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.
• Sidney Crosby was photographed laughing. The Pensblog unleashed the awesome power of its fully armed and operational battle station of Photoshoppers, with incredible results. [The Pensblog]
• It's never too early to start handicapping the 2012 free agent field. [Calgary Sun]
• Kyle Quincey's in, but Nicklas Lidstrom remains out for the Detroit Red Wings through the weekend. [Detroit News; Winging It]
• The good news for JVR is that he survived the trade deadline and remains with the Philadelphia Flyers. The bad news is that he won't be playing with them for 4-6 weeks. [Broad Street Hockey]
• The premiere of Saskatchewan says that talks about an NHL team coming to Saskatoon are premature but that "if Winnipeg can do it, I like our chances." If Saskatoon gets a team, Hartford should secede from the U.S. and proclaim itself a Canadian territory. [CTV]
• Interesting piece by Bruce Dowbiggin on the speed of news and the amount of hockey information traveling on Twitter. Bob McKenzie: "But the immediacy of Twitter, society's acceptance of getting the various pieces of a story fed to them bit by bit as they become apparent, has become the norm. I mean, it's almost like we're doing play-by-play of news stories now, as opposed to waiting for one final, finished product with a bow on it." [Globe & Mail]
• Look, if we're going to have a proper goalie fight this year, then Ray Emery vs. Robin Lehner may be our last great chance. [QMI]
• Nice piece by Cam Charron on the decline of fighting in juniors. [Buzzing The Net]
• Brandon Worley of Defending Big D chronicles the vile nonsense spewed at Eric Nystrom on Twitter after this hit on Kris Letang, and how the Dallas Stars forward handled it with class. [Defending Big D, and our previous piece on Nystrom]
• From the "maybe this will be as good as a trade department, Simon Gagne is skating again with the Los Angeles Kings, as is Scott Parse. [LA Kings Insider]
• Katie Baker on the trade deadline. [Grantland]
• A Minnesota response to Kent Wilson's "stats guys vs. Cinderella" piece. [Hockey Wilderness]
• The Tampa Bay Lightning deal with life without Vinny: "When that will happen is not quite certain. Boucher said on Tuesday that in a best-case scenario, Lecavalier might be back in 10 days. But Lecavalier said on Friday that there is no timetable. He said he does not have pain doing day-to-day things. But there is some pain when he grips his stick and he has trouble in general gripping anything." [Lightning Strikes]
• Eric Duhatschek on Erik Karlsson's Norris chances: "Plus-minus is a flawed statistic in some respects, but Karlsson's improvements there are dramatic as well - he was a minus-30 last year, he is plus-15 as of Friday morning. All in all, you'd have to think that if Karlsson can keep up this level of play over the final quarter of the season, the voters will be unable to overlook the impact he's had on his team, even if defensively, he remains a work in progress." [Globe & Mail]
• Steve Lepore reviews "Goon". [Puck The Media]
• Did the Minnesota Wild trade for Tom Gilbert in an attempt to gain favor with Ryan Suter and/or Zach Parise? [Wild Puck Banter]
• "Andrew Ference is a day-to-day situation, said Claude Julien. Ference suffered a lower-body injury in last night's win. Julien has not ruled Ference out of tomorrow's game." [Bruins Blog]
• Barry Trotz faces lineup decisions for the Nashville Predators. [Examiner]
• So wait, Dale Hunter isn't a woefully inept NHL coach? "But that the atrocious puck possession numbers that in many ways defined the first two months or so of Dale Hunter's tenure behind the bench have, at least temporarily, turned around is nothing if not encouraging as the team makes its playoff push. Hopefully it's a sign of things to come." [Japers' Rink]
• "The wife of Montreal Canadiens Hall of Fame center Jean Beliveau told the Montreal Gazette on Thursday that her husband is making great progress after suffering a stroke on Monday night." [NHL.com]
• Ellen Etchingham on fan support: "Here is the truth: as a fan, there is absolutely nothing you can do to affect your team's fortunes. You are powerless. Perhaps you should be powerful, since it is in fact your money and your interest that keep the game going, but that power is a horribly blunt instrument that can never be used to effect any specific or detailed changes in the team. It's the hockey-influence equivalent of a kill switch. Maybe, with enough indifference or enough hate, you could destroy the team. But you can't improve it." [Backhand Shelf]
• Finally, on today's Marek Vs. Wyshynski, we talked about hockey bloopers. And I had forgotten this one. Via TC: "Has to be from an old Canucks vs. Flames game... Dion Phaneuf dropping the gloves, trips and flies through the air landing on his butt as Jarkko Ruutu calmly steps onto the bench. Add in Greg Millen's (I think it's him) cackle on air and this is just priceless!"