An interesting tidbit out of the Flames’ development camp: they’ve hired a mental development coach (Dave Paskevich).

I’m not sure if this was Darryl Sutter’s call, or if it was made for Sutter, but it indicates that someone in the organization thinks that the Calgary flaws aren’t necessarily talent-related.

Earlier this month, I suggested Sutter was revisiting some of his less successful signings to prove they were actually strong signings that didn’t execute properly.

If Sutter is behind the Paskevich hiring, that could indicate he thinks the problems with Olli Jokinen and Alex Tanguay were mental. And solvable.

If it wasn’t Sutter’s call, it still indicates a faith in Sutter’s moves. Someone believes the Flames are a good team that just needs to get out of its own collective head.

One of Paskevich’s techniques is helping athletes learn to control stress. I guess it’s a good thing Mike Keenan is no longer coaching. And maybe it’ll be good for Sutter to have Paskevich around as he fights to keep his GM job.

It’ll be interesting to see how much of an impact Paskevich has.

It seems a bunch of NHL teams now use some kind of mental skills coach. The Senators, Canucks, Maple Leafs, and Blackhawks have all used one.

Obviously, it worked well for the Blackhawks. For the Maple Leafs? Maybe not so much. Although, maybe things would have been even worse without their mental development coach.

But it’s good to see the Flames actively trying to change their fortunes, rather than just repeating the same mistakes, which is pretty much what free agency was about for them.

Speaking of the Flames, here’s an interview with one-time Flame Eric Nystrom on what it was like growing up on Long Island as the son of Islander great Bobby Nystrom.

Blake Wheeler’s arbitration hearing with the Bruins is set for this morning.

Wheeler, heading into just his third NHL season, has been remarkably mature and solid.

He seems to have found a groove as a 20ish goals per season player, who helps out on special teams and can handle plenty of minutes.

For whatever reason, the Bruins and Wheeler haven’t been able to get a deal done, hence the arbitration hearing for a one-year deal.

I’m not sure what Wheeler is asking for, but given his comparables, I can’t imagine the arbitrator will give him more than $2.6 million at the absolute most.

Boston has the right to walk away from the ruling, making Wheeler a free agent. Or, perhaps more likely, if they don’t like the salary ruling, they can sign Wheeler and then try and trade him away.

But I’m very surprised the Wheeler negotations have made it to the arbitration stage. I can’t imagine the Bruins watched the Blackhawks fire sale this summer, moments after they won the Cup, and thought ‘Having important players locked down isn’t that important.’

Wheeler isn’t a sexy player. He’s not an offensive juggernaut. He’s not the first-line wing the Bruins hoped he would be. But he’s still a strong, consistent, mature player. And given the right coaching, mentoring, and/or development, his game can improve. I think it’s not that crazy to picture Wheeler as a 30-goal-per-season player.

For whatever reason, the Bruins do find that hard to imagine. Or if they can imagine it, they think it’s not worth paying for.

Or perhaps Wheeler is asking for outrageous money.

Whatever the cause of the impasse, the Bruins have a talented young player who most people expect to improve. Why not lock him down now? Why not keep an important team building block in place?

The Blackhawks had a tough summer because they didn’t have enough players locked into place. Life under a salary cap means planning a few seasons in advance. Because a lot of times, if a player isn’t locked-in, another team with more cap space is going to be able to poach him.

Wheeler’s one-year deal will solve the Bruins’ problems for a year, but next summer, they’ll be in exactly the same place, albeit with an additional year of data to work with.

But depending upon how cantankerous the arbitration hearing gets, they could also wind up with a severely alienated player.

Wheeler is solid and has some upside. They Bruins are much better off with the bird they have in their hand. Because unless they want to extend a 30-year deal to a free agent that somehow makes it to the open market, odds are they’re not going to do much better.

You’ve got to appreciate the Kings’ willingness to get back on that Ilya Kovalchuk horse.

The Kings are saying that if Kovalchuk’s Devils’ contract doesn’t work out, they might be interested in taking another shot at him.

