College football information departments start campaigning early for their Heisman hopefuls, so even if it's only a month into the season, San Jose Sharks coach Ron Wilson figures it can't hurt to make sure people know as much as they can about his potential candidate, defenseman Matt Carle.

Maybe that's because Carle faces an uphill battle for the award, which barring a serious injury or unimaginable collapse, will go to Pittsburgh's electrifying center Evgeni Malkin.

"Hey, I'm not stupid," Wilson said. "I've seen Malkin and I know how great a player he is, but it just shouldn't be automatic."

Wilson's Sharks are expected to make a pretty serious run at the Stanley Cup this season and Carle is already playing an important role for them. That's why Wilson believes the former Denver U. standout, whose rookie status wasn't affected when he joined San Jose for a few games late last season, should be given more consideration.

"Hockey insiders, so to speak, understand how difficult it is to play defense early in your career especially with the new rules," Wilson said. "When (Carle) came in last year, he was playing college rules which were kind of like the old NHL rules where you can hook and hold and grab a little.

"It's been an adjustment for him and it's hard to learn to play defense at this level. It's hard for me to take veteran guy and get them to re-tool, so for a young guy coming in and having to make all those adjustments, it's phenomenal."

Wilson acknowledged that Carle will probably get lost in the voters shuffle this year, the way Calgary's Dion Phaneuf did last year in the Calder race against flashy high-scoring forwards Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. The Sharks coach called that rookie race the tightest he had ever seen, but said if he had a vote, it would have gone to Phaneuf.

"Nothing against the other two, but they played on last-place teams so they could just take off and do whatever they wanted and score goals," Wilson said. "But it's different when you got a defenseman playing an important role on a good team and being relied on."

Ed Belfour wonders why anyone was talking about it. It was just "a little horsing around," he insisted to the Panthers beat writers on Florida's three-game road swing through the New York area, even though it resulted in his goaltending partner and competitor Alex Auld being carted off by ambulance to a Long Islander hospital for stitches.

And there was no alcohol involved, Belfour argued, although the Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald quoted witnesses saying the veteran goalie became belligerent at a Garden City, Long Island bar sometime after 3 a.m. and began scuffling with teammates.

The police were called, but no report was filed and the Garden City finest later described their role as a medical response. Auld later said it was an internal matter to be treated as such and coach and GM Jacques Martin took the same approach. A team spokesman went as far as denying anything happened at all.

Of course these kinds of incidents are not new to Belfour, who earned the nickname "Crazy Eddie" a long time ago. When he played for the Stars, Belfour had an infamous run-in at a Dallas bar in 2000 and had to be subdued with pepper spary. He tried to bribe officers to let him go, later pleading guilty to resisting arrest and ending up with a fine, probabation and some mental health couselling.

Really, so why is anyone talking about it, right Eddie?

So the Sabres are human after all.

I was starting to wonder when they scored a goal with less than two minutes left in the third period to tie the game for the fourth time and force overtime. But it turned out to be nothing more than a brief delay of their inevitable first defeat of the season, which came at the hands of the Atlanta Thrashers and ended Buffalo's NHL record-tying streak of wins to start the season at 10.

Still, it took a shootout for Buffalo to fail to up their "W" total. The Sabres could have won this game as well, but had they done so, it would have been a matter of the hockey gods smiling on them. Buffalo had some great stretches of play, particularly in the second period, and their goalie Ryan Miller was very sharp, but they let Atlanta hang around too long when the Thrashers really weren't generating many chances.

Not that Atlanta needed many. They were very opportunistic all night, and Buffalo had several uncharacteristic sloppy moments that were the result of the Sabres trying to get too cute with drop passes and puck movement. Those things may play to the home crowd, but it came back to haunt the Sabres against a tenacious Atlanta team.

But every team has to lose sometime and for the Sabres who won't play again until after Halloween, this month has still been quite a treat.

The unwritten rule in hockey is that teams are supposed to win the first game for the new guy after they get a coach fired. And Philadelphia seemed to understand that with a quick start that had them leading the Atlanta Thrashers before the game was two minutes old.

Of course, the Flyers haven't magically solved all their problems now that John Stevens has taken over behind the bench from Ken Hitchcock, but they did play their most spirited game in at least a couple of weeks and didn't embarrass themselves for a change.

