You could say Ryan Miller is the one of the NHL's "faces" given his prominence in league marketing efforts.

There's no doubt he is the face of the Buffalo Sabres, and were he not a goalie, Miller would be a fine choice to be team captain. Even without the "C" though, Miller is the undoubtedly the leader in Buffalo, the guy who isn't afraid to stand up for the team.

To me, that that became evident before the season when Miller took part in a league-sponsored conference call. The question about the impact of losing Daniel Briere and Chris Drury came up, and Miller who had been asked about it umpteen times since training camp began, lashed back aggressively and defended his team by saying there was a lot more to it than the dynamic departed duo.

"I don't think that they defined the team completely," Miller said at the time. "They did a lot for us, but we also did a lot for them."

It was a comment that had a little more sting than those usually delivered by hockey players, and it came to mind after Miller posted a 32-save 1-0 shutout in Florida on Thursday. I asked him about the young players on the Sabres who had to replace the offense of Briere and Drury, and Miller got a little protective of his guys while taking a slight shot at the former teammates.

"Chris Drury came in hot to Colorado, but when he went to Calgary, he didn't fit in quite well enough," Miller said in a tone similar to his earlier conference call. "He had to learn and come here to be a go-to guy. Same with Danny.

"He was up and down in the minors with Phoenix and wasn't ever really called on, but he came here and got a chance to be the go-to guy. The thing is we have a lot of guys who are way younger than Chris and Danny were when they came to the Sabres to play in those same roles. Our guys have been great trying to learn those roles."

Sounds like Miller has already learned his.

The way I see it, the best part of the NHL All-Star Weekend always takes place off the ice because the host city ends up swarming with agents, general managers and players from every team in the league. Nearly all of them seem to be in pretty good moods, too, because everyone here understands that the actual game is really only secondary, an excuse if you will for the sponsor- and fan-driven festivities.

And those haven't been bad as far as these "hockey celebrations" go, although the various events do not seem to have captured the fancy of folks in Atlanta, which is also playing host to its 60th consecutive International Poultry Expo. That's a pretty big deal here -- 25,000 hotel rooms were booked for it, compared to fewer than 7,000 for the NHL event -- so for the hockey types, the real fun comes from the gossip. And there's been no shortage of it here in Atlanta leading up to Sunday evening's game.

Part of that has to do with the dominance of rumor-fueling media from Canada, but with the trade deadline less than a month away now, and so many teams still in position for the playoffs, this is a natural place for wheelers and dealers to set the foundations of a trade in place even if swapping during the season has become increasingly difficult since the salary cap was imposed.

But everyone's talking and willing to talk, though rarely for attribution, because when the deadline approaches there is a natural compulsion for teams to do something. That's why there is a widespread belief here that hometown favorite Marian Hossa's days as an Atlanta Thrasher are numbered.

I blogged about that Saturday because as a pending unrestricted agent who is an elite offensive player, Hossa could attract several teams. So would Toronto captain Mats Sundin, who doesn't have a contract that extends beyond this season either, only a no-trade clause that he hasn't yet been asked to waive. Still, that hasn't stopped the sense that the Maple Leafs would do just that even among the players.

Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson, for example, was openly speculating during media day Saturday about his fellow Swede joining the Senators before the deadline, while another Swedish captain, Detroit's Nicklas Lidstrom was suggesting that Ottawa could be a landing point as well.

There are a couple of other names being tossed around because there is a sense that Tampa Bay has to do something about its payroll and because Rangers defenseman Marek Malik insulted his coach Tom Renney after a game, making it likely he will be go elsewhere pretty soon. And then there is the saga of Buffalo defenseman Brian Campbell, who has decided to put off new contract talks with the Sabres until the season is over.

Still Campbell, who will probably bump up his annual salary by at least three times the $1.75 million he makes this season, made a remark about the next move being up to the team during his scrum Saturday, which seemed odd since he also said he didn't want to think about it right now.

And that doesn't bode well for Sabres fans, who watched the team dither with Daniel Briere and Chris Drury last season and lose them both when they became unaffordable on the first day of free agency. Those I've spoken with were generally of the mind that Buffalo would at least try to salvage something by trading a hot commodity like Campbell.

But the most intriguing gossip around these days comes once more out of Toronto, yet again about something off ice. In fact the debate about how and if the Maple Leafs can seduce Anaheim general manager Brian Burke to take over the team's operations is a subject many people in the hockey world have an opinion about, even while the Ducks' apparent new rock star insists he has no intention of leaving his current job.

