The Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday announced defenseman Joni Pitkanen will sit out the 2013-14 season because of a broken left heel sustained last season.

"It's unfortunate," Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford told the Raleigh News and Observer. "Joni is a good player who was able to play a lot of minutes for us and he will be missed. We'll now have to deal with it and move forward. We'll explore all options and decide on how we'll proceed."

Pitkanen sustained the injury during a game against the Washington Capitals on April 2, when he fell into the boards trying to touch the puck on an icing play.

HAZELWOOD, Mo. -- There was no common ground to be found between the St. Louis Blues and defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, despite the fact the two sides met well into the night Tuesday.

So when the Blues open training camp on Thursday, Pietrangelo will be a noticeable absentee from camp.

That's the news general manager Doug Armstrong gave Wednesday on the fourth pick of the 2008 NHL Draft, who is represented by Don Meehan of Newport Sports.

"He's not in training camp," Armstrong said of the 23-year-old Pietrangelo. "We've worked in earnest with his representatives trying to get him into training camp. We've talked about a lot of different options as far as a number of years.

"[Tuesday] night, we gave it a last-ditch kick at the can around eight or nine o'clock at night and it didn't hold. So from this point forward, he's not in camp and we treat him like an injured player. ... If he misses a week, a month, a year, we're not really sure, but he's not here now and we have to move forward."

BROSSARD, Quebec – Tomas Plekanec has always been one to find his summers a little bit too long, particularly since his Montreal Canadiens have not made the Stanley Cup Final once in his eight seasons with the club.

He is a hockey junkie, and is always itching to play.

But this year, Plekanec wanted to spend a little extra time at his home in Kladno, Czech Republic because, for one of the few times in his life, hockey had to take a back seat to something more serious.

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Veteran forward Brad Boyes arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Wednesday, on the eve of the Florida Panthers' first training camp practice.

He's hoping his stay is an extended one and the Panthers turn his professional tryout into a contract.

"I am looking forward to it," Boyes said. "The opportunity should be there, so that will be exciting. I know a few guys on the team, guys I've played with before, so I'm looking forward to that too. It's something that for me it's an opportunity and I want to make the most of it."

Boyes, who turned 31 in April, played last season with the New York Islanders, but remains unsigned as an unrestricted free agent. He said the Islanders offered him the opportunity to attend their training camp as a tryout player, but he didn't want to go that route. Boyes also said he had a couple of other tryout offers.

TAMPA, Fla. -- He had 16 games behind the bench to finish last season, but Jon Cooper opened his first training camp as the coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday.

Cooper, who joined the Lightning from the club's American Hockey League affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, went 5-8-3 with a team hurt by injuries and which finished 14th in the Eastern Conference, but there is no discounting how much that brief spell leading the team has proved invaluable for him.

"Just getting to know the landscape helped," Cooper said. "The travel, the day-to-day operation, everything that goes on in the League, meeting the media on a daily basis, just things that you don't plan for to take up your time and all of a sudden your day is gone and you don't know what happened with it. That was big for me in the month I was here.

"The second big thing was getting the relationship with the players, being able to find out, in anticipation of this year, who could play where. Moving in, I just have a better grasp on the team."

WINNIPEG -- The Winnipeg Jets reported to MTS Centre on Wednesday for physicals, but the real work of answering a long list of questions will begin when they take the ice Thursday to prepare for their first season in the Western Conference.

While the Jets gave coach Claude Noel a one-year contract extension this summer, there will be considerable pressure on him, in his third season, to take the organization into the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2007, when the franchise was located in Atlanta. Another postseason miss could leave Noel’s future behind the Winnipeg bench in jeopardy.

"I'm certainly ready to go," Noel told reporters in his season-opening address. "I'm anticipating some very good things this year."

TAMPA, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday opened their first training camp without Vincent Lecavalier since 1998, and the emphasis definitely is on youth and the future.

Lecavalier, now with the Philadelphia Flyers, had his absence noted, but for many his departure is viewed as a mixed blessing.

"Not having Vinny here is a little weird," veteran forward Ryan Malone said, "but we recognize it as a business decision."

It is a new day in Tampa Bay, and the door is open for an enthusiastic collection of members of the Lightning's American Hockey League affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, to make their mark.

"We've had to absorb some big losses on our roster, but that's the door opening for some of the young talent, and a lot of this talent has won before," Lightning coach Jon Cooper, starting his first full season with the team, said. "They have it in them. They know what it takes. This is just another little step they have to take. There will be some battles and I'm pretty excited to see which ones grab the torch."

PITTSBURGH -- Marc-Andre Fleury is coming off another disappointing postseason performance, but his teammates' confidence in their starting goaltender has not been shaken.

After an impressive regular season, Fleury struggled in the postseason, a theme that has become too familiar for the 28-year-old since winning the Stanley Cup in 2009. Fleury posted a 2.39 goals-against average and .916 save percentage in 33 regular-season games in 2012-13, but then had a 3.52 GAA and .883 save percentage in five Stanley Cup Playoff games, leading to Tomas Vokoun moving into the starting role during Pittsburgh's run to the Eastern Conference Final.

PITTSBURGH -- With a few noteworthy names lost during the offseason, at least three of the Pittsburgh Penguins' six forward spots on the team's bottom two lines are up for grabs, which should create heated competition during training camp.

Forwards Jarome Iginla (Boston Bruins), Brenden Morrow (unrestricted free agent), Matt Cooke (Minnesota Wild) and Tyler Kennedy (San Jose Sharks) are gone, leaving holes on the third and fourth lines. Brandon Sutter and Craig Adams can be expected to be the third- and fourth-line centers, respectively. And either Beau Bennett or Jussi Jokinen, whoever loses out on playing next to Evgeni Malkin and James Neal, will take a spot on the bottom two lines.

Sutter is in his second season with the Penguins and said he is anxious to see who he will be playing with.

BOSTON -- The Boston Bruins’ depth up the middle might be tested at the start of training camp as veteran centers Patrice Bergeron and Gregory Campbell continue to recover from injuries incurred during the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Bergeron famously played through a broken rib, injured rib cartilage, punctured lung and separated shoulder in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Chicago Blackhawks. Just as famously, Campbell broke his leg in the Eastern Conference Final against the Pittsburgh Penguins and had to have surgery.

Both players took their physical exams and went through off-ice testing with their teammates at TD Garden on Wednesday. Also, both might be limited when on-ice sessions start Thursday.