Tom Kostopoulos

• Pat Hickey on Martin Raymond (that's him in the pic) going from McGill to Hamilton.

• The team web site talks to Travis Moen. Who'd play him in a movie? Will Ferrell. "My life would have to be a comedy."

• TK Talks! Tom Kostopoulos interviewed by the Team 990's Tony Marinaro.

• If you can bear the female android plugging Mormonism at Hockey Buzz, Eric Engels celebrates Passover in August by asking the 10 Questions.

• Dennis Kane's blog on the wisdom of  Sam Pollock.

• Judge Redfield T. Baum – man, we love that name! – rules Jim Balsillie will participate in the Phoenix Coyotes auction. And they're Bettman-bashing in Phoenix.

• The Toronto Star's Paul Hunter assesses Brian Burke's work this summer.

• The Hockey News has its Top 10 Jeremy Roenick quotes.

• EA Sports introduces NHL 10.

• Thanks to Robert L. for finding this Globe and Mail obit on former Forum goal judge and memorabilia collector Carlton McDiarmid.

• A revamped nhlnumbers.com with some cool new categories and breakdowns.

• Today's Video Theatre presentation: Tomas Plekanec highlights

Former Canadien Tom Kostopoulos has signed a three-year deal with the Carolina Hurricanes, the team announced on Tuesday. The deal is worth $2.75 million and runs until the end of the 2011-12 season.

Last season with the Habs, Kostopoulos scored eight goals and added 14 assists in 78 games.

• Kostopoulos is contrite but Wilson isn't buying it

• And neither is François Gagnon 

• Eric Engels sends this interesting photo sequence (see below) he found on Habfans. com It seems to support TK's case.

• Sergei K unloads on former friend Grabovski 

• Thanks to poster dwgs for this Cherry rant about Grabovski butt-ending Price.

• Canadiens suffer through video session 

• Canadiens slip to fourth in ESPN power rankings

• The hit on YouTube and Milan Lucic belting Van Ryn.

• In the Globe and Mail, David Shoalts says Tom Kostopoulos should be punished for carelessness

• Mike Van Ryn will be examined by former Montrealer Karen Johnston, a concussion expert 

• In the Toronto Star, Damien Cox writes both players were doing their jobs 

•  In La Presse, François Gagnon on the Canadiens' lack of discipline and poor work ethic

• In the Journal de Montréal, Marc De Foy looks at the season to date 

• Scott Burnside on the underachieving Canadiens

• SI's Allan Muir on the league's best bargains, including Mike Komisarek: For $1.7 million, the Canadiens have a top pairing defender in Komisarek, who leads league in blocks, is seventh in hits and is a solid presence in his own zone. 

•  Marc-Antoine Godin on $4.9 million worth of fourth-liners

As we await further details – Canadiens will issue a mealy-mouthed statement after their 4 p.m. practice today – let's be thankful that the incident did not involve guns, knives, illegal drugs, underage girls, strippers, ladies of the evening, racial slurs, DUI, brawls with bouncers – or star players.

Ryan O'Byrne and Tom Kostopoulos, however, are in deep sewage with a conservative (with gusts to uptight) organization that frowns on rookie dinners ending with last call and an overnight stay in the nick.

The timing sucks. This debacle will be a huge distraction as the team prepares for back-to-back games in Florida, then a home-and-home with the Flyers.

What's with O'Byrne in the Sunshine State? He breaks his thumb fighting the Panthers. Then on the team's next southern sojourn, the big galoot gets busted for stealing a woman's purse ... and tells the cops she's his girlfriend .... and when they ask her name he doesn't know it.

For this O'Byrne spent three years at an Ivy League university?

You learn better manners in major junior.

And back in the day when I used to close bars, you could rely on anyone whose last name began with O' to be the last man standing.

Canadiens head coach Guy Carbonneau will try and inject some life into his top line tonight by inserting Tom Kostopoulos with Saku Koivu and Christopher Higgings and bumping Michael Ryder to the third line, The Gazette's Pat Hickey reports.

"I think playing with different people he doesn't know, maybe he'll trust his instincts and shoot a little more," Carbonneau said of Ryder, who is going through a deep slump and will be teamed with Steve Bégin and Bryan Smolinski in Buffalo.

Hickey writes: There won't be as many expectations on the newcomer (Kostopoulos) to score goals, but he'll be asked to do some of the heavy lifting along the boards.