So, I know, I need to get a life.

On the Fourth of July, I am actually going through all the blogs since the end of the season and categorizing them by what names are in each blog so it’s more organized for you — the Wild fan and Star Tribune subscriber (because I am confident everybody that checks out this lovely free service also supports us by purchasing the paper).

Check the blog I wrote on May 4 on Stephane Veilleux. He hired agent Allan Walsh. In listing Allan’s clients, I got sidetracked like I often do and flashed back into history to when Walsh represented Marian Gaborik. In the blog, I joked how wouldn’t it be funny if years later, he replaced Gaborik in Minnesota for Martin Havlat.

Here’s the link

I’ll be back on later this evening with a more in-depth free-agent primer, but I figured I’d jump on and say hello now.

I know there are all these Vincent Lecavalier rumors to Minnesota floating around the blogosphere, but I can tell you that yesterday morning, as good a source as you can possibly have from one of the two teams told me that “Vinny’s staying — 100 percent,” meaning he will not be traded before his July 1 no-trade kicks in.

I suppose if some deal knocked the Lightning’s socks off in the next 24 hours, that could change. But let’s be honest — it’s very doubtful the Wild has those assets to suddenly make the Lightning change its mind.

Essentially, as I mentioned on the blog last week, one owner wants to move Lecavalier; one does not. And both owners have veto power of any trade, so it would take a major philosophical altercation by that one owner today to put Lecavalier in another zip code.

Also, Lecavalier’s cap hit might be $7.7+ million in the next 11 years, but he makes $10 million in real dollars in the next seven. I just don’t see the Wild being willing take on that type of commitment in this economy.

It will be interesting to see if there are trades tomorrow. Remember, you can go 5 percent over the cap starting July 1 until training camp, so as often is the case, trades are agreed to at the draft and executed on July 1 (Manny Fernandez to Bruins, Marek Zidlicky to Wild, although that had to wait simply because that’s when Zidlicky’s no-trade expired).

The Senators have to trade Dany Heatley by midnight if they’re going to escape paying him that $4 million bonus.

Also talked to two sources yesterday — one exec, one agent — and both said they’d be shocked if Josh Harding isn’t traded in the near future. He’s got arbitration rights, and the agent thought he’d be owed a fairly significant raise just because of his goals against and save percentage last season.

Here’s a look at the depth chart as it currently sits assuming all the UFA’s go to free agency, so have some fun today, check out the free agent lists and you fill in the holes:

LW                              C                                RW

———                Koivu                          Bouchard

Brunette                Sheppard                   Nolan

Miettinen              Belanger                    Clutterbuck

Boogaard              Brodziak                     Weller

Potential candidates: Pouliot, Gillies, Irmen, Kalus

***I see the Wild pursuing a center, which would bump down the center spots and maybe put Brodziak on the right side and Weller in the press box; If they don’t sign a No. 2 center, maybe Bouchard or Pouliot gets that chance, which opens up a top-two line RW spot.

LD                         RD 

Johnsson              Burns

Schultz                  Zidlicky

Scott                      ———-

*** I see the Wild bringing in two NHL defensemen, meaning Scott could be the extra.

Goalies

Backstrom

Harding

***Harding is trade bait, and then the Wild would sign a cheaper backup goalie, and they grow on trees.

Kudos to editor/sportswriter Mark Wollemann for stepping in for me yesterday. The day off was very much appreciated.

Update: Negotiations are ongoing right now with Chicago and Pittsburgh regarding Martin Havlat and Ruslan Fedotenko, but if they are not re-signed, the Wild may pursue.

Update: USA Hockey announced the roster for August’s Olympic orientation camp. Here is the release.

The roster includes several Minnesotans or players with Minnesota ties: Tom Gilbert, Erik Johnson, Paul Martin, David Backes, Dustin Byfuglien, Phil Kessel, Jamie Langenbrunner, Ryan Malone, Kyle Okposo, T.J. Oshie and Zach Parise. 

Update: Wild at least having talks still with Stephane Veilleux.

Update: Wild has hired Jim Mill (not Nill) assistant to the GM and GM of the Aeros.

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Just about to pack up and leave Montreal. The draft here was a tremendous experience. The passionate hockey fans here were in glee with every who’s who in hockey being in town.

I can tell you, I talked with a lot of other team’s scouts out around town last night, and many were very positive about the Wild’s draft, the fact Chuck Fletcher accomplished what he said he’d accomplish with moving down and grabbing draft picks and the picks of Leddy and Hackett specifically.

