Tiny, Happy People (holding Sticks)

The goals total put Gionta head and shoulders above the 5'8"-and-under crowd. But unlike Bri�re, Gionta has no chip resting on his shoulders. "[My size] is something I've always had to deal with," he says. "Just a fact of life."

"Hey, don't make it out like we're the same size," says Gomez, eyeing Gionta across the New Jersey dressing room before the second round started. "I mean, look at him over there." Gomez was holding his hand waist high and grinning. Happy.

THE IMPORT

Sergei Samsonov is happy. The Edmonton Oilers' tiny dancer of a left wing has a resourceful playoff team watching his back against the San Jose Sharks, rabid and sophisticated fans encouraging him, the best home ice in the NHL and a nifty scoring partner, right wing Ales Hemsky. Late in Game 6 of the Oilers' first-round upset of the Detroit Red Wings, Samsonov saucered a delicate pass through the legs of Detroit's star defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom that Hemsky tapped in for the series-winning goal. It was the kind of exquisite, skillful play Edmonton made often in the franchise's glory days and can make again because of Samsonov, a 5'8" import from Moscow, by way of Boston.

"He's so shifty, so strong on his skates," says San Jose's Thornton, another exiled Bruin and a close friend of Samsonov's since their rookie year in 1997-98, when the Russian won the Calder Trophy. "He's one of the best puckhandlers in the league."

Samsonov, acquired at the trading deadline in early March from the Bruins, shuns the perimeter and is the type of player the cash-strapped Oilers used to delete each March. Under the NHL's new economic model, however, general manager Kevin Lowe traded for all-world defenseman Chris Pronger and nabbed veteran center Michael Peca before the season, then added goalie Dwayne Roloson also at the deadline. They all made mighty contributions in upending the Red Wings and expanded the ambitions of a hardy city. "Being in a hockey town like Edmonton, it's exciting," says Samsonov, who had an assist in the Oilers 2-1 loss on Sunday night. "All the guys are working toward the same goal. It's a fun time of year."

THE COMMISSIONER

Gary Bettman is happy. At least that is what an NHL public-relations official says when asked what her boss thinks about the state of the game. (Bettman declined to be interviewed for this story because, the official said, he thought it might be personally aggrandizing. The league did offer director of hockey operations Colin Campbell, an undersized former defenseman who is slightly taller than Bettman. The commissioner's height is not mentioned in his league biography. A good guess: 5'6".) And while making the television rounds for the past few weeks on Bloomberg TV's Bloomberg Market Movers ("absolutely incredible," Bettman said of the postlockout recovery) and on KRON 4 in the Bay Area before a Sharks playoff game ("We came back very strong this season"), he sounded chipper. Why not? In CBA negotiations he beat the players as if they were rented goalies, instituting a salary cap and orchestrating higher revenue, which translated into a windfall for owners. With the offense-first rule changes, he oversees a league that offers a more eye-catching game.

Of course, Bettman is almost always happy. Publicly, anyway. With the exception of Glum Gary during the lockout, his Stanley Cup has always been half full. The on-ice product was fine in his eyes, until the board of governors revamped the game. The foot-in-the-crease rule was grand, until it disappeared. Attendance was always solid, even if the 2005-06 record numbers that Maria Bartiromo gushed about on CNBC's Wall Street Journal Report were based on tickets distributed, not sold. Whatever institutional speed bumps he has encountered in his 13 years on the job, Bettman's public face has been a smiley one.

With minuscule U.S. network TV ratings and several of the league's large-market teams ( Rangers, Flyers, Stars, Red Wings) eliminated from the playoffs, the NHL faces the eternal challenge of joining the national sports conversation, beyond incidences of extreme goonery. If that talk ever does turn to the NHL, the little Big Guy will make sure it is a happy conversation.