Minutes after Kovalchuk signed his Devils deal, the rhetoric coming out of his camp was that he always wanted to be a Devil and his talks with LA were more due diligence/contractual leverage than a genuine interest in the Kings’ organization.

So it would seem a little uncomfortable, at least initially, were Kovalchuk to sign his second contract of the summer with the Kings.

The NHL’s rejection of Kovalchuk’s contract also creates an interesting dynamic. The league represents the owners. Devils GM Lou Lamoriello, on behalf of his ownership, extended a contract to Kovalchuk. So by challenging the contract, the league is challenging itself.

The Kovalchuk Saga really puts GM Gary Bettman in an awkward position.

On the one hand, the owners say they want cost certainty. But on the other hand, more and more owners give ridiculously long contracts to free agents to help cushion the cap hit.

I’m sure, on some level, Bettman wants to let the Kovalchuk contract go through, forcing the Devils to deal with whatever fallout comes from the contract, be it a resistance from other teams to make deals with New Jersey, due to anger over the contract (I believe the Amish call this shunning), or other teams using a similar workaround to overpay players.

But on the other hand, I imagine a lot of angry owners have been screaming at Bettman, telling him to nip this contract in the bud, asking Bettman what the lockout actually accomplished.

The timing of all of this is great, though, because yesterday, the Blues finally got restricted free agent David Perron signed to a two-year deal. The signing was key for the Blues as Perron represents a big part of the Blues plan to build a successful NHL team from within.

It’s been a tough road for the Blues, and it’s hard to say how well the initiative is going. There are points over the past few seasons where St. Louis has seen on the verge of success. But there have also been points where things seemed hopeless.

But the Blues have a plan and they’re sticking to it. But would they have more of a chance to build an undeniably successful team had the owners achieved true cost certainty in the lockout? Would there be more parity in the league if more teams had more chances to sign the few players that do actually make it to free agency? Are the Collective Bargaining Agreement’s loopholes reinforcing the NHL’s caste system?

The CBA expires in September 2011. We’ll see what kind of case the NHL and its players make in the negotiations. But it’s certainly interesting that the biggest enemy to cost certainty in the NHL seems to be a handful of particularly wealthy owners.

The last lockout pitted owners against players. I’m wondering if the next lockout will be owner-on-owner.

It’s pretty perfect that Ilya Kovalchuk was signed to a massive contract by the Devils on the same day the Lightning traded for Simon Gagne.

It shows the two styles of managing in the NHL.

On the one hand, you have the Devils going for the expensive, long-term contract. In Kovalchuk’s case, it’s 17 years, $102 million, with a cap hit of just $6 million per season.

With the signing of Kovalchuk, the Devils now need to dump salary, meaning the Devils will probably go at least another season without a top line center.

The Devils will proably send the next few seasons dumping salary to fit Kovalchuk under the cap, depending, of course, upon what the next CBA brings the NHL.

When a team goes for the huge contract, the usual price for acquiring a big player, is that existing salary needs to go to fit the contract. And salary usually correlates to talent.

So the Devils, by signing Kovalchuk, have gotten stronger, but by having to dump salary, they’re going to get weaker. And given that the entire league knows just how much the Devils need to dump, they probably won’t get much back for whoever they wind up trading away.

This isn’t a big deal if Kovalchuk plays as the Devils expect and is able to pretty much dominate on his own. But if Kovalchuk needs any kind of lift, any kind of complementary player on his line that the Devils don’t already have under contract, it’s going to be tough to bring that player in.

The flip side of managing in the NHL is Gagne’s trade to Tampa.

The Flyers wanted cap space, presumably to sign a number one goalie (although no one will be surprised if the Flyers don’t upgrade their goalie position, since it seems to be something the team rates just above dental work and colonoscopies).

The Flyers got back defenseman Matt Walker, an unexceptional defenseman, for Gagne.

But the Lightning? They got an intriguing player. Gagne is fierce when he’s healthy, but his health has been an issue. But assuming he can stay healthy, can you imagine Gagne with Steve Stamkos?

Think about how well Stamkos played with Steve Downie last season. Downie is hardly an offensive presence, but his ability to create space for Stamkos paid off for both players. Now, add another big body to help create even more space for Stamkos. But a big body that can score consistently, like Gagne can.

