A Different Perspective

It'll be history either way.

Either I'll be on hand to see Andre Agassi's last match on the famed lawns of Wimbledon, or I'll be on hand to see one of Agassi's greatest victories if he can pull one last piece of glory out of his tennis bag against the much younger Rafael Nadal, arguably the second best player on the planet these days.

Between Wimbledon, the World Cup, the CFL and the NHL and its impending free agent explosion, there is a ton going on these days. Here's a few thoughts on a few things before heading overseas:

Another 0-3 start in Hamilton means another terrible start for Tiger-Cat coach Greg Marshall, one of the classier guys in the business. The Cats showed some positive signs Thursday in Calgary and still lost a nailbiter. With Joe Paopao sitting there as a possible replacement, you have to believe Marshall is on the sizzler.

Sandro DeAngelis delivered a terrific emotional reaction to his winning kick, racing off the field in triumph. Didn't have to deliver an ugly dance with teammates or taunt an opponent to show his excitement over hitting a big one.

Nice to see the cheerleaders are out for Gary Roberts and his return to Toronto. Is there a team in sport that loves to bring back players more than the Leafs? From Punch Imlach to Carl Brewer to Wendel Clark to Doug Gilmour to Drake Berehowsky, a former Leaf is always coming back. Of course, it never seems to dissuade the management team at the time that it never pays off.

To bad they can't bring back the draft pick that New Jersey used to draft Scott Niedermayer. Or the one used to draft Roberto Luongo.

All bringing back Roberts will do is take away ice time from young players like Alex Steen. Moreover, it erases the chance to develop a fresh, new dressing room atmosphere currently available with Pat Quinn gone and veterans like Ed Belfour and others on their way out.

Bringing back Roberts is an ultimately pointless, backwards move. What the Leafs need are younger players who can do what Roberts used to do.

I'm very glad for Bryan McCabe that his family situation is improving. But for the record, I didn't see or hear anybody "ripping" his family. The confusion and uncertainty over McCabe signing his new contract was simply another example of the bizarre inability of MLSE's hockey department to smoothly articulate the nature of its operations to a very interested public.

Nobody wants to poke around McCabe's private life and nobody wishes his wife or his family ill. But in a hockey city like Toronto, one that he believes has the "best" fans in hockey, it would have very easy to simply get the word out that family issues were holding him back but that his signing was inevitable.

Even if it wasn't McCabe's choice to delay signing, doing so has now put this nature of this inflated contract before the public in stark fashion. Nobody would argue McCabe is anywhere near the player Chris Pronger is, but with Pronger very available, the Leafs are apparently willing to pay McCabe that way despite the restrictive nature of the new salary cap system.

And why five years with no movement? Wade Redden, a better player, was willing to stay in Ottawa for two years, a better deal for both the player and team.

Free agency starts on Saturday. How soon does Patrik Elias get signed?

Does it really matter if Greg Anderson is forced to testify against Barry Bonds? Is there anybody who doesn't clearly understand the farce that has been perpetrated against sport and baseball already?

Watching the World Cup makes one thing very clear. You may not like the diving that goes on in the NHL these days, but it is absolutely nothing compared to the disgusting level of fakery that goes on at the highest level of soccer.

Watching a class player like Thierry Henry of France take an elbow to the chest and then grab his face in apparent pain to draw what turned out to be a game-winning free kick made me barf. Yet all Sepp Blatter does is rip the referees - never the players.

With the AHL moving to mandatory visors, the clock is now ticking on the NHL to do the same.

It is almost impossible not to be impressed with the job Bryan Colangelo is doing with the Raptors, who have gone from having no usuable seven-footers to two potentially viable ones in a matter of days.

The nice thing is a good coach like Sam Mitchell will apparently get some talent to work with. If Mitchell doesn't win a little more now, you won't be able to say management didn't try to help.

Something tells me a very ordinary England has a chance Saturday. But I'm probably dead wrong on this one.

One last thought on Roberts. The Leafs should exhaust every other free agent option before turning to this one. But they won't.

And why would a team supposedly committed to building with youth give up anything, let alone a draft pick, for a player the Panthers signed for free? The only transaction that would make any sense here is dealing Tie Domi to Florida for Roberts, at least giving the Leafs a break on the cap.

