Russell, Brock Trotter and David Desharnais. Defenseman Yannick Weber will build on his terrific rookie season; newcomer P.K. Subban could earn all-rookie team honors.</p><p>5. ROCKFORD ICEHOGS Depth on the parent Chicago Blackhawks roster means good things for Rockford. Goaltending will be solid, no matter who is No. 2 in Chicago.</p><p>6. GRAND RAPIDS GRIFFINS Young goalies Daniel Larrson and Thomas McCollum will benefit from a solid defense, including NHL-ready Jakub Kindl. Jeremy Williams and Francis Pare are shooters up front.</p><p>7. MANITOBA MOOSE With Cory Schneider in goal, another 40-plus wins is possible. But the Moose must make up for the losses of forwards Krog and Jaffray.</p><p>8. MILWAUKEE ADMIRALS Rookie Jonathan Blum (23rd overall in 2007) joins an already strong blueline with holdovers Cody Franson and Teemu Laakso. Cal O&rsquo;Reilly, Ryan Jones and Nick Spaling run the offense.</p><p>9. PEORIA RIVERMEN If they can score, they&rsquo;ll win with Ben Bishop and Hannu Toivonen in goal and defensemen Tyson Strachan, Jonas Junland, Steve Wagner and Justin Fletcher on the blueline.</p><p>10. TEXAS STARS WHL sniper Jamie Benn is a possibility. The defense is very good with Garrett Stafford, Andrew Hutchinson, Dan Jancevski and Maxime Fortunas.</p><p>11. HOUSTON AEROS Coach Kevin Constantine knows defense, so the Aeros will be competitive with goalie Barry Brust.</p><p>12. TORONTO MARLIES Rookie forwards Mikhail Stefanovich, Viktor Stalberg, Dale Mitchell and Tyler Bozak will be fun to watch alongside vets Tim Brent and Ben Ondrus.</p><p>13. SAN ANTONIO RAMPAGE The distractions in Phoenix can be ignored with quality veteran forwards David Spina, Chad Kolarik and Jeff Hoggan leading the way.</p><p>14. LAKE ERIE MONSTERS Veterans Darren Haydar, Marty Sertich and Matt Hendricks must stabilize the roster.</p><h2><b>AHL WEST</b>&nbsp;<b>COACHES</b></h2><p>Coaches are listed with their team, age and number of seasons they&rsquo;ve been with their club.</p><h3><b>NORTH DIVISION</b></h3><p><b>ABBOTSFORD</b> Jim Playfair, 45, 1st</p><p><b>GRAND RAPIDS</b> Curt Fraser, 51, 2nd</p><p><b>HAMILTON</b> Guy Boucher, 38, 1st</p><p><b>LAKE ERIE</b> David Quinn, 43, 1st</p><p><b>MANITOBA</b> Scott Arniel, 47, 4th</p><p><b>ROCHESTER</b> Benoit Groulx, 41, 2nd</p><p><b>TORONTO</b> Dallas Eakins, 42, 1st</p><h3><b>WEST DIVISION</b></h3><p><b>CHICAGO</b> Don Granato, 42, 2nd</p><p><b>HOUSTON</b> Kevin Constantine, 50, 3rd</p><p><b>MILWAUKEE</b> Lane Lambert, 44, 3rd</p><p><b>PEORIA</b> Davis Payne, 38, 2nd</p><p><b>ROCKFORD</b> Bill Peters, 44, 2nd</p><p><b>SAN ANTONIO</b> Greg Ireland, 43, 3rd</p><p><b>TEXAS</b> Glen Gulutzan, 37, 1st<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0037-01

