This one's making the rounds, but just in case you missed it:

Pretty sad. I feel bad for Scotty here, actually, as his good deed turns into something real ugly. Would love to know who the parties here are and what they thought was happening.

Wyshynski has more.

More photos » by Mark Avery - AP

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All right, all right, I cave. I've been asked for these figures so often that I pulled them together while watching the Leafs cough up a hairball against the 'Canes to gain the title of worst in the league.

These figures come from individual teams' game notes and are from prior to their latest game:

So, how do these figures compare so far?

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"It was not blown dead. It was a goal. The guy never meant to blow the whistle; it was a shot. The puck went in on a shot. It was as dumb as anything I've ever seen."

— Red Wings coach Mike Babcock

Boy, it's hard to fathom just how something like that even happens. How can Toronto call down during the game, talk to the referee and let that bogus decision stand and help decide the outcome?

Anytime there's an injustice against the Red Wings, you better believe Bill at Abel To Yzerman is the man to seek for your outrage, and he doesn't disappoint on this one:

...it’s almost impossible to believe Toronto missed it.  If they didn’t, if they overturned it, could LaRue have simply ignored them out of sheer embarrassment?  Not likely, but something idiotic happened.

And nothing will be done.  Nothing.  LaRue, of course, is one of Gary’s best.  A ref in last year’s Stanley Cup Final, so you know he has to be good, right?

There should be some fallout from this, or at the very least an official statement from the league. It's about as bad a bungling as I've ever seen.

In cased you missed it, there's been a switch-up at SBN Hockey: We've got a new GM moving in as I'm stepping into a Silver Fox like advisory role to let Brandon Worley of Defending Big D take over.

Building up SB Nation's hockey wing the past 13 months has been a blast. We went from five or six blogs and a platform few NHL fans knew about to now having 33 sites and every team well represented. Some sites, like Japers' Rink, are huge communities, something that's a credit to the bloggers' hard work more than anything I ever did.

You look at the list of the top 30 hockey blogs over at BallHype and all but five are here at SB Nation.

I'm very proud of that, and very proud of all the progress we've made since last year. The network's on a steep curve upwards, and it's a bit disappointing that I'll be more of a passenger going forward. But the fact of the matter is that the NHL side of the network has grown so much and so fast that it really needs a caretaker who's plugged into everything SBN's working on, and as my responsibilities at The Globe have grown the past couple months, it became obvious I couldn't give Job No. 2 everything it needed.

Brandon, a rising star in the NHL blogging world, can — and he'll do great at it.

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More photos » by DAVE CHIDLEY - AP

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The Globe's David Shoalts has an update on the Phoenix situation, and tucked in at the end is a reference to a recent comment made by Sharks co-owner Kevin Compton, something that has as far as I know yet to make the rounds online.

Here's the full excerpt from SportsBusiness Daily:

Compton said Research-in-Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie should be an NHL owner and called the Coyotes fiasco a "joke." Compton said, "Jim loves hockey. Jim's got a lot of money. Jim's got a lot of passion." Compton said he was "100%" certain Balsillie will be an NHL owner in the future. When asked why the owners were locking out Balsillie, he said he did not know. He added, "Owners aren't."

Meanwhile, Compton said that the NHLPA turmoil reflected the distance between older players who are hardline labor advocates and younger players, who are paid well and don't always understand what the union does. He added, "They (the union) have to figure out a way to bring value to the young players." He added that they have not done a good enough job explaining what the union does for them. On the news that Don Fehr will be assisting the NHLPA, Compton said, "I've had better days than when I read that." He described Bettman negotiating with Don Fehr as something that would make "good television."

Yowza. Something tells me there needs to be more tape recorders on when this man speaks. And that perhaps Mr. Compton has a stern lecture on the way.

The Sharks, of course, were one of the 26 teams who voted against Balsillie's purchase of the Coyotes, likely because of all the nastiness surrounding how he was attempting to land a team. But it makes you wonder: Do other owners feel this way? Is Compton a loose cannon or offering a legitimate analysis of the situation when he says "owners aren't" the ones standing in the BlackBerry billionaire's way?

And, if so, does it matter?

That's Henrik Andersen of Leksand in Sweden's second tier league with a celebration that doesn't go quite as planned.