Suddenly, the Lightning not only have two scary-as-anything scoring lines, but they also have the ability to spread some of that scoring down to a third line, if new coach Guy Boucher is so inclined.

If Gagne stays healthy and performs as well as he did in the playoffs, he’s also going to take a lot of pressure off of Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier, helping them see better match-ups. And if he’s put on a line with those two? That could certainly work also.

Teams like the Lightning, that stay under the cap, have the ability to get players like Gagne for virtually nothing. Plus, if we fast forward to the trade deadline, even more players of Gagne-like quality (with the risk that implies) will be available.

Because as teams like the Devils become capped out and unable to retain quality players, teams like the Lightning have the ability to swoop in and grab the cap victims.

It’s not simply a matter of the Devils having made a bad move yesterday, while the Lightning made a good one.

Instead, the issue is the Devils lost a whole lot of roster flexibility while the Lightning kept their options open.

If the Devils don’t need roster flexibility or options over the course of the season, it’s a moot point. But if the Devils do need to add some pieces, it’s going to be a tough road for them.

If the Lightning find themselves needing to add some pieces, the only question is going to be which team’s cap to pick over.

I hope Mikko Koivu gets his brother Saku something nice for the holidays this year.

I suspect the nice $47.25 million, seven-year contract extension Mikko got from the Wild, including a no-trade clause, is partially influenced by the work of Saku.

The Wild are notoriously responsible-to-conservative with contracts, so for them to go long-term, with a $6.75 million annual cap hit is a big deal.

Obviously, they knew they wanted to keep Mikko, but they had to have some reservations about committing that much cap space to a player entering just his sixth NHL season.

Mikko isn’t a huge goal-scorer. He’s never scored 30 goals in a season. He’s never scored 25 goals in a season. But he’s a guy that does a lot of little things right. He’s a fantastic two-way player. He gets the puck to guys in scoring position. He spends time on the powerplay and on the penalty kill. He takes important faceoffs.

Basically, Mikko does everything asked of him, serving as the team’s engine. Mikko is what makes the Wild go.

For that reason alone, the Wild didn’t put up much of a fight in giving him the extension, basically agreeing to Mikko’s offer that gave the Wild a home-team discount.

The Wild are banking on Mikko’s goal production increasing, although I don’t know that they project him as ever being a consistent 30-goal scorer. But his numbers could be problematic. A goal-scorer who goes from 50 goals per season to 40 to 30 to 20 over the life of his contract is still contributing. But if a guy like Mikko loses his edge over the duration of his contract, you’re suddenly paying a lot of money to a guy who’s basically a third-line center. See Drury, Chris.

And that’s where I believe Saku comes in.

Saku is durability. He’s entering his 16th NHL season and his numbers and performance are remarkably consistent. Even cancer didn’t really break his stride.

One look at Saku’s numbers had to reassure the Wild Mikko will be just as productive in 2012, when the extension starts, as he will be in 2019, when it ends. In fact, I don’t think this will necessarily be Mikko’s last contract with the Wild. Saku just signed on for another two years with Anaheim, and he’ll be 38 when that contract ends.

Small market teams like the Wild need to be very careful how they spend their money. Bad contracts can ruin teams like them for years. The Wild knew they wanted to hold on to Mikko, but I’m sure they were nervous about the money and the duration. My bet is that Saku’s durability helped assuage their concerns, showing the Wild that genetically it’s perfectly probable Mikko will be as effective at the end of his contract as he will be at the end.

And since it wouldn’t be a 2010 free agency post without some Ilya Kovalchuk news, the New York Post says the Mikko Koivu deal will help Kovalchuk get the money he’s asking for. The Post also insists the Devils will wind up with Kovalchuk.

I’m guessing Kovalchuk wishes he had an older brother in the NHL.

As a public service to both Ilya Kovalchuk and hockey fans, I’m going to list some things Kovalchuk could have done to prevent his extended stay in NHL Free Agent Purgatory.

