FanHouse Stars

Darren Dreger of TSN reported today that the Tampa Bay Lightning have alerted center Brad Richards they're trying to deal him. Richards has given management a list of teams for which he'd be willing to waive his NTC; GM Jay Feaster will take the offers he's received -- allegedly from Vancouver, Columbus and Dallas -- to ownership, and a former Conn Smythe winner making $7.8 million per season until 2011 could be gonzo by the trade deadline.

If you go by the hockey rumoristas, Richards has been on the block longer than a septuagenarian prostitute. But this time could be different, if Dreger's on point with this line from his TSN.ca piece: "Tampa Bay's incoming owner Oren Koules is said to be heavily involved." Koules has taken over a losing team with the gross national product of Guyana tied up into three players; snipping a valuable but under-performing Richards would, I imagine, be something he might be interested in.

There are several teams rumored to be in the hunt for Richards. But would he improve any of them in the short term or the long run?

I made a "Hillary Clinton/Detroit Red Wings" analogy in my go at The Ice Sheet last week. To that end, losing to Dallas and Marty Turco yesterday -- and extending the Wings' losing streak to six games -- was like Obama sweeping the Chesapeake Primaries. They're on the ropes at a critical time, mired in an historic losing streak just as GM Ken Holland heads to the GM meetings in Florida to figure out what could be a panacea for this team (or if it even needs one). How historic? John Niyo of The Detroit News explains:

To put that in perspective, the last time they were deep-sixed like this in the regular season winless and worrying -- Howard was in kindergarten, Mike Babcock was coaching in Spokane and Nick Lidstrom was still in Sweden. "It's terrible -- what can you say?" the Wings forward Tomas Holmstrom said. "We've just got to find a way to get out of this big slump."

Having watched most of yesterday's 1-0 loss to Dallas, a few things were clear about Detroit and its struggles.

For some, "balanced reporting" and "The New York Times" are mutually exclusive terms. Last weekend's notebook item titled "Enthusiasm Cools for Hockey's Foray Into the South" did little to dispel that notion; here was a doom and gloom report on the NHL in non-traditional markets -- an indictment of Tampa Bay, Phoenix, Nashville, Atlanta, Washington, Florida and Carolina -- that contained not a single interview with any of the defamed. Instead we have two financial consultants, a crackpot Marcel Dionne and NHLPA president Paul Kelly, keeping that Canadian wet dream of the NHL's return to Winnipeg alive.

There are some basic misconceptions and ingrained hypocrisy throughout the piece. Let's explore them together, shall we?

Phoenix associate coach Ulf Samuelsson is one of only three Europeans currently coaching in the NHL, along with Ulf Dahlen of Dallas and New Jersey's Tommy Albelin. Jarmo Kekalainen, the assistant general manager of the St. Louis Blues, is the only European member of a front office in the NHL. This is the evidence presented by Tom Reed of The Columbus Dispatch, who explores the lack of Europeans behind both hockey benches and front office desks; and he finds that current and former non-North American players don't believe this is a case of institutional xenophobia from the League's good 'ole boys club. They see other challenges:

Kekalainen dreams of becoming the first European NHL general manager, but he and his wife want their two young daughters to be exposed to Finnish culture. "You have to ask yourself if you really want to make that commitment to live full time in North America," said Kekalainen, who played briefly in the NHL and earned a management degree from Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y.

Another issue is communication, Dahlen said. Coaches must be able to speak English well enough to get their point across to players, the media and the public.

Word broke yesterday that Peter Forsberg could decide by the end of the week if he'll return to the NHL and where that return will take place. According to TSN, he's managed to narrow the field in anticipation of that decision. Since this ridiculous courtship is quite reminiscent of Internet dating, allow me to summarize:

"[Mouse Click] Hoo boy, Detroit. What a woman: Classically beautiful, ultra-successful, great (winged) wheels. We could really make some history together. Such a shame that my old mates in Denver think she's a dirty skank. Next!"

"[Mouse Click] Dallas, huh? Cute girl, and I hear her Uncle Brett refers to himself as the Ambassador of Fun. She's really coming on strong. But at my age, you can't go for something that shallow. Next!"

"[Mouse Click] Nashville? Ugh, been there, done that. [Mouse Click] Calgary? Great girl, plenty of potential. But I hear her father's a real hard-ass. Nope, can't do it. Man, eHarmony is really letting me down these days. Am I going to have to make another booty call to Philly?"

Or something like that. I've said since the beginning of this process that I believed Forsberg would end up in either Philadelphia or Colorado. Ottawa appears to be on his short list, and should be if he's coming back to attempt to win another Stanley Cup; I just don't see adding Forsberg to what's becoming an absolute circus up there as a good idea for all involved. One interesting wrinkle brought to light by Michael Russo of the Star-Tribune: "According to two GM's I've spoken to, anybody who signs Forsberg will probably have to sign him to a deal for next year, too, at around $5 million." Considering his health, how many GMs is that going to scare off? Or will Peter simply be next year's Scott Niedermayer and suit up when it suits the team?

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.)

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.

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 needle on the Vancouver hype machine was in the red yesterday as Todd Bertuzzi made his long-awaited return as an opponent after 18 months. The TEAM 1040 in Vancouver even cut away from "The Jim Rome Show" in favor of audio from Bertuzzi's Tuesday morning press conference, no doubt depriving listeners of dozens of recycled O.J. jokes and humorless "takes" from callers who live-read from scripts written on well-soiled cocktail napkins.

Bertuzzi left the Canucks in what Jacques Martin believes is still the worst trade in the history of hockey, and was injured when Detroit and Florida came to Vancouver to play last season. But he hit the ice last night with Anaheim, receiving cheers from an appreciative GM Place crowd filled with fans dressed in their old Bertuzzi jerseys. And what a return it was, as ... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ... oh, sorry, nodded off there for a moment thinking about the anti-climax that was Bertuzzi's homecoming. The Ducks lose 4-0, and Bert goes 0-0-0 with no shots and a minus-2 in just under 13 minutes of ice time.

But all of that is secondary to the real news yesterday, which is that Ducks GM Brian Burke will evidently go to his grave defending Bertuzzi's assault on Steve Moore. "I know Todd Bertuzzi is a character person, who thought he was going to the aid of a teammate," Burke said yesterday. "As I said at the time, sitting right here, right beside him, I cannot condone what happened that night, but I think what Todd meant to do was well intentioned." Yikes...

(Coming Up Next: Last Night's Losers, Scandalous and Hilarious Puck Headlines, The End of Goal Judges, Most Embarrassing Stat Line of the Night, Satan's 666, Games You Need To Watch Tonight and Either The Most Endearing or Annoying Hockey Video of the Day.)

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.