Drafting top-rated prospect and hometown product Seth Jones could provide the Avs with a huge lift. (Robert Beck/SI)

By Allan Muir

Sometimes things work out exactly the way they should.

That’s probably not an opinion held right now by the Florida Panthers, who lost tonight’s NHL Draft Lottery to the Colorado Avalanche and now have to settle for the second pick despite posting a league-worst 15-27-6 mark.

But come on, you have to like the thought of a kid who picked up the sport in Denver with the help of Joe Sakic ending up with the Avs, right?

There’s no guarantee that Colorado takes top-rated prospect Seth Jones with that first overall pick. As Bob McKenzie said while listing the results of his own scouts’ poll, one of the 10 had Halifax winger Jonathan Drouin ranked first overall. For all we know, that team could be the Avs.

But probably not.

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Claude Giroux will be unable to defend his 2013 cover, as Wayne Simmonds and Jakub Voracek represent Philly. (Michael Perez/AP)

By Allan Muir

On some level, everyone recognizes that the cover athlete for a video game matters about as much as a vice-presidential running mate, right? A game, especially one in a long-running series like EA Sports’ NHL brand, sells itself on its own merits. They could probably slap a stick figure on the front and sell exactly as many copies as they would if it featured Sidney Crosby.

But they can’t put Sid on the front every year — things would get a little confusing if they did — and the NHL and  NHLPA licenses demand that a current player wearing his team’s logo must be prominently featured. They’re fussy about that sort of thing.

So credit the marketing whizzes at EA Sports for turning a meaningless decision into an annual event guaranteed to get hardcore hockey fans and hockey gamers all worked up ahead of the product’s September release.

The online voting to find a successor to Claude Giroux as the cover athlete for EA’s NHL ’14 began Monday with 60 players, two from each team, vying for your love. From there, the field will be winnowed down to 30 team reps plus two wild cards based on most votes earned in a losing effort. That will create a 32-player bracket-style tournament from which a winner eventually will be crowned.

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By Allan Muir

There’s no tougher challenge in broadcasting than holding an audience when the home team is getting blown out early. Especially when that viewership already amounts to the smallest of any team in the NHL.

The Fox Sports Florida crew of Steve Goldstein and Bill Lindsay have handled their share of rough nights bringing Panthers hockey to the Sunshine State diehards. They’re consummate pros, but there’s also a hint of that college radio chaos that comes from knowing that you’re speaking mostly to friends and family. Combine that mentality with the right moment — as happened on Thursdayt night — and you get broadcasting gold.

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By Allan Muir

It didn’t take long for the NHL’s Department of Player Safety to schedule a come-to-Jesus meeting with Alex Edler after the Vancouver defender steamrolled Phoenix goalie Mike Smith on Thursday night. By early Friday morning, Edler knew he would have a chance to plead his case over the phone at 6 PM EDT.

Edler’s defense, of course, will fail to dissuade Sheriff Shanny from planting him in the press box for a couple of games. Charging into goalies at full speed, even when they’re out of the crease, is still frowned upon by the DPS.

Leaping up and slamming into an opponent’s head from behind though? That’s still a bit of a grey area. Or so it would seem, given the curious decision not to subject Rick Nash to a supplemental discipline hearing for his brain-dead assault on Florida’s Tomas Kopecky earlier in the evening.

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By Allan Muir

In theory, things could get worse for Florida Panthers GM Dale Tallon. Jonathan Huberdeau could decide that the shootout’s not really his thing anymore. Alexei Kovalev could have signed a five-year deal. Those freaking quarter-sized mosquitoes could set up shop around the ticket windows at the BB&T Center.

The way things are going for Tallon this season, it’s just a matter of time before the next little black cloud appears over the head of hockey’s answer to Bad Luck Schleprock.

Tallon took another kick in the pants today when he learned that speedy forward Kris Versteeg would need season-ending knee surgery following an awkward collision with Tampa Bay defender Radko Gudas on March 12. Versteeg, who had just returned after missing 13 games with a chest injury, was expected to be shipped off at the trade deadline in exchange for some much-needed futures.

Unlike unrestricted free agents Stephen Weiss and Jose Theodore, Versteeg is under contract for three more seasons, so he won’t walk for nothing this summer. But this was considered the window that would allow the Panthers to maximize the return on the veteran winger, and with Florida’s other key chips off the table, Versteeg was Tallon’s last chance to make a splash before the deadline.

