The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.

January 23, 2012

The Hockey News - Jan-23-12

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-01394/9675324-1-eng-US/f0050-012.jpg" title="f0050-01" width="282" height="499"></div>One of the more under-the-radar developments of the first half of this season has been Matt Cooke&rsquo;s Stan Mikita-like transformation from miscreant to model citizen. It&rsquo;s not that it has gone under-reported because it really hasn&rsquo;t, but what remains unrealized by bloodthirsty media types and blowhards such as Brian Burke is it unequivocally refutes the notion hockey needs fighting.The same player who spawned the current head shot rule, and was suspended for 10 games and the first round of the playoffs last season, has engineered one of the most dramatic behavioral turnarounds in NHL history. As of this writing, the guy most recently known as The Most Hated Man in Hockey&trade; had exactly 14 penalty minutes &ndash; two minors for interference and one each for holding, slashing, hooking, tripping and diving.Not one penalty for charging, boarding, high-sticking or elbowing. Of course, Cooke is just one moment of weakness away from erasing the goodwill he has built up, but you get the sense he meant what he said after he was suspended 17 games last season after elbowing Ryan McDonagh in the head. &ldquo;I realize and understand, more so now than ever,&rdquo; Cooke said at the time, &ldquo;that I need to change.&rdquo;So there you have it. For the first 12 years of his NHL career, Cooke ran around and did as he pleased, taking liberties and playing recklessly, in spite of the fact there are supposed to be enforcers all around the league whose primary reason for employment was to stop guys such as Cooke. But what actually did stop Cooke in his tracks? The fact he&rsquo;d grown tired of getting suspended, alienating his teammates and employers and not being available for games when his team needed him.What a novel concept. Those who continue to try to justify the need for fighting in the NHL will go to the tired and worn excuse that the players must have the ability to police each other and fighting is the best way to do it. That notion would have held water if: (a) the league hadn&rsquo;t dragged itself into modern times and become more aggressive in punishing players who have no respect for the well-being of their opponents, or (b) the hockey world&rsquo;s idea of frontier justice wasn&rsquo;t for teams&rsquo; enforcers to do their dancing bear act with each other instead of actually fighting the guys who performed the act of aggression.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Suspensions are going to be what keeps players in line</blockquote><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-02290/9675317-1-eng-US/f0050-022.jpg" title="f0050-02" width="551" height="720"><figcaption class="caption-body">MATT COOKE (ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Burke is, of course, one of those people who likes to call anti-fighting advocates &lsquo;Greenpeace folks,&rsquo; as though that makes one iota of sense. Burke recently used his pulpit to attack where the game is going, saying he fears that the &ldquo;rats&rdquo; are going to take over the game. &ldquo;The players used to police the game,&rdquo; Burke lamented. &ldquo;Now it&rsquo;s Brendan Shanahan.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s hard to believe a Harvard-educated lawyer would be stuck in such primitive thinking, but we&rsquo;ll spell it out for you, Brian. That&rsquo;s the way it&rsquo;s supposed to be, at least in any civilized society or sport. Plus, in case you haven&rsquo;t noticed, Cooke used to be one of those rats you seem to disdain so much.Think about it. Do you believe there has ever been a single moment in their careers when players such as Cooke, Ken Linseman, Dale Hunter, Steve Ott, Jordin Tootoo or Chris Pronger would be deterred from taking a guy&rsquo;s knees out or running at him while his back is turned to the boards because he was going to have to answer the bell by fighting? The answer is no. And we know that because fighting has always been part of hockey&rsquo;s landscape and it never caused them to reflect on their actions. Players of that ilk have always had an uncanny way of never putting themselves in vulnerable positions where they could be hurt, so they have gone largely unpunished by the vigilante fringe that is supposed to keep them in line.The league&rsquo;s suspensions haven&rsquo;t always had the teeth. Yet although there are still wild inconsistencies in the application of discipline, they do now, or at least they have the potential. Obviously just the threat of another long suspension has been enough to make Cooke change his behavior. He even said it himself when he acknowledged he had to approach the game differently. And Cooke is a smart guy, intelligent enough to know what it would take for him to be an effective player and even more intelligent to know he absolutely had to reinvent himself if he wanted to stay in the league.Players are bigger, stronger, tougher and more fearless than they have ever been. But they&rsquo;re just as tight with a buck and they want to play the games just as much as they ever have. That&rsquo;s why suspensions &ndash; and not fighting &ndash; are going to be what keeps them in line in the future.Just ask Matt Cooke.CAN&rsquo;T GET ENOUGH CAMPBELL?CLICK ON <a href="http://THN.com">THN.COM</a> FOR KEN&rsquo;S EXCLUSIVE BLOG &#9632;

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IN THIS ISSUE

Hammer Halts Cooke

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-02940/9674129-1-eng-US/f0023-022.jpg" title="f0023-02" width="595" height="960"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BARKOV: RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>The youngest Finnish player ever to score a goal at the world juniors when he tallied against Slovakia in the quarterfinal, 16-year-old Aleksander Barkov is already on a great career path. The son of a Russian pro with the same name who played for Finland&rsquo;s Tappara Tampere squad, Barkov was afforded more responsibility as the tourney went on. &ldquo;Very big experience,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was one of the youngest players there and I just tried to play my own game.&rdquo;At 6-foot-2, and 205 pounds, Barkov is the definition of a man-child and his 12 points in 21 games with that same Tappara squad in Finland&rsquo;s top league demonstrates his accelerated progress. But what&rsquo;s the one thing Barkov still needs to work on? &ldquo;Strength in my legs,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am too slow.&rdquo;Since he&rsquo;s not eligible for the NHL draft until 2013, Barkov has some time to work on that. It&rsquo;s scary to think what a faster version of this talented Finn will look like. &#9632;

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AGE IS BUT A NUMBER

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-03239/9675286-1-eng-US/f0049-032.jpg" title="f0049-03" width="623" height="674"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARTIN GRUSE (JERSEYHOUND: NAHL)</figcaption></div>Flint, Mich., has a proud tradition of minor league hockey and the latest flagbearers are the North American League&rsquo;s Warriors. The junior team is only a couple years old, but boasts a pretty original uniform. The logo is cartoony, but in a unique way &ndash; you can&rsquo;t say it follows any previous team&rsquo;s crest. And the design itself is cool, with crossbones and an army helmet on the skull mascot. I&rsquo;m even OK with the flame trim along the bottom. It&rsquo;s not overbearing and adds something to the overall design. &#9632;

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JerseyHound

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03417/9674772-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="277" height="391"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEVEN STAMKOS (STAMKOS: GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>S. StamkosTB (1st)277D. DoughtyLA (2nd)142E. KarlssonOTT (15th)108J. BaileyNYI (9th)99T. MyersBUF (12th)91J. EberleEDM (22nd)86Z. BogosianATL/WPG (3rd)76C. WilsonNSH (7th)71D. StepanNYR (51st)71M. Del ZottoNYR (20th)71<h2>8</h2>Power play goals for Eberle, tied for third overall in the NHL &#9632;

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Great IN’08

<div class="byline">PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN BABINEAU</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-012175/9673183-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Premium Pond HockeyThe love of 46,967 hockey brothers was in the air at the 2012 Winter Classic. Those in orange, alas, went home blue. (NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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THE BIG PICTURE

<div class="byline">WITH JASON KAY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-012211/9673228-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="907" height="580"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JAMIE HODGSON/THN)</figcaption></div>The NHL received a virtual viral standing ovation for its recently announced, then scuppered, realignment scheme when a golf clap would have sufficed.The plan, which called for four conferences (umm, why not divisions?) and a playoff format rigged to encourage rivalries through repetition, tidied a number of concerns and even left wiggle room for the Coyotes to jump to a more geographically favorable grouping if they indeed relocate (see pg. 8 for more on potential landing cities for the franchise).Nice work? Yes. Utopia? Not quite.There were two pitfalls that may have muddled feelings on the setup. For starters, while familiarity may breed contempt, it can also foster boredom. That&rsquo;s what happened leading up to the last major playoff format change, in 1993-94, when the league adopted the two-conference, 1-through-8 seeding concept. The deja-vu experience was among the drivers behind the alteration, putting &ldquo;an end to mind-numbing repetitive divisional matchups,&rdquo; as former THN editor-in-chief Steve Dryden described them in a 1993 column.The proof is in the data. From 1981-82 through &rsquo;93-94, when the divisional playoff format was in play, we got: Montreal vs. Boston nine consecutive years; Islanders vs. Washington five consecutive years; Chicago vs. Minnesota four consecutive years; Edmonton vs. Los Angeles six times in eight years; Rangers vs. Philadelphia five times in six years. We&rsquo;d keep going if we didn&rsquo;t have to jam my signature and photo into this space. Suffice it to say, the novelty, as it always does, wore off.The second danger was the increased likelihood of an inferior team nabbing a playoff spot. That is a fourth-place finisher qualifying with superior fifth- and maybe sixth-place teams in other conferences losing out. Again, we stretch back to the previous era for examples: the &rsquo;88 Maple Leafs made the playoffs with 30 fewer points than the Rangers and 15 fewer wins than the Rangers and Pens. Similar scenarios unfolded for the &rsquo;86 Leafs, &rsquo;91 North Stars and &rsquo;92 Whalers. Granted, there would have been a mitigating factor this time around: more teams per division, er, conference. In this case, there probably would have been strength in numbers. But it would have taken 10-15 years to gauge that effect. Or just in time for the next realignment/format change.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021876/9673221-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="414" height="222"></div>NEXT ISSUE JANUARY 30, 2012CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TO SUBSCRIBE: <a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a>CONTACT US: <a href="mailto:editorial@thehockeynews.com">editorial@thehockeynews.com</a>LISTEN UP!THE HOCKEY NEWS RADIO SHOWFRIDAYS 3-4 ESTXM 92<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031511/9673214-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="185" height="72"></div>SIRIUS 207 IN USA &#9632;

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Realignment Wasn’t Perfect

Submit your letter at: <a href="http://THN.COM/LETTERS">thn.com/letters</a><h2>TOOTOO CHEW CHEW</h2>The NHL should take more initiative toward protecting goalies, but the examples used in the Jan. 2 Proteau Type column are far-fetched. Labelling Jordin Tootoo as a &ldquo;repeat-offender aggressor&rdquo; employing &ldquo;borderline dirty tactics&rdquo; makes me wonder how many times Adam has seen Tootoo play. Tootoo has been suspended once before in his career for defending himself after a clean hit. Tootoo didn&rsquo;t purposely ram Ryan Miller and is not a dirty player. You can&rsquo;t blame Tootoo because Milan Lucic wasn&rsquo;t suspended. If Adam wants adequate justice, ask Brendan Shanahan about his consistency.Eric Dunayn, Franklin, Tenn.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012439/9673290-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="986" height="1154"><figcaption class="caption-body">(TOOTOO: JOHN RUSSELL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>Safety First</h2>The NHL reminds me of NASCAR prior to Dale Earnhardt&rsquo;s death. They talked the talk, but did not walk the walk with regard to driver safety, much in the same manner as the NHL is treating player safety. It will only change if a superstar suffers a career ending injury or, God forbid, dies.David L. Kline, Douglassville, Pa.<h2>Mouth Cunneth Over</h2>Montreal&rsquo;s treatment of Randy Cunneyworth is disgraceful. How would the Francophone people act if Toronto fans were up in arms about the Leafs hiring a French-speaking coach? A coach should be judged by what his team does on the ice, not by what languages he speaks. Am I qualified for the Habs coaching job because I have three years of high school French?Michael Miller, Williamsburg, Va.<h2>Of Fists And Fans</h2>Must we keep reading about Ken Campbell&rsquo;s aversion to fighting? NHLers are paid sick amounts of money and in turn accept the risks. I don&rsquo;t hear anyone whining about the dangers of my construction job that pays me less than 10 percent of a league-minimum enforcer. These are big boys and they don&rsquo;t need you fighting their battles.Jeff Fresque, Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.Put it to rest, Ken. You&rsquo;re against fighting&hellip;We get it.Kevin Durkin, Toms River, N.J.Another week and another plea from a THN columnist. We can all agree that attention needs to be paid to player safety, but also remember no one is going to pay to watch non-contact hockey.William Sanderson, Troy, Ohio<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021655/9673283-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="457" height="625"></div><h2>Not Too Late</h2>Yes, taking THN&rsquo;s 1989 Man Of The Year award away from Graham James is just a symbolic gesture (Overtime, Jan. 16), but symbols represent and stand for the things we believe in. Positive symbols, such as the Bald Eagle and the Maple Leaf, represent pride, honor and determination. The only thing sexual abuse of children symbolizes is horror and disdain. The Hockey News has done the right thing.Jason Planthaber, Sandusky, OhioAs the president of the Windsor Minor Hockey Association, I can&rsquo;t thank you enough for taking the Man of the Year award away from Graham James. Hopefully we will never have someone like him try to volunteer for any minor sports again knowing there is now a strict process all volunteers have to go through.Dean Lapierre, Windsor, Ont.<h2>Southern Hostility</h2>It seems every issue you take at least one or two opportunities to bash Phoenix (and all southern-market teams for the matter). Why is it that you are all so eager to see the Coyotes fail, yet you claim to want the game to grow?Chris McGuinn, Scottsdale, Ariz. &#9632;

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THN INBOX

<div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03983/9673321-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="108" height="111"></div>@timmygallo:Gotta give the nod to Vancouver. The team is coming around, especially on special teams. No signs of slowing.@ScottyMCSS:The Boston Bruins. You&rsquo;d be hard pressed to wrench it out of Zdeno Chara&rsquo;s cold, clenched jaws.@habsgirl4life:The Chicago Blackhawks. I love their scoring and just get a good vibe from that team. Or, God forbid, the Bruins again.@mac7880:The New York Rangers! Best goaltending, shutdown defense, all spots contributing. Dangerous in all aspects. &#9632;</div>

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WHAT TEAM IS NOW THE STANLEY CUP FAVORITE?