Free Samples
At the end of the 2007-08 season, Marian Hossa left Pittsburgh to sign a one-year deal with Detroit. Hossa could have gotten a longer deal somewhere else, but by taking the one-year internship in Detroit, Hossa did a few things:

1. He showed his commitment to winning, by taking less money for the chance to win a Cup.
2. He showed GMs what he brings to a team by helping Detroit once again reach the Stanley Cup finals (although, to be candid, Detroit did lose the Cup that year).
3. He improved his game, learning things from many of the Detroit players. Hossa didn’t have a down-low game before he spent a year with the Wings. He’s a much more complete player because of that one season.

That season in Detroit improved Hossa’s value on the free agent market. NHL GMs would be much more comfortable with Kovalchuk if he gave GMs a “free” season somewhere to show everyone just what he brings to the table.

A great season somewhere would remove any doubts GMs have about throwing a lot of money at Kovalchuk. Sure, he’d lose a year of salary, but a strong season would result in a contract that would more than make up for what he left gave up for that one season.

Decide Which is More Important: Winning or Money
If the numbers being thrown around are true, Kovalchuk has already turned down several opportunities to be a very well-compensated player. That tells us Kovalchuk is interested in money.

But before Kovalchuk was traded to New Jersey last season, he turned down a 12-year, $101 million deal from the Thrashers, which is more than anyone else has offered so far. At the time, the thought was that Kovalchuk turned down the Atlanta deal because he wanted to win.

If he wants money, he should have taken the Atlanta deal. If he wants to win, he should decide if he things New Jersey or LA is the better team and then sign with one of them. But he can’t keep floating between the idea of getting a cap-busting contract and the idea of winning, because the two thoughts are pretty much mutually exclusive in the real world.

Read the Market
Kovalchuk came into free agency following a Stanley Cup finals featuring two teams with depth and versatility. Neither team had a top guy per se. Instead, both teams featured a few talented players. So much so, that Jonathan Toews winning the Conn Smythe seemed more like a coin-flip-driven decision than an intellectual one.

In last season’s Cup finals, everyone was an MVP and no one was an MVP.

I’m sure at least a few GMs saw the Finals and thought that they wanted a team like Chicago or Philadelphia. Putting all of a team’s eggs into the Kovalchuk basket would be the antithesis of the Chicago/Philadelphia strategy. Sure, the Blackhawks gave a massive contract to Hossa last year, but it wasn’t until they had a lot of fantastic pieces already in place. And while Hossa was fantastic in the playoffs, ultimately Chicago is paying a sick amount of money to a second-line guy. So it’s fair to say, Hossa serves as a little bit of a warning against the massive free agent contract.

NHL GMs saw were reminded that depth is more important than anything. I’m not sure there are any teams that are deep enough for Kovalchuk to represent the final piece of the puzzle, but who also have the cap space to give Kovalchuk the contract he wants.

To get the huge contract, he might have signed someplace else short-term and waited for a more star-driven Cup finals to convince GMs they need the best player available, not a variety of very good players.

I assume the Kovalchuk Purgatory will eventually end, allowing the NHL to get on with the rest of free agency. It’s too late to help Kovalchuk, but hopefully future free agents will see these tips and take them to heart.

Because it’s emotionally draining spending each day waiting for Kovalchuk to sign somewhere.

I’m not sure I can do another summer like this.

One thing that’s a bit frustrating about the NHL is that a lot of weight is attached to well-known names.

It seems that a lot of GMs look at names rather than stats before they make a move.

How else to explain all of the interest in Mike Modano, he of the 14 goals and 16 assists in 59 games last season.

It seems Modano is drawing interest from the San Jose Sharks, the Minnesota Wild, and, of course, the Detroit Red Wings.

The Wild might be interested because of Modano’s connections to the Minnesota North Stars, who drafted him back in 1988. Signing Modano would be a homecoming of sorts, although the North Stars moved to Dallas, so Modano would be coming home to a franchise completely unrelated to the one that drafted him.

Modano is on record as saying he likes the Minnesota homecoming angle, though.

San Jose likes to keep veteran players around. Grizzled character guys like Jeremy Roenick, Adam Graves, and Rob Blake have all ended their careers as Sharks. Why not add Modano to the list?