WOLVES TOP DOGS

<div class="byline">BY PHIL JANACK</div><p><b>IN THE EASTERN CONFERENCE</b> for 2009-10, what&rsquo;s old is new again.</p><p>It starts in upstate New York, where the league returns to Glens Falls a decade after the Adirondack Red Wings left. The Wings were one of the AHL&rsquo;s most successful franchises, winning four Calder Cups in a 12-year span between 1980 and 1992. The Wings are succeeded by the Adirondack Phantoms, the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; farm team.</p><p>In western New York, the Syracuse Crunch are welcomed in from the Western Conference to meet familiar foes. When Syracuse returned to the league after a 14-year absence in 1994-95, it played in the same division and/or conference as teams in Adirondack, Albany, Binghamton, Hershey, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton before heading to the West in 2001-02. They rejoin those four clubs &ndash; and Norfolk &ndash; in the East Division.</p><p>An East Division team has reached the Calder Cup final for six consecutive seasons, capturing three championships (Philadelphia in 2005 and Hershey in &rsquo;06 and &rsquo;09).</p><p>Here is a look at the East, with teams listed in predicted order of conference finish:</p><p>1. HERSHEY BEARS Not every face from last year&rsquo;s AHL record-setting 10th Calder Cup title team is back this season, but there are enough. Boyd Kane, captain of the 2006 champs, is back. Playoff MVP Michal Neuvirth returns in goal and record-setting regular season MVP Alexandre Giroux was re-signed, along with veteran defenseman Bryan Helmer. Keith Aucoin also returns as Giroux&rsquo;s set-up man. Chris Bourque, Kyle Wilson and Andrew Joudrey are back up front, and journeyman Jason Bacashihua was brought in for goaltending depth.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-011214/9295033-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="848" height="1092"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MICHAL NEUVIRTH</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JUSTSPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption></div><p>2. BRIDGEPORT SOUND TIGERS After battling Hershey to the finish for division honors, the Tigers appear poised to roar again. Though there is plenty to replace up front, including top scorer Mike Iggulden, the parent Islanders brought in free agent forwards Greg Moore, Matt Moulson, Greg Mauldin and Jeremy Reich. Promising but injury-prone forward Bobby Hughes was acquired from Carolina and the goaltending looks solid with the addition of free agent Scott Munroe and the return of all-rookie goalie Kyle Lawson.</p><p>3. HARTFORD WOLF PACK With six straight seasons of 44 or more wins and 12 consecutive trips to the playoffs, the New York Rangers&rsquo; top affiliate is consistently one of the league&rsquo;s elite, despite numerous roster changes. Brodie Dupont will be asked to improve his solid scoring totals and slick Swiss import Andreas Ambuhl adds skill up front. Size, grit and effort, Hartford&rsquo;s calling cards, will be plentiful. Returnees Corey Potter and Michael Sauer are back on the blueline and the goaltending tandem of Miikka Wiikman and Matt Zaba remains intact for a team that allowed the second-fewest goals in the East.