Offseason winners and losers

Despite a stiff breeze, the
Heatley jersey refused to wave.

With training camp just weeks away and almost all of the summer's player transactions already in the books, it seems like a good time to take a critical look back at the 2011 offseason.

Many teams made headlines over the summer, shaking up their rosters in an attempt to address weaknesses. Other chose to stay pat, tinkering here and there but avoiding major moves. Each team had their reasons for the deals they did or didn't make, but history shows that they can't all be right. So which teams made the right decisions?

Common sense would say that we can't possibly know the answer until the end of the 2011-12 season. But common sense doesn't have to find something to write about during the offseason, so let's start arbitrarily naming winners and losers right now instead.

Winner: Minnesota Wild - Revamped their roster by acquiring Dany Heatley and several other San Jose Sharks, whose well-known penchant for disappearing during long playoff runs is unlikely to ever be an issue in Minnesota.

Loser: Los Angeles Kings - Their continued failure to resign restricted free agent Drew Doughty leaves them vulnerable to the possibility of another team signing him to an offer sheet in an alternate universe where NHL general managers are actually doing everything possible to make their teams win.

Winner: Ottawa Senators - Free agent Zenon Kenopka signed a $700,000 deal and could provide excellent value while competing for the second line center role, which is great news for Senator fans as long as they don't think too hard about what it says about the rest of the roster.

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Hidden NHL playoff injuries revealed

I'm gonna make someone's upper body
bleed for super fan 99 over here.

Injuries are a touchy subject during the NHL playoffs. After a gruelling regular season and the unmatched intensity of postseason action, it's inevitable that many players will be banged up. But good luck getting that confirmed by anyone associated with an organization.

At most, we may hear the old hockey cliché about a player having an injury to their "upper body" or "lower body" -- and that's only if team acknowledges the injury at all. Even when players are obviously hurt and have missed games, coaches still insist that everyone is day-to-day.

Of course, it's a different story once a team has been eliminated. When their season is over and there's no further reason to protect a player's status, teams will often reveal a long list of injuries and other health problems - many of which fans hadn't even suspected.

This year has been no different, as several star players revealed that they'd been playing hurt during the postseason. Here are some examples of what we've found out about each of the eliminated teams.

Washington Capitals - Nicklas Backstrom had various bumps and bruises from everyone accidentally walking into him all the time, which was to be expected given that he became invisible as soon as the regular season ended.

Philadelphia Flyers - In a strange coincidence, all three of our goalies had badly torn rotator cuffs in their "fishing the puck out of the net" shoulders.

Chicago Blackhawks - Chris Campoli was playing through some sort of problem with whatever part of the eyeball it is that's supposed to tell the difference between white and blue uniforms in overtime.

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