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-05401/9673366-1-eng-US/f0007-052.jpg" title="f0007-05" width="483" height="96"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021471/9673359-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="490" height="394"><figcaption class="caption-body">(LIDSTROM: GERRY THOMAS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-03919/9673352-1-eng-US/f0007-032.jpg" title="f0007-03" width="503" height="547"></div> &#9632;

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POLL RESULTS

Hey Adam. Who is your favorite for GM of the year so far? Dale Tallon is doing an amazing job of assembling talent in Florida.Kody Farrow, Dalmeny, Sask.Hey Kody. I have no ballot &ndash; the new-ish award is voted on by NHL GMs &ndash; but if I did, I&rsquo;d vote for Tallon. His work turning around the Panthers has been exemplary. Another serious contender is Wild GM Chuck Fletcher. Although, given Minnesota&rsquo;s recent swoon, he may fade into the background soon. So long as Florida stays in the thick of the playoff race, I say it&rsquo;s Tallon&rsquo;s award to lose.Hello Adam. I&rsquo;m wondering why Canadian teams aren&rsquo;t being involved in the NHL&rsquo;s Winter Classic. I&rsquo;m getting pretty sick of the same teams in the event. It&rsquo;s all too boring.Justin Casemore, Clifford, Ont.Hello Justin. You have to remember the Winter Classic is as much a TV event as anything else. As such, the interests of American network and NHL broadcasting partner NBC factor heavily into the equation. And as we all know, U.S.networks don&rsquo;t benefit from Canadian TV viewers, so the last thing they&rsquo;re interested in is a team from north of the border involved. There have been rumors the Leafs could face the Red Wings at an outdoor location in Detroit, but there&rsquo;s no guarantee that will happen. But you&rsquo;re right &ndash; seeing the Flyers and Pens repeatedly isn&rsquo;t fun.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-04585/9673397-1-eng-US/f0007-042.jpg" title="f0007-04" width="916" height="715"><figcaption class="caption-body">DALE TALLON (TALLON: ELIOT J. SCHECHTER/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>| Read more &lsquo;Ask Adam&rsquo; every Friday at <a href="http://thehockeynews.com">thehockeynews.com</a>&nbsp;| &#9632;

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ASK ADAM

<div class="byline">&#x2013; KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021779/9673449-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="670" height="447"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SPRINTCENTER: JAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>With the Jan. 1 deadline to start talking to potential out-of-town owners for the Phoenix Coyotes having come and gone for the NHL, one thing is clear: The only place the league can move the team if it wants to put it in a modern, NHL-ready arena is Kansas City.<div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-05506/9673456-1-eng-US/f0008-052.jpg" title="f0008-05" width="110" height="125"></div>The NHL has to have looked at the success the Winnipeg Jets are having this season and surmised its next move should be to Canada, which would favor usual suspects Quebec City and Toronto. Most acknowledge their day will come sooner or later, but whither the Coyotes, an organization for which time is of the essence? Judging by what happened last year when the Atlanta Thrashers moved north, the league has until late May or early June at the latest to find a new landing place for the Coyotes if it&rsquo;s going to move the Desert Dogs.That should make for an interesting six months on the relocation/ownership front. The league appears to still be insistent on finding someone who will buy the Coyotes and keep them in Phoenix, but that possibility is diminishing by the day. Toronto and Quebec City remain in play, but there seems to be a sentiment that those venues are being saved for expansion. Fair enough. So if the Coyotes move and you take Toronto and Quebec City out of the mix, here&rsquo;s where some of the NHL&rsquo;s other primary markets stand.</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-031258/9673442-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="1032" height="925"><figcaption class="caption-body">THE LONG GOODBYEIt seems the Coyotes are always on the verge of leaving Phoenix for good. Is this the year? (PHOENIX: TRAVIS GOLBY/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Seattle: Depending on the source, Seattle may or may not be gaining momentum in its pursuit of an NHL franchise. It is reportedly being led by Don Levin, who owns the Chicago Wolves of the American League and has expressed an interest in bringing an NHL team to the area. But there are also mixed signals on that front. Six months ago, there were reports that Levin was leading the charge to build an NHL-suitable arena in Seattle, speculation he denied.What is working for Levin is that Seattle has the potential to be a good NHL market, with a population of 3.4 million in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area.The NHL reportedly likes Levin as a potential owner and having a team in that area would ease the travel burden for the league&rsquo;s west coast clubs.What is working against Levin is the lack of a suitable NHL arena and/or the prospect of one on the immediate horizon.As recently as early January, Levin said, &ldquo;time is of the essence,&rdquo; when it comes to the city&rsquo;s plans for a facility. Levin does not want to build it, but would be interested in his NHL team being a tenant there. But he has also said a new building wouldn&rsquo;t work without an NBA team sharing the building and he has no interest in owning a pro basketball organization.Las Vegas: There are two problems with Sin City as an NHL destination. The first is there really isn&rsquo;t a suitable arena for an NHL team and the city&rsquo;s fortunes with respect to the NHL lie with film and television producer Jerry Bruckheimer.The problem with that is Bruckheimer is a big hockey fan and would love to own a team, but he&rsquo;s also pragmatic. Those close to him say his desire to put the NHL in Las Vegas has cooled considerably since the economic downturn and that won&rsquo;t change anytime soon.Kansas City: The Sprint Center is a ready-made, NHL-caliber arena with 19,000 seats and 72 luxury boxes. It&rsquo;s been open since 2007 and just waiting for a second NHL team in Missouri. There are issues, though.Some say the league isn&rsquo;t entirely convinced Kansas City is a good hockey market in the long-term and doesn&rsquo;t want another Phoenix situation on its hands a decade down the road. The second is that no identifiable ownership group has stepped up for the city.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-012329/9673435-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="378" height="243"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ELLER: FRANCOIS LACASSE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>14:50Ice time needed by Lars Eller to double his &rsquo;11-12 goal total in one game. Eller scored four times, once on a penalty shot, in a win over the Jets Jan. 4.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-04713/9673428-1-eng-US/f0008-042.jpg" title="f0008-04" width="359" height="100"></div> &#9632;

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Kansas City Coyotes?

<div class="byline">By Charlie Teljeur</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-012079/9673487-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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The Instigator

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021453/9673518-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="440" height="610"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BOURQUE: DALE MACMILLAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>+PLUS</h2>FLAMES SHOW MATURITYRene Bourque&rsquo;s&nbsp;five-game suspension, was met with support from Flames GM Jay Feaster. That&rsquo;s rare, but welcome.<h2>&ndash;MINUS</h2>FORKED-TONGUE FENCE-SITTINGKrys Barch got a one-game ban for &ldquo;inappropriate language&rdquo; towards P.K. Subban. If it was inappropriate, it&rsquo;s clearly worth more.<h2>+PLUS</h2>HANGOVER CURED IN BOSTONSince Oct. 31, when they were last in the East, the B&rsquo;s are 23-3-1, pitching seven shutouts and scoring five-plus goals 13 times.<h2>&ndash;MINUS</h2>BOO BIRDS STAIN WJCIt&rsquo;s understandable hometown crowds would jeer their southern rivals, but booing Team USA when they&rsquo;re not playing Canada? Lame. &#9632;

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PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RORY BOYLEN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-03892/9673556-1-eng-US/f0009-032.jpg" title="f0009-03" width="658" height="514"><figcaption class="caption-body">(RATS: GLENN CRATTY/ALLSPORT/NHL IMAGES)</figcaption></div>If you tune in to a Florida Panthers game, expect to feel a bit of nostalgia. As the surprising team surges near the top of the Eastern Conference standings, plastic rats are once again being hurled from the stands, with more and more appearing after each victory. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s nice to have something that&rsquo;s ours,&rdquo; said Bill Lindsay, a member of the 1996 Cup final team and current Panthers TV analyst. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s always sort of been around, but the success has brought it back to the forefront. It reminds people of good times. If the rat is symbolic with success, then I think it&rsquo;s awesome.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-04671/9673549-1-eng-US/f0009-042.jpg" title="f0009-04" width="190" height="183"></div>It seems like a lifetime ago that rat mania consumed South Florida as the Panthers made a Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup final. In fact, it almost was a lifetime ago for rookie defenseman Erik Gudbranson, who was only four.Contrast that with 35-year-old blueliner Ed Jovanovski, who was a Panthers rookie that magical season. &ldquo;I think some of the players are just getting educated on what happened,&rdquo; Lindsay said. &ldquo;Jovanovski was part of it, so he can fill people in and describe what it&rsquo;s about.&rdquo;For those who don&rsquo;t know, it was Scott Mellanby who inspired the &lsquo;96 craze. After the team finished its pre-game warmup prior to the home opener, the players returned to the dressing room and were joined by a rather large rat. Most of the players jumped up on the benches to avoid the rodent, but Mellanby used his stick to solve the problem. &ldquo;Probably the best one-timer of my career,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;because I certainly wasn&rsquo;t going to rival Brett Hull for one-timing the puck.&rdquo;That night Mellanby scored two goals, goalie John Vanbiesbrouck coined the phrase &ldquo;Rat Trick&rdquo; and a sensation was born in the Sunshine State. &#9632;

f0009-03

Rat Attack Version 2.0

<div class="byline">BY BOBBY HOLIK </div><div class="byline">&#x2013; WITH ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-031082/9673587-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">CLAUSTROPHOBIATeammate collisions are a form of incidental contact common on NHL &ldquo;small&rdquo; ice surfaces. (SELANNE: BILL SMITH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012302/9673594-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="193" height="256"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BILL WIPPERT/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Now that I&rsquo;ve been retired from the NHL for a couple of years and watch the game as an analyst, I see things that worry me.Lately, I&rsquo;ve noticed there is a problem with how players can demonstrate their skills. I was in Denver to watch Detroit take on the Avalanche and didn&rsquo;t like what I saw. Pavel Datsyuk, among many other players, didn&rsquo;t have the room to display his great talents. A few days later, the news was about all the head injuries suffered by some of the league&rsquo;s top stars, including Claude Giroux, Milan Michalek, Chris Pronger and Sidney Crosby, the best player in the world. Most came from incidental contact. That wasn&rsquo;t adding up to me, so I gave it more thought.I came to the conclusion the rinks have to be bigger. Don&rsquo;t get me wrong &ndash; I think the NHL has the world&rsquo;s greatest players. There&rsquo;s just not enough room out there.Why doesn&rsquo;t the league just take the first one or two rows out of every arena? That would add approximately six to seven extra feet of ice for players to work with. It wouldn&rsquo;t be an international-sized rink, but it would be better than what we have right now.Today&rsquo;s NHL is based on the speed and physicality, not necessarily game sense or skill, which was something cherished for generations. If a guy wasn&rsquo;t a great skater, he could still make an impact in other ways. Now, so many players are just good skaters without any game sense and it has sapped the creativity. People love 4-on-4 overtime. Why? Because there&rsquo;s open ice.People have claimed it&rsquo;s too expensive to increase the size of rinks. Don&rsquo;t think of it in terms of pure money. Think of the players whose careers you could be extending. If Chris Pronger retires, how many people will give up their season tickets in Philadelphia? I think a few. How many times will Pittsburgh be on NBC on Sundays without Sidney Crosby? Not as many.The New York Rangers can make over Madison Square Garden in one summer and that&rsquo;s not a problem for them. If teams investing in their buildings is worth it, why isn&rsquo;t investing in the longevity of the NHL players worth it? Owners want people to keep coming and bring new fans into the building, but it&rsquo;s tough to do that if all your star players are on the sidelines.I wonder the same thing about arena lighting and camera placement. When you look at the NFL, all the lighting and TV angles are the same. If you watch an NHL game at MSG or Joe Louis Arena, the cameras are too low or too high. As a player I&rsquo;d watch a game from the Air Canada Centre and think, &ldquo;wow, why can&rsquo;t all arenas look like this?&rdquo; Just the lighting makes a huge difference. And the same financial argument was used against doing this &ndash; owners would have to remove seats. We need a unified broadcast standard which would make it a more attractive television sport.Do you want to grow the game or just grow your own little garden in the back of your house?&ndash; Bobby Holik is an 18-year NHL veteran who retired in 2009 and is now an hockey analyst. Read more from Holik at <a href="http://holikonhockey.com">holikonhockey.com</a> and on twitter at @holikonhockey. &#9632;

f0010-03

Ice Size Does Matter

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021683/9673625-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="520" height="746"><figcaption class="caption-body">(HATS: GREGG FORWERCK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>ISN&rsquo;T EVERY YEAR supposed to be &ldquo;the year&rdquo; Teemu Selanne&rsquo;s production finally falls off (or retires)? Last season, at 40, &lsquo;The Finnish Flash&rsquo; rattled off 80 points in 73 games. A year later, his 36 points in 38 games put him on pace for 77. Several other elder statesmen have bucked Father Time, too.103 GORDIE HOWE&nbsp;(1968-69, AGE 40)83 JOHNNY BUCYK&nbsp;(1975-76, AGE 40)80 TEEMU SELANNE&nbsp;(2010-11, AGE 40)71 ALEX DELVECCHIO&nbsp;(1972-73, AGE 40)71 GORDIE HOWE&nbsp;(1969-70, AGE 41)62 NICKLAS LIDSTROM&nbsp;(2010-11, AGE 40)61 MARK RECCHI&nbsp;(2008-09, AGE 40)59 RAY BOURQUE&nbsp;(2000-01, AGE 40)52 GORDIE HOWE&nbsp;(1970-71, AGE 42)48 MARK RECCHI&nbsp;(2010-11, AGE 42) &#9632;

f0010-02

MOST POINTS IN A SEASON FOR PLAYERS 40+

<div class="byline">&#x2013; DEBRA RUGHOO</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011927/9673656-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">MANY HATS, MANY HOMESToss your lid on the ice and it could end up anywhere from a charity to a player&rsquo;s head.</figcaption></div>One of the favorite fan traditions is throwing your hat onto the ice to celebrate a player scoring a hat trick. As a child, I used to think if you tossed your hat, you&rsquo;d be able to get it back after the game. As I got older, I realized that may not be possible since so many other people have the same one. In 2010-11, a total of 76 hat tricks were scored in the NHL &ndash; that amounts to a lot of hats thrown onto the ice. But what happens to them all? The answer depends on which arena you&rsquo;re at.At the Toronto Maple Leafs&rsquo; home, the Air Canada Centre, if a lot of hats are collected off the ice and kids come to the glass, some of the hats may be given to them. The rest are offered to the player who scored the hat trick. As fans, we always want memorabilia from players, but it&rsquo;s nice to know some players are holding onto something from us. Leftover hats are donated to local charities.Many other teams around the league donate the hats to charities. In Pittsburgh, the collection of hats is turned over to Hat Tricks 4 Humanity, an organization started as a project by a 14-year-old boy scout. The hats are cleaned, refurbished and distributed to a number of charities around the world.Charities score big when a hat trick coincides with hat giveaway night. At a Carolina home game on April 8, 2010, Hurricanes fans littered the ice with more than 500 hats after Eric Staal scored his third goal of the game against the Montreal Canadiens. The hats were donated to three local children&rsquo;s hospitals, but had to be frozen for three days first to meet the hospitals&rsquo; sanitary standards. For hygienic reasons, some arenas like the TD Garden in Boston just throw the hats out.While some arenas donate the hats, others showcase them. Nationwide Arena in Columbus has a display case on the main concourse that contains all the hats thrown on the ice for every hat trick scored by a Blue Jackets player. On the glass of the display case, the name of the player, opponent and date of the hat trick are listed starting with the first one in franchise history by Geoff Sanderson on Feb. 10, 2001.And I wasn&rsquo;t completely off base in believing you can get your hat back. At Ottawa&rsquo;s Scotiabank Place, you can claim your hat from the lost and found afterwards. Let&rsquo;s just hope yours has unique markings on it, because it might be difficult figuring out which one it is in the pile. &#9632;

f0011-01

Mad Hatters

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021399/9673687-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="315" height="262"></div>DAYS UNTIL EXPIRATIONWITH PLAYER FINES as small as $2,500, some feel NHL justice is too lenient. In the next CBA, will the league and NHLPA agree on harsher fines and suspensions?Perhaps to a degree, one player agent said, but he added imagining season-long bans for egregious incidents is pie-in-the-sky. &ldquo;If you asked most players if they wanted more impactful supplementary discipline, they&rsquo;d say yes, but only for repeat offenders with horrendous reputations &ndash; the guy Matt Cooke has been,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But the grand majority of players believe the game moves so quickly, levelling huge suspensions as a rule of thumb would financially victimize guys who don&rsquo;t deserve it.&rdquo;The owners could demand more punitive measures, but aren&rsquo;t likely to make them a priority. &ldquo;There might be a couple owners &ndash; Mario Lemieux, or Eugene Melnyk &ndash; who&rsquo;d be on board,&rdquo; the agent said. &ldquo;But most are completely focused on how we split up (hockey-related revenue). And that&rsquo;s unlikely to change.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0011-02

