Just when you were worried the NHL was going to get warm and fuzzy on you, don't you worry. Two ex-players from the old guard are putting their two cents in to try and bring back some of the grittier elements of the game from the past.

The first suggestion comes from former Flyers, Flames and Capitals enforcer Craig Berube, who now behind the bench as an assistant coach for the Flyers. Berube, when asked about the recent rash of hits to the head that have surged to the forefront of debates in NHL circles, said he had a simple suggestion for the players.

Just threaten the top star on the opposition.

Berube tells the Philadelphia Daily News a story of back in his playing days with the orange-in-black when they were facing an unnamed opponent who was getting under their skin with some cheap shots late in the game.

His remedy? Tell the player on that team if his overzealous teammate hurts anyone on your team, he's going to be the target.

Perhaps the Vancouver Canucks did indeed learn something from their late-season meltdown last spring.

You may remember that goaltender Roberto Luongo performed poorly after wife Gina gave birth. Naturally, there were some that placed the Canucks' late-season failure on Luongo and his travels back-and-forth to Florida that actually started during the All-Star break. Those people are wrong, because Vancouver couldn't do anything right down the stretch, and about the only thing they were doing consistently well was hanging Luongo out to dry.

That's not something you want to be good at.

So far this season, Luongo has largely been playing like a man on a mission. His goals against of 2.18 "only" ranks tenth, but he's seventh in save percentage (.928), and Luongo also leads the league with five shutouts. No one else in the NHL has more than two shutouts at this point. Luongo posted three in a row earlier this season, including a 2-0 win over Minnesota.

As good as Luongo has been, Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom has been even better.

The hockey world is bracing itself for a case of the warm fuzzies on Saturday night when Patrick Roy will return to Montreal to have his #33 officially retired by the Montreal Canadiens. But like it or not, whenever you talk about Roy returning to Montreal, you can't help but deal with how he came to leave one of the most hockey-mad cities on earth.

Of course, I'm talking about December 2, 1995, a night when Roy gave up nine goals in a game against the Detroit Red Wings. When he was finally pulled from the game midway through the second period, Roy, who enjoyed a frosty relationship with head coach Mario Tremblay, had decided that even after three trips to the Finals and a pair of Stanley Cups that he was through in Montreal:

Once pulled midway through the second period, Roy stormed past Tremblay to get to Canadiens President Ronald Corey, who was sitting in the first row behind the players' bench. He forcefully told Corey that he had played his last game with the Canadiens, and then walked brusquely back past Tremblay -- the men never said a word to each other -- and took his seat on the bench.

Three days later, Roy and Montreal captain Mike Keane were traded to the Colorado Avalanche -- then still in their first seasons in Denver -- for Jocelyn Thibault, Martin Rucinsky, and Andrei Kovalenko in what is now regarded as one of the most lopsided trades in NHL history. Looking back, I'm sure plenty of Canadiens fans would have liked to have seen Tremblay kicked to the curb instead, as he eventually was. If you think about it, the move would have made sense: what's easier to find, a head coach and a general manager or a Hall of Fame goalie?

Hockey players are well-known for their toughness and their ability to play through pain, but this certainly is an impressive tale.

Scott Gomez apparently has been playing with a stress fracture in his ankle since mid-October, and although the center left Wednesday's loss to Vancouver, the Ranger hopes to be in the lineup this Monday when New York hosts Phoenix.

Gomez skated in eight games since sustaining the injury on Oct. 18, and he played two more after an MRI revealed the fracture on Nov. 7. Ironically, what is sidelining him for Saturday's game in Ottawa is because he suffered a groin pull he developed trying to adapt his skating stride to cope with the injury.

After an acupuncture treatment, Gomez hopes to be on the fast track to the ice.

From the New York Post:

"Scotty said that the ankle feels a lot better today after the acupuncture," coach Tom Renney said after this morning's optional skate. "Jaromir [Jagr] went for acupuncture treatments a lot last year, too, and found it quite beneficial.

"It's fine with me. Going to a witch doctor is good with me if it gets Gomer back on the ice."

Even by hockey standards, this is pretty impressive, especially since it's still the second month of the regular season and not April when players play through some fairly nasty injuries.

Columbus' Rostislav Klesla had a stress fracture in 2005, and he missed roughly a month with his injury. Buffalo's Tim Connolly had one in his leg in 2007, and he also missed a little over a month before returning to the ice.

To play on a bad ankle for that amount of time is quite a feat, even if the Alaskan's production dipped the last few games while playing with the injury. Since getting injured, he has a goal and five assists, although he has just two points in his last six games.

The fact he wants to come back after such a short period of time is impressive, but, of course, it might be wise to rest the injury with the Rangers not in dire need of points at this point of the season as they still are leading the Eastern Conference in points right now and don't need a frantic push to make the playoffs. The ankle certainly won't get any better playing on it and exposing it to further damage.

If this had been late in the season or the playoffs, you could see the need to keep playing, but if Gomez's production continues to dip, there's no sense in keeping him in the lineup and keeping their investment at half-speed.

While the Penguins offense was still shaking off some early season rust, goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was, essentially, carrying the team on his back, continuing to establish himself as one of the premier young netminders in the National Hockey League.

During Pittsburgh's 5-2 win over Buffalo on Saturday night, the 23-year old Fleury suffered some sort of "lower body injury" and did not start in the teams 2-1 shootout loss against Minnesota on Tuesday. And he's not with the team in Atlanta for tonight's game against the Thrashers, as reported by Shelly Anderson of the Post-Gazette. The Penguins maintain that the injury is not serious, but there's a chance he could miss Saturday's game against Vancouver, as well.

In his place, the Penguins will be turning to backup goalie Dany Sabourin, with John Curry backing him up.

