Flyers forward Justin Williams sits on the arm of a leather couch in Team Melrose's locker room, greeting reporters as they walk through the door. The reporters stand in the middle of the room, whispering to eachother with unusual apprehension, "Who was that?"

The kids are in Los Angeles to play in the NHL's first YoungStars game, and not one of them is sitting in front of the chair draped with his jersey. They're hanging out, like kids do, talking and stretching and taping their sticks.

"In the grey, is that Robyn Regehr?" asks a bewildered writer.

"Nope," says Williams, leaving his post. "That's Mara." That would be Paul Mara, the Coyotes young, hulking defenseman.

"The kid with the blue shirt, who is that?" a reporter asks.

"I don't know, is that Kovalchuk?" says coach Barry Melrose. "Maybe Kovalchuk."

An hour later, after Thrashers forward Ilya Kovalchuk snapped a penalty shot through Rangers goalie Dan Blackburn's legs for his fifth goal of the night, everybody in the Staples Center would know who he was.

But in the room, their young faces look alike -- wide-eyed at their first visit to an NHL All-Star game. Nashville forward David Legwand grabs teammate Scott Hartnell and drags him into the hall. "Did you see Jagr's sticks?" he asks excitedly.

Florida forward Kristian Huselius holds court in one corner of the room, speaking his native Swedish and looking a little bewildered that so many writers came to see him.

"Who's that?" someone asks.

"The Swede, that's Huselius," says Melrose. "I'll be behind them on the bench, so I can just read their names and shove them over the boards."

The names he'll be reading are names to remember. Dany Heatley. Brad Richards. David Tanabe. Roberto Luongo. Marian Gaborik. Mike Ribeiro. Dan Blackburn. The future of the NHL.

Never mind that after the first goal of the game, the PA announcer read off the assists and mispronounced Gaborik and Ribeiro.

Never mind that no one knew where Karel Rachunek and Pavel Datsyuk are from.

They'll know soon enough.