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May 20, 2013
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.
15-1 ST. LOUIS BLUES
HOW THEY WIN The Blues boast a plethora of behemoth forwards who have scoring touch, like David Backes, the reborn Chris Stewart and Patrik Berglund. Their D-core is just as big. Alex Pietrangelo, Jay Bouwmeester, Barret Jackman and Roman Polak are built for the rigors of playoff hockey. Because St. Louis has so much size, it does a phenomenal job stopping pucks from reaching its net. Over the past three seasons, the Blues ranked second, first and second in shots against. HOW THEY LOSE Unless Vladimir Tarasenko wakes up, the Blues have nothing close to a point-per-game player. They arguably boast two second lines instead of a bona fide first line. That’s a problem in the playoffs when goals are harder to come by. QUESTION MARK Tarasenko had five goals and 10…
LONG, LONG TIME COMING
OH, BABY DON’T IT FEEL LIKE heaven right now. Don’t it feel like something from a dream.” As Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sung in 1981, the waiting is the hardest part. No team knows that better than the Toronto Maple Leafs, who last won the Stanley Cup in 1967 and have gone nine years and two lockouts without a playoff appearance, the NHL’s longest active drought. This season, however, at least one of those streaks is coming to an end. Barring a collapse of U.S. housing market circa 2008 proportions, the Leafs will have clinched a playoff spot by the time you’re reading this for the first time since 2004. To put into perspective how much time has elapsed since then, consider that Nazem Kadri wasn’t yet in high school and five…
FRESHMAN IN TITLE ONLY
SLOWING DOWN THE TOP ranked Quinnipiac Bobcats was a tall task, but Yale had been there before. En route to the team’s first national championship, the Bulldogs surrendered just five goals in three tournament games against very dangerous squads from Minnesota, North Dakota and UMass-Lowell. In the final, they rode excellent goaltending from Jeff Malcolm and fine shutdown play from the team’s top defensive pairing of Colorado prospect Gus Young (184th overall in 2009) and Bruins pick Rob O’Gara (151st in ’11), a 6-foot-4, 205-pound freshman who played big, important minutes for the squad. “Playing with Robbie, he did not have a season like a freshman would,” Young said. “He made an immediate impact. He’s really easy to play with and as the year went on we started talking a lot…
RUSHING TO BRILLIANCE
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR SHEA WEBER to get a feel for when Roman Josi plans to jump up and lead the rush. “Because it’s every time,” Weber said with a laugh. “If he’s got an opportunity to skate it, he’s going to skate it. He skates very well and he sees the ice well, so he’s very comfortable doing that whenever he needs to.” Coming into the season, there were no doubts about the 22-year-old defenseman’s ability to carry the puck. At issue was whether he could shoulder the burden of replacing Ryan Suter as Weber’s defense partner. With a little more than a week to go in the regular season, that no longer was an issue. “I would put them up with any pair in the National Hockey League right…
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