Problem is they didn't necessarily deserve to beat an Atlanta team that was coming off a tough overtime loss in Carolina the night before. The Thrashers showed signs of fatigue, but they picked up the pace when they had to, and with backup goalie Johan Hedberg looking very sharp in his first start, managed to get things into a shootout.

It makes you wonder how far Atlanta could have gone if they had someone like Hedberg to fill in last season when Kari Lehtonen went down. But that's another story.

The real one on this night was the strange decision by Thrashers coach Bob Hartley to have Lehtonen play the shootout. I realize he's their No. 1 guy, but he was coming off the bench cold and Hedberg was 4-0 in shootouts last season for Dallas.

The result was predictable, certainly as much as seeing Philly win one for the new guy.

Patience is clearly a lost virtue in the NHL these days, as former Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock has learned.

In fact many people believe his firing last weekend is only the tip of iceberg, because as Los Angeles Kings coach Marc Crawford says, the level of parity that now exists in the league has raised expectations in many organizations to unjustified levels.

"I don't know whether or not it's realistic that there's going to be 20 teams a year that can possibly do it (contend), but I guess that's probably what we're dealing with," Crawford told the Canadian Press. "Managing those expectations becomes so, so important. You've just got to make sure that inside your organization, people know what's going on and have realistic expectations of the team.

Which brings us to New Jersey, where the media covering the Devils are dropping subtle hints about the vulnerability of new coach Claude Julien. It's only nine games in, but the Devils, considered likely Stanley Cup contenders by many, are struggling.

New Jersey's hopes for this year are based on the great second half the team had after GM Lou Lamoriello took over from Larry Robinson as coach and Patrik Elias returned from a bout with hepatitis. Elias has been in the lineup from the outset, and the team is healthy, but the Devils are playing inconsistently and making the kinds of mistakes that reflect badly on a coach.

New Jersey's loss in Pittsburgh on Tuesday was memorable for Penguins rookie Evgeni Malkin's incredible goal, but what the beat writers who cover the Devils focused on were bad line changes and weak overall execution by their team.

Even New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur, who has been ordinary at best this season, conceded that the team isn't playing "Devils hockey."

So do you think Lou will sit around patiently waiting for things to get better?

One of these days, Philadelphia Flyers players might even consider looking in the mirror.

Say when they lose their next game, which could even happen when they play again this week. But why get ahead of themselves?

Sure a couple of players had the decency to concede the team's problems were not all the fault of fired coach Ken Hitchcock. For the most part though, there was such a rush to point the finger at him, this team would have been called for piling on had its name been the Eagles.

Captain Peter Forsberg, for one, said he didn't think isn't a bad coach, but....

"Sometimes when a team is not performing as it should, it's good to get a change," Forsberg told the Philadelphia Daily News.

Sophomore Mike Richards surmised that Hitchcock didn't relate well because he never played in the NHL, while Simon Gagne said the ex-coach was intense and complicated.

"It took me two years to feel comfortable," Gagne said.

That must be why the Flyers have been the league's worst team so far.

It's fair to say that Hitchcock's firing was probably called for in the wake of his team's embarrassing start, but the reality is that his system or his style or his personality wasn't the problem on the ice.

He didn't make defenseman Andre Picard get stripped of the puck at the opposing blue line on a power play last week just before Florida's Jozef Stumpel went in alone to score short handed.

Hitchcock wasn't the reason Derian Hatcher got wind burn as speedy Buffalo forward Maxim Afinogenov streaked past him to score or that just about everyone wearing orange and black this season developed a tendency to make passes to opponents and to get beaten off the pucks in corners and along the boards at both ends of the ice.

And when the Flyers do look in the mirror, they might actually see that.

Kari Lehtonen says the pressure of being a starting goalie in the NHL doesn't bother him, but only a decade ago, the serious nature of playing that position almost caused him to give up the game.

Lehtonen, who was the highest European goalie ever drafted when the Atlanta Thrashers took him second overall in 2002, admitted that when he was 12, the intensity of his coach back in Finland took all the fun out of playing for him.

"It's true, I didn't enjoy the games any more," said Lehtonen. "The coach was always yelling and screaming, and it was too serious. I was ready to quit."

Lehtonen, now 22, says his career was saved by a close friend named Janne who played on another local youth team that did things in a far more relaxed environment. Janne invited Lehtonen to one of his practices, and the young netminder ended up switching teams.

