Oy.
The Bruins signed a bunch of free agents this offseason (look for them to be traded a few weeks into the season), so of course, they have to undo any kind of goodwill by building a reality series around the team.
The Bruins are filming a reality show where the winner gets an invitation to the Bruins' training camp.
Call it BOSTONIAN IDOL or SO YOU THINK YOU CAN SKATE or BIG BRUIN. I don't see how this does anything to help the perception that the Bruins are a classless operation who never met a bad idea they didn't love.
As proof of just how classy this show is, there's only one contestant with NHL experience: Billy Tibbetts. Tibbetts raped a 15-year-old girl in 1992.
I'm not going to debate crime and punishment and redemption and rehabilitation. I'm just going to question why the Bruins would use Tibbetts as a mechanism for promoting the team.

It's so interesting how no one wants Manny Legace.
The Blues are being coy about their goalie needs, floating the idea that Curtis Sanford, or CuSa, as I've just named him, has enough to be a number one. That might be to keep prices down, though.
I've heard rumors that Legace might be toxic in the locker room, but plenty of players are bad news or have bad reputations. They still find work. At first, I thought the league's Legacephobia had to do with Legace being much more of a backup goalie than a starter, but the guy put up 60 wins in his last two seasons in Detroit. That makes him, if not a top ten goalie, at least a top 15.
So yeah. That's all kind of weird.
Meanwhile, in Dallas, they're asking who's going to score the goals (login info.). The Dallas Morning News has a projected depth chart and you notice a crazy thing about the Stars: They have no second line. They have a great (albeit old) top line of Jussi Jokinen, Mike Modano, and Jere Lehtinen. They have a tough third line with Niklas Hagman, Jeff Halpern, and Antti Miettinen. They've got a tough fourth line. But the second line is Brenden Morrow, Stu Barnes, and Patrik Stefan, which would probably be a nice little third line anywhere else in the league.
So yeah. Dallas is kind of weird, too.
Meanwhile, HockeyAnalysis.com has charted the various team salary committments for the next few seasons.
Also, the NHL has plans to launch their own MySpace-type area next season. Registration seems to be closed right now, but you can poke around and find some familiar blog friends.
Finally, does anyone else think Sergei Samsonov signing with the Habs is a giant middle finger to the Bruins? I'm sure quite a few teams were interested in Samsonov. Why sign with your old team's greatest enemy?

I have to say, I'm pretty shocked/impressed by Brendan Shanahan's rationale for leaving the Wings.
He just felt the organization was shifting in a new direction and he didn't feel a part of the changes. It's very mature and self-aware. He wasn't being pissy or pouty. He just didn't want to be the guy who stayed at the party too long. It's something you don't see in professional sports very often. Of course, Shanahan kind of undoes a little of that aura of maturity by talking about being excited to play for an Original Six team when he left one (Detroit) and was being wooed by another two (Detroit and Montreal). It's not like he had a non-Original Six offer on the table.
I guess when you're self-aware, you lose some awareness of the Original Six teams. That's OK, though.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, they just gave defenseman Colin White, an $18 million, six-year contract, showing the Devils are all about the long contract in the new NHL. That's cool. But according to my math (see below), the Devils are at $43,930,000.00 in salary, and still haven't signed RFAs Brian Gionta, Scott Gomez, David Hale, and Paul Martin. I'm assuming they're not going to re-sign free agents Ken Klee, the elderly Tommy Albelin, Viktor Kozlov, and Erik Rasmussen.
Looking at the chart, you might notice $9,300,000.00 tied up in players who are either in the AHL or retired (or arguably retired, in Vladimir Malakhov's case). That's got to hurt.
So good luck signing too great players like Gionta and Gomez with $70,000. That's a Honda Element for each of them.

Also, show some love to On Frozen Pond, a new hockey blog.

There are a lot of great reasons for the Rangers to sign Brendan Shanahan to a one-year deal (login info.). It's not an insane amount of time or money. Shanahan is a big forward who's not afraid to get physical. He scored 40 goals last season after spending the lockout doing nothing but negotiating.
So there's up-side to him. And still. I can't help but think the Rangers were instructed to make a big signing, complete with a welcome preview sign on Seventh Avenue. And why do I think this? Because Jim Dolan, who runs/owns the Rangers and the Knicks has been absolutely savaged in the press the past few weeks for the Knicks' mishandling of coach Larry Brown. The Knicks issue ended with GM Isiah Thomas taking over the coaching duties and being told he has a year to turn around the struggling franchise. This story gets mentioned in all of the papers just about every day. The beat reporters are even watching the NBA summer league games in Vegas to report on everything that happens there.
So there's a lot of heat on Dolan right now, and I'm wondering if he thought ordering a big (or relatively big) signing might make people forget about the Knicks for a little bit. It's not that Shanahan is an awful choice, or someone outside of the realm of plausible signings. It's just that the Rangers have spent an awful lot of time trying to develop young players from within the organization. And they've traditionally gravitated toward finesse players. Obviously, the Rangers need more physical forwards, but this past season, they sure went out of their season not to sign any. So I'm wondering if Shanahan represents the Rangers recognizing something that's missing or if it's something else.
But what do I know, right? Shanahan took a lower salary to play with the Rangers, so maybe the team was impressed by that. I just think it's an atypical signing for the team.
Speaking of the NBA, Bucky Gleason of the Buffalo News has a column suggesting the Sabres should learn to embrace long-term contracts as a part of the new NHL. He cites defenseman Jay McKee, who the Sabres didn't lock-up when they had the chance. McKee ended up in St. Louis.
There are definite dangers to not locking up a player, but anyone who watches the NBA knows, there are also a lot of dangers to entering in to a multi-year contract. While you can always sign someone, even if they're not as good as what you had, once you're into an expensive, long-term contract with a player who's no longer productive, you run out of options very quickly. The cap punishes those who spend too much on too little. Just ask the Islanders and about Alexei Yashin. Caution can be a good thing when you're dealing with a finite amount of salary. Jaroslav Spacek isn't McKee, but at least Buffalo can afford him. Obviously, contract negotiation is a complicated issue, but I don't think the answer is to throw around five-year contracts so no one ever leaves your team.
Speaking of the Isles, Tom Poti to the Islanders? Poti was predicted to be the next Brian Leetch, but he's always shaken out to be more of an offensive defenseman with limited offensive skills. And with an awful defensive game. And the Islanders, who are in the very same city as the Rangers, from where Poti came, should know that. Maybe the Isles like that Poti is almost like Potvin.