CBA WATCH

<div class="byline">&#x2013; KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-012246/9673725-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">TOUGH LOVEAHL president David Andrews is preparing his players for the standards set by the NHL. (ANDREWS: JIM ROGASH/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>David Andrews&rsquo; official title with the American League is president and chief executive officer, but this season he should be known as &lsquo;The Hangin&rsquo; Judge.&rsquo;<div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021765/9673718-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="146" height="146"></div>That&rsquo;s because Andrews and his hockey operations man Mike Murray have been dishing out suspensions at a dizzying rate in 2011-12, or at least in the &rsquo;11 part of it. Through 503 games, the AHL levied 35 suspensions totalling 82 games, in comparison to the same point last season when just 16 suspensions accounting for 21 games were issued.As the president of the feeder system to the NHL, Andrews realizes the players in his league should be prepared to deal with the NHL&rsquo;s standard for head shots and illegal hits, even though there is no directive from the NHL as to how the AHL should handle its supplementary discipline. Andrews points out that in any given season, the league has about 350 players &ndash; roughly half its player pool &ndash; that go up to play in the NHL full time or temporarily.&ldquo;We believe we should be following at least the same standard and in some cases with the nature of our league, perhaps a tougher standard,&rdquo; Andrews said. &ldquo;With the younger players and emotion in our game, we call them the way we see it.&rdquo;And the way they see it is one of the main differences between the NHL and AHL. The minor pro league doesn&rsquo;t possess near the technology the NHL has and doesn&rsquo;t have a war room with people keeping a close eye on every game. A good number of games are televised and if needed, the league will accept a team&rsquo;s video of the game to make a ruling.&ldquo;Our games are all streamed on-line and we have the coaches&rsquo; tape as well, so we have video of every incident,&rdquo; Andrews said. &ldquo;Is it of the same quality and the same look as the NHL? No way. There are often incidents where we have one camera angle and it may be from a more distant position than what the NHL gets. But you do the best you can with what you have.&rdquo;The upside for the league is it has much more authority to impose discipline than the NHL has. For example, the AHL&rsquo;s collective bargaining agreement with its players does not provide the player with an opportunity to have a hearing with the league, so the league imposes discipline based solely on the referees&rsquo; reports and the video evidence available. &ldquo;Over the years &ndash; maybe last year a little less so &ndash; we&rsquo;ve been very sensitive to serious infractions,&rdquo; Andrews said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t grandstand with it, but we&rsquo;ve been very strong going back a long way with head checking and boarding and checking from behind.&rdquo; &#9632;</div>

f0012-01

AHL’s Big Dog Has Bite

BRENDAN SHANAHAN, the NHL&rsquo;s sheriff, was lauded for his crackdown during the pre-season, but the average suspension length has subsequently shrunk. A believer would say players have learned their lesson and the big bans acted as a deterrent. A skeptic would argue Shanahan&rsquo;s iron-fisted grip has weakened.<h2>TOTAL SUSPENSIONS BY MONTH</h2>SEPTEMBER - 8OCTOBER - 4NOVEMBER - 5DECEMBER - 7<h2>PRE- VS. REGULAR SEASON SUSPENSIONS</h2>PRE-SEASON - 9REG. SEASON - 15<h2>AVERAGE SUSPENSION LENGTH BY MONTH</h2>SEPTEMBER - 7.13OCTOBER - 2.25NOVEMBER - 3.60DECEMBER - 3.00* Some bans included pre-season and regular season games<h2>LONGEST SUSPENSIONS</h2>11 JAMES WISNIEWSKI, CLB (SEPT.)10 JODY SHELLEY, PHI (SEPT.)9 J-F JACQUES, ANA (SEPT.)8 BRENDAN SMITH, DET (SEPT.)8 ANDY SUTTON, EDM (DEC.)7 DAN CARCILLO, CHI (JAN.)6 BRAD STAUBITZ, MIN (SEPT.)6 TOM SESTITO, PHI (SEPT.)5 PIERRE-LUC LEBLOND, CGY (SEPT.)5 ANDY SUTTON, EDM (NOV.)5 RENE BOURQUE. CGY (JAN.) &#9632;

SHRINKAGE ON NHL BANS

<div class="byline">&#x2013; MATT STEPHEN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-031136/9673780-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="446" height="223"></div>ERIC LINDROS, John Tavares and Bobby Orr have one thing in common: they&rsquo;ve all played for the Oshawa Generals. The Gens are celebrating their 75th anniversary this year, making them one of the Ontario League&rsquo;s oldest teams. The team holds the league record with 12 OHL championships, including seven straight from 1938-44. But while the Generals have a history of success, they&rsquo;ve also endured some hard luck with their arenas. Before they became the Generals in 1937, Bradley Arena burned down in 1928, causing the franchise (founded in 1908) to move to the neighboring town of Whitby until Hambly Arena was built in 1930. Twenty-three years later, it too was lost to a blaze, causing a franchise hiatus until 1963, when Oshawa returned to play. &#9632;

f0012-03

Oshawa GENERALS

<div class="byline">&#x2013; MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0013-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-011966/9673832-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(HARTNELL: ANDY MARLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>It takes a resilient person to pick himself up every time he falls down. In Scott Hartnell&rsquo;s case, it also takes being a good sport.During the 2010 playoffs. He began seeing &ldquo;Hartnell Down&rdquo; signs everywhere. &ldquo;I saw it in a road game &ndash; Hartnell Down 125 &ndash; and thought, &lsquo;What the heck is that?&rsquo;&rdquo; Hartnell said. &ldquo;I saw a few weeks later the number was a little big bigger. &lsquo;What is that?&rsquo;&rdquo;It turned out Flyers fan Seth Hastings and a few Twitter buddies noticed Hartnell had a propensity to fall down in his battles for space and the puck and created the website, <a href="http://Hartnelldown.com">Hartnelldown.com</a>, to track his tumbles. &ldquo;It started as an inside joke and I decided for the next season, I would keep track of it on Twitter,&rdquo; Hastings said.Imagine Hastings&rsquo; surprise when the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Hartnell reached out to him this season. Hartnell got him tickets to the Flyers/Bruins tilt Dec. 17 and met him after the game. But there was nothing hostile about the get-together. Instead, the Flyers&rsquo; left winger had good news to share. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s absolutely hilarious,&rdquo; Hartnell said.He&rsquo;s embraced Hastings&rsquo; concept so much, he created his own line of &ldquo;Hartnell Down&rdquo; T-shirts. Proceeds go to charity, including a children&rsquo;s hockey camp in Brainerd, Minn., and Hartnell&rsquo;s charity golf tournament with fellow NHLer Clarke MacArthur in Lloydminster, on the Saskatchewan-Alberta border. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s amazing the power of social media, what people think of and how they catch on,&rdquo; Hartnell said. &ldquo;It could&rsquo;ve been something I despised, people making fun of me, but I think it&rsquo;s all great fun in the end.&rdquo;Hartnell fell 241 times in 2010-11 and sat at 144 after the Winter Classic Jan. 2, putting him on pace to shatter last year&rsquo;s total. Hartnell Down has become so popular in the Philadelphia dressing room that no player is safe from it. Take right winger Jakub Voracek, who took a spill Dec. 19 versus Colorado.&ldquo;He toe-picked over the blueline and tried to catch it. It was almost like slow motion,&rdquo; Hartnell said with a laugh. &ldquo;Three or four guys on the bench said &lsquo;Hartnell Down! Voracek did a Hartnell Down!&rsquo; &rdquo;<div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-03996/9673825-1-eng-US/f0013-032.jpg" title="f0013-03" width="81" height="84"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2>HOW TWEET IT IS</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-021374/9673818-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="484" height="480"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BRYZ: TRAVIS GOLBY/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>ILYA BRYZGALOV expressed his surprise at Canadian hockey fans&rsquo; passion on Twitter during the World Junior Championship semifinal matchup between the Canucks and victorious Russia.Flyers goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov(@bryzgoalie30): Why Canadians so aggressive on Twitter?<h2>BIG Number</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-04806/9673811-1-eng-US/f0013-042.jpg" title="f0013-04" width="491" height="591"><figcaption class="caption-body">&ndash;7Chris Butler&rsquo;s single-game minus Jan. 5, the worst in the NHL since 1993. (BUTLER: GREGORY SHAMUS/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0013-01

HARTNELL DOWN!

<div class="byline">WITH RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021669/9673863-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A WORLD AWAYBeing on the other side of the planet will lift the load off Canada&rsquo;s kids next year. (RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-031132/9673877-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="187" height="222"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-012221/9673870-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="183" height="233"></div>Much has been made about the supposed home-ice advantage Canada has enjoyed the past four world junior championships, with the hockey-mad nation hosting three times and invading nearby Buffalo in 2011. But in the past three showdowns, Canada&rsquo;s results have been worse each time. From an overtime loss in the final to the rival Americans two years ago to a third-period collapse against the Russians for gold last year, the Canadians failed to even reach the ultimate game in Calgary.Once again it was the Russians doing the damage, jumping out to a 6-1 lead in the semifinal as Canada&rsquo;s forwards muffed and bobbled pucks, the usually steady defense made a raft of mental errors and the goaltending was just average. True, a thrilling third-period comeback made the final score a 6-5 loss, but it was still a loss.Two silvers and a bronze would be a remarkable three-year run for say, Finland or Slovakia, but Canada is programmed for gold and gold alone. Therein lies the problem with &ldquo;home-ice advantage.&rdquo;Hockey Canada loves playing host and since the locals will pack the rinks fatter than European nations, it&rsquo;s great for the International Ice Hockey Federation&rsquo;s profile as well. Not to mention the fact TSN can get prime start times for the games and not worry about wacky time zones hurting the stratospheric ratings. But it&rsquo;s not like the kids on Team Canada reap any of the financial benefits of the tournament. They just get all the pressure of knowing the entire nation is watching. Don&rsquo;t screw up, now.<blockquote class="pullQuote">The pressure is enormous for players suiting up for Canada</blockquote>While it is true many of Team Canada&rsquo;s players will go on to be well-paid NHL stars in the near future, they&rsquo;re still teenagers finding their way. Talk to players who suited up for Canada in past years and they&rsquo;ll tell you the pressure was always enormous, particularly when the national team was stringing together multiple years of gold medals: They didn&rsquo;t want to be the ones to break the chain. And as soon as the team faltered (so easily done in a tournament with a single knockout playoff format), they knew they&rsquo;d hear about it when they came home.But that was before Twitter. That was before Nike and Gatorade commercials elevated these kids to rock-star status for weeks prior to the games. That was before even an easy game against Denmark drew ratings of more than two million.Next year, the world juniors will travel to Ufa, Russia, and I think it&rsquo;s just what Canada needs. As awesome as it is that Canadians support their teens so intensely, there will be far fewer indications of the hype surrounding the team when it&rsquo;s half a world away.And that pressure must be tough, right? &ldquo;Maybe a little bit,&rdquo; said defenseman Dougie Hamilton. &ldquo;But at this point in my career, I don&rsquo;t think the media matters too much with (regards to) pressure.&rdquo;Other advantages Canada had at home have washed away, however. The smaller ice surfaces in North America used to hinder the European teams used to international-sized rinks, but now many of those players have come over to hone their craft in major junior or even the college ranks. Plus, Canada hosts enough international tournaments at the under-17 and under-18 levels that even kids who still play in Europe have experience on the smaller surfaces.And now that teams such as Sweden have gained more traction at the tournament, heading into a Canadian rink is less daunting and more of a fun adventure for the youngsters, who may never again play in front of crowds so big unless they actually make it to the NHL. One player almost guaranteed to make The Show soon is Russia&rsquo;s Nail Yakupov, who summed up his team&rsquo;s feelings in a way only he could with his trademark charisma and braggadocio: &ldquo;We were ready 100 percent,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Eighty-thousand red and white jerseys doesn&rsquo;t matter right now. See you next year.&rdquo;The pressures Team Canada is subjected to build character for the future, but this is still a bunch of teens we&rsquo;re talking about here and corporations and bureaucrats benefit far more from the tourney being on home ice than the kids do. If you need any more proof, just look at the podium lately. &#9632;

f0014-02

HOME, BITTERSWEET HOME FOR CANADA

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011930/9673908-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKA THE MEDALLISTSweden triumphed over Russia on an overtime goal from Mika Zibanejad. (ZIBANEJAD: ANDY DEVLIN/HHOF/IIHF IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Unless you&rsquo;re Finnish, it&rsquo;s rare to hear a bad word uttered about the Swedes. Unfortunately for the Tre Kronor, their nice guys hadn&rsquo;t finished first at the world juniors since 1981. That is, of course, until Ottawa Senators first-rounder Mika Zibanejad pounced on a Nikita Kucherov turnover at the Russian blueline and sped in on a breakaway, putting a backhander past goalie Andrei Makarov in overtime to clinch the gold medal.The key for Sweden was an almost unceasing pressure on the Russians, who had easily exposed the Canadian team defense just one game prior. The Swedes outskated their opponent consistently, not only beating the Russians to pucks, but lifting it back when they got there second. When the Russians did get possession (a rare circumstance through two periods) and appeared to threaten, the Swedes formed a gold-and-blue bubble in front of netminder Johan Gustafsson, who, thanks to his defense, needed to make only a few difficult saves. The end result was a 58-17 shot advantage and the shutting down of big Russian guns Nail Yakupov, Nikita Gusev and in particular, tournament MVP Evgeny Kuznetsov, who was often double-shifted. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s difficult to say anything,&rdquo; Kuznetsov said. &ldquo;The shots after two periods were something like 37-5. It would have been unfair for us to win.&rdquo;In the past, the Swedes lacked the killer instinct to get the job done. Particularly in the recent past, on the teams headlined by players such as Victor Hedman and Jacob Markstrom, they had all the talent in the world, but were stifled by Canadian teams that brought a nasty edge to the table that flustered them.The fact Sweden beat Canada in last year&rsquo;s round-robin in Buffalo is seen by some as a turning point in the program&rsquo;s confidence and this year&rsquo;s victory over Russia cements that feeling. &ldquo;It means we can win as well,&rdquo; said Anaheim prospect and tournament all-star Max Friberg. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just Russia and Canada and the U.S. Sweden can win this tournament.&rdquo;Rallying from three goals behind to beat Russia in the round-robin laid the groundwork for Sweden&rsquo;s gold. &ldquo;Control their counterattacks,&rdquo; Friberg said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think they had more than one breakaway. They had more in the first period (of the round-robin meeting) than all game.&rdquo;Added right winger Filip Forsberg, a 2012 draft prospect: &ldquo;Of course we learned a lot from when we came back from 3-0. And then we did the same against the Finnish guys in the semifinal. We took that with us.&ldquo;We tried to forecheck hard and cover the boards with the two other guys and I think we had a lot of success with that during the game.&rdquo;It was a ruthlessly effective Swedish strategy employed by coach Roger Ronnberg. While the Russians are usually the team accused of being cold-blooded, the Tre Kronor got it done by smothering and hounding their opponents. It wasn&rsquo;t nice for the Russians, but the Swedes finally broke through by getting mean. &#9632;

f0015-01

GET MEAN, GET GOLD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-021367/9673939-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="655" height="598"><figcaption class="caption-body">ANDREI MAKAROV (MAKAROV: RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>It would have been a pretty nice storyline for Russia to return to Ufa for the 2013 World Junior Championship with a third straight gold medal on the line on home ice, but it was not to be. What has been established, however, is that the program is in good hands under the tutelage of coach Valery Bragin, who has taken the team to two straight gold medal games after it fell apart in Saskatoon in 2010.Goalie Andrei Vasilevski is eligible to return for the Russians next year, though it was his older counterpart Andrei Makarov who played remarkably in this year&rsquo;s final after Bragin believed Vasilevski had played too many physically and mentally exhausting games in a row.Makarov, who went unclaimed in the Quebec League&rsquo;s dispersal draft of Lewiston, is now with the Western League&rsquo;s Saskatoon Blades and showed a rare bit of humor and good spirits for a goalie after the heartbreaking loss. &ldquo;Lots of pressure from Sweden,&rdquo; Makarov said. &ldquo;Fifty-eight shots &ndash; good for Sweden, good for me. Good for my stats.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0015-02

