Believe it or not, the Rangers’ home in the old Madison Square Garden on 8th Avenue near 50th St. in Manhattan was worse than the Islanders’ run-down Nassau Coliseum is now. (John G. Zimmerman/SI)

By Stu Hackell

The last few days have brought a number of interesting stories — the Kings filing a grievance on the Ryan Smyth-Colin Fraser deal, Oilers goalie Nikolai Khabibulin beginning his DUI sentence, a pair of veterans – Brent Sopel and Alex Kovalev – heading to the KHL, and the bid submitted in the complicated sale of the Dallas Stars. Any one would be worth writing a post about.

A few New York-area items crawled into the hockey headlines, too, including the Rangers re-signing their heart-and-soul RFA Ryan Callahan, and the Devils and Islanders pulling off a trade that helps both teams — but not really for hockey reasons. The Devs shipped Brian Rolston and his big contract to the Isles for Trent Hunter and his less-big contract. The deal made Rolston the highest-paid Islander at slightly over $5 million and brought them to within a mere six million — or a few RFA signings and one Alexei Yashin – away from the cap floor of $48.3 million. The deal also freed up money the Devs needed to sign their RFA leftwinger Zach Parise for the season at $6 million.

Also, today (Monday) is the big referendum on Long Island as Nassau County residents decide if they want to pay for a new arena for Charles Wang’s Isles that he declines to finance himself. I wrote about that a bit last week and before the week ended, both the Rangers and Devils issued statements in support of the new coliseum, and why wouldn’t they? They don’t want the Isles to move. Consider this: 1) The Isles’ two local rivals love the bus ride road trips to Long Island, which are much cheaper than flights elsewhere. 2) The Devs gladly welcome Islanders fans buying tickets when the two teams play in Newark. 3) The Rangers’ parent company, Madison Square Garden, owns the Islanders’ TV rights and wouldn’t want to lose that property. But whether the rivals’ endorsements will mean anything in the final tally is pretty questionable.
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Alexei Yashin was an expensive flop the Islanders had to pay to go away, so why in the name of Jiggs McDonald would they want him back? (Ed Betz/AP)

By Stu Hackel

It’s been a very strange offseason, one that challenges 2008 with its non-stop Mats Sundin rumors, Scotty Bowman joining the Blackhawks, NHL-KHL hostilities, the Lightning hiring Barry Melrose, and the fall of Boots Dell Biagio. What the Flyers have done recently — trading two of their core players, paying Ilya Bryzgalov more than Tim Thomas, signing Jaromir Jagr, the revelations about their Dry Island – is enough on its own to make this summer bizarre. Add to that the big money paid to James Wisniewski and Christian Ehrhoff, the Panthers commandeering the free agent vacuum cleaner, the Avalanche surrendering a first round (and possible lottery) pick and more for an oft-injured, inconsistent goalie, and Tomas Vokoun misreading the free agent market and landing in Washington for a bargain price, and you’ve got a serious contender for The Summer of Madness heavyweight title.

So I guess none of us should be too surprised to hear the Islanders are doing a little courtship dance with Alexei Yashin.
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As a key member of Detroit’s Grind Line, Kris Draper was at the center of the Red Wings’ bitter rivalry with the Avalanche in the late 1990s as well as the team that broke the franchise’s long Stanley Cup drought. (Tom Pidgeon/AP Photos)

By Stu Hackel

Perhaps the best dollar an NHL team ever spent was the one the Red Wings paid the Winnipeg Jets in 1993 for minor leaguer Kris Draper. He had played only a handful of games for the Jets in three seasons and didn’t figure in their plans. They just wanted to unload his contract and the Wings figured at worst they’d be getting a speedy young forward for their Adirondack AHL farm club. By January 1994, Draper was in the NHL to stay.

After 17 full NHL seasons with the Wings, Draper retired Tuesday, having been a key member of four Stanley Cup teams, the winner of the 2004 Selke Trophy as the NHL’s top defensive forward, an alternate captain, a player for Team Canada at the ’04 World Cup and ’06 Olympics, and one of only five players in Wings history to play over 1,000 games for the club.

It’s an impressive resume for a guy who was never a scoring star, but specialized in stopping stars from scoring. And with his big smile, good-guy persona and occasional Chuck Norris beard, Draper was among the most popular Detroit athletes of the last few decades.
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Dustin Penner (2007) is the only restricted free agent to change teams, and he cost the Oilers plenty. (Jason O. Watson/US Presswire)

By Stu Hackel

Let’s file this post under the category of things we have to cover (our SI.com hockey page overlord John Rolfe likens it to eating your spinach). It’s less fun than, say, debating Chris Osgood’s career or trying to figure out who has the right to claim the history of the Winnipeg Jets, but it contains useful information and perhaps even essential vitamins and minerals. So open up and start chewing.

Few things are more restrictive than restricted free agency in the NHL. Hundreds of players have been RFAs since the current CBA was adopted in 2005, but only six have received offer sheets — Ryan Kesler, Thomas Vanek, Dustin Penner, David Backes, Steve Bernier and Niklas Hjalmarsson – and of those, only Penner changed teams.