</p><p>4. ADIRONDACK PHANTOMS Up to a dozen players from last year&rsquo;s 93-point Phantoms team will return, including top-five scorers Jared Ross, Jon Matsumoto, Patrick Maroon, David Laliberte and blueliner Danny Syvret. Depth comes from rookie James van Riemsdyk and veterans Krys Kolanos and Jason Ward. The defense will be mostly young, but very talented. The biggest question is in net, with untested rookies Michael Teslak and Nicola Riopel and Swedish import Johan Backlund.</p><p>5. WILKES-BARRE/SCRANTON PENGUINS Defense and goaltending look solid; scoring will be an issue with the departure of four of last season&rsquo;s top five scorers.</p><p>6. WORCESTER SHARKS Junior goal-tending star Tyson Sexsmith replaces graduated workhorse Thomas Greiss, while newcomers Dwight Helminen, T.J. Trevelyan and Danny Groulx provide offensive boost.</p><p>7. PROVIDENCE BRUINS Goalie Tuukka Rask makes the Baby B&rsquo;s a contender; defenseman Johnny Boychuk must match last season&rsquo;s career year.</p><p>8. PORTLAND PIRATES Nathan Gerbe, Tim Kennedy and Mark Mancari fuel high-octane offense; goalie Jhonas Enroth will be asked to build on an outstanding rookie year.</p><p>9. ALBANY RIVER RATS The team will be very young, but very skilled with Brandon Sutter, Drayson Bowman and Zach Boychuk leading the offense and a big, mobile defense.</p><p>10. BINGHAMTON SENATORS Upgraded in goal with Mike Brodeur and at forward with Martin St-Pierre, while Denis Hamel and Josh Hennessy hope for injury-free seasons.</p><p>11. SYRACUSE CRUNCH Sniper Pascal Pelletier improves the offense, which must have a more consistent Alexandre Picard; veteran Dan Smith is a major loss on defense.</p><p>12. MANCHESTER MONARCHS Scott Parse, Justin Azevedo and Oscar Moller will have to make up for big losses up front.</p><p>13. SPRINGFIELD FALCONS With Charles Linglet and Chris Minard, parent Oilers trying to end six playoff-less years in a row.</p><p>14. LOWELL DEVILS Will be tougher with additions of Louis Robitaille and Tim Sestito, but nine-year playoff absence will continue.</p><p>15. NORFOLK ADMIRALS Imploded under last season&rsquo;s lofty expectations and little was done to make things better.</p><h2><b>AHL EAST</b>&nbsp;<b>COACHES</b></h2><p>Coaches are listed with their team, age and the number of seasons they&rsquo;ve been with their current club</p><h3><b>EAST DIVISION</b></h3><p><b>ADIRONDACK</b> Greg Gilbert, 47, 1st</p><p><b>ALBANY</b> Jeff Daniels, 40, 2nd</p><p><b>BING.</b> Don Nachbauer, 50, 1st</p><p><b>HERSHEY</b> Mark French, 38, 1st</p><p><b>NORFOLK</b> Darren Rumble, 40, 2nd</p><p><b>SYRACUSE</b> Ross Yates, 48, 4th</p><p><b>W-B/SCRAN.</b> Todd Reirden, 37, 2nd</p><h3><b>ATLANTIC DIVISION</b></h3><p><b>BRIDGEPORT</b> Jack Capuano, 43, 3rd</p><p><b>HARTFORD</b> Ken Gernander, 39, 3rd</p><p><b>LOWELL</b> John MacLean, 43, Year 1st</p><p><b>MANCHESTER</b> Mark Morris, 51, 3rd</p><p><b>PORTLAND</b> Kevin Dineen, 45, 5th</p><p><b>PROVIDENCE</b> Rob Murray, 42, 2nd</p><p><b>SPRINGFIELD</b> Rob Daum, 50, 2nd</p><p><b>WORCESTER</b> Roy Sommer, 52, 12th<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0038-01