But what if he hadn't?

"Who knows, I'd probably be selling hot dogs at games instead of playing in them," Lehtonen said.

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Boy was that an ugly effort by Philadelphia tonight.

Really.The Flyers didn't look like they belonged in the same building, let alone the same league as the Buffalo Sabres, the team that beat them handily in the playoffs last spring and manhandled them in their first meeting this season.

The funny thing is that this game was relatively close during the first 20 minutes which ended up scoreless, thanks in no small part to a strong start by Flyers goalie Robert Esche. But even hot goalies can only withstand so much, and when they Sabres shifted into a higher gear in the second period, they exploded and ended up with a 9-1 win that was more dominant than the score suggested.

Everyone knows Buffalo is a very fast team, but the Sabres looked like they were moving at the speed of light against a plodding group of Flyers whose quickest movements came when they were cranking their necks to see guys blasting past them. Philadelphia didn't help itself by making repeated turnovers, and their execution errors only fed into Buffalo's great transition game.

If this was supposed to be revenge for the Flyers for the first-round playoff loss, they should have at least shown up. Then again, maybe they did.

Too bad.

Marty Turco can deal with 220-pound forwards crashing his net, pressure-packed overtimes and 100 mile-per-hour slapshots coming at his head, but filming a video outdoors in the hot Texas sun? Now that's a tough job.

"I was in gear for probably about three-plus hours," said the Dallas Stars netminder, who is featured in one of four new NHL promotional spots running this season. "Had my skates on too, walking around on cement and doing stuff."

Turco filled in for teammate Mike Modano, who was injured on the day the spot was made and said he actually enjoyed the experience.

"I'm into promoting reading for kids and we did ours at a school," said Turco, who joins Peter Forsberg, Jonathan Cheechoo and Sidney Crosby as stars of the NHL spots. "It was pretty neat."

But painful - - at least to others.

"I think I hurt a lot of necks when I was walking down the sidewalk," Turco said. "People were driving home from work and I was fully dressed in my gear, it was pretty funny. I think I was the only one not laughing for the most part."

So who needs a third party to figure out how much a player is worth these days? Not the NHL it seems. That's why there's been growing support for the end of arbitration among both the players union and the league of late.

In fact, Canadian network TSN has reported that preliminary discussions have begun between the NHL and its PA about doing just that.

You might wonder why the athletes and their agents would voluntarily give up a system that tends to make them richer than they expected, but in the hard salary capped world of the league, the process is causing more problems than it solves. Commissioner Gary Bettman alluded to this on opening night when he told the Buffalo News that arbitration doesn't hurt teams financially because of the spending controls in place, but it does make it difficult, if not impossible to keep talented rosters together.

"If the awards are excessive in a hard-cap system, you've got to take a hard look as to whether or not the monies are being fairly allocated in a sensible way," Bettman said.

And because of the payroll limit, players get hurt in ways other than losing teammate who might help their teams succeed. High arbitration awards increase the chances of a team exercising its walk-away rights and since the league's overall salaries are tied to a percentage of revenues, the awards have the potential effect of increasing escrow deductions.

It other words, there are more reasons to get rid of the system than to keep it.

Well, he did a Stanley Cup, not to mention the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP. And Cam Ward did it all as a rookie, which might lead some to believe his future with the Carolina Hurricanes is pretty well entrenched. Right?

Probably, although you might not guess it after listing to Carolina coach Peter Laviolette today. Breaking a habit, Laviolette disclosed that backup John Grahame would get the start in goal against the Panthers. That's not a great surprise since the 'Canes need to shake things up a bit after having lost all three regular-season games they've played and four of the five in the pre-season, but what was a little eye-raising was the coaches failure to give the 22-year-old Ward a vote of confidence.

It's all part of the coach-speak/action manual, you should know. Coach makes goaltending change, says he wants backup guy to see some action to start a road trip and expresses certainty that the presumed No. 1 guy will get things in gear next time out.

Instead, Laviolette said he wants somebody to "get in there and take charge.

"I'm looking for somebody to get some wins and get a groove going," Carolina's coach said. "Whoever that might be, might find himself in the net more."

How long ago last June now seems.

Just finished watching the tape of last night's San Jose-Calgary game and I have to say, the Sharks are even more impressive than I thought.

This is really a solid team from top to bottom, and it plays extremely well at both ends of the ice. What really struck me, though, was the quality of San Jose's second line.

