What I've learned so far... by Penguins dman Kris Letang

Penguins Kris Letang - sharp dresser

ZZ Top were right. Every girl's crazy about a sharp dressed man.

Just ask center Jarret Stoll.

Most of his Kings' teammates have selected him as 'best dressed' guy in the room - although Brad Richardson disagrees. Regardless of who can lay claim to being the cat with the sharpest threads in LA though, based upon what I saw from the Penguins on Saturday morning, the title in Pittsburgh clearly belongs to Kris Letang.

And now that Scott Hannan has pulled a Metallica-like mistake and gone from long to short, Letang may also have the best hair in hockey.

Quick side note, can somebody please remind me to work up a 'Hannan cut his hair and his stats have never been the same' article when he and the Flames come to town next month, thanks.

Now that that's all behind us, let's see what Letang has learned so far this season. We chatted for a bit yesterday and here's what he had to say...

About Evgeni Malkin - "He's better with his English than he used to be."

About Matt Cooke - "He loves In-N-Out burgers. He's probably already been there twice today."

About Steve Sullivan - "He's old."

What I've learned so far... by Pittsburgh's James Neal

Like the Penguins' Steve Sullivan, who was profiled last hour, James Neal is one of the few Pittsburgh players who knows the Kings well. Having played for the Dallas Stars during his first three seasons in the NHL, he became well acquainted with Terry Murray's hockey club.

Another change for Neal since the last time he's been here is the addition of a Hulk Hogan-esque mustache. Not sure if that's a Movember thing or not. Either way though, we chatted for a while after morning skate today. Here's what he's learned so far this season...

About Evgeni Malkin - "He loves his Russian music. He gets his headphones on and he's jamming on the bus. His humor is great too. He's happy to be at the rink everyday."

About Steve Sullivan - "I learned that he's old and short. He's on his twitter all the time too, tweeting away."

About Brooks Orpik - "He stirs the pot behind the scenes. He's serious on the outside. But, he's behind a few things."

NHL All Star Game Mock Draft with Drew Doughty

All Star Games in every sport have become boring.

We all know it.

If the game is in your city, it's a great experience - as it was here in Los Angeles in 2002...a weekend filled with legends of the game everywhere, the fan fest, a skills competition, etc.

However, the game itself isn't much to get pumped for unless you're there live. Even the honor of being selected to play doesn't seem to mean what it once did, with more and more athletes finding reasons to have a mini-vacation instead of attending the event with their peers.

Major League Baseball attempted to give theirs a little umph a few years ago by affixing a meaningful prize to the winning league - home field advantage in the playoffs. Sounds great on the surface, but it's hard for fans to invest emotionally in July for an outcome that may or may not mean something to their team three months later. Not to mention the nonsensical correlation between a team gaining such a critical advantage for a championship series by an All Star team victory.

This year the NHL takes its turn at trying to spice things up a bit and I love what they've done.

The game will probably be the same, perhaps only slightly better.

However, there is much more intrigue leading up to tonight than in any All Star Game of recent memory.

At 5pm PST the All Star Draft will get underway on live TV. If you haven't heard, gone is the Western Conference vs. Eastern Conference format. Instead, each team has been assigned a captain (Nicklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings and Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes) and three assistants. All other players have been put in a general pool and one by one they'll be selected to their teams, just like kids on a school yard or frozen pond.

With that in mind, I sat down with a few Kings players to do a mock draft before they all went their separate ways this weekend.  First up, defenseman Drew Doughty.