Wow. Patrik Elias is a -14. It's so crazy because he came back from hepatitis last season and seemed to thrive. Now, healthy for a while, he's struggling.
A big part of that has to be that as the Devils have lost more and more of their core defensemen, the forwards have had to shoulder more and more of the defensive responsibility. My thought is that Elias was so busy last season, he didn't realize that was going on, but now, starting fresh, he has time to actually look and see who's playing behind him.

OK. I was fairly shocked to learn Alex Tanguay is mad the Avs didn't re-sign him. Why is he just talking about it now? It seems so random. Why didn't he say anything when he was traded?
I apologize if you were expecting more of a point to this. It just really kind of puzzled me and I needed to share.
Also, how funny are the Sedin twins? ESPN.com has a great interview:

Q: Who on the Canucks still has trouble telling you apart?

Daniel: Everyone says they can tell us apart, but I doubt it [laughs]. The players aren't too bad, but the coaches have a tough time. Sometimes they're yelling at me, but they think I'm Henrik.

Q: So what do you do?

Henrik: We just take it, and then go tell the other guy what the coach said.

I'm not a huge reader of ESPN.com's Scott Burnside, but I read enough of him to be really shocked by his takedown of the Chicago Blackhawks.
He doesn't say anything untrue or especially out of line, but it's just a little angrier than I'm used to.
I'm guessing new Blackhawks coach Denis Savard isn't too excited about this new direction in Burnside's writing.

I don't think I knew just how complex Jaromir Jagr's contract was. I knew the Caps were paying him to pay in New York, but I didn't know about all of the incentives in the contract.
Now I do, thanks to Darren Dreger.
According to Dreger, Jagr gets an extra year on his contract, at a cool $11 million (before adjusted for the CBA salary rollback), if he wins the Art Ross, the Hart, or the Conn Smythe. Plus, in the next two seasons, if he gets 180 points, or 80 goals, and the Rangers win two playoff rounds, he gets another year at $8.6 million (before adjusted for the rollback). Plus, next year, if he scores 40 goals or picks up 90 points, the 2008-09 option kicks in.
What's so interesting is you have to wonder if Jagr would even want the options to kick in. The whole issue with the salary cap is that, for the most part, if a team is giving you a stunning salary, you're just handcuffing yourself in terms of people to play with.
The Jagr contract is an interesting relic of the pre-cap NHL.
Also, HoopsWorld.com had a nice piece on how the NBA is clamping down on NBA content on sites like YouTube and Google Video and pushing fans to NBA.com. It's not often that you see the NHL actually having more of a clue than another sport, but here is a nice example of that. The NHL knows its fans want content and it made some deals to make it easy for them to get it and use it online. The NBA only seems interested in goosing the stats for NBA.com.
Plus, and I really think this makes things worse on some level, the NBA is doing a really poor job of purging the videos.