Don't expect to hear any of this disagreeable Leaf talk on Leaf TV, by the way. When the highly respected John Shannon was running the show over there, he went out of his way to make sure there was at least the appearance of journalistic credibility on the Leaf house organ.

Without that, Shannon reasoned, people wouldn't buy, even people as blind as some Leaf fans.

Well, Shannon's gone to the NHL, and the first off-season move the Leafs make with their TV arm is to cut Leafs Lunch, the AM640 radio show simulcast on Leaf TV featuring host Jeff Marek and Bill Watters.

Hmmm. Let's see. Marek and Watters were not only highly critical of Leaf chairman Larry Tanenbaum, but also of Tanenbaum's bosom buddy, Tie Domi.

Now they're gone, at least from Leaf TV. No bad news there where the spirit of '67 glows brighter every day.

Dave Nonis has done a nice job cleaning house in Vancouver. Getting Luongo's name on a multi-year contract was the piece de resistance and makes moving Todd Bertuzzi under difficult circumstances a brilliant move by Nonis.

Look for the Canucks, finally free of L'Affaire Bertuzzi, to soar next fall.

Bertuzzi Finally On the Move

VANCOUVER--Two years and almost four months later, the damage and fallout of one terrible decision has been extraordinary.

Since Todd Bertuzzi chose to goon Steve Moore to the ice on March 8, 2004, the principles have been falling like dominos.

Moore has never played again. Vancouver GM Brian Burke was fired. Canucks head coach Marc Crawford was fired.

And, finally, Bertuzzi was, in effect fired, by the Canucks, or at least "relieved of his duties," although formally the transaction will read he was traded to Florida along with defenceman Bryan Allen and goalie Alex Auld for a package of players, but most important, goalie Roberto Luongo.

The Canucks never, ever wanted it to work out this way. Even with all evidence indicating that Bertuzzi would never be a star again in B.C., the Canucks tried one more time to build their team around him, and watched the 2005-06 season go down the drain as a result.

Seven years after they couldn't work it out with Pavel Bure and sent him packing to the Panthers, this time its the 31-year-old Bertuzzi who will be sent in exile to south Florida to try and reclaim the scent of greatness that once surrounded him.

One suspects he won't. But he might.

Just to get rid of Big Bert, the Canucks have taken a large gamble. If Luongo won't sign a long-term deal and opts for free agency next summer, GM Dave Nonis will have given up a lot for a little.

And there's no guarantee Luongo will sign. But that was the cost of moving Bertuzzi, and if Luongo does sign, this will be a large win for Vancouver.

Florida, on the other hand, has changed its team significantly. The Panthers are weaker today at the most important position in the game and have added a compromised player who isn't a kid anymore and a big defenceman, Allen, who is still proving he can be a dependable regular.

With Jay Bouwmeester, Nathan Horton, Stephen Weiss and Anthony Stewart, the Panthers have lots of young talent. Gary Roberts, Joe Nieuwendyk and Martin Gelinas constitute a good veteran core. Jacques Martin is a very good coach.

But this is a team that missed the Eastern Conference playoffs by seven points and now has to either find a goalie or hope that Auld is a bona fide starter. Moreover, they look big and bruising, rather than quick and speedy as many teams believe you have to be in the "new" NHL.

You have to believe that in the short-term, or at least for next season, the Canucks get the better of this deal because they could, in theory, have the best goalie in the conference and can now put the entire Bertuzzi-Moore mess behind them. Luongo is only 27, so if he can be signed long-term, the Canucks have solved their goaltending issues for five years or more.

Interestingly, while he initially said he would only sign a one-year contract, he said Saturday he believed he was close to a new four-year deal with the Panthers on Friday before he was informed he'd been traded to Vancouver. Luongo said he had three conditions for staying in Florida, starting with the team making a public statement that he wouldn't be traded since he is too young to receive a no-trade clause in his contract.

Luongo also wanted the team to hire his former goalie coach, Francois Allaire, once his contract expired in Anaheim, and he also wanted Jamie McLennan retained as the Panthers' No. 2 goalie.

Instead of meeting those condition, GM Mike Keenan traded him. But from a Canuck perspective, it at least indicates he may be open to the notion of a multi-year contract.

