The North American agent for Mats Sundin, above, denies a claim that the centre will play play for the Vancouver Canucks next season. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)A Swedish newspaper has reported that Mats Sundin has agreed to a deal with the Vancouver Canucks, but the centre’s North American agent has denied the claim.

J.P. Barry, Sundin’s North American agent, has confirmed to CBCSports that the report by Dusan Umicevic in Sweden’s Daily News is false.

In an interview with a Vancouver radio station earlier this week, Canucks general manager Mike Gillis expressed confidence that Sundin, who became an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his career on July 1, would still accept the club’s offer of a two-year contract valued at $20 million US.

Sundin has been the subject of intense interest from several other clubs including the Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers. A return to the Toronto Maple Leafs also remains an option.

The Swede has posted 555 goals and 766 assists for 1,321 points in 1,305 NHL games with Toronto and the Quebec Nordiques. He was selected first overall by Quebec in the 1989 draft and traded to Toronto five years later.

Sundin, 37, has yet to play in a Stanley Cup final. He earned $5.5 million last season on a one-year deal that included a no-trade clause.

Maple Leafs general manager Cliff Fletcher had given Montreal and the New York Rangers permission to talk to Barry prior to July 1 in hopes of working out a deal.

The Vancouver offer would make Sundin the highest-paid player in the NHL. Sidney Crosby of Pittsburgh and Alexander Ovechkin of Washington currently top next season’s salary list at $9 million US apiece

If the NHL Awards show wants to become more of a flashy and polished affair, they might want to think about replacing host Ron McLean. For as much as he’s a quick-witted and able sidekick to Don Cherry on Coach’s Corner, he comes across on these glittering nights as a bit of a hick. Really hokey. With lame jokes like the Brian Burke bobbing head doll and the cell phone thing. He’s not too funny at all. Maybe he’s overrated?
Gary Bettman looked embarrassed and I felt embarrassed.

Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one in the world who feels like this.

On the brighter side, there sure were a lot of good looking wives there. It seems that hot women like millionaire athletes! Go figure.

Washington’s Bruce Boudreau beat out Guy Carbonneau and Mike Babcock to win the Adams trophy for coach of the year. For me it could’ve gone either way between him and Carbonneau so this is okay.

Alex Ovechkin won both the Hart for league MVP and the Lester B. Pearson for top player as voted by his peers. This is fine, but my question is, who dresses this guy? He looked so out of sorts with his silly red tie and weird collared shirt that I wondered if he just got off the Red Eye from Moscow.

Niklas Lidstrom took home his sixth Norris for best defenseman. His wife is also right up there for Best Wife.

Gordie Howe was honoured with the very first Lifetime Achievement Award. This is good, but I’m wondering if you have to be alive to win this. Because the Rocket deserves one too. But the Rocket has the Rocket Richard Trophy named for him for most goals in a season, and that’s better than a Lifetime Achievement award in my book.

Last but not least, Patrick Kane beat out Jonathan Toews and Nicklas Backstrom for Rookie of the Year (Calder trophy). I’m happy about this because my name is Dennis Patrick Kane.

Am I ever all glad I’m not a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. All the anticipation, all the confidence, and all the high expectations for Sidney Crosby, Marian Hossa, and Evgeny Malkin. Now, after two games, the Detroit Red Wings have won both games, both in shutouts, outscoring Pittsburgh 7-0 in the process. How much more dismal can it get for the Pittsburgh Penguins?       

Sidney Crosby has looked absolutely ordinary.

And Evgeny Malkin especially has so far been lousy at best, and it’s a bit of a flashback to another time. It took years for the Europeans to dispel the notion that they didn’t show up in the playoffs. Players came along like Pavel Bure, Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Alex Ovechkin, and Ilya Kovalchuk who showed grit and soul in the playoffs.

Now, the Penguins and Malkin are, for some strange reason, in some sort of deep sleep. They’re boring, lacklustre, and outplayed.

Who would’ve thought? The Montreal Canadiens would’ve given the Red Wings much more a run for their money.

And regarding the Detroit Red Wings, they have seven players on their team from Sweden, and the core of these, Henrik Zetterberg, Nicklas Lidstrom, Johna Franzen, Niklas Kronwall, and Tomas Holmstrom, are playing such a serious game of playoff hockey, that they’re all making Crosby, Malkin, Hossa and company look like the Ottawa Senators.

Wow!

This Detroit team is impressive indeed. Pavel Datsyuk, from Russia, is a magician, and the video shown often the past year of him coming in on a shootout and doing this wonderfully beautiful move stands out as as smooth a goal you’ll ever see.

Such an anticipated series between two colourful teams with a load of stars. But so far, it’s been completely one-sided. Most of us thought this was going to be a sensational series. So far, it’s anything but.

Am I ever glad I’m not a Penguins fan.

Watching Henrik Lundqvist get yanked in Sweden’s 5-4 loss to Canada in the World Hockey Championship reminded me of something. Lundqvist speaks English with no accent whatsoever. At least that’s what my ears have heard in the couple of interviews I’ve seen of the Ranger goalie on TV.

