Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Mike Cammalleri, F (FA-LA); Rene Bourque, F (Trade-CHI); Curtis Glencross, F (FA-EDM); Todd Bertuzzi, F (FA-ANH)

Who's Out: Kristian Huselius, F (FA-CBJ); Owen Nolan, F (FA-MIN); Alex Tanguay, F (Trade-MTL); Curtis Joseph, G (FA-TOR)

What's Changed: The backbone of this team hasn't been touched. 50-goal scorer Jarome Iginla is still the rock of the offense. Cammalleri should help bolster the Flames' top line, and Daymond Langkow is expected to remain the center. The signing of Bertuzzi is an interesting one for the Flames. Calgary has plenty of tough guys, and Bertuzzi struggled mightily at times last year in Anaheim. He did stay healthy for 68 games and tallied a not-terrible 40 points, but he still has a penchant for really dumb and irresponsible penalties.

While I know Mike Keenan wants a tough hockey team (hence the decision to let Tanguay and Huselius go elsewhere), I can't imagine he'll be happy watching Bertuzzi take a dumb penalty late in a close game. Unless Bertuzzi starts playing smarter hockey, it's not destined to go well for him.

Every Thursday, Earl Sleek will conspire with his pen and scanner to bring you another installment of PuckToons. Hopefully you will find these amusing, relevant, well-drawn, or you're a person who is tolerant towards mediocrity.

With NHL training camps opening up in little more than a week, a few teams are still looking to shed salary to get under the $56.7 million cap. A week ago, Dan Wood of the OC Register Duck's Blog posted a list of overcommitted teams, which includes the Anaheim Ducks, the Calgary Flames, Chicago Blackhawks, Philadelphia Flyers, San Jose Sharks and Washington Capitals. "The amounts in question range from a few hundred thousand dollars to as much as $4.5 million."

Now I'm not really an expert on the CBA and the salary cap, which is entering its fourth season in the league (don't turn to your cartoonist for technicalities), but I do know there is a Long-Term Injury allowance that lets teams temporarily outspend the salary cap while a player is unable to dress.

While I fully expect that the teams in question this summer will fix their salary issues through traditional means (trades and expensive demotions), I do wonder what the future has in store for spend-happy general managers. Will they ever get to the point where a budget-dictated surgery becomes a cap-cheating strategy? It's unlikely, I suppose, but if it ever does happen, I hope they'll now cut me in on the cap savings.

For those who follow the goings on in the financial markets closely, the recent rally in the US Dollar in terms of the trade-weighted index was quite an event, considering the extreme weakness of world's reserve currency over the past 7 years. The blast upwards to 76 on the index has some people proclaiming (and I'm not one of them, mind you) that the Bear Market in the dollar is over:

"This is the watershed week for the US dollar," said Marc Chandler, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. "The magnitude of the dollar's moves and the breaking of key technical levels suggest that a major shift in the outlook towards the dollar is occurring as massive positions are adjusted." Other analysts described the widespread buying of dollars as "capitulation"

One might be wondering what this has to do with the NHL, and, as the title of this post suggests, the salary cap? Allow me to build my case slowly if you would. Considering that according to this article in the Toronto Star I found at this post by my old blogging buddy the EclectEcon over at the Sportseconomist.com, the driving force behind the >10% rise in the salary cap for each of the past two seasons was the strengthening Canadian Dollar:

The increase in the value of the Canadian dollar may be responsible for as much as half of the league's revenue gains since the NHL went through the lockout of 2004-05, say several sources familiar with NHL finances.

"If you take out the Canadian teams, which have done so well since the lockout largely because of the Canadian dollar, the league's revenues are actually only growing at a 2 per cent clip per year," says an executive with a U.S.-based NHL team, who requested anonymity.

With the Loonie averaging near parity with the $USD over the past year and having broken down out of the box formation that held it in check between $1.02 and $0.97US for the past 9 months to its closing price as of this writing to $0.938, there is a real possibility of a contraction in league revenues due to this breakdown of the exchange rate.

Minor League Baseball has long had a tradition of quirky gimmicks, such as signing a celebrity or former star to a one-day contract, or giving out toilet plungers, to entice people to attend their games..

The Golden Baseball League's Calgary Vipers are the latest to jump on that trend as they announced their newest celebrity signing: ex-Calgary Flames/New York Rangers Star Theoren Fleury. I guess that proposed Reality TV show never panned out (what a shock).

Theo is one of the great sportsmen of Calgary and we are thrilled to have him with the team," said Calgary Viper's President Peter Young. "He's an incredible athlete and while we anticipate that his time as a Viper will just be these three days, you never know what can happen in this wonderful game."

What can happen in three days? Hmm ...

One unknowing pitcher decides to bean the former hockey star, causing Fleury to charge the mound and a massive on-field brawl to ensue. Fun for the whole family!

Fleury realizes that he's barely taller than a Keebler elf, and decides to utilize a squatty batting stance, ending up with Fleury getting on base with four straight walks. Eddie Gaedel, eat your heart out.

While running to first base, Fleury bodychecks the first baseman, starting another massive brawl. Baseball needs more bodychecking!

Fleury strikes out in every at bat (most likely).

When the Ducks bit the bullet and bought out the final year of Todd Bertuzzi's inflated contract, I wondered what team would actually take a chance on the guy and be suckered into a bad deal. If Brian Burke got sick of the guy, who else would want him?

Well, it appears that the Calgary Flames have bit the bait, and signed Bertuzzi to a free agent deal worth $1.95 million.

