Odds And Ends

Today brings a flood of noteworthy materials out there on the Internets and rather than devote a meaningless post to each, I'll bang out a meaningless bullet point on each (it's gotta be better for the environment, right?). Let's dig right in:

• Greg over at The Fourth Period has his take on the MSM's coverage of the NHL and it may not be what you expect. Unless you expect quality analysis (unlike some mainstream journos) and perspective. Then it's exactly what you'd expect.
• Speaking of the mainstream hockey media, ESPN's John Buccigross has never been one of my favorites, but if he keeps writing articles about how good the Southeast Division is and will soon be, he'll quickly change that. Sure, I wrote about it two weeks ago and Ted Leonsis noted it last week, but Bucci is still on the SE Bandwagon way before most of his colleagues.
• There's another mock draft up, this one at MyNhlDraft.com (see USAToday.com's mock here and The Rink's comments thereupon here). In this latest mock, the Caps take Nicklas Backstrom, who I think is more likely A) to be there at #4 than Jordan Staal and B) to be the guy the Caps want anyway. One thing is for sure: judging from these two mock drafts, after St. Loo (presumably) nabs Erik Johnson first overall, no one knows what's going to happen.
• The NHL announced today that not a single player failed his drug test (which targets steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs but not stimulants) this year. Not one. Out of 1,406 tests administered. In the wake of the Bertuzzi incident, a cancelled season and a gambling scandal involving the best player in the game's history, the League sure is lucky it didn't have to deal with a drug scandal during the Stanley Cup Finals, isn't it?
  
• Finally, Hockey'sFuture has it's annual team-by-team, five-year-out draft evaluation in progress and recapping the Caps' 2001 draft, well, isn't pretty. In fairness, the Caps' first pick wasn't until 58th overall, but still, the fact that only one of the team's ten picks that year ("NHL Bust" Owen Fussey) is still with the organization and that the ten picks have played a total of five NHL games categorizes 2001's draft as an utter failure.