John Tavares was named the CHL player of the year. He will win that award two more times before he is even drafted into the NHL.

The Habs signed the other Kostitsyn, Sergei, to a three-year entry level deal. He is ranked 112 on my Fantasy Prospects list and rapidly moving higher.

The Minnesota Wild signed Cal Clutterbuck to a three-year entry level deal. Clutterbuck is ranked 257 on my prospects list. He played with Tavares and so his numbers were slightly inflated. I watched him play a couple of times this year, being in Pickering (Clutterbuck played for Oshawa) and was not overly impressed. He was the second best player on the team and he had his moments, but his positioning wasn't the greatest. He missed several opportunities by inaccurately projecting where the puck would go. 

The Boston Bruins are closing in on contracts with Vladimir Sobotka and Mikko Lehtonen before the June 1 deadline.

Fresh off the success of bringing over Johan Holmqvist a year ago, the Lightning are after another goaltender playing in Europe. The Tampa Tribune is reporting that the team is interested in signing Vasily   Koshechkin, their eighth round draft pick in 2002. The 24-year-old Russian netminder is coming off a stellar season in the RSL, with nine shutouts and a 1.62 GAA. He won't be coming over here to play in the AHL, I'll tell you that much. If they sign him, he'll have an opportunity to win the starting role, because neither Holmqvist, nor Denis can lay safe claim to it.

Marty Murray has signed to play with HC Lugano in the Swiss League.

Atlanta GM Don Waddell is very impressed with Brett Sterling's talent and feels he can make the team in the fall. Sterling is ranked 113 on my prospects list, but is steadily moving up.

My article previewing the ANA/OTT series is up now. It is the Daily Slate and can be found in many newspapers like The Hockey News , Toronto Star , LA Times , etc. I linked each of those papers to my piece.