SILVER LINING

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021524/9673970-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A YEAR AHEADMikael Granlund, a year older than Markus, will surely join the NHL&rsquo;s Wild next season. (GRANLUND: RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>While much was made of Dougie and Freddie Hamilton both making Team Canada this year at the world juniors, Finland had a brother act even more integral to its team&rsquo;s success. Mikael and Markus Granlund were the catalysts for an excellent Suomi squad that suffered a crushing loss to the Swedes in the semifinal before losing to Team Canada in the bronze medal game. &ldquo;They both have good hockey sense,&rdquo; said teammate Joel Armia. &ldquo;They move the puck well, both have a good shot &ndash; what more do you need?&rdquo;The pair was devastating in a win over Slovakia in the quarterfinal, finding each other for laser-like goals. Mikael is the eldest and was selected ninth overall by Minnesota in 2010, where he was voted by an expert THN scouting panel to be one of the smartest players in the draft alongside Winnipeg&rsquo;s Alexander Burmistrov. The 19-year-old center has been one of the top scorers in Finland this season, regardless of age, and is expected to leave his HIFK team for the Wild this summer. Part of his contract negotiations with HIFK last summer was that he got to play at the world juniors after missing the 2011 edition with a concussion. &ldquo;He has already played in a World Championship and Karjala Cup (a European club team tourney), so it&rsquo;s almost funny seeing him play at the world juniors,&rdquo; said Minnesota GM Chuck Fletcher. &ldquo;His hockey sense and talent is elite. He has an impact on nearly every game he plays.&rdquo;Unfortunately, his lasting impact against Sweden was a missed shootout attempt in which he lost the puck before getting a shot off, handing his arch-rivals the victory.But Finland wouldn&rsquo;t have reached the game in the first place without the efforts and team-leading 11 points of its captain.The Calgary Flames drafted younger brother Markus 45th overall in 2011 and though slighter than his brother (neither crests the six-foot mark, but Mikael is heavier) he was also effective in Alberta.Markus led the team with a plus-5 rating, while his seven points in seven games was tied for third with Joel Armia on the Finnish squad.A year behind his brother in more ways than one, the 18-year-old also plays for HIFK, where he is in his first full SM-Liiga season. His 16 points through 26 games were admirable for his age and his six goals actually put him on pace to beat his brother&rsquo;s goal total from last year.With typical Finnish stoicism, neither Granlund would bite on the question of playing together. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just normal,&rdquo; Mikael said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s just one of the teammates.&rdquo;Added Markus: &ldquo;Of course it&rsquo;s fun, but he&rsquo;s a normal teammate and that&rsquo;s it.&rdquo;As for pumping each other&rsquo;s tires, Markus begrudgingly admitted Mikael was a nice older brother when the two grew up in Oulu, one of the northern-most cities in the world. And Mikael&rsquo;s assessment of his brother&rsquo;s talents? &ldquo;He plays pretty good hockey.&rdquo;Bank that in the scouting report. While their quips are far from razor-sharp, the one thing the Granlunds know is hockey. And fans in Minny and Calgary won&rsquo;t care what words they speak as long as they do all their talking on the ice in the future. &#9632;

f0016-02

BLUE-CHIP BROTHERS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011991/9674001-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg" title="f0016-01" width="483" height="436"><figcaption class="caption-body">JANI HAKANPAA (HAKANPAA: ANDY DEVLIN/HHOF/IIHF IMAGES)</figcaption></div>While the Granlund brothers and Joel Armia provided the sizzle, 6-foot-5, 218-pound blueliner Jani Hakanpaa brought the beef for Finland. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a big guy, so I have to use my body out there,&rdquo; he said. &rdquo;I go hard in the corners and battle all the time.&rdquo;A fourth round pick by St. Louis in 2010 (104th overall), Hakanpaa was Finland&rsquo;s best defenseman in the semifinal loss to the Swedes. He plastered a number of rivals, including ace scorer Max Friberg, and when he wasn&rsquo;t dumping bodies, Hakanpaa was shadowing Sweden&rsquo;s top snipers. Back home, the 19-year-old plays for another team called the Blues &ndash; Espoo &ndash; in the SM-Liiga, where he is learning to take his game to the next level against older competition. &ldquo;My play with the puck has become faster and I&rsquo;m getting stronger,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My legs are getting stronger and I&rsquo;m winning more battles.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0016-01

Fiercest Finn on ‘D’

<div class="byline">BY ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0018-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011868/9674060-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">PREMIER PAIRINGBrent Seabrook and long-time partner Duncan Keith are once again workhorses for Chicago, each logging far north of 20 minutes a night. (SEABROOK: DEBORA ROBINSON/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>WITH THE EXPLOSION OF social media and round-the-clock debates on the Internet, our collective memory hole when it comes to sports is wider and deeper than ever. The average Joe/Joanne finds and focuses on one flavor-of-the-moment and once they&rsquo;ve explored it to their satisfaction, they shift their attention to the next flash of sound and color that appears before their eyes, leaving their previous fixation to disappear.Which brings us to the Chicago Blackhawks. Remember them? Toast of the NHL two seasons ago? Defending Stanley Cup champions last year? Gorgeous uniforms? Astonishing talent at every position not named goaltender?Of course you remember.Yet there&rsquo;s no doubt the Blackhawks faded from the spotlight &ndash; in part because of the Cup hangover that led to their poor start to last year and in part because salary cap constraints caused nearly a 50 percent turnover in what was by far the league&rsquo;s most formidable roster in 2009-10.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011645/9674053-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="1428" height="1166"></div>However, there should be no mistaking precisely how re-formidable they are now. In fact, in THN&rsquo;s annual NHL defense rankings, Chicago&rsquo;s group of blueliners was named the league&rsquo;s best.The voting &ndash; done by a panel of league GMs and management members, former players/analysts and scouts and based on current lineups &ndash; was closer than it was last year, when Philadelphia&rsquo;s defensemen were clearly the class of the league. But with Flyers captain Chris Pronger sidelined for the remainder of the season, there was a case to be made for a number of defense corps as the best of the bunch.The Boston Bruins, led by Zdeno Chara and with balance at every defensive pairing, received high praise, as did the Detroit Red Wings, who have all-time legend Nicklas Lidstrom showing no signs of wear and tear at age 41 and an equal amount of talent and depth.But no team other than Chicago has all this: Arguably the best pairing in the league in Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook; a top-four (including second-pair Niklas Hjalmarsson and Nick Leddy) whose average age is less than 25 years old; the kind of depth that has veteran Steve Montador on the third pairing along with a choice of veterans Sean O&rsquo;Donnell, Sami Lepisto and John Scott to be the sixth defenseman on any given night; and the skill that could sustain the loss of minute-munching, offense-minded Brian Campbell and not miss a beat.And no team could receive average goaltending &ndash; in this case, from Corey Crawford and Ray Emery &ndash; and still be atop the Western Conference. &ldquo;To me, it&rsquo;s a pick &rsquo;em between Chicago and Detroit in terms of all-around skill,&rdquo; said one Eastern Conference executive. &ldquo;But part of the puzzle now is about having assets for the present and the future &ndash; in other words, ideally you want young assets you can control financially. All of Chicago&rsquo;s top four defensemen are in that category, which gives them the edge in my mind.&rdquo;He&rsquo;s right. The 28-year-old Keith, 2010&rsquo;s Norris Trophy winner and Chicago&rsquo;s top ice-time man this campaign at an average of 26:25 a night (third-best in the league), is signed through 2023 at a reasonable cap hit of $5.5 million a year. Seabrook, 26, carries a hit of $5.8 million and won&rsquo;t be an unrestricted free agent until 2016. Hjalmarsson, a 24-year-old Swede who is tied for second in the NHL in blocked shots (101), makes $3.5 million a season through 2013-14. And Leddy, the youngster of the group at 20, still is on his entry-level rookie contract that will pay him $1.1 million this year and next year before he becomes a restricted free agent.<blockquote class="pullQuote">ALL OF CHICAGO&rsquo;S TOP FOUR DEFENSEMEN ARE FINANCIALLY CONTROLLABLE &ndash; NHL EXECUTIVE</blockquote>You can compare them to the blueliners who brought Detroit so much glory the past 15 years at different times, Keith is playing the Lidstrom role; Seabrook is the big, physical force a la Vladimir Konstantinov; Hjalmarsson is a solid stay-at-home type in the vein of Jiri Fischer or the late-career incarnation of Chris Chelios; and Leddy is a nimble puck-mover reminiscent of Brian Rafalski.The Hawks are fortunate to have all these components now, priming them for a dynasty-like run.Best of all? The hunger that pushed the Hawks to their first Stanley Cup victory in 49 years is back. It never really was snuffed out altogether, but the double-whammy of playing so much hockey in 2009-10 and having the cap force drastic lineup changes was a mountainous obstacle to overcome. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there was another team that went through what we did last year,&rdquo; Keith said. &ldquo;You look at Boston and they&rsquo;re playing well now, but how would they have been had they lost 10 or 11 players like we did? That makes a huge difference. In any regular season there&rsquo;s going to be some turnover and adjustment time as guys get used to new faces. When you have familiarity there&rsquo;s naturally going to be more chemistry on and off the ice. So that was tough for a while.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s not nearly so tough now for the Hawks, even with the bitter taste of losing to what has become their arch-rival in Vancouver in the first round of last spring&rsquo;s playoffs. One of the reasons for that is the stellar off-season work done by GM Stan Bowman. He signed the 32-year-old Montador to a four-year, $11-million deal, then added the big and rough O&rsquo;Donnell and Lepisto on one-year contracts. Augmenting the core four &lsquo;D&rsquo; with experienced hands has restored depth to Chicago&rsquo;s blueline &ldquo;When you look at Dunc and Seabs, not too many defensive pairs have been together as long as they have,&rdquo; Quenneville said. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been together from the start. We did split them up a little bit last year and at the beginning of this year for a stretch, but they always seem to gravitate back to each other. And I think they like that.&rdquo;If Seabrook and Keith weren&rsquo;t already thick as thieves after winning a championship, they got even closer last summer when Seabrook moved close to Keith&rsquo;s off-season home in B.C.&rsquo;s Okanagan Valley. Once he did, Seabrook was able to see exactly how much painstaking conditioning work Keith puts into his off-seasons to improve his game and be in peak shape when the marathon of the season begins. But they&rsquo;re always watching and learning from one another, even during the season when they weren&rsquo;t playing on the same pairing. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like we were ever too far away from each other,&rdquo; said Seabrook, who averages 23:00 a game &ndash; mere seconds more than sophomore Leddy (22:43). &ldquo;We&rsquo;re still watching each other on the ice if we&rsquo;re not together, so you never really lose that chemistry. And his competitiveness is exciting to watch. He had a lot of doubters growing up and he&rsquo;s always wanted to prove them wrong.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011621/9674046-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="1398" height="1050"><figcaption class="caption-body">BABY BLUELINERSDefensemen Nick Leddy and Niklas Hjalmarsson round out the NHL&rsquo;s youngest top four. (HJALMARSSON: GREGG FORWERCK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">YOU LOOK AT BOSTON, HOW WOULD THEY HAVE BEEN HAD THEY LOST 10 OR 11 PLAYERS LIKE WE DID? &ndash; DUNCAN KEITH</blockquote><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-021165/9674039-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="629" height="633"><figcaption class="caption-body">(KEITH+LEDDY: BILL SMITH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>If the Blackhawks can put together a deep post-season run, there won&rsquo;t be any doubters of what their blueline can do. Superstar forwards Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane hoover up much of the attention, but when you see the rather pedestrian save percentages posted by Emery (.908) and Crawford (.904), you understand how important Chicago&rsquo;s defensemen actually are in the big picture. Some Hawks blueliners may fall to the injury bug between now and June, but that&rsquo;s why their embarrassment of blueline riches is so crucial. &ldquo;We like what we&rsquo;ve got,&rdquo; Quenneville said. &ldquo;Sometimes you may need 10 &lsquo;D&rsquo; to get you through a season. And we think all of our guys right now can play.&rdquo;And how.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-011307/9674032-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="2128" height="2871"></div>CAP FIGURES (IN MILLIONS) COURTESY <a href="http://capgeek.com">CAPGEEK.COM</a>. FINANCIAL NUMBERS INCLUDE INJURED PLAYERS; RANKINGS DO NOT.. &#9632;

f0018-01

You Gotta Read This

HAWKS BOAST SIMPLY THE BEST

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011506/9674098-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(KEN CAMPBELL)</figcaption></div>Standing at center ice for a photo shoot, Josh Ho-Sang and Connor McDavid are asked to put the puck on the end of their sticks. Ho-Sang accomplishes the tricky maneuver in one sweeping motion by scooping the puck off the ice in the blink of an eye, while McDavid struggles with his first attempt and the puck rolls off his stick.Ho-Sang quickly points out McDavid&rsquo;s stick is full of snow and that makes it much more difficult to complete the trick. &ldquo;And it works much better with black tape than white tape,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why that is.&rdquo;Two young men, mature beyond their years on and off the ice, Ho-Sang and McDavid are prodigious young talents and teammates with the Toronto Marlboros minor midget team and depending upon how things transpire over the next couple months, the pair could go No. 1 and 2 in the 2012 Ontario League draft. That, in and of itself, doesn&rsquo;t make them particularly special, but their skill levels and passion for the game put them in another stratosphere. Veteran youth hockey observers have said they haven&rsquo;t seen the likes of Ho-Sang and McDavid in years.The numbers back up that claim. Through 30 games, Ho-Sang had 30 goals and 73 points. McDavid was almost as dominant, notching 29 goals and 60 points.An OHL scout who has been working the Greater Toronto League for 14 years says Ho-Sang is the best player he has ever seen at that level, which includes the likes of Rick Nash, John Tavares and Steven Stamkos. Ho-Sang turns 16 in late January and McDavid just turned 15, meaning McDavid would have to obtain the exceptional player status from Hockey Canada to be eligible for this year&rsquo;s draft, a move most observers in the GTHL expect he will make. &ldquo;Ho-Sang can lift you out of his seat, just with his sheer ability to handle the puck,&rdquo; the scout said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the best player I&rsquo;ve ever seen in the GTHL and the most electrifying. McDavid isn&rsquo;t as electrifying as Ho-Sang, but he&rsquo;s a great playmaker. He plays more of a team game.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">THEY&rsquo;RE THE TWO BEST YOUNG PLAYERS IN CANADA &ndash; Ken Strong</blockquote>Not certain about a lot of the people reading this, but there are those of us who have some ratty T-shirts and gaudy ties that are older than these kids. The fact the Canadian youth hockey system is producing players of such prodigious talent at such a young age will not soothe the sting of Canada&rsquo;s bronze medal finish at the World Junior Championship, but should quiet critics, if there are any left, who believe Canada does not produce enough skill players. It helps that both young men are students at the PEAC School for Elite Athletes in Toronto, one of a growing number of sports schools in Canada. It charges tuition fees of $15,000 per year, hothouses super-elite athletes and has hockey players on the ice an additional four times a week.Ho-Sang and McDavid have built up a healthy respect for each other as teammates and competitors, but acknowledge there is a built-in tendency to one-up each other whenever possible, whether it&rsquo;s a race for a loose puck in practice or the need to be a difference-maker in a big game.Ho-Sang is blessed with game-breaking speed and explosive puck skills and there is a little more risk-reward attached to his game. McDavid, on the other hand, is more of a playmaker and two-way player whose consistency in his game and poise with the puck belies his young age. &ldquo;We both kind of want that spotlight and sometimes it&rsquo;s a battle between the two of us,&rdquo; McDavid said. &ldquo;I want that to be me, but I&rsquo;m one of Josh&rsquo;s biggest fans. Some of the things he does amaze me.&rdquo;Both happily accept the pressure and spotlight on the ice, but Ho-Sang clearly has a gift for flamboyance. In the championship game of a recent tournament, Ho-Sang performed a &lsquo;Tebow&rsquo; after scoring a goal and celebrates with Alexander Ovechkin-like exuberance. The son of a teaching tennis pro who was born in Jamaica and a Jewish mother who was born in Chile, Ho-Sang also has family roots in China. Ho-Sang&rsquo;s father Wayne, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Bob Marley, said his son has had clearly defined goals from a young age. &ldquo;He has always said, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be just another guy in the NHL &ndash; I want to be one of the guys, if not the guy in the NHL,&rsquo;&rdquo; Wayne said.The next step for both of them will almost certainly be the OHL, but it&rsquo;s not clear exactly when that will happen. Ho-Sang will go into the OHL draft this spring and has already indicated he will report to whatever team drafts him, provided it gives him ice time and an opportunity to develop. McDavid, on the other hand, has until Feb. 15 to apply for exceptional player status, the way Aaron Ekblad of the Barrie Colts did last year, and would have to be accepted.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-011304/9674091-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="705" height="1055"><figcaption class="caption-body">HO-LY COWJosh Ho-Sang, who turns 16 in late January, is known to spice up his goals with charismatic celebrations. (HO-SANG: BRODY HAMILTON/OHL IMAGES)</figcaption></div>And if that happens, that&rsquo;s where things get interesting. If McDavid were not in the draft and/or were in the same age group, Ho-Sang would be a shoo-in to go No. 1 overall. But the team picking first, likely the Erie Otters, will go in knowing that if it drafts Mc-David, it&rsquo;ll have him for three seasons before his NHL draft, while the team taking Ho-Sang would have him for only two years. If they were to go 1-2 in the draft, it would mark only the second time in league history two players from the same team were chosen with the top two picks. Stamkos and Michael Del Zotto were selected No. 1 and 2 from the Markham Waxers in 2008.Should McDavid not pursue or not be accepted for exceptional status, there will be no shortage of options for him. The Shattuck St-Mary&rsquo;s prep school in Minnesota would love to have him and there is a chance he&rsquo;d be able to play in the United States League under a shared-custody agreement. He could also return to the Marlboros minor midget team, something Ho-Sang did this season after many people thought he should have applied for exceptional status with Ekblad.Along with Ho-Sang and McDavid, the Marlboros also have defenseman Roland McKeown who could go among the top five picks. The Marlboros also have four other players &ndash; defenseman Daniel Desousa and forwards Jaden Lindo, Jeremiah Addison and Michael Cramarossa &ndash; who could go in the first round. OHL draft records are incomplete, but the most players any team has had in the first round since 1991 was the Toronto Jr. Canadiens with five in 2008.McDavid acknowledges he has sometimes been overwhelmed with the combination of attention and uncertainty that has enveloped him this season, but he tries not to let it affect his game. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s hard to do,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There have been times I&rsquo;ve needed to be reminded that I still need to play on the ice.&rdquo;Marlboros coach and former NHLer and American Leaguer Ken Strong says Ho-Sang and McDavid are two different players, but two phenomenal ones. He has seen most of the elite talented players in North America and says they&rsquo;re the two best young players in Canada.For their parts, McDavid says Ho-Sang has &ldquo;unbelievable stick skills and amazing speed,&rdquo; while Ho-Sang calls McDavid &ldquo;the most dynamic player I&rsquo;ve ever seen in my life,&rdquo; and admires his teammate&rsquo;s ability &ldquo;to make goalies and defensemen look stupid on a regular basis.&rdquo;So, which one is better? &ldquo;We&rsquo;re still working on that &ndash; we&rsquo;re still fighting over that one,&rdquo; Ho-Sang said with a laugh. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be able to carry that one on for a long time.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0022-01