BEAR OF A TEAM

<div class="byline">BY KEVIN OKLOBZIJA</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-011117/9295064-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>KEITH AUCOIN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JUSTSPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>HERSHEY&rsquo;S KEITH AUCOIN</b> is proof there&rsquo;s no telling where a tip about a great hockey player could come from.</p><p>In Aucoin&rsquo;s case, it was a member of the security force at Tsongas Arena in Lowell, Mass., who was touting what a smallish center at NCAA Division III Norwich University could do.</p><p>Tom Rowe, GM of the Lowell Lock Monsters at the time, eventually decided to see if the security guard knew what he was talking about &ndash; or if the guy was simply bragging about a neighbor&rsquo;s kid who played hockey.</p><p>&ldquo;The guy lived in my neighborhood (in the Lowell suburb of Chelmsford) and was always telling (Rowe) I was a good player,&rdquo; recalled Aucoin with a laugh.</p><p>It turns out the security guard was bragging &ndash; and rightfully so. From his sophomore through senior seasons at Norwich, Aucoin produced more than two points a game (95 goals and 205 points in 90 games).</p><p>Rowe did a little scouting of Aucoin, liked what he saw and signed the 5-foot-9 center to a two-way, AHL/United League contract.</p><p>That was before the 2001-02 season. Eight years and more than 600 points as a pro later, Aucoin is poised for another standout AHL season, as well as providing depth for the Washington Capitals.</p><p>For the past three years, Aucoin has been the AHL&rsquo;s Mr. Setup, averaging better than an assist per game with 180 helpers in 173 contests.</p><p>He was second in league scoring a year ago with 25 goals and 96 points for the Hershey Bears, one point fewer than linemate Alexandre Giroux.</p><p>That type of production is becoming the norm. In 2006-07, Aucoin scored 27 goals and 99 points for the Albany River Rats and his 108 penalty minutes proved he has an edge. But what was truly impressive that season was Aucoin&rsquo;s 72 assists to set a Rats franchise record. This is a team that over the years has featured New Jersey Devils prospects Scott Pellerin, Pascal Rheaume, Steve Sullivan, Brian Gionta and Zach Parise.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a long road and I spent a long time in the minors, but I&rsquo;ve learned from every experience,&rdquo; said Aucoin, who turns 31 in November.</p><p>Two NHL teams have learned he can be of help, too. Aucoin played 38 games with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2007-08 (five goals, 13 points) and was called up by the Washington Capitals for 12 contests last season (two goals, six points).</p><p>Aucoin headed to the Capitals&rsquo; training camp this fall hoping there would be a spot on the roster, but was well aware the odds were stacked against him.</p><p>&ldquo;I know they have a good amount of forwards, but they were happy with how I played last season and they know what to expect from me,&rdquo; Aucoin said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just going to be working hard like I always do. I try not to worry too much about it.&rdquo;</p><p>Besides, worrying doesn&rsquo;t solve anything. And he&rsquo;d done enough of that earlier in his career. He often wondered what it would take to finally get a chance.</p><p>In 2002-03, the 187-pound Aucoin scored 25 goals and 74 points in 78 games for the Providence Bruins. And two years later, he produced 21 goals and 66 points in 72 games for the Baby B&rsquo;s.</p><p>&ldquo;But I couldn&rsquo;t even get an NHL contract,&rdquo; he said.</p><p>The hockey world can be small, though. His break came in 2005-06 from Carolina, whose development team in the AHL was slated to be coached by Rowe.</p><p>&ldquo;I had a great opportunity to play in Lowell and show my skill,&rdquo; Aucoin said.</p><p>He ended up playing the first seven NHL games of his career that season.</p><p>&ldquo;My first game (in Raleigh against Montreal), I was in awe, that&rsquo;s for sure,&rdquo; Aucoin said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the most nervous I&rsquo;ve ever been for a hockey game. I knew I would be playing against the players I watched growing up.&rdquo;</p><p>The Bears will rely heavily on Aucoin again this season. In their march to the Calder Cup last spring, he scored five goals and 23 points in 21 playoff games.</p><p>&ldquo;It was such a fun year to be a part of,&rdquo; Aucoin said.</p><p>The trick now is to duplicate the feat.</p><h2><b>BEST OF</b>&nbsp;<b>THE BEST</b></h2><p>Here&rsquo;s a quick look at some of the teams and players expected to make a big impact in the AHL this season.</p><h3><b>CALDER CUP FAVORITES</b></h3><p>1. Chicago Wolves</p><p>2. Hershey Bears</p><p>3. Rochester Americans</p><h3><b>MVP CANDIDATES</b></h3><p>1. Keith Aucoin, C, 30, Hershey</p><p>2. Jason Krog, C, 34, Chicago</p><p>3. Brett Sterling, LW, 25, Chicago</p><h3><b>TOP GOALTENDERS</b></h3><p>1. Cory Schneider, 23, Manitoba</p><p>2. Tuukka Rask, 22, Providence</p><p>3. Drew MacIntyre, 25, Chicago</p><h3><b>TOP DEFENSEMEN</b></h3><p>1. Johnny Boychuk, 25, Providence</p><p>2. Lawrence Nycholat, 30, Manitoba</p><p>3. Clay Wilson, 26, Rochester<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0039-01