But when the owner of Anaheim says he would not stand in Burke's way, it's doesn't help the subject go away.

"Do you," Ducks defenseman Chris Pronger responded when asked if he believe Burke would ever leave, before trying to lighten the tone of the discussion by joking he had heard his boss had a five-year deal in Toronto. "A couple of us were talking last night, it was all set up."

Then he paused and got serious for moment.

"It's a better question for him. I don't know what goes on in the mind of Brian Burke."

Neither does anyone else here, and that's also part of the fun.

ATLANTA -- While I give the NHL credit for trying something new at the this year's All-Star skills competition, the breakaway event that was supposed to emulate basketball's slam-dunk contest in a judged shootout format turned out to be a dud and should be put away for good.

Some of the players did their best to make it work, but feeble attempts by the various participants to score after skating in backwards, flipping the pucks between their legs or even going down to their knees made you wonder what the point of it all was. If you're going to showcase hot-shot talents doing their things, you gotta at least make sure they get the results you are looking for.

Not in this case, though, because of the more than a dozen shots taken by the six players involved, only one by Washington's Alex Ovechkin turned into a goal and even that wasn't his most creative move. Ovechkin scored on Detroit's Chris Osgood with a nice fake, but couldn't connect when he tired to flip the puck into the air a couple of times with his stick and then failed to swat the puck home.

"I never practiced that," Ovechkin said.

Maybe he should have, although the effort was still a lot better than some of the standard and unsuccessful shootout moves that earlier skaters like Pavel Datsyuk made. So in essence, the most anticipated part of the evening failed to live up to the hype. But it wasn't a total bust, which things have tended to become over the years.

There was always a little excitement generated by the hardest shot competition and that actually generated a little drama because Boston's Zdeno Chara won it on the last shot with a howitzer that was clocked at 103.1 miles-per-hour and edged out the 101.9 miles-per-hour blast that Tampa Bay's Vinnie Lecavalier had a few moments before. And there was a little humor mixed in as well when Calgary's Jarome Iginla completely missed the net on one of his shots.

"I'm still not sure how that happened," he said. "It's a little embarrassing."

Less so this year was the YoungStars game, which has generally been the most unwatchable part of the proceedings over the years. The format was changed slightly to go 3-on-3 with no stop time or faceoffs in two six-minute periods, and while you had to feel for the defensemen who had no chance of covering enough ice, this little exhibition had some neat moments with both teams continually connecting smoothly on long outlet passes that led to breakaways.

"I think the thing is everyone is here just to have fun," Iginla said. "And sometimes you have to try different things."

Even if they don't really work.

ATLANTA -- Because of the intense daily coverage surrounding the Toronto Maple Leafs, you might be tempted to think that their captain Mats Sundin is the going to be the most sought-after prize as the trade deadline approaches.

Sundin, who is enjoying some days off during the All-Star break, would certainly be in great demand if Toronto got him to waive his no-trade clause, but the player who will likely bring the most suitors from team’s looking for a big offensive boost happens to be here in Atlanta.

The thing is, Thrashers forward Marian Hossa doesn’t really know for how long.

“Right now I just want to enjoy this weekend, but I’m ready for anything,” the Thrashers All Star said when asked if he expected to be traded. “I know it could happen, but my main goal is to re-sign in Atlanta.”

Funny, that’s what Thrashers coach and GM Don Waddell has been saying for months about the pending unrestricted free agent. But Hossa admitted the two sides haven’t exchanged numbers and there have been suggestions that Hossa really doesn’t want to stick around for the long term.

Hossa hemmed and hawed when I asked him about that, but he acknowledged that the trade deadline only a month away, the team is running out of time to avoid losing a star for nothing.

“Whatever happens, happens,” Hossa said. “Definitely, it’s on my mind but I’m trying not worry about it.”

It's all about being warm and fuzzy for players here at the All-Star weekend so it's not all that surprising that Vinnie Lecavalier and Jarome Iginla can laugh about the memorable scrap they had during the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals.

Tampa Bay's Lecavalier and Calgary's Iginla are battling for the league scoring title this season and they are the captains of their respective conference teams for this game, but when they opened media day sitting side by side at a brief conference, the hot topic was the "fight" between two skilled players who aren't supposed to engage in that kind of activity.

