Damien Brunner is adjusting nicely to life in the NHL. (AP)

By Allan Muir

A guide to this morning’s must-read stories around the NHL.

• In a perfect world — say, one where Gary Bettman and Donald Fehr chose to pursue family law instead of each other’s scalp — this would have been All-Star Weekend in Columbus. This hasn’t escaped the notice of team and local officials who already are pursuing a makeup date. We understand their urgency, but maybe they should want to wait until they, you know, have an All-Star caliber player on their roster to represent them.

• With a couple of beauty goals already to his credit, Swiss rookie Damien Brunner is making a quick adjustment to the NHL with the Red Wings. The 26-year-old says waiting until he was ready was critical to his development, but if he’d been ready to come over earlier, he’d be wearing a different shade of red today. Maybe he would have scored this goal for them instead last night.

• After letting Zack Kassian carry them through the first few games, the Sedins came to play last night in Anaheim. It was a statement game for the Canucks after blowing two goal leads in each of their last two contests.

• If the Calgary Flames have proven anything this season, it’s that they can go a full 20 minutes against anybody. Of course, they haven’t had the benefit of the summer’s two “key” acquisitions in the lineup. That changes tonight as Roman Cervenka and Jiri Hudler make their season debuts against Edmonton.

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Tyler Myers (57, far left) scores one of three power-play goals for the Sabres on Sunday. (Bill Wippert/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

• A couple months from now, we all may be applauding Hockey Night In Canada’s producers for the patience they showed while allowing the new five-man panel to work through some early growing pains. But hey, we might be raving about Lance Armstrong’s appointment as the head of WADA too, right?

If the group–host Ron MacLean, and commentators Elliotte Friedman, Kevin Weekes, Glen Healy and P.J. Stock — were simply an embarrassment of riches, then it might just be a matter of letting them find their rhythm. But outside of consummate professional MacLean and Friedman, who has established himself as the game’s top studio presence, the rest of the crew came off like the unprepared guy at the meeting who feels like he has to say something, anything, to impress the boss. They were bland and noisy as they flailed to claim some space as their own. It all made for lousy TV.

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The Minnesota Wild made a summer splash by signing prize free agent defenseman Ryan Suter (as well as winger Zach Parise, not pictured), but the team may have to make just as big a splash on the ice this season. (Jim Mone/AP)

By Stu Hackel

Every NHL season starts with expectations and conjures up predictions about where teams might finish, but this is a season like no other. You can’t even compare it too closely to the lockout-shortened 1995 campaign, one played with a 26-team NHL, a different conference alignment and playoff format, no shootout or “loser’s point,” and far less parity. And even in a normal season, there is so much uncertainty in sports that preseason predictions are a waste of time.

SI.com colleagues Brian Cazeneuve, Sarah Kwak and Adrian Dater have their thoughts on the upcoming season and you can find them here:

Power Rankings | Milestones | Central | Northwest | Pacific | Southeast | Atlantic | Northeast

Our favorite preseason pastime at Red Light is trying to boil down each team’s success or failure to one or a few essential themes. Each club has them and the answers to these questions, theoretically at least, should go a long way to determining if it plays up to expectations and potential. Keep in mind they all take place within the framework of the shortened season imposing its own unique characteristics on the playoff chase, which we pondered in this post.

Yesterday we visited the Eastern Conference. Here are the essential questions for each team in the west and some post-lockout thoughts after that:

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The gorilla in the room: Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs (right) is a lockout hardliner who some observers fear will make progress impossible at CBA talks even without Gary Bettman and Don Fehr present. (Elise Amendola/AP)

By Stu Hackel

In this corner, meet the six owners who will sit at the bargaining table on Tuesday: Ron Burkle (Penguins), Mark Chipman (Jets), Murray Edwards (Flames), Jeremy Jacobs (Bruins), Larry Tanenbaum (Maple Leafs) and Jeff Vinik (Lightning).

In that corner: Uhhhh….

Who will be in the players’ corner? That’s a tricky question. TSN says Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews will be in New York, but it’s not confirmed that they’ll be at the talks. Yahoo’s Nick Cotsonika tweeted, “A number of players will be in New York tomorrow. Before the meeting with the owners, they will decide who will attend.” So we wait to find out officially who the NHLPA will select to represent it in this unusual session of these CBA talks to end the 79-day lockout, this time without each side’s lead negotiators, Gary Bettman and Don Fehr.

Will the union want to mirror the composition of the owners team with some hardliners, some who are more moderate and some who are less interested in principle and want to play now? Will it want players who work for the owners on the other side, like Sidney Crosby sitting across the table from Burkle? Will Marty St. Louis go face-to-face with Vinik while Ron Hainsey pairs up with Chipman, and someone from the Bruins, Andrew Ference perhaps, chats with Jacobs?

Or maybe the PA would want six enforcers on its side of the table. Can you imagine George Parros, Kevin Westgarth and Paul Bissonette staring down Jacobs and Edwards? That might be fun.

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Capitals owner Ted Leonsis is widely rumored to be in the group of hardline owners who are prolonging the lockout, but is he really trying to get out from under the fat deal he gave Alex Ovechkin? (Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

On Wednesday’s blog post, we touched on the unity of the players and their rising anger level during the lockout. It prompted a comment regarding the unity of the owners. “You write about the possibility of players getting angry but what about the owners?” asked the reader who goes by JamesLandonJones. “How long until the owners in small or non-traditional hockey markets, or with otherwise shallow pockets and bills to pay, begin to apply pressure on Bettman? If this happens, where will the cracks first appear? How long before it begins? Has it already begun? Fehr has shown great skill and foresight in rallying his union. Does Bettman have the necessary skills to do the same with ownership?”

