After posting back-to-back shut-out losses, Sens fire head coach John Paddock. General Manager Bryan Murray fills in.

Well, you something had to give. And in this case it was NHL head coach John Paddock. Considering the Ottawa Senators got off to such a great start (15-2), they’ve been slip sliding away ever since, winning just 21 or their last 47 games. The last two were particularly brutal — a 5-0 loss against Toronto and a 4-0 loss against Boston. Also turfed was assistant coach Ron Low. Double ouch.

“It’s always a surprise when a coach gets let go,” center Jason Spezza told reporters. “We’ve been struggling, but as a team I don’t think we thought it would come to the coach getting fired.”

“It just shows the high standard we have in our dressing room, the city of Ottawa, and that our owner has. It shows how competitive a team they think we have.”

General Manager Bryan Murray will resume coaching duties until a new head coach has been hired. Even with Paddock gone, the Sens are 6/1 odds to win the 2008 Stanley Cup.

If you were given the responsibility of putting together the greatest NHL hockey team of all time what would the roster look like? The players would be their fresh, young selves, at the peak of their careers, and for those that are now dead and gone…well, they’d be alive again.
Think about it. In the meantime here’s our list:

1. Wayne Gretzky
2. Mario Lemieux
3. Bobby Orr
4. Maurice Richard
5. Gordie Howe
6. Dominik Hasek
7. Doug Harvey
8. Guy Lafleur
9. Scott Stevens
10. Mark Messier
11. Patrick Roy
12. Bobby Hull

With the second half of the regular season under way here then is a preview of which teams will be separating themselves from the rest of the pack:

1. Detroit: Having already set a franchise record for points in the first half of the season the Red Wings are strong Stanley Cup contenders.
2. Pittsburgh: Crosby and Conklin continue to work wonders with their team.
3. Calgary: Iginla continues to show why he should win this years MVP.
4. San Jose: Boring to watch, but tough to beat.
5. Philadelphia: Are the Broad Street Bullies back?
6. Ottawa: On par with last season’s run.
7. New Jersey: Contenders but they need to pick up their pace.
8. Vancouver: Luongo continues to inspire this team towards the finish line.
9. Montreal: No regulation losses since Christmas.
10. Nashville: Strong play against teams in the superior Western Conference.

The early buzz for the Hart Trophy is on Sidney Crosby and Roberto Luongo, with Nicklas Lidstrom thrown in for good measure. But there’s a guy out there named Vinny Lecavalier who just can’t seem to get his due.

In 2006-07, Lecavalier led the Tampa Bay Lightning and the league with 52 goals. But Crosby won the Hart after winning the Art Ross Trophy with 120 points (36 goals, 84 assists). Alan Ryder’s Player Contribution rankings had Lecavalier first at 135, while Crosby was in sixth place at 123.

Lecavalier is having yet another brilliant season in Tampa. At press time, he was two points ahead of Crosby for first place in scoring at 63 – that’s after just 45 games. But the Lightning are buried on the back pages and desperate for some goaltending. Crosby is getting the star treatment; he should eventually eclipse Lecavalier on the ice, but for now, don’t believe the hype.

Games played at indoor venues don’t have nearly as many environment-based variables (weather, park configuration and so on) to bring to the betting table as outdoor games. The Winter Classic gave ample proof of that, as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres inched through the snow at Ralph Wilson Stadium. But some of the ice surfaces in the NHL make Buffalo look pristine by comparison.

Warmth comes at a price. The ice in most of the Sun Belt arenas looks like it came out of a Slurpee machine. The Staples Center in Los Angeles deserves extra scorn because the Kings share the venue with not one, but two NBA tenants: the Lakers and Clippers.

Or you could go to Edmonton, where the average daytime temperature in January is 11 degrees Fahrenheit. This is where you’ll find Rexall Place and what is widely considered the best ice surface in the NHL. Maybe the league should expand to Nunavut.