MEET MR. SET UP

<div class="byline">BY PHIL JANACK</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01811/9295095-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>ZACH BOYCHUK</b> <span class="photo-credit">(COURTESY OF JIM MCNALLY)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>BOTH HIGHLY DECORATED</b> and highly skilled, Zach Boychuk has the Carolina Hurricanes excited about his future.</p><p>His present looks pretty good, too.</p><p>Drafted 14th overall in 2008, Boychuk turned 20 two days after the American League opened its 74th season.</p><p>&ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a lot of skill,&rdquo; said Carolina GM Jim Rutherford. &ldquo;He loves to compete when the game&rsquo;s on the line. He just loves the game. He is really a very good young player.&rdquo;</p><p>This is the first full pro season for Boychuk, an Airdrie, Alta., native who began and ended his 2008-09 year getting a taste of the professional life.</p><p>Small in stature, but big on talent, Boychuk earned an NHL look as an 18-year-old out of camp last fall, despite essentially playing with one hand following off-season wrist surgery.</p><p>The left winger played two games for Carolina, becoming the first Canes player since Eric Staal in 2003 to make his NHL debut in his draft year.</p><p>&ldquo;Last year, I didn&rsquo;t get any games or exhibition games or anything like that,&rdquo; Boychuk said. &ldquo;I basically came into camp cold and nursing a wrist injury. I wasn&rsquo;t able to shoot any pucks at all last summer. It was a big adjustment not to play a game in six months and it was tough to go from that to stepping right into the NHL.&rdquo;</p><p>Ultimately, he was returned for a fourth Western League season with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, where he scored 28 goals and 57 points in 43 games. Not flashy totals, but that&rsquo;s a sneaky 1.3 points-per-game average in a league that&rsquo;s noted for tight checking and stingy defense. He added seven goals and 13 points in 11 playoff games.</p><p>Boychuk then joined the non-playoff bound Albany River Rats for their final two regular season games in April, scoring an assist in his AHL debut.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m really excited,&rdquo; Boychuk said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s sad to leave the junior career behind. I met a lot of great friends and played with a lot of great players. But, at the same time, I&rsquo;m realizing my dream. I&rsquo;m basically playing hockey as a profession right now.&rdquo;</p><p>Rutherford doesn&rsquo;t plan to rush Boychuk to the NHL roster, which became crowded up front with off-season acquisitions of veterans Stephane Yelle and Tom Kosto-poulos and the re-signing of Chad LaRose and Erik Cole.</p><p>Instead, Boychuk will get plenty of time to develop in Albany, likely alongside other top Canes prospects Brandon Sutter, Drayson Bowman and Jamie McBain.</p><p>&ldquo;Based on the way Sutter and Boychuk played at rookie camp, there&rsquo;s no question they could jump right in and play NHL games right now,&rdquo; Rutherford said. &ldquo;But, it&rsquo;s about the proper development.</p><p>&ldquo;I know that as players, they&rsquo;re going to want to get here as quick as they can. But when you look at the overall picture and you look at their careers and you look at coming in with the amount of confidence you need, playing in Albany is not bad.&rdquo;</p><p>Boychuk, who is penciled in as the No. 5 left or right winger as Canes camp opened, finished his junior career with 110 goals and 271 points in 237 games, ranking seventh in Lethbridge history, with 20 goals and 39 points in 35 career playoff games.</p><p>He has three international gold medals representing Canada: from the 2006 under-18 Junior World Cup and the 2008 and 2009 World Junior Championships.</p><p>Skating on a line with Sutter and Bowman, he had a goal in each of Carolina&rsquo;s four games as the team went 3-1 and captured the eight-team NHL prospects tournament in Traverse City, Mich., that preceded camp.</p><p>&ldquo;Zach&rsquo;s the type of kid that&rsquo;s played in a lot of big games and on a lot of big teams,&rdquo; said Albany coach-GM Jeff Daniels, who also guided the prospects team. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a bit of everything. For a smaller guy, he&rsquo;s very solid on his skates. He goes in those tough areas to score goals. He&rsquo;s not one of those guys who sits on the outside and waits for the puck. He&rsquo;s very quick and very strong. He&rsquo;s the whole package.&rdquo;</p><p>Added Boychuk: &ldquo;Playing those two games in Albany, it&rsquo;s a step up and the NHL obviously is an even bigger step. I&rsquo;m just coming in every day trying to work hard and get better. I expect some huge growth this season.&rdquo;</p><h2><b>IMPACT</b>&nbsp;<b>ROOKIES</b></h2><p>Listed below is a new wave of AHL freshmen to keep an eye on.</p><p>1. <b>Zach Boychuk</b>, C, Albany, 20, Carolina, 14th overall in 2008</p><p>2. <b>James van Riemsdyk</b>, LW, Adirondack, 20, Philadelphia, 2nd overall &rsquo;07</p><p>3. <b>Angelo Esposito</b>, C, Chicago, 20, Atlanta, 20th overall in 2007</p><p>4. <b>Logan Couture</b>, C, Worcester, 20, San Jose, 9th overall in 2007</p><p>5. <b>P.K. Subban</b>, D, Hamilton, 20, Montreal, 43rd overall in 2007</p><p>6. <b>Tyler Ennis</b>, C, Portland, 20, Buffalo, 26th overall in 2008</p><p>7. <b>Lars Eller</b>, C, Peoria, 20, St. Louis, 13th overall in 2007</p><p>8. <b>Jamie Benn</b>, LW, Texas, 20, Dallas, 129th overall in 2007</p><p>9. <b>Jonathan Blum</b>, D, Milwaukee, 20, Nashville, 23rd overall in 2007</p><p>10. <b>Drayson Bowman</b>, C, Albany, 20, Carolina, 72nd overall in 2007<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0040-01

