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.

May 28, 2012

The Hockey News - May-28-12

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-05505/9619786-1-eng-US/f0036-052.jpg" title="f0036-05" width="346" height="439"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>GABRIEL LANDESKOG</b> <span class="photo-credit">(DALE MACMILLAN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>G. Landeskog</b> Colorado <i>82</i></p><p><b>Sean Couturier</b> Philadelphia <i>77</i></p><p><b>Adam Larsson</b> New Jersey <i>65</i></p><p><b>R.</b>&nbsp;<b>N-Hopkins</b> Edmonton <i>62</i></p><p><b>Andrew Shaw</b> Chicago <i>37</i></p><p><b>M. Zibanejad</b> Ottawa <i>9</i></p><p><b>Mark Scheifele</b> Winnipeg <i>7</i></p><p><b>Sven Baertschi</b> Calgary <i>5</i></p><p><b>Brandon Saad</b> Chicago <i>2</i></p><p>1.22 <b>Mark</b>&nbsp;<b>Scheifele&rsquo;s career points per game in the OHL (113 GP)</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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IN THIS ISSUE

INSTANT Impact

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ANDREY OSADCHENKO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-031122/9619266-1-eng-US/f0014-032.jpg" title="f0014-03" width="641" height="531"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JAKUB KLEPIS</b> <span class="photo-credit">(YURY KUZMIN/KHL PHOTO AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span>he Kontinental League</b> has wrapped up its fourth season and this time it ended with Dynamo Moscow drinking champagne from the coveted Gagarin Cup. The Blue and White defeated Avangard Omsk 1-0 in Game 7 of a series they trailed 3-1, becoming the first Western Conference team to win the championship.</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-04766/9619259-1-eng-US/f0014-042.jpg" title="f0014-04" width="133" height="143"></div><p>Czech forward Jakub Klepis, a first round pick in 2002 by the Ottawa Senators, scored the series-clinching goal, his fifth of the post-season, late in the third period, winning his second Gagarin Cup in a row. He played for last year&rsquo;s champs, Ufa Salavat.</p><p>The hero of the series was Maple Leafs prospect Leo Komarov. He scored three goals, including the winner in Game 2, but his agitating skills proved to be the most valuable as Avangard players drew a lot of penalties retaliating on acts from the 25-year-old Estonian-born Finn.</p><p>Alexander Yeremenko, 30, was named the MVP of the Gagarin Cup playoffs after posting a 1.56 goals-against average and .943 save percentage in 21 games. He also had three shutouts, including his 18-save performance in Game 7. Just like teammate Klepis, Yeremenko won his second consecutive Gagarin Cup. The victory will only add to Yeremenko&rsquo;s ever-expanding trophy case. He won three Russian Superleague titles and has two World Championship gold medals to go along with a silver and bronze.</p><p>Dynamo&rsquo;s win wasn&rsquo;t well-received in Omsk, the site of Game 7. Fans suggested the officiating was biased and the game&rsquo;s outcome was rigged. There was a minor fracas at the arena after the game as fans threw pocket change and bottles at the players and officials. There were no reports of burning cars or major turmoil in down-town Omsk, though. Nowdays, that&rsquo;s good enough to pass for classy after a championship heartbreak.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

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Dynamite Dynamo

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-012199/9618724-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="907" height="580"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(JAMIE HODGSON/THN)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>n preparing</b> for Adam Proteau&rsquo;s piece on the 25th Anniversary of the Easter Epic between the Capitals and Islanders <i>(see pg. 18)</i>, several of our staff members gathered around a Mac, searched YouTube and took in a handful of highlights from that historic contest. Ah, the good old days.</p><p>The thing is, the hockey wasn&rsquo;t that good. Not by today&rsquo;s standards. In 2011-12, every NHLer is an elite skater and shooter. Not so in &rsquo;87. Play in the Epic, even before overtime, was ragged at times and slow at others. Goalies Bob Mason and Kelly Hrudey made sensational saves, but the evolution of equipment and technique is apparent. The butterfly wasn&rsquo;t yet <i>de rigeur</i>; the stand-up stopper, who relied on reflexes and acrobatics, was still popular.</p><p>The Islanders had a tough time generating offense in regulation, managing just 10 shots through the first two periods. The refereeing was typical Game 7, with three power plays assessed in the 128-plus minutes. And the teams pretty much knew it was no-holds barred. Kerry Fraser, the backup ref for the game, said he was asked by Caps coach-GM Bryan Murray after the second OT intermission, &ldquo;Is there <i>anything</i> that will be called as a penalty at this point?&rdquo;</p><p>Overall, it wasn&rsquo;t a masterpiece. As one of our editors said, this season&rsquo;s Blue Jackets would have easily defeated either team. And if you parachuted Jonathan Quick and Mike Smith (featured on pg. 22) into the contest, it&rsquo;d still be going.</p><p>But that doesn&rsquo;t mean it wasn&rsquo;t riveting, compelling theatre. In fact, the disparity in talent between players and the mistakes made in the game add to the appeal. That the referees pocketed their whistles upped the ante and tension. So, too, did the fierce rivalry that existed between the divisional foes, who had a healthy hate-on for each other. The longest Game 7 ever was more Sistine than pristine, a piece of art to be appreciated for its spectre and historical relevance.</p><p>And even though the players are bigger, faster and stronger now, the essence of the dramatic has endured in the NHL playoffs. It&rsquo;s a big part of what makes the Stanley Cup chase the best championship quest in sports (bias acknowledged). We aren&rsquo;t saying things are perfect &ndash; there has been too much over-the-line violence and blown calls to make that claim &ndash; but they are pretty darned good. And amid the clamor for change, it&rsquo;s important for us to remember to celebrate what we have from time to time, embracing the imperfections all the while.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-031505/9618717-1-eng-US/f0004-032.jpg" title="f0004-03" width="414" height="222"></div><p><b>NEXT</b>&nbsp;<b>ISSUE</b> JUNE 1, 2012</p><p><b>CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TO SUBSCRIBE:</b> <a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a></p><p><b>CONTACT US:</b> <a href="mailto:editorial@thehockeynews.com">editorial@thehockeynews.com</a></p><h2><b>LISTEN UP!</b></h2><p><b>THE HOCKEY NEWS RADIO SHOW</b></p><p><b>FRIDAYS 3-4 EST XM 92</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021869/9618710-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="169" height="65"></div><p><b>SIRIUS 207 IN USA</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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Ya Gotta Love Imperfection

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011493/9619498-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>WHITE WASH After some dark days in Tampa Bay, Mike Smith found a clean slate with the Coyotes in Phoenix.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>W</span></b><b>e come</b>&nbsp;<b>bearing</b> very exciting news. After an exhaustive search, your humble correspondents at The Hockey News have finally located The Scrap Heap, that place where NHL GMs pick over spare parts and broken dreams looking for bargains. We received a tip a couple of years ago that it was located behind the St-Hubert in Drummondville, Que. Not there. We looked everywhere from the Jersey Turnpike to the massive tract of farmland across from Scotiabank Place in Ottawa, to no avail. But there it was, hidden in plain view among the palm trees in the parking lot of the St. Pete Times Forum.</p><p>At least that&rsquo;s where it was last season. It was from that locale that Mike Smith tearfully called his parents last February to tell them he&rsquo;d been sent down to the minors by the Tampa Bay Lightning. He had cleared waivers earlier that day, meaning there wasn&rsquo;t a team willing to take on the $769,000 in cap space he would have cost for the rest of 2010-11. When he passed through again on re-entry waivers three weeks later, it was an even more damning indictment. Any team in the league could have had Smith for just $266,000 as an insurance policy for the stretch run. All 29 of them took a pass. &ldquo;I honestly thought at that point I was done and would probably never play again,&rdquo; Smith recalled. &ldquo;All the worst things go through your mind at a time like that.&rdquo;</p><p>It was from this morass the Phoenix Coyotes rescued Smith. And in return, Smith has since given the Coyotes Vezina Trophy-caliber-GMs-voting-be-damned goaltending. There is good, great and other-worldly and for most nights, Smith fit the profile of the last one. His .930 save percentage tied him for best in the league with Henrik Lundqvist among goalies who played 40 or more games.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0023-011292/9619491-1-eng-US/f0023-012.jpg" title="f0023-01" width="1464" height="1446"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>But even more importantly, unlike last season when the Lightning couldn&rsquo;t count on Smith to win games and instead turned to a 41-year-old senior citizen in Dwayne Roloson, the Coyotes handed their fate to Smith and he delivered. With five games to go in the regular season, the Coyotes were in ninth place in the Western Conference. Smith pitched three straight shutouts, stopped 190 of 192 shots and backstopped a five-game winning streak that vaulted the Coyotes to the top of the Pacific Division and into the third seed. In the first round against the Chicago Black-hawks, his save percentage was a mortal .950 and despite being run over by Andrew Shaw in Game 2 of the series he was the Coyotes&rsquo; best player. Going into the playoffs, Coyotes captain Shane Doan said there was no team in the league that relied on one player more than the Coyotes relied on Smith. That was certainly the case through the first round and the first two games of the second round, considering the Coyotes were averaging 27.8 shots per game, but were giving up a whopping 39.5. Against the Blackhawks, the Coyotes were outshot on average by almost 14 a game.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&ldquo;I HONESTLY THOUGHT I&rsquo;D NEVER PLAY AGAIN</b><br><b>&ndash; MIKE SMITH</b></blockquote><p>These are indeed rarefied heights for a player who was supposedly plucked off our aforementioned Scrap Heap last summer. At least that&rsquo;s the story, and, hey, it&rsquo;s a really good one. It represented a marriage between a down-and-outer staring down the barrel of the end of his career and a team that is a ward of the NHL state. A team on a shoestring budget signing a player hanging onto his career by his fingernails. Desperate to replace Ilya Bryzgalov in goal, the Coyotes threw a lifeline to Smith and he grabbed it.</p><p>But his agent, Kurt Overhardt, isn&rsquo;t buying it. Makes for a great tale, he says, but he claims his client had five offers on the table, including one from the Lightning. It came in just hours before free agency and was for a significant haircut, but it was one of a handful of opportunities Smith had to consider before settling on a two-year, $4-million deal in Phoenix. &ldquo;Anyone who is saying Mike Smith was on the scrap heap is completely misplaced,&rdquo; Overhardt said. &ldquo;Whoever is telling that story is living in a fantasy land.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011436/9619484-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="1425" height="1575"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>CONFIDENCE KILLER Smith admits there were times he didn&rsquo;t want to start after losing the game prior.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>As it turned out, all Smith needed was to be loved. When the Coyotes called Overhardt July 1, they made it clear to him Smith was the man they wanted and he would be the undisputed No. 1 goalie. They must have seen something in his .899 save percentage last season that nobody else did. But Smith had a past with Coyotes coach Dave Tippett in Dallas, a kindred spirit in goaltending coach Sean Burke and a GM in Don Maloney who trusted his instincts.</p><p>In fact, Burke acknowledges he has no idea what Plan B would have been had the Coyotes not landed Smith. If you&rsquo;ll recall, the unrestricted free agent crop was not exactly bursting with goaltenders and the Coyotes identified Smith as their target right after the draft. What they saw was a 6-foot-4 specimen who, with a few tweaks to his game, they felt could develop into one of the top five goalies in the league. And that is exactly what Smith did, largely because even after a bad outing he knew he had the confidence of his team and he&rsquo;d be back in the blue paint to start the next game, even if he didn&rsquo;t agree with the decision. By all accounts, Smith is quite a normal guy by goaltending standards &ndash; well liked by his teammates and not a sullen loner &ndash; but it&rsquo;s clear he needed some major work on his self-esteem by the time he got to the Coyotes. &ldquo;There were times this year when I probably didn&rsquo;t deserve to go in and I was almost begging Burkie not to go back in because I felt like I was letting the team down,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;And he was like, &lsquo;No, you&rsquo;re going right back in there. That&rsquo;s what No. 1 goalies do.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&ldquo;I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE LET ME GO, TOO</b><br><b>&ndash; MIKE SMITH</b></blockquote><p>Smith found it difficult to get that feeling in Tampa Bay, particularly last season. He said he doesn&rsquo;t remember starting a game after a loss under Lightning coach Guy Boucher, which had him more focused on the result than the process, a surefire recipe to screw up even if you&rsquo;re playing in the best league in the world. In reality, during Boucher&rsquo;s first season in 2009-10, Smith lost a total of 25 games and followed up a loss with a start in the next game in 11 of them. But last season, he started in the next game only once after each of his seven losses.</p><p>In the Lightning&rsquo;s defense, it&rsquo;s not as though the hockey world had thought GM Steve Yzerman had lost his mind when he cut Smith loose. And it&rsquo;s not as though Smith even made Boucher&rsquo;s decisions all that difficult. In five of those seven 2010-11 losses, he allowed at least four goals and was pulled twice. Let&rsquo;s face it, when a guy gets shelled and then pulled halfway through an 8-1 loss, what are you telling your team if you go right back to him the next game? &ldquo;I probably would have let me go, too,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t the guy they needed. They gave me an opportunity to play and I didn&rsquo;t take that opportunity.&rdquo;</p><p>He was, however, the guy the Lightning could have used this season. The same team that came within a goal of going to last year&rsquo;s Stanley Cup final flamed out spectacularly in 2011-12, in large part because the Lightning learned that banking on a 42-year-old goalie was not a great idea.</p><p>Smith admits that from time to time he thinks about how he showed them, &ldquo;but I haven&rsquo;t said it to too many people.&rdquo;</p><p>Smith has endured because of his mental outlook, which doesn&rsquo;t leave a whole lot of time for resentment and grudge holding. Evidently, it doesn&rsquo;t have a good sense of recall, either. That&rsquo;s is a good thing considering the way things went in Smith&rsquo;s first game with his new team. After being handed the keys to the kingdom, Smith went out on opening night and was almost as bad as the 18 players in front of him, allowing six goals on 38 shots in the first two periods against the San Jose Sharks. Included in them was a back-door play by Michal Handzus where Smith looked rather clueless and one from a questionable angle off the stick of Sharks rookie Andrew Desjardins. In fact, of the four goals Desjardins scored this season, two of them were in that game.</p><p>But it was what Smith did in the third period that had the Coyotes excited about the possibilities. After doing the skate of shame out to his crease to start the final frame, Smith stopped all 14 shots he faced. He followed that up with a 2-1 shootout loss before getting his first win as a Coyote, Oct. 15, in the team&rsquo;s fourth game. &ldquo;When that game ended, I felt every bit as good about what we had done bringing him in, if not better, because of the way that game went,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;We were terrible that night, it was one of the worst games our team played all year. But for Mike, when that game ended, he had shown me a lot about what we believed we were getting. When he came in, more than anything he was a little fragile, but when I left that night, my first thought was, &lsquo;There&rsquo;s a guy who showed the kind of character we expected.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>And from there, it was simply a matter of doing two things. The first was convincing Smith he had the chops to not only be a No. 1 netminder, but to be the one of the elite goalies in the league. Check. The second was to take advantage of his size by having him play deeper in his net. The natural tendency for a lot of goalies is to get out of the net and challenge shooters, but that leaves them vulnerable to dekes and wraparounds. Why do that if you&rsquo;re 6-foot-4 and can cover up most of the net, anyway? By playing deeper, it allows Smith to hug the post more and not make himself susceptible to being beaten by deft stickhandlers and speedsters. Smith gives Burke an enormous amount of credit for his success and Burke is probably most responsible for the technical and mental improvements Smith has made. It helps that Smith skates better than most goalies and can read plays.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-011267/9619477-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="1414" height="1193"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>TECHNIQUE CHANGE Playing deeper in his net has helped turnaround Smith&rsquo;s game.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(NORM HALL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>He&rsquo;s also an outstanding athlete. As a youngster, Smith was as good a softball player as he was a hockey player. Playing in Kingston, Ont., near his hometown of Verona, Smith&rsquo;s teams won seven Ontario championships and two national titles and in 2001 he had to turn down an opportunity to play in the World Junior Softball Championship in Australia because it conflicted with the Ontario League playoffs. For most of his childhood, he caught one of the best young softball pitchers in the world in Blake Orr, who also played in the OHL for the Mississauga IceDogs and Belleville Bulls. Burke saw a little of him-self in Smith and was successful in convincing him that with his athletic ability and size there was no reason why Smith could not be one of the top goaltenders in the league. (Smith is also an off-season disciple of former NHLer Gary Roberts and his torture chamber, er, gym. That, of course, makes him a physical specimen whether or not he can stop the puck.) &ldquo;To me, there&rsquo;s never a save that you can&rsquo;t make,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;If the goalie puts him in a position where he had no chance, that&rsquo;s probably true. But to me, I want Mike to put himself in a position where he has a chance to make every save, no matter if it&rsquo;s a three-on-none breakaway or a backdoor play or a shot from the point. He has to be in position to have a chance to make every save.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011448/9619470-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg" title="f0026-01" width="1420" height="1240"></div><p>And Smith has been making the vast majority of them. When the Coyotes announced they had signed Smith, Burke said he got a number of calls and text messages from people around the NHL congratulating him on securing a backup goalie. And to be fair, Smith had done little to that point in his career to prove he was anything more than that. But sometimes the stars simply align properly.</p><p>The Coyotes couldn&rsquo;t afford to keep Bryzgalov and needed to find more of what they already had, hungry guys eager to prove themselves. Smith turned 30 in March, meaning he could just be entering his wheelhouse when it comes to his most productive years in the NHL. It certainly took him a bit of time to mature, but that he has, in part because he and his wife, two-time Canadian Olympic skier Brigitte Acton, now have a son, 10-month old Aksel.</p><p>Smith met Acton in 2007 when he was Marty Turco&rsquo;s backup with the Dallas Stars. Turco was holding a celebrity golf tournament in his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., and fellow &lsquo;Soo&rsquo; native Acton was playing in the group ahead of Smith&rsquo;s. It was one of those slow days on the golf course and Smith and Acton crossed paths when Smith drilled one of his monster drives into the woods. While searching for his ball in the fescue, he struck up a conversation with Acton. &ldquo;I had a lot of time to tell her what I was all about,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;She fell for it.&rdquo;</p><p>Smith is actually almost as quick with a quip as he is with his glove hand. When pressed about his change in style this season, he responded by saying: &ldquo;If I told you everything, I&rsquo;d have to kill you.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&ldquo;THIS IS THE PLAYER HE&rsquo;S CAPABLE OF BEING</b><br><b>&ndash; SEAN BURKE</b></blockquote><p>Later in the conversation, he took credit for Steven Stamkos&rsquo;s emergence as the best goal-scorer in the NHL. Stamkos, who lived two doors down from Smith in Tampa, remains close friends with him and Smith said it was because of him that Stamkos is a perennial Rocket Richard Trophy contender. &ldquo;When I was there, he was lighting me up in practice every day, blowing them all by me, so he had an overabundance of confidence when he went on the ice that he was going to score.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-021042/9619463-1-eng-US/f0026-022.jpg" title="f0026-02" width="666" height="856"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>NO DOUBT IN DESERT Phoenix told Smith he&rsquo;d be the team&rsquo;s definitive No. 1 before signing him.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>With the way Smith is playing, it&rsquo;s time for him to be a little less self-deprecating. Talk is beginning to surface about him being considered for Canada&rsquo;s 2014 Olympic team in Sochi, which is a testament to his play, though a pretty telling statement on the decline of Canadian goaltending, too. It&rsquo;s also a pretty solid indication that when it comes to goaltending in the NHL, everyone is pretty much guessing these days. Who would have thought Smith would put a year like this one together after the way he played last season or Bryzgalov would go to Philadelphia and be so wildly inconsistent?</p><p>After all, Smith has had just one spectacular season. The Coyotes claim they didn&rsquo;t put much stock in his subpar play in 2010-11, which would then lead you to believe Smith will have to repeat his performance next campaign before he converts the skeptics into true believers.</p><p>Bob Gainey once said that just because a player had one bad season doesn&rsquo;t mean he&rsquo;ll have two. If that&rsquo;s the case, wouldn&rsquo;t the same go for one good season? But Burke believes this is no anomaly. &ldquo;He has raised the bar and the expectations for him will be compared to what he&rsquo;s doing now,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;But this is him. He gets it now. This is the type of player he&rsquo;s capable of being.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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The Phoenix Rises