Did the NHL’s Winter Classic boost it’s profile with the U.S. sports-viewing market? That’s debatable. While the 2.6 rating NBC pulled for the “Snow Show” in Buffalo was a pleasant surprise- in fact it was a 12-year high for a sport that has long resided in T.V.’s outback in the U.S.- it was perhaps, more than anything, seen as a spectacle or curiosity by the casual American viewer. Certainly not enough of an attraction to get people fully on the band-wagon. But maybe enough to persuade them to watch the occasional indoor ice-rink game.
Personally I could use an outdoor classic once a year as opposed to every other year- and forget about staging the games in Canada, which has a long and venerable tradition of outdoor hockey- let’s keep the spectacle going in the U.S., which needs to be exposed more to the greatest game in sports. That being said, here are our picks for the best venues, with seating capacity, for staging the next outdoor classic:

1. Yankee Stadium, New York (57,545)
2. Fenway Park, Boston (39,195)
3. Wrigley Field, Chicago (41,118)
4. Comerica Park, Detroit (41,070)
5. Coors Field, Denver (50,445)
6. Texas Stadium, Irving, TX (65,812)
7. Heinz Field, Pittsburgh (65,050)
8. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, (56,000)
9. Lincoln Field, Philadelphia (68,532)
10. an outdoor stadium somewhere in Europe- perhaps Sweden.

Yes, it’s awfully early in the year to be calling the NHL champions. But we do this for a reason: to praise the Detroit Red Wings as clearly, overwhelmingly, the best team in the league this season.

Every once in a while, you get a team that has it all: goaltending, scoring, team defense, youthful energy, veteran savvy, depth and smart coaching. Detroit has these things in spades. The Red Wings were at the top of the league standings at press time at 31-8-3, going 22-20 against the spread and avoiding the chalk monsters at 12.36 units in the black – third-best in the NHL behind upstarts Boston and Columbus.

The Red Wings have a goal differential of plus-1.38. Ottawa, the best team in the Eastern Conference and a favorite to return to the Stanley Cup finals, is far behind in second at plus-0.83. And this dominant performance by Detroit is coming out of the superior Western Conference. Game over.

Those of us who have artificial ice coursing through our veins are looking forward to making a mint on the NHL futures market. But you don’t have to be a puckhead to make a sharp hockey bet once the football season is over. Consider these five possibilities for 2008:

Detroit to win the Stanley Cup: The Red Wings are outstanding at every position, two deep in net, and have steamrolled the competition thus far.

Ottawa to win the Eastern Conference: The Senators had a little dry spell there, but are back on track and clearly the beasts of the East.

Nicklas Lidstrom to win the Norris Trophy: Nearly as automatic as when Bobby Orr was in his prime.

Alexander Ovechkin to win the Maurice Richard Trophy: Heating up, and so are his linemates.

Denis Savard to win the Jack Adams: Having Patrick Kane on your team makes you look pretty smart.

The hockey world is upside-down. Boston and Chicago don’t suck. Only six teams are below .500. And Sidney Crosby is on pace to score 110 points this year, down from 120 last year.

The flattening of the NHL standings throws the field of potential award winners wide open. Tampa Bay’s Vincent Lecavalier leads the league with 51 points and is carrying the injured Bolts on his back; the Hart Trophy should be his if voting were held today.

Chris Osgood’s Lazarus impersonation will earn him the Vezina if he keeps things rolling in Detroit. Teammate Nicklas Lidstrom is so good on defense (27 points, plus-17 in 32 games) that they should rename the Norris after him. The Calder will be a tough pick between Chicago’s Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, who may split the Blackhawk vote and allow Atlanta defenseman Tobias Enstrom to take home the hardware. But Kane plus Toews does equal Jack Adams for Denis Savard.

Forget it. Vincent Lecavalier may just be leaving Crosby in the dust as you read this.

The Tampa Bay Lightning centre has 45 points in 29 games and is showing no signs of easing off.
“Once you start scoring, it seems like you can really see the net,” Lecavalier said on an NHL conference call. “But, you know, if you go three, four, five games (without scoring), you get to squeezing your stick a little bit, obviously you see the goalie a lot bigger. It kind of goes both ways.”

So far Lecavalier has been able to hold off defending Art Ross Trophy winner and Pittsburgh phenom, Sydney Crosby, as well as Henrik Zetterberg of the Detroit Red Wings.

The kid can scrap too. Earlier this year Lecavalier made hockey headlines when he dropped the gloves in back-to-back games- something Gretzky could only of fantasized about.