FanHouse Rangers

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

The trade deadline is over. The rumor well is dry, the speculation is over and Bob McKenzie has gone from obtaining fantastic insider information to spinning strange conspiracy theories about the Marian Hossa trade. It's all over but the cryin' ... and there seems like there should be a bit that happening amongst the League's oldest denizens today. Chicago's not playing for this year, so the 'Hawks can be excused for not dipping into its cache of talent to land someone like Brad Richards. But the rest of the Original Six did not exactly have a banner day:

• Even with the comeback charity point in Edmonton last night, Detroit is in a tailspin. It added Brad Stuart on defense; is that trade, and return of the Wings' wounded, going to be enough to right the ship?
• The Rangers did nothing but prove they held onto Al Montoya for too long and that Glen Sather can only trade with MSG expats.
• Boston couldn't land anything to significantly improve its playoff chances, as their general manager potentially placed himself in front of Jeremy Jacobs's firing squad.
• I'm unsure what was the most disastrous development for Montreal: Failing to land Hossa, getting a draft pick for a blue-chip goalie like Huet, or placing the fate of a team that appears to be a legit Stanley Cup contender into the tender mitts of rookie goaltenders. Please tell me this isn't another case of Habs mystique clouding better judgment, as the Cult of Canadiens assumes Carey Price is either Ken Dryden or Patrick Roy.
• And don't get me started on Toronto...

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Inside the Mind of Brian Campbell, Tonight's Must-See Games and a nice Devils/Rangers hockey fight.)

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

I have to imagine life for a Nashville Predators fan can be correctly described as surreal at times. Coming within an inch of Jim Balsillie's ego from moving to Hamilton, and remaining in the relocation whispers of naysayers even as new ownership takes hold. The "here today, gone 22 games later" of Peter Forsberg. Those third jerseys (yikes). So when the team beats an opponent called the Hurricanes, and fans have to then remain in the arena while deadly tornadoes blow by Nashville, I suppose it's just in keeping with the Predatory weirdness.

But it even gets more surreal: This Nashville team, despite all the adversity, is four points away from the four seed in the Western Conference after its national television Versus victory over Carolina last night. And the three reasons why the Preds were finally able to put one past a red-hot Cam Ward in the 1-0 victory just happen to also be the best line in hockey right now: JP Dumont, Jason Arnott and Alexander Radulov.

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, The Leafs Hit Rock Bottom, Why The Southeast Division Doesn't Deserve a Playoff Spot, Devils Fans Dating Rangers Fans Are Fan-tastic, Tonight's Must-See Games and Pimping Out Ovechkin's Garage.)

Bob McKenzie reported this morning that the NHL will play four games in Europe to start the 2008-09 season: The Ottawa Senators will play the Pittsburgh Penguins in Stockholm and the New York Rangers will play the Tampa Bay Lightning in Prague, each playing twice on the weekend preceding the domestic opening of the regular season. This follows the mixed results from the League's foray to London to kick off this season.

If the League is on a mission to become a global sports entity like the NBA -- once a David Stern disciple, always a David Stern disciple -- playing regular season games to hockey-mad crowds in Prague and Stockholm is a great idea. I think, overall, the pluses outnumber the minuses in a big way here. If there's a short list of reasons to not play overseas, I'm pretty sure HNIC's Scott Morrison's logic ranks somewhere below "because EuroTrip sucked." Morrison opines that the rights of Senators fans to see Sidney Crosby in Ottawa outweighs the League gaining a stronger foothold in potentially very lucrative foreign markets:

All teams are compensated for losing one home gate, so there is no revenue loss. But in the case of the Senators, for instance, there is a greater cost involved. They lose the buzz of having Sidney Crosby and the Penguins come to town. They lose that excitement that is attached to a visit from The Kid. And Senators fans lose the opportunity of seeing Crosby in person. It means one fewer visit next season.

Boo-hoo. I'm no Mr. Spock, but I'm pretty sure the needs of the many outweight the needs of 20,500 fans in Ottawa that will still get to watch Crosby come to town again later in the season. I'd like to see the hard economic data that suggests taking one Crosby visit away from Ottawa will adversely affect anything except the media's time spent star gazing in the Penguins' locker room.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

(An virtual recreation of an actual conversation that occurred on the morning of Jan. 1, 2008, in a cluttered post-party living room somewhere in Maryland.)