Speaking perfect English is an amazing thing when it’s not your mother tongue. It’s very admirable. Some European NHL players have mastered it. For most, of course, it’s impossible.

Detroit’s Swedish star Nick Lidstrom speaks English almost perfectly, but you can detect that Swedish tongue in there just slightly. And it’s a little more so with Mats Sundin and Daniel Alfredsson. You can definitely here the Swedish way of talking in their speech, although their English is excellent.

But not at all with Lundqvist. In those two interviews I heard, he could’ve been the guy in the pool hall, Or the Canadian goalie in the beer league. I need to hear more from Lundqvist. I’m curious about this.

The NHL Russian guys’ English is basically all the same, ranging from pretty good to lousy.  Alex Kovalev speaks English pretty well, with the obvious Russian accent,  but Alex Ovechkin is still a work in progress, and Evgeny Malkin is only beginning. Igor Larionov, on the other hand, spoke excellent English back in the days when Soviet players couldn’t play over here, and so had very little exposure to English. Somehow, though, he got great at it.

Larionov even snuck away from the Russian camp to Wayne Gretzky’s parent’s house in Brantford during the 1987 Canada Cup and partied with all the Canadian guys.

Remember the 1972 Summit Series? We got the odd interview with some of the Russian players including Valeri Kharlamov, and they were interviews using an interpreter. But at the end, the few Russian players managed a meek “thank you” in English, and it was both surprising and wonderful.

The Finnish players pick it up pretty well, like Saku Koivu and Teemu Selanne, but you can hear the Finnish accent in there, even though their words and grammar are perfect.

The Czechs, it seems, have a little bit of a harder time of it. Jaromir Jagr’s English is terrrible, after all these years in North America. Tomas Plekanec, however, looks promising as a speaker of English. But the Czechs, like the Russians, use their throats and tongues differently, so there’s many English words they’ll never master properly.

Some of the English guys speak French really well. I can’t learn French, but they speak it with almost no accent. Mike Bossy wins by a landslide on this front.

Henri Richard was so quiet in the early days of his career, that when Toe Blake was once asked if Henri could speak English, Blake replied, “I don’t even know if he can speak French.”

French guys like Daniel Briere, Martin Biron, Vincent Lecavalier, Mario Lemieux, and Canucks’ coach Alain Vigneault speak English with only a trace of an accent. It’s very impressive.

It’s just a good thing there’s no heavy-duty Scotsmen in the NHL. Their accent can be thicker than lumpy gravy. I worked with a Scottish guy in Calgary who had been in Canada for years, but he could talk to me for fifteen minutes and I wouldn’t have a clue what he was saying.

Compared to this guy, Alex Ovechkin sounds perfect.

Former 1980’s Russian player, Vyacheslav Bykov, who now coaches Team Russia, told Alex Kovalev through a text message that there’s no room for him on the team which is now in Canada for the 2008 World Hockey Championship.

No room for one of the best forwards in the NHL. Too slow, said the text message. Those Russians have been a barrel of laughs since 1972.

With the Russians, it’s always something else than what the official party line says. They’re masters at being cagey. The years they dominated NHL teams, particularly in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, they politely said they were here to learn from the pros, which was almost laughable. They have a history of manipulating on-and-off ice officials. In 1972, they made sure Canadian food went missing when Team Canada was holed up at their Moscow hotel. They awoke Canadian players in the middle of the night with telephone calls. And they’ve held a gun to Hockey Canada’s head for more money on more than one occasion throughout the years. 

There’s always a questionable agenda, and some unsavoury activity, when it comes to the Russian hockey family.

Why wouldn’t Alex Kovalev, one of the smartest, shiftiest, magical talents in hockey not be invited to play for his home country? This guy should not only be on the Russian squad, but should be captain.

He’s not slow. Or if he’s slower than the chosen players on Team Russia, then they must be lightening-fast. It must be three lines of Alex Ovechkin’s, and Valeri Kharlamov risen from the dead. It must be the KLM line reincarnated.

Kovalev has probably upset the Russian Ice Hockey Federation somewhere down the line. Maybe he’s spoken too much about how great it is in North America, because by all accounts, he loves it here. Heck, he doesn’t even want to be called Alexei anywhere, but simply Alex.

It’s possible he’s critized the Russian way of doing things from time to time. Kovalev has never been one to keep things bottled up. And the Russian hierarchy certainly has long memories. Kovalev has probably never towed the line. He would’ve made a great hippie in the 1960’s. 

If Alex Kovalev can’t make this team, then Teams Canada, USA, Finland, Sweden, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic don’t stand a chance. These teams will be too slow. Like Kovalev.

I don’t particularly want Kovalev playing in the World’s anyway. He’s 35 years old and needs to rest his weary bones after the long and stressful season of being a leader and star with his Montreal Canadiens. I want him fit, healthy, and renewed for next season when the Habs take a more serious stab at the Holy Grail.