That would be center Patrick Marleau and wingers Steve Bernier and Milan Michalek, all of whom were drafted and developed by the Sharks. When it comes to this San Jose team, most of the focus tends to be on Joe Thornton's first line which features last year's top goal scorer Jonathan Cheechoo, but Marleau's unit might be the key to the Sharks success this year.

Marleau has never gotten the recognition he deserves playing on the West Coast, and fell deeper into the shadows when Thornton arrived in a trade last year, but the guy is big and he can really skate. His wingers are much younger than him, but they move the puck and make things happen whenever they're on the ice. In other words, it won't do other teams much good just to shut down the Sharks 'big' line.

These are tough nights, even with Tivo, because there's only so much hockey you can catch with 14 games on the schedule.

Just about every team in the league is in action tonight, and there is cause for celebration in the Hossa family.

Big brother Marian was a dynamo in Atlanta setting up one goal and scoring two of his own in the second period to blow the Thrashers game against Florida wide open. But Marcel was an even bigger hero for the Rangers when he ended a 13-round shootout by scoring on Philadelphia Flyers goalie Antero Niitymaki. That one looked like it would never end because Niitymaki and New York goale Henrik Lundqvist were incredible, Hossa found a five-hole and got off a really quick shot from 20 feet to score.

Saw the end of the Nashville and Minnesota game too and began to think that the Predators might have some issues. The 14 goals they've given up in two games have a lot to do with it, but more it was the play of their goalie Tomas Vokoun near the nead. Vokoun reacted quickly to make two sparkling saves and preserve a tie with about four minutes left in the game, but crossed his crease slowly on a Minnesota two-on-one and let Brian Rolston's low shot beat him when it shouldn't have.

Zdeno Chara looked about as stiff in the Bruins game in Tampa Bay as he did in their opener at Florida. I only saw bits and pieces of that game, but on one play, Chara was beaten off the puck behind the net by Ruslan Fedetenko, who skated in front and used the big Boston D-man as the screen he needed to score. Still, Boston won so chances are no one will worry just yet.

What really struck me though on Saturday, and in the previous three nights of the season, is just how much offense they're really is. It's getting pretty common to see teams scoring 6,7 or 8 goals in a game and it's a good thing.

Yes, Todd Bertuzzi does laugh sometimes, like when someone tells him he's on pace for an 82-goal, 246-assist season. That happened in the dressing room a few minutes after he triggered the Florida Panthers big opening night at home, an 8-3 demolition of the Boston Bruins.

Bertuzzi, Florida's key off-season acquisition, scored a power forward's goal by driving to the net --his as well as the team's first of the season -- six minutes into the game. Then he picked up three assists and acted like a bulldozer against Bruins all over the ice.

"I was pretty pumped," Bertuzzi said.

No kidding. It took him a couple of minutes to wipe the big grin off his face after scoring and he had a pretty good chemistry going with linemates Joe Nieuwendyk and Rostislav Olesz, who were easily Florida's most effective unit. Most important, the controversial Bertuzzi seemed like he had quickly won over the crowd.

Good timing too since the Panthers had a rare sellout of 19,250 in the house and actually treated them to a show that might bring them back. The team's pre-game festivities were pretty creative as far as these things go, but the offensive explosion was impressive, even if it came against a team that left a lot to be desired. If this was an indication of things to come in Florida, the Panthers could be in for a very surprising season.

For now, thank Todd.

In the 15 months of their new partnership, players and league gurus have come up with a variety of ideas about how to market the NHL. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that the focus should be on the stars.

How to do it is another matter, judging by the lame promos launched by the league opening night. The NHL had Hollywood director Jason Reitman produce four spots, each highlighting a high-profile player, but the first two featuring Philadelphia's Peter Forsberg and San Jose's Jonathan Cheechoo fell flat. No wit, no laughs, no point. Hopefully the next two with Sidney Crosby and Marty Turco will be better. Maybe the league should call the Madison Square Garden folks because they've been putting together some great spots since last year with their shlumpy Bobby Granger character.

They feature Rangers stars too, but the real reason for rejuvenated affair with fans there is their success. That's a simple solution to marketing problems in many places, but for the NHL it's particularly important in New York. No other American-based team has the Rangers potential to create the kind of buzz the league could ride, and there are a lot of people who think the Blueshirts have a real shot at doing it this year by winning the Stanley Cup.

