At 13:49 of the the first period in the Canadiens/Predators game, video review looked at whether the puck was batted in or was kicked in, however, the replay upheld referee Brad Watson's call on the ice that Canadiens forward David Desharnais scored in a legal fashion.  Good goal Montreal.

TORONTO -- Hockey Hall of Fame Weekend is officially under way.

The four player inductees -- Doug Gilmour, Ed Belfour, Joe Nieuwendyk and Mark Howe -- were honored Saturday night at Air Canada Centre prior to the Maple Leafs-Senators game.

The night started with a video tribute that showed several members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, including Gilmour and Nieuwendyk in their Maple Leaf blue. Gilmour got the first of what will be several ovations over the next three days.

After introducing 15 members of the Hockey Hall of Fame, including Mr. Hockey himself, Gordie Howe, the Class of 2011 got their due.

Since Gordie Howe was the final of the 15 introduced, it was only natural that Mark Howe was the first of the incoming Hall of Fame class to greet the crowd. He walked the line and ended with an embrace with his dad.

How cool is that?

Nieuwendyk was the next up and he received a standing ovation. Nieuwendyk spent the 2003-04 season in Toronto and became a fan favorite. He also received an ovation for winning the gold medal with Team Canada in 2002.

Belfour was up next, and keeping with his natural quirkiness (some call it individuality) he was not dressed the part. While everyone else was wearing a suit, Belfour was wearing a leather jacket and did not have on a tie.

Finally, the ultimate fan favorite here in Toronto, Gilmour got his introduction. The fans stood and applauded and cheered almost the entire time as the P.A. announcer read his biography.

Gilmour, Nieuwendyk, Belfour and Howe stood beside the Toronto Maple Leafs logo on the carpet draped over top center ice as the Leafs and Senators came onto the ice and assembled on their respective blue lines.

Gilmour brought the puck out for the ceremonial faceoff and he dropped it between Dion Phaneuf and Daniel Alfredsson. Soon enough, the legends stepped off center stage, the blue carpets were rolled up, the anthem was performed by Beverley Mahood and the game got under way.

The Hall of Famers will be back here at Air Canada Centre for the annual Legend's Game, where they will be honored again and receive their Hall of Fame jackets.

Now it's time for a hockey game.

Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter: @drosennhl

 

Craig Button worked in the Dallas Stars organization when Ed Belfour was serving as the team's star goalie in the mid-to-late 1990s. Button stayed around the team a lot and spoke to Belfour quite often.

Here Button tells NHL.com a story that he believes helps define the type of private, quirky, and yet caring guy Belfour is, and the type of hard-driving, emotional teammate he was:

"I remember one day in training camp talking to him, and he was like, 'You know what, these guys have to work harder. They have to understand that there is more to this,' " Button recalled during a wide-ranging phone interview. "He cared. He cared about the young players and he understood from where he had come in his career that these were important elements. He wanted to impress upon me that this is what these guys have to do and they have to understand it. He might not have been comfortable telling people about that, but he was always that guy that was doing those things to prepare himself and make sure he gave himself the best chance to perform.

"You'd like to say, 'Ed, you go tell them.' But, you have to understand Ed's personality. So, that is where you took the information from him and tried to impart that onto the younger players. That was good. It becomes part of teamwork in a different way."

Follow Dan Rosen on Twitter at: @drosennhl

Terry Murray’s 1,000th game as an NHL coach is Saturday night, and he has done a good job of deflecting the attention.

He reiterated that the focus should be on the game, but captain Dustin Brown acknowledged that 1,000 games is a “big milestone.” Brown also said that Murray’s calm demeanor was the ideal match for a team that made a lot of mistakes when Murray arrived in Los Angeles in 2008.

“I’ve played for all sorts of coaches, and having him especially the last few years, we were a growing team,” Brown said. “He didn’t come in and yell at a lot of young guys. We had a lot of young guys in here making mistakes, (and) now I think it’s benefited some of these young guys.”

