Is it possible for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final to live up to the epic in Game 1?  (Harry How/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

An annotated guide to this morning’s must-read hockey stories:

• Surprisingly, the names of the major award winners are leaking out before tonight’s presentation. But the plan was foolproof! Foolproof!

• Can tonight’s Game 2 possibly live up to the hype generated by Game 1? I’ve already called in sick for Monday, just in case.

• Eric Duhatschek writes that Patrick Kane isn’t the same kid that won the Cup back in 2010. He pays for his cab rides now and everything.

• After practicing Friday, injured Bruins winger Nathan Horton could be available for tonight’s game.

• No player can impact this series the way Zdeno Chara can, writes Steve Simmons.

• At some point, Tyler Seguin will break out of this hideous scoring slump. Tonight would be as good a night as any, as far as the Bruins are concerned.

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Josh Harding won the Bill Masterson trophy after playing the season with multiple sclerosis. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)

By Allan Muir

The upside of abandoning the NHL’s flashy awards presentation in Las Vegas is obvious: no experiments in forced chemistry between C-list celebrities and hockey players; no disdainful hosting from Jay Mohr; and no more sequels to the wacky adventures of Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan.

Still, this year’s hastily planned alternative won’t exactly be remembered as a triumph of marketing genius, either.

The NHL dropped the first eight winners online and the buzz it generated nearly matched the excitement over the last Twisted Sister LP. It’s really too bad, since the league could have benefited from wider exposure afforded to these worthwhile honorees.

The most highly anticipated award of the night went to Jonathan Toews, who edged out Patrice Bergeron (again) in the tightly contested race for the Selke Trophy. You can read Sarah Kwak’s take on it here. In my book, Bergeron deserved a repeat win — he took home the hardware last season — based on his league-leading faceoff numbers and the fact that he was on the ice for just 13 even-strength goals-against all season. Toews is right there with him on nearly all counts, but I think the voters tossed him this bone after bailing on him in the MVP balloting.

And now, the rest of the winners:

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Jonathan Toews won the 2013 Selke award, given to the season’s best two-way forward. (Todd Rosenberg/SI)

By Sarah Kwak

CHICAGO — The NHL announced just some of their award winners Friday afternoon, sort of second-tier accolades that included GM of the Year (Pittsburgh’s Ray Shero), coach of the year (Ottawa’s Paul MacLean) and the Lady Byng Trophy (Tampa Bay’s Martin St. Louis), given to the most gentlemanly player in the league. It seems that these are, perhaps, less important than the Hart, the Norris or the Vezina Trophy.

Now consider the Selke Trophy, which is supposed to be awarded to the best defensive forward in the game. But as it’s morphed into an award that acknowledges the best two-way forward, the Selke has become one of the most important awards in the NHL, one of the best indicators of the success of the recipient’s team.

Just look: this year’s winner is Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, now going after his second Stanley Cup in three years; and the 2013 runner-up? Boston’s Patrice Bergeron, going for his second Cup in two years. It may seem coincidental, but it’s not a fluke.

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Bruins rookie defenseman Torey Krug is eager to atone for his costly Game 1 gaffe. (Robin Alam/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

An annotated guide to this morning’s must-read hockey stories:

• That Game 1 marathon is already forgotten, at least according to what the players were saying during Thursday’s press conferences. The focus now is on Game 2.

• “It really was a great hockey game,” said Boston coach Claude Julien, but now it’s time for the Bruins to turn the page.

• The versatility to play the game any way they need to is Chicago’s trump card as the series moves on.

• Our own Stu Hackel looks at some things the Hawks and the Bruins could try to do in Game 2.

• He was too much for the Bruins to handle in Game 1. Turns out that Andrew Shaw is a handful in the locker room as well. There are plenty of stories like this one out there today, and they offer some insight into what appears to be a colorful kid. What you won’t find is a piece where Shaw talks about himself. For some inexplicable reason, he wasn’t made available to the media the day after scoring the goal that ended the fifth-longest Cup final game in history. Can you imagine that happening in any other sport? Just another solid effort from the NHL.

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Defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson played for Sweden in the 2012 World Championship. (Warren Wimmer/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

The countdown to the 2014 Olympic hockey tournament in Sochi is on.

The Swedish Ice Hockey Federation started the clock on Friday morning with the announcement that it had selected 35 players to attend its Olympic orientation camp.

The camp will run August 12-14 in Stockholm.

The invite list features 31 NHL vets — including Marcus Kruger, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya of the Stanley Cup finalist Chicago Blackhawks — plus three players from the Swedish Elitserien and one from the KHL.

