The Ducks have signed Cam Fowler to an entry-level contract. I have him in the guide as…well, you’ll just have to see ;)

Craig Custance is reporting that Phoenix is in talks with Lee Stempniak. I fully expect him to sign there, thus hurting either Tikhonov or MacLean as far as making the team goes. Boedker is absolutely in the minors this year.

My prophecy has now come true – Rick Wamsley was hired as Ottawa’s new goalie coach today. Always trust your instincts!

No surprise here – Denis Grebeshkov has signed a two-year contract to play in the KHL according to Dmitry Chesnokov.

I’m gonna get a little political on you here. I apologize, especially to non-Canadians. But as a statistician I have to speak up. First let me say that politically I’m moderate, but if anything I lean to the right on more issues than I do to the left (I voted for Harper). That being said, the Tories plan to make the Stats Canada Long-Form Census voluntary instead of mandatory is misguided. Stats Canada is world reknowned, but a voluntary census is akin to a website poll. Useless. The only way to stop the plan, according to my MP, is for the public uproar to be great enough to cause them to drop it – and we only have two weeks before the new forms are printed (after which it will be too late). I ask you to join the cause here on Facebook and even better – write to your MP like I did. This is all I’ll say on the matter. Back to hockey.

The re-launch of DobberHockey, slated for Saturday, will be delayed by about a week. Changes include a shop with top of the line security, the widening of the site to take better advantage of screens that have become wider over the years, a faster page load time, and an improved message board/forum. The current forum is fine, but the spambots – even though they can’t be seen by the public other than the subject line – are getting registered too easily.

Stralman’s agent smartened up before arbitration – or maybe it was his plan all along. Hmmm… but anyway, Stralman signed a one-year, $1.95 million contract before the hearing.

The Caps avoided arbitration by signing Tomas Fleischmann to a one-year deal worth $2.6 million. This is pretty big, considering that the two sides were not close as of last week. Flash has continually improved his numbers year after year – as I pointed out in last year’s guide this trend dates back to his younger years at other levels of hockey. The trend will continue this year too.

Alessandro Seren Rosso, who has a column out later today, reports that Marek Svatos has two KHL teams after him.

Something that started out pretty small yesterday, has blown into big news now that TSN has caught wind of it. Max Talbot was on the radio and was quoted as saying that Alexander Ovechkin was a “real douche”, and “I just hate the guy. I can’t lie. Sorry. Even more so for a guy like Ovechkin. Like, seriously, okay…yeah. I don’t like him.” I love the trash talk. I love the rivalry, and I love the honesty. It’s okay to get a hate on for each other. I’m sure Ovechkin understands that several people in this world dislike him enough to call him a name. And I’m sure every player in every sport has called another player a name at some point. Just because this one was done on the air, doesn’t mean we should get our panties in a knot. Anyway, the next few WAS-PIT games will have these quotes fired into the hype machine I have no doubt.

Gilbert Brule has signed a two-year deal with the Oilers worth $3.7 million. He had a rebound season last year, especially in the first half. In fact, in the first half he showed signs that he could be a 65-point player who injects energy into the lineup, though in the second half he looked more the 40-point guy. This year should be telling.

Tim Kennedy and Blake Wheeler had their arbitrations hearings yesterday. We’ll see how those went. Anton Stralman is set for today, Andrew Ladd and Antti Niemi are slated for tomorrow; Peter Regin

I think Stralman needs to replace his agent. To not get a settlement before arbitration is career suicide. Why? Because I think they’ll win the arbitration hearing. After seeing what Clarke MacArthur got, I can see Stralman getting the same or even more. If so, the Jackets will walk. And in case the agent Marc Levine hasn’t noticed – the free agents still out there are getting lowballed. Stralman would be lucky to get a two-way deal if left out there on the market.

These dumb companies buying arena names – we don’t care. Hell, I still call Toronto’s baseball stadium the SkyDome. The Flyers suckered a big company yesterday, selling the rights to name their arena. Vancouver suckered another company a couple of weeks ago.

In the NHLPA wins their grievance before Niemi’s hearing, the Blackhawks will quickly sign him to a 40-year deal worth $20 million, for a cap hit of $500,000 per.

The Hawks have signed prospect d-man Nick Leddy to a three-year entry-level contract. He’ll forego more college time as a result.