first period

What team beat writers are saying early this afternoon: Stanley Cup Final Sergei Gonchar believes the Wings have been lucky. Might be motivating for Detroit but it's true nonetheless. Everyone else The league's general managers will be meeting in Pittsburgh. Expect some trade ideas to be exchanged in advance of this month's draft. Zdeno Chara has been nominated for the Mark Messier Leadership Award. He's up against Crosby and Iginla. I really have no problem with any of those three winning. Amid all the action yesterday, I forgot to post the fact that Calgary has opted to keep its first round pick this year, so the Coyotes now possess the Flames' 2010 first round pick. This means that either the Flames think they will be better this season than next, or the draft class is stronger. I'd guess probably a bit of both. Mike Heika comments on how well Les Jackson has handled the movement in the Stars' front office. He really has been the epitome of class. Garth Snow says he has not looked to trade down in this year's draft. He may be, but he sure wouldn't tell us. What team bloggers are saying Abel to Yzerman is not happy with the Pittsburgh apologists out there. Fair enough; but the Wings are still lucky to be up 2-0. On Frozen Blog thinks the controversy over back-to-back games was overblown. It may have been, but it still didn't really make any sense. The pace of Game 1's first period and Game 2's were night and day. Now with three games in four days, I expect tonight's play to be solid but it'd be better if the finals were every other day.

On the Beat: Gonchar says Wings have been lucky