<div class="byline">PHOTOGRAPH BY BRUCE BENNETT</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0003-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0003-012168/9618679-1-eng-US/f0003-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>Pole Dancer</b></h2><p><b>The Devils&rsquo; David Clarkson took more than the glory with him after crashing the net for the Game 2 winner in Philly.</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0003-01

THEBIGPICTURE

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012426/9618800-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="246" height="333"></div><h2><b>HISTORY LESSON</b></h2><p class="dropcap"><b><span>A</span>s an American female who has dark skin, it is important to have a magazine of your stature give everyone an opportunity to read Herb Carnegie&rsquo;s story of facing racial prejudice (Inside Hockey, April 16). Malcolm X once said, &ldquo;Being from America made me intensely sensitive to matters of color.&rdquo; Although color does not dominate my life, I know there is always a need to acknowledge men such as Carnegie, who are positive forces to younger generations. When I saw Mr. Carnegie had departed from this life, one of my first thoughts was I hope THN does a tribute to him. Thank you for not failing me.</b></p><p><b><i>Valerie M. Dixon, Smyrna, Ga.</i></b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021647/9618793-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="987" height="1160"></div><h2><b>A Pond Farewell</b></h2><p>I&rsquo;m done. I have been an avid fan for close to 40 years. This year I have stopped watching games. It looks like a bunch of beer-leaguers on Ritalin; no talent, just some senseless whacking. The Stanley Cup winner won&rsquo;t be the best team, it will be the one with the most men still standing. Goodbye, NHL, you&rsquo;ve lost one of your best fans. And I know a lot of my friends will be following suit.</p><p><i>Martin Lavoie, Montreal</i></p><h2><b>All Due Respect</b></h2><p>Why so much goalie hate? Everyone talks about gear being way too big, but the NHL has already done a lot to put goalies at a disadvantage. They&rsquo;ve made their equipment smaller. They&rsquo;ve taken out the red line to allow for more breakaways. They&rsquo;ve installed the trapezoid behind the net. I&rsquo;m surprised no one has proposed limiting a goalie&rsquo;s height to six feet. Has anyone stopped to think maybe these guys are just that good? In a game where everyone talks about players&rsquo; amazing skills, I&rsquo;m shocked goalies are so frequently overlooked.</p><p><i>Marc Villeneuve, Richmond Hill, Ont.</i></p><h2><b>Good Pickin&rsquo;</b></h2><p>Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the &ldquo;Pick Your New Team&rdquo; feature (April 30). Matt Larkin could not have written it any better. Seriously had me in stitches. Way to go.</p><p><i>Misha Hillaby, Vancouver</i></p><p>I liked the &ldquo;Pick Your New Team&rdquo; quiz. I can already see complaints coming from sensitive Canucks fans (&ldquo;So offended! We throw Molotov cocktails at police cars, not officers!&rdquo;). Please don&rsquo;t let any hate mail impede your sense of humor. That was a great feature.</p><p><i>Mitch Macdonald, Calgary</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-03975/9618786-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="458" height="625"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(CARNEGIE: HHOF IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>Sid&rsquo;s Short March</b></h2><p>You experts must be butter because you are certainly on a roll. In the pre-season you pick the Washington Capitals to win the Stanley Cup and they barely make it into the playoffs. With a chance to redeem yourselves you pick the Pittsburgh Penguins, who get knocked out in the first round. Who&rsquo;s next?</p><p><i>Bruce Ellis, Gibbsboro, N.J.</i></p><p>Wow, another fawning open love letter to the Penguins and Sidney Crosby (&ldquo;Primal Penguins,&rdquo; April 16). I had to make sure I didn&rsquo;t mistakenly get a copy of <i>Tiger Beat</i> since about the only missing word was &ldquo;dreamy.&rdquo; Is objectivity so much to ask for, along with the occasional column that does <i>not</i> presume everyone adores the Pens and Crosby?</p><p><i>Chuck Kurpis, Throop, Pa.</i></p><h2><b>Best Behavior</b></h2><p>The April 30 issue included a refreshing statistic. In &ldquo;Number Crunch&rdquo; (Inside Hockey) Zach O&rsquo;Brien&rsquo;s zero penalty minutes in 126 games in the Quebec League was highlighted as a positive accomplishment. Sportsmanship is still a part of the game to be admired. As Dave Keon used to say: &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t help my team from the penalty box.&rdquo;</p><p><i>Glen Goodhand, Lindsay, Ont.</i></p><p><b>Submit your letter and see rules at: <a href="http://THN.COM/LETTERS">thn.com/letters</a></b></p><h2><b>SPILL FOR A DRILL!</b></h2><p><b>The author of our lead letter next issue wins a Premium DEWALT 20V MAX* Hammerdrill!</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-05487/9618779-1-eng-US/f0006-052.jpg" title="f0006-05" width="194" height="61"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0006-01

THN INBOX

<div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-04623/9618831-1-eng-US/f0006-042.jpg" title="f0006-04" width="107" height="111"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><h2><b>@GeniusNZA</b></h2><p>Game 6 Devils vs. Sabres in Round 1 in 1994. Went to four overtimes. Hasek had 70 saves in shutout against Brodeur.</p><h2><b>@Njd345</b></h2><p>May 5, &rsquo;79. Mtl. vs. Bos. Game 7. Last Cup in the Habs dynasty. Lafleur ties game on too many men PP. Lambert wins it in OT.</p><h2><b>@wildestfan</b></h2><p>2003 1st round. Wild beat Avs in Game 7 in OT to overcome 3-1 deficit in series. Brunette scores last goal ever on Roy.</p><h2><b>@rankthetank05</b></h2><p>Greatest game hasn&rsquo;t happened yet. It will be this year when Callahan scores the OT-winner to bring the Cup back to N.Y.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0006-04

WHAT’S THE BEST PLAYOFF GAME EVER PLAYED?

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-021463/9618862-1-eng-US/f0007-022.jpg" title="f0007-02" width="506" height="617"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(MARISSA BAECKER/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-012156/9618869-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="83" height="82"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p><b>Ryan Murray 29%</b></p><p>Filip Forsberg 25%</p><p> Mikhail Grigorenko 24%</p><p>Alex Galchenyuk 9%</p><p>Matt Dumba 7%</p><p> Others 6%<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0007-02

POLLRESULTS

<p class="dropcap"><b><span>H</span>i Adam. Toronto, Tampa Bay, Florida, Chicago have been tossed around as possible destinations for Roberto Luongo. Outside those, it seems to me Edmonton and Columbus could make a pitch. What do you think?</b></p><p><i>Thomas Vidal-Lessard, Cookshire-Eaton, Que.</i></p><p>Hi Thomas. Luongo has a no-trade clause and would likely demand <i>another</i> 12-year contract extension to play for Edmonton or Columbus. Florida has top prospect Jacob Markstrom, but there&rsquo;s some belief Chicago isn&rsquo;t satisfied with Corey Crawford. The Leafs might be interested, but the 10 years remaining on Luongo&rsquo;s deal go against GM Brian Burke&rsquo;s philosophy on contracts. So the Lightning are the favorites. They&rsquo;ve got the need, the cap room, the core star talent and an owner willing to spend.</p><p><b>Adam, watching NHL hockey this season, I see linesmen toss players from faceoffs seemingly arbitrarily. What&rsquo;s going on here?</b></p><p><i>Jack Deering, Cleveland, Ohio</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-03912/9618900-1-eng-US/f0007-032.jpg" title="f0007-03" width="916" height="769"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>ROBERTO LUONGO</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Jack, players attempt to cheat in the faceoff circle quite often and deserve to be sent out. And as NHL Rule 76.4 states, &ldquo;if a player facing-off fails to take his proper position&hellip;the official may order him replaced for that face-off.&rdquo; The rulebook further states players taking faceoffs must &ldquo;stand squarely&hellip;approximately one stick length apart with the blade of their sticks on the ice&rdquo;. We all know that doesn&rsquo;t happen each and every time out. That gives the officials full license to toss players.</p><p><b>|</b> Read more <b>&lsquo;Ask Adam&rsquo;</b> every Friday at <a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">thehockeynews.com</a>&nbsp;<b>|</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0007-03

ASK ADAM

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-012316/9618952-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="343" height="277"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(COURTESY GREEN BAY GAMBLERS)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021767/9618959-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="82" height="81"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>A</span>s the NHL draft</b> approaches and you hear talk of a goaltender being drafted early on, consider that 75 percent of the eight starting goalies in the 2012 conference semifinals were selected in the third round or later. Look back over the last half-century of the draft and you&rsquo;ll find that is no anomaly.</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-04706/9618945-1-eng-US/f0008-042.jpg" title="f0008-04" width="112" height="126"></div><p>Indeed, that six of the eight conference semifinal goalies &ndash; L.A.&rsquo;s Jonathan Quick (third round, 72nd, 2005), St. Louis&rsquo; Brian Elliott (ninth round, 291st, 2003), Phoenix&rsquo;s Mike Smith (fifth round, 161st, 2001), Nashville&rsquo;s Pekka Rinne (eighth round, 258th, 2004) the Rangers&rsquo; Henrik Lundqvist (seventh round, 205th, 2000) and Washington&rsquo;s Braden Holtby (fourth round, 93rd, 2008) &ndash; didn&rsquo;t require a high pick to acquire is a fact not lost on GMs. Their predecessors also knew taking a goalie early is a high-risk gamble: Of the 60 netminders selected in the history of the first round, only 30 went on to play at least 200 NHL games.</p><p>Besides that coin-flip, 50/50 success-to-failure ratio, here&rsquo;s another factor swaying teams: Not all of the 30 goalies who played 200 games enjoyed starring No. 1 roles. Sure, first-rounders like New Jersey&rsquo;s Martin Brodeur (20th overall, 1990) and Montreal&rsquo;s Carey Price (fifth overall, 2005) make the risk seem worthwhile. But for each of those stars, there&rsquo;s at least one story of a journey-man like Brian Boucher (22nd overall, 1995) or Dan Cloutier (26th overall, 1994). And that&rsquo;s to say nothing of forgettable first round selections such as Bruins pick Evgeni Ryabchikov (21st overall, 1994) and Pens first-rounder Craig Hillier (23rd overall, 1994).</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-031249/9618938-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="672" height="667"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>PEKKA RINNE</b> <span class="photo-credit">(ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-05500/9618931-1-eng-US/f0008-052.jpg" title="f0008-05" width="1032" height="916"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>FOURTH & GOAL The Capitals waited until Round 4 in 2008 to spend a draft pick on Braden Holtby.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(ANDRE RINGUETTE/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Even the past 15 seasons of Stanley Cup-winning goaltenders show a similar pattern. One third of that group was comprised of first-rounders, but one third was taken in the ninth or 10th round or went undrafted. (The final third went to goalies drafted in the third round, but that&rsquo;s a misleading stat, as five Cups went to two goalies: three to Chris Osgood and two to Patrick Roy.)</p><p>So it isn&rsquo;t shocking that four franchises (Anaheim, Florida, Minnesota and San Jose) have never used a first-rounder on a goalie, nor that 12 teams (Anaheim, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Florida, Minnesota, Nashville, Ottawa, Phoenix, San Jose and Tampa Bay) have never selected a goalie in the first round who played 200 games.</p><p>Detroit Red Wings assistant GM Jim Nill said that, other than can&rsquo;t-miss goalie prospects taken with one of the top 10-15 picks, goalies drop down the draft because as a group they&rsquo;re late bloomers and a top pick is better spent on a skater who can crack an NHL lineup far sooner. &ldquo;It takes forwards and defensemen long enough to develop, but it normally takes goalies double that,&rdquo; Nill said. &ldquo;You might draft a goalie in the first round, but you might not see him for eight years.&rdquo;</p><p>All things considered, then, you should cast a very skeptical eye on any first round goal-tending selections and keep your other eye on unheralded netminders, because one is just as likely to make it into the NHL as the other. &ldquo;We all realize the importance of a goalie, so it kind of contradicts because you&rsquo;d think teams would be more apt to take runs at these goalies early in the draft, but they don&rsquo;t,&rdquo; said Philadelphia Flyers director of hockey operations Chris Pryor. &ldquo;The ratio of goalies turning out to not turning out is pretty substantial. If you have Goalie A and Goalie B and there&rsquo;s not much difference in talent level, but Goalie A is going in the first round and Goalie B is going in the third, you might choose to take a chance on Goalie B because there&rsquo;s less risk there.&rdquo;</p><p><b>3</b> Shorties scored by the Green Bay Gamblers&rsquo; Alex Broadhurst in the Clark Cup  playoffs April 24 &ndash; giving him the USHL&rsquo;s first shorthanded hat trick.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0008-01

Go Late On Goalies

<div class="byline">By Charlie Teljeur</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012287/9618990-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg" title="f0010-01" width="988" height="1551"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0010-01