It’s another tough break for a team that’s had more than its share this season.

Scott Timmins, here with the Panthers in 2011, was arrested after making himself at home…in a stranger’s house. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

The day could have gone a lot worse for Florida Panthers prospect Scott Timmins.

Not that it went particularly well. Timmins, currently playing with the San Antonio Rampage of the AHL, was arrested Monday morning after allegedly breaking into a home and passing out drunk on a couch.

The home’s owner, Benjamin Garza, confronted Timmins after police arrived and told him, “You’re lucky I wasn’t here because I would’ve put a bullet between your eyes and it would’ve been over for you.”

Garza wasn’t home at the time, but his wife and three kids were. The unnamed woman awoke to find Timmins passed out in the living room. From the police report, it sounds like Timmins, who apparently went big at a local bar, mistook the residence for his own home. Probably not the sort of mistake you should be making in Texas.

Neither the Panthers or Rampage have issued a comment on the incident.

Timmins was a sixth-round pick of the Panthers in 2009. He won two Memorial Cups with the Windsor Spitfires in 2009 and 2010, and made his NHL debut on Feb. 1, 2011. He has appeared in 50 games for the Rampage this season, notching nine goals and seven assists.

Panthers center Stephen Weiss’s value has mostly been in his potential. (Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

Dale Tallon may find a way to reshape his team ahead of the NHL’s trade deadline. But if Florida’s GM is hoping to make a significant long-term upgrade, he’ll have to do it without his most marketable asset.

The Panthers announced this morning that Stephen Weiss, the team’s No.1 center and one of the most highly coveted players thought to be on the market, is scheduled for wrist surgery and will be lost for the season.

The news comes a day after the Panthers learned starting goalie Jose Theodore is likely out for the rest of the regular schedule. Like Weiss, Theodore is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer and was expected to be shopped ahead of the deadline.

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Defenseman Ron Hainsey, active in NHLPA matters, is keeping tabs on where the Jets may land in realignment. (Marianne Helm/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

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

• Realignment is the NHL’s “powder keg” but talks are again underway between the league and the NHLPA. The status quo is not an option in Winnipeg, where the Jets expect a move out of the Eastern Conference to happen in time for the 2013-14 season.

• This man-crush I’m developing for Kari Lehtonen is not an exclusive thing. Watch this stop he made last night on Columbus’ Jack Johnson and join me.

• The consensus on the P.K. Subban deal? Montreal GM Marc Bergevin emerges as the big winner.

• Things are getting back to normal in Phoenix. The Coyotes played a strictly disciplined game. Friends and family dotted the stands at Jobing.com Arena. And Chad Johnson stepped up with a 21-save shutout. Wait…who?

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Patrick Marleau has four multi-goal games to start the season. (Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

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

• Kevin Paul Dupont leads off Sunday’s best notes column with thoughts on Derek Sanderson and the latest cranky old man ramblings from Montgomery Burns Jeremy Jacobs.

• Is the seat under Caps’ GM George McPhee getting a little warm? He could be on the hook if the winless Caps don’t turn things around in a big way this season. That parade to the penalty box might be a big part of the team’s problem.

• With another two-goal game in Saturday’s 4-0 win over the hapless Avs, Eddie Munster Patrick Marleau ties a 96-year-old record.

• If last night’s Dallas-St. Louis contest was the first hockey game you’d ever watched, you could be forgiven to thinking that David Perron is the best player in the world. That was a jaw-dropping performance. Here are the highlights .

• Should the Maple Leafs offer sheet P.K. Subban? Only if they’ve somehow forgotten about giving up on the top-10 draft picks that turned into Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton.

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By Allan Muir

• Nail Yakupov with the greatest goal celly in a long time highlighted an insane finish in Edmonton Thursday night. Oh, and the Cup champion Kings have yet to win a game.

• Keeping a good thing going will be key for an Anaheim team that’s trying to stay relevant in the Los Angeles market. Might also help if they could dig up a picture of Teemu Selanne to send to the manufacturer of his next bobblehead.

• Colorado forward John Mitchell, after taking a puck to the forehead, “knew he was cut.” That’s good. Knowing you have a problem is always the first step to recovery.

• “I love him more.” “No, I love him more!” Ray Bourque is the latest to go gaga over Justin Bieber
Boston rookie Dougie Hamilton , the teen sensation who looks waaay better in black and gold than he did earlier this month in red and white.

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