A player's guide to NHL free agency

Every decent 2011 free agent: the group photo.

Free agency officially begins today, with hundreds of players available to the highest bidder. Some will strike it rich, while others may be left without a job when the dust settles. But at the very least, most will get a phone call or two from NHL general managers looking to improve their rosters.

The chance to be an unrestricted free agent is no doubt an exhilarating experience for NHL players. But it can also be confusing, and in an era where many players will only get to have the experience once in their careers the risk of committing a unfortunate faux pas is high.

I want to help avoid that. So for those who are new to the process, or who could simply use a refresher, here's a player's guide to the do's and don'ts of NHL free agency.

DO: Feel a sense of pride when a media preview includes you on a list of the most intriguing names available in this year's free agency crop.
DO NOT: Feel any less proud just because they have you tied for second place with "everyone not named Brad Richards".

DO: Instruct your agent to refuse to discuss your status with any team before free agency officially begins at 12:00 ET on July 1, as it's only ethical that you carefully follow all league rules regarding tampering.
DO NOT: Suffer any cognitive dissonance when your agent faxes you a completed 10-page contract to sign at 12:03.

DO: Tell the team you eventually sign a long term deal with that "I'm looking forward to spending the next several years of my career in your wonderful city."
DO NOT: Be surprised by the awkward silence that follows when you say that to the front office from Phoenix.

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Where will Brad Richards sign?

Free agency is just days away, and there's little question about who the big name is. Brad Richards of the Dallas Stars is easily the best player available, and is expected to receive substantial offers from several big market teams. Where will he end up signing? It's all a mystery.

Or maybe not. Fans that have paid attention to recent free agent patterns may already have a sense of how all this will turn out.

In fact, Bloge Salming and I can picture it now...

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Winners and losers at the 2011 NHL draft

I'm not saying it was a weak draft, but at #8
overall the Flyers took a kid with no arms.

This year's NHL draft turned out to be one of the busiest in recent memory. The days leading up to the event saw several blockbuster trades, and the wheeling and dealing continued over the weekend as teams exchanged picks and players.

In between the trade announcements, there was also a draft going on. While most of the 211 players chosen won't make an NHL impact, it's probably safe to say that each team walked away from the weekend thinking they've improved. Of course, only time will tell which ones were right.

How much time? Three days sounds about right. So let's start the evaluation process now, with a look at which teams came out of the weekend ahead and which ones may have taken a step back.

Winner: Florida Panthers - General manager Dale Tallon went into the draft with a roster that was short on top-tier talent and well under the NHL's salary floor, and acquiring Brian Campbell certainly helps with one of those problems.

Loser: Colorado Avalanche - Winger Gabriel Landeskog had been widely heralded as being mature beyond his years, which unfortunately was proven correct fifteen minutes after the draft when he announced that he was retiring to spend more time with his grandchildren.

Winner: Ottawa Senators - By trading for Nikita Filatov, filled that glaring "enigmatic Russian that Senator fans will dramatically over-rate for three games before permanently turning against" void.

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2011 NHL Draft Preview

Drafted second overall? Ha, enjoy
years of finishing in last place, kid.

It's NHL draft weekend, with the first round taking place tonight from the Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota. And while the consensus is that there aren't any surefire superstars in this year's crop of prospects, most experts seem to agree that it's a deep pool of good young players.

In recent months the prospects have been scouted, interviewed, analyzed and subjected to the rigors of the combine. There's been no shortage of opportunity for teams to do their homework, and at this point the teams know these guys about as well as they ever could.

But what about the fans? As we prepare to settle in and watch the intrigue unfold, let's take one last look at some of the prospects who can expect to hear their names called tonight.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Hockey fans should make an effort to get to know this exciting offensive force from the Red Deer Rebels before the draft, since he's probably going to be picked by the Edmonton Oilers and then never heard from again.

Adam Larsson - The Swedish blueliner has been repeatedly compared to Victor Hedman. So watch your back, anyone in this year's draft who has been repeatedly compared to Sidney Crosby.

Johnathan Huberdeau - Raised some eyebrows during the interview portion of the combine when, on the advice of his agents, he spent his entire interview with New York Islanders management nervously denying that he had ever played hockey before.

Gabriel Landeskog - Achieved the top possible score in the infamous Wingate endurance test when, after 30 second of furious pedaling, the bicycle vomited and passed out.

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Offseason to-do lists from around the NHL

If you're going to ruin some team's long-term
cap situation this summer, raise your hand.

While celebrating Boston Bruin fans may want to pretend otherwise, the 2010-11 season is already a fading memory. The NHL schedule doesn't allow much time for dwelling on the past, and all eyes are already focused on next year.

We're just three days away from the draft and ten days away from the start of free agency. That means that just two weeks from today, almost every NHL team will look significantly different than it does right now. That's good news for the majority of teams who expect to be significantly better next year. But how will they do it?

That's where the offseason to-do list comes in. Many teams have already made a list of their summer priorities and determined a plan of attack. I reached out to sources embedded with several teams, and they revealed some of the strategies they plan to be executing in the weeks and months to come.

Ottawa Senators - Meet with scouts and coaches to prepare an in-depth analysis of the various strengths in Craig Anderson's game; work on a detailed action plan for destroying them.

Toronto Maple Leafs - Remember last year when we signed Clarke MacArthur at a discount and he turned out to be a reliable everyday contributor? Just do that another seven or eight times, and we should have almost four full lines next year.

Montreal Canadiens - Communicate to fans that the bar has been raised, the competition is working harder than ever before, and that a few isolated car-burnings just isn't going to be good enough anymore.

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