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 Green Men really have unleashed Hell on Earth for hockey fans. Here is the Tampa Bay Lightning's Cowboy Gray Man from Game 6 in all his glory. And by that we mean there's entire too much of his Victor Hedman in his image.
• The Lightning will not have Sean Bergenheim for Game 7 … or will they? [Lightning Strikes]
• Kings GM Dean Lombardi with perhaps the greatest assessment of trade deadline bust we've ever read: "Dustin is at the crossroads of his career," Lombardi wrote in an email to Sporting News. "He can choose to use his athletic ability to either become a dominant power forward in the National Hockey League or be a dominant number four hitter for the El Cid Lounge in a men's softball league — the choice is his." [Sporting News]
• Rudy Kelly takes the logical next step and assembles the Los Angeles Kings beer league softball team. [Battle of Cali]
• Previewing the AHL Calder Cup Finals between the Houston Aeros and the Binghamton Senators. [Star Trib, Houston Chron]
• Kerry Fraser, Wayne Gretzky, Doug Gilmour and why it still hurts 18 years later. [PPP]
• Former Rochester Americans hockey player Sean McMorrow is fighting a charge that he "conspired to transport more than 100 kilograms of marijuana into the United States from Canada" while playing in the AHL. Because they need more weed in Canada? [Democrat and Chronicle]
• Nice Ian Walker piece on Henrik Sedin, who is trying to become the second European born captain to win the Stanley Cup. [Vancouver Sun]
• Proteau believes that it's best for the NHL to keep Gary Bettman off the ice when the Stanley Cup is awarded. What he doesn't tell you is that Bettman actually feeds off jeers like these creatures feed on fear. [THN]
• What, no government handouts for minor league hockey? [CBC Sports]
• Hockey Canada drops the skate on a total ban on contact with the head on hits. From President Bob Nicholson, a suggested rule clarification on existing head-checks: "In minor and female hockey, a minor penalty will be assessed to any player who accidentally contacts an opponent in the head, face or neck with their stick or any part of the player's body or equipment. If the contact is intentional then it's a double minor. In junior and senior hockey, a minor and a misconduct penalty, or a major and a game misconduct penalty, at the discretion of the referee based on the degree of violence of impact, will be assessed to any player who checks an opponent to the head area in any manner. A major and a game misconduct penalty shall be assessed any player who injures an opponent under this rule. A match penalty will be assessed to any player who deliberately attempts to injure or deliberately injures an opponent under this rule." [Globe & Mail]
• Stark assessment of the Edmonton Oilers' management: "If this team is ever going to actually benefit from the rebuild we better hope that the draft continues to turn up nothing but gold because it looks unlikely that management doesn't has even the slightest clue about what they're doing when looking for help in the form of players already playing in the NHL." [Copper and Blue]
• ESPN "Outside The Lines" on Derek Boogaard. [ESPN]
• Our favorite story of the day: The Kellogg's produced, but never sold, Corn Flakes box celebrating the Vancouver Canucks' 1994 Stanley Cup championship. [Go Big Blog]
• An update on the long, long, long road back from concussion hell for David Perron. [St. Louis Dispatch]
• We can only assume the bizarre notion that Brian Lawton drafted Steven Stamkos originated with Brian Lawton. [Raw Charge]
• Down Goes Brown presents a primer for Winnipeg fans on what's happened in the NHL since 1996. [DGB]
• No Thrashers move announcement before Tuesday, per the AJC. [AJC]
• Gary Bettman on the Atlanta Thrashers' move: "We respect the importance of Atlanta as a city. It's a big market, but this is a franchise that's got a problem in that market." [NHL]
• Finally, here's Moises (featuring Oliveira!) with a Boston Bruins-centric cover of "You Be Killin' Em" by Fabolous, complete with Cam Neely shoutout and that funny shirtless Bruins kid. Really slick, good tune.