Hot on Heatley's trail

Heatley, the second pick overall in the 2000 draft, was only 20 in the fall of 2001 when he arrived in Atlanta as the baby-faced cornerstone of the Thrashers. He went on to become a 50-goal scorer (twice), but by then he was one of the many promising faces of the Ottawa Senators, the franchise he helped carry to the Stanley Cup finals in 2007.

Now Heatley will be the hot topic of the draft again because he wants out of Ottawa, in part because he found his game stagnating this past season under rookie coach Cory Clouston. He’ll be gone, but good luck to Senators general manager Bryan Murray trying to get par value for one of the game’s very few elite scorers.

Heatley, only 28, has five more years to go on his deal, at an average cap hit of $7.5 million, and on July 1 he is due $4 million in deferred signing bonus. The latter point doesn’t make him untradeable this week, prior to the bonus payout, but it is another potential impediment in an already tricky deal.

If another club wants him badly enough, it might figure that $4 million, which is already factored into his cap hit, is manageable. If he were to maintain his career average of roughly one goal every two games, that up-front fee would soon be written off as, well, the cost of doing business.

Three clubs - Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal - definitely have the cap space and that little bit of extra bankroll to accommodate a deal. But the trickier part becomes the return goods.

“Well, you know they’re not going to get back another 50-goal scorer,’’ said another GM, noting also that the Senators already were looking to find a new home for Jason Spezza, their slick but soft center. “Heatley’s really put them in a tough position. There’s the cap hit, the bonus, and then the club that gets him has to be wondering if one day he’s going to say, ‘OK, now I want out of here.’ ’’

The bet here is that Murray makes LA his primary target. He won’t get Anze Kopitar, the Kings’ star center, who doesn’t turn 22 until this summer. Kopitar, about to begin a new deal that will average $6.8 million over the next five years, is the right fit in terms of salary and profile, but he is already in place as the Kings’ cornerstone player and he is six years younger than Heatley.

The only deal that might make sense - and perhaps the best Murray could dream of - would be a return of the gritty Dustin Brown (like Heatley, a left winger) and ex-Oiler defenseman Matt Greene.

Both would be significant losses for the Kings, but for an overall cap increase of less than $1.5 million, Kings GM Dean Lombardi would be adding the kind of scoring off the wing the franchise hasn’t had since Luc Robitaille’s glory days in the ’90s. A line of Heatley-Kopitar-Justin Williams isn’t the remake of Charlie Simmer-Marcel Dionne-Dave Taylor, the club’s iconic Triple Crown Line, but it sure would put some juice into their Golden State battles with Anaheim and San Jose.

About the best the Canucks could cobble together would be a Ryan Kesler-Kevin Bieksa combination, far less than the Brown-Greene package.

And the Habs? The pickin’s are even slimmer because GM Bob Gainey allowed much of the roster to become unrestricted free agents as a prelude to the franchise being sold. Had Celine Dion’s group been the winning bidder for L’Equipe CH, she could have offered up a concert at Scotiabank Place for Senators fans and serenaded them with “My Heart Will Go On,’’ theme song from “Titanic.’’

Heatley will be the biggest name dealt since the Bruins, without any warning, ditched Joe Thornton to the Sharks in November 2005. The lingering feeling here in the Hub of Hockey is that then-GM Mike O’Connell should have received more in return. About the only thing guaranteed now in a Heatley trade is that Senators fans will be left feeling the same.

The operative word on Ference

“I’d say it went as well as surgery on that part of your body can go,’’ said the veteran defenseman, who had a tear to his abdominal wall and partially torn tendon in his groin. “Amazing what some ice and some sleep will do for you.’’

Doctors performed an adductor release, snipping the tendon clear from his pubic bone, which should clear up chronic pain the 30-year-old Ference began experiencing last season. The hernia, which he suffered during the playoffs, required some surgical mesh.

“The doctors told me the [adductor release] is very popular these days among soccer and football players,’’ said Ference. “I guess three or four Patriots players have to have it each year.

“The problem is, once the tendon is torn, it will begin to build up scar tissue as part of that natural healing process. So, basically they go in and finish the tear, and the pain goes away. There’s enough muscle strength in that area of your body that you can build back to full strength without any issue.’’

Back home in British Columbia since the end of the playoffs, Ference actually was to the stage where the groin felt strong and pain-free. A combination of rest and workouts had it on the mend.

“But then I’d try some exercises that made me sidestep, and right away I could feel it again,’’ he said. “I could guarantee that would flare up again, so the decision to have surgery was pretty easy.’’

Favoring the groin, said Ference, likely played a part in making him vulnerable to a punishing hit in the playoffs, Game 3 vs. Carolina, that caused the hernia. That, too, felt much better before the surgery.

“Yeah, watching the final round,’’ mused Ference, “I was feeling so good that I thought, ‘I betcha I could have played if we’d hung in there.’ ’’

Etc.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.