Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

Recently the Los Angeles Kings have been running little quizzes on their website. "Can You Name Every Kings Head Coach?" "How Many Kings 40-goal Scorers Can You Name?" and so forth.

So here's one: Can You Name Anyone the Kings Have Acquired This Offseason?

I've seen a bunch of stuff about the team in recent weeks, all related to Ilya Kovalchuk(notes), and that got me thinking: Have they picked up anyone at all else this summer? The answer, since they made four pick-only trades at the draft on June 25 and 26, is no.

The Kings, as far as I've been able to ascertain from any source (TSN, ESPN, Yahoo, NHL.com, the team's website, even Wikipedia) have neither signed nor traded for a player at any level of the professional hockey ranks that was not previously

Trending Topics is a new column that looks at the week in hockey according to Twitter. If you don't know about Twitter, get with the times old man.

Earlier this week, Jay Grossman, the agent for Ilya Kovalchuk(notes), Tweeted, "Ilya Kovalchuk will make his decision today (for sure, this time!)"

Yeah, yeah, Jay Grossman, we saw it all before. You guaranteed that two weeks ago and all we got outta that was a fortnight of walking around like Charlie Brown on that Christmas special. Not that this didn't generate a couple re-Tweets and some fretting in both New Jersey and Los Angeles.

But then, just 31 minutes later, it turned out he was right. And who broke the news and scooped all the insiders?

It was the Devils themselves. And they did it on Twitter.

As you can imagine, pandemonium immediately broke out. That was the first time a team broke a signing of that magnitude on Twitter, to my knowledge.

Then on Wednesday, St. Louis Blues forward David Perron(notes) announced his new two-year

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

It's times like these that I understand why people read rumor websites.

There's just nothing going on right now in the hockey world. Like, almost literally nothing. No signings, no trades, and barely even rumblings of either.

You'll hear about a few things here and there, of course. The weekend brought us a number of signings for guys that have an outside shot of making their organization's roster in February if four left defensemen all get hurt at once, along with a couple NHL-level fourth-line guys that signed qualifying offers -- that kind of thing. Some front office deck-chair rearranging. Nothing at all exciting.

This whole "anti-climactic summer" thing started with Patrick Kane's(notes) Cup-winning goal that no one saw until it was in the net for 45

Trending Topics is a column that looks at the week in hockey according to Twitter. If you don't know about Twitter, get with the times old man.

Just in case you were wondering, the NHLPA is pretty much a total gong show at this point.

OK, so that's not news. It's been an unmitigated disaster on a number of levels for a couple years now. Bob Goodenow retired in disgrace after the owners basically solely dictated the terms of the new collective bargaining agreement, Ted Saskin was going through player emails, and now, a multi-million dollar, player-funded NHLPA investigation into why Paul Kelly got bounced from his job has just wrapped up.

Semi-occasional Twitter user/Hall of Fame Boston Globe hockey writer Kevin Paul Dupont tossed up his first Tweet since March to say, "Players get results of investigation into events that led to dismissal of PA's Paul Kelly. Finding: Kelly shamefully railroaded."

Translation: The players literally paid millions of dollars to find out what we already

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

There's been a lot of talk about what will happen to international hockey if the next collective bargaining agreement doesn't allow NHL players to participate in the Winter Olympics.

Russians have said they'll go anyway (so much so that it's been brought up as a point of contention in the ongoing Ilya Kovalchuk(notes) negotiations). Fans have said they wouldn't watch without them. Everyone probably agrees that the game as a whole would suffer on a global level.

But it wouldn't have to.

The World Cup just wrapped up and it serves as a perfect model for what life after NHLers playing Olympic hockey could look like.

(Coming Up: The continuing Kovalchuk drama and silly contract reports; banner sadness for Red Wings rookie; the Jackets seek to continue their

Trending Topics is a new column that looks at the week in hockey according to Twitter. If you don't know about Twitter, get with the times old man.

Everyone's so mad at Ilya Kovalchuk(notes) and I don't blame 'em.

This constant back-and-forth between Kovy and his agent and the Los Angeles Kings and the New Jersey Devils and the New York Islanders ... no not the Islanders but maybe the Atlanta Thrashers ... OK not them either ... it's just maddening.

In fact, it's too much for some of our most stalwart reporters to handle.

"OK," tweeted ESPN's Pierre LeBrun, "that's last Kovalchuk update from this cat until the guy finally signs. I'm sick of this story. Over and out."

Well, alright, first of all I didn't know LeBrun was enough of a jazz musician to call anyone a "cat," but then I still haven't watched the last two episodes of "Treme," so maybe he makes a cameo and proves me wrong. Second, you're absolutely right, Pierre.

This saga has literally dragged on interminably for eight days

Trending Topics is a new column that looks at the week in hockey according to Twitter. If you don't know about Twitter, get with the times old man.

For hockey fans, yesterday was one of those rare days when everything worked out great ... if your team didn't make one of the many insane signings that swept across the NHL, that is.

The luckiest teams, with a couple of exceptions, were the ones that more or less stood pat. By not indulging in the first-day feeding frenzy, some GMs were able to successfully avoid doing something stupid, like giving Derek Boogaard(notes) a four-year contract worth $6.6 million. (GMs such as Glen Sather, chomping above.)

A lot of people on Twitter -- like Boston Bruins and Washington Capitals fans -- seemed a little upset when their teams failed to make even a slight splash in free agency.

But what would they have their team do? Give Toni Lydman(notes) or Derek Morris(notes) long-term deals that will pay them as much as Ryan freakin' Suter? Believe me,

Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend's events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.

Every year, it seems, Peter Chiarelli paints himself into a corner.

Around this time last year, we were all sitting around waiting for him to pull the trigger on the imminent Phil Kessel(notes) trade because the Bruins had no cap space; and, well, Kess wasn't especially beloved in the Boston dressing room.

Now the hockey community is refreshing Twitter every 10 minutes expecting to see another money-saving blockbuster from him, because once again the Bruins are out of cap space and, this time, overloaded at a couple of positions.

He wisely shipped useful energy center Vladimir Sobotka(notes) to St. Louis for the rights to David Warsofsky, a mobile defenseman with whom they are no doubt exceedingly familiar, considering he plays for Boston University.

The