Ouch. Teams are now opting out of the Dany Heatley “sweepstakes.” The Kings are the latest team to close the door on the Heatley option, which is pretty telling. It’s like the Senators are getting rejected for dates they didn’t even ask people out on. The Kings could use a proven goal-scorer but they’re such [...]

Tim Panaccio looked at some of the line combinations coming out of Flyers training camp. It looks like Claude Giroux is going to spend a lot of time with Daniel Briere, making for a fast, dynamic, and small line. The interesting (and unsurprising) thing is, is that Briere doesn’t see size as an issue, pointing [...]

John Grigg has a great piece looking at how much teams are spending on buyouts. The most startling stat he reveals is that Alexei Yashin is the second-highest paid Islander, even though Yashin now plays in the KHL. It just serves as a reminder that the NHL, as well as other sports leagues, can either [...]

David Pollak has some interesting stuff about the non-stop drama that is the Summertime San Jose Sharks Show. In today’s chapter, goalie Evgeni Nabokov defends last season’s performance, while also admitting it could have been stronger. Pollak helpfully points out Nabokov’s five-hole often seemed to lack an off-switch last season. Pollak also wonders if the [...]

I’m really not horribly interested in all of the Coyotes drama, but I’m more and more impressed by perennial non-owner Jim Balsillie’s ability to get under the skin of NHL owners. This week, we see Balsillie take on Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk with some good, old-fashioned financial compliance smack talk. I don’t know who [...]

So Todd Bertuzzi is back with the Wings. I understand the attraction to Bertuzzi. He’s big. He once had great hands. In a lot of ways, he’s the North American version of the prototypical Detroit forward. But to be more precise, he was the North American version of the prototypical Detroit forward. He’s six-years removed [...]

SEAHAWK by goalie Bruce Valley is an interesting look at amateur hockey in New Hampshire in the 1950s. Valley does a nice job capturing the excitement and impact of amateur teams, like the Rye Seahawks, for whom he played goalie. Unfortunately, he never really puts the amateur team in a context. Valley tells us what [...]

Not that he’s horribly objective, but Jeff Halpern expects the Lightning to be much more successful this year. Tarik El-Bashir caught up with him in DC and it’s interesting to hear Halpern talk about how hard it was for him to leave the Caps. Halpern also talks about the pressures of being in a contract [...]

Every few months, I tend to think the KHL is making inroads into eventually overtaking the NHL. Yesterday’s reported signing of Nik Zherdev is a blow to the NHL in that if Zherdev didn’t have the KHL out, he probably would have worked harder on his NHL game. Zherdev might not ever reach his full [...]

I’m really not too interested in the Patrick Kane cabdriver altercation story, because there’s really no way to know what went down in that cab. And I’m not sure we ever will know. But Chris Kuc has an interesting post remembering Kane interacting with another cabbie, leaving the driver with a huge tip. Obviously, one [...]