Morning Skate: Wheeler another that got away from the B's

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Here are all the links from around the hockey world and what I’m reading, while hockey is finally coming alive with the first week of September here.  

*The big NHL news of the last 24 hours was Blake Wheeler signing a five-year, $41 million contract extension with the Winnipeg Jets that might just allow their captain to end his career with the Jets. It’s got to be a mixed reaction for Bruins fans to watch the kind of player that Wheeler has turned into with Winnipeg after getting dealt away from the Bruins in the Stanley Cup-winning season. 

Certainly one can make the easy argument that the Bruins wouldn’t have won the Cup in 2011 without making the Rich Peverley trade, where they sent Wheeler and Mark Stuart to the Atlanta Thrashers, who eventually became the Winnipeg Jets. Wheeler has blossomed with the Jets and has averaged 25 goals and 75 points the past five seasons as a big-time right wing with skills, size and an added grit factor that wasn’t quite there yet when he was in Boston. 

Boy, he’d have been pretty good alongside David Krejci over that time span, wouldn’t he? It’s not quite at the level of dismay for shipping out players such as Phil Kessel, Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton the past 10 years, but add Wheeler to the list of elite players that the Bruins had, and then they didn’t, over the last decade.  

*Jeff Skinner has hit town with his new Buffalo Sabres teammates after being one of the big prizes that the Sabres bagged this summer.

*Interesting times in Carolina where there’s been a ton of turnover both on the roster and in the coach’s office ahead of a brand new Hurricanes world.

*Speaking of interesting times, you know somebody like Elliotte Friedman is pretty special when him shaving his offseason beard becomes an event.

*For something completely different: The details are starting to come out about the "Captain Marvel" movie and it sounds pretty great.

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