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.

• We love this photo from Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. We also can't imagine how many people mistook Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers for Will Ferrell.

• Dominik Hasek, 47, would like to play in the NHL again. As a backup? As a training camp invitee? Doesn't say. But we'd love to see it happen. Preferably in Tampa Bay in a tandem with Dwayne Roloson, so he can have someone to reminisce with about the discovery of fire. [Malik]

• Steve Yzerman doesn't rule out trading for a goalie for the Tampa Bay Lightning: "My preference," Yzerman said Thursday night, "is to go with a little bit younger guy that maybe has a little less experience that can step up and play well for us now." [TB Times]

• Coveted NCAA prospect Justin Schultz is reportedly leaving Wisconsin, giving the Anaheim Ducks a 30-day window in which to negotiate exclusively with him before he joins the Leafs, errrr, becomes a free agent. [Ducks Blog]

• Rick Dudley has left the Toronto Maple Leafs for the Montreal Canadiens as an assistant GM. Tim Wharnsby of CBC on Dudley's mixed results. [CBC Sports]

• Joe Haggerty breaks down a Rick Nash the Boston Bruins scenario: "Fact: The Blue Jackets are asking for too much for Nash at this point. This hockey writer can only see the superstar winger coming to Boston if Columbus is willing to take on Krejci or Tim Thomas in exchange for their franchise cornerstone. That may or may not happen." [CSNNE]

• Glendale councilwoman calls Canadians interested in the Phoenix Coyotes' relocation "poachers." Mark Spector pounces. [Sportsnet]

• John Tortorella on Game 6: "I thought we were on our heels, and you have to give credit to Jersey, too, a little bit, for putting us on our heels. But I think as we've been going here, I think entering tonight's game we're in the right mindset and that's going to be very important for an important game." [NYDN]

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Trending Topics is a column that looks at the week in hockey, occasionally according to Twitter. If you're only going to comment to say how stupid Twitter is, why not just go have a good cry for the slow, sad death of your dear internet instead?

Things are going exceedingly well for the Los Angeles Kings lately.

They're in the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1993, when they needed four or five Hall of Famers (depending on if you count Rob Blake, and I do) and a virtual All-Star team to get there. They got there by beating the first-, second-, and third-seeded teams in the West. They beat them all with alarming ease, winning 12 of 14 games in a run of terrible efficiency not seen since the 1988 Edmonton Oilers won a Cup in 18 games.

They have done all of this despite suffering from something that would have ripped apart most teams' chances like a bird going through a jet engine, and brought considerable shame on the parties responsible.

Namely, two of the team's three highest-paid forwards haven't been especially good in terms of putting points on the board.

Mike Richards and Jeff Carter have a combined 20 points in 14 playoff games. That includes only eight goals, three of which came for Carter in Game 2 against Phoenix. Not great totals for two guys who combined are making just over $11 million against the cap, especially when Dustin Penner and Justin Williams both have comparable point totals (both of them having more than Carter's mere nine).

The narrative has been that this has been a season in which they proved their doubters wrong because they're not actively being detrimental to their teams, as they apparently were in Philadelphia, but that they need to pick up their individual games. And they could probably do that if not for the fact that Darryl Sutter is positively burying them at every opportunity.

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• John Tortorella, when asked how he was going to get his forwards going on Tuesday: "Pray." He then read an excerpt from his memoir on a trip he took around the world after splitting from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

• By the way, in case it wasn't clear that John Tortorella's sense of humour is lacking, on Wednesday morning he made it clear that he was joking about prayer and retracted the joke. [NHL]

• No hearing for Dustin Brown for his controversial collision with Michal Rozsival. [LA Kings Insider]

• Brandon Dubinsky returns to the Rangers' lineup for Game 5. [Newsday]

• Showing some much-needed attention to the Devils' relatively anonymous blueline. [NJ]