The Instigator

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-04745/9619021-1-eng-US/f0010-042.jpg" title="f0010-04" width="598" height="616"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>+PLUS</b></h2><h3><b>WE CAN ALL JUST GET ALONG</b></h3><p><i>AHL Heat and Marlies manage to hold their hate for a few hours on a shared flight to Abbotsford after a fight-filled end to Game 2.</i></p><h2><b>&ndash;MINUS</b></h2><h3><b>BOSTON BONEHEADS</b></h3><p><i>Bruins fans litter the Internet with racial slurs after</i>&nbsp;<b><i>Joel Ward</i></b>&nbsp;<i>of the Capitals ends their team&rsquo;s season in OT.</i></p><h2><b>+PLUS</b></h2><h3><b>SWEATER SALUTE</b></h3><p><i>Patrick Sharp dons No. 81 for Canada at World Championship in tribute to concussed Hawks teammate Marian Hossa.</i></p><h2><b>&ndash;MINUS</b></h2><h3><b>ALL PLAY, NO WORK</b></h3><p><i>The Predators suspend Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn after the two are spotted out on the town in Scottsdale at 4 a.m. &ndash; with Game 2 versus the Coyotes scheduled for 5 p.m. that day.</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0010-04

PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">&#x2013; ASHTON ROSS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021670/9619059-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="649" height="584"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>STEVE-ENLOW</b> <span class="photo-credit">(COURTESY TULSA OILERS)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>teve Enlow</b> has come a long way since his days as a 14-year-old stick boy in the early 1970s. In 2011-12, his final season as equipment manager for the Central League&rsquo;s Tulsa Oilers, Enlow worked his 2,000th game &ndash; interspersed with some interim bench boss duty due to coaching suspensions &ndash; after 28 years with the team. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had the nice fortune to play and coach at every level of hockey and Steve is as good if not better than just about every guy I came across,&rdquo; said Tulsa Oilers GM Taylor Hall. &ldquo;The reason why he hasn&rsquo;t left for a higher level is because he&rsquo;s from Tulsa. His family is here and never wanted to be far away.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-031072/9619052-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg" title="f0010-03" width="218" height="96"></div><p>Enlow, 55, has seen many players come and go in the organization. Some have gone on to have great careers in the NHL, such as George McPhee, Pat Quinn and Robbie Ftorek. He even got a taste of the NHL himself during a brief gig with the Colorado Rockies. He also dabbled in pro football and soccer. When the CHL wasn&rsquo;t running from 1984 to 1992, Enlow got into racing and even won rookie of the year of the United States Auto Club.</p><p>But his favorite moment came just prior to the CHL&rsquo;s hiatus in 1983-84. Tulsa went bankrupt during the season and the league based the team out of Denver for the remainder of the campaign. &ldquo;We wound up playing the Indianapolis Checkers for the championship and beat them four straight,&rdquo; Enlow said. &ldquo;We won the title as a homeless team. That was the last game of the CHL until it started up again eight years later.&rdquo;</p><p>Enlow and his wife have taken over his parents&rsquo; local rollerskating rink and although he&rsquo;ll miss the game, he&rsquo;s looking forward to spending more time with his family and putting nearly 30 years of riding the bus behind him.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0010-02

Mr. Equip Calls it Quits

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011917/9619097-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>F</span>OR</b>&nbsp;<b>STORIED</b> teams with loyal followings, attendance doesn&rsquo;t spike from the season to the playoffs. Their barns are already full night to night. For some franchises, however, post-season play is a boon. Seven of the 16 playoff teams saw jumps in attendance, three of them major. Phoenix led the way by a country mile with a 40.7 percent increase.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021391/9619090-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="1401" height="955"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0011-01

Crowded HOUSE

<div class="byline">&#x2013; KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-03936/9619128-1-eng-US/f0011-032.jpg" title="f0011-03" width="752" height="604"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>W</span>HEN RAFFI TORRES</b>&nbsp;appealed his 25-game suspension during the second round of the playoffs, the file landed squarely on the desk of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.</p><p>Which, when you think about it, doesn&rsquo;t make a whole lot of sense, does it? That&rsquo;s why the players will be negotiating hard to have appeals for supplemental discipline heard by an independent arbitrator in the next collective bargaining agreement. You can bank on that one.</p><p>As it currently stands according to Article 18.1, players are entitled to appeal rulings, but, &ldquo;the appeal shall be heard by the commissioner or his designee,&rdquo; meaning Bettman hears appeals of the rulings of his handpicked vice-president and chief disciplinarian, Brendan Shanahan. The way the players see it, is Bettman going to undermine his deputy&rsquo;s credibility by overturning  one of his rulings? &ldquo;A lot of guys don&rsquo;t even appeal because of that,&rdquo; said an NHL Players&rsquo; Association official. &ldquo;They figure Gary&rsquo;s going to hear it, so there&rsquo;s no point.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0011-03

CBA WATCH

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-012233/9619159-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(KEN CAMPBELL/THN)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>A</span>n NHL team is</b> like a brotherhood; any player will tell you that. But sometimes brothers fight and crying to mom won&rsquo;t do anything about it. That&rsquo;s where the playersonly meeting comes in handy.</p><p>As proven by Nashville&rsquo;s suspension of forwards Alexander Radulov and Andrei Kostitsyn after a violation of team rules during the Predators&rsquo; second round playoff series against the Phoenix Coyotes, team chemistry is important and honoring the other guys in the dressing room is paramount to success.</p><p>But airing grievances is a necessary part of the season and can get a team back on track when a sour patch hits. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of a cleansing exercise,&rdquo; said retired defenseman Neil Sheehy, now a prominent player agent. &ldquo;Got something to say? Get it off your chest. You&rsquo;ve got poison around somewhere and you feel so much better after you&rsquo;re done.&rdquo;</p><p>In Sheehy&rsquo;s experience, the closeddoor sessions involve every member of the team saying something &ndash; whether they would d like to or not. Sure, it can get awkward for those not used to sharing their opinions, but at least everyone is accountable. And though someone might make reference to not getting passes when they&rsquo;re open, the players usually talk in vague terms. &ldquo;Guys don&rsquo;t usually attack each other,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You talk in generalities. It doesn&rsquo;t get into personal warfare.&rdquo;</p><p>Losing streaks are usually the reason for meetings, but the actual flashpoint varies wildly. Sheehy remembers one pow-wow in Washington when his Capitals blew a lead to the team he had just been traded from, the Hartford Whalers. &ldquo;I busted up the dressing room,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I told them, &lsquo;The guys in that room <i>look</i> for games like this to throw away and that&rsquo;s what we just did.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>The next day, the captains called a players-only meeting to address the bruising blueliner&rsquo;s outburst. Some players didn&rsquo;t like it; others thought it was just what the doctor ordered. &ldquo;What everyone agreed upon,&rdquo; Sheehy said, &ldquo;was that was the breaking point and things were going down the tubes.&rdquo;</p><p>The key to turning around the ship is not letting things get too far gone. This year&rsquo;s Senators had a players&rsquo; only meeting way back in October after a 7-2 drubbing at the hands of the Flyers.</p><p>Not much was expected of the seemingly rebuilding Sens, but their ascent into the playoffs and a near-upset of the top-seeded Rangers proved the team had the veteran presence (Daniel Alfredsson, Chris Phillips) amongst the young stars (Erik Karlsson, Jared Cowen) to get things done. They just needed a little chat first.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0012-01

Talk About It

<div class="byline">BY MICHAEL STEPHENS</div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>NJURIES,</b>&nbsp;trades and assignments wreak havoc on teams &ndash; especially when it comes to certain players. Here are the guys with at least 18 games missed (GM) who improved each club&rsquo;s points percentage (PP) the most when in the lineup.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021754/9619190-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="804" height="2632"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0012-02

MISSING IN ACTION

<div class="byline">&#x2013; DENIS GIBBONS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-012206/9619228-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="957" height="1016"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>ONE MORE MUG Slava Kozlov now has a Gagarin Cup championship to add to his two Stanley Cups.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(RICK STEWART/ALLSPORT)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>Vyacheslav Kozlov</b> waited almost two decades for his hockey talents to be recognized.</p><p>It finally happened this season when the underappreciated winger was selected to represent Moscow Dynamo in the Kontinental League All-Star Game in Riga, Latvia.</p><p>A two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Detroit Red Wings (&rsquo;97 and &rsquo;98), Kozlov remains one of the most talented players never to play in an NHL All-Star Game. This, despite scoring 356 goals and 853 points in 1,182 games during a career that spanned 16 full seasons with the Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres and Atlanta Thrashers. He is tied with Steve Yzerman and Johan Franzen for the Wings record with 12 game-winning goals in the playoffs.</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021657/9619221-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="126" height="145"></div><p>Now Kozlov, who turned 40 May 3, is nearing the end of his career in his homeland of Russia. &ldquo;I will make the decision on playing next year with my family at the end of the season,&rdquo; he said at the KHL All-Star Game. &ldquo;A lot will depend on how healthy I am and how far we go in the playoffs.&rdquo;</p><p>As it turned out, Dynamo went all the way &ndash; beating Avangard in seven games to earn the Gagarin Cup. But Kozlov played just six games in the post-season and had no points.</p><p>Most observers were shocked when it was announced in the summer of 2011 that the Thrashers, not the Phoenix Coyotes, were moving to Winnipeg. But Kozlov said he had an inkling in 2009-10, his final NHL season, that it would be Atlanta. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to move to Winnipeg,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It would have been tough on my family.&rdquo;</p><p>Wife Tatyana and daughter Ksenia, eight, remain in Atlanta while Kozlov continues to bring home the bacon, playing 5,000 miles away. (Kozlov also has a 15-year-old son, Nikita, who plays tennis with such promise he has been enrolled in a special academy in Barcelona, Spain.) Kozlov signed a contract with CSKA Moscow in the summer of 2010, then was transferred to Salavat Yulaev in the city of Ufa at the trade deadline. After helping Ufa win the Gagarin Cup last year, he signed with Moscow Dynamo.</p><p>When Kozlov was a teenager, scouts promptly saw he had quick hands and handled the puck like a magician. Selected by the Red Wings 45th overall in 1990, Kozlov first came to the U.S. in the fall of 1991 after he sustained a fractured skull, broken cheekbone and broken ribs when a bus collided with the car he was driving in Russia. The accident killed Kirill Tarasov, a passenger in the car and a teammate with the Soviet national junior team. Kozlov, who was in a coma for four hours and confined to hospital for three months, had starred for the Soviets at both the 1990 and 1991 World Junior Championships, producing seven goals and 23 points in 14 games over the two tournaments.</p><p>Hockey is part of the fabric of the Kozlov family. Nephew Vladislav Namestnikov, now a star with the Ontario League&rsquo;s London Knights and a Tampa Bay Lightning first round pick in 2011, lived with him for a while and often tagged along to Red Wing practices. Evgeny &lsquo;John&rsquo; Namestnikov, Vlad&rsquo;s father, was drafted in 1991 in the sixth round (117 overall) by Vancouver and played 43 NHL games for the Canucks, New York Islanders and Nashville Predators, tallying nine assists.</p><p>Kozlov&rsquo;s father, Anatoly, who still lives in Voskresensk, played 10 seasons with Khimik in the old Soviet League before becoming a playing coach with Graz in Austria. Kozlov has considered following in his father&rsquo;s foot-steps.  &ldquo;I might like to try coaching,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But it would be tough staying over here without my family.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

f0014-01

Shining Bright

<div class="byline">&#x2013; DANIELLE EMANUELE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-011976/9619297-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MUGGING FOR STANLEY Erik Drygas poses with the Cup alongside his wife Emily and daughter Annika.</b></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>magine having a life</b> full of dreams and in an instant everything changes. Erik Drygas was a sophomore defenseman at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Tension was high for the Nanooks during their season opener in 1996 versus their interstate rivals from the University of Alaska Anchorage. The 6-foot-3, 210-pound blueliner was racing to a puck in the corner when his skate caught an edge. Without having time to brace himself, he crashed head-first into the boards, fracturing his C-5 vertebra.</p><p>Drygas was conscious, but the feeling had been numbed in his arms and legs, leaving him immobile. &ldquo;It was one of those things where I can still remember everything really clearly,&rdquo; Drygas said. &ldquo;Right away I knew it was serious and so did the rest of the team.&rdquo;</p><p>An emergency surgery was booked in hopes of restoring what was initially thought to be nerve damage, but after the swelling went down it became apparent that Drygas&rsquo; life would be changed forever. He could no longer move from the waist down. &ldquo;In my mind, I knew I was going to be paralyzed,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My first thoughts were, OK what do I need to do to make the most of this?&rdquo;</p><p>Drygas spent four months at Denver&rsquo;s Craig Hospital, a facility specializing in spinal injuries. During those months, he developed strong ties with the Colorado Avalanche and spending time around the team became an outlet. The Avs were coming off their 1996 Stanley Cup win and Drygas was there, soaking it all up among the likes of Mike Ricci and Adam Deadmarsh, who played a fundamental role in helping Drygas through his recovery. &ldquo;You play hockey your entire life, you&rsquo;re around a team and then that is taken away from you,&rdquo; Drygas said. &ldquo;It helped that they kind of adopted me.&rdquo;</p><p>With two years completed at UAF, Drygas took the opportunity to return to school full time and complete his degree in elementary school education. In October 2000, he ignited his hockey passion once again, this time as a coach of West Valley High School. &ldquo;Everyone was so accommodating,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;At first, guys were sitting there looking at the wheelchair and probably thinking how I would be able to coach. But we didn&rsquo;t even talk about it. We just went right at it.&rdquo;</p><p>Drygas understands how important it is for young players to pursue their dreams of making it in the pros, but maintains a high academic standard is just as crucial. During Drygas&rsquo; eight-year coaching tenure with West Valley, three of his teams have had the highest team grade point average in the state of Alaska.</p><p>Along with developing an affinity for coaching, Drygas returned to his roots and the Nanooks program, where he provides color commentary on radio broadcasts of games and alumni outreach. Because of his willingness to give back to the community and positive outlook on life, many view him as an inspiration. Drygas, however, believes he&rsquo;s no different from anyone else. &ldquo;Everyone has something that they are dealing with and mine just happens to be very visible &ndash; being in a wheelchair,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not a hero by any means. I just go about life like anybody else.&rdquo;</p><p>And now, more than 15 years after he was paralyzed, his life has changed again. Drygas and his wife, Emily, have adopted two daughters,  two-year-old Annika and newborn Ava. &ldquo;Everybody says having a child changes your life,&rdquo; Drygas said. &ldquo;But it really has changed our life for the better. I can&rsquo;t imagine my life without them.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0016-01

The Model Of Resiliency

<p class="dropcap"><b><span>R</span>angers goalie Henrik</b> Lundqvist pauses to peek at the scoreboard. Or is he just checking his hair on the big screen? Send us your funniest caption idea for a shot at some THN swag. We&rsquo;ll publish our favorites in the July 1 issue. (See the April 30 issue&rsquo;s best on pg. 49.)</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-021512/9619335-1-eng-US/f0016-022.jpg" title="f0016-02" width="835" height="682"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-031103/9619328-1-eng-US/f0016-032.jpg" title="f0016-03" width="169" height="144"></div><p><b>To win, submit your captions at <a href="http://www.thn.com/caption">www.thn.com/caption</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0016-02

Caption CONTEST

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RONNIE SHUKER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0017-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0017-011718/9619366-1-eng-US/f0017-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MARC BERGEVIN, 2003</b> <span class="photo-credit">(R. GRAWBOWSKI)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>M</span>ontreal Canadiens</b> followers take note: your new GM is anything but a bore. Marc Bergevin, a veteran of 1,191 NHL games before retiring in 2004 and joining Chicago management, was an inveterate prankster and everyone was fair game, including his then-St. Louis Blues GM Larry Pleau. According to a story from THN&rsquo;s 2004 Yearbook, Pleau got Bergevin good with a gag, leading to this gem:</p><p><i>It&rsquo;s Feb. 21, 2000, and the Blues are at a restaurant after a road win in Anaheim. Players are on one side, management on another. Cuba Gooding Jr. and other Hollywood types have joined them. A well-known, very well-endowed star of the seedier side of the Hollywood film industry walks in &ndash; and as fate would have it, she&rsquo;s a Blues fan. After some small talk, the players direct her to the management table, where she stays for a few</i>&nbsp;<i>minutes before leaving. Bergevin sees his shot for revenge.</i></p><p><i>He gets one of the travelling St. Louis media members to insert a paragraph in his story on that night&rsquo;s game. The added material suggests Pleau was unavailable for comment because he was busy chatting with one of Hollywood&rsquo;s full-cup finest. Wouldn&rsquo;t you know it, that&rsquo;s the version of the story that turns up in the Blues&rsquo; press clippings in San Jose the next day. The team is on the ice for a morning skate when they see Pleau make a beeline for the reporter sitting in the stands. Pleau is in front of the reporter, arms gesturing wildly. Finally Bergevin skates over to the boards and bangs his stick on the ice to get Larry&rsquo;s attention: &ldquo;Payback is a bitch, isn&rsquo;t it Larry!&rdquo;</i></p><p><i>Pleau later admitted, &ldquo;It was the perfect set-up. He got me good.&rdquo;</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0017-01

