Hockey Night in CanadaWhat to do with Suter, Weber + 30 Thoughts

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"Ask me on February 27."

That was the word Saturday morning from Nashville Predators executive vice-president and general manager David Poile after he was asked for the 10,000th time what his plans are regarding unrestricted free agent-to-be Ryan Suter and restricted free agent-to-be Shea Weber.

The reason Poile was queried this time is the growing belief that teams with cap room (Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota and Philadelphia, now with extra space due to Chris Pronger's injury, etc.) are sitting back, refusing to trade their best assets until they know what Nashville will do with the dynamic defensive duo.

Make no mistake, opposing GMs drool over Suter and Weber like college freshman at their first spring break wet T-shirt contest.

"If [Poile] wanted to, he could create quite an auction for either [player]," one NHL executive said.

"If he trades one or both in February, he is going to get a huge return," said another GM. "If he waits until [after the playoffs], it's going to be much less."

"Well, our first choice is to sign them," Poile said. "That hasn't changed."

Poile continues to negotiate with Suter and will resume talks with Weber some time in the new year. But should neither ink another contract in Tennessee, it's clear he's preparing plans B, C and D.

There is one further complication.

Poile made it sound like he won't deal Suter or Weber if Nashville is still in the playoff chase. And there is no reason to believe the Predators will falter. As we awaken Monday morning, they are seventh in the Western Conference. They're going to be in that dogfight until the end.

Until one or both sign, this story isn't going away. But Poile's going to make us sit back and wait for the climax.

Widening rinks

Hockey Night In Canada colleague Eric Francis reported Saturday that widening the ice surface to cut down on the number of concussions could cost $12 million per arena, one reason why teams are saying, "No thanks."

After Saturday's Hotstove segment, former NHL head coach and current NHL Network analyst Gary Green reached out with more detailed information. Green is a senior director at BBB Architects, a company heavily involved in arena construction and remodelling. The very successful Madison Square Garden renovation is one of BBB's most recent projects.

"A few years ago, there was some interest in looking into a new type of [rink] construction," Green said. "The Hartwall Areena in Helsinki set the precedent.

"We built it [in 1997] with an ice surface of 200 x 94 [feet]."

Prior to that, Olympic-sized ice was 200 x 100. After Hartwall's completion, the International Ice Hockey Federation amended its rulebook to allow for the slimmer width. NHL dimensions are 200 x 85.

"There was so much discussion, we had some of our architects look at what it would really involve," Green said. "It's correct that it would be $10-$12 million in construction costs, but there was more than that.

"The lost revenues from some of your best seats weren't just a one-time thing. They were forever lost."

The larger ice surface would mean the removal of 475 prime seats.

Not only is that some serious coin, but you're also dealing with customers who've paid a ginormous seat licence for that location. Can you imagine the fiasco? "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to move. No, you can't stay where you paid an extra $150,000. Why? Because it no longer exists."

But it wasn't just about revenue. Murray Beynon, one of the Bs in BBB (he's a partner) looked at the diagrams and saw another major problem. The fans' viewing ability changes with the wider surface. It's not great up close and it gets worse as you go higher.

"The sightlines would be miserable," Green said. "Depending on where you were sitting, you'd lose the ability to see players up against the boards ... the angles of the seats needed to be changed.

"You would have to rip out the entire bowl and redo it. You might as well build a new arena."

And how many NHL teams are looking to do that right now? Four? (I'm counting Calgary, Detroit, Edmonton and the Islanders.) That's not enough to make an impact.

Green said the study took place about five years ago. It was shared with the NHL and with current Toronto Maple Leafs president and GM Brian Burke, who took an interest in the idea. After seeing BBB's diagram, the idea went the way of the one-referee system.

Pretty interesting stuff, though.

30 Thoughts

1. Teemu Selanne knew the Anaheim Ducks were going to Winnipeg on Dec. 17 before the schedule came out. It meant so much to him that he had his entire family there. Take a bow, Manitobans. You gave him everything he wanted -- minus a victory.

2. Selanne told a couple of great stories about his time there. First, he was eating lunch (chicken wings) at Earl's one afternoon when a couple of women at the next table asked if they could have the bowl full of leftovers/bones. "I'd like to know what they did with them," he said. Also, then-Winnipeg Jets GM John Paddock asked him to sign a few items and Selanne replied something along the lines of, "Sure, this means you're going to trade me." Paddock laughed. A couple of days later, the Finnish Flash was gone. Selanne says he doesn't blame Paddock, but added he'd asked ownership about the rumours and was told he wouldn't be dealt.