Assistant GM Tommy Thompson raved about the move Fletcher made because he so wanted Hackett.

“[Goalie coach] Bob [Mason] was saying of Hackett, ‘You think we have any chance to get him?’ and I said, ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’” Thompson said. “That shows the benefit of the trade that Chuck Fletcher made. Without that pick, we don’t get Hackett. If he turns into an NHL goalie, look how important that is. It was nice to have some picks; that allowed us to take some risks later on.”

Real quick, the only bit of news right now is agent Allan Walsh is on his way to Minnesota to meet with new client Stephane Veilleux, a pending free agent. Remember, Veilleux acted as his own agent last summer but as I reported in April, he hired Walsh for this summer.

“I’ve had several conversations with Chuck Fletcher. Stephane’s first priority is exploring all options with Minnesota and we have expressed those feelings to Chuck,” Walsh said.

Free agency is Wednesday and Fletcher planned to take a lot of today and think about free agency and whether he plans to make offers to Veilleux, Marian Gaborik (he will here, I’m told), Martin Skoula, Kurtis Foster and Marc-Andre Bergeron.

There will be news Monday as the Wild must tender qualifying offers to its restricted free agents by 4 p.m. The Wild’s RFA’s are Josh Harding, Kyle Brodziak, Dan Fritsche, Peter Olvecky, Benoit Pouliot, Danny Irmen, Robbie Earl, Clayton Stoner, Riley Emmerson and Paul Albers.

As I mentioned yesterday, it certainly seems a possibility that Fritsche could be out in Minnesota.

OK, I’ll be back on later tonight to clean out the draft notebook. Assistant GM hiring and assistant coaches should be in a matter of days, too.

I’ll be back on here later on this afternoon or early evening to discuss more in depth the Richards news conference, the nitty-gritty details of what was discussed in the post-press conference scrums (that’s where the most interesting news items or details always come from because that’s when we ask actual specifics) and a number of other items surrounding the Wild.

But I wanted to throw up the presser, as transcribed by Brian Stensaas (many thanks), and San Jose Sharks coach Todd McLellan, who did a conference call with myself and two other local writers. Remember, not only was McLellan Richard’s boss in San Jose, but he coached for a long time in the Wild organization in Houston. So he knows Koivu, Burns, Veilleux (likely gone), Boogaard, Bouchard, Harding from the Aeros and others like Schultz from training camp.

I also just got off the horn with Penguins coach Dan Bylsma, who was nice enough to call me back between Cup celebrations. I’ll throw that up later.

Here is Todd McLellan:

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Yes, I’m back. Yippee do!

I figured I better blog because the smart aleck son of a friend of mine sent me a text message saying, “Think you’ll blog again this year?”

Like father, like son

Back from Hawaii, and Ireland, and I’m ready to go back to each. Two awesome places.

The Brown Fox — Chuck Fletcher — is back in the office after landing this afternoon from Pittsburgh, where he attended Game 3 of the Finals and attended his first official GM’s Meeting — well, as a non-Interim, non-assistant GM — in history. Had to be cool.

What’s Fletcher been up to? Well, while I was in Ireland, he attended the Draft combine in Toronto last weekend, where he interviewed players and dined with the staff, including Tommy Thompson. On Thursday and Friday, he’ll conduct his first pro scouting meetings with Tom Lynn, Blair Mackasey, Jamie Hislop and Todd Woodcroft, among others.

They’ll be talking free agency, trades and likely whether the Wild should tender any offers to their own unrestricted free agents (i.e. Skoula, Veilleux, Bergeron or Foster). We know they’ll go after Gaborik, although it’ll be difficult at this late juncture.

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Fletcher has also been working on the coaching search. Same candidates as I’ve mentioned before. Todd Richards is still the frontrunner. I know for a fact Chuck went out to California to interview Richards, and that’s the place he wouldn’t tell me he was calling me back from (remember?).

But I still think he’d want to interview Detroit assistant coach Paul MacLean, who’s a bit busy right now.

If Richards gets the job, possible assistants include Claude Noel, Curt Fraser, Tony Granato and Mike Ramsey. Like I’ve said, I think Matt Shaw and Bob Mason have tremendous shots at being retained.

Lots of news going around the league. Jacques Martin is now the coach in Montreal, leaving Florida at a marvelous time with less than a month before the Draft and free agency.

