While the trading away of veterans Tomas Vokoun, Scott Hartnell, and Kimmo Timonen signaled a cleaning of the Nashville Predators' house, and reeked of a ' asset sell off', the Preds have quietly done a good job in securing their premium young players to long-term deals.

First, it was David Legwand, who signed for 6 seasons and $27 million. Now? It's Martin Erat, who was rewarded for his fine playmaking skills with a 7-year deal worth $31.5 million. W00t!

"Martin Erat is a perfect example of this organization's philosophy," Poile said. "He came to us as a seventh-round draft pick, and grew steadily into an elite player when given an opportunity to succeed. He has continued to take on more responsibility and is an integral part of our team moving forward. We look forward to his leadership and production for the next seven years."

As fellow FanHouser James Mirtle notes, Erat is getting paid quite handsomely for a guy who puts up a good-but-not-great 55-60 points a season. Given Erat's upside, he *should* be able to do better in the future, and he has the skills to do so.

Next up for the Preds? Ryan Suter and Shea Weber, the two cornerstone defensemen who will both want similar contracts, and one Dan Ellis, who won the #1 goaltender's job after Chris Mason laid a whole basket of eggs.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

The Detroit Red Wings pushed the Dallas Stars to the brink of elimination last night with a 5-2 win last night in Game 3. The Stars played the Wings fairly close until they gave up a shorthanded goal to Henrik Zetterberg early in the third period. Detroit then put on a passing clinic and allowed Dallas just four shots in the final frame.

Zetterberg's goal was a highlight reel tally as the Red Wing forward took the puck nearly coast-to-coast and beat Brad Richards one-on-one before sending a shot past Marty Turco. The goal made it 4-2 Detroit and was a backbreaker for the Stars. They no longer look like giant killers, as evidenced by the poor backchecking effort by Stephane Robidas and Mike Ribeiro on Zetterberg's goal.

Pavel Datsyuk had a big night for Detroit, notching his first career hat trick as he continues to debunk the myth that he does not show up for the playoffs. Jiri Hudler scored the other Detroit goal. Nicklas Grossman and Brad Richards scored for Dallas.

Whether it's fair or not, my memory of Chris Osgood is always going to be as the guy who spent his entire career losing his job to someone. Early in his career he had trouble wresting the Wings' starting job away from Mike Vernon, then the Wings' signed Dominik Hasek. He went to New York and got moved out to St. Louis for Rick DiPietro. He's since moved back to Detroit and mostly been splitting time, first with Manny Legace, now with Hasek again.

Unsurprisingly, when the playoffs started this year he was placed on the benched in favor of Hasek, despite leading the league in GAA during the regular season. He got his chance partly into Game 3 of Detroit's first round series against the Predators and he's really shone since then, stopping 53 of 54 shots in two and a half games, leading the way today with 20 saves in the Red Wings' series clinching 3-0 win.

It was a little less than a year ago that the NHL suffered through about 72 hours of abject embarrassment after NBC switched away coverage of an Eastern Conference Final playoff game between Buffalo and Ottawa to air pre-race coverage of the Preakness Stakes.

And just a few minutes ago, the NHL dodged a scheduling bullet on NBC that could have been almost as lethal. At 3:00 p.m. U.S. EDT, NBC was scheduled to begin airing coverage of Game Six of the Western Conference quarterfinal series between Detroit and Nashville, with the Red Wings having a chance to clinch the series. Unfortunately. with time ticking down to 3:00 p.m., it was clear that the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am already airing on NBC could very well go down to a playoff.

The final round in Tampa started with Mark Wiebe in the lead, but after posting a final round +5, he fell out of contention as Tom Watson's -1 put him on top of the leaderboard and waiting in the clubhouse. Still, Scott Hoch, playing in the final pair with Wiebe, had a chance to tie Watson on the final hole and force a playoff.