More photos » by Graham Hughes - AP

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There is approximately $180 million worth of players injured right now. (I’m talking either LTI or just out for a few games. That’s more than 10 per cent of each team’s available cap space.)

— Elliotte Friedman, HNIC

It's a long list, there's no doubt, and you can't help but wonder if the condensed schedule is to blame. The quarter-way mark in this season is coming up on Friday, and there are an awful lot of bodies banged up.

Don't be surprised if more than one team ends up in extreme cap trouble by April as a result.

A great example of just how big the injury ward is this season is in Pittsburgh, where the Penguins are without their top four defencemen. They somehow pulled out a 5-2 win against the Ducks on Monday with this top six (ranked by ice time):

Mark Eaton: 27:09
Martin Skoula: 18:39
Deryk Engelland: 18:33
Ben Lovejoy: 18:30
Jay McKee: 16:39
Nate Guenin: 14:42

Had to look up a couple first names there... and that ain't good.

Teams like Edmonton, Vancouver and Detroit are just as beat up, and I've gotten more emails the past two weeks asking for man-games lost to injury figures than I can ever remember.

It's getting to the point that health, more than any other factor, is going to determine a lot of the playoff seedings this year.

More photos » by RYAN REMIORZ - AP

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The numbers tell a story of one of the most effective power forwards of his era, but really, they only tell the beginning of the story.

When Brendan Shanahan made his retirement official Tuesday, he went into the NHL history books No. 11 in all-time goals (656) and No. 23 in all-time points (1,354) – credentials usually associated with a first ballot Hall Of Fame player.

— Eric Duhatschek, The Globe and Mail

"While I always dreamed of playing in the NHL, I can't honestly say that I would have ever imagined that I'd be this fortunate and blessed. I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has helped me fulfill this dream."

— Brendan Shanahan

There goes yet another player that makes you feel like its the end of an era, even if he never won the scoring race or a playoff MVP.

Heck, Shanny has won but one NHL trophy, the King Clancy six years ago, but that doesn't make a whit of difference in how big of an icon he became in the game — right up there with Brett Hull, Steve Yzerman and a whole bunch of other guys that played on those stacked Red Wings teams.

And if you ever find yourself in Mimico, Ontario, they whisper his name there like he's the holy one himself.

Even though he's left the ice, I'm sure we'll see plenty of Shanahan in NHL circles for years to come.

More photos » by Matt York - AP

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It was a fun summer, picking through bankruptcy documents, arguing with a few hockey fans from Phoenix and, in the end, watching as Jim Balsillie retreated yet again after failing to get an NHL hockey team by any means necessary.

In the interim, there's been news — mostly just attendance watches, really — but what we haven't heard is that the documents just keep rolling in and the arguments being heard. Judge Redfield T. Baum, at this point, is probably wishing he had never heard of this woebegone hockey team.

They're up to 1,109 filings now, with many of the latest surrounding the team's troubling lease agreement. Commissioner Gary Bettman went to Glendale on Monday to talk to the city about finding new ownership that can fix what ails the lease, something that won't be an easy task:

Glendale leaders have been open to talks, but maintained the city would not forfeit revenue it uses to pay off its $182 million arena investment.

The commissioner said he did not expect the NHL would be the one to re-negotiate the lease.

"I don’t envision it as necessary for us to be negotiating, but a new owner will have to be satisfied," he said.

Getting to that point is going to be interesting.

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More photos » by Nathan Denette - AP

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I had the chance to take in the Leafs-Flames game here in Toronto, a contest that was essentially over 10 minutes in after a couple iffy goals. Jonas Gustavsson had his first really tough night in the crease, allowing three goals on five shots before he was chased from the crease.

More on that here, for those that are interested in a two-day old game story.

The only positive on the Leafs side of things, at least according to Ron Wilson, was the play of newcomer Carl Gunnarsson — an apparently late-blooming seventh rounder who made his NHL debut. I didn't know anything about the kid, but he did play for Sweden at the worlds back in the spring and reportedly was very strong in training camp.

I don't think many seventh rounders get 21 minutes ice time in their first game, but so it was on Saturday. Given his stats over in Sweden, I can't fathom why he was on the power play for four-plus minutes, but Wilson's got something in mind with him I guess.

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