But do these teams really want to get involved with a player who just turned 40 last month? And who’s definitely lost a few steps over the past few seasons? If there was a more anonymous player with similar statistics, would there be at least three NHL teams showing interest in him?

Obviously, a guy like Modano brings some intangibles to the table. He’s won a Cup. He’s experienced. He’s a leader. But are those traits worth taking up the roster spot of a player who a team could actually mentor and develop? It’s not like Modano has a long-term NHL career in front of him.

Matt Hendricks is 29. He put up nine goals and seven assists in 56 games for the Avs last season. Does he have three teams interested in him? Adam Mair is 31, with six goals and eight assists in 69 games last season. Why is no one kicking his tires?

I get that Modano wants to prove he can still play at the NHL level. He’s an athlete who’s done nothing but compete for the vast majority of his life. I don’t blame him for wanting to keep pushing himself. I just don’t get why NHL GMs are willing to compromise their line-ups for a guy with a declining skill-set but brand-name recognition.

And the takeaway from all of this seems to be that if you want to extend your NHL career as long as humanly possible, make sure you’ve got a huge name. Because if you’re an anonymous player with average to below average numbers, it seems no one will give you a second look.

It’s better to be old and famous than younger and average.

I love how the LeBron James sweepstakes bled into the NHL.

First of all, I can’t help but think Ilya Kovalchuk’s contract demands are at least partially, and perhaps subconsciously, driven by the James’ free-agency.

You can’t help but think Kovalchuk’s camp sees parallels, what with their announcing dates when a decision will be made and their setting steep contract demands.

Of course, the huge difference is that Kovalchuk isn’t LeBron James. There are maybe two teams trying to sign Kovalchuk, and we’re not quite sure how serious the Devils and Kings really are (the Kings keep ending their pursuit of Kovalchuk, only to be drawn back in a day or so later, so I won’t count them as out until Kovalchuk has signed a contract someplace else).

But there’s a decent chance Kovalchuk will end up playing in Russia next season.

For crazy money, but not in the NHL, for whatever that’s worth to Kovalchuk.

Perhaps, though, just like part of the James mystique was his playing for his hometown team, maybe Kovalchuk will fulfil his hockey destiny playing for his home-country team.

Maybe at the end of the Kovalchuk saga, we’ll see he was more like James than we realized.

Over in Florida, the Panthers now have a ticket package called “Seats Fit for a King.” The package costs either $23 or $6, LeBron’s old jersey number and his new one.

I’m assuming James’ Heat jersey won’t start with a dollar sign, but that’s really not a given, is it?

In general, the James odyssey has made me a bit more grateful the NHL allows contracts of unlimited duration. It gives teams the ability to lock down players through their prime (and beyond) and I think most players will take security and relatively huge money over the chance to make perhaps slightly more money with less security.

The NHL’s crazy-long contracts are a bit of a joke and leave GMs with very little cap maneuverability, but at least they let teams hold onto players. I like that Alex Ovechkin will most likely always be a Capital. And even though the ability to give decades-long contracts more often than not handcuffs NHL teams, I think it’s a nice thing for the fans.

It gives them a sense of security, which is a rare thing in sports fandom.

Obviously, the deal isn’t done, and we don’t know the terms, but unless they’re going to get him for a tiny amount of money, I can’t believe the Flyers are considering signing Nik Zherdev.

Or more to the point, I can’t believe the Flyers would sign Zherdev, even though it makes it more likely they’ll have to move Simon Gagne and even though the Flyers have yet to address their goaltending issue.

But even if you ignore the salary implications of Zherdev, the hockey issues aren’t any brighter.

Zherdev is talented, but he doesn’t apply that talent consistently. He doesn’t like to get into high traffic areas, so you’ll often see him floating just off the boards, ostensibly taking himself out of the play.

I’m not sure how that style of play will go over on a team like the Flyers, that pretty much lives and dies trying to get between and below the opposing faceoff circles.