Fleury missed an extended period of time last season with the dreaded high-ankle sprain, which the Penguins were able to survive thanks to an unexpected emergence by then-backup Ty Conklin, who proceeded to stand on his head seemingly every night. It's doubtful Sabourin could duplicate such a feat, so it's crucial that Fleury remain healthy this season for the Penguins to make any sort of serious run for the Stanley Cup.

Every Thursday, Earl Sleek will conspire with his pen and scanner to bring you another installment of PuckToons. Hopefully you will find these amusing, relevant, well-drawn, or you're a person who is tolerant towards mediocrity.

The drama never stops for the Anaheim Ducks. Even a simple five-day break in the schedule cannot pass without some major news, in this case the stepping down of general manager Brian Burke, who of course had architected Anaheim's 2007 Stanley Cup Champion roster. Burke is probably off to work for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and in his stead right-hand man Bob Murray has assumed the GM duties for the Ducks. This was to be the final year of Brian Burke's contract, so the timing of the departure makes some sense, though it definitely caught this Ducks fan off-guard.

Over at Battle of California, I have begun a series of posts entitled "Burke Week", where I take a look back at the Anaheim legacy of Brian Burke. So far I have talked about three things that I think Burke gets too much criticism for, plus three things that I don't think he gets criticized enough for. Later on in the week I'll look at some of the positive lessons we can learn from Burke the general manager, as well as some downsides to having such a brash and outspoken executive in Anaheim's front office. In addition, I was also a guest on The Rink Podcast this week to talk over some of the ramifications of Burke's departure.

Overall, I can't get too upset with the notion of Burke leaving, though as the cartoon suggests there is some feeling of being jilted. At the very least Burke has left next year's roster in very manageable shape -- lots of contracts expire at the end of the year, so Bob Murray does have freedom to mold next year's roster to his own liking. We shall see how the Ducks evolve over the coming year, but no matter how that turns out, I feel confident that the Toronto media has finally found the right mouth man for the Leafs GM job.

Before we dig into last night's action, this was passed on to us here at FanHouse in the spirit of the holiday season. The National Hockey League and the Salvation Army have partnered up this year to help raise money during the holidays, and you can help the cause by creating your own online NHL team kettle (you provide the bell) to help raise money. The fan that raises the most money will win an All-Star prize package, including two tickets to the game in Montreal. You can find all the details right here.

As for the Wednesday night schedule, Henrik Lundqvist had a relatively short night in net for the Rangers, as he surrendered five goals on 17 shots in just over a period of action. He was ultimately lifted in favor of backup Steve Valiquette, as New York fell to Vancouver, 6-3, at the Garden.

Just five minutes into the second period, the Canucks had a 5-1 lead thanks to goals from Alexandre Burrows (two),Kyle Wellwood, Ryan Johnson and Pavol Demitra. Demitra's power play goal at the 5:33 mark of the second period was the final straw for Lundqvist, as coach Tom Renney sent in Valiquette, who turned aside all 15 shots he faced. Daniel Sedin added an empty net goal for Vancouver with three seconds to play in the third period.

The video shown above is Milwaukee Admirals forward, Hugh Jessiman, scoring a rather impressive goal on the backhand, from his knees, against Grand Rapids this week. It's an awesome goal, sure, but was it simply a great goal? Or was it an example of some awful goaltending?

The goalie in question is Jimmy Howard, who is supposed to be the Red Wings goalie of the future. Hopefully, for his sake, nobody from the mother ship was in attendance to see that one.

(H/T Puck Daddy)

From the Hockey News today comes a quick report that at least one Canadian franchise is closely monitoring the ever-changing exchange rate between the the US and Canadian dollars. Habs president Pierre Boivin is apparently very worried about the falling value of the Loonie to the US dollar in these past 3 months. As I've discussed earlier, the NHL's revenues are, at the margin, greatly affected by this exchange rate especially when viewed in relation to the salaries teams are committed to paying out. Every day that the exchange rate stays below $0.90 CAD to $1 USD (which was the average exchange rate during last season) is another day closer to the current salary cap looking like an unsustainable level.

While attendance numbers are supposedly at record levels, some are beginning to sift through the numbers to question just how exaggerated they are when still the New York Islanders are being advertised at having 13000+ people at their games, which anyone who actually watches an Isles game can tell you is only possible if the guy doing the head count works for AIG's Mortgage Securities Division. Of course the NHL's numbers count tickets sold, not butts in seats. And in this blogger's mind I have to wonder waht's more pathetic in these hard times, paying for an Islanders ticket and not going, or actually having to sit through a game at the Mausoleum.

What I don't think is realistic for Mr. Boivin to be speculating on is the long-term health of the Canadian franchises. Conditions between the two countries are completely different today than in 2001-03 when teams like Edmonton and Calgary were struggling to keep up with the Joneses south of the 498th parallel. Their arenas are packed and the fans happy and spending money. It will, in my opinion, now be the American franchises that cannot attract a big enough audience *Cough* Florida *Cough* New Jersey* *Cough* to sustain a viable business. With entertainment dollars shrinking more people will choose, rationally, substitute one live hockey game for a full season's subscription to Center Ice. All those 2nd mortgages and house-flipping profits aren't there to fuel season ticket sales in marginal NHL towns like Miami and Phoenix.

Ta,

Here's one hockey fight left over from the weekend that I thought was worth revisiting. It comes from last Saturday night when Daniel Carcillo of the Coyotes fought the notorious Steve Ott of the Dallas Stars in Phoenix.

For most of the fight things look pretty even, but at the 33 second mark, Carcillo lets go with what I can only term a sneaky left hand that Ott wasn't ready for. I'm guessing it was that left hook that convinced the voters at Hockeyfights.com to give Carcillo the decision.