Just For Laughs

<div class="byline">BY ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0018-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011854/9619432-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>O</span>n April 18-19, 1987 at the Capital Centre in Landover, Md., the Washington Capitals and New York Islanders played the longest Game 7 in NHL history. From the time the first puck was dropped until the game-winner was scored at the 8:47 mark of the fourth overtime, a full six hours and 18 minutes passed. Twenty-five years later, The Hockey News spoke to several people who took part in the game, which is known as the &lsquo;Easter Epic&rsquo; because it ended at 1:58 a.m. on Easter Sunday morning. Based on their accounts, here is the story of that memorable night.</b></p><h2><b>PRELUDE TO OVERTIME</b></h2><p>PAT LAFONTAINE (ISLANDERS CENTER) Nineteen-eighty-seven was a special year for me. It was the year I got married and against the Capitals in the playoffs, we had come back from a 3-1 deficit in the series just to force a seventh game that night.</p><p>LOU FRANCESCHETTI (CAPITALS WINGER): We had such a good rivalry with the Isles at that point. We could never get away from them in the first round of the playoffs and in 1986 we finally eliminated them. For me, Game 7 started as just another game, but we had a long history with the Isles and even though they didn&rsquo;t have Mike Bossy or Denis Potvin in the lineup that night, we knew we had to be at our best to beat them.</p><p><i>The Capitals badly outplay the Islanders in the first period, outshooting the visitors 15-5 and leading 1-0 entering the first intermission. The teams traded goals in the second period, but Washington continued putting all kinds of pressure on Islanders goalie Kelly Hrudey. Meanwhile, the action got increasingly heated &ndash; but veteran referee Andy Van Hellemond was not about to start assessing boatloads of penalties.</i></p><p>GORD DINEEN (ISLANDERS DEFENSEMAN): Van Hellemond&rsquo;s style was to let the players decide the game, so that&rsquo;s the way it went. Certainly, when overtime came, he was going to let the players decide the outcome of the game. The only thing he would have called was a two-hander on a breakaway.</p><p>KERRY FRASER (STANDBY REFEREE): There was a lot of stuff going on on the ice. There wasn&rsquo;t going to be a penalty &ndash; or at least, there wasn&rsquo;t going to be one called.</p><p>In the second intermission, I remember bumping into (Capitals coach) Bryan Murray. He said to me, &lsquo;Kerry, let me ask you a question: Are there going to be any f------penalties called tonight?&rsquo; And I said, &lsquo;Bryan, I think you can rest assured, unless there&rsquo;s a murder out there, there&rsquo;s not going to be a call.&rsquo; He just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.</p><p><i>The Capitals continue their barrage of shots on Hrudey in the third period, eventually outshooting the Islanders 36-21 in regulation. Unfortunately for Washington, New York&rsquo;s star center Bryan Trottier scored at the 14:37 mark to tie the game at two goals apiece.</i></p><p>BOB MASON (CAPITALS GOALIE): I don&rsquo;t think a lot of people know this, but on the tying goal, my skate broke. Trottier was on his backhand, coming down the middle-right side through the dot and threw a backhander right at my feet. I used to wear the old Lange goalie skates and they had a rivet on the heels. The rivet snapped, so my right ankle gave way, the puck hit both pads and ended up going in. Our equipment guy Doug Shearer came out and looked at it and saw the rivet sheared off and I had no support. He couldn&rsquo;t do anything and we couldn&rsquo;t put in Pete Peeters when he&rsquo;d been cold the whole game. So after regulation, Shearer went in with a nut and a bolt and fixed it. But for that last five minutes of the third period, I was out there with one good skate. Who knows, if my skate didn&rsquo;t break, we might not have gone to overtime in the first place.</p><h2><b>OVERTIME</b></h2><p>FRANCESCHETTI: The first and second periods of overtime were faster than the first and second periods of regulation, because the refs just let us play. And once the whistle was blown, we just skated away and separated. Nobody wanted to be the goat for taking an unnecessary penalty, because one stupid penalty could end the series. We crashed the net, they crashed the net, but once the play was over, there was one shove each and guys skated away. There was a mutual respect for both teams.</p><p>DINEEN: That&rsquo;s part of the reason for the length of the game &ndash; sometimes you go out there trying for the big hit, but if you miss it, it can result in a scoring chance for the other team. Nobody wanted to be the one who did that in this game. Both teams were so positionally sound, the scoring chances were at a minimum. And between the two goalies, they both made great saves. You&rsquo;re playing a more judicious and smarter game.</p><p>MASON: Overtime was like a football game. Guys were getting tackled in front of the net.</p><p>BILL CLEMENT (ESPN COLOR ANALYST): In the second overtime period, Scott Stevens got Pat Flatley with an open-ice hit so hard, I thought he killed him. He got him much like he hit Eric Lindros, but without as much damage because Flatley saw him coming and it ended up being a shoulder right in the middle of his chest. He just crushed him. Only Scott Stevens would have been thinking in those terms at that point in the game. But it was good, hard-fought, clean hockey.</p><p>DENIS POTVIN (ISLANDERS DEFENSEMAN): That was the first and only playoff game I missed and I was with (Isles play-by-play man) Jiggs McDonald contributing on the broadcast. It was sheer torture not to play, but my back injury didn&rsquo;t give me a choice. When it went on and on in overtime, there was a little guilt involved for me. I was thinking, &lsquo;Could I have played?&rsquo;</p><p><i>The first overtime ends without a single penalty being called by Van Hellemond. But make no mistake, the officials &ndash; including linesmen John D&rsquo;Amico and Ron Finn &ndash; were not leisurely enjoying the game. They and the players needed each intermission to attempt to replenish whatever energy they had lost.</i></p><p>FRASER: The officials were dehydrated, hungry and exhausted. I walked into the dressing room after talking to Bryan Murray and John D&rsquo;Amico was lying on the floor with his feet up on the bench, because his feet hurt so bad for being on them for such a long length of time. Back then, John wore bare feet inside his skates, so his feet were absolutely killing him. And Ron Finn was looking dishevelled and frazzled.</p><p>DINEEN: In those days, we weren&rsquo;t as well versed in energy drinks and power bars. There was none of that, so I think someone had ordered in some pizza, and we had a slice or two over the course of the intermissions. But it got to the point where we were almost giddy in there. We&rsquo;d sit in the locker room and give each other the business about a certain play and we&rsquo;d be giggling about it. It was a fun atmosphere and one you couldn&rsquo;t duplicate.</p><p>MASON: I remember drinking salt water and eating oranges in our room, for crying out loud.</p><p>FRANCESCHETTI: We had as many oranges as we possibly could, stocked up on liquids and conserved our energy. There wasn&rsquo;t much said between periods as I guess there was in the Isles room. It was quiet in our room. We just wanted to get the puck to the net, get some bodies in front and see what happened. The ice wasn&rsquo;t the greatest at the Cap Centre, so you never knew.</p><p><i>Meanwhile, as the overtimes blur into one another, the broadcasters charged with covering the game also begin feeling the strain.</i></p><p>CLEMENT: (Play-by-play partner) Mike Emrick and I were having so much fun. Later I called it the Woodstock of Hockey, because it really had been. We were anchoring the intermissions from where we were and we only had so much subject matter after a while, so we just got a little goofy. It wasn&rsquo;t contrived or planned, but it was just that Doc, ever the class clown, would lead me anywhere and I&rsquo;d try to go there.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011634/9619425-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="993" height="927"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>BAD BREAK</b> Game 7 may not have gone to overtime if Caps goalie Bob Mason&rsquo;s skate hadn&rsquo;t broken. <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011606/9619418-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="825" height="952"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>LET &rsquo;EM PLAY</b> Referee Andy Van Hellemond kept penalties to a bare minimum in Game 7.</figcaption></div><p>At one point, I ended up taking my shirt off and wore the T-shirt I had underneath. I also had my tie tied around my head. It was an interesting reaction we got from ESPN. The big red telephone rang in the truck and I was told to put my clothes back on. The next day the president of ESPN sent us a bottle of champagne and the vice-president scolded us. We tried not to get in the way of the game, but it was our way of letting people know how goofy it was. It was bizarre, twilight zone of hockey, so we had fun with it.</p><p><i>The Islanders and Capitals players also are having fun as the game continues on, though the physical exhaustion is setting in.</i></p><p>MASON: I lost 13 pounds that game. But the adrenaline was jacked and you were trying to be the difference-maker. It was funny, because you almost wanted the puck coming to you.</p><p>DINEEN: Lou Franceschetti and I had our run-ins in the past and during that game, but there was a mutual respect there. During one play, we were banging around in the corner and the whistle blew and the two of us could barely lift ourselves off the ice. He put his arm over my shoulder to help lift himself up and I didn&rsquo;t stop him. To think you&rsquo;re going head-to-head with all you&rsquo;ve got, then helping each other up &ndash; that shows what we all knew we were going through, regardless of what team we were on.</p><p>But you went through different phases in how you&rsquo;re feeling during the game. I was pretty fortunate in that I could adapt to the game&rsquo;s ebbs and flows, so I actually felt pretty good. I felt better in the third and fourth overtimes than I did in the first and second. But you could definitely see the fatigue and passion on both sides.</p><p><i>The game took a huge toll not only on the players and officials, but also on the 18,130 fans in attendance, virtually all of whom stayed in their seats the entire time.</i></p><p>CLEMENT: None of the fans went anywhere. I remember one couple in the stands that was dressed up &ndash; the man had on a tuxedo &ndash; because they had a formal event to attend that night. They watched the early part of the game, left for their function, then came back after the function was over to watch the rest.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>OUR EQUIPMENT MANAGER SAID, &lsquo;YOU&rsquo;LL GET THE GOAL, YOU&rsquo;LL POP ONE IN&rsquo;</b><br><b>PAT LAFONTAINE</b></blockquote><p>And at some point around the third overtime, I realized we were going to end up with a result that created ultimate elation or incredible depression and despair. The longer the game went, the greater the emotional stakes were for everybody.</p><h2><b>THE WINNING GOAL</b></h2><p>LAFONTAINE: The game was surreal by that stage of the night. I&rsquo;ll never forget one moment I think of the most: Our equipment guy Jim Pickard told me, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re going to get the goal, you&rsquo;re going to pop one in.&rsquo; And then he squeezed the water bottle so that the water went down my neck.</p><p>At that exact moment, the arena P.A. system played the theme music from <i>The Twilight Zone</i>. Literally, everything stopped and I looked up into the stands, and people were sleeping. It was almost two in the morning and I looked up and it was seven periods, 75 shots to 56 at that moment and I said is this really happening? It was surreal. And 30 seconds later, I jumped over the boards and saw Gord Dineen fly by me.</p><p>DINEEN: (Islanders teammate) Kenny Leiter kept the puck in Washington&rsquo;s end on the opposite side of the rink and I was just coming on the ice. Kenny missed the net on the shot and the puck came to me on the other side. I had a second wind coming off the bench, so I went in behind the net and came out the other side and tried to score myself, but it was blocked out in front. The puck went right out to Patty, who was covering my point. But nobody ever mentions (Islanders winger) Dale Henry as our guy out front. He did a great job of screening. Mason never even saw the puck.</p><p>MASON: (Capitals defenseman) Rod Langway was in front of me, the puck had eyes and went through a couple of legs, clanks off the post and goes in. Deflected off Kevin Hatcher&rsquo;s stick.</p><p>LAFONTAINE: I just was covering for Gordie. I remember him coming around the net, trying to throw it out front and I think the puck hit Langway&rsquo;s stick before it came out to me near the blueline.</p><p>I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve ever shot a puck the same way since. I just spun around because the puck came to me at an interesting angle and I just wanted to shoot it and hope for the best, because everything Kelly Hrudey and Bob Mason saw, they stopped. I remember the puck being off on its side, so I didn&rsquo;t catch it flat and it kind of knuckled. I heard the post and thought &ldquo;oh&rdquo; as if it didn&rsquo;t go in, but then I saw Mason drop to his knees and I saw our guys start to drop and then it was just unbelievable emotion for about a minute. Then we just all collapsed.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-021156/9619411-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="878" height="914"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>PAT LAFONTAINE</b> <span class="photo-credit">(DENIS BRODEUR/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>DINEEN: I was going back out toward my point, because when the puck was blocked, I was going to take my point position again. So my back was to the play when the puck went in. I heard it clank off the post and I could just tell by their players&rsquo; reaction. All you could hear was our players yelling and screaming. It was pretty much dead silence other than that. It was all you could do to get the energy up to celebrate. Half the guys went to Patty and the other half to Kelly. They were our two heroes.</p><p>FRANCESCHETTI: When they scored, it was like feeling you were going up in a hot air balloon and the hot air suddenly just stops. It was demoralizing. I don&rsquo;t know if you could&rsquo;ve heard a pin drop, but it was very quiet.</p><p>MASON: There was just a hollow feeling in the arena. You could sense the air going out of the building. Interestingly, for me, going through those four overtimes actually lessened the blow of defeat. But it still stung a couple days later. And I&rsquo;ve watched that game numerous times since that night and I still have a tough time watching that puck go in the net.</p><h2><b>THE AFTERMATH</b></h2><p>FRASER: We went down to see the officials afterward and the feeling there was relief it was over. They were totally drained, beyond the normal fatigue, but they were happy an official&rsquo;s call didn&rsquo;t end the game. The emotional strain was tremendous.</p><p>FRANCESCHETTI: There wasn&rsquo;t much to say in our room afterward. There were no yearend player meetings to schedule back then, so we were just told to show up at the rink on the Monday morning to grab our equipment and sign some autographs. That was it.</p><p>CLEMENT: After it was over, I remember the lineup trying to get into Denny&rsquo;s restaurant at 2 a.m. All the bars in the area had closed and &lsquo;Doc&rsquo; Emrick and I were so damn hungry. I remember being so miffed that we thought we&rsquo;d walk into an all-night restaurant, but there was a lineup out the door. We said, &ldquo;Oh, you&rsquo;re kidding!&rdquo;</p><p>LAFONTAINE: We got home to Long Island at 7 a.m. Easter morning and we had to be down in front of Nassau Coliseum that night at 7 p.m. to catch a bus to play in Philly the next night. We ended up winning Game 2 of that series 2-1 and went to Game 7 with those guys, but we just couldn&rsquo;t hang on. And that was the year they went to the Cup final and Ron Hextall won the Conn Smythe. But I&rsquo;ll never forget the way that team came back in that Caps series that year.</p><p>MASON: Billy Smith was still playing for the Isles at that time, but was the backup for that game and he was famous for never shaking hands with the other team in play-off rounds. And I&rsquo;m looking down at the ice in the lineup to shake hands and suddenly he&rsquo;s right in front of me. He grabs my hand, shakes it and says, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the best-goal-tended game I&rsquo;ve ever seen in my life.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-011297/9619404-1-eng-US/f0021-012.jpg" title="f0021-01" width="840" height="975"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>ON AN ISLAND</b> Kelly Hrudey turned away a remarkable 73 Capitals shots in the Easter Epic. <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0021-02837/9619397-1-eng-US/f0021-022.jpg" title="f0021-02" width="610" height="1107"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0018-01

