Tomas Hertl skates; Phil Esposito on St. Louis; Ryan Kesler the Penguins’ missing piece? (Puck Headlines)

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.

• Tomas Hertl shares his Rocky moment with his Twitter followers.

• Speaking of Hertl, he's taken his first strides towards health. Like, literal strides. He actually skated today. [CSN Bay Area]

• Phil Esposito weighs in on the Martin St. Louis trade request rumours. "Not one ounce of evidence. It’s the same as this bulls— about Marty St. Louis being traded to f—— New York for Callahan because he doesn’t get along with Yzerman. What a bunch of s— that is.” [CBS New York]

• Ryan Kesler might be the piece the Penguins have been missing since they let go of Jordan Staal. Why they'd like to return to their three-center model. [The Hockey Writers]

• More on Ryan Kesler's reported trade request out of Vancouver. And why is a Canuck asking out now an annual tradition? [Pass it to Bulis]

• Shane Doan using a broken hockey stick to teach his son a lesson, and no, thankfully, this isn't a story about corporal punishment. [AZ Central]

• A Seattle group is in Vancouver this week to meet with another group and learn how to run an NHL franchise. I'd suggest both groups go to a third city, but that's just me. [Global News]

• You think your hockey team travels a lot? The University of Alabama team wins this round, I think. [NY Times]

• Time for the Toronto Maple Leafs to trade that team-ruining pretty boy, Phil Kessel. [Pension Plan Puppets]

• The Avalanche have signed Marc-Andre Cliche to a two-year extension. When asked about it, he offered meaningless platitudes and tired phrases we've heard many times before. [Avalanche]

• Evgeny Kuznetsov continues to tease Capitals fans, saying his move to the NHL is no secret. Apparently, he'll also be living with Alexander Ovechkin! [RMNB]

• Which players on a team's roster are expected to try the hardest in practice? [Backhand Shelf]

• Ken Holland wants a defenceman, but he won't overpay for a rental. [MLive]

• Top team in junior hockey? Still the Guelph Storm, but it's close. [Buzzing the Net]

• Fantasy showdown: Brad Richards or Mike Ribeiro. [Dobber Hockey]

• Minor hockey's problem: you're either all in, or you're out. It's a tough choice for kids. [Star Tribune]

• Will Zinetula Bilyaletdinov be able to keep his job after Russia's disastrous performance in Sochi? [Ria Novosti]

• Finally, here's Teemu Pulkkinen of the Grand Rapids Griffins scoring two goals in nine seconds. The second one is just nasty, as he causes a turnover off the face-off and just blisters one home.