DREAM TEENS

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0032-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-011424/9674195-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MIKE STOBE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>AS SIDNEY CROSBY TOOK HIS FINAL few pre-whistle breaths and ducked into the faceoff circle of his short-lived-comeback game in November, let it be recorded for posterity that two players, indeed, were involved in that draw.One registered a four-point night, justifying the efforts of two national TV networks that dropped whatever else they had planned that night. The other player, just as determined but held off the scoresheet, was John Tavares. He battled Crosby for that opening puck drop, losing the scramble in what turned out to be a 5-0 whitewashing. &ldquo;I tried to look at it as a great opportunity to rise to the challenge,&rdquo; Tavares said. &ldquo;There were a lot of eyes on the game. Obviously we didn&rsquo;t come out with a great effort and that&rsquo;s the disappointing part. It&rsquo;s too bad we didn&rsquo;t play better.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-011443/9674188-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="1398" height="1383"><figcaption class="caption-body">(FRANCOIS LACASSE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Unfortunately for Tavares &ndash; a phenom so coveted he was featured on three covers of The Hockey News before he was even selected first overall in 2009; a talent so anticipated many sluffed off the 2008 draft as a mere hor d&rsquo;oeuvre; a prospect so ahead of his age group there&rsquo;s now a &ldquo;Tavares Rule&rdquo; in the Ontario League &ndash; that&rsquo;s been the refrain of this NHL career. &ldquo;Too bad.&rdquo;Tavares&rsquo; peers are off winning Rocket Richard trophies and Stanley Cups. He must be content to lead a struggling team in scoring with totals ranking just inside the NHL&rsquo;s top 30, not the top 10. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an elite player and he&rsquo;s still young,&rdquo; says one pro scout. &ldquo;Have they given him enough to play with? Look at the place they&rsquo;re in.&rdquo;The place the Isles usually find themselves: last in the Atlantic Division, the same place they&rsquo;ve finished the past four seasons.Now the question must be asked: Is Tavares doomed to be forever marooned on the Island? &ldquo;We&rsquo;re still far away,&rdquo; said captain Mark Streit. &ldquo;We need to improve as a team. We have a lot of potential, but there&rsquo;s lots of room to improve in this group.&rdquo;Tavares is signed through 2017-18 and by all accounts, he&rsquo;s happy on Long Island. But it&rsquo;s been three seasons in the weeds already and with the Isles poised to enter an even tougher division/conference when the NHL realigns next year, playoffs seem to be a long ways away.The pressure placed on Tavares both by outside forces and his own competitive nature is palpable. And he&rsquo;s still only 21. As much as he tried, it&rsquo;s too much to ask of him to save this franchise on his own. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s up to his teammates&hellip;to take some of the burden away from him,&rdquo; said veteran Isles defenseman Mike Mottau.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-021006/9674181-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="708" height="917"><figcaption class="caption-body">TIME FLIESJohn Tavares reached the spotlight as a 15-year-old with the OHL&rsquo;s Oshawa Generals, but has lost some shine in the NHL. (DAVE ABEL/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Tavares has always been good. At his first hockey camp, the preternatural five-year-old from Oakville, a suburb of Toronto, was already proving to be a cut above the rest. &ldquo;House league didn&rsquo;t start until age six in Oakville,&rdquo; said Barb Tavares, John&rsquo;s mom. &ldquo;So at the end of this skate-and-drill thing, they held a mini-tournament. That was when you saw the kids who excelled and that&rsquo;s when we saw the aggressiveness in John. He was lifting the puck off the ice when he shot, which is tough to do at that age.&rdquo;His uncle, a lacrosse legend also named John Tavares, recalled that, when his nephew grew up, parents of teammates at games were always yelling about their sons not getting enough passes. It became so much that John began to sit with the rival parents, who just spoke in awe of the youngster&rsquo;s talent.John the hockey player was always enamored with John the lacrosse player and even served as a ball boy for his uncle&rsquo;s team, the Buffalo Bandits, on occasion. &ldquo;I really looked up to him,&rdquo; the younger John says. &ldquo;I saw his work ethic and his passion for the game&hellip;I thought he was the coolest guy in the world.&rdquo;Tavares saw excellence up close early in life and that inspired him: &ldquo;I consider him to be the greatest player ever in lacrosse.&rdquo;When it became apparent Tavares&rsquo; skill was too elite for minor hockey, he applied for exceptional status in the OHL, which would allow him to compete in major junior a year earlier as a 15-year-old. The kid made the grade and &ldquo;The Tavares Rule&rdquo; went into effect.(Defenseman Aaron Ekblad became the first successful player to invoke the rule last year, while there is chatter another young hopeful, Toronto&rsquo;s Connor McDavid, will make an attempt this season. For more, see pg. 22).By the end of his four-year major junior stint, Tavares became be the all-time goal-scoring king. His only team glory, however, came at the international level when he won back-to-back gold medals with Canada at the World Junior Championship: &ldquo;The experience you go through and the memories you gain, there&rsquo;s nothing quite like it,&rdquo; he saidof the WJC. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the ultimate highlights for a kid from Canada and it&rsquo;s definitely a huge part of who I am as a hockey player.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-011340/9674174-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="2126" height="1258"><figcaption class="caption-body">WAITING TO WINBesides consecutive golds at the world juniors, Tavares hasn&rsquo;t tasted a major championship. (CHRISTOPHER PASATIERI/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>One of his teammates at the world juniors was Steven Stamkos. Back home, Stamkos put up huge numbers for the OHL&rsquo;s Sarnia Sting. But the media was in love with Tavares. Forget the 2008 draft, wait until Tavares in &rsquo;09&hellip;if Tavares was eligible this year, he&rsquo;d go No. 1 for sure.Scouts knew better. The Lightning tabbed Stamkos with the first selection that year. He won the Rocket Richard Trophy in 2010 and last season helped the Lightning get within one game of the Stanley Cup final.Stamkos&rsquo; main running mate has been Martin St-Louis, a Stanley Cup-winner and Canadian Olympian who frequently crests 90 points in a season. The Bolts&rsquo; second line features Vincent Lecavalier, who also has a Cup and an Olympic cap, plus his own Rocket Richard from 2007.Now let&rsquo;s move over to Tavares. The golden child of Long Island spends the bulk of his time playing with a pair of eighth-rounders, 28-year-olds Matt Moulson and P-A Parenteau, two players with far different pedigrees from the Tampa brood. Moulson was drafted 263rd overall by Pittsburgh in 2003, but became a free agent signee after four seasons at Cornell and three split between Los Angeles and the American League. Parenteau was taken 264th by Anaheim in 2001, but would have been Calder eligible last season were he not too old. Tavares has been the X-factor for both. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the kind of player that makes those around him better,&rdquo; the scout said. &ldquo;Moulson has certainly turned into a good player; Parenteau, too.&rdquo;But Lecavalier and St-Louis they are not. The Isles&rsquo; forwards do include 2011 Calder contender Michael Grabner and shorthanded thief Frans Nielsen, but that&rsquo;s not enough to shift attention from Tavares. &ldquo;He sees all the checking pressure,&rdquo; the scout said. &ldquo;And I&rsquo;ve seen him get frustrated out there a couple times this year. With Stamkos it gets spread around a bit &ndash; he&rsquo;s got two or three other great players around him.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">HE&rsquo;S AN ELITE PLAYER AND HE&rsquo;S YOUNG. HAVE THEY GIVEN HIM ENOUGH TO PLAY WITH? &ndash; NHL SCOUT</blockquote>Tavares and his game are growing. The young center makes plays at high speeds and in tight corners. Though he was a goalscoring machine in junior, his playmaking has helped Moulson to back-to-back 30-goal campaigns. &ldquo;Becoming his teammate, you see how driven he is in practice, away from the rink and in the weight room,&rdquo; said Mottau, a frequent opponent when he was with New Jersey. &ldquo;Throughout last year he was getting better and this year he&rsquo;s made more strides &ndash; he&rsquo;s really strong on the puck down low and he&rsquo;s a leader on and off the ice.&rdquo;Streit, there for the entirety of Tavares&rsquo; short NHL career, sees a player whose every act during work hours is to improve upon his overall game: &ldquo;His skating &ndash; he&rsquo;s way faster. He&rsquo;s strong on the puck, he&rsquo;s bigger and he works hard.&rdquo;But he can&rsquo;t do it alone. While the Islanders have been blessed with high draft picks (they&rsquo;ve had five top-10 selections in the past six drafts), they&rsquo;re a far cry from teams such as Pittsburgh or Chicago, which parlayed ruin into riches.Power forward Kyle Okposo, seventh overall in 2006, was pulled out of the University of Minnesota midway through his sophomore year and placed on the fast track to the NHL, where he posted promising numbers in 2009-10 before an injury derailed the following campaign. He has regressed to the point he&rsquo;s been a healthy scratch for several games this season.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-011344/9674167-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="1591" height="925"><figcaption class="caption-body">(NIEDERREITER: MIKE STOBE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02911/9674160-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="488" height="712"><figcaption class="caption-body">NO MAN IS AN ISLANDNew York won&rsquo;t sniff the postseason unless Nino Niederreiter, Ryan Strome and others can provide Tavares support. (STROME: NICK LAHAM/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Josh Bailey was a surprise pick at ninth overall in 2008 and it was even more of a shock when the Isles brought him straight to the NHL. The young center topped out at 35 points as a sophomore and is not on pace to eclipse that this year.The most cringe-worthy was the 2003 draft, a crop that brought riches to many teams in players such as Ryan Getzlaf, Eric Staal and Marc-Andre Fleury. The Isles selected 15th that year and still on the board at the time was the son of an NHL alumnus. The kid&rsquo;s name was Zach Parise. The Isles tabbed Robert Nilsson (son of Kent Nilsson, ironically) with its pick and watched rival New Jersey take the future star two slots later. &ldquo;I was surprised myself when the Islanders passed,&rdquo; said J-P Parise, Zach&rsquo;s father, afterwards. &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;Oh my gosh, Zach&rsquo;s a better player than those guys.&rsquo;&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">OUR PLAY AND THE SUCCESS WE HAVE UPCOMING, I BELIEVE, WILL BRING US THE ATTENTION THAT WE DESERVE &ndash; JOHN TAVARES</blockquote>Nilsson played 53 games for the Islanders before being traded, eventually landing in Europe. Back in the present, there is more help on the horizon in the form of prospect forwards Nino Niederreiter and Ryan Strome, but at some point the potential must morph into results. &ldquo;A lot of these young guys are still learning the game,&rdquo; said veteran Brian Rolston. &ldquo;It can be a mental thing at times. You&rsquo;ve got to take the bull by the horns and start competing with the best teams in the league. We have the talent here, now it&rsquo;s just a matter of doing it.&rdquo;And no one wants that more than Tavares. Great players take on that burden and even at his young age, Tavares is in that camp. &ldquo;A guy like him puts a lot of pressure on his own shoulders,&rdquo; Streit said. &ldquo;You want to compete, you want to get better, you want to compare yourself to other players in the league, you want to make the playoffs and win championships. That&rsquo;s just the nature of the athlete. As soon as you&rsquo;re satisfied, you&rsquo;re done.&rdquo;The Islanders agree en masse Tavares has come out of his shell the past year, shedding the shyness most youngsters have within the confines of NHL dressing rooms. He goes out for dinners with the guys on the road and even heads up the effort. He dishes chirps right back when someone dares besmirch his fantasy football team and know it&rsquo;s all in good fun. &ldquo;If his team takes a hit you can really get on him,&rdquo; Mottau chuckled. &ldquo;Some of his waiver wire moves &ndash; if he makes a bad decision you can ride him on that for a couple days.&rdquo;Tavares is also more personable in public. In junior, the media seemed to be a chore for a teen dealing with the expectations of a hockey-mad nation. Now his leadership is apparent. He&rsquo;s taken an active interest in the NHL Players&rsquo; Association and how the union and collective bargaining agreement impact the game he loves. &ldquo;When he first came in as a young kid, he didn&rsquo;t talk a whole lot, he was shy,&rdquo; Streit said. &ldquo;Now he&rsquo;s a whole different person. He matured a lot, he&rsquo;s one of the leaders of the team.&rdquo;Success comes next. Nearly all his peers have something to stake their young NHL careers to already. Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Tyler Seguin, Eric and Jordan Staal all have Stanley Cups. Stamkos, Victor Hedman and Matt Duchene have at least been to the playoffs. &ldquo;I definitely push myself to be an elite player in the league and I expect a lot of myself,&rdquo; Tavares said. &ldquo;But every situation is different. It&rsquo;s hard to compare all the time. It&rsquo;s not something you want to get caught up, in either.&rdquo;The glare of the national media spotlight rarely shines on Long Island, so Tavares gets lost in the NHL shuffle. But that&rsquo;s OK with him. &ldquo;There are days when it&rsquo;s nice to get away from the game a little bit; it&rsquo;s a long season,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t think about it all the time because it will wear on you and it&rsquo;s not easy. Long Island is a great spot. Eventually our play and the success we have upcoming, I believe, will bring us the attention we deserve.&rdquo;If and when the cameras do eventually focus on a successful Isles team, Tavares will be front and center. &#9632;

