It seems like the line of Daymond Langkow with Shane Doan and Ray Whitney will stick together for the forseeable future.

The Rangers are being extra-cautious with defenceman Marc Staal, which will be a situation worth watching for fans of the team since he’ll be so key to their success on D.

Minnesota reporters were tweeting good things about the line of Guillaume Latendresse and Pierre-Marc Bouchard flanking Matt Cullen this afternoon. With both wingers healthy, they could have the makings of an effective second line for the Wild. Most of the checking pressure will be facing what should be the top line of Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley alongside Mikko Koivu, which means all three members of L2 could be worthwhile free agent additions in most formats. Unless you’re in a fairly deep league, they’ll probably most go undrafted or be taken in the really late rounds.

Some really helpful notes on the Avs today, including: Matt Duchene had Peter Mueller and Milan Hejduk on his wings and the trio looked really strong. Gabriel Landeskog reminds Adrian Dater of a “younger, faster, perhaps more versatile Ryan Smyth.” Also, Paul Stastny looks “a little quicker, a little tougher, a little hungrier.” All of the above bode well for an Avs team that should provide poolies with more bang for their buck this season than last.

Jeff Carter’s foot is swollen after blocking a shot today, which shut him down for the rest of the day. It’s apparently not a big deal and he’ll be evaluted tomorrow. Meanwhile, Columbus represents a fresh start for him – as does L.A. for Mike Richards – and Carter really seems to want to put Philly in the past.

His agent, Rick Curran, offered this on his time with the Flyers: "Frankly, it's over. As disappointing as it was, we're at a point now where we're moving on. There's nothing I can say that will change what happened there.

"It's just so disappointing. There are too many guys who think they know what happened, or they heard from somebody that 'this' happened. I live in Philadelphia. I know Jeff. I think I know what happened and what didn't."

***

I’d like to say thanks for the warm welcome from Darryl and everybody here at the site. I’m looking forward to chipping in a Daily Ramblings piece each Sunday (which I’ll try to update a time or two throughout the day) and then a Q&A every few Sundays, beginning later on today. You can reach me for that at [email protected].

I’ll still be doing all of the same work at Sportsnet.ca.

How great was it to hear Sidney Crosby went through the first day of camp Saturday at full speed? No contact yet, obviously, with no timetable on when he might get that ok. If we get to mid-week and there are still no returning symptoms, it's going to make for some extremely tough decisions for poolies waiting to draft. My rankings come out this week and forwards are Thursday, so I still have some time to wrestle with that decision. Today's news has bumped him further ahead of where I had him though.

Also… Evgeni Malkin says his surgically repaired right knee  is at "90%" and hearing that, Dan Bylsma laughed. “He didn’t tell me ’90 percent,’ ” Bylsma said. “He said, ‘I’m good, Coach.’ “

Bruce Boudreau reported to camp 13 pounds lighter this year. How this will impact his cuss-to-game ratio remains to be seen.

As if you needed another reason to draft Joe Pavelski, but – as expected – he saw time at RW on L1 with Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau Saturday. In that piece Dan Boyle also talks about how the Sharks are more physical on the blueline this year and how that'll help them.

Dustin Penner weighed in at camp around 242, which is about 18 pounds lighter than when they acquired him from Edmonton. Not sure what his weight was at camp last year. He was committed to training this summer and I kinda like him to bounce back. He should be a really good standard league bargain in most cases. Penner will probably begin the season with Anze Kopitar and Justin Williams, while L2 will be Simon Gagne, Mike Richards and Dustin Brown. The combos don't matter there… Stick those six wherever. They’ll be fine.

Patrick Kane to Chicago reporters on having two Toews in the organization now: “It's going to be a rough ride for me. Hopefully I'm not on a line with both of them. That’d be even worse.”

Pete DeBoer may be new to the New Jersey Devils, but he does have the first-hand insight of Jacques Lemaire at his disposal. I love that he’s using it so much too. DeBoer wants a little more puck pressure up the ice for the Devils, but not at the expense of the defence because that's still the identity of the team. Good news for prospective Martin Brodeur owners too. You'll be glad to know Zach Parise looks great so far and Adam Larsson has been impressing his new coach too. Even with Travis Zajac out, I'm not too worried about both Parise and Ilya Kovalchuk being able to challenge the point-per-game mark on different lines.

Jonathan Cheechoo impressed David Backes on the first day of STL camp. It’s really not worth noting for fantasy drafts yet, but at least keep Cheechoo’s name in the back of your mind if he manages to make the team. There’s at least a chance, however remote, that he could become a decent free agent grab. Maybe not likely, but hard not to at least pull for the guy. I am.

So it looks like the Flyers are going to let Jaromir Jagr build some chemistry with the expected pairing of now full-time centre Claude Giroux and blossoming stud James van Riemsdyk. Yes, Jagr is 39. Yes, he hasn't played in the NHL for a few years. But he should still be a really strong asset for standard leagues owners because of his quality SOG/ PIM. The Flyers and PIM go hand-in-hand. Even if he only puts up in the 55-60-point range, which is a really reasonable baseline to achieve, he could provide a PIM-per-game average with at least 220+ SOG.

GM Paul Holmgren's thoughts: “I think if he can get anywhere between 45 and 65 points, that’s a pretty productive year. Your better players are 75 to 85 points, and we’re not seeing 100 point scorers anymore. Claude (Giroux) led us last year (with 76 points). Jaromir still skates well. He’s never been the fastest guy, but he can keep up and has great hands and vision.”

Jakub Voracek, incidentally, was tried with the Scott Hartnell – Danny Briere tandem. Peter Laviolette did say yesterday that everything was open line-wise and that not even Hartnell-Briere are necessarily going to be together. Only Voracek's status inside of the top six is really a question mark, but he's still the best fit there… IMO.

The OCR has a great note on Corey Perry’s maturation, in that he only had six minor penalties in his final 20 GP last season. 12 PIM. He kept his off-season routine exactly the same as last year, but realistically it’ll be a pretty tall order to put up the same numbers again this time around. And fewer PIM won’t help his standard league case. That said, the guy is a legit star power forward playing with incredible talent on Anaheim’s first line. They also have a beast on the point of the first power play unit in Lubomir Visnovsky. Even with fewer points and fewer PIM, if that’s how it plays out, he’s still clearly worth taking early in any standard league draft. Just keep in mind the PIM note. And Visnovsky, incidentally, says his shoulders are much better and declared himself 100%. Good news for one of the top D that’ll go off each draft board.