One of the clear positives of the NHL's Euro openers: Ottawa's Daniel Alfredsson was able to get a hug from his former gym teacher in his hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden. Andre Ringuette/NHLI via Getty Images

The NHL seems willing to go an awfully long way to spin its wheels.

After a mostly soporific opening weekend in Europe -- although there was a little something to the Penguins-Senators games in Stockholm -- Commissioner Gary Bettman reinforced the league's commitment to return overseas next year, maybe expanding the participation to six teams opening in three cities.

There are, of course, some inherent advantages in playing in Europe. The NHL promotes the brand on the Continent, sells some merchandise, takes a modest shot across the bow at the new European hockey Champions League -- the inaugural tournament starts this week -- reminds the upstart Kontinental Hockey League in Russia where the real players are, and lets Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson visit his folks in Gothenburg. All of these have a dollop of intrinsic value, but unless the NHL really is headed somewhere with these European games -- yes, expansion -- they are essentially being played in a vacuum, one-offs that serve little purpose.

Some league officials have been eyeballing Europe for years as a potential landing spot for a franchise. There is even some ownership support for the idea, notably Ottawa's Eugene Melnyk, who said he has been in favor of the idea for the past three or four years. But European expansion remains one of those theoretical topics along the lines of "if Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble walked into a bar ..."

While it might be fun to kick around, it is not going to happen. Not now. Not in a decade. Even if the global economy roars back in the next few years, the dollars, and Euros, probably won't make sense. And not even Warren Buffett can do anything about the six-hour time difference that separates the East Coast and most of the hockey-playing major cities of Europe. The logistics and geography, as Alfredsson's linemate Jason Spezza noted, just don't work.

In the meanwhile, teams that are exported to chase a unclearly defined NHL goal are forced to shorten training camp and play meaningful games on iffy surfaces (think: London last year for the Ducks and Kings, and the surprisingly poor Globe ice in Stockholm) and then return jet-lagged to start the bulk of their regular season. No amount of team bonding or neat souvenirs is worth that price, at least not if you care about the integrity of the schedule.

There is, of course, a way to scratch the NHL's European itch without compromising anything of competitive value.

For the past 10 years, I have been bugging the NHL about taking the All-Star Game to a European capital on a rotating basis every four or five years. Helsinki, Prague, wherever. Close the league for a week -- after Vancouver 2010, those two-week Olympic hiatuses are basically done, anyway -- charter everyone over and have an extended festival of hockey as a way to celebrate the European stars and their impact on the game the past three decades. (Yes, they would return jet-lagged, but then so would players on every team.)

If nothing else, the change in venue would invigorate the actual All-Star Game, a hockey charade that spoils rather than embellishes the party. A former NHL official, who was intrigued by the idea, said it would never fly because too many teams build their season-ticket sales around All-Star Weekend, too many cities here are looking for an economic boost from fresh dollars coming to town, and corporate sponsors would take a dim view.

Oh well, maybe some current NHL visionary can find some merit in the plan. If not, I hope someone can convince MoDo and Frolunda to open the Swedish Elite League season in Nashville next year. Can't get enough of that Swedish hockey.

Hard to C the merit

Roberto Luongo won't have a "C" on his jersey, but the Vancouver Canucks will get one on his mask, a small end-around the NHL rule that has been in place since the late 1940s prohibiting goalies from being captains.

The rule was adopted after Montreal goalie and captain Bill Durnan often skated out of his crease to have a little chinwag with the referee about rule interpretations and such -- as is the captain's right. In fact, Durnan's filibustering often was merely a stalling tactic to give his Canadiens a little rest. (This would predate several coaching gambits, like Roger Neilson letting his dog loose on the ice in Peterborough, Jacques Demers tossing coins on the ice, and Bill Stewart actually faking a heart attack during a German league playoff match.)

While the designation of Luongo as captain might be nothing more than new general manager Mike Gillis announcing it won't be business as usual for a team that has not been a playoff force for more than a decade, it still baffles.

Luongo won't be handling most of the official duties of captain -- they fall to Willie Mitchell and fellow alternates Mattias Ohlund and Ryan Kesler -- so the symbolic value of the position is diminished. And while Luongo obviously is the Canucks' cog, there was no doubting who ran the dressing room in Montreal and later Colorado when Patrick Roy was playing, or the current significance of Martin Brodeur in New Jersey. Those goalies didn't need any C change.

Given that Luongo figures to play 75 or so games, you would think the superb goalie would have enough on his plate without the captaincy. But either he enjoys the attention or Gillis thought the flattery might sway Luongo into sign a long-term deal. (The goalie currently has two years remaining.) Either way, it sounds like trouble.

The Canucks' decision to hand the C to a goalie is a further erosion of a tradition in the one sport where the captaincy used to truly matter. (An aside: doesn't that C on Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek look absurd?) But when teams like Minnesota can rotate captains on a monthly basis and others go a whole season with alternates but no captains, maybe Vancouver was just taking the evolution of the role to its logical, and sad, conclusion.

Bolts still tinkering

If you had to pick one thing that leaped off the screen in the four games in Europe last weekend, you probably should focus on the Tampa Bay defense. Yes, the ice looked bumpy in Prague, but Lightning defenders almost never tried to make a play, simply whacking the puck out of the zone on nearly every occasion. Brian Lawton, director of hockey operations, didn't miss it. Two games and 80 shots on goal into the season, Lawton, in a four-player deal, traded Shane O'Brien for Canucks defenseman Lukas Krajicek, who lacks O'Brien's toughness but skates better and handles the puck more adroitly.

O'Brien, incidentally, appears in SI's hockey preview issue, out this week, as a member of the Lightning. Such is the curse of magazine deadlines.