f0032-01

MAROONED ON LONG ISLAND

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-09255/9674275-1-eng-US/f0037-092.jpg" title="f0037-09" width="483" height="96"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-011200/9674268-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="1298" height="513"></div>1 YEAR of The Hockey News including Future Watch, Draft Preview and the YearbookDaily email newsletter FREEFull digital edition FREENHL team swivel key chain of your choice FREEBONUS:<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-05525/9674261-1-eng-US/f0037-052.jpg" title="f0037-05" width="354" height="483"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-06466/9674254-1-eng-US/f0037-062.jpg" title="f0037-06" width="354" height="483"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-07399/9674247-1-eng-US/f0037-072.jpg" title="f0037-07" width="354" height="475"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02843/9674240-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg" title="f0037-02" width="66" height="67"></div>Find us on Facebook<a href="http://facebook.com/TheHockeyNews">facebook.com/TheHockeyNews</a></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-03678/9674233-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="70" height="73"></div>Follow us on Twitter@TheHockeyNewsVISIT <a href="http://thehockeynews.com">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a> TO SUBSCRIBE NOW!</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-04581/9674226-1-eng-US/f0037-042.jpg" title="f0037-04" width="89" height="166"></div><a href="http://THN.com">THN.com</a> is now available as a FREE download on mobile devicesDownload the application today at <a href="http://thn.mobi">thn.mobi</a>NHL and the NHL Shield are registered trademarks of the National Hockey League.NHL and NHL team marks are the property of the NHL and its teams. &copy; NHL 2011. All Rights Reserved. &#9632;</div>

f0037-09

YOUR INSIDE EDGE

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE FISH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02903/9674306-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">DANNY BRIERE (BRIERE: LEN REDKOLES/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="39" height="44"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-011305/9674313-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="228" height="168"></div>The 2010 and 2012 Winter Classics are only outdoor hockey games for some, but for Daniel Briere, they could be viewed as life mileposts in a quest to get back to excellence.Two years ago, at the game in Boston, the Flyers veteran center was struggling through a divorce, battling injuries and striving to pick up new coach Peter Laviolette&rsquo;s system. Briere&rsquo;s family, including three sons, needed quite a bit of time to sort out issues, a major distraction at the very least.Briere also entered the 2010 game at Fenway Park just off a November groin injury, raising speculation it was tied to the 2009 groin/stomach surgery that cost him 36 games. And, like the rest of the Flyers, Briere was transitioning from former coach John Stevens to Laviolette and wasn&rsquo;t exactly burning up the scoresheet.Fast-forward to the 2012 Classic in Philadelphia and Briere is in a much better place.A divorce from his now ex-wife, Sylvie, is history and he&rsquo;s been injury-free the past season-plus. In 2010-11, he set a career high with 34 goals and had a good first half this season despite losing linemates Scott Hartnell (to the top line) and Ville Leino (to free agency). Plus, he&rsquo;s now one of the biggest proponents of Laviolette&rsquo;s puck-pressure system.It&rsquo;s a far cry from two years back. &ldquo;It was a tough time in my life,&rdquo; Briere said, looking back at the start of 2010. &ldquo;I think hockey was an escape more than anything. It was tough to play, but those were the few minutes I was able to get away from everything on the outside. But the preparation to get there was a little tough.&rdquo;Now? &ldquo;Things are very relaxed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Just enjoying life. I&rsquo;m at a good place with the boys. I get along with their mom as well. I think we&rsquo;ve gotten over the initial shock and frustration toward each other. So now it&rsquo;s back to normal almost.&ldquo;Whatever happens, happens. There&rsquo;s no stress&hellip;obviously when you win it&rsquo;s a lot more fun. Then everyone is in a good mood. My life is very, very simple these days.&rdquo;Now he&rsquo;s able to enjoy the Winter Classic games, as he did Jan. 2, even though the Flyers lost to one of their biggest rivals, the New York Rangers.Like many Canadians, Briere grew up on a backyard rink, so playing under the sun, and later the stars, mixed with flurries at Citizens Bank Park made it special. &ldquo;Just looking over your head and seeing the sky,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s just something magical about it. I couldn&rsquo;t wait to see what it was like with 47,000 people out there.&ldquo;It brings you back to your childhood when I played outside with my friends, having fun, enjoying the game. That&rsquo;s what it brought back for me.&rdquo;In the lead-up to the game, HBO tracked the Flyers for about a month for its acclaimed 24/7 series. Some Flyers weren&rsquo;t crazy about the intrusion, but Briere didn&rsquo;t mind. &ldquo;It was a pretty cool experience,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The crew that was with us was part of the team. It&rsquo;s definitely going to be weird not having them around, having all the space around the dressing room.&rdquo;Briere hopes this game, despite the 3-2 loss to New York, has the same effect the &rsquo;10 Classic (a 2-1 overtime loss to the Bruins) had, when Philadelphia seemed to use it as a building block on a trip to the Stanley Cup final. &ldquo;I like how everybody prepared,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We battled hard. Both teams did. It prepares you a little bit for what a playoff game looks like: the whole crowd, center stage. It certainly served us a couple of years ago. Hopefully it does the same thing for us this year.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0038-02

Winter Of Discontent Ends

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03730/9674351-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="228" height="411"><figcaption class="caption-body">RYAN MILLER (MILLER: DAVE SANDFORD/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Buffalo, 2008Winter Classic72,217Pittsburgh, 2011Winter Classic68,111Edmonton, 2003Heritage Classic57,167Philadelphia, 2012Winter Classic46,967Calgary, 2011Heritage Classic41,022Chicago, 2009Winter Classic40,818Boston, 2010Winter Classic38,112Las Vegas, 1991Exhibition Game13,000<h2>110 K</h2>Fans expected at Michigan Stadium if the Red Wings win 2013 Classic hosting rights &#9632;

f0038-03

Winter’s CLASSICS

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-011194/9674459-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"></div><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="39" height="44"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02795/9674452-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="597" height="696"><figcaption class="caption-body">RAY SHERO (SHERO: DAVE SANDFORD/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Very few NHL teams could win when plagued with prolonged absences from one of their best players, let alone three or four. But that&rsquo;s just what the Pittsburgh Penguins have done this season, keeping their playoff aspirations afloat despite the occasionally staggered, often overlapping injuries to franchise cornerstones.Evgeni Malkin missed seven of the first 38 games. Jordan Staal was sidelined for five games over that span. Kris Letang hasn&rsquo;t played since Nov. 26 due to a concussion. And we all know about Sidney Crosby. Yet there the Penguins were with a 21-14-3 record, four points behind the Philadelphia Flyers for fourth in the Eastern Conference.Pittsburgh remains competitive because it has extraordinary depth and because coach Dan Bylsma and GM Ray Shero have done a masterful job of keeping them on message. &ldquo;We try and play a certain way, whether Sid&rsquo;s in the lineup, Geno&rsquo;s in the lineup, Staalsy&rsquo;s in the lineup, or they&rsquo;re all missing,&rdquo; said Penguins right winger Craig Adams. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve called a lot of guys up and&hellip;whoever came up really committed to the system. That&rsquo;s the way we were able to have success.&rdquo;Defenseman Brooks Orpik credited the continuity of message delivered between the NHL team and its American League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. &ldquo;John Hynes does a really good job,&rdquo; Orpik said of the AHL coach. &ldquo;We play the exact same system.&rdquo;<h2>FOR THE RECORD</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-06367/9674445-1-eng-US/f0039-062.jpg" title="f0039-06" width="753" height="629"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-07320/9674438-1-eng-US/f0039-072.jpg" title="f0039-07" width="306" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SYKORA: JIM MCISAAC/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>After finishing last in goals in 2010-11, the Devils were desperate to find scoring. Training camp tryout Petr Sykora has done his part with 10 goals &ndash; three of them winners &ndash; and 22 points during his second tour of duty in New Jersey. The 35-year-old, who starred in the swamp from 1995-02, has been steady on the second line all season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-08271/9674431-1-eng-US/f0039-082.jpg" title="f0039-08" width="685" height="538"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-09219/9674424-1-eng-US/f0039-092.jpg" title="f0039-09" width="305" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(GRABNER: MIKE STOBE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>After 34 goals and 52 points earned him a 2010-11 Calder Trophy nomination, Michael Grabner had just 10 goals and 16 points in 36 games. Compounding his woes: opponents are finding the Isles net much more often while he&rsquo;s on the ice. Grabner was already a minus-12 through early January after being a plus-13 his rookie campaign.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-10188/9674417-1-eng-US/f0039-102.jpg" title="f0039-10" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-11165/9674410-1-eng-US/f0039-112.jpg" title="f0039-11" width="305" height="509"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BIRON: FRANCOIS LACASSE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Martin Biron is the forgotten man in Manhattan with Henrik Lundqvist entrenched as the No. 1 netminder, but the 34-year-old&rsquo;s stats have been memorable since he joined the Rangers. After going 8-6-0 with a 2.13 GAA and .923 SP in 2010-11, Biron has been even better when spelling the &lsquo;King&rsquo; this season with seven wins, a 2.08 GAA and .923 SP.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-12149/9674403-1-eng-US/f0039-122.jpg" title="f0039-12" width="684" height="540"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-13128/9674396-1-eng-US/f0039-132.jpg" title="f0039-13" width="305" height="504"><figcaption class="caption-body">(VAN RIEMSDYK: TRAVIS GOLBY/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>The Broad Street brothers are sharing the love in Philly. The Flyers boasted seven players with at least 10 goals &ndash; tied for tops with New Jersey &ndash; and James van Riemsdyk was just one away from joining his double-digit brethren. The 1977-78 Bruins&rsquo; record of 11 20-goal scorers is safe with no other Flyer having more than five.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-14114/9674389-1-eng-US/f0039-142.jpg" title="f0039-14" width="685" height="540"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-15103/9674382-1-eng-US/f0039-152.jpg" title="f0039-15" width="305" height="501"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MALKIN: GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>It&rsquo;s hard to find anything positive about Sidney Crosby&rsquo;s continued concussion problems, but since he was KO&rsquo;d from the lineup again, Evgeni Malkin has been twice as nice for Pens fans. After a decent 14 points in 13 games prior to Crosby&rsquo;s return Nov. 21, Malkin had 19 points in the 10 games without &lsquo;The Kid&rsquo; to close out 2011. &#9632;

f0039-01

Weathering The Storm

<div class="byline">&#x2013; BRUCE GARRIOCH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01898/9674574-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg"></div><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="39" height="44"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02573/9674567-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg" title="f0040-02" width="597" height="710"><figcaption class="caption-body">KYLE TURRIS (TURRIS: PHILLIP MACCALLUM/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Being in the desert didn&rsquo;t sit right with Kyle Turris. He wanted to get back to hockey country. Acquired by the Senators from Phoenix in exchange for defenseman David Rundblad and a 2012 second round pick, Turris, 22, made himself right at home as the club&rsquo;s second-line center, picking up points in each of his first three Ottawa games. &ldquo;I feel really comfortable,&rdquo; said Turris, who added he was thrilled to be dealt to a Canadian market. &ldquo;The guys have been great at making me feel really welcome and at home. Everything has been going well. I&rsquo;m really happy and excited to be part of the team here.&rdquo;Ottawa&rsquo;s pursuit of Turris started in the summer during his contract impasse. Phoenix GM Don Maloney held talks with Ottawa&rsquo;s Bryan Murray, but refused to move until Turris, a restricted free agent, signed a two-year, $2.8-million deal in late November. Talks didn&rsquo;t get serious until days before the Dec. 17 deal.The trade has given coach Paul MacLean options to move people around behind No. 1 center Jason Spezza and taken scoring pressure off him. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to find some chemistry for Kyle Turris, just to see who can play with him and get him going,&rdquo; MacLean said.Turris will get a chance to develop, which he believes wasn&rsquo;t happening in Phoenix. &ldquo;It was really tough,&rdquo; Turris said. &ldquo;It was something that was a frustrating situation. I&rsquo;m just glad that it&rsquo;s in the past and we were able to move on.&rdquo;<h2>FOR THE RECORD</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-03443/9674560-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="753" height="629"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-04357/9674553-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="305" height="509"></div>Rich Peverley missed two games over the holidays thanks to an undisclosed injury &ndash; a first for the 29-year-old, who signed a three-year, $9.8-million contract extension in October. Although he&rsquo;s been a healthy scratch at times &ndash; including twice this season when Boston struggled &ndash; the sixth-year vet had never surrendered a game to injury before that point.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-05302/9674546-1-eng-US/f0040-052.jpg" title="f0040-05" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-06264/9674539-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="305" height="508"></div>Derek Roy and the Sabres love their owner, but even Terry Pegula couldn&rsquo;t quickly solve a cable TV dispute that blacked out Buffalo&rsquo;s Jan. 3 game against Edmonton. Time Warner Cable and the MSG Network were at loggerheads over rights fees, leaving fans no option to see games besides at viewing parties at the team&rsquo;s arena during road trips.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-07229/9674532-1-eng-US/f0040-072.jpg" title="f0040-07" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-08197/9674525-1-eng-US/f0040-082.jpg" title="f0040-08" width="305" height="503"><figcaption class="caption-body">(GORGES: RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Josh Gorges signed a six-year, $23.4-million contract extension, pledging his services until age 33. After knee surgery last year, Gorges has resumed his key role in Montreal&rsquo;s lineup, leading the team &ndash; and the entire NHL &ndash; in blocked shots with 101. That leaves soon-to-be RFAs Carey Price and P.K. Subban as the team&rsquo;s biggest off-season signing targets.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-09146/9674518-1-eng-US/f0040-092.jpg" title="f0040-09" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-10132/9674511-1-eng-US/f0040-102.jpg" title="f0040-10" width="305" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ROY+ALFREDSSON: ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>After missing 28 games in 2010-11, Daniel Alfredsson is healthy and showing his tank isn&rsquo;t empty. Ottawa&rsquo;s captain has missed six games this year yet is on pace for a 26-goal season, which would be his best since 2007-08, when he netted 40. The 39-year-old Swede scored his 400th career goal against Calgary Dec. 30.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-11116/9674504-1-eng-US/f0040-112.jpg" title="f0040-11" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-12105/9674497-1-eng-US/f0040-122.jpg" title="f0040-12" width="305" height="509"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PEVERLEY+ORR: GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Enforcer Colton Orr was waived in early January, thus ending his time in Toronto after two-and-a-half years. The 29-year-old, who suffered a serious concussion last season and appeared in just five games this year, has played 378 career regular season games &ndash; 22 shy of the magic 400 number guaranteeing him a full NHL pension until age 70. &#9632;

