FanHouse Teemu Selanne

Doesn't that sound like a juicy headline?

It probably does and has probably left you wondering who it was taking on the Toronto coach. Was it Joe Thornton? Maybe Evgeni Nabokov or Olaf Kolzig? Well, the answer is none of the above. The former player who laid into Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Ron Wilson on TSN's Off the Record this week was Jim Thomson.

If you just said 'who?' you're not alone.

Entering NHL free agency last week, there was a lot of chatter about the prospect of a Koivu family gathering in Minnesota.

It is there that young Mikko has emerged as a face of the Minnesota Wild. His 34-year-old brother, Saku, became a free agent July 1, and it made sense that the two would play together with the Wild. In the end, however, Saku decided against the move, agreeing Wednesday to a one-year deal with Anaheim.

The Anaheim Ducks still have plenty of veteran presence on their team, despite the trade of defenseman Chris Pronger to Philadelphia.

Captain Scott Niedermayer and forward Teemu Selanne have both said they will return. For Niedermayer, the future is uncertain beyond next season. Selanne, meanwhile, says 2009-2010 will be his last year in the NHL.

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We continue our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Pacific Division.

San Jose saw its Presidents' Trophy campaign come to a surprising end in the first round of the NHL playoffs, Los Angeles is still the perfect spot for Dany Heatley, and is there any hope for success on the ice in Phoenix?

There was a time when my favorite sport was, without hesitation, baseball. Recently, however, my interest in the game has been lost. Not because of a steroid scandal or the incompetence of Bud Selig, but mostly because the team I grew up cheering for, the Pittsburgh Pirates, has been a Major League Baseball team in name only and is currently working on its 17th consecutive losing season with no end in sight.

You might argue that makes me a fair-weather fan, but I disagree. My interest is so low that if, by some perfect storm -- like the rest of the National League halting operations and disbanding from the league -- the Pirates actually won something, I still probably wouldn't care as much as I should. I just don't care about baseball anymore, but I certainly don't begrudge those who still do. It's still a great game, even if my interest is at an all-time low.

DETROIT -- This was more like it when it comes to a Game 7.

The second-seeded Red Wings and the No. 8 Ducks continued their hearty battle in the Western Conference semifinals on Thursday here at Joe Louis Arena, and Anaheim very nearly pulled off an upset of the defending champs, two weeks after knocking off the top-seeded Sharks.

Instead, it was hard-nosed Dan Cleary, not one of Detroit's marquee players, who willed the Wings into the conference finals by hammering the puck past Jonas Hiller with three minutes to play, giving Detroit a 4-3 victory over the tough Ducks. Detroit will meet the Chicago Blackhawks in a matchup of Original Six teams for the right to go to the Stanley Cup Finals.

---

---

Throughout their first-round series against top-seed San Jose, the Anaheim Ducks made a habit out of being badly outshot. They did a wonderful job protecting goalie Jonas Hiller, and he was awesome stopping the first shot, whether he got a good look or not.

---

---

Two years ago, a much more heralded Anaheim Ducks team took out Detroit on their way to a Stanley Cup. This time, the Ducks enter a series against the Red Wings as perhaps the most-feared eighth seed in NHL playoff history. That said, they're still an eighth seed, and a decided underdog. Is this the end of "Cinderella"?

Hostilities began when the puck dropped, and in a penalty-happy Game 6, the Ducks took better advantage of the man advantage and knocked the top-seeded Sharks out of the playoffs.

San Jose, which finished with a league-best 117 points, fell 4-1 at the Honda Center and became the fourth President's Trophy winning team to fall in the first round. Perennial disappointments who have yet to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals, the Sharks do not have a good relationship with sixth games in playoff series, and are now 2-13 overall and 1-7 on the road in those games.

---

---

Let's, for one second, take a step back from the playoff races and examine the curious world of NHL mascots.

On Tuesday, Capitals Kremlin took an off-beat and humorous look at mascots around the NHL and determined that IceBurgh, the warm and cuddly mascot of the Pittsburgh Penguins, is the most terrifying sideshow attraction in the NHL. Really? IceBurgh? That cute guy pictured above?