Here's your fun fact of the day: The Red Wings have yet to play a game with their entire team healthy.
With that in mind, Derian Hatcher, out with a bruised shoulder, is expected to play this weekend.
Hatcher was brought in to be the centerpiece of the Detroit blue line.
He's played eight games this season.
You can buy all the franchise players in the world and it doesn't do you any good if they're not healthy.
My grandma has that stitched on her pillow.

Obviously, Todd Bertuzzi's attack on Steve Moore had implications for the league.
Not just for fighting and not just for the unwritten rules, though.
Bertuzzi also attacked the very image of hockey:

Bertuzzi's sucker punch was a star attacking a role-player. Imagine if Roger Clemens had thrown a jagged bat at Todd Pratt instead of Mike Piazza and imagine if the bat had impaled the utilityman—now you have a better idea of the magnitude of the attack.
It's bad enough to have anonymous goons attacking stars and each other. But to have the NHL's best players sneaking up on a kid and punching him into the ice is just absurd. It's anarchy. It makes no sense.
Also, factor in Dany Heatley, another up-and-coming NHL star, and his summer car wreck that killed a teammate and caused Heatley to miss the first four months of the season.
How much more does the NHL expect fans to put up with? How many fans will stop watching and attending games simply to avoid the stigma of being some kind of loser who enjoys watching sociopaths chase a piece of rubber around the ice? How many parents will be scared to let their kids watch hockey?

Here is an interesting article on fighting etiquette.
Buffalo Sabre Alexei Zhitnik was boarded by St. Louis Bluesman Dallas Drake a few days ago (Zhitnik will miss the rest of the regular season). Drake then had to fight Sabre Adam Mair. The theory goes that by Drake fighting Mair, the rest of the Blues stars would not be targeted by Buffalo.
The article really goes into the intricacies of hockey fighting. Maybe someday someone will codify all of the unwritten rules of hockey.

The Rocky Mountain News focuses on rookie defenseman John-Michael Liles, a key part of Colorado's blueline.
Interestingly, despite Colorado's veteran-laden line-up, they actually have some rookies. In addition to Liles, there's Steve Moore, famously attacked last week, and Cody McCormick, all of whom have played over half the season for the Avs.
Over in the Denver Post, they take a look at recent aquisition Chris Gratton. Gratton never really turned into the impact power-forward everyone thought he would be. But he's still big as hell. And that's handy. So are his faceoff skills. Once Peter Forsberg is back, Gratton will probably shift to the wing but take faceoffs. So he'll be a centerwing.
Bam! I just coined that. Don't be using that without sending me some money.

This is just crazy.
Red Wing goalie Dominik Hasek has stopped cashing his checks.
Apparently he went down December 8 and hasn't collected any money since January 9.
The Wings couldn't talk about the unique situation until now because of the legal complications.
So at least Hasek feels guilty about ruining Curtis Joseph's season.
That's always nice.
(Thanks to HockeyBird for the link).

SoVeryObsessed, the really neat Bruins blog, has a cool story from some Bruins fans who followed the team to Nashville on trade day. They were in the elevator with Jeff Jillson as he left the team to join the Sharks. As if that weren't sad enough. later in the day, he'd be traded back east to Buffalo.
The trade deadline is so exciting to fans, but it's horrible for players. It's probably a good idea to not forget that.

Posting will be light this week as my computer is going to to the shop. But here is an entry from the Future Mrs. PuckUpdate. It's her take on hockey:

Another problem in the league is that players are eating too many hot dogs. They're late to practice because they're eating hot dogs. They're sluggish in practice because they've eaten too many hot dogs. And, most shameful of all, they're eating hot dogs on the bench during games. By looking at ice times for key players, it appears that they are shortening their shifts so that they can go back to the bench—and eat hot dogs.

She's not afraid to tell it like it is.