3. Over the last little while, I've been asking, "If I put a gun to your head and said, 'Weber or Suter? Pick one.' Who would you take?" Leafs defenceman Cody Franson's answer was pretty good: "They're perfect opposites ... Suter is the master of the 'hip swivel' to change direction and make the right play. He never panics under pressure, picking up garbage in your own zone and getting it out. Weber is a dominating presence all over the ice."

4. Then there's "The Shot." "Suter shoots for [teammates to] tip," Franson added. "Shea believes he's going to put it through everyone."

5. Logic dictates that if Kirk Muller had remained an assistant coach in Montreal, he'd be the head coach right now, but it's probably not true. There was some kind of disconnect between him and the team. He wanted to advance his career last summer and the Canadiens didn't really fight to keep him.

6. Sad but true for fans of the Canadiens -- both French and English -- that Randy Cunneyworth's hiring became a language debate. The honest truth is this: You can't win without the best people in place. You don't need to be French to understand the franchise's tradition and importance. You don't need to be French to want to get behind the bench and bring a Stanley Cup to the city, as did Dick Irvin Sr., Toe Blake and Scott Bowman. Incidentally, that trio coached 16 of Montreal's 24 championship teams.

7. What Montreal fans should be worried about -- what's going on? "Pure panic" is how one Canadien described it. When you look at the moves this year (Perry Pearn, Tomas Kaberle and now Jacques Martin), it's hard not to jump to that conclusion. There's a real belief that someone above GM Pierre Gauthier made the Martin decision and players sense Gauthier is in trouble, too. Very difficult to win under those circumstances.

8. Back when Cunneyworth coached AHL Rochester, there were people who really liked his bench work. This is a tough spot, though. Maybe people didn't like Martin's pulseless-looking style. But I'd like to see the coach who could have done better the last two years than Martin did.

9. The real wild card in Montreal is Patrick Roy. But he has to decide what he wants to do, if anything. (He has said he will not leave the QMJHL's Quebec Remparts during the season.) If Gauthier does go at some point, you will hear the name Julien Brisebois a lot. Now in Tampa, he was Hamilton's GM when the Bulldogs won the AHL's Calder Cup in 2007. One other name: Claude Loiselle. Keep hearing that Montreal COO Kevin Gilmore is a fan of Toronto's assistant GM.

10. One person who is thankful to Gauthier is Jaroslav Spacek, who didn't think he fit into Montreal's future. "When you feel that way, you want to be traded so you can show another team that you can still bring something," Spacek said. "I appreciate that the Canadiens did that for me."

11. Mentioned on the Hotstove that Phoenix Coyotes GM Don Maloney asked Ottawa Senators compatriot Bryan Murray for either Mika Zibanejad or Ottawa's first-round pick next season in exchange for Kyle Turris. It's a GMs job to aim high.

12. Great story of the week. When Maloney was talking to Eric Francis about the trade, a passerby interrupted the phone call to ask if he was Wayne Gretzky. Apparently, that's happened to him a few times in Arizona.

13. The best thing for David Rundblad is that Phoenix does a great job developing offensive defencemen -- see Keith Yandle and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Other interesting stat: average age of Phoenix left-side defencemen is 23; right-siders is 33. That's a good opportunity for him.

14. Also a good opportunity for Turris. Getting him out of Phoenix -- and fast -- was the best thing for everyone. "He is motivated to perform," said Murray. He better be. The Senators took a real chance, but rookie head coach Paul MacLean likes Turris' game.

15. As of Saturday morning, there was approximately $87 million worth of 2010-11 salary on the injured list with concussions. (If you'd like to calculate on your own, make sure you use actual salary, not cap hit. Pronger and Sidney Crosby, for example, make more in cash than their cap figure). Whatever people say publicly, there is serious concern about this around the NHL, even if we've seen some ridiculously flukey/weird injuries lately.

16. Last year, when the goalie trapezoid came up during the GM meetings, there was very little support for eliminating it. That, however, was usually the case with no-touch icing until Taylor Fedun's horrible injury in September. Several GMs said reinserting the red-line will come up, too. Not certain there will be changes, but there is an understanding these things need to be discussed. Recognize, though, there is a sizable group who feel strongly against doing anything to slow down the game.

