by Todd Maternowski

In the lightning-fast world of hockey, sometimes it's just better to stay put.

Good morning, hockey fans: hope this Fourth of July holiday hasn't resulted in too much ash-soaked tears being wiped away by now-fingerless hands over the charred remains of what was once your uninsured home. Because that would seriously suck! And you know what else sucks? The free agent signing frenzy that occurs in every sport that gets sportswriters all huffy but, in reality, merely shows just how glaring your team's weaknesses really are. Last week we discussed the merits of bringing some patented "Bad Boy" brand hockey to liven up the sport --this week, we're going to be pointing at bad hockey teams and guffawing uncontrollably.

The conventional idiocy on free agents in all of the major sports (I'm not including Skeet Surfing here, however unfairly) is that in order to win, you have to get the best players available. To this I would like to say a hearty "Pshaw". This is exactly the sort of thinking that takes gullible general managers out of their comfy high-windowed offices and puts them into cardboard boxes under the freeway.

Yankees GM and Lover of Free Agents Brian Cashman knows what I'm talking about

Not to say that getting a team full of pricey, allegedly talented players together and winning a championship isn't possible: it's probably happened at least a half-dozen times in all of human history, most recently when the Stanley Cup was stolen by the "buy-everyone" Detroit Red Wings in 2002. But even that team, despite their evil free agent ways, had a core of longtime leaders like Yzerman, Lidstrom and Holmstrom who were drafted by the Red Wings sometime during the Harding administration, brought up through the ranks before finally evolving into the heart and core of that championship team.

More importantly, the fact remains that for every 2002 Red Wings team that buys a championship, there are twenty real champions that prove how overrated free agency really is: the 1996 Packers, 2006 Steelers, late 1990s Yankees, the New Jersey Devils, even the 1998 Dallas Stars. While all of these teams signed "key pieces" right before successful championship runs, all of these teams had rosters chocked-full of players they had scouted, drafted, molded and scolded into trophy-lifting material.

That said, I've never been so amused by a single free agent feeding frenzy as this one. All but three teams have tried to re-sign entire rosters from the UFA pool, making the once-professional NHL seem like it's far more financially successful NHL EA Sports cousin (perhaps that's not such a bad thing). Some teams, like the Lightning, Capitals, Rangers, Predators, Kings, Oilers, Blackhawks, Flames and Thrashers, seemed to have signed the cast of Spartacus to their 2007-08 rosters (note how many of those teams also suffer from what I like to call Infinite Suckage). Meanwhile, just the Stars, Coyotes and Sabres, for better or worse, have stayed put.

Of those three, the Coyotes are the most surprising. Why aren't they jumping into the Moron Pool skates-first like the rest of their bottom-feeding breathren? But the Sabres and Stars stayed put, making them, for the tenth consecutive offseason, my two picks for meeting in the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals. Sure, you're asking, What about the Sabres losing the two biggest free agents on the market in Drury and Briere? What about that, wise guy? Huh? You got an answer for that, hopscotch?. As a matter of fact, with the team-first interchangeable-player system built on speed, aggression and short passes, I think Drury and Briere stood to gain far more staying in Buffalo than the other way around. Under that system, both players achieved phenomenal offensive numbers -- but with those speedster wingers, puck-moving d-men and fearless coaching, you could put Barry Switzer and a bag of chiclets in the top two center spots and they'd still score 5 goals a game. Buffalo's also got some of the deepest minor league talent pools in the NHL, so, despite the best effort$$ of the Rangers and Flyers, Buffalo will no doubt pick the Eastern Conference apart in the second half of next season.

Pictured: He's a great player and a great human being with great hair. Now please don't lose my luggage!

As for the Stars, they've done four crucial moves so far that get them far closer to the Cup than any of the aforementioned chumpettes. In just a matter of weeks, they've (A) re-signed Stu Barnes, (B) extended Sergei Zubov's contract, (C) let the Slovakian Softie Nagy walk to his next victim, and (D) let Sydor walk, opening up a spot for one of their many talented young defensemen to shine. In fact, the Stars have three potentially-amazing d-men (d-boys?) in their prospect system right now (according to the ever-terrific Kevin Forbes), offensive juggernaut Matt Niskanen, proven stay-at-homie Niklas Grossman, and hopeful Ivan "The Next Zubov" Vishnevskiy. Bringing up these young guys and dumping the crusty old codgers is the only way the Stars will achieve any measure of success.

Unfortunately, this method also takes infinite patience, and the cajones muy guapos to let a young player make life-lesson-learning mistakes on the ice. But as long as the Stars continue to stand pat on the free agent market --rumors of them signing soft Euro-diver Slava Kozlov from the formidable playoff-warrior Thrashers fortunately proved to be just rumors-- so here's to hoping that Stars GM Doug Armstrong stays the course, trusts the players he's raised as pups and delivers the Stars into the second round of the playoffs and beyond!

On a side note, there will be no Thursday Morning Cupcheck next week, as I will be spending my honeymoon in the wonderful, hockey-mad city of Prague. Tune in two weeks from now, however, as I divulge whatever it is they're putting in the Danube over there to make such high-scoring wingers.