• An argument for shaking up the New York Rangers' lines by removing Carl Hagelin from the top unit: "Hagelin is currently playing top line minutes with the Rangers two most skilled forwards, and ha exactly zero goals to show for it. That's no goals and just three assists in 18 games so far this postseason. No matter which way you look at this, it's unacceptable to have a top line player with zero goals in 18 games. At some point, changes need to be made." [Blue Seat Blogs]

• Jaroslav Spacek claims he might have retired at the end of the year if he had finished it in Montreal, and rips the Canadiens hockey operations team, from the bizarre rules for the players to the total lack of communication. "'So much bad stuff,' Spacek said. 'In my 20-year hockey career, I'd never seen anything like it. If you don't like the way I play, kick me in the ass. But no one said anything. It was terrible.'" [Montreal Gazette]

• Another major step towards the Phoenix Coyotes staying in Arizona was taken after the team was eliminated last night, as the Glendale City Council voted to approve a preliminary budget that includes $17 million to the prospective buyer of the team for operating costs for the city's Jobing.com Arena." [Winnipeg Free Press]

• The Wild have signed 2010 first-round pick Mikael Grandlund to his entry-level contract. He announced the deal himself in a video on the Wild's website. [Wild]

• Michael Arace on the American invasion in the NHL. [Blue Jackets Xtra]

• Alex Semin cuts his forehead on his gold medal, which is a very enigmatic thing to do. [RMNB]

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Why are the Los Angeles Kings in the 2012 Stanley Cup Final?

Because the two drunk, locker room cancers helped set up a lazy fat-ass for the game-winning goal.

At least that's how it would have been framed about eight months ago, when the narratives about Mike Richards, Jeff Carter and Dustin Penner had defined them as players. The first two were banished from the Philadelphia Flyers, ostensibly for cap relief in the pursuit of a No. 1 goaltender (or, failing that, Ilya Bryzgalov) but mostly for a culture change in the dressing room.

Penner, meanwhile, was (a) a waste of salary compared to production and (b) out of shape and (c) lazy to the point where his general manager suggested he might be better off playing for the El Cid Lounge in a men's softball league.

In overtime of Game 5 in the Western Conference Final on Tuesday night, Richards won the faceoff near the defensive zone. Slava Voynov moved it up the boards, and Penner kept the puck alive in the attacking zone on the forecheck, sending a nifty backhand pass to a streaking Carter. He fired the puck off of Phoenix Coyotes goalie Mike Smith with Richards causing chaos on front of the net, helping to clear the slot for Penner to fire home the rebound over Smith's glove. With that, the Kings were headed to the Cup Final.

This trio was maligned and decried for the better part of 2011-12. Yet it was this Dry Island of Misfit Toys that has the Kings four wins away from the first Stanley Cup.

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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.

• Claude Giroux's beer pong adventures are rightfully getting attention on this lovely Tuesday, but it's the double-casted topless cornholing that we're sure a segment of our readership is more interested in. Playoffs leading scorer indeed. [Crossing Broad]

• In case you missed it, the Los Angeles Kings' snarky infographic about being confused with the Sacramento Kings was hilarious. [Kings]

• PK and Malcolm Subban talk race and hockey with Complex. And also, the ladies. Who "pulls the most ladies" in the Subban family? PK says: "Wow, well definitely me. I'm the oldest, I have the most experience, and I'm the best looking. I've been told that on numerous occasions, numerous. Now that doesn't take anything away from my brothers, Malcolm is good looking and Jordan's a good looking guy, too. I mean they are related to me so they get a little bit of the looks. But right now I have to say I have the most experience. I'm a veteran when it comes to that, they're still learning. They have lots of potential. They're like first-round picks right now in the game, they still have to develop." [Complex]

• Coach Bob Hartley's Zurich Lions are ready to bid him adieu as he returns to the NHL. [Swiss Habs]

• Speaking of the Lions, that's where Ryan Shannon of the Tampa Bay Lightning will be for the next three years. [SB Nation]

• What kind of grade would Ville Leino receive for his effort with the Buffalo Sabres? [Die By The Blade]

• In which Shane Doan compares the Phoenix Coyotes' plight to Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail. [Arizona Sports]

• This is so strange: An entire column written about embellishment in the playoffs and how it needs to stop, without a single mention of Mike Smith's flopping. Oh, Arizona Republic you say? Well then. [AZCentral]

• Look, we don't like to judge, but embezzling $144,000 from a Youth Hockey Association is a sort of [expletived] up. [Cap Times]

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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.

