The NHL 2009-10

As the puck drops on another National Hockey League season, we find the Pittsburgh Penguins as the defending Stanley Cup champions.  They're favored to repeat, if you listen to the myriad puck pundits out there, which would be quite a feat since there hasn't been one back-to-back Cup winner in more than a decade.

Otherwise, how are things in the NHL?

• There will be a break in February so some players can compete for their countries at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  Which means Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals should take place prior to Canada Day and the Fourth of July.
• This may or may not be the last year for the Phoenix Coyotes.  The team filed for bankruptcy, and a judge is currently deciding whether to award the franchise to either Jim Balsillie (who would move the team to Hamilton, Ontario) or to the NHL (who would sell the team to someone who would keep it in Phoenix).  Wayne Gretzky did himself and his reputation a favor by resigning as coach and part-owner.  With so many struggling franchises in places where snow and ice are just a rumor, why does the league insist on staying in these places?
• For those of you with DirecTV subscriptions, you'll notice that the satellite provider is no longer carrying Versus, which happens to be the main American cable outlet for the NHL.  It's for the same reason why NFL Network had such difficulty getting seen until recently:  A contract dispute between DirecTV and Comcast (Versus' owner), which both sides blame the other for while subscribers aren't getting a channel they're already paying for.  This has got to concern Commissioner Gary Bettman, because the NHL has enough problems with getting people to watch their product.  There are alternatives beyond watching your local team's telecasts.  If you don't have enough cash to afford the league's Center Ice package, there's always NHL Network, which has a slate of live games from Canadian networks.  Or you can wait until January, when NBC resumes its Eastern Conference game of the week.  Other than that, pray that this thing gets settled before the playoffs begin.

Here's who we think will still be playing in April.

Eastern Conference  New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, New Jersey Devils.

Western Conference  Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues, San Jose Sharks, Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, Columbus Blue Jackets.

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With Marian Gaborik now playing for the New York Rangers (groin permitting) and Jacques Lemaire coaching the New Jersey Devils once again, it's a new era for the Minnesota Wild with a new coach (Todd Richards) and a new general mamager (Chuck Fletcher).  There's also a couple of new players, though not the big free agent names Fletcher originally wanted.  So he ended up with Martin Havlat and Petr Sykora.

The new regime has promised a more up-tempo style that was missing in the defense-oriented days of Lemaire, but old habits die hard.  For the first time since the franchise began, the Wild are in danger of not selling out the Xcel Energy Center for every game this season.  Blame the economy if you want, but this team needs to deliver on its promise or else they're not going to the playoffs again.