• "What are you putting on now? Not that 'Twilight Zone' marathon again."
• "Nope. A little thing called 'The Winter Classic.' Pittsburgh and Buffalo are playing a hockey game in a football stadium today. It's going to be awesome."
• "Give me the remote, I'll find something to ... wait, WTF? There's, like, 100,000 people there, it's snowing like hell and Bob Costas is standing in front of a hockey rink."
• "I told you it'd be cool. I mean, not as cool as watching Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve..."
• "Actually, Greg, the word is cruel. You've been doing the same Tom Carvel impression every year since Dick Clark came back from the stroke. Hey, who's this Crosby guy they keep showing?"

And with that, a grand experiment began: Using an outdoor game to attempt to sell hockey to a gaggle of 20-something females with a self-confessed puck allergy.

(Coming Up Next: Big Time Hollywood Stars at the Winter Classic, Scandalous and Hilarious Puck Headlines, Tonight's Must-See Games, a Great Little Bud Light Tribute to Hockey and Some Guy Who's Convinced the Winter Classic was Fixed.)

Mike Brophy of The Hockey News hits his hyperbole quota for the month in a blog about why the instigator rule should not be repealed:

That's right. Let the fighters rule the NHL, just like the gunslingers did in the wild, wild west. Just like the Broad Street Bullies did in the '70s when they scared the daylights out of half the league. While we're at it, let's arm motorists, so if somebody follows too closely or cuts you off, you can pull out your piece and shoot out their tires. Let's give grocery store cashiers baseball bats so if somebody gets in the 10-or-fewer items line with 12, they can be kneecapped.

Oh, and let's allow Chris Simon to drop his gloves and beat Ryan Hollweg to a pulp because Hollweg, who is not a fighter, has the audacity to hit him. Let's let Chris Simon slug the snot out of Jarkko Ruutu because, like Hollweg, he banged the Islanders' aging tough guy.

Let's get one factual error out of the way first: Ryan Hollweg is a fighter. (Unless Brophy meant that Hollweg is a bit of a punching bag, in which case I take back my critique.) As for examining the instigator rule in light of Chris Simon's 30-game suspension today, it's a simple question: Is it better for hockey to have Simon settle whatever perceived grievance he has with a player with his fists, or is it better for hockey if he uses his stick like Albert Pujols slicing through a high fastball and attempts to Malarchuk some guy's leg? Because it can be argued that the sociopaths-on-skates like Simon have opted for extreme measures because what used to be "option A" has been litigated out of the sport. And it can be argued that Ruutu turtling when Simon comes over to pound him is better for hockey than a 30-game suspension on the ESPNews ticket.

Author Ross Bernstein's book "The Code" is mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand fighting's place in the NHL. In an interview last year, he told me: "If there's no instigator rule, there's no Bertuzzi incident. That situation is resolved. The game polices itself." I consider his an expert opinion, same as I do former NHLer Neil Sheehy, who explained the need for the instigator to go in a 2005 article:

The NHL changes its rules to compensate for the tactics players develop given the rules that the NHL creates. With each new rule, players develop a new set of tactics. The league needs to think "outside the box" and become less reactionary and more intuitive.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

• Semi-Retired (adj.): 1. A near or incomplete state of retirement. 2. A code word, frequently used in professional hockey circa 2007, that describes a veteran player who is content to loaf around during the regular season until he decides to rejoin his team, causing a domino effect of financial repercussions.

Scott Niedermayer returned from semi-retirement last night in Anaheim's shootout loss to the Sharks, but the real loss appears to be to his once-sterling reputation. His decision to "leave" the Ducks before the season contributed to their post-Cup malaise and lack of success on the ice; his decision to return cost Anaheim one of its top offensive forwards (based on reputation, if not this year's numbers) in Andy MacDonald, a loss that Niedermayer can only blame himself for instigating. While the move will create a little more wiggle room for GM Brian Burke next off-season as he attempts to keep Corey Perry from Pennering the Ducks, it does little to address the destitute offense that has Anaheim 28th in the league in average goals scored per game and has all but three of its forwards with 10 points or less on the season.

Unless, of course, the Ducks' other star in semi-retirement decides to lace'em up again.

