Thursday's Daily Dosage - Weber, Perron, Stepan...

Shea Weber was awarded a one-year contract at $7.5M through arbitration.  Everyone is wetting themselves over what this means for Nashville and assumes that Weber is on his way out.  This could be the beginning of the end but let's wait and see, he's still a RFA again next year so they have two years to work something out and it's not like this deal blows their budget as it barely brings them over the floor. 

Patrick Sharp had a year left on his current contract but the Hawks wasted no time as they gave him a five-year extension.  Sharp is a very nice secondary scoring option for the Hawks and locks in their core (Toews, Kane, Sharp, Hossa, Keith & Seabrook) for at least the next four seasons. 

Unfortunate news... David Perron is still suffering post concussion symptoms and the Blues do not expect him to be ready to by the beginning of the season.  The Blues do think that he'll play at some point during the 2011/12 season but when a guy is still dealing with issues nine months after the incident, I don't know how you can feel confident about that.

Great piece here by George E. Ays of Blueshirt Banter on the chances that Derek Stepan suffers a sophomore slump this season... and he comes to the conclusion that it is very possible.  I agree but also think there are a number of encouraging signs that point to a breakout this year... I'll get to those in The Breakout Bible.

Colin White quickly found work on the west coast as he signed a one-year deal with the Sharks... (I hope) he won't have any fantasy relevance in your league but this does give the Sharks seven NHL dmen signed and leaves a pretty good looking young prospect, Justin Braun, in the minors waiting for an opportunity.

Reports say that Patrick O`Sullivan has signed a deal (we're assuming two-way) with the Coyotes... he was great in the A last year and brutal in the NHL with Carolina & Minnesota.  I wouldn't be counting on seeing much of him in Phoenix this year, doesn't seem like a Dave Tippett type player but I guess it will depend on injuries.

Everyone's favourite whipping boy, Nikolay Zherdev, has reportedly signed to play in the KHL next season... makes sense but he'll probably be back next year or even part way through this season when things don't work out for him over there.