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LA Kings Insider notes that Drew Doughty gets a lot of attention, and rightfully so, after his summer contract squabble and his $7-million annual salary. It’s not so much the money but, as coaches always say, your best players have to be your best players, and by extension, your highest-paid players should be your best players.

So, is criticism of Doughty warranted?

Overall, his numbers aren’t strong, but numbers don’t always tell the story, and Doughty is actually on the upswing under Darryl Sutter. In 28 games under Terry Murray, Doughty had two goals, eight assists and a minus-6 rating. In 16 games under Sutter, Doughty has one goal, nine assists and a plus-8 rating. The criticism seems to extend from the perception that Doughty’s game has not progressed since he was a Norris Trophy finalist two years ago. Asked, in particular, about Doughty’s game Sunday night, Sutter gave a lengthy breakdown of Doughty’s recent play…

SUTTER: “We wanted to match up, with Hejduk and O’Reilly’s line. We wanted that matchup, so that’s who he played against. I didn’t really have a problem with our defense last night. I think we’re trying to get the three older guys [Greene, Mitchell, Scuderi] to be a little more assertive in their games. I think they’re doing better at that. Those three young guys [Doughty, Johnson, Voynov], they’re kids. They’ve got lots to learn. I don’t think one of them is any different than the other ones.

“Drew, he has done a good job. That’s the thing I like about Drew, the way he plays against top players, for somebody his age. He can play head-up, and that’s the best thing. The other stuff is just going to be, not a process, but for him it’s going to be a curve always, until he figures it all out. The guy I coached who was closest to him was (Chris) Chelios. Once Chelly figured out the whole thing, instead of `one night this, one night that,’ then he was dominant. He didn’t get that until he was 28, 29 (years old). Most kids like (Doughty) are still juniors in college. As long as he’s doing a good job in his preparation, and being a pro, then his game can only get better, because that’s what he will do, I think.’’

The Calgary Sun describes how in the back of Olli Jokinen’s mind, he knew for years the drinking would have to stop.

He knew the toll his binge boozing was taking on his body and, ultimately, on his career.

Happy to tie one on with his teammates when the opportunity presented itself, those nights out with the boys no longer seemed worth it the next day or two when hobbled by debilitating hangovers.

Both the throbbing in his head and the weakness that stems from being dehydrated were cheating him, his teammates, his coach and his organization out of what he knew he could bring on night’s the game had his full attention.

The Tylenol intake mounted, as did the guilt.

So he quit.

“I’ve been sober six years now,” a candid Jokinen told The Sun, sharing his alcohol issues publicly for the first time.

“I don’t want to be one of those guys who sits in the bar after I’m done playing and says, ‘What if?’ I don’t like to use the word ‘if.’ Whatever the length of your career is going to be, you want to make the most out of it. You want to be in a position to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, ‘I did everything I possibly could to be the best I could.’ ”

And that meant changing his lifestyle in many ways, starting with eliminating alcohol from his diet — not something many athletes openly discuss during their careers.

“I think quitting drinking was more about feeling good about myself,” the 33-year-old Calgary Flames centre said of a decision that came while he was still playing with the Panthers in Florida.

“I didn’t like to have a hangover. It wasn’t like I would drink every day, but when you go out, you would get plastered up pretty good, and it would take two or three days to recover. When you get older, that gets even harder and harder — you can’t do that very often. I’d have a major headache for several days, and that was the part I didn’t enjoy.”

Blessed with a 6-foot-3, 210-lb. frame, the knock on Jokinen for years was that he didn’t take care of himself as well as most of today’s NHLers do. That began to change in 2005, when he made wholesale lifestyle changes that included the realization his drinking was a legitimate problem.

“You have to be honest with yourself and make decisions on which way you want to go,” said Jokinen, who quit cold turkey and without the aid of Alcoholics Anonymous or any other support group other than his wife and kids.

“I tried it and felt better and better, and there was no reason to go back (to drinking). To be honest, it wasn’t hard (to quit). I wasn’t a guy who got blasted once a week — more like four or five times during the year and then also through the summer. It wasn’t like I was hung over every day. You’ve got to know yourself. When you’re young, it takes time to understand what’s good for you and what works.”

As part of Jokinen’s increased focus on fitness, he now employs a full-time masseuse he figures has done wonders to help him remain healthy. He’s only missed three games over the last 21/2 NHL seasons.

Add to that a personal sports psychologist he works with on game days, and it’s no wonder he’s evolved into one of the Flames best players this year.

He’s convinced none of it would have been possible had he not taken a stance on alcohol consumption six years ago.

The Edmonton Journal relays that an upset Taylor Hall wishes he hadn’t questioned coach Tom Renney for pulling the goalie in the last three minutes of a one-sided Calgary Flames’ win over the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.

Lee Stempniak ended up sliding the puck past the fallen Hall into the empty net.

“I was so frustrated by the whole sequence of events. I certainly wasn’t singling Tom out. I respect everything he does. It was embarrassing on my part. We’ve talked and we’ve moved on,” said Hall, who was shown on CBC mouthing his discontent with the yanking of Devan Dubnyk with the Oilers down 5-2.

