Top Line: Rich Peverley's brave request; Canucks hit new low; more links

His health is in question, but there's no doubt about Rich Peverley's determination. (Glenn James/Getty Images) By Allan Muir An annotated guide to this

His health is in question, but there's no doubt about Rich Peverley's determination. (Glenn James/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

An annotated guide to this morning's must-read hockey stories:

• Doctors who attended to Rich Peverley on Monday night explain how they revived the fallen Stars forward after he passed out on the Dallas bench, and reveal the first thing he wanted to do upon regaining consciousness.

• Tim Cowlishaw writes that the Peverley scare should remind us to celebrate what's truly important in sports.

• Ed Willes says that the credibility of the organization is at stake in Vancouver after an epic collapse that saw the Canucks blow a 3-0 third period lead en route to a 7-4 loss to the Islanders on Monday night.

• The timing wasn't the best for Vancouver's loss, what with GM Mike Gillis issuing an open letter to season-ticket holders that defined the team's mission as winning the Stanley Cup.

• Don Cherry says that Rogers Communications may screw up the rest of the new Hockey Night In Canada broadcast, but he promises that "Coach's Corner" will remain the same. Let's hope he's right.

• Canada.com's Laura Strapagiel says that the new HNIC crew introduced on Monday is a diverse group that will appeal to "white men with brown hair and white men with darker brown hair." No doubt Rogers will be hiring additional on-air talent before the show gets to the air (Cassie Campbell deserves to be brought along from CBC), but the company opened itself up to this criticism by rushing a press event before it had all of its ducks in a row.

• Maybe there's not as much opposition to the shootout as we were led to believe.

• Will the general managers empower NHL officials to initiate reviews of their own calls? Seems like a reasonable step to take given that no one is more invested in getting a call right than the men in stripes.

• And Olympic-sized hashmarks? That's the sort of change that no one will notice, but which could serve to speed up the game.

• Panthers coach Peter Horachek promised Jimmy Hayes more ice time if he committed himself to getting to high-traffic areas on the ice, where the game gets tougher and more physical. Hayes jumped at the chance. It's worked out well for both guys since.

• Meet Jukka Ropponen, the guru behind the world's most prolific goalie factory.

• What's it like to take a Shea Weber slapper to the head? Ask Cody Ceci.

• Time has given Maple Leafs coach Randy Carlyle some perspective on his triumphs and failures with the Ducks. It's also had an impact on how two of his former players, Teemu Selanne and Corey Perry, regard Carlyle's final days with the team.

• So it seems that the debut of Evgeny Kuznetsov was kind of a big deal in Washington.

• Sabres GM Tim Murray has had his hands full during the past few weeks, but with the trade deadline in his rear view mirror, he's on the verge of finalizing his most important move yet.

• Five suspensions and one major career transformation were just some of the signposts along the road to 1,000 career games for the Wild's Matt Cooke. Even if he's not one of your favorite players, this piece by Chad Graff is well worth the read.

• What's to be taken from the one-game suspension handed down to Jordan Nolan yesterday by the Department of Player Safety? Just this: Sheriff Shanahan's boys don't have a big problem with guys sucker punching defenseless players.

• I'm with my old tag-team partner Adrian Dater. This promo vid featuring several young members of the Avalanche deserves acclaim for, if nothing else, being a progressive attempt to court the public in a way that the team has never attempted before. It's easy to have a laugh with it because of how earnestly Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and the boys approach their scenes (and because of the painfully generic song), but that doesn't take anything away from what it achieves. Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOLLyHz4-Z8

• Blues goalie coach Corey Hirsch talks about how he's handling his new tandem of Ryan Miller and Brian Elliott.

• The Flyers will unveil a statue honoring Hall of Fame coach Fred Shero before Saturday's game against the Devils.

• The Lightning have a statue of their own in the works, although fans will have to wait until next month to see it.

did not cross the border