Bit of a shocker out of St. Louis. Martin Rucinsky signed with the Blues Wednesday, pneding his passing a physical. Vague rumors here in New York had him returning to the Rangers despite not being able to come to any kind of agreement all summer.
The Blues might reunite Rucinsky with former Czech teammate Petr Cajanek. Some might recall that the Rangers traded for Rucinsky so he could play with former Czech teammate Peter Nedved and fellow countryman Radek Dvorak. Sadly for Ranger fans, Dvorak blew out his knee a few weeks later, so the relatively successful Czeching line wasn't to be. So basically the Rangers got nothing for their troubles with Rucinsky. And the St. Louis papers now get to make all the goofy Czeching puns.
It's a sad day from New York to Missouri.
Rumors also have St. Louis shopping for a goalie to replace the injured Brent Johnson. Seems like St. Louis really wants to make a go of it this year.
UPDATE: St. Louis inked Tom Barrasso, the Tom Joad of goalies over the last three seasons, for one year.

The Bruins are retiring Terry O'Reilly's number 24. I know a lot of people love him, and I realize he's kind of a folk hero to Boston, but to me he just kind of represents the reason Boston never won a Cup. Sure he was tough, but he wasn't the toughest (I guess that would be Philadelphia). And on top of that he wasn't a horribly smart player. O'Reilly is a nice guy who played hard and his number should be retired because he meant a lot to the people of Boston. But in terms of hockey, he's more of a footnote than anything else. It's so weird how so much of Boston's sports mythology is built on not winning. I feel like I hear much more about the Bruins and the Sox than I do about the Celtics and the Pats. And look at Ray Bourque. Boston's love of him reached critical mass once he left to win the Stanley Cup for another team. That was the ideal Boston situation — watching a beloved player realize his life dream while not bringing victory to Beantown.
I wonder if we could get a whole city into therapy...

Obviously the Thrashers are bad. It's never a good sign when you're looking to Nashville and saying "Damn. I wish I had their crappy record." But are the Thrashers really this bad? Thrasher GM Don Waddell says Curt Fraser's coaching job is safe, which means that either: A) Waddell is lying; B) Waddell thinks his team is really, really bad; or C) Fraser once saved Waddell's life.
It's not like the Thrashers should be undefeated, but they do have some talent (Ilya Kovalchuk, Slava Kozlov, and Dany Heatley). That should have at least gotten them past the Panthers once.

It's kind of a cliche to say a team is one player away from being a great team, but the Washington Capitals really are a player away from a great team. Watching them play Dallas and the Rangers this season you see a team with a lot of hustle, a lot of great moves, a lot of great opportunities, but not much follow through. Nothing to tie all the play together (even as they beat the Rangers last night).
Everyone said Jaromir Jagr would be the one player who would turn Washington into a Cup contender. That didn't happen. Then everyone said Robert Lang would be the catalyst that jump-started Washington. That hasn't happened yet. But as the Washington Post reminds us, at least Jagr is having a good year so far.
Sadly for Washington, Jagr just doesn't have the personality to carry a team. But that doesn't mean he won't be a vital part of a Stanley Cup run. It just means Washington needs to keep shopping for players.

Phoenix goaltender Sean Burke will be out for a month with an ankle sprain. Brian Boucher will be the starter while Burke heals. It's kind of funny how interchangeable middle tier goalies are. Will this switch affect Phoenix at all? It's like when they switched Darrens on BEWITCHED.

New Avalanchite Derek Morris admits it: it's fun to win. Morris came to Colorado for Chris Drury at the start of the season. He's logging time on the power play and having a great time. Can you blame him? Even a weakened Avalanche are a better team than Calgary firing on all cylinders.

San Jose finally signed Evgeni Nabokov, giving him two years for $7.15 million.
The Sharks had Nabokov on the ice doing drills before the ink on the contract was dry. San Jose didn't want to sign Nabokov for a short-term contract because of free agency fears. So they ended up giving him a short-term contract and putting the team in a 1-4 hole. I don't understand why San Jose would start the season without a number one goalie. And I don't understand why San Jose would throw away the present for the future.

Records are so weird. They often seem like they'll never be beaten, and then you have three guys beat one in a season. Or maybe that's just baseball. But Terry Sawchuk's 971 games in goal, the NHL record? That's tough. It's tough for any player to get 971 games in the NHL. But 971 is amazing. Patrick Roy tied that record last night, as Colorado tied Edmonton. Roy will probably break the NHL games-in-goal record on Thursday.
Ironman records like this are so impressive. So many factors change to make goals and assists and saves easier. But to be a vital part of the NHL for 17 years is always going to be admirable.

The Flyers now have a notch in the loss column. Blame Satan. Miroslav Satan that is.
Satan is Flyer Kryptonite, riding them for six goals in four games last season.
Luckily for Philly, no one was in the HSBC Arena. The people of Buffalo are boycotting games as they're convinced the Sabres are leaving for the west coast.
Tampa Bay is the only undefeated team in the NHL.