EASTER EPIC

<div class="byline">BY ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0028-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-011428/9619557-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>THE NATURAL Jonathan Quick excelled in many sports growing up, including baseball and football.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(NOAH GRAHAM/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span></b><b>t was January</b> of this year, in Ottawa, at one of the All-Star Game&rsquo;s media availability sessions, that Jonathan Quick stood out like the sore thumb he and his fellow professional goaltenders often suffer. To say Quick looked as if he didn&rsquo;t wish to be there amidst the zombie-crush of reporters is an understatement along the lines of saying John Tortorella is mildly perturbed by press conferences.</p><p>Whereas fellow first-time All-Star Game participants Joffrey Lupul and Dan Girardi were relaxed and smiling in front of the microphones, cameras and notepads that day, Quick was thousand-yard staring, dropping cliches out the wazoo and hiding his real feelings in the wazoo. If you&rsquo;d put a fake mustache and sunglasses on him, you could&rsquo;ve cast him as the lead in <i>All-Star Weekend At Bernie&rsquo;s.</i> A Zdeno Chara slapshot to the mask would&rsquo;ve been preferable to him, it seemed, than mouthing platitudes a minute longer.</p><p>But nobody said goalies had to be zany, personable characters to succeed. From Ed Belfour to Tom Barrasso to Miikka Kiprusoff and many others, a slew of hockey&rsquo;s greatest netminders have put their money not where their mouth is, but where their mask, mitt and moxie are. Quick is that type of player. And this season, as a Vezina Trophy finalist, the Los Angeles Kings&rsquo; MVP and the force that led L.A. to its first playoff series win since 2001, Quick has arguably become the biggest of big-money goalies.</p><p>Essentially, Quick is a hockey lifer. A natural athlete described by his father, Doug, as &ldquo;one of those kids who picks up a football for the first time and throws a beautiful spiral or picks up a lacrosse stick and juggles the ball like there&rsquo;s no tomorrow.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-011260/9619550-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="1825" height="1604"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Quick was raised not in a hockey-mad state, but in the hockey-crazed town of Hamden, Conn. The initial reason he chose the sport was because it was the only one he could play competitively at age <i>five</i>. And although he was great at all the sports he played &ndash; as a first baseman and catcher in baseball, as a starting middle linebacker and backup quarterback in football &ndash; by age 10, Quick had a tough decision to make. Well, maybe tough isn&rsquo;t the right word. &ldquo;We had to sit down and talk about what sport Jon wanted to focus on, because one of his coaches was always mad he wasn&rsquo;t at practice or games,&rdquo; Doug said. &ldquo;So he said he wanted to play competitive hockey year-round and fore-go football. But there wasn&rsquo;t a lot of debate. Hockey was always his first love.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&ldquo;HOCKEY WAS ALWAYS HIS FIRST LOVE</b><br><b>DOUG QUICK</b></blockquote><p>Doug and his wife Lisa played the dutiful hockey parents from that point on, shepherding Quick around the state and up to Canada to play in tournaments. And although their son&rsquo;s skills continued to improve &ndash; to the point people would tell Doug his 12-year-old boy was destined for the NHL &ndash; Doug and Lisa stayed grounded and never bought into the hype.</p><p>Even when Quick was accepted to the prestigious Avon Old Farms boarding school (whose alumni include former NHLers Brian Leetch and David Roberts and current players Chris Higgins and Nick Bonino) and led the team to consecutive New England prep school championships in his junior and senior seasons, his family and friends kept &lsquo;Quickie&rsquo; focused and humble.</p><p>Some of those friends and hockey people would play an increasingly large role in Quick&rsquo;s life &ndash; especially former NHL right winger Mike Backman, who had a cup of coffee with the New York Rangers in the early &rsquo;80s. Backman coached Quick, who became good friends with Backman&rsquo;s son and fellow hockey player, Sean. More importantly, Jaclyn, one of Backman&rsquo;s daughters, became friends with Quick. And although their relationship was platonic in their early childhood, once high school rolled around, Quick made his move and requested she join him on a date.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-011439/9619543-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg" title="f0030-01" width="2131" height="1050"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>NOT-SO-QUICK STUDY Quick has often started slowly at new levels of play before improving drastically.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(STEPHEN DUNN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Actually, let&rsquo;s be more specific: Quick didn&rsquo;t ask Jaclyn on a date; he asked his friend Sean. &ldquo;He had always been like a big brother to me,&rdquo; Jaclyn said of Quick, &ldquo;but out of the blue one day, he asked my brother if he could take me out on a date. He didn&rsquo;t talk to me or anything! He just asked my brother and next thing I knew I had my mom calling me, my sister calling, my brother calling to yell at me. At first I just laughed at him, but on the first date he swept me off my feet and the rest is history.&rdquo;</p><p>Also history is Quick&rsquo;s time at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, which he attended for two years after high school. Quick had been drafted by the Kings in the third round (2005, 72nd overall) before he played an NCAA game, but his reputation as a kid to watch out for didn&rsquo;t translate into a successful rookie season. He posted a 4-10-1 record and 2.98 goals-against average, albeit with a .920 save percentage.</p><p>Long-time UMass-Amherst coach Don Cahoon was concerned about Quick&rsquo;s maturity, but even then he was learning and adjusting. To their credit, the Kings management team visited frequently &ndash; Doug estimates someone from the organization was at 70 to 80 percent of Quick&rsquo;s games in his sophomore year &ndash; working as much to prepare him on the mental aspects of life as a pro goalie as they did on his technique. &ldquo;Jon was better some nights than others, but the athleticism always showed,&rdquo; Cahoon said. &ldquo;We were concerned with how fast he was moving forward and dealing with the emotional side of things, to act like a pro, live life like a pro and have the maturity of a pro. And frankly, that was a concern I shared with Jon. I shared it with L.A., with (GM) Dean Lombardi and (goalie coach) Bill Ranford and all of their people. They knew how I felt, but they also knew what kind of talent they were dealing with. They wanted to work with him as a pro as soon as possible.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>I&ldquo;I&rsquo;M ALWAYS POSITIVE NO MATTER THE SITUATION</b><br><b>&ndash; JONATHAN QUICK</b></blockquote><p>In Quick&rsquo;s sophomore season, his numbers improved dramatically (19-12-5, 2.16 GAA and .929 SP) and he led UMass-Amherst to the hockey program&rsquo;s first appearance in the NCAA championship tournament. That success, combined with the Kings&rsquo; suggestion he turn pro, was enough for the then-21-year-old to make the jump. However, in what was becoming something of a pattern, he struggled in his first year in a new environment, bouncing between the American League Manchester Monarchs and the ECHL Reading Royals in 2007-08.</p><p>Again, the word &ldquo;maturity&rdquo; came up as a concern among close observers.</p><p>Quick&rsquo;s AHL numbers (11-8-0, 2.32 GAA and .922 SP) were better than his stats in Reading (23-11-3, 2.79 GAA and .905 SP), but he never got down on himself or developed an expectant attitude as he languished in the ECHL. Quick is not the type of person to fixate on the negative. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always felt like I handled things well &ndash; bad games, tough stretches, being sent down,&rdquo; Quick said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve had a pretty positive outlook no matter the situation I was in. I always saw the opportunity that was there for me, wherever I was playing.&rdquo;</p><p>That same season, Quick got a taste of life in the NHL. The taste, however, was not particularly pleasant, as evidenced by his stat line from the three games (1-2-0, 3.84 GAA, .855 SP). He began the following campaign with Manchester, but he played just 14 games before an injury to Kings goalie Erik Ersberg gave him an opportunity to stick.</p><p>Quick never played another minor league game from that point on, earning his first NHL shutout a week after the Kings recalled him and posting a 21-18-2 record, 2.48 GAA and .914 SP in 44 games of his rookie year. Yet his play didn&rsquo;t lock up L.A.&rsquo;s starting job, as management had drafted the much-heralded Jonathan Bernier 11th overall in 2006. So, even when Quick won 39 games in his sophomore season of 2009-10, there was a sense he was a placeholder for Bernier, who was dominating the AHL that year.</p><p>If the speculation affected Quick, it never showed. In part, that was due to a new, much more important influence in his life: He and Jaclyn welcomed their first child, a daughter named Madison, in March of 2010. The added responsibilities associated with becoming a parent have never been a burden for him. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good thing,&rdquo; Quick said of fatherhood. &ldquo;It helps you grow up. The best part of your day is seeing your daughter and spending time with her. You could have a bad game, but you have her to go home to and she&rsquo;s always happy to see you. It&rsquo;s a good sense of what&rsquo;s important in life. At the end of the day, it&rsquo;s family first.&rdquo;</p><p>Despite Bernier breathing down his neck, challenging for the Kings&rsquo; starting job, Quick has made a home for himself in Southern California. His play in the early part of his NHL career got him invited to the U.S. Olympic Team at the 2010 Vancouver Games. He didn&rsquo;t play at all, but it was the first time he&rsquo;d been asked to represent his country and it marked another building block in his evolution. And his statistics have improved (from a 2.54 GAA and .907 SP in 2009-10 to a 2.24 GAA and .918 save percentage last season).</p><p>That said, nobody expected him to dominate as he did in 2011-12. Playing for a Kings squad that underwhelmed and got coach Terry Murray fired in December, Quick was nothing short of a season-salvager. A quarter of the team&rsquo;s 40 wins came when they scored two or fewer goals and in all those wins, Quick was in net. He won an NHL-best 13 overtime or shootout games, led all goalies in shutouts (10) and had the league&rsquo;s secondbest GAA (1.95) and fifth-best SP (.929).</p><p>Those totals made him a Vezina finalist and the 26-year-old showed in the playoffs his regular season play was no fluke. Against the heavily favored, No. 1-seeded, defending Western Conference champion Vancouver Canucks, Quick posted a 1.59 GAA and .953 SP, best of any goalie who&rsquo;d played at least five first-round games.</p><p>Through all the success and accolades, Quick has stayed humble and defers much of the credit to his defense-conscious teammates. Though he&rsquo;s noticed the Los Angeles celebrity community embracing the Kings to a greater degree &ndash; he met actors Tom Hanks and his son Colin Hanks after a recent game and actress/hockey fan Alyssa Milano recently tweeted &ldquo;You&rsquo;re the greatest. That is all&rdquo; to him &ndash; he is still the guy who was uncomfortable in front of cameras at the All-Star Game.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-02882/9619536-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="1390" height="1009"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>STATISTICAL ROYALTY Quick led the NHL with 10 shutouts and his 1.95 GAA was second in the league.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>OK, maybe that&rsquo;s stretching it. Because believe it or not, Quick has a much more boisterous and playful side he doesn&rsquo;t reveal to the media or public. It only comes out when the cameras aren&rsquo;t around &ndash; say, at a family get-together with his former NHLer father-in-law and his brother-inlaw, New York Islanders left winger Matt Moulson. &ldquo;My mom always gives him s---for (his boring interview style), because that&rsquo;s not really who he is,&rdquo; Jaclyn said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s loudmouthed, obnoxious, thinks he&rsquo;s hilarious &lsquo;Quickie.&rsquo; The best interview he ever did was with Matt on the NHL Network and he was drinking before. That&rsquo;s the best I&rsquo;ve seen him do, but otherwise I tell him &ldquo;you are the worst interview ever!&rdquo; That&rsquo;s the only time he&rsquo;s let his personality out. But he is reserved. He likes his privacy.&rdquo;</p><p>Indeed, the only time Quick breaks his straight-man routine in an interview is when he discusses Moulson, a first-time Lady Byng Trophy finalist. &ldquo;We had the same number of penalty minutes this year, so I was giving him a little s---about that,&rdquo; Quick said of Moulson. &ldquo;The best part is, he had six penalty minutes, and four were a double-minor, so he only had two penalties all year.&rdquo;</p><p>Of course, some things haven&rsquo;t changed with Quick and likely never will. For example, Jaclyn says he&rsquo;s the most competitive person she&rsquo;s ever met &ndash; and he even cheats when playing games with his two-year-old. And on the ice, he&rsquo;s still got that elite-caliber athleticism and competitive drive, but the calming influence experience brings has made his goaltending that much more difficult to find fault with. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure he reads the game better than he ever did,&rdquo; Cahoon said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s standardized his play now. He&rsquo;s just a mature, much more studied goalie. The athleticism shows itself. He moves in the net effortlessly. His shoulders are square and he&rsquo;s catlike with how he looks through screens and finds pucks.&rdquo;</p><p>Added Doug: &ldquo;His confidence is better. In college if he gave up a bad goal or had a bad game, there was no mistaking it in his demeanor. Now, he understands it&rsquo;s 82 games before you get to the playoffs. So I don&rsquo;t think the highs and lows are as big as they were. On the ice, he&rsquo;s learned to be patient. The technical portion of his game has improved. He doesn&rsquo;t want the big, flashy saves. Now he wants the controlled, positional saves.&rdquo;</p><p>In keeping with that theme, Quick doesn&rsquo;t care for the big, flashy hype that will increase around him after this year. He&rsquo;s appreciative of the recognition and how far he&rsquo;s come, but won&rsquo;t be satisfied until he has delivered something no other goalie in Kings history has: a Stanley Cup championship. &ldquo;Statistically, you could say it&rsquo;s my best year, but goalies are measured by wins and losses and the score doesn&rsquo;t really matter,&rdquo; Quick said. &ldquo;You could have a goalie make 40 saves and lose and he won&rsquo;t be as needed as much as a guy who wins 5-4 and only 20 saves. You have to make saves at the right time. That&rsquo;s what being a goalie&rsquo;s all about.&rdquo;</p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-011313/9619529-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="125" height="126"></div><p>READ WHY RORY BOYLEN BELIEVES JONATHAN QUICK SHOULD WIN THE VEZINA AT <b><a href="http://THN.COM/QUICKFORVEZINA">THN.COM/QUICKFORVEZINA</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