"I got a lot of rib shots," Lecavalier recalled with a smile.

The Lightning star got in his blows as well and his team went on to win the series in seven games, but nearly four years later, there is no lingering animosity between the two.

"Off the ice is different, you respect each other," Iginla said. "Our (2004) team was a physical team, we tried to push them out of games and we couldn't, so sometimes you respect the most some of the guys who play the hardest against you. It's not personal."

OK, but who won the fight?

"Um," Iginla hesitated. "It was a draw."

"Yeah," added Lecavalier.

Get the feeling there are a lot of general managers around the league rubbing their hands in anticipation now that John Ferguson Jr. has been fired by the Toronto Maple Leafs?

It's not because anyone takes any pleasure in what the Leafs did. In fact, I would suspect there is near universal disgust among former colleagues at the way Toronto let Ferguson twist in the wind for so long before making the move. You can make some valid criticisms about Ferguson's results in five years at the helm, but there was no reason for the organization to emasculate him the way they did, particularly because the people in the ivory tower deserve as much, if not more blame for what has transpired with the franchise over the last few seasons.

But the business of hockey being what it is, people look ahead and when it comes to the Maple Leafs, it is apparent a shakeup is coming ... especially with the trade deadline looming and former GM Cliff Fletcher back in the driver's seat for Toronto, at least on an interim basis. In other words, the next few weeks could be very busy and interesting for GMs around the league.

Fletcher had a mixed record when he was in charge of Toronto back in the 1990s, but if nothing else, he has always been known as a bold trader and the Leafs certainly need some bold action to change things up. And if Fletcher lives up to his reputation, he'll act quickly and decisively, which should cause a chain reaction around the league that has seen the art of the deal become almost non-existent this season.

Fletcher won't be trying to salvage a season that is already lost for Toronto, but he will be trying to obtain assets for the future, and to do so, he'll have to clear some of the excessive salary the Leafs have tied up in non-productive players for next season. Toronto has some $40 million in contracts committed to current players for 2008-09, which is about 80 percent of its salary space, so look for Fletcher to get extremely creative in moving some of that dead weight.

His biggest bargaining chip of course is captain Mats Sundin, who has a no-trade clause, but if Fletcher gets him to waive it, he'll force contenders who lost the sweepstakes to react the way they always do, by making moves -- often in panic -- of their own.

And that's something everyone can get excited about.

It's easier for people to move past their personal differences once they realize there's something in it for them if they do.

Take Calgary Flames coach Mike Keenan and veteran goalie Curtis Joseph, for example. The two of them have a history together from their days in St. Louis and it isn't particularly pleasant, because the coach effectively ran the player out of town back then.

That wasn't the first or last time Iron Mike has alienated a player, and Joseph isn't the kind of guy who forgets slights. He proved that in a Toronto ceremony after the 2002 Olympics when he refused to shake hands with Pat Quinn because the Canadian coach benched him following the first game at Salt Lake.

But now Joseph and Keenan need each other, so they've pushed the past aside and joined forces hoping to bring a Stanley Cup to Calgary.

See, Joseph is 40 now and not quite ready to call it a career, but he is obviously past his prime and therefore not in great demand. In fact, after being release by the Phoenix Coyotes last summer, Joseph was left unemployed for half a season and had to take part in a Christmas tournament in Europe to prove he still had some gas left in the tank.

Joseph was actually very good for Canada at the Spengler Cup and he attracted interest from a few teams before settling on the Flames for a prorated one-year deal worth $1.5 million. Of course, Keenan had to extend an olive branch -- grudgingly perhaps -- but it landed him a backup goalie who will help everyone in Calgary sleep a little easier at night, knowing the team won't go down the tubes if starter Miikka Kiprusoff gets hurt.

Nothing personal against Curtis McElhinney, the latest in a recent series of goalies drafted by Calgary who have failed to shine, but the rookie backup did little to inspire much confidence on a team that believes it has a real shot at winning it all. But if the goaltending falters, all bets are off -- and that's where Joseph comes in.

Joseph has been a quality NHL goaltender and, if nothing else, he'll be able to spell the workhorse Kiprusoff, who has started all but one game this season. Kiprusoff is the go-to guy in Calgary, but he's had several less-than-stellar moments this season for the Flames and having Joseph around to potentially challenge for the No. 1 job might push him.