Renney wrote off Hall’s complaint. In the coach’s mind, he’s a young player who wears his heart on his sleeve and wants to win so badly. In this case, he went a little overboard.

“He regrets it. Frustration is alive and well,” said Renney. “It’s about a player growing up and maturing, if he’s going to be a leader of this team down the road ... which he will.

“He has to handle circumstances and what we’re trying to do here. He’s so driven, so passionate. The kid’s a stud, not a dud, and I know which one I’d rather have.”

The Minneapolis Star Tribune describes how on a cloudy day, with a little bit of snow -- or was that sleet? -- falling, the Wild descended on the John Rose Oval in Roseville for its second outdoor practice there in two seasons.

Coming the night after a much-needed victory, with the place packed with fans and the players wearing tuques over their helmets, it appeared everyone was having a good time.

Which begs the question: Shouldn't Minnesota be hosting a Winter Classic outdoor game here sooner rather than later?

Wild owner Craig Leipold thinks so. And he is convinced it will happen soon.

"I have a high sense of confidence we'll able to get that," he said. "It looks like [the Winter Classic] will be in Detroit next year. I guess I was a little disappointed to hear that. But it is what it is. I would like to think the year after that we'd be ready."

Word is next season's game, hosted by the Red Wings, would be held at the University of Michigan football stadium in Ann Arbor. If Leipold's hunch is right about the following season's game perhaps landing in the Twin Cities, where would it be played? Target Field or TCF Bank Stadium?

Leipold said that decision is up to the NHL and NBC, which televises the game.

But, Leipold said, there are signs the league is taking a hard look at Minnesota. "They're asking me questions now that they've never asked me before," he said. "Logistical questions. Like, what's your opinion on this? And who would you want to play? And how could you guys make it unique and different? Would you go to a different type of jersey? It gives me a lot of confidence that they're thinking hard."

So who would Leipold like to play? "There are some marquee rivals that we have," he said. "We'd be interested in some of those. Chicago would be great, St. Louis. Dallas would be good, get that whole Dallas/North Stars thing going again. I say [to the league] you guys pick 'em. We'll play."

Jets head coach Claude Noel, via the Winnipeg Sun, on Eric Fehr beginning Saturday's game on the top line with Bryan Little and Blake Wheeler in place of the concussed Evander Kane, but then switching Fehr with Alex Burmistrov after two periods: “When you keep changing wingers there’s no continuity, either, but somewhere in there you have to decide: Do you stick with it? Do you not? How much time do you give it? These are the things that you try to sort through,” Noel said. “After a while you’ve gotta see a little bit more. And if you don’t, it’s like, OK, somebody help us here.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch remembers that the first of the gushing compliments about Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo was dropped in December 2010 before a Blues-Detroit game.

"It looks like he's been touched by a wand by God," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock told the Post-Dispatch.

Five months later, Pietrangelo suited up for Team Canada at the 2011 world championships, where Ken Hitchcock was his coach.

"He has the same puck patience characteristics as Nick Lidstrom," the future Blues coach told reporters that May. "He's calm when he should panic … he has that quality about him that's very, very unique where he does not panic when he's under challenging situations."

Now in his second full NHL season, the only part of Pietrangelo's story not to advance at the same progression is his age. The same week he turned 22 years old, the defenseman scored the game's lone goal on a brilliant sequence in Thursday's 1-0 win over Edmonton. He added two more assists in Saturday's 4-2 triumph over Buffalo, giving him 13 points in a career-long nine-game point streak.

Tonight in Detroit, where the Blues and Red Wings will battle for the No. 1 spot in the NHL standings, there will be few players more pivotal to the outcome than Pietrangelo, who will have his two admirers on opposite benches.

"If you're a Blues' fan, you're watching the emergence of a really good player," Hitchcock said. "There's not many defensemen where you say this guy's got a chance to be a (No. 1 defenseman). He's got a chance to be a No. 1."

Hitchcock tells The Post-Dispatch there are few young defensemen in the league as poised as Pietrangelo in their own zone. His plus-18 rating matches his total of 2010-11, and he has just four penalties all season, including two that came in one game. Pietrangelo played 19 games without an infraction before drawing a whistle Jan. 7 against Colorado.

"His stick alone makes him a top player," Hitchcock said. "He makes so many little plays that get us out of trouble from the red line back (in the defensive zone), he's been terrific since the day I got here."

Offensively, however, Hitchcock says that Pietrangelo was keeping his head down too much.

"When I first got here, he was a little bit nervous on the offensive blue line," Hitchcock said. "He had his head buried. Now he's up, he's faking, he's looking at the net more and he's seeing more of the ice."

The compliments keep coming, and ignoring them might be Pietrangelo's biggest challenge.

"I don't pay attention to it, just go out there and play," the young blueliner said. "Everybody's goal is to be the best defenseman and that's my goal. I'm just going to do what I do every night and hopefully it leads to good things."