f0028-01

Knight In Shining Armor

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-011415/9619665-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg" title="f0032-01" width="666" height="668"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(JIM MCISAAC/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>MARTIN BRODEUR</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-02954/9619658-1-eng-US/f0032-022.jpg" title="f0032-02" width="160" height="85"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>W</span>HEN</b>&nbsp;<b>THE DEVILS</b> drafted Martin Brodeur in 1990, they already had Sean Burke and Chris Terreri on their roster. And just for good measure, they took Mike Dunham and Corey Schwab in the same draft.</p><p>They thought they were solidifying themselves at the position, but not even they dreamed a member of that group would become a Hall of Famer who would lead them to three Stanley Cups and become the NHL&rsquo;s all-time leader in wins.</p><p>But they did know they had a unique talent. &ldquo;Some players are thoroughbreds and this was a guy who was the son of a goalie who played in the Olympics in 1956 (Denis Brodeur) when the NHL was a six-team league and each team had one goalie,&rdquo; recalled Devils director of hockey operations David Conte, who drafted Brodeur 20th overall. &ldquo;In that draft, everyone thought Trevor Kidd was the special talent. We didn&rsquo;t agree.&rdquo;</p><p>The Devils selected a mind-boggling 10 players in 1990 who would go on to play 100 or more games in the NHL. When Brodeur was picked, he recalled that all he wanted to do was tell his buddies back in St-Leonard, Que., that he played one game in the NHL. But he has developed into, in the minds of many, the greatest player who has ever played the position. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt about it in my mind,&rdquo; Conte said. <b>&ndash; KEN CAMPBELL</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-03698/9619651-1-eng-US/f0032-032.jpg" title="f0032-03" width="665" height="676"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>ILYA BRYZGALOV</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-04530/9619644-1-eng-US/f0032-042.jpg" title="f0032-04" width="160" height="85"></div><p><b>HE</b>&nbsp;<b>MAY BE</b> master of the &ldquo;humangous&rdquo; universe now, but Ilya Bryzgalov had to grind in order to get his time in the sun &ndash; and it took a harrowing twist of fate to get started.</p><p>Bryzgalov was backing up J-S Giguere in Anaheim when a family emergency pulled the starter away from the Ducks just as the 2007 playoffs began. The affable Russian stepped in and took three of the first four games against Minnesota until Giguere returned and the Ducks ended up winning the Stanley Cup.</p><p>But it took a move to Phoenix before Bryzgalov would fully get a crease to himself. &ldquo;The biggest step he took with us was going from a backup to &lsquo;The Guy,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Coyotes assistant GM Brad Treliving. &ldquo;The workload, the pressure, all the things that go with it &ndash; there&rsquo;s a big difference going from 18 to 20 starts up to 60 or 65.&rdquo;</p><p>As a Coyote, Bryzgalov became an elite netminder and in 2010 he was runnerup for the Vezina Trophy, losing to Buffalo&rsquo;s Ryan Miller. Incredibly, Phoenix had picked up its star on waivers. But the next time Bryzgalov, 31, switched uniforms, it would be in more spectacular fashion: He signed a nine year, $51-million mega-contract with Philly last summer, becoming the latest to test the city&rsquo;s goalie curse and the star of HBO&rsquo;s <i>24/7</i> show, thanks to his hilarious ruminations on tigers and the universe. <b>&ndash; RYAN KENNEDY</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-05413/9619637-1-eng-US/f0032-052.jpg" title="f0032-05" width="666" height="682"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(DILIP VISHWANAT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>BRIAN ELLIOTT</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-06351/9619630-1-eng-US/f0032-062.jpg" title="f0032-06" width="160" height="85"></div><p><b>THERE HAVE BEEN</b>&nbsp;few intervals in Brian Elliott&rsquo;s career when anyone considered him a No. 1 NHL goalie. The Senators hoped for it before he imploded in 2010-11 and was shipped to Colorado for Craig Anderson. Elliott was even more awful at high altitude.</p><p>When St. Louis signed him as a free agent last summer, they weren&rsquo;t even sure he&rsquo;d make the team. Elliott was there to provide a challenge for then-24-year-old Ben Bishop. &ldquo;They both signed similar contracts and I thought there was going to be good competition and there was in training camp,&rdquo; said Blues GM Doug Armstrong. &ldquo;We decided to go with Elliott due to the experience he&rsquo;s had over the past few years.&rdquo;</p><p>Jaroslav Halak was the undeniable No. 1, but Elliott had a good first start against San Jose and stopped 306 of the first 321 shots he faced (.953 save percentage). He didn&rsquo;t allow more than two goals in a game until Dec. 3 against Chicago. All of a sudden Elliott, who appeared to be on the outs of the NHL, found himself splitting time with Halak. &ldquo;From Day 1 I had to prove myself,&rdquo; said Elliott, 27. &ldquo;When you don&rsquo;t give up on plays and make big saves in practice, it translates to games. It helped me in the long run, working hard every day, trying to save every puck in practice and battling. That&rsquo;s what gets people to notice you.&rdquo; <b>&ndash; RORY BOYLEN</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-011258/9619623-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="666" height="1303"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PATRICK MCDERMOTT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>BRADEN HOLTBY</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-02867/9619616-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="162" height="87"></div><p><b>WHEN</b>&nbsp;<b>BRADEN HOLTBY&rsquo;S</b> junior career ended in Saskatoon, he pulled up stakes and went straight to Hershey. Holtby would serve as a black ace on the eventual American League 2010 Calder Cup winners, but fate and talent have propelled him to unimagined heights this season.</p><p>Thanks to end-of-year injuries to Tomas Vokoun and Michal Neuvirth, Holtby was driving the bus for the Washington Capitals as they tried to turn a wonky season into playoff glory. No surprise for Mark French, who coached the 22-year-old Lloydminster, Sask., product in Hershey. &ldquo;He integrated with the guys really well and you could see his athletic ability,&rdquo; French said. &ldquo;You could see his development jump up levels when he was here.&rdquo;</p><p>In the Caps&rsquo; first round upset of Boston, though he stoned the defending champs on numerous occasions, Holtby benefited from a tight defensive philosophy. The Bears, however, were aggressors in the AHL. &ldquo;Our M.O. was more offense than defense,&rdquo; French said. &ldquo;So at times he had to stand on his head. Norfolk was really good this year and in those games against the Admirals, he was facing 40 to 45 shots.&rdquo;</p><p>Critical to Holtby&rsquo;s success in the past few years has been his short memory. French lauded his mental toughness and bounce-back capability with the Bears. &ldquo;On many nights,&rdquo; French said, &ldquo;he was the best player on either team.&rdquo; <b>&ndash; RK</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-03681/9619609-1-eng-US/f0033-032.jpg" title="f0033-03" width="666" height="1258"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>HENRIK LUNDQVIST</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-04555/9619602-1-eng-US/f0033-042.jpg" title="f0033-04" width="161" height="87"></div><p><b>THE</b>&nbsp;<b>HISTORY OF</b> Henrik Lundqvist&rsquo;s career shows his toughest test came when he was still in his native Sweden, long before he ever set foot in North America to star for the New York Rangers.</p><p>As an 18-year-old who the Rangers took a chance on with their seventh pick (205th overall) in 2000, Lundqvist struggled his first season with Vastra Frolunda of the Swedish League in 2000-01. He wound up demoted to the second-tier Allsvenskan league for a short spell before settling in with Frolunda&rsquo;s team in Sweden&rsquo;s best junior league. Even then, he didn&rsquo;t set the junior league on fire.</p><p>Lundqvist only began to see light at the end of the tunnel at the 2001 world juniors, when he posted a 1.86 goals-against average and .928 save percentage, helping the Swedes to a fourth-place finish. When he returned to the Frolunda junior squad, his confidence level had risen.</p><p>That being said, Lundqvist still struggled in his first full season in the Swedish Elite League (2.71 GAA, .899 SP in 2001-02). But the next year, he showed glimpses of brilliance, recording a 1.45 GAA and .948 SP. And by the time he played his first NHL game in 2005-06, Lundqvist, 30, had blossomed into a dominant netminder. &ldquo;When I look back on my career, there are certain points where your ability helped you, but you also have some luck along the way,&rdquo; he said. <b>&ndash; ADAM PROTEAU</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-05470/9619595-1-eng-US/f0033-052.jpg" title="f0033-05" width="708" height="1287"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>PEKKA RINNE WHEN</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-06412/9619588-1-eng-US/f0033-062.jpg" title="f0033-06" width="162" height="86"></div><p><b>PEKKA RINNE</b> played as Niklas Backstrom&rsquo;s backup with Karpat Oulu in his native Finland, scouts used to have a little inside joke. &ldquo;They&rsquo;d always say that if you wanted to see Rinne play you&rsquo;d better get there early,&rdquo; said Nashville Predators GM David Poile, &ldquo;because the only time you were going to see him was in the pre-game warmup.&rdquo;</p><p>But when it came time for the Predators to make their eighth round selection in 2004, Poile opened the floor to his scouts and Finnish scout Janne Kekalainen made the case for Rinne. Having faith in his staff, Poile went along with the pick and has looked like a genius ever since.</p><p>But it wasn&rsquo;t just a case of getting lucky. The Predators, as they often do, made sure they developed him properly. After being drafted, Rinne played one more season in Finland, still as Backstrom&rsquo;s backup, then spent three full campaigns in the American League before joining the Predators full time in 2008-09.</p><p>That also represented a leap of faith for 29-year-old Rinne, who could have grown weary of not getting a shot in Nashville and returned home, but chose to continue the long path to the NHL. That choice turned out to be incredibly lucrative (he signed a five-year, $49-million extension this year) for him and hugely beneficiall for the Preds. &ldquo;He believed in us and we believed in him,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;And it has paid off.&rdquo; <b>&ndash; KC</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-01

Roads to Revelation

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0034-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-02996/9619696-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>EYES IN THE SKY A fifth official in the stands could&rsquo;ve called Raffi Torres for his hit on Marian Hossa.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY JONATHAN DANIEL/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-011432/9619703-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="194" height="229"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>A</span>ny time I write</b> about officials, I have to restate my belief (a) they&rsquo;re doing a thankless job; (b) nobody &ndash; particularly not fans who vilify them &ndash; performs better at that job; and (c) they take their direction from the head of officiating, who takes his direction from league commissioner Gary Bettman, who takes his direction from team owners.</p><p>Referees and linesmen are easy targets for people who don&rsquo;t appreciate their place as a cog (albeit a crucial one) in a much bigger machine.</p><p>With those qualifiers out of the way, I&rsquo;m going to say something many will bristle at, but, after the first round of the playoffs underscored the point, needs to be said: The zebras need help.</p><p>Even with a second referee in place since the 2000-01 campaign, there are too many missed crimes and misdemeanors. The league&rsquo;s post-lockout crackdown on obstruction has made the game too quick to call without blowing some of them. And in these days of league parity and similar coaching styles, a blown call could be the difference between deservedly winning an important game or series and being cheated by something that might have been preventable.</p><p>How can we help prevent it? Add a fifth official to the game, situate that official high above the play with access to a bank of monitors and give that person the ability to communicate with one of the on-ice referees to whistle down a play.</p><p>I can hear the squawking already. &ldquo;This will make an already over-officiated game even worse!&rdquo; some of you are saying to yourself (or screaming at the terrified person across from you in the doctor&rsquo;s office) as you read this. &ldquo;Let the players play!&rdquo; others of you will add. I&rsquo;m all for that, but I don&rsquo;t like the idea of players benefitting because an official blinked or had his head turned to focus on another area as the offense took place.</p><p>That&rsquo;s what that fifth official would be there to protect against. He wouldn&rsquo;t have the ability to challenge any and all calls made on the ice. That would disrupt the flow of games to an unnecessary degree and undermines the work done by officials in skates. But let&rsquo;s look at two events from this year&rsquo;s first round as examples of areas in which a fifth official could have intervened in the name of fairness.</p><p>The first came in Game 1 of Pittsburgh&rsquo;s series against Philadelphia, when a veteran linesman didn&rsquo;t call Flyers center Danny Briere&rsquo;s clear offside on the first Flyers goal in an eventual 4-3 Philly victory. After the game, Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said he didn&rsquo;t believe the blown call was the reason his team lost, but it nonetheless was a sufficiently blatant botch-job that the league admitted the error the following day.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote"><b>&ldquo;A blown call could be the difference in a game</b></blockquote><p>The second incident took place when Phoenix&rsquo;s Raffi Torres steamrolled Blackhawks star Marian Hossa in Game 3 of their teams&rsquo; opening round series. Torres received a staggering 25-game suspension from the league for that dirty deed, but because neither referee saw him commit it at 11:51 of the first period, he was allowed to skate around the remainder of the game and could have caused further injury.</p><p>The optics of those incidents is awful. In both cases, the theoretical fifth official could signal down to ice level the correct call that should have been made. Briere&rsquo;s goal would not have counted and Torres could have been assessed an intent-toinjure penalty and ejected immediately. Really, would that take something away from the game itself?</p><p>This isn&rsquo;t a new suggestion, but it is one whose implementation time has arrived.</p><p>Along with the NHL, the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball have all incorporated video replay into their officiating. As fans we accept and understand leaving all the calls up to referees in real time is folly and using non-classic measures to improve fairness is beneficial to both players and fans. An official in a location other than on the playing field is just another measure. The NHL could experiment with the new officiating system at their next research and development camp. And considering the experience deficit among the of-ficiating group created by a number of retirements, it can&rsquo;t hurt.</p><p>I purposefully didn&rsquo;t include the names of the officials in the Briere and Torres incidents, because I don&rsquo;t think they really matter. The point is, no referee is infallible and since there&rsquo;s no room for another referee on the ice, one in the stands is needed as a necessary safeguard to make the game fairer, and better, for all.</p><p>WANT MORE PROTEAU? READ HIS EXCLUSIVE WEB COLUMN THURSDAYS AT <b><a href="http://THN.COM/PROTEAU">THN.COM/PROTEAU</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0034-02

Zoo Needs Another Zebra

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02901/9619748-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="442" height="167"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-011333/9619755-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="70" height="78"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-03745/9619741-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg" title="f0036-03" width="1207" height="1237"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARK SCHEIFELE <span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>nevitably,</b> at least one player will go much higher than most predicted at this summer&rsquo;s draft. Happens every time. Last year, that player was Mark Scheifele, who had the added cachet of becoming the firstever selection made by the new Winnipeg Jets.</p><p>It&rsquo;s not that Scheifele came out of nowhere; it&rsquo;s that he went from the middle of the pack all the way to seventh overall thanks to a season that saw him catch fire for the doormat Barrie Colts of the Ontario League and follow it up with six goals and eight points in seven games for Team Canada at the under-18s. While the pick caused minor shockwaves when it was announced, the Jets&rsquo; new GM knew what he was getting into and didn&rsquo;t want to risk trading down and missing on the Colts center. &ldquo;We essentially wanted our guy,&rdquo; said Kevin Cheveldayoff. &ldquo;We had heard there were teams interested all around us, but that was all speculation at the time.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-04596/9619734-1-eng-US/f0036-042.jpg" title="f0036-04" width="277" height="358"></div><p>Originally drafted by Saginaw, Scheifele was playing Jr. B until his draft year. A trade for goaltender Mavric Parks sent him to Barrie, where the rookie tallied 22 goals and 75 points in 67 games under new coach Dale Hawerchuk. The team was rebuilding and got stomped left and right, but Scheifele was a breakout star and Hawerchuk&rsquo;s connection to Winnipeg proved prescient: Before the draft, the former Jets superstar teased his young charge that Scheifele was going to be taken by the newest Canadian franchise and that he&rsquo;d be presented with a parka on stage instead of a jersey.</p><p>Months later, Scheifele came into his first NHL training camp and dazzled. He racked up points in the pre-season and made the team&rsquo;s opening night roster. The rookie pivot played in seven contests and scored a goal before being sent back to junior. &ldquo;He earned the opportunity to start the season here,&rdquo; Cheveldayoff said. &ldquo;But when you get into the regular season, you&rsquo;re playing for keeps. For an 18-year-old, our biggest concern was long-term development.&rdquo;</p><p>Which is fine by Scheifele. Though his NHL stint was short, he took a lot of lessons back to Barrie, where the Colts reached the second round of the playoffs before losing to Ottawa. &ldquo;Being up there, the pace is totally different,&rdquo; Scheifele said. &ldquo;The level of skill is totally different, so I got a taste of that. Just little tricks: how the guys conduct themselves, learning how to eat properly &ndash; little things you pick up that pro players do.&rdquo;</p><p>There was no hesitation sending the teen to the American League playoffs once Barrie&rsquo;s season ended. Scheifele hit the scoresheet early and often for the St. John&rsquo;s IceCaps, proving he would not be intimidated by the competition. &ldquo;When Mark got there, they put him right in and gave him a premier role,&rdquo; Cheveldayoff said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not shocked by that.&rdquo;</p><p>So maybe nothing should surprise anybody about Scheifele from now on. He&rsquo;ll get another crack at the Jets this fall and though nothing is predetermined, it&rsquo;s fair to say the kid who went from Jr. B to a top-10 draft slot in little more than a year won&rsquo;t take his duty lightly. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve gotta work hard and be determined,&rdquo; Scheifele said. &ldquo;I wanted to be the hardest-working player on and off the ice and I attribute a lot of my success to that.&rdquo;</p><p><b><i>Over the following pages</i></b>&nbsp;<i>you&rsquo;ll find All-Prospect Teams for each franchise based on THN&rsquo;s Future Watch 2012</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0036-02

Jets’ Reach Was On The Mark

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RORY BOYLEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0037-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-02834/9619831-1-eng-US/f0037-022.jpg"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-011188/9619838-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="70" height="78"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-03670/9619824-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="660" height="740"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SIMON DESPRES</b> <span class="photo-credit">(ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span></b>trong as can be at the forward and goalie positions, the Penguins focused on &lsquo;D&rsquo; the past three drafts. Of their five selections in the first two rounds since 2009, four were blueliners. The first of those was Simon Despres, whom Pittsburgh chose 30th overall in &rsquo;09.</p><p>He was supposed to spend the entire season in the American League with Wilkes-Barre Scranton, but when injuries struck in December, Despres got his first NHL call-up and had a good showing in 14 games before sustaining an injury of his own. There was a silver lining, however. &ldquo;I got injured pretty much the same time as Jordan Staal, so for four or five weeks we were always together on the road and in practice and everything,&rdquo; Despres said. &ldquo;I spent a lot of time with him and he showed me the ropes a bit.&rdquo;</p><p>And what better role model than a one-time Selke finalist? Despres has never lacked offensive ability &ndash; he had 134 points in 240 Quebec League games &ndash; but he needs to become more responsible defensively.</p><p>After his injury, he bounced between the AHL and NHL a couple more times and gained valuable playoff experience at both levels. That development will make it interesting to see how quickly Pittsburgh incorporates the 20-year-old into next season&rsquo;s plans. He brings a championship pedigree from a Memorial Cup win with Saint John, which only strengthens his case to stick with a Cup contender fresh off a playoff disappointment.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-04574/9619817-1-eng-US/f0037-042.jpg" title="f0037-04" width="1685" height="3157"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(ANDY MARLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; DALE MACMILLAN/GETTY IMAGES; ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; JONATHAN DANIEL/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0037-02

Trial By Fire On Ice

<div class="byline">&#x2013; BRUCE GARRIOCH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0038-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02893/9619883-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-011293/9619890-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="70" height="78"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-03722/9619876-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="605" height="732"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MARK STONE</b> <span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span></b>trolling through Times Square, 19-year-old Mark Stone got a chance to see more people in five minutes than he&rsquo;d seen all year. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m used to living in small towns in the West,&rdquo; he said.</p><p>He&rsquo;d been riding the bus with the Western League&rsquo;s Brandon Wheat Kings all season. Then, in mid-April, he boarded a flight with the Ottawa Senators to New York with the chance to make his NHL debut at Madison Square Garden. After his walk through downtown New York, Stone found himself on the top line in Game 5 against the Rangers.</p><p>The Senators decided to get their sixth round pick in the 2010 draft ready to take it to the next level and they figured there was no time like the present to give Stone his shot. All he did was pick up an assist on Jason Spezza&rsquo;s first goal of the playoffs by making a pretty play. That will bode well for Stone when he reports for training camp in September trying to win a spot.</p><p>When the Senators drafted Stone, they were concerned about his skating and he has worked hard with director of player development Randy Lee and conditioning coach Chris Schwarz on that area. The Senators have no concerns about Stone around the net &ndash; he scored 41 goals with Brandon &ndash; but it&rsquo;s the matter of getting there. Playing in a playoff game was a big boost for the kid. &ldquo;I came to Ottawa with realistic expectations,&rdquo; Stone said. &ldquo;I just wanted to be here, be around the playoff atmosphere.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-04586/9619869-1-eng-US/f0038-042.jpg" title="f0038-04" width="1633" height="3153"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(CHL IMAGES; FRANCOIS LACASSE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0038-02

