Puck Headlines: Phaneuf, Nabokov among West all-star snubs

Here are your Morning Puck Headlines: A glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.

• Your Western Conference All-Star Team reserves: Nicklas Lidstrom, Sheldon Souray, Dan Boyle and Shea Weber on defense; Jarome Iginla, Milan Hejduk, Rick Nash, Mike Modano, Pavel Datsyuk, Dustin Brown, Shane Doan, Keith Tkachuk and Joe Thornton up front; Roberto Luongo and Niklas Backstrom in goal. Among the notable snubs: Brian Rafalski, Dion Phaneuf, Rob Blake and Evgeni Nabokov. (Update: As someone in the chat pointed out, donde esta Mikko Koivu? As well as Devin Setoguchi?) [NHL]

The NHL will have a hearing on Jarkko Ruutu's alleged biting of Andrew Peters of the Buffalo Sabres last night. Wonder if Bettman will opt for anger management ... oh, that's right: Ruutu only bit another man. He didn't make a sex joke. Meanwhile, CBC Sports runs down the splendid history of sports chomping, from Marc Savard to Mike Tyson. [CBC]

• Why did Sean Avery fail to fit in with the Dallas Stars? Two words: suit shorts. [SI]

• Remember how fans of the other 29 teams in the League would mock the Detroit Red Wings for padding their record in one of the weakest divisions in the NHL? Yeah, not so much anymore. [Detroit News]

• Don't let the dropped gloves and landed punches fool you -- the following altercation between Andre Roy of the Calgary Flames and Alexei Semenov of the San Jose Sharks isn't a fight. According to the referees, it's a roughing:

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Ross McKeon made the point in this morning's three stars, but how the hell do the refs hand out roughing minors to these guys just over two minutes after receiving their first pair of coincidental roughing minors? Were they unimpressed with the fight? Unwilling to allow Roy to pad his major penalty stats? What kind of a world do we live in where Andre Roy gets two for roughing after taking down Alexei Semenov with a couple of lefts, yet Brett McLean gets five for fighting because he was Sidney's inflatable punching weeble?

• Speaking of fights, check out the one-punch wonder from Ruslan Fedotenko of the Pittsburgh Penguins against Colby Armstrong of the Atlanta Thrashers. HockeyFights.com gave Ruslan the rare 100-percent voting victory for this. [YouTube]

• Puck The Media takes down Adrian Dater of the Denver Post for his work on Versus.com. Clearly, someone needs to show more 'V'. [Puck The Media]

Colorado Avalanche Francois Giguere is a sad clown because of the salary cap. "It's just not as easy as it used to be to make trades." [Denver Post]

• The Phoenix Coyotes reduce their administrative staff by 10 percent. Read it here before it's the lead story in Thursday's Globe & Mail. [AZ Republic]

• Honestly, nothing that happened in the Coyotes' HR department is going to be any more brutal than what happened at home against the Chicago Blackhawks last night. [Third Man In]

• The San Jose Sharks prove yet again last night that they are not, in fact, indestructible. Said Dan Boyle: "I don't know if there are answers, but that was the worst period I've seen this team play all year. Just zero forecheck. Zero. No puck control. That was embarrassing." [Working the Corners]

Columbus Blue Jackets have recalled forward Nikita Filatov from the Syracuse Crunch. In other news, Puck Daddy gets teary-eyed blowing dust off its collection of Amanda Bynes jokes. [Jackets]

• Alex Kovalev shares his passion for flying. Instead of, you know, diving. [NHL Video]

• Finally, congrats to Alanah's virtual British avatar for landing this exclusive "interview" with Mats Sundin, who will make his debut tonight in Edmonton. [Canucks and Beyond]

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