Nonis said Saturday he intends to try to sign Luongo now, but that he didn't know the terms of the contract the goalie was negotiating with Florida. Luongo had previously turned down a four-year, $24 million deal.

Meanwhile, unless Bertuzzi is in the running for the Rocket Richard Trophy next season and the Panthers are in a solid playoff position by the winter, its hard to see how the Panthers end up winning this trade.

DRAFT NOTES: After defenceman Erik Johnson went first overall Saturday, it was all about forwards until L.A. took goalie Jonathan Bernier with the 11th pick. . .League officials say 12 teams will receive revenue sharing cheques ranging from $200,000-300,000 to upwards of $13 million. The recipient of the most help is expected to be not Pittsburgh, but Nashville. No Canadian teams will require revenue sharing. . .Five teams exceeded the $39 million cap, two because of performance bonuses and three because of long-term injury costs. . .One reason Colorado was willing to trade Alex Tanguay to a divisional rival? Tanguay apparently wants $5 million a season. . .For those who consider it a crime Jaromir Jagr didn't win the Hart, I didn't give my first place vote to Jagr or Joe Thornton. It went to the superb Scott Niedermayer, who should have won the Hart and Norris. That said, I respect the differing opinion of others without accusing them of some sort of electoral fraud. . .Minnesota may be signalling a change in its low-payroll ways by adding Pavol Demitra and his $4.5 million salary. It also may be a way of convincing winger Marian Gaborik to stay. . .It seems likely the Leafs will end up with another substantial name to coach their top farm club. Wayne Fleming, who recently quit as a Flyers assistant, would be an excellent choice, as would junior coach Peter DeBoer. . .Morris Lukowich, who once played for Leaf GM John Ferguson's dad in Winnipeg, may be in the running for an assistant's job with the Leafs.

Everybody back to Square One

VANCOUVER--After two weeks of being jealous of Chris Young and Cathal Kelly bouncing around Germany covering the World Cup, I am officially over it.

This west coast city right here, you see, is quite possibly the most spectacular city on earth when the sun is shining.

It makes you forget all the times you come here when it isn't.

Sunny Vancouver, meanwhile, is made all the nicer by the fact that the NHL's annual entry draft is probably the one time of year when all 30 clubs are happy and optimistic about the future.

The depression or elation of last year's finish is already evaporated. A new season dawns.

There's lots of chatter here, most of it non-sensical. Once upon a time, the draft of top teenage kids was enough to fuel all the rumours, but nowadays its all about coach hirings, trades, buyouts and imminent free agent signings.

The Maple Leafs did some work already today, hiring a former Toronto player, Jeff Jackson, as the club's director of hockey administration, likely to be a capologist-type of job. The club also promoted scout Dave Morrison to chief scout, taking over from the fired Barry Trapp.

Dave Lewis, meanwhile, the former Detroit coach, is said to be interviewing with the Boston Bruins this morning, although Pat Quinn is believed to be in the mix and so might Peter Laviolette if the Hurricanes don't re-sign him. Lewis might also end up on Marc Crawford's staff in Los Angeles.

Goalies are in play, including Evgeny Nabokov of San Jose, Roberto Luongo of Florida, Jean-Sebastien Giguere of Anaheim and Marc Denis of Columbus. Columbus reports today had Denis going to Tampa for either Ruslan Fedotenko or Fredrik Modin.

And might this be the weekend the local Canucks finally cut ties with Todd Bertuzzi?

Leaf fans, meanwhile, would love to see GM John Ferguson do something creative a la Raptors boss Bryan Colangelo.

Coming west and making three picks in the top 76 then going home, it's fair to say, won't get anybody too excited.

The Star's Ken Campbell reports the Leafs are looking hard at either Giguere or Nabokov, possibly in exchange for Matt Stajan or other young players.

But wouldn't it make more sense for the Leafs to try to make a splash by moving up in the draft?

St. Louis is committed to taking American defenceman Erik Johnson first overall, but also say they'd be open to a deal.

Some say the draft is seven deep. Others say 12 deep.

The Leafs, naturally, are currently picking 13th.

Getting into the top five or six would possibly get them the kind of talented, young signature player to build for the future, rather than continuing to patch here and there in the faint hope Mats Sundin could still win a Cup in Toronto.

