Winnipeg's Jonathan Toews scored on the very first shot of the game Tuesday night as the Chicago Blakchawks handed the dreadful Edmonton Oilers their 11th straight loss by a score of 4-2.

Toews quick marker was his 18th of the year in what is shaping up to be a career season for the talented wunderkid.

With 25 assists, Toews is just shy of a point-a-game pace through 47 games and is showing no lingering effects from a devestating hit by Willie Mitchell of the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 21 that cost Toews six games with a concussion.

And speaking of concussions, the news today that Hockey Canada is convening a summit on head injuries is long overdue.

Russell's Theo Fleury inadvertently caused a bit of a stir in the Chicago media last week during his continuing tour to promote his book, Playing with Fire.

Fleury was being interviewed by WGN anchor Allison Payne live on-air last Thursday when she revealed that she had used the same 12-step 'sponsor' Fleury later used in Chicago when he was first trying to get sober.

That was the first time Payne had publicly admitted she had addiction issues and it was immediately picked up in other Chicago media, who'd long speculated about what was behind a series of increasingly bizarre on-air appearances — slurred speech, glassy eyes, strange behavior — that ultimately led to Payne losing the supper-hour WGN anchor chair she had held for 18 years.

Station execs and the anchor had long maintained the problems were the result of some small strokes Payne had suffered.

WORCESTER -- The Vancouver Canucks are reportedly boycotting CBC's Hockey Night in Canada over the show's treatment of former Manitoba Moose player -- and current Canuck -- Alexandre Burrows.

The Canucks are still so irate about what they feel was a hatchet job that host Ron Maclean did on Burrows a couple weeks ago that the team refused the public broadcaster access to their players or staff during the broadcast of the Vancouver-Chicago game on Saturday, the Globe and Mail is reporting.

The Canucks have demanded an apology -- and CBC has refused -- for a Maclean segment Jan. 16 in which Maclean lambasted Burrows for publicly alleging a referee had told the player that he was going to 'get him' in reprisal for showing up the official in a previous game.

Maclean did not interview Burrows for the segment, drawing the particular ire of the Canucks.

It appears the wait is finally over for Winnipeg's Cam Barker.

Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said Barker is probable this afternoon when the Blackhawks kick off an eight-game road trip in Columbus against the Blue Jackets.

Barker has missed five straight games with an 'upper body injury' but the 23-year-old defenceman been practicing with the Hawks this week.

Barker's got four goals and nine assists in 39 games this season and has 49 minutes in penalties -- including an eye-popping 27 minutes aquired Jan. 2 in St. Louis when Barker went after the Blues' Mike Weaver, who'd labelled Hawks teammate Patrick Sharp.

Sidney Crosby's new full-length commercial is a hoot.

Enjoy.

The United States Hockey League (USHL) is a decent, but lesser-known junior loop down south and certainly not the first choice of most top young hockey prospects.

But where there’s hockey, there’s hope and we’ve seen that in a couple of USHL grads who skated through town recently on their way to bigger and better things.

First, it was Manitoba Moose winger Dan Sexton, the pride of the USHL’s Sioux Falls Stampede, who touched down briefly in Winnipeg last November on his way to what looks like it will be a bona fide NHL career.

In 17 NHL games since being called up by the Anaheim Ducks from the Moose, Sexton has scored six goals and six assists and is presently 11th in scoring on the struggling Ducks, despite having played less than half of the games of most of his teammates.

It’s the most tantalizing of prospects -- Teemu Selanne comes to Winnipeg this week to play for the Manitoba Moose on a conditioning assignment as the former Winnipeg Jet, former NHL rookie of the year and current Anaheim Ducks winger finishes up his rehab from a broken hand.

The Ducks have been sending the Moose players this season, Moose GM Craig Heisinger and Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle are great friends and that exact rumour is all the rage in several internet chat rooms in town -- including the one operated by the Moose.

Alas, it’s also completely false. Extremely false. Unbelievably false.Just listen to Heisinger’s response when I put the question directly to him this morning.

“Don’t ask me such a stupid question. That’s just stupid,” Heisinger said. “At some point, people have to think before they ask such a stupid question. It’s stupid. Stupid.”

NORFOLK -- How about Dan Sexton?

The Anaheim Ducks winger — and recently departed Manitoba Moose — had a role in both of Anaheim's goals in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings Friday night.

Sexton set up Saku Koivu for the first goal of the game and then scored himself with less than a minute left in the second period to make the score 2-0 Anaheim.

Alas, the Ducks rolled over in the third period and gave it up entirely in OT to fall to 11-13 on the season.

ROCKFORD, ILL. -- John Lammers is out, Taylor Ellington is in and Evan Oberg is just out of luck as the Manitoba Moose juggled their roster today in advance of their game with the Rockford IceHogs tonight.

