"Lee Stempniak missed a life-changing call Monday from his agent on his way to the dentist.

Before he could check his voice mail, his younger brother Jay called with word of the scuttlebutt swirling in the hockey world: the Phoenix Coyotes had traded him to the Calgary Flames for Daymond Langkow.

Suddenly, the pending needle to the gums seemed not so excruciating after all.

"Half my mouth is still numb from the Novocaine," the 28-year-old said a couple hours later via cellphone from his off-season home south of Boston. "But I'm just really excited to get to Calgary. I've always loved playing in the Saddledome. You can tell when you're a visiting player, there's energy in the city. Passionate fans.

"They've got a lot of talented players. Great goaltending. Tough defencemen. It's a team that's always hard to play against. As a player, you want to join a group like that.""