Farewell to the 2005-06 Season

The rest of the hockey world will stop to applaud the Carolina Hurricanes for about 24 hours.

Then the attention will shift to figuring out how to succeed them as Stanley Cup champions, including stripping the Canes of as many quality unrestricted free agents as possible.

The turnaround between this season and next season is extraordinarily tight this year, with the draft set for Saturday in Vancouver.

Some quick final thoughts on the final that was:

Here's the most impressive part of Carolina's Cup win. The team that began the playoffs losing 6-1 at home to Montreal, and then dropping Game 2 of that series at the RBC Centre to the Habs as well, ended up finding ways to with Game 7 of both the Eastern Conference final and Stanley Cup final on home ice.

Who will pay Fernando Pisani, son of Cosimo, big bucks as a free agent this summer believing his 14 playoff goals were more indicative of his talent than his 18 goals in 80 regular season games?

The final turned on three pivotal points:

1. The winning goal by Carolina captain Rod Brind'Amour in Game 1, created by the combined sloppiness of backup goalie Ty Conklin and defenceman Jason Smith of the Oilers. The momentum from that single goal seemed to carry the Canes all the way to a 3-1 series advantage.

2. Pisani's overtime shorthanded winner in Game 5. By the time the Hurricanes recovered, they were playing Game 7.

3. Trailing 2-0, the Oilers had their fourth 5-on-3 advantage of the series late in the second period of Game 7 after Aaron Ward was called for flipping the puck out of play with Niclas Wallin already off for hooking.

Instead of the decisive, confident Oiler power play of Game 6, the visitors went back to the pass-the-puck-around-endlessly crew of the first five games, didn't get a good scoring opportunity and ultimately gave away the chance entirely when Ryan Smyth hooked Glen Wesley and was sent off.

Edmonton did score later to make it 2-1, but that missed 5-on-3 chance meant any sense of Oiler magic disappeared.

To those who have fussed and whined about too many power plays, Edmonton had four in Game 7 and Carolina had five. The reason there were relatively few, however, was not that the referees "put the whistles away" or "let 'em play."

It's because the players have learned how to play the game without the hooking, holding and interference. When it mattered most, that showed.

Interesting Decisions

Some interesting decisions to ponder on a Monday morning:

The decision by Carolina to dress winger Erik Cole for Game 6 in Edmonton Saturday.

Cole played as well as could be expected, but just about everything about this doesn't feel right.

First, it appears that the notion to use Cole sprang from the loss of centre Doug Weight to an apparent shoulder injury in Game 5. Given the seriousness of Cole's injury, a fractured veterbrae in the neck, and given that the Canes had previously made it clear they would take the utmost precautions with Cole because of the nature of the injury, using him should not have been related to the health of any other player or the desperate needs of the team.

Second, by telling The Star's Ken Campbell that deciding to play involves a risk that one hit could end his career, Cole was putting an unfair burden on his opponents. Some, like Mike Peca and Ethan Moreau, insisted it wouldn't make a difference, but it might to others.

Finally, Cole seemed to be engaging in a bit of gamesmanship with the officials by suggesting that the Oilers like to leave their feet and deliver hits to the head. Don't be surprised if Edmonton gets a call on that in Game 7, and you can also assume that the Oilers remind the league of Cole's reputation as one of the NHL's worst divers before the game starts.

The decision of Chris Bosh vs. the indecision of Bryan McCabe.

As a reader points out, Bosh's seeming anxiousness to ink a new six-year deal with the Raptors/MLSE stands in sharp contrast to the apparent reluctance of McCabe to sign up with the Maple Leafs/MLSE for a long-term pact.

That should tell you a lot about these respective athletes. Bosh is clearly one you can build around. McCabe, traded three times in his NHL career, clearly is not. The Leafs need to walk away from what is looking more and more like a bad idea and choose a new direction.

The decision of the NHL to use Bill McCreary and Brad Watson for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.

Simply put, the league's top officiating executives, Colin Campbell and Stephen Walkom, believe McCreary and Watson are now the best they have.

Kudos to McCreary, long one of the NHL's top zebras, for being able to adjust over the course of his career to both the two-referee system and, this season, the league's new rule standard.

Watson isn't one of my favorites, but he makes tough calls and has earned his way in a fairly short period of time to the top of the charts ahead of more experienced men.