It’s bad enough that Andrei Markov will be joining the Russian squad. He hasn’t been 100% healthy lately, which showed drastically in the playoffs, and this tournament better not set him back. He needs to be firing on all cylinders, along with Kovalev, when October rolls around.

As my blog gets more and more hits, readers from everywhere have begun to weigh in. Here’s some testimonials sent in that I’d like to share with you. 

Pope Benedict XVI  - I finally got my satellite dish and lazy-boy set up in the Vatican, so now I’ll be able to concentrate more on my Canadiens. But I’ve been able to keep up with them because of your heavenly blog. God bless you. And I pray Sean Avery and Jarkko Ruutu never play on our team.

Vladimir Putin  -  Nice blog. Da, nice blog. Maybe you must mention my thoughts on the team. Maybe comrade Gainey could bring up young Grabovski from Hamiltongrad and put him on a line with comrades Kovalev and Begin. We could call it the KGB line!  Hah!

Sophia Loren  - When I read your blog, especially the part about you, I get sort of…….warm all over! Excuse me, there’s something I must do.

Red Fisher  - Dennis, would you mind terribly if I retired and you took over my job?

George W. Bush  -  Just read about that Ovechkin scoring four goals against my Habs. I’ve got a lovely suite waiting for him at Guantanamo Bay.

Bin Laden  - Hockey really isn’t my number one sport, I prefer sharpshooting. But I have to say I like the way those young Kostitsyn’s are playing. They look familiar to me. Is it possible I shot one of their relatives in Afghanistan?

Bob Dylan  - Man, the Habs are a new team this year. What an improvement! The times, they are a changin. PS. Far out blog. One of these days I’ll tell you about the great road hockey games we have with Robbie and Garth and the boys.

Pamela Anderson  - Hey Loren. I was reading Dennis’ blog before you. Back off.

Three big nights coming up for the surging Habs, beginning Thursday in Washington to complete the home and home series with the Capitals. I wonder if George W. Bush likes hockey. Do you think he’s heard of the Rocket, Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr? Maybe Sean Avery?

I’m sure he must know something about Wayne Gretzky, and possibly Mario Lemieux. He’s probably aware of Alex Ovechkin, but only because they work in the same city. George is a baseball and football guy. But from time to time, he might check out page 7 or 8 of the Washington Post sports section, where hockey is buried, and notice something about the Capitals.

Why, he may have even noticed a story about the big 4-0 win by Montreal over his home team the other night. Cripes, I hope he doesn’t bomb Montreal.

I like the Caps, but only because of their new coach, Bruce Boudreau. Otherwise, they’re meaningless to me. Boudreau seems like the kind of guy you were pals with in school, the one who helped with your paper route, the one whose mom had the great cookies. He seems like just an ordinary Joe who happens to be fullfilling a dream right now. I hope he does well, just not on Thursday night.

Saturday afternoon, Montreal takes on the Islanders, then Sunday it’s down the freeway into Manhattan to tackle the New York Rangers, home of Mr. Congeniality, Sean Avery.

Note from Dennis:  It’s 1 am Saturday morning and I just realized the Islanders and Rangers are playing in Montreal. So about the last paragraph? Pretend you didn’t read it. Except the part about Mr. Congeniality. (It’s not my fault. I’m old.)

They’ve both been in the league since the 2005-06 season, and both, in their own distinct ways, have been fabulous. Any General Manager, if asked who he would pick from these two to build his team around, would have to think long and hard. Crosby is the successor to Gretzky and Lemieux’s mantle, and is The Next One. Ovechkin plays with abandon, and several of his many goals have been described as some of the prettiest ever. Both fill rinks wherever they play, both genuinely love the game, and both have the big numbers.

SO HOW DO THEY MEASURE UP? LET’S TAKE A LOOK.

Sidney Crosby is 20 years old, and Ovechkin is 22.

Crosby is a centreman. Ovechkin plays left wing.

Crosby is 5′11″, 200 lbs.  Ovechkin is 6′2″, 217 lbs.

Crosby, in 206 games, has 95 goals, 190 assists, for 285 points. (with 207 penalty minutes.)

Ovechkin, in 213 games, has 137 goals, 126 assists, for 263 points. (with 126 penalty minutes.)

THE QUESTIONS THAT REMAIN TO BE SEEN ARE:

Who will prove to be the bigger winner. Crosby’s on a better team and may wear a Stanley Cup ring soon. Ovechkin may never wear the ring. Winners create more of a legacy than non-winners.

Who will have more longevity. Both are good sizes, but both go kamikaze to the net. Crosby already is in the midst of a serious ankle injury. Ovechkin has dodged the bullet so far.

Crosby’s a Canadian, so his love of hockey is built in. For him, hockey’s as natural as eating and sleeping.

Ovechkin’s Russian. And you can tell by the smiles that he finds sheer joy in playing the game. It seems his love of hockey is built in too.

Crosby’s a better playmaker with all the hockey smarts. Ovechkin just plays with natural instinct and has a colourful knack when scoring. 

Crosby is the new Gordie Howe. Ovechkin is the new Maurice Richard.