from Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal,

- Is there a better, quieter professional two-way player in the NHL than Patrice Bergeron in Boston? I don’t think so. Major, major pain threshold, too, as we all remember in the playoffs a few years back when he played with a collapsed lung and broken ribs.

- Am I in the minority when I wonder how Marc-Edouard Vlasic is an automatic for Canada’s World Cup team on defence, one of the first four picked, and Brent Seabrook doesn’t rate anywhere near the same consensus with the folks picking the team? Vlasic is a younger Hamhuis to me. Seabrook brings more to the table.

- Evander Kane didn’t go out and buy a big new house in the ‘burbs when traded to Buffalo. He lives in the downtown Marriott, in a suite, a few blocks from the hockey rink. Maybe he doesn’t like cooking his own meals, but a hotel? That’s not exactly setting down roots.

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