The Fight Continues

RALEIGH—It was a day that began with the remnants of a hurricane and ended with tears in the stands.

Wednesday, it's fair to say, was a strange one hereabouts. The morning included torrential rains courtesy of Hurricane Alberto, blackouts, mall closings, submerged cars and tornado warnings.

There was no word of locusts.

By the evening, there were only tears in the RBC Centre. Literally, children were seen crying at their parents' sides after the Carolina Hurricanes lost in OT to Edmonton and failed to wrap up the Stanley Cup.

The sun rose on a hot, muggy morning Thursday, but the series that many figured would end the night before continues.

Some quick thoughts on the series so far and the battle ahead:

--You have to believe the NHL is going to revisit the idea of going 2-3-2 for the Cup final. In this series, the Canes would have played two at home, gone to Edmonton for three games and then returned to North Carolina for Games 6 and 7.

Quite simply, the travel is brutal in this series, just as it was for Tampa-Calgary in 2004, New Jersey-Anaheim in '03 and Jersey-Colorado in '01. In the NBA, the cities of Dallas and Miami are using the 2-3-2 format, long a staple of that league.

Ever since the Leafs split the first two at home in the Western Conference final in '94 against Vancouver then lost all three on the west coast the 2-3-2 format hasn't been embraced in the NHL.

It's time it should be.

--Doug Weight's potential injury absence for Game 6 may not be as big a blow to the Hurricanes as first thought.

For starters, Weight hasn't had much of an impact on the series so far, other than being the target of joyful booing from the Edmonton fans that once cheered him as their captain.

Only Jason Arnott and Mike Comrie, among former Oilers get this kind of treatment, and Weight's a little mystified why he, out of all the Oiler stars who left for bigger money elsewhere, has been singled out.

If Weight can't play in Game 6, however, the Canes may benefit from the decision by head coach Peter Laviolette to insert Josef Vasicek in place of Chad Larose for Game 4.

Knee problems limited Vasicek to only 23 regular season games and he has dressed for only seven post-season matches. Subbing for Larose, he moved into a left wing spot, but is a natural centre who was a big part of Carolina's 2002 run to the Cup final.

He may be ready now to make an impact on this series.

--The Carolina defence is taking a significant beating.

At various times during this series, virtually every member of the Carolina blueline corps has limped off the ice, including Bret Hedican, Glen Wesley and Aaron Ward. Only Mike Commodore and Frantisek Kaberle looked particularly fresh in Game 5.

Ward missed a big chunk of the game, and if he can't play in Game 6, Oleg Tverdovsky would likely get the nod.

It would be the reverse juice for Tverdovsky, who played the first six games of the 2003 Devils-Ducks final for New Jersey before being replaced by Ken Daneyko for Game 7, which the Devils won.

Ward may have suffered a shoulder injury, or he may have encountered concussion problems, something he dealt with during the series against the Devils this spring.

--Can you imagine the uproar if Carolina had scored the Stanley Cup winning goal Wednesday night with Oiler defenceman Steve Staios in the penalty box?

As it was, Fernando Pisani's shorthanded winner solved that problem, and to some degree put a lie to the notion that the over-the-glass call on Buffalo's Brian Campbell "cost" the Sabres the Eastern Conference crown in Game 7 against the Hurricanes.

If anything, it was Buffalo's penalty killing that failed to come through, a big part of the game in any playoff year.

Domi, McCabe and Decisions, Decisions

The Maple Leafs may not be in the 2006 Stanley Cup final, but that doesn't mean they're not the focus of a surprising degree of intrigue.

Before Game 3 on Saturday, for example, there was widespread speculation that GM John Ferguson had officially bought out veteran winger Tie Domi from the final year of his contract. Domi may not be a big scorer or an all-star, but he is not only the most popular Leaf but a player watched closely around the NHL, so the buyout had surprising traction before the Oilers and Hurricanes hit the ice.

Only problem was, the story wasn't true. Couldn't be true in fact.

The buyout season, you see, has not yet begun. Teams can offer two-thirds buyouts commencing either June 15th or 48 hours after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup final.

Given that Thursday is the 15th but, going into Game 4, the series could not end before Wednesday, that meant a buyout of Domi or any NHLer would not be possible until Friday at the earliest.