The Moose released Lammers, who was pointless in 11 games with the Moose and shot at opposition goalies like police officers shoot at suspects -- If you aim centre-mass, odds are you’ll hit them somewhere. And Lammers always did.

Lammers, a third round draft pick of the Dallas Stars in 2004, came to the Moose from the Anchorage Aces of the East Coast Hockey League, although he did have AHL experience -- most recently with the Houston Aeros last season.

Meanwhile, the Moose announced they have recalled Ellington, a defenceman, from their East Coast affiliate in Victoria to cover for Oberg, who was unable to make this road trip because, get this, he’d misplaced his passport.

It was the morning after the raucous night before and all the talk at the MTS Centre this morning was about what's to come in the much-anticipated rematch tonight.

The Manitoba Moose and Toronto Marlies, who played a wild and fight-filled affair last night, will take to the ice again this evening at 7:30 p.m. for what promises to be a dramatic Round 2.

The biggest crowd of the season, fuelled by the Santa Claus Parade this afternoon, is expected and there will be enough hard feelings in the building to fill whatever empty seats there might be after a 5-1 Moose victory last night that saw the home side win the battle to put the puck in the net but pay a stiff price from a bigger, stronger and more physical Marlies club in a game that saw a total of 112 minutes in penalties handed out, including 12 fighting majors.

The Moose took the brunt of the punishment, while snapping a five-game losing streak with a long-awaited offensive explosion against a Toronto club with whom the Moose have a long and bitter rivalry.

The decimated Manitoba Moose roster got a reinforcement this morning in advance of their rematch tonight with the Norfolk Admirals at MTS Centre.

The Moose announced this morning that they have signed forward Mark McCutcheon, who'd most recently been playing with the AHL's Portland Pirates, to a professional tryout contract.

McCutcheon will not likely help the Moose much however in the area they need help the most -- goal scoring, where the club has notched just seven goals in the past seven games. They scored just one goal Monday night in a 3-1 loss to the Admirals.

The 25-year-old has played in 133 career games in the AHL over three seasons with Portland and the Lake Erie Monsters and has amassed just 10 goals and 18 assists in that time. He did, however, have two goals in five games with the Pirates this season.

Playing soccer underneath the arena stands prior to a game has become a standard pre-game ritual for most professional hockey teams.

And it’s one that has thrown two teams -- the AHL’s Manitoba Moose and the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks -- into a bit of an upheaval this morning.

Canucks forward Michael Grabner, who’s been in exceptional in Vancouver since getting called up from the Moose last month, severely injured his ankle Sunday night while playing soccer with Canucks teammates prior to Vancouver’s game against the Colorado Avalanche.

An MRI or x-ray is expected to be conducted today, but it is feared Grabner may have broken the ankle and could be out at least a month.

The revolving door between Winnipeg and Vancouver continued to spin this morning with the announcement that Russian sniper Sergei Shirokov is headed back down to the Manitoba Moose while Slovak centreman Mario Bliznak is on his way up to the Vancouver Canucks.

The move comes one night after another former Moose player, Alexandre Bolduc, reinjured his shoulder in a Canucks game against Los Angeles, creating a need for another centreman on the battered Canucks lineup.

Shirokov is a winger and while he was prolific in ten games with the Moose this season, he’d failed to impress in Vancouver since getting called up last Sunday. Shirokov has failed to record a point in six games with the Canucks over two different stints in the NHL this season and was dropped to the fourth line in the Canucks 2-1 shootout win over the Kings Thursday night.

Bliznak has had two goals and three assists with the Moose this season, while Shirokov had four goals and six assists with the Moose.

ROSEMONT, ILL. -- It’s not forgotten, certainly not with one player still out of the lineup and the other just returning tonight.

And no, the Manitoba Moose haven’t exactly forgiven the Chicago Wolves either for a pair of questionable hits the last time these two teams played on Oct. 10 that knocked Moose defencemen Brian Salcido and Lawrence Nycholat out of the lineup.

But with both teams set to do battle here again tonight for the first time since that notable clash, reps for both clubs said following their morning skates here this morning that they now have more important things to worry about than what happened two weeks ago.

For the Moose, it’s improving on a 2-2 record on this six-game road trip in which they’ve shown flashes of brilliant hockey and remarkable inconsistency, game to game, period to period and even shift to shift.

CHICAGO -- You know how Winnipeg is sometimes called the ‘Chicago of the North’?

Well, it was a lot more like Chicago was the ‘Winnipeg of the South’ here last night as the Blackhawks played the Vancouver Canucks and the requirement for meaningful participation in the game was apparently a connection to Winnipeg.

Consider:--Winnipeg-born Blackhawks defenceman Duncan Keith notched a goal and an assist in a 3-2 loss to the Canucks.

--Winnipeg born and raised Blackhawks defenceman Cam Barker set up the Keith goal, feathering a perfect pass to Keith for the one-timer from the blue line.