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If the NHLPA succeeds in getting the Quebec Labour Board to declare the NHL lockout illegal in the province, the Canadiens could end up in training camp while other teams sit idle. (Photo by Francois Lacasse/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

We head into the final week of the NHL’s current collective bargaining agreement and while the lines of communication remain open — which is a good sign — the sides still appear to be far apart in how the league’s business should move forward.  The owners have pledged a lockout if a new deal isn’t reached by midnight Saturday and they’ll convene a Board of Governors’ meeting later this week to discuss and perhaps ratify that tactic.

But the NHLPA — which has maintained all along it would play without a contract as long as the sides continued to negotiate — has launched efforts on another front to keep the doors to the rinks open, namely by using labor law to stop the league from forcing a work stoppage.

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With CBA talks dragging, Commissioner Gary Bettman is under fire from angry fans who see a lockout coming. (Jeanine Leech/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

The Thursday meeting between NHL owners and players was a short one, only 90 minutes, but it seems that’s all that was needed. An impending stalemate in CBA negotiations (discussed here in Wednesday’s post) looms with each side’s position in danger of ossifying. It’s hardly unanticipated; you had to know that amidst all the talk about being focused on reaching an agreement, there’s long been a sense that each side would dig in its heels over some fundamental issue and those heels now seem to be sinking into the earth.

This isn’t to say that the sides aren’t trying to negotiate a deal at the moment. They’re still talking and plan to resume on Tuesday. According to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman in his remarks after the most recent discussion, the league had tried to craft a revised position of its own — incorporating elements of the NHLPA’s “alternate proposal” that offers the owners’ some concessions on player salaries — that would be the basis for whittling down the difference between the sides. But Bettman said the NHLPA didn’t have much “receptivity” to what the league devised, despite a couple of attempts to engage the union on it. Then the players presented the owners with the remaining parts of their proposal, those dealing with the NHLPA’s views on contract issues: free agency, salary arbitration, contract length and the like, things the NHL wants to restrict. The owners didn’t much like what they heard. “The union,” Bettman said (video), “is looking for a system that has more flexibility and we’re looking for a system that has less flexibility.

“The bigger point, I think, we made today goes to the fact that whether or not we are talking about the contract or system issues or we’re talking about revenue sharing, it’s clear that we’re at a point where it’s going to be very difficult to move this process along until we deal with the fundamental economic issues. And certainly as it relates to the fundamental economic issue, we are far apart, both in terms of magnitude and structure. And that’s something we’re trying to get a handle on.”

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Both the Stars and Flames are in for some serious evaluation — in Dallas, it starts in the front office; in Calgary with a veteran roster that may require turning iconic captain Jarome Iginla into trade bait. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

While everyone is talking playoff matchups and predicting the number of stitches that doctors will need to close the combined wounds of the Penguins and Flyers, there are 14 other clubs who are packing up for the summer and planning for next season. Here’s a roundup of the NHL’s also-rans and what might be in store for them during the offseason. We’ll start at the bottom of the league and work our way up.

Columbus – Yes, the Blue Jackets won seven of their last 11 games and ownership continues to back the hockey department, but the team’s dreadful start when so much was expected, its last place finish, the coaching change, the fan protest, and the Rick Nash mess all made for a dreadful season. The future of interim coach Todd Richards is uncertain, but the huge question mark is Nash’s fate. If he is traded — which is widely expected — what will embattled GM Scott Howson get in return? Will it be enough to reverse this club’s direction and win back the many discontented fans? Michael Arace of The Columbus Dispatch summed it all up over the weekend.

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It’s possible that the Predators’ impeccable Pekka Rinne may be wearing down from his heavy workload. (Scott Kane/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

It’s the oldest adage in the game: You win in the playoffs with great goaltending. But sometimes you win with only good or just average goaltending (as we pointed out a year ago when we looked at how the postseason clubs were fixed at the position on the eve of the annual tournament), but no one can deny how much Tim Thomas meant to the Bruins in their march to the Stanley Cup last season. His winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP marked the 15th time that a goalie has been so honored since the trophy was first presented in 1965.

Suffice to say, it’s hard to go anywhere in the spring if you have a leaky guy standing — or falling — in the crease, so with the playoffs only nine days away, here’s how the each Western Conference clubs goaltending shapes up. Click here for our Eastern breakdown.

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Chasing the Stars in the Pacific Division, Joe Pavelski and the enigmatic Sharks control their own destiny. (Glenn James/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

As the days of the regular season dwindle down to a precious few, the playoff picture has begun to get clearer, but only somewhat. Much remains undecided, including the bottom qualifiers in each conference and the first round seedings.

From a strictly mathematical perspective, only the Blues and Rangers have clinched playoff spots and only the Blue Jackets have been eliminated.

Yesterday, we looked at the East and today, let’s take stock of  the Western Conference where, realistically, it appears that the Oilers, Wild and Ducks are close to joining the Blue Jackets in the Also-Ran department, too far out of contention with too few games left for us to believe they can make a serious charge to eighth place.

Beyond that, not much is certain.

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