That isn't a bad thing either for the Flames.

If the Ottawa-Detroit game Saturday was really a Stanley Cup Finals preview, I'm thinking the show in June should be pretty good.

The Senators and Red Wings are fun to watch because they usually try to win games instead of trying to avoid losing them. It's not a common approach in the NHL anymore so their only meeting of the season Saturday figured to be one of the highlight's of the season. And it was with Ottawa winning 3-2 on a tie-breaking late goal, but unfortunately it didn't offer much insight into which conference leader would prevail in a best-of-seven series.

The Senators, who are now eight points back in the overall standings, played like they wanted to make a strong statement about themselves, and they did by beating the Red Wings in the faceoff circles and other key areas. But Detroit showed something by overcoming a sluggish start and a 2-0 deficit to start the third period. The Wings lost the game when captain Nicklas Lidstrom, of all people, was in the penalty box and Daniel Alfredsson came up with the winner.

Still the big news of the night was the shoulder injury sustained by Dany Heatley, who is a 50-goal scorer. He'll be gone for about two months, which creates a big hole for Ottawa and could make it tough for them to hang on to the conference lead.

The same could be said for the San Jose Sharks, who blew a game they should have wrapped up Sunday in Anaheim. The Sharks had rookie backup Thomas Greiss start for the first time this season, an odd decision by coach Ron Wilson. Greiss played well but his team didn't hold against Anaheim, which is now playing the physical, in-your-face kind of hockey it did last year. And the Ducks are getting good goaltending and scoring from different players now too. Combine that with their incredible blue line and it wouldn't be surprising to see them take first place away from San Jose in the Pacific Division before the season ends.

That makes the question of the weekend about the Maple Leafs and whether the current brain trust will be around by then. Toronto was under the microscope all through its three-game trip to California last week and it was a disaster, ending Saturday with another embarrassing loss. The Leafs had a 2-0 lead after two periods against San Jose before losing their third straight game, and that happened only a couple of hours after Scotty Bowman told a live national Canadian television audience the organization had basically rejected him last summer.

It's a real mess, though not much worse than in Florida, where the Panthers keep losing games at home before dwindling crowds, or in Chicago, even if the Blackhawks did snap an eight-game losing streak with a shootout win against Nashville with Patrick Sharp was again the hero for the Blackhawks. Rookies Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews get all the attention in Chicago, but Sharp is having a superb season and made get some more notice with Toews hurt.

Meanwhile 40-year-old Mark Recchi got a nice chest-thumping moment when he won the shootout for Atlanta against Pittsburgh in their first meeting since the Pens waived him and the Rangers all of a sudden looked like a team that could contend when they whipped Montreal after playing league patsies for a couple of weeks.

Don't know what to make of Carolina or Buffalo. The Canes are hurt, but they're playing like they've quit on coach Peter Laviolette while the Sabres are just playing badly. Looks like it could be a long next two months in both places and a few others.

The good thing is that this is the time that separates the men from the boys.

Alex Ovechkin hasn't mastered the English language yet, but he's improved his understanding of how things work for hockey players in North America enough to get himself the richest contract in NHL history from the Washington Capitals.

And the 22-year-old Russian superstar did it without the benefit of formal representation. Ovechkin fired his agent Don Meehan more than a year ago because he figured he would get the maximum salary allowed under the cap anyway from Washington or someone else, so why pay a fee? And while Ovechkin left a few dollars on the table, $124 million over the next 13 years is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

That won't make him the game's highest paid player on an annual basis over the next few seasons, but he'll earn more than just about everyone in the short term including his alter ego Sidney Crosby and that cache has to be worth something to him. It better be because the deal isn't going to make it any easier for the Capitals to acquire and keep talent, something that Ovechkin has complained about in the past.

That's the downside of this. The Caps have been playing well lately and showing promise of good things to come in the near future. There are several quality young players now in Washington around Ovechkin and rookie coach Bruce Boudreau has them playing like a playoff contender since he took over at Thanksgiving. However, keeping the nucleus together in years to come will be a challenge with some 20 percent of the payroll tied up in one player and Ovechkin is essentially locked into the team for life.

Of course, Caps owner Ted Leonsis really didn't have much of a choice. The franchise has been around for more than 30 years, but it has made few inroads in the Washington area, even with Ovechkin in the lineup for the last two-plus seasons. Still, Ovechkin is the kind of talent that doesn't come very often and the Caps couldn't afford to lose him if they wanted to maintain any semblance of credibility.