That’s something to keep in mind when you hear people urge NHL GMs to take a run at an RFA. The 2011 group is stellar, led by Steven Stamkos, Drew Doughty, Shea Weber, Zach Parise, Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Callahan, Devin Setoguchi, Luke Schenn, Kyle Okposo, and Zach Bogosian. Any club would be instantly better with one of them in its lineup. But the RFA system is too onerous to permit player movement. Three weeks into free agency, some of these guys have re-upped with their old teams and it’s folly to think any of them are going anywhere other than back to where they came from.
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Thanks to the Phoenix Coyotes, the most famous No. 9 in the new Winnipeg Jets history is not Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Hull, it’s Marc Savard or young Evander Kane (pictured). (Todd Kirkland/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

The Winnipeg Jets are not the Winnipeg Jets. And if that sounds confusing, be prepared for more of the same, because the team that will start play this fall in Winnipeg can’t claim the history of the team with the same name that once played there. It is what it is, except when it’s not.

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The Rangers avoided having to disparage Brandon Dubinsky, who led the team in scoring last season, by agreeing to a new contract hours before their salary arbitration hearing. (Bennett Cohen/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

It’s salary arbitration time in the NHL, one of the most complicated and often anti-climactic periods of the offseason.

The first of hearings took place on Wednesday when defenseman Chris Campoli was awarded $2.5 million for next season. But the Blackhawks walked away from the award, which they indicated they would do when the sides couldn’t reach a negotiated settlement last week and signed free agent defenseman Sami Lepisto instead for $750,000, substantially less than the $2.75 million Campoli was reportedly seeking. So Campoli is now an unrestricted free agent.
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Peter DeBoer (left) is no stranger to Devils GM Lou Lamoriello, who has seen the coach’s ability to work with young players and get the most out of even a depleted roster. (Ray Stubblebine/Reuters photos)

By Stu Hackel

Last week, we examined the state of the Devils and rounded up the usual suspects for the team’s next coach, listing the candidates whose names we’d seen circulated over the last three months as potential hires by GM Lou Lamoriello: Larry Robinson, Scott Stevens, Adam Oates, Mike Keenan, Ken Hitchcock, Guy Carbonneau, Michel Therrien, Craig MacTavish, Craig Ramsay, Mike Haviland, Kirk Muller, Marc Crawford, Bob Hartley, Mike Eaves and the ever-popular Jacques Lemaire. “Most of them have denied that they’re in the running or they discouraged speculation in some way,” we wrote, “leaving the impression that none will be Lou’s guy.” And we added, “One supposes that Lou is taking his time to get this one right….His choices almost always surprise.”

So we shouldn’t be surprised today, but we are, that a) none of the above were Lamoriello’s choice and b) he perhaps did get it right. Peter DeBoer wasn’t on the list and now — duh! — he seems in retrospect to be the most logical guy for the job. In fact, of all the new coaching hires in the NHL this offseason, it’s quite possible that the Devils made the best choice of all.
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By Stu Hackel

Chris Osgood announced his retirement today and, with Kris Draper also apparently headed in that direction, only two members of the Red Wings — Nick Lidstrom and Tomas Holmstrom — will remain from the last team to win two consecutive Stanley Cups (1997, 1998).

An international melange of talent and intriguing personalities, those ’90s teams coached by Scotty Bowman skated through the gloomy dead puck era with a stylish gleam that made the Red Wings the most popular NHL club in the U.S. They also springboarded Detroit to the status of the league’s most successful franchise of the last 15 years.

Dating from the start of Bowman’s tenure in 1993-94 — perhaps not coincidentally Osgood’s rookie season — Detroit has won the Cup four times and reached the finals two other times (narrowly missing another repeat championship in 2009). They finished first in their division 13 times in 17 seasons (never lower than second) and topped the Western Conference eight times. Osgood was with them for a good chunk of that time, leaving for three seasons to play goal in St. Louis and Long Island before returning in 2005. Even though he was supplanted by others at times, he’s been a big part of the Wings’ identity for all these years.
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Though it contains some glaring omissions, the ”Boston Bruins Stanley Cup 2011 Champions” video is will please devoted fans with its account of the team’s historic run to the title. (Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated)

By Stu Hackel

The ice has melted, the scruffy beards are gone and now, in the radiating heat of mid-July — one month after the Bruins won the Stanley Cup — the official NHL highlights video gets its premier in Boston on Monday and in New York on Tuesday. It’s a good, not great video, unless you’re a Bruins fan in which case you will forgive its shortcomings — including omitting some of the B’s more rugged play — due to the happy ending and the inside look at your heroes. For Bruins fans everywhere, this will be a must-have addition to their hockey collection.
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Signing blueliner Karl Alzner for a reasonable $2.57 million left the Capitals with some work to do to get under the cap, but it’s been an impressive summer run by GM George McPhee. (Nick Turchiaro/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

NHL General Managers won’t select their next GM of the Year award winner for another 11 months, but the early leader has to be Capitals’ GM George McPhee.

The Capitals announced this morning they’ve signed Karl Alzner to a new two-year contract extension and Caps Nation can now breathe again. What is most remarkable about this deal is that McPhee was able to bring Alzner in for the price of $2.57 million, a cap hit of merely $1.285 million annually, which is more than the defenseman would have gotten had he accepted the Caps’ qualifying offer (a mandated five percent raise over his previous salary of $875,000), but well below the market value for a top four blueliner. And, as Katie Carrera of The Washington Post points out, the annual cap hit is $390,000 less than that of the final year of Alzner’s entry-level deal last season. His hit was higher last season because of performance and signing bonuses that don’t appear to be present in his new contract.
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