f0040-01

Dog Days Are Over

<div class="byline">&#x2013; TIM CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0041-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01777/9674689-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg"></div><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="39" height="44"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02507/9674682-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="597" height="712"><figcaption class="caption-body">EVANDER KANE (KANE: JANA CHYTILOVA/FREESTYLE PHOTOGRAPHY/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Confidence, be it too much or too little, can be a cruel mine-field for young players. But Winnipeg Jets left winger Evander Kane, just 20, has steered his confidence adeptly into a starring role in the reborn NHL city.The Vancouver native, drafted fourth overall in 2009 when the franchise was in Atlanta, is already a third-year pro and led the Jets with 18 goals in 37 games after scoring 19 all last season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always been a confident guy,&rdquo; Kane said. &ldquo;Coming into this year, I was confident I could have the season I wanted. In the summer, I worked on the things I needed to do on the ice to be more successful at this level. Shooting the puck was a big thing for me and continuing to be a stronger skater, hard on the puck.&rdquo;Before his rookie year, he moved to Atlanta and lived on his own at 18, which also required confidence. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say it was easy, because it&rsquo;s never easy going out on your own for the first time,&rdquo; Kane said. &ldquo;I enjoyed it. But 18, living on your own, that&rsquo;s a transition, especially early. Just driving, making sure you&rsquo;re on time. The NHL&rsquo;s a lot different than junior and it&rsquo;s something to wrap your head around in terms of schedule.&rdquo;Those life lessons and his increased on-ice production in his second year set the table for even better things in Winnipeg. &ldquo;(Moving after two years) wasn&rsquo;t the easiest thing to do and it was a slow (start) here,&rdquo; Kane said, &ldquo;but it&rsquo;s worked out pretty smooth.&rdquo;<h2>FOR THE RECORD</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-03412/9674675-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="753" height="629"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-04357/9674668-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="305" height="504"></div>It seems like ages ago when Cam Ward, Eric Staal and Jeff Skinner represented the Hurricanes at home for the 2011 All-Star Game and created a huge buzz in the area. It&rsquo;s been a miserable season for each: Skinner has slipped from his rookie pace due to a concussion and the other two are having their worst campaigns since they were rookies.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-05323/9674661-1-eng-US/f0041-052.jpg" title="f0041-05" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-06280/9674654-1-eng-US/f0041-062.jpg" title="f0041-06" width="305" height="506"></div>He is way down the depth chart right now, but goalie Brian Foster is a name worth remembering. The 2005 fifth-rounder&rsquo;s play in the ECHL was good enough that team management felt comfortable letting go of Tyler Plante, a second-rounder from the same draft. Foster took part in a Panthers practice, but his next step is to improve in the AHL.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-07240/9674647-1-eng-US/f0041-072.jpg" title="f0041-07" width="685" height="540"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-08186/9674640-1-eng-US/f0041-082.jpg" title="f0041-08" width="305" height="508"></div>J.T. Wyman was a Canadiens fourth round pick in 2004 and played for Guy Boucher with AHL Hamilton in 2009-10, scoring 17 goals. You can bet Boucher had a say when Wyman was signed as a free agent July 1. Called up prior to Christmas, Wyman had three points in five games and has already played more in Tampa than he did with Montreal.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-09137/9674633-1-eng-US/f0041-092.jpg" title="f0041-09" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-10110/9674626-1-eng-US/f0041-102.jpg" title="f0041-10" width="306" height="509"><figcaption class="caption-body">(WARD+WYMAN+ALZNER: GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>As Team Canada made its spirited third-period comeback attempt in what finished as a 6-5 loss to Russia in the WJC semifinal, Karl Alzner was at a restaurant nervously pacing around. Why? Because of Canada&rsquo;s loss, Alzner had to wear a Russian jersey during practice. If they had won, Alex Ovechkin would have sported the red Maple Leaf.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1190/9674619-1-eng-US/f0041-112.jpg" title="f0041-11" width="685" height="540"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1275/9674612-1-eng-US/f0041-122.jpg" title="f0041-12" width="305" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(WHEELER: MARIANNE HELM/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>December was a terrific month for the Jets, who racked up a 10-3-1 record to set a new franchise best. It was also the first time the club recorded 10 wins in a month since the Thrashers did it in December of 2000. Blake Wheeler played a key role, waking up and posting 15 points in 14 games after entering December with just 13 points on the season. &#9632;

f0041-01

Confidence Man

<div class="byline">BY ROBERT TYCHKOWSKI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0042-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02530/9674727-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">JORDAN EBERLE (EBERLE: ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="39" height="44"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01825/9674734-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="227" height="152"></div>When Jordan Eberle won the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; scoring race as a rookie in 2010-11, it was more by attrition than anything else.His 43 points in 69 games stood up only because Shawn Horcoff, Ales Hemsky, Sam Gagner, Taylor Hall and Ryan Whitney all had their seasons cut short by injury and Dustin Penner got traded at the deadline. Eberle was basically the last man standing.This year, his success has nothing to do with the misfortune of others. It&rsquo;s all Eberle. He is at the top of Edmonton&rsquo;s heap for the same reason he&rsquo;s within striking distance of the NHL scoring lead: he is, as a 21-year-old sophomore, already one of the best producers in hockey. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been watching him since back in junior,&rdquo; said teammate Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who knows a thing or two about skill. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s pretty incredible what he can do.&rdquo;And Eberle has been doing it everywhere he&rsquo;s played. Whether it was major junior, brief fly-bys in the American League before turning pro, or suiting up for Team Canada at the World Championship or the world juniors, Eberle has done nothing but deliver, so it should come as no surprise he&rsquo;s doing it in the NHL. And it doesn&rsquo;t &ndash; at least not to him. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always had confidence in myself,&rdquo; said Eberle, who hit the 43-point mark on Jan. 5, some 29 games faster than last year. &ldquo;People have doubted me, but personally I&rsquo;ve always had confidence.&rdquo;A little too small and a little too slow is why he fell all the way to 22nd overall in the 2008 draft. Four years later, if the draft was done over again, there aren&rsquo;t four guys who&rsquo;d get selected ahead of him. In the past year alone, he&rsquo;s developed by leaps and bounds, turning the threat of a sophomore jinx into a run at the Art Ross. &ldquo;I feel more mature, for sure, I&rsquo;ve played in this league for 90 or 100 games and you learn stuff,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You learn what it takes to win on the road and how you have to play on the road. It&rsquo;s a ton to learn, but at the same time my goal has always been to just get better and it still is.&rdquo;Even after leading the Oilers in scoring in his rookie campaign, Eberle knew he had to make more adjustments in preparation for this season. &ldquo;I went through a bit of a lull three-quarters of the way through the season,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I think most rookies do. You just don&rsquo;t realize how much of a grind it is. You&rsquo;re on a flight every day and that takes a toll on your body. You have to take care of yourself so you&rsquo;re physically ready to go when the season starts.&rdquo;Eberle took a short break after the World Championship and got right to work. With the help of a trainer and nutritionist, he reported to camp leaner and stronger than he did as a rookie, dropping five pounds and lowering his body fat from 12 percent to nine. &ldquo;I got up to 190, 192 last year and felt heavy and a little sluggish. I dropped down to 185, 187 somewhere around there. It&rsquo;s the weight I feel most comfortable with.&rdquo;Seven games into this season, with nothing to show for his goal total but a giant, neon goose egg, Eberle joked all he needed was a couple of games to make everything right. Turns out he wasn&rsquo;t joking. He scored three in the next four games and hasn&rsquo;t looked back. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good to see players rewarded for playing hard and sticking with it and learning the lessons of the league,&rdquo; said coach Tom Renney. &ldquo;Jordan has done that. He realizes he can be a force. He&rsquo;s strong enough, he&rsquo;s physical enough. He&rsquo;s got enough compete in him to play against anybody in this league.&rdquo; &#9632;

f0042-02

Air Jordan Flyin’ High

<div class="byline">&#x2013; BOB DUFF</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01806/9674880-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg"></div><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="39" height="44"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02558/9674873-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="597" height="721"><figcaption class="caption-body">DREW MILLER</figcaption></div>The supposedly lesser-known Miller brother is starting to make it his time in the NHL. While Ryan Miller, the Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender of the Buffalo Sabres, gets most of the press within the family, younger brother Drew is drawing rave reviews this season with the Detroit Red Wings.Not only is the 6-foot-2, 178-pound Miller performing his usual steady role as a grinder and penalty killer, with seven goals this season he&rsquo;s on pace to better the career high of 10 he scored for the Wings each of his two previous seasons in Detroit. &ldquo;As of late, I&rsquo;ve had the chance to get a couple of goals on the scoresheet &ndash; that&rsquo;s a little bonus there,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;You want to take the pressure off the big guys to have to score every night. And personally, you want to progress as a player and show them you can be a dynamic player.&rdquo;Miller was a waiver claim from the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2009, the first time the Wings had opted for the waiver route since 1998, when they grabbed Todd Gill from St. Louis. Almost immediately, things clicked for Miller with the winged wheel on his chest. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just the way the system is played,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;Here in Detroit, the roles are very specific. You have the big players doing what they do and then you have the support players. For me, it&rsquo;s worked out to be a support player and it&rsquo;s something I take pride in, playing on the penalty kill and doing what I do for this team.&rdquo;<h2>FOR THE RECORD</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03464/9674866-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="753" height="629"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-04357/9674859-1-eng-US/f0043-042.jpg" title="f0043-04" width="306" height="508"></div>Watching Kris Versteeg flourish in Florida, Hawks fans may lament the day Chicago traded him. But one of the men acquired for him in the summer 2010 deal with Toronto is blossoming. Ex-college standout Viktor Stalberg had nine points in 13 December contests. The 6-foot-3, 209-pounder tallied seven points in four late-December games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-05311/9674852-1-eng-US/f0043-052.jpg" title="f0043-05" width="685" height="540"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-06256/9674845-1-eng-US/f0043-062.jpg" title="f0043-06" width="305" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DORSETT: GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Derek Dorsett is more than a pair of bloody knuckles. The Blue Jackets enforcer had just eight goals in 127 games the past two seasons, but seven in 36 games of 2011-12. Dorsett hasn&rsquo;t sacrificed grit for offense, as his 10 fighting majors put him on pace to eclipse his single-season high of 17 and his 91 hits were second on the team.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-07218/9674838-1-eng-US/f0043-072.jpg" title="f0043-07" width="685" height="538"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-08170/9674831-1-eng-US/f0043-082.jpg" title="f0043-08" width="305" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(STALBERG+FILPPULA: DALE MACMILLAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>At 27, Valtteri Filppula is having the season Detroit has waited for since he debuted in 2005-06. His single-season bests over five full campaigns were 19 goals (2007-08) and 40 points (2008-09), but with 13 goals and 33 points through 38 games, he will shatter them easily. His shooting percentage of 22.0 ranked fifth in the league.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-09129/9674824-1-eng-US/f0043-092.jpg" title="f0043-09" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-10114/9674817-1-eng-US/f0043-102.jpg" title="f0043-10" width="305" height="503"></div>After last season&rsquo;s 23-goal, 50-point breakout in Music City, Sergei Kostitsyn has disappointed. But New Year&rsquo;s omens don&rsquo;t get much better than his hat trick Jan. 1 against Calgary &ndash; the first of his career. That put him one three-goal game behind older brother Andrei, who has two with Montreal, one in the regular season and one in the playoffs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1199/9674810-1-eng-US/f0043-112.jpg" title="f0043-11" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1287/9674803-1-eng-US/f0043-122.jpg" title="f0043-12" width="305" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MILLER+KOSTITSYN+OSHIE: JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>The Blues dropped their final three games of 2011, cooling off for the first time under coach Ken Hitchcock, and a lack of offense was to blame. They scored three goals over that stretch and entered January 24th in goals per game. At least 2005 first-rounder T.J. Oshie remained hot, potting five goals in December after scoring six in November. &#9632;

f0043-01

Out From The Shadow

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ADRIAN DATER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01703/9674995-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg"></div><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="39" height="44"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-02447/9674988-1-eng-US/f0044-022.jpg" title="f0044-02" width="597" height="716"><figcaption class="caption-body">RYAN O&rsquo;REILLY (O&rsquo;REILLY: RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>It was Oct. 15 and Ryan O&rsquo;Reilly had just played 19:25 for the Colorado Avalanche in their 6-5 shootout victory over Montreal at the Bell Centre. While most of his teammates savored the win and chatted with media inside the dressing room, O&rsquo;Reilly heaved a huge medicine ball against a wall outside the room.Pain was on his face and sweat poured from his brow. Was it self-punishment for his performance, in which he was a minus-2 but won 19 of 26 faceoffs? Or was it just his usual fanaticism for fitness, win or lose? The truth probably lay in the middle, but there haven&rsquo;t been many games since in which the player nicknamed &lsquo;The Factor&rsquo; has performed poorly by anyone else&rsquo;s definition.After 41 games, O&rsquo;Reilly had already surpassed his career high in points. His 29 (including 10 goals) were three better than the 26 he tallied each of his past two seasons over 81 and 74 games.But anyone watching Colorado this year knows O&rsquo;Reilly&rsquo;s growth as a player has been more than just points. At mid-season, he&rsquo;d won 53.6 percent of his draws and led the NHL with 55 takeaways, vaulting himself into the Selke Trophy discussion. He already has long-time Avs watchers believing he&rsquo;ll be a future captain, partially because of his tireless on- and office work ethic. &ldquo;He plays 200 feet of the ice,&rdquo; Avs coach Joe Sacco said of the 2009 second-rounder.&ldquo;I have to work hard to be effective,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Reilly said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just the way I was brought up.&rdquo;<h2>FOR THE RECORD</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-03337/9674981-1-eng-US/f0044-032.jpg" title="f0044-03" width="753" height="629"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-04270/9674974-1-eng-US/f0044-042.jpg" title="f0044-04" width="305" height="509"><figcaption class="caption-body">(COMEAU: BRAD WATSON/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Goals have been hard to come by for Blake Comeau. The No. 4 scorer on the Islanders last season with 24 was plucked off waivers after 16 point-less games to start 2011-12. The speedy Comeau had just two goals in 22 games with Calgary and has lost his scoring confidence. The fifth-year vet scored at a 23-goal pace in 2009-10 (17 goals in 61 games).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-05227/9674967-1-eng-US/f0044-052.jpg" title="f0044-05" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-06199/9674960-1-eng-US/f0044-062.jpg" title="f0044-06" width="305" height="502"></div>The Avs blueline was already crowded, but they couldn&rsquo;t resist recalling Stefan Elliott when Erik Johnson got injured in November. Matt Hunwick was already the spare defenseman, but Elliott stepped right in, scored the winning goal in his first game and has been a regular in 19 games since. He&rsquo;s one reason why Colorado traded Kevin Shattenkirk.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-07172/9674953-1-eng-US/f0044-072.jpg" title="f0044-07" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-08129/9674946-1-eng-US/f0044-082.jpg" title="f0044-08" width="305" height="506"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ELLIOTT+JONES: ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Mark Ryan Jones down as a contender for the fictitious Cy Young award in hockey. Jones has always posted more goals than assists, giving him a stat line resembling a successful baseball pitcher. Jones has had 10 straight seasons of &ldquo;winning&rdquo; records going back to junior (more goals than assists), including 18-7 in 2010-11 and 12-7 already this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-0994/9674939-1-eng-US/f0044-092.jpg" title="f0044-09" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-1082/9674932-1-eng-US/f0044-102.jpg" title="f0044-10" width="305" height="508"></div>There&rsquo;s a misconception the Wild have an air-tight defensive scheme and excellent goaltending. The latter is true, with Niklas Backstrom and Josh Harding leading the way, but not the former. The Wild allow 31.7 shots per game, second-most in the league, and their differential between shots taken and shots allowed (minus-5) is also second-worst.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-1169/9674925-1-eng-US/f0044-112.jpg" title="f0044-11" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-1261/9674918-1-eng-US/f0044-122.jpg" title="f0044-12" width="306" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(HARDING+MALHOTRA: JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>The career-threatening eye injury Manny Malhotra sustained last March hasn&rsquo;t affected his specialty: faceoffs. The 13-year vet ranks second behind Jonathan Toews in faceoff wins at 58.1 percent. That&rsquo;s above his career average of 55.4 percent, but down slightly from his past two seasons (62.5 and 61.7 percent). Malhotra now wears a visor. &#9632;