STORM WARNING

<div class="byline">BY MIKE MASTOVICH</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01699/9295126-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="847" height="1092"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>KEVIN BAKER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(AL LARSON PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02439/9295133-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="190" height="185"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>M</span>ALCOLM CAMERON</b> is accustomed to high expectations. The Hockey News has picked Cameron-coached teams to finish No. 1 in the ECHL the past two seasons.</p><p>His squads partly delivered, but didn&rsquo;t end up on top. Last year, the Florida Everblades won 49 games and took the regular season champion&rsquo;s Brabham Cup, but fell to eventual Kelly Cup-champion South Carolina in the division final. In 2007-08, Cameron&rsquo;s Texas Wildcatters, the pre-season favorite, won 52 games, had 115 points and tied for the Brabham Cup, but lost in the division semifinal.</p><p>Once again, Cameron&rsquo;s Everblades &ndash; with a double-digit number of returnees and solid NHL affiliations in Carolina and Florida &ndash; are THN&rsquo;s pre-season No. 1.</p><p>Reigning league MVP Kevin Baker returns, as does Peter Metcalf, Colin Nicholson, Ernie Hartlieb and Mathieu Roy. Anchor defenseman Cleve Kinley is new and the team boasts former NHL goalie Mike Morrison.</p><p>Here&rsquo;s how the ECHL stacks up this season:</p><p>1. FLORIDA EVERBLADES Pre-season favorites look to redeem themselves after a surprising playoff loss last year.</p><p>2. ONTARIO REIGN Fan-favorite Chris Curran returns and Minnesota State goalie Mike Zacharias joins defending Pacific champs.</p><p>3. VICTORIA SALMON KINGS New veteran presence in Yannick Tifu and Jason Deleurme.</p><p>4. ALASKA ACES Last season&rsquo;s Kelly Cup runner-up will be solid again under new coach Brent Thompson.</p><p>5. TRENTON DEVILS Returning a strong nucleus from last year&rsquo;s 40-win squad.</p><p>6. WHEELING NAILERS The addition of all-star Jordan Fox boosts the Nailers&rsquo; lineup.</p><p>7. SOUTH CAROLINA STINGRAYS In good shape for their defense of the Kelly Cup.</p><p>8. CHARLOTTE CHECKERS Added veteran Randy Rowe, nearly a point-per-game man.</p><p>9. UTAH GRIZZLIES Ryan Kinasewich is a steady presence in fifth season with Grizzlies.</p><p>10. ELMIRA JACKALS Physical center Chris Korchinski provides grit for Jackals.</p><p>11. STOCKTON THUNDER Will build on strong second half under coach Matt Thomas.</p><p>12. CINCINNATI CYCLONES Barret Ehgoetz and company will keep the Cyclones near the top of their division.</p><p>13. TOLEDO WALLEYE Nick Vitucci&rsquo;s team has a new name and new arena.</p><p>14. IDAHO STEELHEADS Will be a threat in tough West Division.</p><p>15. JOHNSTOWN CHIEFS In transition after coaching change and loss of two affiliates.</p><p>16. GWINNETT GLADIATORS NHL affiliates Atlanta, Columbus give young team a boost.</p><p>17. READING ROYALS They&rsquo;ve got talent, with 13 Royals attending AHL camps.</p><p>18. BAKERSFIELD CONDORS Added blueliner Sasha Pokulok, the Washington Capitals&rsquo; first round pick in 2005 (14th overall).</p><p>19. LAS VEGAS WRANGLERS Got tougher with ex-Terriers forward Ryan Weston.</p><p>20. KALAMAZOO WINGS League newcomers have a proven netminder in Ryan Nie.</p><h2><b>UP AND</b>&nbsp;<b>COMERS</b></h2><p>Here&rsquo;s a list of NHL-drafted 23-and-under ECHLers who are trying to impress:</p><h3><b>FIRST TEAM</b></h3><p><b>Joel Gistedt,</b> G, Las Vegas, 21</p><p><i>NHL: Phoenix, 36th overall in 2007</i></p><p><b>A.J. Thelen,</b> D, Florida, 23</p><p><i>NHL: Minnesota, 12th overall in 2004</i></p><p><b>T.J. Fast,</b> D, Alaska, 22</p><p><i>NHL: Los Angeles, 60th overall in 2005</i></p><p><b>Trevor Kell,</b> RW, Trenton, 23</p><p>&nbsp;<i>NHL:</i> Chicago, 131st overall in 2004</p><p><b>Tomas Kana,</b> C, Alaska, 21</p><p><i>NHL: St. Louis, 31st overall in 2006</i></p><p><b>Ryan Hillier,</b> LW, Charlotte, 21</p><p><i>NHL: NY Rangers, 84th overall in 2006</i></p><h3><b>SECOND TEAM</b></h3><p><b>Trevor Cann,</b> G, Charlotte, 20</p><p><i>NHL: Colorado, 49th overall in 2007</i></p><p><b>Tyrell Mason,</b> D, Idaho, 23</p><p><i>NHL: NY Islanders, 180th overall in 2005</i></p><p>&nbsp;<b>David Schulz,</b> D, Johnstown, 23</p><p><i>NHL: Vancouver, 254th overall in 2004</i></p><p><b>Matt Auffrey,</b> RW, Gwinnett, 23,</p><p><i>NHL: Anaheim, 172nd overall in 004</i></p><p><b>Codey Burki,</b> C, Charlotte, 21</p><p><i>NHL: Colorado, 59th overall in 2006</i></p><p><b>Jordan Morrison,</b> LW, Florida, 23</p><p><i>NHL: Pittsburgh, 222nd overall in 2004</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0041-01