Standing over a put on 18 of about 2.5 feet for par and a tie with Watson, it seemed that a playoff hole was a near certainty. But somehow, inexplicably, Hoch missed the put, giving the win to Watson and giving the NHL a much welcome reprieve. And even though the tournament spilled over past the 3:00 p.m. U.S. EDT start time, NBC still had plenty of time to switch to Detroit to air the opening faceoff.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader jkrdevil for pointing out that NBC announced that any playoff past 3:15 would have been transferred to the Golf Channel. Which, ironically, means that a PGA Senior event would have gotten the same treatment that the deciding game of an NHL playoff series got a year before. Certainly something to think about.

While the Detroit Red Wings steamrolled to the best record in the NHL this past season, everyone outside of Detroit knew that the Wings had one big weakness: Goaltending.

Five or more years ago, the tandem of Dominik Hasek of Chris Osgood would be the very best in the league, and any GM's dream. Now? Hasek is old, has a shredded groin, and can no longer be counted on to be 'money'. Osgood, who is also rather ancient, is going to have to step in to bail out Hasek and the Wings as the hungry Preds show some life.

Osgood bailing out Hasek? Whoda thunk it?

Tied 2-2 in this best-of-seven series there's a sure sign that it's playoff time in this so-called Hockeytown.

As they do each spring, the faithful have aimed the fickle finger of fate directly at the guy in the Detroit net.

This time, they might even have a point.

Dominik Hasek wasn't very good in either loss at Nashville which brought this series to its current slate. Pucks are leaking through him. Long shots are eluding him.

The fact that Hasek hasn't done very well should not be a shock to anyone. Yes, Detroit's airtight system helped Osgood and Hasek put up some amazingly low GAA's, but great defense can only go so far.

If I were Mike Babcock, I'd put Osgood in as the #1 until he absolutely bombs. Despite my own personal lack of faith in Osgood's netminding, he's been far better and far more dependable this season than Hasek.

Hasek: 41GP 90.2SV% and a pukey 88.8 SV% in these playoffs
Osgood: 43GP 91.4SV%

While Wings fans will claim that they have two solid goalies, I'd have to disagree. Hasek has been struggling for most of the season, and hardly looks like he has the mentality and physical ability to 'bring it' when the Wings needed most. At the very least, the Wings have won a cup with Osgood as their netminder, and The Wizard of Oz seems rather unflappable under intense pressure.

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Don't tell the Nashville Predators they're done. The Detroit Red Wings looked set to take a 3-0 stranglehold on the first-round series, leading Game Three 3-2 late in regulation. It looked pretty bleak for the eighth-seeded Preds, but nine seconds later, things suddenly looked better.

Ryan Suter and Jason Arnott put consecutive pucks past Dominik Hasek to put the Predators in front and Martin Erat added an empty-netter for a 5-3 win in Nashville. Instead of facing elimination tomorrow night at home, the Predators have a chance to even the series against the President Trophy Wings. A little advice: if you're watching, you might not want to blink. Red Wings lead series, 2-1.

(After the jump: Go ahead and tell the Ottawa Senators they're done, and the Avs/Wild salute to overtime continues)

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Well, if you're with me at this point that means you have made it through night number two of the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs. And what a night it wasn't. Of course, if your team won it was a great night but for the rest of us whose team either lost or didn't play ... Not so much.

Angel on my left shoulder: Kevin, you can't rain on their parades. It's the playoffs gosh darn it! This is what we crave. This is what it's all about. If you don't like this time of year, then you're a bad person ... Or just not a hockey fan. You get my point.

Devil on my right: Is this guy serious? #@$&! The Islanders are out of it. Who gives a crap. If these games aren't entertaining, then I'm not watching. You're right, Kevin. Screw it.

Me: Guys, I think you're both right. It's hard to care if the Isles aren't in it, but on the other hand, at least there's a good chance I'll get to see the Devils and Rangers have their hopes crushed. The Bruins made it this year, too. Maybe we'll get to see Mike Milbury cry on national television. Angel's got a good point. This is what hockey fans live for. If you don't like it then you're probably a communist baseball fan. I'm so torn. You're both right.