f0044-01

O’Reilly Factor

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JONATHAN DAVIS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0045-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01615/9675110-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg"></div><img src="mon012.jpg" title="common01" width="39" height="44"><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-02410/9675103-1-eng-US/f0045-022.jpg" title="f0045-02" width="597" height="696"><figcaption class="caption-body">DARRYL SUTTER (SUTTER: ANDREW D. BERNSTEIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>In a season filled with high expectations, the Los Angeles Kings were in a downward spiral and outside the playoff picture when GM Dean Lombardi fired coach Terry Murray after 29 games.To replace him, Lombardi turned to long-time friend Darryl Sutter. The two worked together in San Jose, where the Sharks increased their point total each of Sutter&rsquo;s first five seasons as bench boss. &ldquo;We come from the same background and we&rsquo;ve had our battles,&rdquo; Lombardi said. &ldquo;But the beauty of it was, it was never about power, it was never about ego &ndash; it was about winning.&rdquo; Though Sutter hadn&rsquo;t been behind an NHL bench since 2005-06, Lombardi had no doubt he was the right guy to turn things around in Los Angeles. &ldquo;As soon as he comes in, your team starts getting an identity,&rdquo; Lombardi said. &ldquo;So it&rsquo;s that intangible that you can&rsquo;t define, that I can&rsquo;t put into numbers.&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve struggled with that a bit this year and I think if we&rsquo;re ever going to get to that level we want to, I don&rsquo;t care how good your players are, you have to establish an identity and stand for something.&rdquo;That identity is a more up-tempo game in which each forward line has an element of speed. The early returns on the Sutter era saw the Kings go undefeated in regulation in seven games (4-0-3) and vault atop the Pacific Division. Still, it may take a deep playoff run to keep Sutter and Lombardi together for the long haul in Los Angeles.<h2>FOR THE RECORD</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-03345/9675096-1-eng-US/f0045-032.jpg" title="f0045-03" width="753" height="629"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-04300/9675089-1-eng-US/f0045-042.jpg" title="f0045-04" width="305" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(HAGMAN: JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Niklas Hagman is enjoying a new lease on life and has returned to a 20-goal pace after two forgettable seasons in Calgary. The 32-year-old Finn is a three-time 20-goal scorer and has been getting some time on the Ducks&rsquo; top line with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. He had five goals in 20 Anaheim games after just 17 goals in 106 games with the Flames.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-05261/9675082-1-eng-US/f0045-052.jpg" title="f0045-05" width="685" height="540"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-06226/9675075-1-eng-US/f0045-062.jpg" title="f0045-06" width="305" height="508"></div>Eric Nystrom is showing his streaky ways. The 28-year-old son of Bob Nystrom joined Dallas after an October trade with Minnesota and already has a career-high 12 goals &ndash; ranking third on the team. All but one tally has come in bunches: five goals in six games and five more in a five-game span. He&rsquo;s done it while averaging 13 minutes per game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-07199/9675068-1-eng-US/f0045-072.jpg" title="f0045-07" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-08128/9675061-1-eng-US/f0045-082.jpg" title="f0045-08" width="305" height="509"></div>The Kings&rsquo; turnaround under Darryl Sutter has surprised, but the biggest shocker may be Justin Williams&rsquo; health. The 2000 first-rounder, who played fewer than 50 games three of the past four seasons, appeared in the first 40 contests of 2011-12. His declining production (six goals, 24 points) suggests he may be better off resting now and then.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-0992/9675054-1-eng-US/f0045-092.jpg" title="f0045-09" width="684" height="539"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-1075/9675047-1-eng-US/f0045-102.jpg" title="f0045-10" width="305" height="508"></div>After ranking 26th in penalty killing at 78.4 percent last season, Phoenix has improved to 11th at 83.6 percent. Rostislav Klesla is keying the turnaround, logging a team-high 3:09 per game while shorthanded. He struggled to a minus-6 rating in 16 games after arriving from Columbus last spring, but has rallied for a plus-4 in 33 games this year.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-1161/9675040-1-eng-US/f0045-112.jpg" title="f0045-11" width="685" height="540"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-1251/9675033-1-eng-US/f0045-122.jpg" title="f0045-12" width="305" height="508"><figcaption class="caption-body">(NYSTROM+WILLIAMS+KLESLA+VLASIC: HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>It seems a dozen Sharks make the headlines before Marc-Edouard Vlasic does on any given night, but sixth-year veteran plays a pivotal role on the club&rsquo;s blueline. The Montreal native&rsquo;s 75 blocked shots and plus-17 rating led the team and his 23:12 in average ice time was second only to defense partner Dan Boyle&rsquo;s 25:39 through 36 games. &#9632;

f0045-01

Just Like Old Times

<div class="byline">WITH ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01562/9675148-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg" title="f0047-01" width="970" height="1341"><figcaption class="caption-body">DOOMED STARTRandy Cunneyworth hasn&rsquo;t been given a chance to prove his worth as a coach. (JOEL AUERBACH/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02367/9675155-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg" title="f0047-02" width="187" height="222"></div>As an Anglophone with a very limited knowledge of French &ndash; despite a surname that suggests fluency in that wonderful language &ndash; and a frequent visitor to the gorgeous, cosmopolitan hockey Mecca that is Montreal, I feel like a bit of a heel saying what I&rsquo;m about to say.But there&rsquo;s no way around it. Because although the Canadiens have bungled their coaching situation about as badly as any NHL team can, too many Montrealers have erroneously focused their energies on their bench boss&rsquo; native tongue rather than sticking with the ultimate goal: the on-ice product.Before you break out your fleur-de-lis flag and send me a 10,000-word email treatise on Canada&rsquo;s two solitudes and the ever-encroaching influence of English on Francophone culture, be assured I&rsquo;m all for holding tight to what makes the French experience in North America unique. But there are bigger hills on which to fight that battle and there&rsquo;s no reason for the Canadiens to limit their competitiveness by insisting on a fully bilingual coach. There&rsquo;s no reason to subject interim coach Randy Cunneyworth (who replaced the fired Jacques Martin Dec. 17th) to a barrage of slights and sneers because he only speaks English.You can argue that, on a basic level, any Habs coach should have some semblance of French fluency to deal with Montreal&rsquo;s bilingual media hordes. But at an inopportune time like the middle of the season, is media communication of paramount importance to that or any NHL organization? No. Reversing the Habs&rsquo; downward trajectory is the No. 1 goal. Beginning, middle and end of story.If all sports insisted on bilingual coaches, my opinion might be different. But look at elite-level European soccer. There, you&rsquo;ll find coaches who speak little, if any of the natural language spoken in their cities. For example, Italian native Fabio Capello isn&rsquo;t a competent English speaker, but that didn&rsquo;t stop England from naming him coach of their prestigious national soccer squad. And there was nowhere near the same outcry over his inability to chat up the local media contingent.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Reversing the Habs&rsquo; slide is the No. 1 goal</blockquote>That&rsquo;s what the Canadiens should have done in regard to Cunneyworth. Had everyone taken a breath and given him a chance to impact the team, he might have had a measure of success and provided people ample reason to be patient with him, allow him to take French lessons as time permits and show Montrealers their history and culture are important to the franchise and its employees.And what if the Pittsburgh Penguins or Detroit Red Wings let go of Cup-winning coaches Dan Bylsma or Mike Babcock? Would they not be candidates to guide the Canadiens to glory, simply because they can&rsquo;t converse in French? That&rsquo;s myopic in the extreme and certainly not the way any other NHL organization conducts its business.It is no coincidence the Habs began to drop down the Eastern Conference standings as the coaching-language controversy festered and Gauthier and team owner Geoff Molson made the astonishing move of issuing apologies for hiring someone still under their employ. Many of Gauthier&rsquo;s decisions (including firing assistant coach Perry Pearn and trading for overpaid blueliner Tomas Kaberle) contributed to Montreal&rsquo;s struggles, but the language story overshadows them all. As of early January, they were 13th in the East and nearly 10 points out of eighth place.Sorry, mes amis, but that&rsquo;s not because Cunneyworth can&rsquo;t speak French. It has everything to do with an injury-ravaged, lacking-in-depth lineup and squandered on-ice opportunities. And lest you think I&rsquo;m picking on the Canadiens, I was just as perturbed by the notion their chief rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, are in the wrong of late by bringing in a number of non-Canadian players. No sensible Torontonian would care one iota if all the Leafs players, coaching staff and management all hailed from Papua New Guinea, so long as they led the Buds to a Stanley Cup.The same should hold true in Montreal. With the 20th anniversary of the Canadiens&rsquo; most recent championship just a year away, beggars can&rsquo;t be choosers. In any language.WANT MORE PROTEAU?READ HIS EXCLUSIVE WEB COLUMN THURSDAYS AT <a href="http://THN.COM/PROTEAU">THN.COM/PROTEAU</a> &#9632;

f0047-01

Parlez-Vous Français?

<div class="byline">BY MIKE BEASLEY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0048-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-01435/9675186-1-eng-US/f0048-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">GAME CLAIMDeline, N.W.T., is on the rise for recognition as the first place hockey was ever played. (COURTESY MIKE BEASLEY)</figcaption></div>We&rsquo;ll never really know for sure the true birthplace of hockey. The only thing for certain is it will always be in debate &ndash; or at least friendly competition.The tiny First Nation community of Deline in Canada&rsquo;s Northwest Territories is a long way from the bright lights and big cities of the NHL. But it flexed its muscles as the home of the game when it invited seven former NHL players to town to spread the word.<blockquote class="pullQuote">Our dream is to be &lsquo;the birthplace of hockey&rsquo; &ndash; Danny Gaudet</blockquote>Deline claimed the birthplace title in 2003 when scholars discovered a reference to hockey in the papers of Sir John Franklin. The famed Arctic explorer, who died in quest of the Northwest Passage in 1847, mentioned in a letter that his men played a version of hockey while wintering in the Deline area in 1825.That&rsquo;s nearly two decades earlier than previous references in a novel by Thomas Chandler Haliburton about the game being played in Windsor, N.S., in 1843.In 2007, the N.W.T.government officially recognized Deline as the birthplace of Canada&rsquo;s national sport and there are a growing number of converts out there.Edmonton is the closest NHL city to Deline and that&rsquo;s 1,300 miles to the south from the fly-in community of 565 in the Sahtu region. It takes two flights to get to there from Edmonton including a adventurous, two-hour, eight-seat plane ride from Yellowknife, N.W.T., over countless lakes, rugged mountains and vast regions of tundra.Once you get through that, landing takes place on a postage-size airstrip just outside the small village, which is nestled on the shore of Great Bear Lake, the world&rsquo;s eighth largest.But the isolated location along with minus-35 degree temperatures didn&rsquo;t stop a group of former NHL players from making the trek to Canada&rsquo;s North last winter to help celebrate and promote the town&rsquo;s claim.Danny Gaudet, the community&rsquo;s Chief Land Claim negotiator, was instrumental in getting six skaters and one goaltender to take in the sights and sounds. The group consisted of John Chabot, Dan Frawley, Norm Lacombe, Richard Sevigny, Karl Dykhuis, Gilbert Delorme and Laurie Boschman. &ldquo;Having ex-NHL players fly up to our community and spend a couple of days helped promote our dream of being recognized and designated as &lsquo;the birthplace of hockey,&rsquo; Gaudet said. &ldquo;The guys interacted with everybody in the community. They even visited the Band Office to take in a council meeting.&rdquo;The highlight of the players&rsquo; stay was a game against the local team in front of a packed house at the Deline arena. &ldquo;The guys put on quite show,&rdquo; Gaudet said. &ldquo;They can still play.&rdquo;On that night, gusts of snow occasionally blew in through a large door and swirled around as the teams played. The conditions were frigid. Toques under helmets were in vogue, with the spectators sporting beaver hats and seal skin gloves. &ldquo;The NHL guys had a blast,&rdquo; said Chabot, who was responsible for putting the team together. &ldquo;It was the first time they had been to the territories. Hockey has given these guys a lot in life and they didn&rsquo;t hesitate to give back, especially with all the history surrounding the area being the true home of the sport.&rdquo;Chabot, a First Nation Algonquin from Kitigan Zibi, has been to Deline on several occasions and experienced the hospitality and friendliness the community offers.Originally called Fort Franklin (until 1993), Deline sits about 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle and is a Mecca for hunting and fishing with the world record for lake trout and grayling.Gaudet said the community had begun fundraising towards the construction of a twin pad ice facility, a gymnasium and swimming pool. &ldquo;We have hockey history behind us, plus Deline and Great Bear Lake offer a tremendous getaway for anybody who wants to experience the North,&rdquo; said Gaudet, who adds a larger airplane runway and golf course are also in the works.&ldquo;There&rsquo;s no reason why, once we build and have this infrastructure in place, we couldn&rsquo;t have NHL teams holding their training camps in Deline,&rdquo; Gaudet said.That would be another historical moment for sure. &#9632;

f0048-01

The Origin Of Species

<div class="byline">By Larry Humber</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-01407/9675217-1-eng-US/f0049-012.jpg" title="f0049-01" width="909" height="909"></div><h2>ACROSS</h2>1 Hockey great Nels ___ was dubbed &lsquo;Old Poison&rsquo;4 John-Michael ___ is now a Leaf7 Questionable8 The battle for final playoff spots10 In song, he&rsquo;s &lsquo;The greatest of them all&rsquo; (it&rsquo;s not Gretzky)12 Turn quickly13 Small cuts (or, Kypreos and namesakes)14 He coaches the born-again Jets18 A badly ___ ankle may sideline a player indefinitely19 Former Canuck coach ___ Crawford20 Dan Kelly called Blues&rsquo; games on ___21 Suited up<h2>DOWN</h2>1 Steven Stamkos&rsquo; junior team2 Player who&rsquo;s expected to fight3 Chiclet4 Simon Gagne is one5 Carries the puck, ___ it6 Brent, Brian, Darryl, Duane, Rich and Ron9 Sabre previously with Philly and Detroit11 Goalies who resemble gymnasts12 Home of hockey&rsquo;s Spitfires15 Trip16 Put on skates, ___ up17 ___ Richards is now a Ranger, picturedANSWERS AVAILABLE IN THE NEXT ISSUE AND AT <a href="http://THN.com/XWORD">THN.com/xword</a>LAST WEEK&rsquo;S CROSSWORD SOLUTION ACROSS 1. KOPITAR, 4. SEALS, 7. NICK, 8. ENGINEER, 10. STANLEY CUP, 12. GREEN, 13. PICKS, 14. NATIONWIDE, 18. HEADHUNT, 19. HANG, 20. ROGER, 21. RANGERS DOWN 1. KINGS, 2. PACKAGES, 3. RANDY, 4. SKI JUMPING, 5. ACES, 6. SCREENS, 9. GLEN SATHER, 11. ACTIVATE, 12. GONCHAR, 15. INNER, 16. EDGES, 17. GANG &#9632;

f0049-01

CROSSWORD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-02307/9675255-1-eng-US/f0049-022.jpg" title="f0049-02" width="902" height="1181"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BLAST: FRANK PRAZAK/HHOF)</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-04220/9675248-1-eng-US/f0049-042.jpg" title="f0049-04" width="135" height="135"></div>from The Hockey Hall of FameA fan has a jolly old time at New York&rsquo;s Madison Square Garden, wailing away on his trombone. &#9632;</div>

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January 23, 2012

Hammer Halts Cooke

AGE IS BUT A NUMBER

JerseyHound

Great IN’08