More photos » by Manuel Balce Ceneta - AP

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Russia is second out of the gate to announce its roster for Vancouver 2010:

Goalies
Ilya Bryzgalov, Evgeni Nabokov, Semyon Varlamov

Defenders
Sergei Gonchar, Denis Grebeshkov, Dmitri Kalinin, Konstantin Korneev, Andrei Markov, Ilya Nikulin, Fedor Tyutin, Anton Volchenkov

Forwards
Maxim Afinogenov, Pavel Datsyuk, Sergei Fedorov, Ilya Kovalchuk, Viktor Kozlov, Evgeni Malkin, Aleksey Morozov, Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Radulov, Alexander Semin, Danis Zaripov, Sergei Zinoviev

A pretty formidable team, even with nine of its 23 members from the KHL. All three goaltenders, five of the eight defencemen and six of 12 forwards are from the NHL, and most of the KHLers spent plenty of time in the North American ranks.

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by Jeff McIntosh - AP

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With the Canadian Olympic brass finally set to name their roster a week from today, expect a whole bunch of these lists over the coming days. For mine, I've tried to offer a bit of a statistical bent — although without relying solely on numbers to pick the team.

All of the stats I'm using are from Behind The Net and prior to last night's games. The metrics are "rating," an advanced form of plus-minus; "quality of competition," which measures the strength of opponents; "points per 60 minutes"; and "on ice goals for and goals against per 60 minutes" (along with goal differential).

Players that scored the highest across the board are ranked higher and those marked in yellow are my picks for the team. Keep in mind that this is based solely on even-strength play, so some of these players offer more on the PP and PK that's not ranked here.

Goaltenders

I didn't delve too deeply into the netminder side of things simply because there are only three Canadian-born goalies with more than 11 wins this season, and they'll be the ones that make the team: Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo and Marc-Andre Fleury.

Should one go down to injury, I'm not even sure who No. 4 would be given their play this season. Canada's famed depth at the position isn't all that evident this year.

Defencemen

Into the numbers we go. I've included 12 blueliners I think represent both those talked about and those who should be considered for the team (with my choices to make it in yellow):

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More photos » by Paul Chiasson - AP

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Belarus is the first nation to name its provisional roster for its men’s national team at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. New head coach Mikhail Zakharov named the 23-man roster only a few days after meeting the team for the first time at two exhibition games in Slovakia.

Zakharov’s roster looks similar to the teams that Belarus had at the 2008 and 2009 World Championships.

The roster is highlighted by four Belarusian NHL players. Colorado veteran defenceman Ruslan Salei, 36, is on the team, as is Toronto forward Mikhail Grabovski, 25, and Montreal’s Kostitsyn brothers, Andrei, 24, and Sergei, 22.

— IIHF

The full roster is available here.

The Olympics are coming, and within the next 10 days, we'll know who's going.

The 12 rosters will be announced on the following dates:

Check back here tomorrow as I'll have my picks for Team Canada. And follow the IIHF's site for all things Olympics in the lead up to the Games.

The following is a press release from the Senators:

The Ottawa Senators announced today two initiatives designed to make it easier and more affordable for fans and families to attend games for the balance of this season.

"The National Hockey League is more competitive than ever. Every game counts towards playoff contention," said Eugene Melnyk, owner of the Ottawa Senators. "I want our players to benefit fully from the home game advantage. The support, energy and atmosphere that our fans create at Scotiabank Place is vital to our team's success."

First, the club is eliminating the gold and silver game categories for games beginning Jan. 1, 2010. These games will now become bronze games, resulting in a decrease of 20 per cent for eight silver games and 30 per cent for one gold game. The eight games affected by the 20 per cent reduction in single-game ticket prices are: Jan. 3 vs. Philadelphia, Jan. 9 vs. Florida, Jan. 19 vs. Chicago, Feb. 4 vs. Vancouver, Feb. 9 vs. Calgary, Feb. 11 vs. Washington, March 27 vs. Florida, and April 10 vs. Buffalo. The single-game ticket prices for the Senators match-up against the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 16 will be reduced by 30 per cent.

Secondly, the club has added affordable Metro Family 4 Pack pricing to the following five games: Jan. 3 vs. Philadelphia, Jan. 5 vs. Boston, Jan. 21 vs. St. Louis, Feb. 9 vs. Calgary and March 2 vs. New York Rangers.

The Metro Family 4 Pack pricing includes four tickets, four hotdogs and four drinks for $99 (taxes included). The popular ticketing program, which was introduced this season, sold out all available tickets for its first six games.

"Today's initiatives provide additional affordable pricing options for our fans for the remainder of this season" said Cyril Leeder, president of the Ottawa Senators. "We believe these changes will make it easier for fans to attend Senators games."

Today's announcement follows the new initiatives announced last Thursday to help grow the season-seat base.

"Our fans are key to our success and have to be our top priority," added Leeder. "We presented a number of new benefits and reduced pricing to our season-seat holders last week and have introduced today's options with our casual buyer in mind. We also want to fill the building for the current year and provide the best possible atmosphere for our players and fans."

Fans who have already purchased tickets for the nine games, where prices have been reduced, will receive a refund for the difference in price.

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Another loss for Carolina last night, and the lottery standings still aren't really all that tight at the bottom end:

Is it time for a Tank for Taylor movement in some of these cities (Philadelphia/Toronto not included)?

He was the early star when he dived back into the net after the puck took a wild bounce off the boards behind him and came out in front. Roloson lunged to block Steve Downie's attempt at a wide-open net and then used his left skate to deny Todd Fedoruk's try on the rebound.

The puck remained on the line as the Lightning celebrated what they thought was a goal. But play continued, and a lengthy video replay confirmed that the puck didn't cross the line.

— The Associated Press

More photos » by Don Heupel - AP

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A couple things from the rink today with the Sabres in town:

• Down a few pounds but playing terrific: Ryan Miller with some fun quotes on being thin and beating the Leafs every few weeks
• Leafs forward Matt Stajan weighs in on head shots after being head shot Saturday by Johnny Boychuk in a big win over the Bruins
  

Here's the Stajan blow in case you missed it:

A ton of debate at the rink today about this one, among players, reporters and now readers as the quotes come out. Stajan seemed a bit more outspoken initially when he was speaking to only two or three of us, but when the cavalry showed up, he backed off a little bit.

He clearly didn't enjoy going through the experience above, as you can imagine.

Me, I always come back to the fact that some 70 per cent of players want something done about dangerous checks to the head. Surely that has to count for something here and someone has to start giving that a voice.

Ultimately, perhaps, the final word on workplace safety, specifically head injuries, won’t belong to commentators or even the NHL. TSN’s Bob McKenzie said during the Friday night show, "Whether the NHL likes it or not, it’s going to be dragged kicking and screaming into an era of legislation because this is becoming an athletic pandemic.

 "What’s going to happen with (U.S.) Congress being involved, medical authorities being involved, it’s going to go beyond the game of hockey. It’s going to become societal, and, when that happens, people in hockey are going to lose a little control about how the rules are governed. It’s going to become illegal. Within five years, you are not going to be allowed to hit anybody in the head."

— William Houston, Truth & Rumours

If you haven't been keeping up with Bill's new blog, I highly recommend it as he's been pumping out some good material and media commentary since his "retirement" from The Globe.

I've got a lot of time for Don Cherry — a lot more, I think, than many in the media — but I also always think of him in context of his era, of when he played the game. You can find Grapes entertaining and watchable and the like and still vehemently disagree with his views, as I do on head shots and all things in that vein.

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