There’s no timetable yet from other federations regarding similar announcements, but all are now officially on the clock. Here’s Sweden’s list:

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Andrew Shaw put in the winning goal in triple overtime on a deflection. (David E. Klutho/SI)

By Sarah Kwak

CHICAGO — It was the morning-after when he really felt it, Craig Simpson recalled, the time when the toll of a triple-overtime game becomes most apparent to a player’s body. By then, the adrenaline had worn off and the extreme fatigue had set in. So, as Simpson recalls, when he finally woke up around 11 or 11:30 a.m. on a Thursday some 13 years ago, he looked down at his hands and saw that they were clenched closed.

“When you play five-and-a-half to six hours, your body just goes through so much, especially dehydration,” Simpson said. “When you’re holding onto a stick for six hours and cross-checking guys hard on the puck, I woke up, thinking, Oh my god, I can hardly open [my hands] up….

“But then my next thought was, ‘Imagine how Ray Bourque must feel.’”

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Tyler Seguin, who has been struggling, is likely to get another look in Horton’s spot in Game 2. (Robin Alam/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

It could have been worse.

Claude Julien said that Nathan Horton, Boston’s second-leading scorer during the playoffs, is day-to-day after suffering an undisclosed injury early in the first overtime of Game 1.

“Keeping our fingers crossed,” Julien said Thursday afternoon. “Hopefully he’ll be back next game.”

Horton appeared to hurt himself while engaged with Chicago defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson. After some minor contact, Horton doubled over and coasted off the ice.

There’s been speculation that Horton has been bothered by a lingering injury suffered during a fight with Pittsburgh’s Jarome Iginla late in the regular season. Julien didn’t comment on that, or who might step into the lineup to replace Horton if he can’t go Saturday night in Game 2.

GAME 1: Recap | Boxscore | Highlights | Photos | Complete schedule

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Despite the rumors, trading Evgeni Malkin was never really an option for the Penguins. (Fred Kfoury/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

Shortly after the Pittsburgh Penguins announced that they’d signed Evgeni Malkin to an eight-year, $76 million extension this morning, the blog Russian Machine Never Breaks tweeted a pretty tidy perspective on the deal. The numbers illustrate the massive risk that the Pens have exposed themselves to with this contract and the 12-year, $104.4 million deal signed by Sidney Crosby last year. But when you’ve got the chance to lock down the two best players in the world, what else are you gonna do?

The Penguins will spend 28.3% of their salary on two players that have missed 32.7% of the last four seasons.—
RMNB (@russianmachine) June 13, 2013

Risk aside, this agreement is still a big win for GM Ray Shero, who is doing a nice job of getting his house in order ahead of the draft and the start of free agency. Trading a game-breaking talent like former MVP Malkin, or worse, letting him escape for nothing next summer, was never an option. This deal keeps the player happy, and ensures that Pittsburgh employs the best 1-2 center punch in hockey for nearly a decade to come.

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The epic triple overtime Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final left both teams exhausted. (Harry How/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

An annotated guide to this morning’s must-read hockey stories:

• There are heartbreakers. There are crushing defeats. And then there is the Bruins’ 4-3 triple overtime loss to the Blackhawks in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

• Eric Duhatschek says that Game 1 was “a purely fascinating study in the art of playoff hockey, all momentum swings and desperation plays, almost two games for the price of one.”

• Bruce Arthur’s take: the Cup final opener went from a rolling joy to a sliding stalemate to a march into the night, into mystery.

• Sure, the Bruins lost, writes Dan Shaughnessy. But it doesn’t get much better than five periods of crunching, white-knuckle hockey.

• Wayne Maki writes that Dave Bolland’s response to Patrice Bergeron’s goal that gave Boston a 3-1 lead was the turning point of the game.

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Boston’s Tuukka Rask was impressive with 59 saves in a heartbreaking 4-3 triple-OT loss. (Getty Images)

By Sarah Kwak

CHICAGO — In the wee hours of Thursday morning, in the bowels of the United Center visitors’ dressing room, the Boston Bruins tried their best. They said all the right things, sat confidently, and made sure not to look too worn, too weary. They reminded the microphones in their faces of the times they had fought back from tough losses, and that here, they were close; the game could’ve gone either way. As they moved through the halls after the game, they did so with heads held high. Yes, they may have just lost, 4-3, in a triple overtime thriller, but they refused to be defeated by it.

But here’s the reality: The Bruins can try to convince themselves and the world that this wasn’t a devastating, irreparable loss, but that’s exactly what Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final was. And here’s why:

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