And now to Todd with today's NHL business report.

Thanks, Mary.
New York billionaire Tom Golisano has reached what parties are calling a "conceptual agreement" to buy the Buffalo Sabres.
Of course, a conceptual agreement probably isn't worth the paper it's written on. Or conceived on, even.
Golisano's bid for the Sabres will have to be at least $50 million. But when you're a billionaire, that's chump change. Golisano ran for governor of New York, funding the campaign himself. He spent an assload of money and didn't win. Maybe he can start throwing around the big bucks on the Sabres. Then New York could have two teams with overpaid talent — one in the north and one in the south.
Turning to other bankrupt NHL teams, Rod Bryden's latest bid to buy the Ottawa Senators fell apart after his main investor pulled out of the deal. So the Senators are back up for sale. Bryden said he won't bid again.
I'm going to be honest. There's more business stuff, but I just can't deal with it. It all just sucks for Ottawa.
Now to Jimmy Thunder with weather.

Thanks, Todd...

Has Detroit's Curtis Joseph turned a corner?
Probably not. But he managed to beat his old team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, 7-2. Cujo made 27 saves.
Toronto goalie Ed Belfour had a tough night, making only 24 saves. It was a rare (this season, anyway) off night for him. It's almost like Belfour and Cujo switched brains.
Also, on a totally unrelated topic, they're putting up a giant mural of Red Wing captain Steve Yzerman in Detroit.
That's pretty cool, but I'm still wondering how Belfour and Cujo switched brains. I bet lightning was involved, though.
Also, here's some news on what the Sharks want for Owen Nolan. Word on the street has Toronto sniffing around Nolan. Of course, if word on the street is accurate, they should probably give Nolan his own locker room. ESPN the Magazine recently reported that Nolan has a lot of problems with his teammates.
Nothing a brain switch can't help, though, right?

I don't get the Islanders' deal with Rick DiPietro. He's a talented, if a bit cocky, goalie. And they seem to love torturing him. Number one goalie Chris Osgood goes down. It's the perfect time to bring up DiPietro and let him see some NHL action for an extended period. So what do the Isles do? They go with Garth Snow. Granted, Snow has been playing well, but he has no future. He's never going to be a number one. He's never going to make a real difference. Snow, like Osgood, is capable. He does his job, but he doesn't steal games.
So the Isles called up DiPietro to back-up Snow and then sent him back down to the AHL.
Yesterday they called DiPietro (or DiPetr-yo-yo) back up. DiPietro made the most of it, holding off New Jersey and earning the Islanders a point in a 3-all tie.
Think how good DiPietro would be by now if he was seeing any kind of consistent NHL action.

Are you shocked?
The Blackhawks are 3-11-2 since Theo Fleury and two unnamed teammates got in some sort of scuffle in a Columbus strip club.
Just Tuesday night, sputtering Philadelphia managed to blank the stalled Hawks, 2-0.
Theo Fleury sat out that game at the coach's request. He was a healthy scratch. Coach Brian Sutter said Fleury isn't in the right physical shape. But maybe physical is code for mental.
Sadly, Fleury isn't even the worst of Chicago's problems. Both Eric Daze and Alex Zhamnov are hurt. Daze has spent most of the season hurt, though. He should be used to it.
It's a lucky break for Fleury, though. With Daze out, he gets to return to the line-up.
As bad as Chicago is doing, some people don't mind being a Hawk.
Jeremy Roenick said he loved his time in Chicago.
Takes all kinds, right?