• You're probably seen Zdeno Chara's tribute to Pavel Demitra by now, but here's Slovakia's Branko Radivojevic rocking a tribute T-shirt after their semifinal win over the Czech Republic at the Hockey World Championship in Helsinki.

• NBC audiences were down over the weekend for the conference finals. Lepore: "Saturday's Rangers-Devils game drew a 1.3 overnight rating, down 13% from last year's Game 4 between Boston and Tampa Bay. It may have been hurt by the early timeslot, or the fact that there was a huge dip in ratings in the lone local market, New York. Game 3 drew a 4.2 in the Big Apple, well down from the 6.2 for Game 1 on the NBC Sports Network.  Sunday's Game 4 between the Coyotes and Kings drew a 1.1 overnight, down 15% from last year's Game 4 between the Canucks and Sharks, which was a 2-1 series, as opposed to the 3-0 lead the Kings had heading in. The game drew a series high 2.7 in Los Angeles." [Puck The Media]

• Henrik Lundqvist on the New York Rangers fans that invade the Rock: "We always have played there in Newark. It's one of the things that makes it special to play these types of games, play New York teams.  We have a lot of support, and talked about
it earlier, a couple days ago, when you see the way that the fans react to things that happen during the game or even the results, it's exciting." [Rangers Rants]

• Looks like Stu Bickel will move up to forward to replace the suspended Brandon Prust. [Slap Shot]

• Larry Brooks believes the hate-o-meter is slowly seeing the needled move on the Rangers and New Jersey Devils. [NY Post]

• Sports Business Journal is reporting that the Detroit Red Wings have settled on a designer for a new 18,000-seat arena to replace the Joe. [Detroit News]

• Jim Rutherford, President and General Manager of the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that the team has agreed to terms with defenseman Jamie McBain on a two-year contract. The deal will pay McBain $1.7 million in 2012-13, and $1.9 million in 2013-14. [Hurricanes]

• They signed Bobby Sanguinetti and forward Nicolas Blanchard to two-way contracts, too. [Canes Country]

• Zach Parise is a free agent … risk? "It is very likely that he will elevate whichever team signs him in the short run, but as teams weigh the idea of making him an offer, they need to keep in mind the distinct possibility that he will underperform this contract in the near future and eventually become an anchor on the team's salary cap finances." [NHL Numbers]

• Bear killin' David Booth has a friend in Ted Nugent. [PITB]

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Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

It's possibly the greatest bit of investigative journalism conducted since Woodward and Bernstein brought down Richard Nixon.

This exemplary, collective effort of sleuth work is currently ongoing in Los Angeles, Calif., where an entire media market has unearthed the NHL's shocking secret:

The city has a professional hockey team.

Over the past week or so here at Puck Daddy, we've tried to document every startling discovery made by the intrepid Los Angeles media, like how to properly pronounce Anze Kopitar's name (it's hard because he's from Bosnia or something), the real name of this Drew Doughty character (it's actually Brad!) and that hockey is in fact not played with a ball, but rather a little piece of rubber known as a "puck." That last one makes me pretty uncomfortable because of the word it rhymes with. ("Duck" — sorry, I just don't trust 'em; they have weird beaks).

Just how villainous is this team, operating as a sort of sporting sleeper cell? They got all the way to the Western Conference Finals without one local noticing. That takes real criminal talent. And not only that, but, the NHL had the diabolical idea to hide it right under the Los Angelinos' noses, by having their home games played at the Staples Center. You know, where the Lakers play. Further, they named the team the Kings to intentionally confuse even the savviest media organization into thinking they are the NBA's Sacramento Kings.