Then again, the NHL is certainly playing with the rules a lot these days, whether its extending the period teams have to sign their own free agents or when this summer's actual free agent season will begin.

Domi is scheduled to earn $1.25 million this season.

There is also speculation, meanwhile, that the 36-year-old enforcer may choose to retire, thus leaving the game and the team of his own volition and keeping his post-hockey profile unsullied.

Domi remains, as mentioned, hugely popular, and that could translate into significant retirement business possiblities if he can leave the sport in a positive way rather than being cut loose and waived through the league. Even worse would be the possibility that, like last season with Brian McGrattan, Domi would have to go through the meat grinder of facing the league's various young tough guys next season.

That, of course, is the lesson of enforcers over the years. No matter how tough and dominating an NHL heavyweight is, somebody bigger and meaner and younger always comes along.

While the Domi watch continues, there reamins intense confusion over the inability of the club to announce a new contract for defenceman Bryan McCabe.

This one has been sitting out there for more than a week, with stories furiously circulating that McCabe's wife is disinclined to stay in Toronto.

Right now, it's hard to see how this one turns out positively for the Leafs.

There was already much debate over whether McCabe was even worth the five-year deal worth an average of $5.5 million per season that was apparently being offered by the Leafs.

Now, with it appearing as though giving the defenceman big money, substantial term and a no movement clause wasn't good enough, McCabe and/or the Leafs are creating the uncomfortable public percepton that the player is very reluctant to return.

As usual, the Leafs and Ferguson have been awkward in their public handling of the situation, offering no explanation to anybody, on or off the record, as to what the problem might be.

Making History

Let's be clear here.

The Carolina Hurricanes have the chance to lock down the first Stanley Cup in franchise history Saturday night at Rexall Place in Edmonton.

Forget that it's only Game 3. There's only a faint chance the Oilers are coming back in the series at all after losing the first two games in Raleigh, and there will be no chance at all if they lose the third game on home ice.

No way is Jussi Markkanen or Ty Conklin the guy who's going to bring his team back from 0-3.

So the heat, you have to figure, is really on the Canes for Game 3. History is staring them in the face. Hard.

If they can do it, its sure going to make all the crap spewed by Pat Quinn and others with the Maple Leafs in recent years look like, well, crap. These guys tried to convince hockey fans that winning championships was a crapshoot, that in a 30-team league it was as much about luck than an excellence and what really mattered was accumulating the greatest amount of playoff games over the course of three or four seasons.

To some degree, this brainwashing technique worked. I get e-mails all the time praising the work of the Quinn coaching team on the basis of how many playoff games the Leafs participated in during his tenure.

That's how these people tried to get Toronto to measure hockey success. The Hurricanes, meanwhile, have been in two of the past four Stanley Cup finals held, and are on the verge of winning it all.

To them, apparently, winning isn't just a crapshoot.

If they can pull this off, in fact, it will be an interesting new twist on hockey history.

There have been, you see, two truly pivotal chunks of expansion in the NHL's modern history.

The first came in the 1967-68 season when the league doubled in size from six to 12 teams, adding Los Angeles, Minnesota, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and California/Oakland.

The second came in 1979 when the war with the World Hockey Association ended and Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg and Hartford merged with the existing NHL clubs.

Here's what's interesting.

Of the six that joined in '67-68, only the Kings and Blues have yet to be crowned NHL champions. Philly won twice, and so did Pittsburgh.

Then there's the case of Minny and Oakland.

Oakland became the California Golden Seals and eventually the Cleveland Barons in 1976, and then merged with the Minnesota North Stars two years later.

The North Stars, meanwhile, brought into bits, part of the club going to San Jose with the Gund brothers, part of it going to Dallas to become the Stars.

And the Stars eventually won the Stanley Cup.

So, feeling generous, both the orginal North Stars and Seals get some credit for that.

Which leaves the Kings and Blues as the only non-winners from that expansion.

What about the '79 merger that expanded the league to 21 teams from 17?

Well, Edmonton won five Cups, so they're in the clear.

The Nordiques won as the Colorado Avalanche, and now the orginal Whalers could win it all as the Hurricanes.

Which would leave only the Jets or, as they are now known, the Phoenix Coyotes.

Just what Wayne Gretzky needs. More pressure.