Zherdev doesn’t have much of a defensive game, either. In fact, when he last played in the NHL, back in the 2008-09 season, he could be downright irresponsible, leaving the defensive zone too soon and not getting physical with anyone.

Some nights, he looked like a human pylon.

I can see why the Flyers like the idea of Zherdev. He’s fast. He shows flashes of breathtaking talent. I’m sure the Flyers are salivating at the idea of Zherdev and Danny Briere shooting down the ice, blowing past everyone. And I’m sure Zherdev will give them a few of those moments. But I’m not sure Flyers’ GM Paul Holmgren is also considering the times when Zherdev will disappear, leaving his linemates to fend for themselves.

Zherdev spent last season playing in the KHL. Maybe that helped his game mature. Maybe playing in the KHL made him realize just how much he wants to play in the NHL and maybe he’s now willing to work hard to keep an NHL job. Zherdev might not be the same player he was two years ago.

But considering the Flyers are exploring the idea of trading Gagne for cap reasons and considering the Flyers still don’t have a true starting goalie, I’m not sure why they’re experimenting with a player like Zherdev, whose upside seems to be entirely theoretical.

No one managed to tap his full potential in five NHL seasons. It’s bold for the Flyers to think they’re the team that can help him finally fully realize his talent.

Unless the Flyers sign him at a rock-bottom price, which hasn’t been Zherdev’s past modus operandi, he’s a risk the Flyers just can’t afford to take right now.

The Devils’ pursuit of Ilya Kovalchuk continues to reek of desperation.

The signing wouldn’t make sense in so many ways, yet the Devils seem determined to sign him.

First of all, there’s the cap space issue. The Devils will have to shed serious salary if they sign Kovalchuk.

It’s hard enough to dump salary in the NHL, but try unloading it if everyone in the league knows just how much you need to unload and when you need to unload it by. The Devils will have to give away players, just to get deals done. Otherwise, why would another NHL help out the Devils by taking salary off of the team’s hands?

And in terms of dumping salary, the Devils have eight no-trade clauses.

Even if the Devils get under by the first game of the 2010-11 season, they’ll probably still have to turn around and do the same thing to sign restricted free agent Zach Parise after that season.

Plus, a capped out team probably won’t be able to make any significant upgrades at the trade deadline, meaning the Devils better be strong out of the gate, because reinforcements probably aren’t coming.

Also, don’t forget how poorly Kovalchuk meshed with the Devils after he was acquired last season.

Devils GM Lou Lamoriello is banking that with time and exposure, the Devils and Kovalchuk will learn to work together. But Kovalchuk plays a game that’s fundamentally different from traditional Devils hockey. Plus, the logjam along the left side won’t help things as new coach John MacLean will have to spend an inordinate amount of time making sure Parise and Kovalchuk get enough ice time to be productive.

The signing would, in general, make things harder on MacLean. MacLean would be forced to deal with a very, very highly paid player who might not take to things like defense and reduced ice time.

Last season, coach Jacques Lemaire seemed content to leave Kovalchuk out on the ice for most of the duration of power plays. Would Kovalchuk bristle if MacLean decided to use two distinct power play units, one of which didn’t include Kovalchuk?

The Devils were a strong regular season team last year. They were bounced out of the playoffs due to rocky goaltending. A rested Martin Brodeur might have gotten the Devils past Philadelphia. A genuine top center also might have taken some of the pressure off of Brodeur, keeping his crease clear and helping out the defense down low.

But having Kovalchuk for the playoffs obviously didn’t help New Jersey. That’s not speculation — we have proof.

What does Lamoriello think will be different next year, with a shockingly similar line-up, or perhaps one even slightly weaker at the blue line?

And more importantly, why doesn’t Lamoriello want the team to have a top center?

Kovalchuk is an amazing player, but he’s not the right player for the Devils. Especially at the price he’ll reportedly get.

Lamoriello seems lost about how to get the Devils going again and he seems to be hoping throwing a lot of money at a player like Kovalchuk will somehow push New Jersey back into the Stanley Cup finals.

But this isn’t a financial issue, it’s a hockey issue. Lamoriello needs to focus on the players the Devils need, even if they don’t cost an insane amount of money.