BLADES OF STEEL

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ROB VANSTONE</div><p><b>BRETT CONNOLLY</b> has rare talent, with an outlook to match.</p><p>If given a choice, most players would rather be drafted first overall than, say, 10th. Connolly was a notable exception in 2007 during the Western League&rsquo;s bantam draft.</p><p>Connolly was delighted to be chosen 10th overall by his hometown Prince George Cougars. Was that preferable to going No. 1?</p><p>&ldquo;I think so,&rdquo; Connolly said. &ldquo;I got to come in and play a lot. If I would have gone to a deeper team, I think it would have limited me a lot more. Getting drafted by the Cougars really helped my career.&rdquo;</p><p>Connolly stepped into the Cougars lineup as a 16-year-old last season and performed like an established star, registering 30 goals and 60 points in 65 games en route to being named WHL and CHL rookie of the year.</p><p>&ldquo;We weren&rsquo;t expecting 30 goals, but we thought he would be a good enough player to contribute right away,&rdquo; said Cougars GM Dallas Thompson. &ldquo;Once he got cracking, we cautiously upped our expectations. We thought there might be some off nights, but it didn&rsquo;t happen.&rdquo;</p><p>Connolly was a bright spot for a Cougars team that finished with a 25-44-3 record. He kept producing even when the team encountered obstacles, such as a season-ending knee injury to captain Dana Tyrell. Connolly was playing right wing on Tyrell&rsquo;s line before he was hurt.</p><p>&ldquo;We thought that injury might affect him, but it didn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Thompson said. &ldquo;He just got better.&rdquo;</p><p>Not to mention bigger. The 6-foot-2 Connolly has bulked up to 186 pounds, an increase of 24 pounds from last year. Connolly is also working on his defensive game as he gears up for a season in which he&rsquo;s projected to be a high first round pick. Thompson doesn&rsquo;t see big holes in Connolly&rsquo;s game.</p><p>&ldquo;He can do a bit of everything,&rdquo; said Thompson, who lauded Connolly&rsquo;s skating, passing, shooting ability and tenacity. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a good, down-to-earth kid from a good family. He comes to the rink every day with a smile on his face.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01734/9295185-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="684" height="926"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(COURTESY OF PRINCE GEORGE COUGARS)</span></figcaption></div><p>Connolly had that attitude long before joining Prince George. As a youngster, he was a regular at the team&rsquo;s games.</p><p>&ldquo;I remember watching the Cougars, just dreaming of playing in the league. Now to be on that team, it&rsquo;s surreal.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02459/9295178-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="324" height="173"></div><h2><b>Brett Connolly</b></h2><p>Prince George Cougars</p><p><b>Ht.</b> 6-2</p><p><b>Wt.</b> 186</p><p><b>Pos.</b> RW</p><p><b>Age</b> 17</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03357/9295171-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="343" height="83"></div><h3><b>Draft Status</b></h3><p>Ranked No. 11 overall by ISS for the 2010 draft</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-04286/9295164-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="179" height="93"></div><h2><b>AND COUNTING</b></h2><p><b>7</b>&nbsp;Game-winning goals last season, nearly 30 percent of the team total<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0042-01

COUGAR CALLING

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ROB VANSTONE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-05247/9295216-1-eng-US/f0042-052.jpg" title="f0042-05" width="257" height="148"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>S</span>askatoon will be the epicenter of the junior hockey world during the holiday season, but the local WHL team will not be part of the equation. &ldquo;We won&rsquo;t see one game,&rdquo; said Saskatoon Blades coach-GM Lorne Molleken of the 2010 World Junior Championship, to be held in Saskatchewan from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be gone (on a U.S. road trip) the whole time. Team Canada will take over our dressing room area. It&rsquo;s a bit of a disappointment that we won&rsquo;t be there to see any of it.&rdquo; That sentiment is more than counteracted by the upgrades to the Blades&rsquo; home facility, Credit Union Centre. &ldquo;As we get closer to the event, the city of Saskatoon and surrounding areas will really take a hold of it,&rdquo; Molleken said, &ldquo;and it&rsquo;ll be a great situation for the team.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0042-05

BLADES BENEFITS TRUMP REGRETS

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JIM CRESSMAN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-06221/9295247-1-eng-US/f0042-062.jpg" title="f0042-06" width="301" height="94"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>C</span>ommissioner David Branch believes the customer &mdash; in this case OHL fans &mdash; is right. After numerous complaints last season when 19-year-old New York Rangers draftee Evgeny Grachev of the Brampton Battalion won rookie of the year, the league has created new rules outlining the definition of a rookie. To be eligible, a player must enter the league as a 17-year-old or younger. A second-year player who is 17 is eligible, if he played less than a quarter of the regular season games the previous year. &ldquo;Seven of our past 10 (winners) were 17 or younger, but when someone 18 or older has won we&rsquo;ve consistently received comments from fans,&rdquo; Branch said. &ldquo;Last year brought it back into focus and we felt it appropriate that we respond.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0042-06

ROOKIE RULES PLACATE FANS

<div class="byline">&#x2013; NEIL HODGE</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-07187/9295278-1-eng-US/f0042-072.jpg" title="f0042-07" width="237" height="140"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>H</span>alifax winger Gabriel Desjardins wants to make a difference. The 16-year-old Montreal native is donating $21 to the Salvation Army for every point he gets this season, matching the No. 21 on his jersey. &ldquo;I spoke with Mooseheads management in the off-season and told them I wanted to help in the local community,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The Salvation Army is a great fit. They help so many families and kids.&rdquo; Desjardins, a second round pick in the 2008 QMJHL draft, is a top-six forward who had 25 points in 60 games as a rookie. The Salvation Army, an international Christian organization, supports vulnerable people in 113 countries. &ldquo;Hopefully, I can have a good year and raise money for a great cause,&rdquo; said Desjardins, who is funding the initiative on his own.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0042-07

