The NHL will approve a new rule stating that the first tie-breaker will be total wins without shootouts, as opposed to total wins period. Frank Seravalli looks at the (non) impact of this on last year’s standings.

What would Andy Hilbert make this year if he made a different decision back in the summer of 2006? Patrick O’Sullivan, Tim Kennedy and Marek Svatos need to take note of this – Hilbert is on a two-way contract with the Isles now and his NHL career is pretty much history. But at the end of the 2005-06 season he had 18 points in 19 games with the Pens because he played with and clicked with Crosby. His salary demands were too high so he was allowed to walk. But what if he signed for one year at the minimum? I’ll tell you what – he could very well have had a 65-point season and never had to “earn” an NHL job again. His raise would be huge and a first-line job would be handed to him in every training camp thereafter. Greed drove him to this, and it has driven hundreds of lesser and better players too.

Vinny Lecavalier will have minor knee surgery. He’ll be ready for training camp. This comes on the heels of what in essense has been two and a half seasons of playing through one injury or another. The good news is twofold: one, this is not his wrist or shoulder; two, this is something that they are being proactive on and solving the problem quickly. Lecavalier is an 80-game player, whether he plays at 50% or 100% – so he’ll play. I still think he’ll have his best year in three and he’ll show the young Stamkos who is the master, and who is the student. It was only three years ago when several popular hockey analysts were labelling Lecavalier the best player in the world. There was a stretch during his 108-point season where he was making NHL goaltenders his bitches.

Adam Proteau discusses the “too much information” age of hockey. He speaks a lot of truth. I particularily like this line: “what has it gotten consumers of hockey information? Is any pre-season hockey prediction infallible because of some stats sort, value system or secret magic formula? Do we understand the game more now that the NHL has figured out a way to calculate what Manny Malhotra's plus-minus ratio is anytime it's a Tuesday in Nashville and his feelings haven't been hurt that day?”

Love the idiot commenters underneath his article too, as always. Do they even read what they type before hitting ‘send’? “slow news day” – master of the obvious;  “Boss expecting you to work year round got you down?” More brilliance. The guy is making fun of our hunger for knowledge, tongue in cheek, and these clowns take him seriously.

I like Arron Asham and I think the Pens got a great deal on him. That being said, the money they had to spend was extremely limited and their need for a scorer far outweighed their need for Matt Cooke II. So with their last dollar do they go out and sign Evgeni Artyukhin? That would be keeping with the Asham philosophy. Or do they sign one of Svatos, Kennedy or O’Sullivan? That would be in keeping with… pretty much everyone else’s philosophy.

Chris Vivlamore reports that the Thrashers are close to a deal with Bryan Little, who I think will rebound this season.

Interested in meeting me? I’ll be at the Puck Daddy get-together this evening in downtown Toronto. Greg Wyshynski, Sean Leahy and Jeff Marek are among the other guests. We’ll be at C’est What on Front street after 8pm. I might be closer to 9pm actually. Come say hi.

I’ll be posting the goalie rankings later today.

The shop – we missed our third “ETA” on this of course. It’s gone from day-to-day to hour-to-hour. New shop could be up any minute. I just don’t want any hitches…

A Radulov interview, thanks to On the Forecheck for digging it up. Skip to the six minute mark for the good stuff…

Dirk Hoag gives his thoughts on the Nashville lineup: