Once the bridesmaid, never the bride. That should be something that Washington Capitals goaltender Michal Neuvirth should be happy to shed this season. He's not exactly the #1 goaltender for sure yet, but to hear him talk he should have no problem capturing that spot now that Tomas Vokoun left the Washington Capitals to join the Pittsburgh Penguins... per Neuvirth's own advice.

There's all sorts of lock-out talk going on out there, like how it's going to happen and how it's the owners' fault for the insane contracts they dish out like candy. Scott Hartnell apparently figured he needed to get some chocolate before the owners turned the candy into butterscotch disks of a new CBA, so he signed a six year, $28.5 million contract extension with the Flyers today.

The contract seems like a big one for a guy who benefits from playing with players such as Claude Giroux, but you could make the arguement that Giroux benefited from playing with Hartnell as well. Known for creating space on the ice and intimidation (as well as falling down a lot), Hartnell gave Giroux the space necessary to light the league on fire last season.

 The Los Angeles Kings were hosting a round-table discussion with authors from various blogs regarding sundry topics, one of which was which team would fall out of playoff contention this season. Nathan Eide of Hockey Wilderness said this, which is what unintentionally started this tift:

West: Detroit. Ding, dong, the Wings are dead. Too many holes, not enough aging Europeans to fill them.

Goaltenders are a strange breed. It's assumed one has to be in order to willingly stand in front a frozen piece of vulcanized rubber hurtling at over 100 miles per hour. However, like any eccentric group of people there are some goaltenders that redefine the meaning of bizarre. 

Meet Richard Bachman, goaltender for the Dallas Stars. Unless you follow the Dallas Stars closely you're probably not very familiar with Bachman, a goaltender that has only appeared in 19 career NHL games. Bachman might be a face you'll forget but it's safe to say he will sport a mask this season you won't be able to erase from your memory anytime soon. 

The fate of the 2012-13 NHL season is yet to be determined. However, if the season does take place in one form or another, one former star is attempting an NHL comeback. Alexei (or Alex) Kovalev has stated that he has a couple of tryout offers with different NHL clubs, signaling that his comments about a potential comeback are quite real.

Kovalev, who turns the ripe age of 40 in February, spent the 2011-12 season in the KHL with the Atlant Moscow Oblast. Injuries claimed the bulk of Kovalev's season, limiting him to just 22 games where he contributed just six points. Evidently Kovalev wasn't satisfied with his year in the KHL, as evidenced by the veteran's attempt to make an NHL roster in the season ahead. 

File this one under "interesting news of the day that you didn't need to know." Via Deadspin comes this fashion tip. Perhaps you're a hockey player, and perhaps you have a little Radek Bonkadonk going on in your rear end area. You know, booty. It happens - lower body workouts grow muscles, and your butt has two of 'em. It stands to reason then that athletes who use their legs a lot might have a little larger rear ends than those who don't.

All hockey fans -- check that, all sports fans -- dread any sort of labor stoppage. It kills momentum, it kills league growth, and for the NHL those are two things that the league has right now. Many pundits and fans, when they read the NHL owners' proposal back at the end of July, believed that the owners of the teams didn't care - that they wanted their way or the highway, and would risk losing revenue to possibly increase the bottom line down the road. Cutting off the toes to save the foot, so to speak. The terms of the proposal were so harsh and the cuts to the players so deep, that there is no way that the NHLPA could pop back a quick counter-offer. 

If an NHL lockout delays or consumes the 2012-13 season, who should we blame? This was the question I posed on Twitter in an attempt to measure the general pulse of the fans. The sample size was admittedly small but the idea was to get an idea of what the average fan thinks of the impending lockout. 

Would you blame the owners or the players? Would you blame both sides equally? Find out what other fans said and voice your opinion in the comments section. 

Jonathan Quick required some minor surgery to repair a disc fragment and an inflammatory cyst this week, as reported by the LA Times. The surgery, which was described as a "minor surgical procedure", is expected to require approximately six weeks for Quick to make a full recovery. 

As things stand Quick should be at 100% by the time the Los Angeles Kings start training camp, assuming that training camp and the 2012-13 NHL season start on time. 

Poor Phoenix Coyotes fans have been jerked around multiple times in their team's long and drawn out ownership saga. You'll have to excuse them (and most everyone else) if they take the news that Greg Jamison has secured investors to help in his purchase of the Coyotes with a grain of salt. After all, this is the guy, with Gary Bettman, who stood up in a press conference to claim that the sale'd be done in a matter of weeks, not months.