Ovechkin could have become a restricted free agent next summer and would undoubtedly have gotten an offer sheet worth $10 million annually over its term. That left Leonsis with the choice of paying him now or doing so later by matching an offer and possibly having Ovechkin disgruntled at returning when he might have preferred being elsewhere. So Leonsis decided not to take the risk and maybe do something that will excite his fan base.

Nothing has until now. And there's no guarantee this will either.

Last year they were the NHL's biggest surprise and this year, and at least through the first quarter of the season, the Pittsburgh Penguins might have been the biggest enigma. But the Penguins have turned it on over the last 21 games, and they're starting to look like the team that was a trendy preseason choice to win it all.

Pittsburgh beat Florida 3-1 for its eighth consecutive win on Tuesday, raising its record to 24-16-2, which is actually better than at the same point last season when the Penguins picked up 105 points and were the most improved team in the league. They've gone 16-5 over these last 21 games, second only to Detroit in that span, moving within one point of the Atlantic Division lead and they are showing the kind of firepower that has to be scary to any opponent watching them of late.

"You know what, I don't really see a huge difference now from the beginning of the season," Pens captain Sidney Crosby said. "I think we're making some good decisions and we haven't been making mistakes that are game changing, but a big part of that is getting big plays."

Like one midway through the second period Tuesday when the game was still scoreless and the Panthers forced Pittsburgh goalie Ty Conklin to look alive after they let him sleep through the first 30 minutes. Conklin stopped Gregory Campbell on a short-handed breakaway, and the Penguins quickly took the puck up ice, opening the scoring on Petr Sykora's goal.

Seventy six seconds later Crosby showed off his dazzling skills by splitting Florida's No. 1 defense unit of Jay Bouwmeester and Bryan Allen before scoring Pittsburgh's second goal and within the next minute, muscle man Georges Laraque fought off a couple of defenders in front of the net to make it 3-0 and put the game out of reach.

"You don't want to feel too cocky or overconfident, but obviously we feel good in this room," defenseman Ryan Whitney said.

They should.

The customer is always right so we won't argue with the choices made by the fans for this season's starting All-Star Game lineups. In case you missed them, the West starters will be Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo, defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom and forwards Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datysuk from Detroit along with forward Jarome Iginla and defenseman Dion Phaneuf from Calgary.

The East squad is headed up by Pittsburgh forward Sidney Crosby, who had more votes than anyone, and includes New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur and Tampa Bay forward Vincent Lecavalier. The defensemen are Montreal's Andrei Markov and Boston's Zdeno Chara and Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson fills out the starting forward line. On the whole, the picks were pretty good because everyone voted in is having a season worthy of being recognized for the game, although we might have bypassed Alfredsson in favor of Ilya Kovalchuk since the Thrashers forward is leading the league in goals and the game will be played in Atlanta.

But that's a minor oversight since Kovalchuk will definitely be there, as he should. That will become official before the week is out when the balance of the lineups are announced, but in the meantime here are my choices for the rest of the Eastern and Western Conference squads. There are no rookies of course since they will take part in the YoungStars game during the weekend festivities.

Aside from Kovalchuk, I'd add Washington's Alexander Ovechkin, Florida's Olli Jokinen, Ottawa's Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley, Philadelphia's Mike Richards, Carolina's Ray Whitney, New Jersey's Zach Parise and Toronto's Mats Sundin to round out the forwards for the East.

Pittsburgh's Sergei Gonchar, Buffalo's Brian Campbell, Washington's Mike Green and Ottawa's Chris Phillips deserve to be on the East blue line, while Boston's Tim Thomas and Rick DiPietro of the Islanders are All-Star worthy as well.

For the West, I'd say San Jose's Joe Thornton, St. Louis' Brad Boyes, Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf, Calgary's Kristian Huselius, Chicago's Patrick Sharp, Colorado's Paul Stastny, Columbus' Rick Nash, Dallas' Mike Ribeiro and Minnesota's Marian Gaborik have earned spots as forwards, while Sergei Zubov of Dallas, Anaheim's Chris Pronger, Detroit's Brian Rafalski and Minnesota's Brent Burns should be added to the defense.

Goalies Pascal Leclaire of Columbus and San Jose's Evgeni Nabokov are my picks to back up Luongo.