The NHL season does not start with the first drop of the puck; it starts with the first puck in the net. Minnesota’s Guillaume Latendresse had the honors of kicking off 2010 when he netted a wrist shot over Carolina’s Cam Ward at 3:33 of the first period in their game in Helsinki, Finland. Although the goal came in a 4-3 losing effort, it served as official notice that the talk is over; hockey is back.

The Carolina-Minnesota game was the first in a series of overseas NHL games to kick off the season. It’s as if the NHL is saying “we stole most of your best hockey players. Here are a few games to make up for it.” The NHL is testing interest in their brand of hockey in Europe, and they will likely take in a huge payday for it, especially considering the teams that have crossed the ocean.

Should the NHL be robbing its North American fans of season opening games, when they have had to wait a full summer for the sport to come back? No, but you’d never convince the players to make a trip like this in the middle of the season. Should the NHL even be playing games and attempting to expand its brand when domestic financial issues have been so thoroughly documented? Absolutely. If the league can make money on a project like this, it’s almost obligated to do so.

The kickoff of the NHL season was filled with great hockey. Four of the five games were decided by a single goal, and this upcoming weekend promises tons of revived rivalry games and a plethora of fantastic action. We’re just a handful of games into a 1,230-game regular season. Everybody is back in a worldwide hunt for the Stanley Cup. Things have just begun, and it all started with Latendresse.