"Todd is a proven scorer with the ability to play both wings," Flames general manager Darryl Sutter said in a release. "He expressed to us that he wanted to play in Canada and that desire along with signing him to a one-year deal was important to our philosophy. He wanted to play on a good team and it fit our money. Additionally, our captain, Jarome Iginla, was a strong supporter of Todd and wanted him on our team."

As much as I dislike Bertuzzi, I will say that this is actually a solid signing for the Flames. They haven't committed much for Bertuzzi with just a one-year deal, and $1.95M for an offense-minded forward, albeit one with many liabilities, is not too pricey for a guy who scored 40 points last season, and is easily capable of more.

The Flames are giving Bertuzzi the chance and the incentive to put up some bigger numbers, and you have to figure that Bertuzzi will fit in well with his old mentor, Mike Keenan. I wouldn't bet on a BIG season with Bertuzzi, but the big slug ought to be reasonably expected to put up 50 points with the Flames.

The NHL Free Agent signing period kicked off a little more than an hour ago, and for the most part, what we've seen so far is teams making deals in order to clear some cap room. Here's a quick rundown of what's been confirmed so far:

The Edmonton Oilers dealt Raffi Torres to Columbus for Gilbert Brule, and also acquired Erik Cole from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for defenseman Joni Pitkanen. Click here for details. Meanwhile, Carolina also signed ex-RSL defenseman Anton Babchuk.

Tampa Bay snagged winger Radim Vrbata away from Phoeinix.

The Anaheim Ducks signed winger Corey Perry to a contract extension.

The Calgary Flames obtained Rene Bourque from the Chicago Blackhawks.

The Red Wings have re-signed defenseman Brad Stuart.

Pat Lackey already wrote about Evgeni Malkin, but the Penguins also re-signed Pascal Dupuis.

The Devils re-signed Jay Pandolfo and Bryce Salvador, but said goodbye to Sergei Brylin.

First thoughts: The Brule deal with not be welcome in Edmonton, but the Cole deal is solid. I'm guessing with Vrbta signed the Lightning are done dealing with Brian Rolston, but you never know. And Chicago may be clearing the decks for a big signing.

Stick with us throughout the afternoon. I'm sure plenty of agents are pondering some big numbers right about now.

Is it too hot for hockey? You may be right, but until the cold weather returns, welcome to The Bag Skate, FanHouse's afternoon roundup of everything that's happening on a typical offseason weekday.

Today's primal scream comes from the guys at Melt Your Face Off, who have penned an open letter to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman in wake of the news that a small knot of his own owners engineered a loan to help a penniless businessman -- William "Boots" DelBaggio -- boost a piece of the Nashville Predators.

Did I forget to mention that they did it behind Bettman's back?

HOW DO YOU LET THAT HAPPEN? You are the commissioner for a top-flight sports league in the most industrialized nation in the world. You are supposedly the most powerful man in your sport. Now, you claim that while owners are lending each other money to keep the franchises in their own little AllTel Circle of Friends, you thought everything was hunky dory?

"Most powerful man in your sport?" Come now, everybody knows that Brian Burke is the most powerful man in the NHL. Just ask him.

That being said, the very moment when Bettman discovered this little bit of chicanery has to be marked as the low point in his tenure at the top of the league. It's one thing for everyone fan in the world to use you as a human punching bag, but it's another thing entirely when the very men who hired you to do the job don't trust you enough to let you know what they're doing.

Here's a new feature I've been resisting for a while here at FanHouse, but with the offseason upon us I feel as if we have no choice. Welcome to The Bag Skate, FanHouse's afternoon roundup of everything that's happening on a typical offseason weekday. Why The Bag Skate? Because it's Summertime and you'd probably rather be doing just about anything else than writing about hockey with weather this beautiful. Now, might one be able to say that we're swiping this idea from elsewhere? I'd prefer to call it an homage.

The head turner of the day has to be Rick Westhead's stunner in the Toronto Star revealing that LA Kings owner Phil Anschutz and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold were the money men behind William "Boots" Delbaggio's purchase of a stake in the Nashville Predators. What's worse, Leipold and Anschutz, who both sit on the league's Board of Governors and are considered allies of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, made this $17 million loan without informing him about what they were up to. I wonder why?

Just when I thought the season was over, they keep pulling me back in!

Ok, enough of channeling Al Pacino in a movie all serious fans of cinema would like to forget. The NHL is back, if only for a night, with its annual awards presentation. From what we've heard so far, it's looking like a huge night for Alex Ovechkin, who is fully expected to walk away with both the Hart and Pearson Trophies.

Still curious? Well, be sure to tune in to Versus/CBC tonight at 7:00 p.m. U.S. EDT. In the meantime, we convened a short FanHouse roundtable to discuss the big four awards: The Hart, the Norris, the Vezina and the Calder.

The sound you're hearing is of Calgary Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf cashing another large check now that he's agreed to appear on the cover the EA Sports' NHL '09 video game. The videogame giant made the announcement earlier today:

"It is an incredible honor to be named to the cover of NHL 09," said Phaneuf. "I've been a really big fan of the franchise for as long as I can remember and am looking forward to being the face of the game this year, particularly because of the significant improvements that have been made to the defensive game and the new checking engine."

Not to doubt Phaneuf's evaluation of the game, but the fact that continues to impress me about EA Sports and their hockey product was the fact that it correctly predicted the outcomes of each and every first round playoff series this season.

Those guys must be doing something right.

Another interesting note: While Phaneuf might be the best vehicle to move product in North America, that's not the case in Europe. In Sweden, Ottawa's Daniel Alfredsson will grace the cover, while the Russian version will sport Alex Ovechkin. I'm sure many of you will recall that Ovechkin was on the cover of NHL '07, quite a coup for a player just coming off his rookie campaign.