That carries over into a more mature team today that doesn’t need many closed-door meetings with Murray as in the past.

“We’ve won one or two games out of the last seven or whatever it is,” Brown said. “Guys are aware of it, (but) he doesn’t even have to come in. It’s the type of team we have.”

Latendresse out: Minnesota will play its first game since Guillaume Latendresse suffered a concussion Thursday.
Cal Clutterbuck could take Latendresse’s place at top line wing and Warren Peters will be inserted into the lineup, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Josh Harding is expected in goal, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports.

Here is the projected lineup for Saturday night:

WILD

Cal Clutterbuck - Mikko Koivu - Dany Heatley
Devin Setoguchi - Matt Cullen - Pierre-Marc Bouchard
Nick Johnson - Kyle Brodziak - Darroll Powe
Colton Gillies - Warren Peters - Brad Staubitz

Nick Schultz - Marek Zidlicky
Marco Scandella - Jared Spurgeon
Justin Falk - Nate Prosser

Josh Harding
Niklas Backstrom

KINGS

Simon Gagne - Anze Kopitar - Justin Williams
Brad Richardson - Mike Richards - Dustin Brown
Kyle Clifford - Jarret Stoll - Trent Hunter
Trevor Lewis - Colin Fraser - Ethan Moreau

Drew Doughty - Willie Mitchell
Jack Johnson - Rob Scuderi
Alec Martinez - Matt Greene

Jonathan Quick
Jonathan Bernier

We'll open our 2011 Hockey Hall of Fame blog with a funny story from Gary Roberts about Doug Gilmour. Roberts talked to me about his relationship with Joe Nieuwendyk for this story, but he also played with Gilmour in Calgary and Ed Belfour in Toronto.

Here goes:

When St. Louis shipped Doug Gilmour to the Flames, he bought ex-NHLer Craig Berube's house that was located just down the street in the same South Calgary development as where Gary Roberts lived.

Roberts and Gilmour became immediate friends and carpool mates, even if it meant Gilmour had to wait for the younger Roberts a few times.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – Just when Dustin Penner was starting to find his game, he has an injury setback.

Penner suffered a hand injury against Vancouver on Thursday night and will be out for at least Saturday’s game against the Minnesota Wild.

Kings coach Terry Murray said Penner’s status was “longer than day-to-day” after Penner suffered the injury during a power play, although Penner participated in the team’s morning skate Saturday.

Penner played more than 14 minutes, including 5:15 in the third period, Thursday.

Murray will likely put Brad Richardson in Penner’s place at second line left wing with Mike Richards and Dustin Brown.
The injury comes after Penner seemed to turn a corner on a disappointing season this week. He had an assist on Tuesday against Nashville and has looked better since Murray put him back on the second line.

Murray will stick with Colin Fraser at fourth line center. Fraser made his Kings debut on Thursday following offseason foot surgery.

DENVER – Seven has been anything but a lucky digit for the Colorado Avalanche, which has lost that many times in succession to the Calgary Flames since a 6-5 win on Oct. 28, 2010.
   
“We need to win. We owe them big time,” Avalanche defenseman Kyle Quincey said of tonight’s meeting at the Pepsi Center.
   
The Flames won the final five games between the teams last season and defeated the Avalanche in the first two games this year, most recently a 2-1 victory last Sunday that was decided on a Curtis Glencross power-play goal in the second period.
   
Penalty killing has been a major sore spot for the Avalanche, which has allowed 13 goals in 30 short-handed situations (56.7 percent) in the past nine games.
   
“Our penalty kill is nowhere near good enough,” defenseman Shane O’Brien said. “We know that. It’s not for lack of preparation. It just comes down to us being more committed and paying the price. You have to take pride in killing penalties and I think we’ll get it back on track. It’s not a glamorous job, but it’s something you have to do to win hockey games.”
   