Stone Takes It In Stride

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JAMIE ROSS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0039-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-011183/9619935-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02784/9619942-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="70" height="80"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-03618/9619928-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="650" height="764"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JONATHAN HUBERDEAU</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JOEL AUERBACH/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span></b>t&rsquo;s no coincidence the Saint John Sea Dogs have won the Jean-Rougeau Trophy as Quebec League regular season champs all three seasons Jonathan Huberdeau has played for them. He&rsquo;s the most talented player to don their jersey.</p><p>He was effective as a rookie in 2009-10 and exploded for 105 points while leading the Sea Dogs to the Memorial Cup in 2011. And, true to form, the Florida Panthers 2011 first-rounder (third overall) was crucial to Saint John&rsquo;s success this year, notching 72 points despite playing only 37 games due to a broken foot.</p><p>Everything about the St-Jerome, Que., native&rsquo;s game says he&rsquo;s NHL ready &ndash; but his 6-foot-1, 171-pound frame isn&rsquo;t. &ldquo;The biggest thing revolves around strength,&rdquo; said Scott Luce, the Panthers&rsquo; director of scouting. &ldquo;When he was drafted into the Quebec League, he was 150 pounds. When we drafted him, he was around 170. So he has put on weight and he&rsquo;s gotten stronger and more mature physically and mentally.&rdquo;</p><p>The 18-year-old center valued his camp with Florida before returning to junior in the fall, absorbing all the knowledge he could from vets nearly twice his age. &ldquo;Ed Jovanovski&hellip;he was playing in the NHL and I was barely born,&rdquo; Huberdeau chuckled. &ldquo;The veterans were great with me.&rdquo;</p><p>Huberdeau knows he must bulk up before returning to Florida, but doing so, with the goal of one day winning a Stanley Cup, won&rsquo;t happen until his quest for another Memorial Cup ends.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-04517/9619921-1-eng-US/f0039-042.jpg" title="f0039-04" width="1717" height="3161"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHIL ELLSWORTH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES.; MARIANNE HELM/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0039-01

Prepping To Pounce

<div class="byline">&#x2013; BOB DUFF</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0040-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-02560/9619987-1-eng-US/f0040-022.jpg"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-01885/9619994-1-eng-US/f0040-012.jpg" title="f0040-01" width="70" height="79"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-03436/9619980-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="640" height="747"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>GUSTAV NYQUIST</b> <span class="photo-credit">(ABELIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>L</span></b>ate in the season, the Detroit Red Wings were tangling with the Florida Panthers. Detroit rookie left winger Gustav Nyquist corralled the puck behind the Florida net, but found his path blocked by Panthers defenseman Ed Jovanovski.</p><p>Nyquist moved toward Jovanovski, banked the puck off the side of the net while stepping around his check, then picked up his own pass to create a bit of magic and a scoring chance when none seemed possible.</p><p>These bursts of creativity make the Wings believe they have something special in Nyquist. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got skill and he&rsquo;s got a mind,&rdquo; said coach Mike Babcock. &ldquo;We like that. He&rsquo;s going to be a top-six NHL forward.&rdquo;</p><p>In two stints with Detroit this season, Nyquist, 22, one year removed from NCAA duty with the Maine Black Bears, didn&rsquo;t exactly light it up at the NHL level, tallying one goal and seven points in 18 games and getting blanked in four playoff contests, but his 22 goals and 58 points with Grand Rapids of the American League established new assists and points records for a Griffins rookie. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t feel quite as nervous as I did before,&rdquo; Nyquist said of his second stint with the Wings. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lot more comfortable now. I&rsquo;ve met the guys and it&rsquo;s a lot of fun to come up here.&rdquo;</p><p>His summer plans include bulking up his 5-foot-10, 169-pound frame and studying the style of teammates Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk in order to develop even more magical moves to baffle defenders come next season.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-04351/9619973-1-eng-US/f0040-042.jpg" title="f0040-04" width="1627" height="3149"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(BILL SMITH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; RICH LAM/GETTY IMAGES; DAVE REGINEK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; YURY KUZMIN/KHL PHOTO AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0040-02

Shifty And Nifty Nyquist

<div class="byline">&#x2013; JAMIE ROSS</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-01765/9620039-1-eng-US/f0041-012.jpg" title="f0041-01" width="986" height="149"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-02496/9620046-1-eng-US/f0041-022.jpg" title="f0041-02" width="69" height="78"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-03403/9620032-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="667" height="715"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>CHARLIE COYLE</b> <span class="photo-credit">(DAVID CONNELL)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>C</b>harlie Coyle has been on a tear since leaving Boston University to skate with the reigning Memorial Cup-champion Saint John Sea Dogs.</p><p>The 2010 first-rounder racked up 38 points in 23 games with the juggernaut of the Quebec League and hasn&rsquo;t slowed in the playoffs, leading all scorers with 29 points in 13 games heading into the President&rsquo;s Cup final.</p><p>The Sea Dogs are the fifth team Coyle has suited up for in the past four seasons and the East Weymouth, Mass., native said each stop has been necessary to fulfill his professional development. Joining the Sea Dogs put him in the professional headspace he felt was required to take the next step toward the NHL. &ldquo;Every player has their own path to get to where they want to be,&rdquo; said Coyle, who&rsquo;s ranked 14th in THN&rsquo;s Future Watch. &ldquo;At Boston U., there is school and hockey, and you have to balance them. I figured I&rsquo;d come up here to focus more on hockey, leave the school things behind and go solely, 100 percent hockey. Because that&rsquo;s what I want to do for my career and I think more games, playing on a team like this, is very beneficiall for me and my development.&rdquo;</p><p>At 6-foot-2 and 207 pounds, Coyle has size and skill that allow him to dominate the junior ranks. On top of that, his physical, two-way play and ability to excel on the wing or in the faceoff circle are signs of utility he hopes will land him on the Wild&rsquo;s roster next season.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-04349/9620025-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="1649" height="3165"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(GERRY THOMAS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; TOM NATRI; JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0041-01

Coyle Ready To Spring

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0042-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02522/9620091-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01813/9620098-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="70" height="79"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-03410/9620084-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="652" height="713"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JAMIE OLEKSIAK</b> <span class="photo-credit">(TERRY WILSON/OHL IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span></b>he Niagara IceDogs play in an antiquated rink with a smaller-than-regulation ice pad. That space gets even more claustrophobic when Jamie Oleksiak is out there.</p><p>The 6-foot-7, 252-pound blueliner was brought over from Saginaw mid-season and helped Niagara win the Ontario League&rsquo;s Eastern Conference. &ldquo;He plays a smart, two-way game,&rdquo; said Dallas Stars director of scouting and player development, Les Jackson. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s playing in a lot of situations where there&rsquo;s pressure and seldom makes the wrong play.&rdquo;</p><p>The Stars nabbed Oleksiak with the 14th pick in 2011 after the Toronto product completed his freshman season at Northeastern University in Boston. &ldquo;He was a big guy with a lot of raw potential and upside,&rdquo; Jackson said. &ldquo;When you look at him, there are a lot of intriguing physical attributes and a good foundation.&rdquo;</p><p>Playing against older competition in the NCAA was another check mark, but when Oleksiak decided to jump to major junior, the Stars didn&rsquo;t flinch. When Saginaw dealt the giant to the powerhouse IceDogs, the situation got better: Niagara also boasts top Boston Bruins prospect Dougie Hamilton on its blueline and that gave Oleksiak some nice &ldquo;peer pressure,&rdquo; as Jackson put it, to be great.</p><p>He could&rsquo;ve gone to the American League, though the Stars are happy how things turned out.</p><p>Next season, he&rsquo;ll get a shot at the big squad. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be patient,&rdquo; Jackson said. &ldquo;But at the same time, we&rsquo;ll be watching him.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-04329/9620077-1-eng-US/f0042-042.jpg" title="f0042-04" width="1649" height="3166"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(DEBORA ROBINSON/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; GLENN JAMES/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; CHL IMAGES; HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0042-02

Big D’s Huge O

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01795/9620178-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="686" height="467"></div><h2><b>LEGEND</b></h2><span class="image-inline"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-08167/9620199-1-eng-US/f0043-082.jpg" title="f0043-08" width="23" height="23"></span><p><b>SPARE</b></p><span class="image-inline"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-09126/9620192-1-eng-US/f0043-092.jpg" title="f0043-09" width="23" height="23"></span><p>&nbsp;<b>INJURED</b></p><p><b>S SUSPENDED | A AHL 2012 UFA | RFA</b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-07215/9620185-1-eng-US/f0043-072.jpg" title="f0043-07" width="164" height="229"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-03456/9620171-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="685" height="466"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-05305/9620164-1-eng-US/f0043-052.jpg" title="f0043-05" width="605" height="413"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02547/9620157-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg" title="f0043-02" width="685" height="467"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-04350/9620150-1-eng-US/f0043-042.jpg" title="f0043-04" width="685" height="468"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-06252/9620143-1-eng-US/f0043-062.jpg" title="f0043-06" width="605" height="412"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-10111/9620136-1-eng-US/f0043-102.jpg" title="f0043-10" width="686" height="467"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-1196/9620129-1-eng-US/f0043-112.jpg" title="f0043-11" width="606" height="414"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0043-01

2012 ROUND 2 DEPTH CHARTS

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-03329/9620244-1-eng-US/f0044-032.jpg" title="f0044-03" width="534" height="578"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01690/9620251-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg" title="f0044-01" width="69" height="79"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>N</span>o team</b> wants to get embarrassed on home ice, particularly when the whole major junior world is watching. So when the Shawinigan Cataractes were putting the finishing touches on the roster that would host the Memorial Cup this year, one player stood out above others as a must-have: Moncton defenseman Brandon Gormley. &ldquo;He was the biggest name in the Quebec League,&rdquo; said GM Martin Mondou. &ldquo;He put this team an inch higher.&rdquo;</p><p>Gormley brings a lot of relevant experience to the Cataractes, who were upset in the second round of the QMJHL playoffs by Chicoutimi and had a long layover before hosting duties began May 17. His Wildcats took the league title in 2010 and represented the &lsquo;Q&rsquo; at the Memorial Cup in Brandon, where they finished last in a tourney eventually won by Taylor Hall&rsquo;s Windsor Spit-fires. Mondou believes that setback will motivate Gormley even further, but it&rsquo;s the youngster&rsquo;s international experience that really had the GM fired up: Gormley was named the top defenseman at the World Junior Championship this year, helping Canada to a bronze medal in Calgary.</p><p>A first round selection of the Phoenix Coyotes in 2010, Gormley has also impressed his NHL squad with his growing resume. &ldquo;Playing games in May and learning to play a long season are critical development stages to go through,&rdquo; said Coyotes assistant GM Brad Treliving. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s almost impossible to replicate that. Those are big stages.&rdquo;</p><p>And though the NHL draft is notorious for bringing out a lot of fibs among GMs about where they had players slotted, Gormley actually was a gift at 13th overall, much like Cam Fowler was a godsend for Anaheim one pick prior. &ldquo;Thirty teams say they got who they wanted,&rdquo; Treliving said. &ldquo;But both those guys were on our list and they were top guys.&rdquo;</p><p>Both Gormley and Fowler entered the draft as top-five prospects, but a run on forwards such as Ryan Johansen, Brett Connolly and Jeff Skinner pushed back the order. When the Rangers shocked the world by taking hulking D-man Dylan McIlrath, it meant neither of the more skilled blueliners would be going in the top 10. &ldquo;As the picks started coming off the board, we started looking at each other,&rdquo; Treliving said.</p><p>What the Coyotes got was an all-around defenseman who now measures 6-foot-2, 196 pounds. But, according to Mondou, it&rsquo;s Gormley&rsquo;s skill on the power play that&rsquo;s been most welcome in Shawinigan. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a really intelligent player,&rdquo; Treliving said. &ldquo;And in today&rsquo;s game, the most important thing a defenseman needs is sense. He&rsquo;s a big guy</p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-02437/9620237-1-eng-US/f0044-022.jpg" title="f0044-02" width="977" height="1309"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>NOT HIS FIRST RODEO Brandon Gormley played in the 2010 Memorial Cup with Moncton, but he fell short.</b> that moves well and the way he plays, he&rsquo;s an efficient player.&rdquo; <span class="photo-credit">(DAVID CONNELL/QMJHL)</span></figcaption></div><p>Growing up in Prince Edward Island, Gormley hails from the same Murray River locale that spawned Brad Richards. And like the New York Rangers star, Gormley spent some formative years in Saskatchewan at the Notre Dame prep school. &ldquo;It was pretty inspirational to see him do what he did,&rdquo; Gormley said. &ldquo;His family used to babysit me.&rdquo;</p><p>Now it&rsquo;s Gormley&rsquo;s turn to steer his charges in the right direction. Though the Cataractes were the second-best team in the QMJHL this year, the top-ranked team from Saint John was still going strong entering the playoff final and will be a thorn in Shawinigan&rsquo;s side if the two squads meet at the Memorial Cup (see sidebar). Gormley missed the end of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs with a leg injury, so his impact on the Cats was lessened after the trade. &ldquo;The injury certainly affected our team,&rdquo; Mondou said. &ldquo;He spent one month in a cast. For the second round of the playoffs, he was OK to play, but he wasn&rsquo;t 100 per cent. Now he can train for a month.&rdquo;</p><p>And May was big for Shawinigan. The Cats weren&rsquo;t the first Memorial Cup hosts to get bounced early in their league playoffs, which meant the soul-searching was cast aside in favor of researching the future. Mondou and coach Eric Veilleux reached out to past hosts such as Ottawa 67&rsquo;s legend Brian Kilrea, whose 1999 squad lost early in the Ontario League post-season only to rally and win the Memorial Cup as host</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01602/9620230-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg" title="f0045-01" width="518" height="610"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>BEST BLUELINER Gormley was named top defenseman at the 2012 world juniors in Calgary.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>One strategy to keep players fresh is to replicate games as best as possible during the layoff. Up first is a tournament made up of Shawinigan players and prospects, the McGill University team from Montreal and an alumni team of QMJHLers, including American Leaguers Francis Pare of Grand Rapids and Philippe Paradis of Rockford. The teams will be comprised of five skaters plus two subs and the action never stops for 45 minutes &ndash; after a goal, the puck goes right back to center ice.</p><p>Along with off-ice bonding experiences such as golf outings, the Cataractes will also have one more traditionally structured tournament the week before the Memorial Cup, this time boasting competition from Shawinigan grads playing in Europe and the NHL (though Mondou was not at liberty to confirm the names of the NHLers at the time). &ldquo;We still want to be playing,&rdquo; Gormley said. &ldquo;We look at it as a disadvantage. But with that being said, those teams are still battling and we&rsquo;ll be healthy and rested.&rdquo;</p><p>With Gormley back at full strength, the Cataractes will have more than a fighting chance to defend their home turf in what will be his last opportunity at junior glory. Next season will be his first true foray into the pro ranks (he played four games for AHL San Antonio after Moncton&rsquo;s season ended in 2011, scoring one goal) and with two NHL training camps and some pre-season action under his belt, there&rsquo;s no doubt the fire is there to finally wear a Coyotes sweater. &ldquo;Every time you&rsquo;re living with those guys in camp, you&rsquo;re learning,&rdquo; said Gormley, who spent a couple weeks with Ed Jovanovski two summers ago.</p><p>Particularly with defensemen, time and patience are key and Treliving only needs to look at his NHL roster as proof. &ldquo;Young players, they have to play games &ndash; just look at Oliver Ekman-Larsson,&rdquo; he said, referencing the stellar sophomore blueliner who also spent time in San Antonio. &ldquo;David Rundblad played a lot of hockey this year (with Phoenix&rsquo;s new AHL team, Portland) and that&rsquo;s not a bad thing.&rdquo;</p><p>What is for sure is Gormley brings a lot of nice attributes to a franchise adept at developing blueliners and whether he&rsquo;s wearing a howling dog or a bearded pirate on his chest next year, the Coyotes are well aware of what they have in the pipeline. The rest is up to him.</p><p>&ldquo;We do know one thing,&rdquo; Treliving said. &ldquo;Brandon is going to be a big part of our organization for a long time. There&rsquo;s no need to speed up the treadmill.&rdquo;</p><p>But if he helps Shawinigan win the Memorial Cup &ndash; something the organization has never done since joining the &lsquo;Q&rsquo; in 1969 &ndash; it will only add to his current exemplary pace.</p><p><b>For more on the future, check out: <a href="http://thn.com/prospects">thn.com/prospects</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0044-03