Astonishingly devious stuff. More twists and turns than the Da Vinci Code, which I've read three times just to make sure I understood it all.

The best bit of this journalism on this pressing issue comes, of course, from the city's paper of record, the Los Angeles Times, winner of 44 Pulitzer Prizes since 1942, including three in 2012. It was for that towering beacon of journalistic excellence that columnist Chris Erskine successfully scruted several of the team and sport's most inscrutable mysteries.

For instance, that thing I said earlier about the puck (again, yuck… oh and that's another gross word it rhymes with), I learned it from Erskine. Apparently they even freeze the thing. And that's a huge point of concern, because, "The hardest shots can reach 110 mph and tear flesh, crush bone, even kill you if you're not careful." Yikes, you guys!

(Coming Up: Rick Nash to Boston?; Tororella defends Prust; Ryan Suter faces his future; Evegni Malkin is having a pretty good season; why Lundqvist is King; why the Capitals can't win with Ovechkin; the Islanders know how to party; Canucks might keep Luongo; Ryan Miller on the CBA; Flames and Oilers coaching news; and are the Kings in trouble?)

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The Rangers' three-goalie system of Lundqvist, Girardi and McDonagh watches the play develop at the other end.

Winning the Stanley Cup Final is as much about overcoming attrition as it is about overmatching your opponent. Often times, a team's ability to minimize fatigue and damage in Rounds 1-3 can determine the outcome of Round 4.

This in mind, I worry about Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh.

Tortortella's Fellas block a lot of shots, and Girardi and McDonagh lead the way in this regard. The duo combined to get hit by 387 pucks during the regular season -- 4.7 per game -- and they've picked up the pace since, averaging a combined 6.3 shot blocks this postseason. Girardi's blocked 54; McDonagh's blocked 53. The third-ranked postseason shot-blocker is Willie Mitchell, with 39.

This is a lot to put the body through.

But Girardi and McDonagh's issue goes beyond simply racking up the contusions. They also play nearly half the game. Both are up over 460 minutes already this postseason: Girardi has played 465:03; McDonagh has played 461:21, a full 30 minutes more than Marc Staal, the third-busiest postseason skater.

Let's put this into further perspective.

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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.

• Look, JGL: "Inception" was the bomb. You were Han Solo in "500 Days of Summer." You probably become Batman when Bane breaks Bruce Wayne's back (/speculation). But please do not wear the Lakers gear to the Kings game. That said, feel free to wear the Kings gear to the Lakers game, if there are still going to be Lakers games this spring.

• The Ryan Suter watch begins next week. Hold on to your butts. [Malik]

• Shea Weber on Alex Radulov's quasi-suspension in Round 2 for the Nashville Predators: "You feel a little bit betrayed, but I am sure he feels bad about it now and he looks back on it and wishes it didn't happen. Those are the things you can't take back and we've got to move forward." [Examiner]

• Pekka Rinne on Radulov and the curfew issue: "It didn't affect as much as media made it seem like. The way I see it, Radulov joining the team mid-season affected the atmosphere more than the incident that happened in the playoffs." [On The Forecheck]

• Milan Hejduk is back with the Colorado Avalanche for one year and $2 million. Says Dater: "Yeah, I'm a little concerned about where/what Hejduk's role might be. I mean, it's a little worrisome to think he'll be relied upon perhaps as a top-six forward. And yet, would he really be effective on a third or fourth line? Those are questions Joe Sacco will have to grapple with next season." [All Things Avs]

• Great work here by Nick Cotsonika on burgeoning New York Rangers star and rookie sensation Chris Kreider. [Y! Sports]

• Ryan Callahan says his left hand isn't injured, despite blocking a shot with it back in the Ottawa series. [NYDN]

• Darryl Sutter, on the growth of Los Angeles Kings forward Dwight King: "Growth?" Sutter said. "He's still 232 (pounds). After games, he's 228." [LA Kings Insider]

