February 20th Column

So, the Forsberg deal. Nashville did not give up too much to get Peter Forsberg, I cannot reiterate that enough. A 1st Round Pick? That'll be around No. 30 the way the Preds are playing. Scottie Upshall? Has not lived up to his potential as a pro after being drafted No. 6 overall in 2002. Ryan Parent? Still a couple of years away. Frankly, if the Predators don't get Forsberg, he may have never have seen a game in Nashville anyway. The fact is that this Predator team is in trouble. They need the Stanley Cup to stay in town. That's it. Nothing less. Anything less than a Stanley Cup will leave them a forgotten lame duck in the Music City in 2007-08. Forsberg was not only a luxury move, it was a necessary one.

A couple of questions about the two new NHL promos, the latest in their series "Just Like You and Me." Does the Sedin twins commercial suggest that people like you and me dance at stag parties for, as Henrik says "A couple Loonies" (The Canadian currency, not the partygoers)? Also, the second promo, entitled "Road Trip," is not necessarily the best thing for a league that's players tore through a hotel room in Nagano, Japan just eight years ago.

If there is a goaltenders union, is there also a goaltending Mafia? At the Devils-Canadiens game on Wednesday, I had some time to speak to Chico Resch, former NHL goaltender and Devils color commentator on FSN New York. I told him how displeased I was with Brian Hayward's vapid, uninformed color analysis of the Devils-Lightning game Sunday on NBC. I said, quite jokingly, that he needed to live up to Chico's standards, and that it would help if he spoke to him at the next goaltender's union meeting. He responded, half-joking, but half-seriously, that "we goalies gotta stick together." Should I fear for my life, like that girl in the NHL ‘06 commercial who gets stalked by the Maple Leaf goaltender?

What has gone wrong in San Jose? They've gone 4-7-1 in their last 12, and until Sunday afternoon's tilt with Dallas, hadn't scored a goal in two games as a team. The Sharks are currently on their longest road swing of their season. They've got three left on an eight-game jaunt that will take them through Washington, Chicago and Calgary. They're performance in these last three road games will show everyone just what kind of team the San Jose Sharks are.

The Anaheim Ducks have the league's worst TV team. Whenever analyst Brian Hayward isn't talking over a goal, somehow, play-by-play man John Ahlers does. A recent look at Ducks highlights shows that either Ahlers or Hayward talked over four of the nine goals scored in the Ducks 5-4 win over Phoenix on Wednesday. It's like this every night with these two. The strange thing is, when split up -- like when Hayward works for NBC or Ahlers for VERSUS -- neither is singularly that bad. Hint hint, Ducks management — split up your TV broadcast and send one of them to where they can talk all they want.

When other papers fail you, USA Today is there. There is no newsprint in the U.S. that devotes more to hockey. Lead reporter Kevin Allen is easily one of the best hockey writers in the country. He may also be America's most knowledgeable hockey man. If there's something he doesn't know, then Ted Montgomery does. Say what you will about USA Today and it's penchant for graphics and biases and such, they do a fantastic job covering our game.