Buffalo continues to shed salary while trying very hard to look like they're not trying to shed salary.
They traded winger Vaclav Varada and a fifth round draft pick to Ottawa for 18-year-old center Jakub Klepis. Varada, a lifetime Sabre, was making $1.3 million which is too rich for Buffalo's blood. I'd think it's too rich for Ottawa's blood, but maybe they have a secret cash stash I don't know about.
The Avalanche are making moon eyes at Buffalo's Chris Gratton. Like just about every other playoff-bound team, Colorado is looking to go gritty for the playoffs.
Speaking of Colorado, remember just a few weeks ago when they were horrible? You know what turned them around? Ray Bourque. One of hockey's greatest defensemen (now retired after bringing a Stanley Cup to Colorado) gave a pep talk to goalie Patrick Roy.
You know what else helped the Avs? Joe Sakic's broken foot. They were 12-1-1-1 while he was been gone.
But maybe they're ready for Sakic now. He came back last night, picking up an assist. The Avs beat the Oilers 4-2.
Sakic is off the super hot first line of Peter Forsberg, Alex Tanguay, and Milan Hejduk. Sakic centered a line with Steve Reinprecht on the left and Radim Vrbata on the right.

So obviously the Blues' goalie woes continue. But maybe you didn't know the Blues have always had goalie trouble. Jeff Gordon from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is nice enough to remind us all of St. Louis' goalie issues of the past. Among some favorites, Curtis Joseph's implosion under the bossy Mike Keenan. Detroit coach Dave Lewis probably should have paid more attention to that episode. Roman Turek, now with Calgary, also wasn't the pride of the Blues. And who can forget Jim Carey? It's a sad, sad trip down memory lane.
Even sadder is that for Thursday's game, the Blues' goalie will be Cutis Sanford, a minor leaguer. Brent Johnson is said to have a groin strain, but that might be a Blues smokescreen to save face. Either way, a professional team that expects to escape the first round of the playoffs shouldn't be using a good, but unexceptional, minor league goalie. It's just ridiculous.
Speaking of ridiculous, the last thing the Blues need is a missing player. The only thing they need even less is a missing superstar. Like Keith Tkachuk.
Tkachuk is suspended for four games for cross-checking Minnesota's Wes Walz. It's his second offense.
St. Louis just can't get a break.

Bill Guerin returned to Boston last night. The Boston native and current Dallas Star played in Boston for less than two years.
While Guerin has been having a bit of trouble scoring lately, things are way worse for his old team. Making a list of the problems with Boston is pretty easy. In fact, here's one.
Oddly enough, the Bruins managed to end the game in a tie. And Bill Guerin picked up his first goal in eight games.

Once again a Detroit Red Wing pulls a surprise return to the ice. First, last week, Brett Hull and Nick Lidstrom said they wouldn't play. Then they both did and had a great game.
Then the rehabbing Steve Yzerman said he wouldn't play in last night's game against the Kings.
Then he played against the Kings, returning to the ice (in a game) for the first time since Detroit won the Stanley Cup last year.
Detroit beat LA, 5-4.
Yzerman didn't do much that shows up on the stat sheets, but his return is a huge boost to the team. Detroit will probably be able to ride the Yzerman high straight into the third round of the playoffs.
Mitch Albom is happy Yzerman's back, too.
Also, Yzerman's return in front-page news in Detroit.

Carolina just facinates me. It's a train wreck down there. I'll be shocked, really shocked, Ben Franklin shocked, if coach Paul Maurice is behind the bench next season. The latest chapter in the saga that is the Carolina Hurricanes has exiled goalie Arturs Irbe returning to the team after a two-week stint to the minors.
Irbe was 0-1-1 with a 3.36 GAA. That's in the AHL, by the way. Not the NHL.
Carolina sent down a goalie, so it seems that Irbe will play for the Hurricanes. Right now the team is probably just trying to get Irbe's GAA down and save percentage up so some team will take a 12th-year NHL goalie owed $5.2 million over the next two seasons.
That actually sounds like a good fit for the perennially goalie-screwed Atlanta Thrashers.
The Hurricanes are also getting ready to deal defenseman Glen Wesley, an original Hurricane. He's been with the franchise since 1994 (the Whalers moved down south in 1997).
Wesley becomes a free agent this summer and the Hurricanes know they can get a good deal if they rent him to a playoff contender.
The Hurricanes have been unloading a lot of good players lately. The second they traded Sami Kapanen to Philadelphia, his game exploded.
In a good way.