An opening night win against the Washington Capitals certainly isn't definitive, but there were a lot of very good signs for the Rangers, who ruined a brilliant season last year with a complete meltdown heading into the playoffs. They started with new captain Jaromir Jagr, who looked fully recovered from last year's shoulder injury and scored the team's first goal of the season on his first shot.

Newcomer Brendan Shanahan became an instant hit with two goals in his debut, one on a breakaway and the other to become the 15th player in history to score 600 goals.The penalty killing was outstanding, goalie Henrik Lundqvist was mid-season sharp and the Rangers had the kind of energy that kept the crowd hyped long after the big production opening ceremonies were over.

They could be in for a fun year in New York. And that would be the best marketing for the NHL.

This is what you call a really good birthday gift

Mario Lemieux will turn 41 on Thursday and he'll celebrate by announcing that he's finally sold his Pittsburgh Penguins. For $175 million. Beats a tie any day, no?

Lemieux will get a nice piece of the sale price for the ownership stake he took when the team faced bankruptcy and he deserves it, first because he saved the franchise when he arrived as a rookie in 1984 and again when it was this close to going under.

The new owner will Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie, who looked just as excited as Lemieux should be these days when he was caught by the television cameras during the Senators-Leafs opener. Then again, maybe Balsillie was nervous because the story of the imminent sale had been out for more than an hour. He told a reporter early that he couldn't comment until "tomorrow."

Balsillie is 45, a recreational hockey player and the head of Research in Motion in Waterloo, Ontario, which developed and produces Blackberrys. He's also been part of a group that has been trying to bring a team to Hamilton, Ontario, but for now, he isn't talking about moving the Pens. They need a new arena, and have essentially until the end of this year to find someone to build one. A casino group locking for a slots license in Pittsburgh has promised to build a new building if they win the bid, but there is a backup plan involving government financing in place as well.

That plan is a little shakier, but everyone including the league seems intent on finding a way to keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh. And for Lemieux and his long ties to the franchise, that would be the icing on his cake.

Game on!

First things first -- those new Sabres uniforms have to go. I didn't realize how ugly they were from the pictures, but poetry in motion they're not.

The players are though, on both the Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes, who raised their Stanley Cup banner before the game and played a first period that showed no signs of the dreaded championship hangover.

Last year's Eastern Conference Finalists picked up where they left off in that Game 7 with a blistering first period that was amazingly impressive for an opening night. The Sabres and 'Canes looked in mid-season form, with crisp passes, quick transistions and the kind of playmaking that usually take s a few games to nail down.

Great start.

Well the Devils found their answers in the details, proving once again that their general manager Lou Lamoriello is one of the sharpest guys in the business. Several of his colleagues probably have a few other choice terms to describe him especially now that he has managed to dump two albatross contract hanging around his neck, but Lamoriello salvaged his roster by finding the right loopholes in the CBA.

There was a cost of course. Lucky Lou had to give up a first-round pick to get rid of Vladimir Malakhov and his $3.5 million salary this week, and then got the NHL to agree on a long-term injury exception for Alexander Mogilny, which means his $3.5 million salary won't count against the team's cap. The combined $7 million savings allowed New Jersey to re-sign several key players including last year's leading scorer, Brian Gionta.

Naturally, lots of people in the NHL are pretty steamed that Lamoriello managed to circumvent his budget problems so easily, but the Jersey boss said all he did was use the rules.

The CBA says that teams who sign players over 35 to long-term contract have to count their salaries against the cap even if they play in the minors or retire. New Jersey got around that in the case of Malakhov, who says he can't play and has been effectively suspended without pay, by sending him to the San Jose Sharks along with the draft pick for a minor-league defenseman and the rights to a Russian player who isn't coming back to the NHL. The Sharks have the cap room to absorb Malakhov, who they won't be paying this season, and get a top pick for the troubles. And it's all kosher.

"The bottom line is that in its form, it was a legitimate hockey trade with a trade of player rights and draft picks," NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said. "It was not something we had a basis to object or reject."

Apparently the same argument held on Mogilny's case. The CBA doesn't deal specifically with players over 35 getting the injury exemptions, and New Jersey exploited the loophole, even as several other teams fumed he was getting preferential treatment. Maybe they should just take some notes on how things get done.