• Kerry Fraser on embellishing players in the postseason: "The Conference Finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs is not the time for the referees to strap on the six guns in an effort to clean up embellishment in Dodge. The refs must however, ramp up their radar and if any doubt is created in their mind as to the legitimacy of a foul, then I would suggest they keep their arm down and play on. I also hope they will seize every opportunity to enforce obvious embellishment by calling a penalty (whether as a 'stand alone' penalty or a coincidental minor when embellishment occurs as the aftermath to a legitimate foul)." [TSN]

• John MacKinnon torches the Edmonton Oilers for firing Tom Renney. "This move — anticipated as it was — was a long, slow slap in the face to a coach who deserved better. If you're the incoming man, it would be wise to at least ponder the fashion in which the Oilers will ultimately dump you. That might help you decide whether you want to accept the job in the first place." [Journal]

• David Staples does much the same: "My bottom line on Renney? He  earned a new deal. He made a few big miscalculations, but much more was going right than wrong under his direction." [Cult of Hockey]

• From Black Dog: "The Oilers are like the opposite of that and maybe this should be their master plan. Howson has already destroyed Columbus. Maybe Messier can take over the Rangers and Prendergast can move to Chicago. Let Tambo move back to Vancouver and Buchberger coach the Avs. Let them go forth and multiply and take their special brand of incompetence to the rest of the league, like the Black Plague, destroying franchises as they alight from their private jets, just as flea ridden rats destroyed cities as they swarmed ashore from ships manned by infected doomed sailors." [BDHS]

• Ellen Etchingham on the Los Angeles Kings: "These Kings, they just look so brilliant. So clearly and completely and definitively ass-whoopingly eye-catchingly heart-liftingly brilliant. They play the way I'd always hoped a Cup-winning team would play. They play like they are actually so much better than everyone else that they (*gasp*) deserve to win. There's still a part of me that can't wholly believe they're for real. There's a part of me that's still tensed for the inevitable fall. But, nevertheless, I hope. I would like to see a team take the Cup this decisively, in less than twenty games. I want to see a juggernaut victory." [Backhand Shelf]

• Alex Ovechkin was named the 11th most marketable athlete internationally in 2012. [Alex Ovetjkin]

"A finalized lease agreement with a potential Phoenix Coyotes buyer has yet to emerge publicly but a Glendale City Council majority appears poised to approve a $17 million fee to operate the city-owned arena." [AZ Central]

• Hopefully, when Daniel Alfredsson says he may have played his last competitive game, he means all 82 games next season for the Ottawa Senators (plus playoffs) are blowouts. [Senators Extra]

• Finally, the New York Mets all wore hockey jerseys on their road trip to Canada. Expected to see more Islanders sweaters, given that both franchises have been living off the glory of the 1980s for decades… (Kukla)

Jersey Fouls is our ongoing exploration of the rules and etiquette for proper hockey jersey creation and exhibition. If you spot what you think may be a foul in your arena, email a photo to us at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com for inclusion in future installment.

Well, this was bound to happen.

Perhaps no other athlete has been defined by a particular food item like Los Angeles Kings forward Dustin Penner has been with pancakes. At least not since David "Morning Kegger" Wells of the N.Y. Yankees.

Ever since he was "injured" while eating a stack of pancakes, Penner has been associated with flapjacks and has been more than willing to embrace the meme for a good cause.

John Hoven (aka The Mayor) passed this along before Game 3 of the Western Conference final. Foul? Well, yes, but we respect someone for using the official (or close to official) nickname of a player.

But for the record: We're not sure how a couples' jersey in which the other one reads "MRS. BUTTERWORTH" would affect the acceptability of the original jersey.

(Coming Up: God-awful Devils/Rangers FrankenJersey, and another one from Dallas; the Jets celebrate return of hockey and beer; Danny Briere Fouls; and a rather offensive Flames fan.)

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