I hope Mikko Koivu gets his brother Saku something nice for the holidays this year. I suspect the nice $47.25 million, seven-year contract extension Mikko got from the Wild, including a no-trade clause, is partially influenced by the work of Saku. The Wild are notoriously responsible-to-conservative with contracts, so for them to go long-term, with [...]

One thing that’s a bit frustrating about the NHL is that a lot of weight is attached to well-known names. It seems that a lot of GMs look at names rather than stats before they make a move. How else to explain all of the interest in Mike Modano, he of the 14 goals and [...]

Photo from fOTOGLIF Some people really don’t like the NHL’s participation in the Olympics during its regular season. Apparently, Tim Panaccio and I are two of those guys. His Sunday column hypothesizes the Flyers recent struggles are at least partially linked to the amount of Olympians they had playing in Vancouver. I’m no fan of [...]

Last night was kind of interesting. There were 10 games played, with four shutouts. Goalies Steve Mason (CBJ), Ryan Miller (BUF), Ty Conklin (backup; STL), and Nik Backstrom (MIN) each kept the red light off behind them. So is this a sign defense is back in the NHL? Is the NHL reverting to its pre-lockout [...]

A couple of weeks ago, the Wild signing Petr Sykora seemed like a brilliant move. I know I sure loved it. It’s still a little early to say it’s not working out, but Sykora was a healthy scratch against Nashville last night. That came after getting less than 10 minutes against Chicago Monday night. Sykora [...]

Oh wow! The Leafs finally won! The Leafs finally won! Who knew goaltending was such an important position? Jonas Gustavsson earned his first NHL win with his second solid NHL start. But credit Anaheim, too, for playing a very dull game. It’s almost like they wanted to give the Leafs their first win of the [...]

It looks like Martin Havlat will play on a line with Petr Sykora, as they did in Tuesday’s win over the Ducks. Every season, more and more GMs have been filling as many slots as they can with younger players rather than more experienced ones. There are a lot of reasons to do so: younger [...]

Patrik Elias is out 3-6 weeks with groin surgery and the Devils are being coy about finding help via a trade or free agency. The Devils are already pretty thin. There’s no second line center. Brandon Shanahan has been spending time on the top line. It’s starting to feel like if one more top player [...]

I like the NHL offseason because it sometimes turns into high school. Like Dale Tallon gets whacked in Chicago, and Martin Havlat jumps on Twitter to drop some cryptic messages: I guess everyone saw what happened to Dale….yes, the story is starting to come out but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. What are [...]

Four Brothers A lot of people don’t know that in addition to hockey blogging, I’m also a prolific children’s book author. I’ve written over 800 children’s books, and while I’ve yet to sell one, I have a very good feeling about my latest, which I’m happy to be able to share here. Four Brothers I [...]