Heading to Alberta

Reflections on Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final with the series shifting to Edmonton for the next two contests:

Jean-Sebastien Giguere can consider the question answered.

It was Giguere, you may recall, who said "Cam Who?" last fall when he learned he wasn't on Canada's 81-name list of Olympic hopefuls and netminder Cam Ward of the Carolina Hurricanes was included.

Just as Giguere took the '03 post-season by storm, so too has Ward, with a little help from Martin Gerber, bested Cristobal Huet, Martin Brodeur and Ryan Miller en route to the final. The difference between Giguere and Ward, however, is that while Giguere and the Ducks lost in seven to the Devils, Ward is on the verge of winning the Cup, having already lapped the motley Oilers goaltending crew.

When the time comes to name the 2010 Olympic roster, it's already a good bet to think that Ward's name will be even more prominent.

Not sure it was such a great idea for Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish to implicitly applaud Georges Laraque for ramming Andrew Ladd head first into the boards late in Game 2.

Instead of questioning his own team's lack of discipline, MacTavish suggested it was natural for his team to give a little extra oomph when it came to hitting Ladd in retribution for "taking out" Oiler goalie Dwayne Roloson in the series opener.

Geez, that's the kind of garbage Pat Quinn used to sell with the Leafs. Ladd certainly didn't take out Roloson - that was Marc-Andre Bergeron's doing.

Here's how fast and wide open the NHL is these days. The first 3:26 of Game 2 flew by without a single whistle.

Here's how loud it was in the RBC Centre for the first two games. NHL officials worried they may have lost seven to eight seconds off the clock in Game 1 because it was so difficult to discern when the referees had stopped play because the whistles couldn't be heard, even on replays.

The Canes used a seventh defenceman in Game 2, Oleg Tverdovsky, and sat checking winger Chad Larose. Wouldn't be surprised for Game 3 if Laraque and Rem Murray took seats in the press box to make room for two of Todd Harvey, Brad Winchester and Dick Tarnstrom.

The supposedly crucial matchup going into the series was Carolina's power play versus the expert penalty killing of the Oilers.

With four power play goals on 15 chances in two games, it's pretty safe to say the Canes are winning that matchup.

After the Oilers scored to go up 3-0 in Game 1, the Hurricanes scored on nine of their next 33 shots.

That's bad goaltending, and Dwayne Roloson, Ty Conklin and Jussi Markkanen all had a hand in it. If there was a fourth option, you have to believe MacTavish would be happy to turn to it.

Of Hurricanes and other Spooky Things

There are two types of good fortune that can befall an NHL team at playoff time.

First, there's that which blesses a team with an unthinkable run of luck and profitable bounces, like the extraordinary string of overtime wins in the '93 playoffs that lifted Patrick Roy and the Montreal Canadiens to the Stanley Cup.

Then there's that which comes when bad stuff happens to the other guy.

The Carolina Hurricanes have had some of both in these playoffs, but it's the bad stuff happening to the other guy that is reaching spooky proportions.

Go back to the first round. The Montreal Canadiens were seemingly in control of the series, beating the Hurricanes in the first two games.

Then an errant Justin Williams stick hits Montreal captain Saku Koivu in the eye. Koivu didn't return, the Habs lost their heart and four straight games.

Jump to the third round. Already missing Dmitri Kalinin and Tim Connolly, the Buffalo Sabres lose defenders one-by-one until they have almost no blueline corps left. The kicker comes before Game 7 when Sabres rearguard Jay McKee falls prey to a mysterious leg infection and can't play, and the Canes end up winning the game and the series.

Now here we are in the Stanley Cup final and, in the very first game Monday night, the Edmonton Oilers have seen their No. 1 goaltender, Dwayne Roloson, go down with a season-ending knee injury.

Koivu. McKee and company. Now Roloson.

The New Jersey Devils, Carolina's second round opponent, can only thank their lucky stars they were dropped in five quick ones before something terrible happened to one of their players.

It's like a mysterious curse from an Egyptian tomb, striking down key opposition players at critical moments.

The Canes, of course, have earned their way to this point, and right now, with Roloson gone, have to be considered solid favorites to win it all.

If that happens, they'll be able to look back and recall that to get to the promised land, others had to experience some untimely hockey misfortune.