Angel: Well, maybe we could all go watch Everybody Loves Raymond. Everyone likes that show.

Devil: Seriously? That guy is a tool and his show is a joke.

Angel: He's cool! He's from New York like us!

Me: Hey! Hey! Everyone just calm down! Can't you see I'm in the middle of doing The Ice Sheet? I need to get this done for Friday morning.

Angel and devil: Sorry.

Me: OK. I'm sorry I had to put you, the reader, through all that. Regardless of how you feel about last night, there was a lot going on around the NHL, so let's get to it!

For all the rest of our previews, click here.

The 2002 Detroit Red Wings were the last team to win the Presidents' Trophy (best regular-season record) and the Stanley Cup in the same season.

The 2008 Red Wings have the task of duplicating that feat. They start their run to a Cup title with a first-round series against division rival Nashville. On paper, this appears to be a mismatch, but we all know that hockey games aren't played on paper. It would be too hard on the skates.

The Red Wings are still heavy favorites, but is this a slam dunk?

There was a curious line this morning in Jack Todd's celebration of Montreal's regular season conference championship: "Claude Julien has every reason to coach for revenge, and he should give Guy Carbonneau a battle for the Jack Adams Trophy." The curiosity doesn't come from Julien's name being associated with coach of the year honors, as he willed an injury-plagued and offensively challenged Bruins team to the postseason. Rather, it comes from the notion that Carbonneau is the prohibitive favorite for the Jack Adams.

Like many others, I was completely wrong on Carbo's abilities as a head coach prior to this season. His system matched the personnel to perfection in Montreal, and his decisions regarding that personnel were uniformly correct. Winning the East when The Hockey News has your team 13th in the conference before the season is no small feat. Carbonneau's peers have acknowledged this: TSN polled 27 of 30 NHL coaches, and 11 of them cast their lots for the Habs bench boss:

Guy Carbonneau, Mon 11
Mike Babcock, Det 7
Bruce Boudreau, Was 2
Claude Julien, Bos 2
Barry Trotz, Nas 2

According to the coaches, the Jack Adams Award appears to be as much a non-competitive slam dunk as we assume the Hart Trophy will be now that Ovechkin's in the postseason. But other cases can be made in this race; and all due respect to Carbonneau, they're pretty damn compelling.

When the NHL strong-armed former Nashville Preds owner Craig Leopold not to sell his club to Jim Balsillie's shiny head, quite a few Canadians fans and journalists were rather upset at the league's blatant attempt to deny Canada a seventh NHL club.

Not only did the NHL obviously not want a team to move from the American South up to the loving arms of The Great White North, but the nearby Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres weren't too keen on Hamilton sucking away fans from them, either.

Those two teams can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the Canadian government won't step in any day soon.

The NHL's policies "further legitimate business interests, such as preserving team rivalries, attracting a broader audience, and encouraging investment in sports facilities by local municipalities," the Competition Bureau said in a statement.

The regulator said it started the inquiry because media reports raised concerns about whether the NHL had engaged in "anticompetitive behavior," after Balsillie last year signed a letter of intent to buy the Predators. Balsillie didn't end up buying the team.

Further legitimate business interests and preserve rivalries? Sure ... who does Nashville have a rivalry with, exactly?

As much as I believe certain NHL teams would be better off if they moved to Canada, the free-market economist in me believes the NHL is in the right.

Why shouldn't the NHL, which is a privately-held, closed (minded) organization, be allowed to choose where it wants its teams located? If the NHL stubbornyly wants to keep teams in weak markets and attempt to lure in new fans, that is their prerogative. Anyone looking to get into the NHL ownership loops knows this, and shouldn't expect the government to bend the league's rules for their own interests.

So, the Maple Leafs are free to ensure the league doesn't put a team well within the Greater Toronto Area, and the NHL has even more ammunition in its fight to deny Canadian hockey fans a chance for another team. All Hail Commissar Bettman!