Everyone is interested in Buffalo's Miroslav Satan, Alexei Zhitnik, and Chris Gratton. Buffalo can't deal them, though, because whoever ends up buying the team will probably want some good players.
But the Buffalo News is saying that maybe the Sabres would deal one or two or all of them. Bucky Gleason reports that it's not impossible that the Sabre's ownership will be settled before the trade deadline, allowing the new owners to unload all the talent for prospects and draft picks.
It would follow a great tradition of Buffalo dumping talent for no real reason. Satan, Zhitnik, and Gratton would join the likes of Dom Hasek, Michael Peca, and even Jason Woolley.
Ahhh. To own the Sabres.

So we all agree that St. Louis needs a goaltending upgrade, right?
Well St. Louis doesn't agree. Not exactly, anyway. GM Larry Pleau says not to expect the goalie calvary — he's not bringing Phoenix's Sean Burke to the Blues.
Pleau said Burke would cost too much in players and money.
The Blues are now looking at Carolina's Arturs Irbe, currently playing in the minors where he can't hurt the Canes. So St. Louis would basically be replacing one of their inconsistent and struggling goaltenders (Brent Johnson and backup Fred Brathwaite) with another struggling and inconsistent goaltender. But at least it wouldn't cost them much.
By the way, the Blues have lost five of their last six (including one to Minnesota last night).

Mercifully, ever so mercifully, the Byron Dafoe experiment is over in Atlanta.
It looks like the oft-injured goaltender will be out for the rest of the season.
Dafoe has a sports hernia that needs surgery.
He also has a GAA and save percentage that could stand some trimming. He allows an average of 4.36 goals a game, with a .862 save percentage. He's won just five games since Atlanta signed him in November.
The Thrashers lost injury-prone goalie Damian Rhodes to a sports hernia. He won 14 games in three seasons and is making $2.7 million this year playing in the minors — most recently in the ECHL.
Nice work if you can find it.
Of course Dafoe, who has a $3 million player's option for next season, is on track to win 15 games in three seasons. So he's definitely worth the money...
The slumping Thrashers have been having problems on both ends of the ice. Their offense is only averaging 1.7 goals per game, after averaging 3.5 at the start of coach Bob Harley's tenure. He's in the process of line tinkering, which is never a bad idea for a struggling team.

The Devils play well. Even when they don't play well, like last year, they still play well enough to get into the playoffs. Very few NHL teams, if any, do as much with so little as the Devils.
The Devils have been positively dominant this season under coach Pat Burns.
They entered this season having been bounced out of the first round of the playoffs, with no real prospects for a better season. They needed scoring and it didn't look like anyone would give them any. But slowly the team came around, and now they're number two in the East.
Happy ending, right?
Maybe not. Word on the street, the street being the New York Times, is that the Devil players aren't happy with Pat Burns' coaching style. Apparently, Burns is too gruff and heavy-handed for some players. And as the existence of the Times article indicates, players are starting to go public with their griping.
This isn't a new situation for the Devils. They had another tough-guy coach from 1998-2000: Robbie Ftorek (now coaching Boston). How tough was he? He banned beer on the team buses and flights, going so far as to walk the aisles, making sure no one was drinking. Ftorek was fired March 23, 2000, a mere eight games left in the season. Larry Robinson took over and the Devils won the Cup.
Of course, even Robinson, a player's coach and all around nice guy, was fired in January 2002. But there again, message tune-out might have been an issue. Larry Brooks of the New York Post seems positively psychic in this January 6, 2002 report:

The dysfunctional Devils are playing like a team that wants to get Larry Robinson fired, that's become more obvious every day and every week.
Which is only fairly amazing.
Maybe the guilty parties should go back and read what they had to say about Robinson in the press clippings last year and the year before that.
Or maybe that was the problem last June. Maybe the Devils spent too much time reading the clippings proclaiming them — prematurely, as it turned out — to be an all-time team.

Don't worry about the Red Wings growing younger. According to the New York Post, they made a try for retiree Gary Suter. Chris Chelios must have missed his defensive partner from Chicago.
Suter decided against a return to hockey, though. And the Red Wings have to go back to cruising retirement homes for future talent.