The Avalanche, which turned a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 overtime win against the New York Islanders on Thursday, hasn’t won back-to-back games since ripping off a five-game winning streak on the road from Oct. 10-17.
   
The Flames lost 4-1 in Chicago on Friday and have dropped three of their past four games while scoring a total of four goals. They have gone 1-for-12 on power plays in this stretch, the lone power-play goal coming in the win against Colorado.
   
The return of center Mikael Backlund from a broken finger could give the Flames a much-needed spark. He made his season debut Friday and is anchoring the top line with Alex Tanguay and Jarome Iginla.

These are the projected lineups for Saturday night when the Calgary Flames and Colorado Avalanche square off at Pepsi Center:

FLAMES

Alex Tanguay – Mikael Backlund – Jarome Iginla
Curtis Glencross – Olli Jokinen – Rene Bourque
Paul Byron – Roman Horak – Lee Stempniak
Tom Kostopoulos – David Moss – Tim Jackman

Jay Bouwmeester – Chris Butler
Scott Hannan – Mark Girodano
Derek Smith – T.J. Brodie

Miikka Kiprusoff is expected to start in goal with Henrik Karlsson as the backup.

AVALANCHE

Joakim Lindstrom – Paul Stastny – Milan Hejduk
TJ Galiardi – Matt Duchene – David Jones
Gabriel Landeskog – Ryan O’Reilly – Daniel Winnik
Cody McLeod – Kevin Porter/Jay McClement – Chuck Kobasew

Kyle Quincey – Shane O’Brien
Ryan Wilson – Erik Johnson
Jan Hejda – Ryan O’Byrne

Semyon Varlamov will start in goal with Jean-Sebastien Giguere as the backup.

ST. LOUIS – Philadelphia’s response to Tampa Bay’s defensive formation created plenty of reaction around the NHL, and now it's up to the St. Louis Blues to dissect the Lightning's 1-3-1.

The Blues and Lightning will play here Saturday night, and the game also marks the return of former Blues captain Eric Brewer.

According to the Blues, there's no big storylines when it comes to their matchup.

"I think you make too much of that," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "They play with structures, so how do you counteract the structures? It's like any team. If you allow a team to set up in their structure, they're going to beat you. It doesn't matter if it's 1-3-1, 1-2-2, 2-1-2 ... doesn't matter, they're going to beat you. So you have to attack the structure before they set up.

"It's like any fore-checking system. It's the same thing as an offensive zone fore-check system. You've got to find a way to get by it before it sets its course. So for us, it's about not allowing them to control the tempo of the game. I think the other thing is it's easy to set up in a defensive structure when you've got the lead all the time. So for us, it's get the lead and force the other team to have to open things up a little bit more."

Blues players saw portions of the game or on highlights from Wednesday night and don't think it's that big of a deal.

"It was just a matter of Philly being stubborn," wing Matt D'Agostini said. "I think they were just trying to fluster Tampa, try to get them to come after them a little more than they obviously do. … They play with a D-man back there, so as long as we get good dumps, we can go in and hit their D and like last night, play in their end as much as we can."

Lightning defenseman Eric Brewer will make his first trip back to St. Louis since the trade last season that sent the veteran to Tampa Bay for a third-round pick and prospect Brock Beukeboom.

Brewer spent nearly six seasons in St. Louis, but was dealt in February and helped the Lightning reach the Eastern Conference Final last season.

"It worked out pretty well," Brewer said. "It could have worked out better, but I can't complain. ... It's been good. They have a very good hockey program. It was something that wasn't tough to say no to. I've liked it."

Brewer, who was the Blues' captain, enjoyed his time in St. Louis.

"It was good," Brewer said. "I really enjoyed it here. It's comfortable here. I can walk here and know people. I was treated very well. It was nice to see some of the guys that were real good to me."

Brewer also talked about the firing of former coach Davis Payne, who he played for here.

"I'm surprised, yeah," Brewer said. "He was very good when I was there. ... He's going to do well. He's a good coach."