Neither Joey Crabb nor Carl Gunnarsson was auditioning to be the Maple Leafs’ next enforcer, according to The Toronto Sun.

It just looked that way during practice on Sunday afternoon at the MasterCard Centre, when the teammates dropped their gloves and engaged in a brief scrap after jostling in front of the net.

Crabb landed a couple of rights to Gunnarsson’s face before Nikolai Kulemin and assistant coaches Greg Cronin and Rob Zettler broke up the fight as the frustration of four losses in five games seeped into an intense workout.

“We were just battling and it was nothing much,” Crabb said. “I thought he butt-ended me. He claims he didn’t. That’s fine. We were working hard out there and trying to get better. Quick little tussle and that was it.

“We’re good buddies off the ice. We look too much alike. Little brotherly quarrel. As soon as it is over, it was back to being normal.”

Gunnarsson also shrugged the fight off.

“It’s fine,” Gunnarsson said. “Me and Crabby always have battles going on in practice and sometimes you snap. But when practice is over, it’s over.”

Coach Ron Wilson put zero stock in the tussle, but goalie James Reimer had a different take on it.

“As weird as it sounds, it is almost team building,” Reimer said. “It’s good when you have a hard practice and you get your emotions high. It shows we want to win and we care, especially those two, a lot about their jobs.”

The Raleigh News & Observer indicates that it's not a moment Cam Ward likes to recall and one the Carolina Hurricanes goalie insists he will not repeat.

During the Canes' Dec. 9 road game against the Winnipeg Jets, Ward was pulled by coach Kirk Muller early in the second period and then had an emotional meltdown on the bench, letting out a few expletives. Two days later, Ward said he was sorry for the outburst and said he would put all his energies, physically and emotionally, into his goaltending.

Tonight, Ward and the Canes face the Jets at the RBC Center. Since that night in Winnipeg, Ward has gone 8-4-5 and has allowed more than three goals just twice in those 17 games.

"There are times in the year when emotions get to you and it becomes draining, and it was for me at the beginning of the year," Ward said Sunday. "I was able to put it aside and just focus on what I need to do on the ice.

"I kind of used that energy and just came back and began playing my game. That's just being sound positionally and trying to give your team a chance to win on a nightly basis."

In the past eight games, Ward has not given up more than two goals and has a .952 save percentage. He shut out the Washington Capitals 3-0 on Friday at the RBC Center, then had 38 saves Saturday in the Canes' 2-1 overtime road loss to the New York Islanders.

"Sometimes it's not the saves you make but the goals you let in and you have to be strong mentally for 60 minutes, just as Muller stresses for the team in a game," Ward said. "I feel like I'm doing a good job of doing that and I've been rewarded.

"I feel like in these last few games I've been seeing the puck really well. .. When I'm calm and relaxed in the net I'm able to control my rebounds and not over-commit on shots. I've also been getting a lot of help from my teammates. We've been playing much better in our own zone and that makes my job a lot easier."

During the first part of his rookie season, the Tampa Tribune says Lightning forward Brett Connolly would cringe when it came to video sessions, wondering where the clips of his on-ice mistakes might show up on the highlight reel.

For the most part, the 19-year-old found himself spared from those moments in his first two months with the Lightning before he was loaned to Team Canada on Dec. 8, for the World Junior Championships, helping Canada win a bronze medal.

Since returning to Tampa on Jan. 9, however, the sixth overall pick in 2010 is no longer receiving the rookie treatment when it comes to those video team meetings.

"I think (the coaching staff) let me off the hook a little bit at the start of the year, leaving me off the clips,'' Connolly said. "But when I got back I found out that wasn't going to be the case anymore.''

To put it bluntly, the kid gloves are off when it comes to helping make Connolly a better player. And just like everybody else on the team, he has to earn his opportunities through his play.

"Before Christmas he's obviously a young guy you are trying to groom and you give him some green cards sometimes to do different things and freedom and all that,'' head coach Guy Boucher said. "But at the same time he has to learn to play and be a professional and we said as a staff that if we were going to take him back after Team Canada that he would fit wherever he deserves to fit at that moment.

"He's not a young guy anymore, he's part of the team and he is subject to the same positive or constructive criticism as the other guys that have been in the league for 10 years.''

Right now, that means playing a fourth-line role with some second-unit power play time mixed in that sees Connolly getting roughly six minutes of ice time per game. Without a goal since Nov. 17 and any points in his past 14 games, he has cracked 10 minutes of ice time twice in the past 13 games and none in the past seven.

Like most teenagers trying to learn the game at the NHL level, it Connolly's play in his own end that needs the most improvement, something that the video sessions help with as well as plenty of one-on-one time with assistant coach Martin Raymond and Boucher.

"The little details go a long way and for me I need to focus on that in order to become a better defensive player,'' Connolly said. "I've been working at it with the coaches, Guy has been great, he's been helping me since day one. I've been learning a lot and it's a process and it's something I know I need to get better at.''

Email: chris.nichols@sportsnet.rogers.com

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­Chris Nichols is Sportsnet.ca's fantasy hockey writer.