(Coming Up Next: This Weekend's Losers, Scandalous and Hilarious Puck Headlines, Life as Andy Sutton of the Islanders, The Blackhawks' Shooting Gallery, Ovechkin Comes To Motown, The Fan Who Broke the Doug Weight Trade and the Ottawa Senators Wish You an Awkward Christmas.)

Just the other day, I was telling my father I wanted to call Newark Mayor Cory Booker's office to see if and when ESPN's Barry Melrose would make good on his apology and visit The Rock for a Devils game. Turns out I'm a day late and a delicious Cuban Sandwich from the Prudential Center's Havana Restaurant short: Tom Gulitti of The Record reports that Melrose is scheduled to be the guest of Booker and Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek at tonight's game against the Washington Capitals.

In an ESPN.com video last month, Melrose said that the area around the new Newark arena is "awful," that "the inside and the outside where it's built is pretty humorous" and warned those who dare see a game to not "go outside if you have a wallet or anything else." When his comments were swiftly rebuked by the Devils and the city, Melrose cowered and apologized, embarrassingly admitting that he had never actually visited the arena before labeling it a crime-ridden Thunderdome of lawless thugs. Melrose told Gulitti that he's looking forward to gaining "first-hand knowledge" of the arena and its surrounding area tonight; he also said that Devils fans have been fairly kind to him after his commentary: "No one has been tough on me, so, hopefully, that will continue tomorrow."

It should be a decent crowd, as the Devils will celebrate Scott Stevens's induction into the Hall of Fame and the fact that he ended his career with his leadership unquestioned and his dedication to his teammates respected (unlike some other former Devils defensemen named Scott). But Devils fans, at The Rock, welcoming The Mullet with open arms? Ask a Rangers fan how hospitable NJD fans can be -- even when the Rangers aren't playing them. No, battle plans are being drawn ... and I even have one of my own.

Last Wednesday, a game between the Florida Panthers and the Washington Capitals ended when a defenseman who had one goal on the season, and hadn't scored another in his next 17 games, was asked to beat Tomas Vokoun on a breakaway in an overtime skills competition. Washington's Brian Pothier was the 22nd shooter of the shootout, following offensive aristocracy like Jay Bouwmeester, Dave Steckel and Boyd Gordon; as expected, he failed to score, and the Panthers earned two points in the standings.

That the Panthers -- or any team in this painfully familiar scenario in today's NHL -- were rewarded for their shootout victory with the same number of points they would have earned with a victory in 60 minutes of regulation hockey is a crime. That said, the fact that the Capitals earned anything in the standings for losing the game, the 4-on-4 overtime and 11 rounds of a shootout is, by comparison, a federal offense.

Raising the possibility that the NHL could alter its current points system in the standings is nothing new; but what separates the revisionists (like Gary Bettman) from the revolutionaries is that the latter group understands the fundamental dogma of athletic competition, which is that you don't reward losers -- well, unless Sidney Crosby is at stake. Even if the shootout is never repealed, the overtime "charity point" has to go. To that end, I've taken two of the most popular alternative point-system proposals and applied them to the current NHL standings through Sunday, Dec. 2, to see how things might change. The results bring good news to teams like the Sabres, Lightning, Flyers and Wild; not-so-good news to the Rangers, Leafs and the Stanley Cup champions.

If Eric Lindros is enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame, my preference for his etched glass plaque would be an image of his frozen face under a twisted helmet, resting on the slowly melting ice in Philadelphia during Game 7 of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals. Somewhere in the corner would be a smaller etching of Scott Stevens, shaking the freight-train impact from his shoulder.

The above is written as a Devils fan who is unable, even as Lindros formally announced the end of his career, to shake the vision of No. 88 as a fragile Messiah; always one championship away from being declared a hockey deity, always one head-shot away from admission to the infirmary. The above is also written as a prime example of the crux in Lindros's Hall of Fame debate: The inability of hockey pundits and fans to separate reputation, hype and personal behavior from the case that can be made for his Hall of Fame credentials.

I think that debate was captured nicely this morning by Jes Golbez in The Ice Sheet, where he lamented Lindros as being "content to sit back and have his parents whine about his ice time" while at the same time praising Eric as "a player who could do everything well and force opponents to change their strategy just to deal with the guy." Jes believes Lindros's place in NHL history "will cause many bar and kitchen table debates for years." Actually, it hasn't taken years: The Lindros Debate has intensely raged in the MSM and the blogosphere in the hours following news of his pending retirement.