SCORING POINTS FOR A GOOD CAUSE

<div class="byline">&#x2013; DENIS GIBBONS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01723/9295316-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>St. Petersburg&rsquo;s Robert Esche stars in the KHL&rsquo;s new television commercials.</b><span class="photo-credit">(ESCHE: AND REY GOLUBEV, JANS ONS MEDIA)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>IF JUDGE REDFIELD T. BAUM</b> can&rsquo;t settle on a buyer for the Phoenix Coyotes, he should dial Moscow.</p><p>KHL president Alexander Medvedev said despite sending two letters to Gary Bettman about the possibility of Russian investors acquiring an NHL franchise, he has received no reply, something he called &ldquo;very disappointing.&rdquo;</p><p>In the meantime, the KHL is slowly raising its profile. The league has signed a one-year deal with Sport TV Channel.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02489/9295309-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="228" height="248"></div><p>Medvedev said about 175 games were televised last year, but that number will be a lot higher this season.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a better deal for the KHL,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We now have the rights to produce games, besides those on Sport Channel, and the right to distribute them.&rdquo;</p><p>The league even has its own channel, KHL-TV.</p><p>&ldquo;There are many new world-class players in the KHL and now cameras will have a lot of figures to follow,&rdquo; Medvedev said.</p><p>Sergei Fedorov, Sergei Zubov, Viktor Kozlov and Nikolai Zherdev are among the NHL players who have returned home to play this season.</p><p>&ldquo;Naturally we&rsquo;re looking for financial benefits,&rdquo; said Medvedev of the league&rsquo;s expected higher profile. &ldquo;But we will take one step at a time. More coverage will mean more popularity for hockey.&rdquo;</p><p>A special production will focus on the All-Star Game, which will be held in the 15,500-seat arena in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.</p><p>Although the KHL has no agreement with North American networks, Medvedev said the league is talking to them. Until then, fans can view games on the Internet.</p><p>Vasily Kiknadze, general director for Sport TV, said his network will try to show as many games as possible &ndash; in high definition &ndash; in the 2010-11 season.</p><p>At least 65 games will also be aired by foreign TV channels Viasat (in Baltic and Scandinavian countries) and Nova Sport (in the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Channels in Russian cities plan to show 300-plus games, while partners in Latvia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will air approximately 450 contests.</p><p>American goalie Robert Esche, who plays for SKA St. Petersburg, was one of the first players featured in a series of commercials the league has produced to generate interest. The KHL also has redesigned its website (<a href="http://khl.ru">khl.ru</a>), which is available in English.</p><p>Russia&rsquo;s first official junior league also is off the ground. The Molodozhnaya Hokkeynaya Liga (Youth Hockey League) opened with 4,000 fans attending the first game in Moscow between Moscow Dynamo and the Central Red Army. Games in other cities have drawn up to 2,500 spectators.</p><p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s a lot better than getting 200 or 300 fans for farm team games in the Second Division, where the juniors used to play,&rdquo; Medvedev said.</p><p>Most of Russia&rsquo;s top juniors play in the KHL or in North America, but it&rsquo;s hoped the new league will help develop players faster and facilitate national team scouting. Each KHL club must sponsor a team, and the junior loop is a joint venture between the KHL and the Russian Ice Hockey Federation.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0043-01

KHL-TV: IT’S HERE

<div class="byline">by Nicolas Chabot</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01626/9295434-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>N</b>&nbsp;<b>THE EARLY WEEKS</b> of every season, fans get all crazy about some fourth-line player who explodes out of the gate. The Rangers&rsquo; Aaron Voros had the best 15 days of his life early in 2008-09, scoring five goals and nine points in nine games. Unfortunately, his seven points in the next 45 games &ndash; and the fact he was a healthy scratch for many contests &ndash; disappointed some fantasy pool participants who thought his early spark would mean a bust-out season. Some players have slow starts, some have early hot streaks and others, such as Boston&rsquo;s Marc Savard, are consistent all season as shown in the &ldquo;Road to 2008-09&rsquo;s top 25 scorers&rdquo; chart (pg. 45). These statistics demonstrate how the first few weeks of the season are not necessarily representative of the whole campaign. (Players are listed with their current team.)</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-02387/9295427-1-eng-US/f0044-022.jpg" title="f0044-02" width="599" height="998"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-03287/9295420-1-eng-US/f0044-032.jpg" title="f0044-03" width="814" height="1107"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-04230/9295413-1-eng-US/f0044-042.jpg" title="f0044-04" width="2144" height="1147"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01535/9295406-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg" title="f0045-01" width="2143" height="2848"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01530/9295399-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="2149" height="2860"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01494/9295392-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg" title="f0047-01" width="2142" height="870"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-05197/9295385-1-eng-US/f0044-052.jpg" title="f0044-05" width="60" height="60"></div><p><b>Can&rsquo;t get enough numbers? Visit our online &lsquo;Stats&rsquo; section every day at <a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

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October 12, 2009

JERSEY Hound

CHAMPS NO LONGER

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