17. Kris King, the NHL's senior vice-president of hockey operations, has worked hard to make shoulderpads safer. I'm told the biggest issue is that those who really played with the thin stuff (the Brendan Shanahans, Chris Chelioses and Brad Mays) are gone now, so NHLers only know what they've grown up with and are resistant to real changes. If you can't convince them this is a health issue, maybe they'll buy the financial argument. That $87 million means money lost to escrow because injury replacements mean owners pay out more salary.

18. Now if you're in the group that believes we're overdoing this, get ready to be further annoyed because I think were going to see teams become even more careful. Both the Philadelphia Flyers and Pronger initially thought his struggles were because he was out of game shape, not post-concussion-syndrome. One retired player (whom I greatly respect) said: "You should interview Brooks Laich, who understands that we assume risk when we play."

19. One GM, asked who is the best team he's seen in the NHL: "Pittsburgh. With him or without him."

20. The thing about the Penguins is they take away everyone else's excuses. There's no Crosby, no Kris Letang, no Jordan Staal, no Zbynek Michalek and, sometimes, no Evgeni Malkin. So can the Buffalo Sabres, who are decimated too, use injuries as an excuse for an 8-3 loss when Pittsburgh has it worse?

21. The Darryl Sutter experiment is going to be interesting and not just for all the already discussed reasons. The Los Angeles Kings have really melted down in the last week. Kings GM Dean Lombardi already ripped them as a group and they didn't respond. Sutter will need good assistants to help him with the technical aspects and act as a buffer between him and the players. John Stevens is a perfect fit in the role, but will the ugly losses in Boston and Detroit hurt his situation?

22. One of the things about Sutter that amazed his former players? Totally different person away from the rink -- or if children are around. "You'd see him away from the rink and you wouldn't believe it was the same guy," one said. "So friendly, really interested in your family."

23. Lombardi denied rumours that he was ordered from above to fire head coach Terry Murray. Eyebrows were raised league-wide when Murray was allowed to coach a practice in Boston last Monday before being let go. In an email, Lombardi pointed out that he had to review his decision with ownership on the Sunday and then fly cross-country to make the change. "I expect my players to be honest with themselves and their teammates and I have to do the same," he wrote. "The next time I looked in [Murray's] eyes, I had to tell him the truth ... he did a great job stabilizing this franchise and was a great teammate."

24. The more I watch Vancouver, the more I think the key is Ryan Kesler. There are a lot of really good players on that team, but Kesler is the catalyst -- the critical piece. With everything that happened to the Canucks in the Stanley Cup Final this past spring, can't help but wonder if they find a way to win one more game if Kesler's closer to 100 per cent.

25. Canucks goaltending coach Roland Melanson is making a small adjustment with Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider. He generally likes them playing deeper, but is allowing them to challenge a little if a player is in obvious shooting position (ie. walking in alone).

26. Cody Hodgson of the Canucks had some interesting insight into the big hit he took from Senators forward Nick Foligno last week. Hodgson said he walked into it by trying to make an extra puck-handling move (and you can see it on the video). Against Carolina, he felt he avoided a similar collision by being simpler.

27. Meant to use this last week, but that disagreement between Edmonton Oilers head coach Tom Renney and Ales Hemsky over the stick the forward uses is eerily similar to Claude Julien/Phil Kessel in Boston.

28. Before the season, Jason Spezza of the Senators predicted netminder Ray Emery would make a serious play for the top job in Chicago. I wrote it down, but more as Spezza pumping up a close friend. Maybe I should've taken it more seriously.

29. Seriously, what kind of world are we living in if David Bolland has to grovel for forgiveness after poking fun at the Sedins to make Chicago Blackhawks fans laugh? It's totally harmless -- just like Alex Burrows pointing out how great it was for Vancouver fans that the Canucks beat the Leafs on Saturday. Or the Sedins jokingly mocking Toronto media members who can't tell them apart (and I'm one of them). Or Joffrey Lupul tweeting that he wants a windowless room in Buffalo, etc. That stuff makes rivalries fun.

30. All of this HNIC/Vancouver stuff makes me think of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. As I was standing on the Boston bench, preparing for pre-game interviews, one Bruin said to me, "Well ... I didn't know you worked for the Canuck Broadcasting Corporation."

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