All sorts of rumors out of Montreal that Mario Tremblay could eventually join Martin on that bench.

Florida will now conduct a full-on GM search, but owner Alan Cohen appears close to selling the team because I’m told that GM candidates are being referred to Alternate Gov. Bill Torrey and Tony Tavares, the former Anaheim Mighty Ducks head who just so happens to be leading the ownership group close to buying the Cats.

Some possible candidates in Fla.? Former Panthers coach Doug MacLean, former Panthers GM Rick Dudley, former Panthers captain Scott Mellanby, Hall of Famer and former Panthers analyst Denis Potvin, former Bruins assistant GM Jeff Gorton, TSN and NBC analyst Pierre McGuire and former Lightning GM Jay Feaster. Maybe former Wild GM Doug Risebrough would be interested, although he’s still on a two-week solo canoe trip, so he may not even know the job’s available

Lastly, aren’t you glad you’re a Wild fan? Imagine being in Colorado. Sorry, but at least Wild owner Craig Leipold conducts a far and wide GM search to get the best possible candidate and then announces him with a little fanfare.

The Avs do what they always do — hire internally.

Greg Sherman — the assistant GM — was hired today to replace Francois Giguere accompanied by the most underwhelming press release announcement ever. From Pierre Lacroix: “Greg Sherman deserves the opportunity to prove he can be an effective general manager in our business.”

I bet Avs fans everywhere are excited after that line.

It was also classy of Lacroix to finally fire Tony Granato after offering his job around the league for a month, including to former Avs star goalie Patrick Roy. Kudos to Denver Post writer Adrian Dater, who’s been all over that story for some time.

Speaking of Dater, he talked to Marc Crawford, who’d be interested in returning there as coach. Dater reports that Joe Sacco’s got an inside shot. Wonder if Jacques Lemaire would be interested, eh?

OK, I’m back on the clock folks. Blogs will be updated more regularly.

Good morning from Chatteau de Rousseau. I’ll be on KFAN with Paul Allen at 10:20 a.m. and NHL Live on XM and NHL Network at 12:20 p.m.

Just got off the horn with potential free agent Stephane Veilleux. Remember, last summer, he acted as his own agent and signed a one-year contract with the Wild as a restricted free agent after the Wild humbled him by putting him on waivers.

As I wrote at the time on this link, it was a completely disingenuous by the Wild. Teams wanted to claim Veilleux, I was told by numerous sources, but the Wild knew nobody would take him with his arbitration brief due 48 hours or so later. So he cleared waivers, they told him, “see, you’re not as valuable as you think you are,” and he signed soon after.

Well, Veilleux just told me he learned his lesson. He’s hired Allan Walsh, who’s got a stable of clients that include Martin Havlat, Marc-Andre Fleury, Patrik Elias, Petr Sykora, Scottie Hartnell, Milan Michalek, etc, etc., and of course, Pierre-Marc Bouchard. No word yet if Bouchard gets a finder’s fee.

Veilleux said he was convinced that come July 1, he needed somebody in his court. After all, last summer he was only dealing with the Wild. This summer, he needs somebody who at least, say, knows the phone numbers of the GM’s and assistant GM’s. But, hey, with a new regime on its way, maybe something can still work out between the Wild and Veilleux.

That’s what he hopes at least. Regardless, he’s a respected — and young — checker, so he’ll get a job somewhere.

Hey, maybe Havlat comes here if he doesn’t re-sign in Chicago. Wouldn’t that be ironic, eh? Talk about things coming full-circle, but years after Marian Gaborik leaves Walsh, the agent signs Havlat to Minnesota to a big free-agent deal … because Gaborik left. OK, lots of things would have to happen and not happen to make those stars align.

This is how bad rumors start, so I take it all back.

Speaking of agents, I keep on getting emails from readers about Neil Sheehy.

I haven’t written his name since I believe the first or second GM search article because about 10 days ago, according to numerous player sources, the Minneapolis-based agent sent an email out to his clients saying he’s not interested in the Wild’s GM job and that his interest was only to continue to represent them.

He’s built himself quite the firm, including clients like Zach Parise, Kyle Okposo, Lubomir Visnovsky, Drew Stafford and Ryan Suter. Heck, add Ryan Carter to that list to the way the Minnesotan is emerging this postseason. Man, he’s playing well for Anaheim.

OK, more later. GM interviews are lined up this week….

Also, contrary to reports, John Ferguson IS NOT being interviewed.