I love the stuff coaches do to keep their teams on their toes. Over the weekend, Wild (the team) coach Jacques Lemaire pulled his hot goalie (Manny Fernandez) at the last minute for backup Dwayne Roloson.
Lemaire said he wanted Roloson to feel a part of the team. He also didn't want him to build any rust. I also think he didn't want Detroit to break Fernandez's spirit like they broke Roloson's.
Lemaire, although a mind-numbingly dull and uncreative coach, is cool in that he tries to play his whole team. Although that's really more of a pee-wee league trait than a pro one.

I'm not a huge Penguins fan but I can appreciate what goes into being a fan. You must always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Like Mario Lemieux is named NHL Player of the Week for the 24th time in his career.
I wonder if the NHL Player of the Week gets a special parking spot or a bumper sticker that says "My father/son/husband/brother is the NHL Player of the Week."
Whatever. It's good news for Pittsburgh.
But then you find out Randy Robitaille is going to be out at least a week with a broken foot.
That's the other shoe dropping.
THUD.

Detroit tells the world that they're not worried about Curtis Joseph, whose goals-against average is a little high right now. The next night, Cujo blanks the Flames.
I guess Detroit will be reassuring Joseph more often.

Andy van Hellemond has a tough job. He's in charge of enforcing obstruction for the NHL.
He seems pretty gutsy. I think a lot of people would be freaking about all the power plays and whistles the new enforcement creates. But van Hellemond can see the big picture. He knows that players will eventually learn the rules and calm down.
Or he knows the refs will stop calling obstructions in a month or so.
I don't know, though. van Hellemond seems committed to enforcing the rules. And the fans are definitely loving the new flow. It's almost like watching a sport...

I thought Florida meeting Columbus for the first time this season would be more exciting since you had two first-round draft picks (Florida's Jay Bouwmeester vs. Columbus's Rick Nash) going at it. But it was about as boring as you would expect from the two teams. Florida just lost their third 4-1 game in a row.
It's also good to see that Panther coach Mike Keenan is still torturing players. Last week he demoted center Stephen Weiss for 24 hours before bringing him back up. Weiss came to Keenan and asked for a second chance. But rumor has it that the reason Weiss got to stay is GM Rick Dudley.
Mike Keenan's coaching career is defined by butting heads with GMs. What's weird about the Florida situation is that Keenan doesn't report to Dudley. Instead, both report to owner Alan Cohen. So there's a real power struggle going on. And knowing Keenan, it's only going to get uglier.

Uh oh. I hope there's no PuckUpdate Jinx like the Sports Illustrated jinx, where players who appear on the cover end up injured. Yesterday I wrote about how well Vincent Lecavalier is doing so far this season, and now it looks like it might be out for a week or so with a sprained knee.
The PuckUpdate jinx can't be too bad, though. Tampa managed to beat the Rangers 4-2. On my subway ride to class I saw a dad in a Lindros jersey and a son in a Wayne Gretzky jersey (both Ranger jerseys). They must have been going to the game at the Garden. They were talking about their favorite hockey players. I tried to listen in without being creepy, but I don't think I did a great job. It was a cool moment, though. It must be nice to live in a hockey town.

How many seasons have started with the old "Will this be the season Vincent Lecavalier reaches his potential" stories? I don't know. Too many. But Tampa Bay is undefeated and looking good.
Way back in March 2001, Lecavalier, the Lightning's franchise forward, was -24. Rumors always have him demanding trades or being traded but the Bolts ownership has always stuck with him.
You can't credit Lecavalier with all of TB's success. It helps that Tampa Bay has an amazing goalie in Nikolai Khabibulin.
No one knows if Lecavalier will ever be the superstar he was supposed to be, but at least he's playing par now.

Patrik Elias's illegal stick last week got me thinking about rules and sports in general. I'm reading THE STORY OF MY LIFE, by legendary Detroit Tiger Hank Greenberg. One of the more surprising parts is that Greenberg and his various teams routinely stole signs from the opposing teams so the batters would know what pitches to expect. It's against the rules, but rarely (if ever) enforced.
It's the same thing with the NHL and sticks. Players routinely use bigger sticks and sticks with too big a curve, but it's rarely called. Jaromir Jagr, who's a bit notorious for using illegal sticks, was even caught with an illegal stick at the start of the season and before that last season, both times by the Predators.
Back in May, the Hurricanes accused Montreal goalie Jose Theodore of wearing an illegal jersey. They joked it was too big. But it seems like they were only kind of joking, though.
And then there's former Red Wing goaltender Dom Hasek, who pulled the old switcheroo on the Avalanche in May. He allegedly gave Colorado coach Bob Harley one of his sticks for his son, which Colorado measured and found to be illegal. Game six of the Western semis, Colorado is down by two in the second, and Colorado decides to go for it and challenge Hasek's stick. And it's fine. They don't give Stanley Cups to just anybody.
I guess the NHL will attack illegal sticks once they get a handle on holding. Baby steps.