While it may not have been on the level of twisted genius as Rod Blagojevich Prison Uniform Night, the ECHL Las Vegas Wranglers’ Indoor Winter Classic was a nice wet raspberry in the face of the NHL for cancelling its annual outdoor game due to the lockout.

The championship trophy given out on New Year’s Day was very much in keeping with that theme:

WranglersThe Wranglers defeated the Ontario Reign, 3-2, to win the “Indoor Winter Classic championship” on home ice, which you see team captain Mike Madill holding here. The trophy The trophy features an upper shelf that has two U.S. dollar signs and a glittery-scarf-wearing bobble head doll of the team’s mascot, The Duke. The entire award is wrapped in a chain that is padlocked, and cost under $29 to create.

(We assume this being a Vegas Winter Classic, the winners also receive free buffet vouchers and comp tickets to a Louis Anderson show.)

So how was this game held indoors anything like a Winter Classic?

Getty ImagesWith all the focus on the addictive qualities of “hockey related revenue” in the last several months, expansion of the Stanley Cup Playoffs seems inevitable – no matter if the current 16-team format produces, hands down, the greatest professional sports championship tournament annually.

Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos reported late Tuesday night that both the players and owners have talked about opening up the playoffs to additional teams, although the sides haven’t negotiated about it:

“Although it hasn't been brought up in negotiations, both NHL [and] NHLPA have had internal discussions on 4 more teams qualifying for playoffs.”

One assumes this would tie into the eventual radical realignment of the NHL into four “conferences” (you know, what we used to call the Patrick, Adams, Norris and Smythe). That playoff format is a return to divisional play, with the top four teams from each “conference” qualifying, playing each other for two rounds and then the survivors advancing to a reseeded final four for the Cup. Two conferences would have eight teams; the other two conferences will have seven.

The addition of four teams would appear to open up the divisional format to “play-in series” a la Major League Baseball; so you’d get the four seed playing the five seed, which is something Elliotte Friedman suggested way back in Dec. 2011. The winner of that series would then play the No. 1 seed in each “conference,” and the full 16-team dance begins after that play-in series is finished.

Would it be a single play-in game? Would it be a three-game series?

Would you care?

It’s no surprise that the NHL and the NHL Players Association have put on their big boy pants and are having substantive talks in New York City as the calendar turns to 2013. Deadlines’ll do that to a work stoppage.

The NHL’s self-imposed deadline is for a Jan. 19 start to a truncated, 48-game season; a number that Commissioner Gary Bettman has termed the minimum for a viable regular season, although that’s the League’s math. Give fans 20 games and an expanded postseason, and only those on the outside looking in would cry about the integrity of what’s already a corrupted campaign.

The NHLPA’s self-imposed deadline is midnight on Wednesday night, which is when it can choose to act on its disclaimer of interest – dissolving the union, and potentially forcing the NHL into a series of prickly battles over anti-trust status.

“It’s not something we’re focused on,” said Bettman on Tuesday night after the last round of talks.

So both sides are flashing their pressure points, with a bit more urgency on the NHL side to get things done – or at least make enough progress to derail the NHLPA’s disclaimer of interest gambit.

Getty ImagesLet’s get the first unofficial prediction out of the way: There will be a 2013 NHL season. There will be a new CBA. This stupid, stupid lockout will give way to a truncated campaign … even if many fans don’t come back to the League to watch it.

That established, what else can we anticipate from 2013? Here are 10 predictions:

1. Realignment Adopted, and the Playoffs Will Rule

The NHL will realign for the 2013-14 season, using the four-conference format that was adopted by the Board of Governors in 2011 before it was spiked by the NHLPA. In the short term, a return to divisional playoffs will produce some amazing drama. In the long term … we’ll probably get sick of it.

Hockey Gods willing, we’re in the final stages of the NHL lockout, which has absurdly stretched into 2013.

TSN offered this look back at the last several months of false starts, lost hope, ‘hills we will die on’ and political bluster. If you have a New Year’s Eve hangover, this probably won’t help:

If you really want to bring the pain home, why not watch this on a continuous loop during what would have been the Winter Classic in Ann Arbor? Good times …

s/t Robert Söderlind

Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.

• The Adirondack Phantoms’ tuxedo jerseys: Finally, Zac Rinaldo can look like Lloyd Christmas at his senior prom while fighting someone in the AHL. [Phantoms]

• John Shannon on the NHL, NHLPA talks today, in which the NHLPA offered a counterproposal: “I truly expect very little to happen in the New Year's Eve negotiations. If the Players’ Association puts forward major differences from what the NHL proposed on Thursday night, we will see this league go down a path that no one could ever have foreseen.” [Sportsnet]

• Elliotte Friedman on the last stages of the talks (hopefully): “One source said Sunday there were worries that escrow could hit 30 per cent if the NHL's proposal of a $60 million US cap was accepted (that includes the one compliance buyout counting against the players' share of hockey-related revenue, as currently proposed). No doubt the league would dispute that (saying that the lower the cap, the less they'd have to pay) but this is why both sides' accountants make money.” [CBC Sports]

• Remember that massive SPHL brawl we first brought you over the weekend? There are 28 games of suspension resulting from it, with a trainer for Huntsville getting fined as well. [SPHL]

• Congrats to Team Canada for winning the Spengler Cup, which will obviously take the sting out of this whole lockout thing. [CP]

• When the NHL comes back, so will you: “To me and many others, hockey is still the greatest sport in the world. To watch all of the progress made in recent years disappear would do more than just damage the game for a few. Hockey does a lot of good for many and like it or not, the NHL plays a big role in the accessibility and growth of the sport, especially in North America.” [THW]

• Tyler Seguin says he’s “one million percent healthy,” which we assume is down from eleventy-seventy trillion percent. [CSNNE]

Congratulations to Russian tennis star Maria Kirilenko, who will undoubtedly become the next reason why Alex Ovechkin isn’t the same player he was or is playing better than ever. One of the two.

David Abrutyn of IMG congratulated Ovechkin, 27, and Kirilenko, 25, on their engagement on Monday morning, as the Washington Capitals captain asked his girlfriend of over a year for her hand in marriage. Ovechkin has been playing for Dynamo Moscow of the KHL during the NHL lockout; Kirilenko is 14th in the WTA world rankings.

Alas, Kirilenko wasn’t given a ring, because Ovechkin doesn’t know how to get one. (Just jokes, people; we're sure the diamond is the size of Red Square.)

Getty Images

The Year in Hockey 2012 is going to be remembered as … well, a year without hockey.

That seriously shortchanges the joyous fun of the Los Angeles Kings’ run to the Stanley Cup – they’re pictured here, crossing the streams – and other great hockey stories from the NHL and around the world.

But there’s no escaping the lockout and the huge cloud of frustration and disappointment that looms over all the hockey happenings from the last year.

That said, Puck Daddy’s annual Alternative Year in Hockey Awards provide an oasis for those of us that are sick and tired about feeling sick and tired about the NHL lockout.

It’s here that we honor the quirky stories, magic moments, embarrassing gaffes and other wonders of the 2012 year in hockey.

Here are the awards that just didn’t seem to find a place in the rest of our Year in Hockey coverage ..