Gormley Goes For Glory

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0045-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-02400/9620282-1-eng-US/f0045-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>N</span>othing like a bit of bad-blooded drama to kick off the Memorial Cup, eh? When the host-team Shawinigan Cataractes were knocked out of the Quebec League playoffs in the second round, it gave them a long break before they &ldquo;backed in&rdquo; to the May 18-27 tournament via automatic berth instead of league title.</p><p>No doubt enjoying this bit of tragic theatre: the rival Saint John Sea Dogs, the defending QMJHL and Memorial Cup champs who believe they were robbed of their chance to host the prestigious major junior event by a selection committee that favored the old-guard Cataractes.</p><p>Shawinigan was one of the founding franchises in the &lsquo;Q,&rsquo; suiting up as the Bruins back in 1969-70. The Sea Dogs, on the other hand, have existed for just seven years, but have one more championship to their credit than the Cataractes. And in terms of geo-politics, fellow Maritimers Moncton hosted the Memorial Cup in 2006, so the shift back to Atlantic Canada wasn&rsquo;t in the cards so soon (though the other two bids came from Cape Breton and Halifax). The Wildcats lost the final as hosts that year, dropping the title game to Alexander Radulov and the Quebec Remparts, despite the efforts of Moncton blueliner and future Phoenix Coyotes star Keith Yandle.</p><p>Shawinigan&rsquo;s presentation was bolstered by support from luminaries such as Montreal Canadiens owner Geoff Molson, Habs Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur and former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. While the Cataractes were predicted to be good in 2011-12, they certainly didn&rsquo;t have the pedigree of the Sea Dogs, who returned most of the prominent players that led the team to one of the best records in QMJHL history last season. &ldquo;We have a pretty good team this year with players like Michael Bournival, Michael Chaput and Yannick Veilleux,&rdquo; said Cataractes defenseman Jonathan Racine earlier this year. &ldquo;They will have a pretty good team as well.&rdquo;</p><p>So good in fact, the Sea Dogs lost just one playoff game heading into the league final against Rimouski. Headlined by big-time NHL prospects such as Jonathan Huberdeau (third overall in THN&rsquo;s Future Watch), Charlie Coyle (14th) and Nathan Beaulieu (33rd), the Sea Dogs barely had to load up at the trade deadline. Shawinigan bolstered its defense mid-season by acquiring Brandon Gormley and Montreal Canadiens prospect Morgan Ellis and had already brought in Bournival,  Chaput and New York Islanders draft pick Kirill Kabanov from the now-defunct Lewiston Maineiacs franchise over the summer. &ldquo;Everyone has to learn from the elimination,&rdquo; said Cataractes GM Martin Mondou. &ldquo;When things like that happen, you get stronger.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0045-02

Cats and Dogs Still Fighting

<div class="byline">Photos and Words By Matt Adams</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-02395/9620383-1-eng-US/f0046-022.jpg" title="f0046-02" width="281" height="268"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-03272/9620376-1-eng-US/f0046-032.jpg" title="f0046-03" width="1825" height="1216"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JOEL HAMILTON & CORY MILLETTE</b></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-04224/9620369-1-eng-US/f0046-042.jpg" title="f0046-04" width="811" height="741"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>TURNER ELSON & MARC MCCOY</b></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-06156/9620362-1-eng-US/f0046-062.jpg" title="f0046-06" width="1565" height="919"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01608/9620355-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="856" height="569"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>DEVEN DUBYK, ALEX PETROVIC, TURNER ELSON & JUSTIN WELLER</b></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>W</span>ith so much time spent together on the road, on the ice and even during down time, a team becomes a family &ndash; largely because most leave their hometown to come and play. &ldquo;You have to sacrifice a lot to play in this league,&rdquo; says five-year Western Leaguer Charles Inglis. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have a problem with it, though. Yeah, I miss my friends back home, but I get to play hockey every day. I couldn&rsquo;t ask for more.&rdquo;</b></p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-05179/9620348-1-eng-US/f0046-052.jpg" title="f0046-05" width="1210" height="787"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>CHARLES INGLIS</b></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-07129/9620341-1-eng-US/f0046-072.jpg" title="f0046-07" width="976" height="702"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MATT DUMBA</b></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01550/9620334-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg" title="f0047-01" width="1239" height="776"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>CHAD ROBINSON</b></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-03286/9620327-1-eng-US/f0047-032.jpg" title="f0047-03" width="1345" height="1062"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>CHARLES INGLIS</b></figcaption></div><p><b>It&rsquo;s not just about playing, either. Many, including Inglis, cherish time spent in the Red Deer community.</b></p><p><b>Inside the gym of St. Teresa of Avila, a group of 20 second-graders play a game of floor hockey. As the students run up and down the court, they are suddenly stopped by their teacher&rsquo;s voice &ldquo;Do you guys want to play with some real hockey players?&rdquo; she asks.</b></p><p><b>&ldquo;Yes!&rdquo; the kids reply with enthusiasm. The students will get a chance to spend time with Inglis, Alex Petrovic and Chad Robinson; they&rsquo;ll get to play, run an obstacle course and then have lunch with the trio. &ldquo;The community gives us a ton of support at the games, so it&rsquo;s nice to give back,&rdquo; says Petrovic.</b></p><p><b>One night earlier, the three were fiercely battling a foe. Today they&rsquo;re laughing with impressionable kids as they attempt to climb through a jungle gym. &ldquo;I love getting a chance to participate in these events,&rdquo; Inglis says. &ldquo;Every time I hear that there is going to be a floor hockey day, I&rsquo;m always asking if I can be a part of it.&rdquo;</b></p><p><b>Inglis gets stuck trying to make his way through the obstacle course. The kids all laugh as he tries to untangle himself. &ldquo;Inglis is definitely a favorite among the kids,&rdquo; says Dean Williams, director of marketing for the Rebels. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s because he&rsquo;s a big kid himself.&rdquo;</b></p><p><b>While sitting for lunch, the questions begin: &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s your favorite player?&rdquo; &ldquo;Will you ever win a Stanley</b>&nbsp;<b>Cup?&rdquo; &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your favorite kind of pizza?&rdquo; One of the students runs up and yells, &ldquo;Charles Inglis! I know what every signal a ref makes in hockey looks like!&rdquo;</b></p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02359/9620320-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg" title="f0047-02" width="1135" height="1522"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>CHARLES INGLIS</b></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-04220/9620313-1-eng-US/f0047-042.jpg" title="f0047-04" width="1189" height="987"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>ALEX PETROVIC</b></figcaption></div><p><b>&ldquo;Oh yeah?&rdquo; Inglis asks. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s tripping?&rdquo; The student takes his right hand and does the motion for tripping. Inglis then throws out three more rules and the kid answers them all with ease. &ldquo;Impressive,&rdquo; Inglis says. &ldquo;Maybe you can be a ref someday.&rdquo;</b></p><p><b>The players end the day with autographs for all the kids. Everything from jerseys to hats to even shoes are brought. &ldquo;I saw you score a goal last week,&rdquo; a student says to Petrovic. &ldquo;It was awesome.&rdquo;</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0046-02

BEHIND THE SCENES: RED DEER REBELS

<div class="byline">By Larry Humber</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-02294/9620414-1-eng-US/f0049-022.jpg" title="f0049-02" width="914" height="914"></div><h2><b>ACROSS</b></h2><p>1 A ___ or game misconduct is given when there&rsquo;s a deliberate attempt to injure</p><p> 8 Finn who&rsquo;s one of Henrik Zetterberg&rsquo;s wingers (with10 Across)</p><p> 9 Ottawa&rsquo;s building used to be known as the ___ Centre</p><p>10 See 8 Across</p><p>11 ___ Yzerman is now GM in Tampa</p><p>14 Goalie Marc-___ Fleury</p><p>15 Former Leafs goalie known as &lsquo;The China Wall&rsquo;</p><p>20 Attachments at the top of sticks</p><p>21 The A in AHL</p><p> 22 Ottawa&rsquo;s ___ Spezza</p><p> 23 Derick ___ is a center with Columbus</p><p>24 Rob or &lsquo;Toe&rsquo;</p><h2><b>DOWN</b></h2><p>2 Matt D&rsquo;___ is a winger with the Blues</p><p>3 &lsquo;Cheesy&rsquo; was once in net in Boston</p><p>4 Veteran winger ___ Langenbrunner</p><p>5 Saves</p><p>6 First appearance</p><p>7 ___ Michalek is one of 22 Across&rsquo; wingers</p><p>12 Where Dale Hawerchuk starred as a junior</p><p>13 Brent ___ is on defense in Chicago, pictured</p><p>16 Bruce Boudreau&rsquo;s nickname</p><p>17 State with NHL hockey since 1993</p><p>18 The ___ star is always announced last</p><p>19 ___ Melrose coached the Kings</p><p><b>ANSWERS AVAILABLE IN THE NEXT ISSUE AND AT</b> <a href="http://THN.com/XWORD">THN.com/<b>xword</b></a></p><p><b>LAST WEEK&rsquo;S CROSSWORD SOLUTION ACROSS</b> 1. MARLIES, 4. CHARA, 7. ROMP, 8. FEATHERS, 10. HEARTBREAK, 12. ANTON, 13. ISLES, 14. NIEUWENDYK, 18. RED WINGS, 19. OMEN, 20. ARENA, 21. ROBERTS <b>DOWN</b> 1. MARCH, 2. REMPARTS, 3. SPEAR, 4. CATHARINES, 5. ALEX, 6. ASSISTS, 9. STAN MIKITA, 11. VLADIMIR, 12. ALBERTA, 15. UNGER, 16. KINGS, 17. EDGE<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-02

CROSSWORD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-03228/9620445-1-eng-US/f0049-032.jpg" title="f0049-03" width="853" height="1108"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>A battle-scarred Nick Metz of the Maple Leafs inspects his twigs during the 1947-48 season.</b> <span class="photo-credit">(NAT TUROFSKY/HHOF)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-05163/9620452-1-eng-US/f0049-052.jpg" title="f0049-05" width="128" height="128"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></div>

f0049-03

Blast from the Past

<div class="byline">&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-04209/9620483-1-eng-US/f0049-042.jpg" title="f0049-04" width="657" height="556"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(EBBETS FIELD FLANNELS/EBBETS.COM)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>A</span>s a hockey city, Seattle has always been well dressed. From the Western League&rsquo;s Thunderbirds to their forerunners, the Breakers, great logos and colors have dominated the Northwestern metropolis.</p><p>But the Totems of the old Western Pro League were pioneers. Using an assortment of imagery based off local iconography, the Totems had many great designs. The 1966 version put a nice spin on the Rangers&rsquo; diagonal lettering design and the number on the breast was another great feature now back in style. Solid color scheme, too.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-04

JerseyHound

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-01393/9620521-1-eng-US/f0049-012.jpg" title="f0049-01" width="517" height="525"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>TRAVIS ZAJAC</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>WINNER</b></h2><p><i>&ldquo;Eek! Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!&rdquo;</i></p><p><b>CHRIS WILLIAMS, BERLIN, MD.</b></p><p><i>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m pucked.&rdquo;</i></p><p><b>DON MACINTOSH, STORMONT, N.S.</b></p><p><i>&ldquo;If only i didn&rsquo;t have T-rex arms I might be able to get to that puck&rdquo;</i></p><p><b>BRIAN GLOBE, BEDFORD, N.S.</b></p><p><i>&ldquo;No! My wife&rsquo;s sister&rsquo;s wedding is this weekend. My nose can&rsquo;t be broken!&rdquo;</i></p><p><b>CHRIS TWOHIG, OCOEE, FLA.</b></p><p><i>&ldquo;Hey, I&rsquo;m not a goalie!&rdquo;</i></p><p><b>GILAD STITZ, WINNIPEG</b></p><p><i>&ldquo;Ew, made in Slovakia!&rdquo;</i></p><p><b>EVAN GAUVIN, ST. ANDREWS, MAN.</b></p><p><i>&ldquo;Beam me up! Beam me up! Beam me up!&rdquo;</i></p><p><b>SAM CAYA, HALIFAX, N.S.</b></p><p><i>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sorry, Marty, the devil made me score on you.&rdquo;</i></p><p><b>CHUCK WHALEN, WINNIPEG</b></p><p><b>SEE THIS WEEK&rsquo;S CAPTION CONTEST PHOTO ON PAGE 16</b></p><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-0689/9620514-1-eng-US/f0049-062.jpg" title="f0049-06" width="83" height="82"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p><a href="http://THN.com">thn.com</a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-01

CONTEST

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-01379/9620559-1-eng-US/f0050-012.jpg" title="f0050-01" width="282" height="499"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>L</span>et&rsquo;s get one thing</b> out of the way. Any notion a new feel-good culture is what Montreal needs is the product of media members who were slighted that the GM never returned their calls. Pierre Gauthier is no longer running the Canadiens&rsquo; hockey operations because he did a bad job, not because he gave lousy (or non-existent) news conferences. And while Marc Bergevin is a breath of fresh air from an open communications perspective, that will have currency until, oh, about the time Bergevin makes his first mistake. He will be judged over the next five years of his contract, not on his pranks or one-liners, but on his ability to find first-and second-liners who can return the Canadiens to contender status.</p><p>His first day on the job, he hit all the right notes. Getting the Randy Cunneyworth speculation out of the way was wise. So was not making any Brian Burke-like proclamations. And his stated intention of taking time to assess all aspects of the organization before pulling any triggers was most encouraging.</p><p>That said, Bergevin is a firsttime GM in this league and needs all the help he can get. Here are five pieces of advice for the Canadiens&rsquo; 17th GM. These do not include signing Carey Price and P.K. Subban to long-term contracts or ridding yourself of Scott Gomez. That&rsquo;s low-hanging fruit.</p><p><b>1. Surround yourself with good people.</b> You seem like a guy who is &ldquo;bien dans sa peau&rdquo; and wouldn&rsquo;t be threatened by strong hockey people around you. Take advantage of that and the fact the Canadiens have the resources to capitalize on the NHL not having a salary cap when it comes to paying front office employees.</p><p>Find the brightest and best people available, regardless of whether they&rsquo;re bilingual, and lean on them heavily. There is already talk Bergevin could bring in Rick Dudley as his assistant, which would be an excellent place to start. Hire a top cap-ologist and other eager people who are motivated by the possibility of one day being GMs in the league themselves.</p><p><b>2. Hang on to your draft picks.</b> Your team has some decent prospects, but THN&rsquo;s annual Future Watch edition ranks your franchise 28th in terms of the quality of your future NHLers. That means you and your staff have a big job ahead restocking the system. You have gained yourself a nice honeymoon period, so don&rsquo;t blow it with deals that might make your team margin-ally better in the present, but compromise the long-term future. In fact, it would hardly be the end of the world if the Canadiens picked in the top five in next year&rsquo;s draft, too. Your team has two second round picks in June and three in 2013. There&rsquo;s no reason why, with that many cracks in the top-60 two years running, you shouldn&rsquo;t emerge with a couple of serviceable NHLers.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-02277/9620552-1-eng-US/f0050-022.jpg" title="f0050-02" width="1079" height="716"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MARC BERGEVIN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Take the time to see how Nathan Beaulieu, Jarred Tinordi, Brendan Gallagher, Michael Bournival and Danny Kristo perform in the minors before rushing them to the NHL.</p><p><b>3. Hire an experienced coach&hellip;</b>who speaks French. We&rsquo;ll bet one of the reasons you&rsquo;re willing to wait until after the draft for your coach is that you know the bilingual requirement narrows the field somewhat and this gives you time to cast a wider net.</p><p>Why not pursue someone currently under contract, like Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville, with whom you have a history of success? Every coach has a shelf life and Quenneville might have reached his with the Hawks, so they might let you talk to him. Depending on what the Vancouver Canucks decide in the off-season, Alain Vigneault might be available, too. He was in Montreal before, understands the dynamic and is a much more mature coach now.</p><p><b>4. Get bigger.</b> Bringing in bigger players won&rsquo;t help if they don&rsquo;t think the game well or are too slow. But your team won&rsquo;t improve much as currently constituted and a lack of size is a glaring deficiency. That might necessitate trading a player like Brian Gionta.</p><p><b>5. Keep Trevor Timmins</b>. We realize you&rsquo;ll be eager to put your stamp on the organization and hire your own people. Before you do that, consider retaining your director of player procurement and player development.</p><p>Timmins is an experienced hockey man with a keen eye for talent. His first-rounders have been spotty, but his ability to find gems in subsequent rounds can&rsquo;t be disputed. And when he was running Ottawa&rsquo;s draft table, they got Martin Havlat, Chris Kelly, Anton Volchenkov, Antoine Vermette, Greg Zanon, Jason Spezza, Tim Gleason, Ray Emery and Brooks Laich in three drafts.</p><p>What the Canadiens need most is a credible hockey man who can make bold decisions and formulate a plan he has the conviction to execute. The one-liners and joviality are nice, but wins and Stanley Cups are a lot nicer.</p><p>CAN&rsquo;T GET ENOUGH CAMPBELL? CLICK ON <b><a href="http://THN.com">THN.COM</a></b> FOR KEN&rsquo;S EXCLUSIVE BLOG<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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