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.

February 16, 2015

The Hockey News - February 16, 2015

<h2><b>A GOOD FIGHT</b></h2><p class="dropcap"><i><span>T</span>hank you to the editors and writer Matt Larkin for the feature on the women&rsquo;s pro league (&ldquo;The Fight to Sell Women&rsquo;s Hockey,&rdquo; Jan. 26). It&rsquo;s inspiring to learn of the sacrifices made by the U.S.&rsquo;s Julie Chu and the passions of Canada&rsquo;s Tara Watchorn to play hockey at an elite level. Here&rsquo;s hoping the league moves beyond covering the player&rsquo;s expenses and actually pays them salaries in the near future. To further promote the women&rsquo;s game, I suggest THN devote at least one page per issue to the CWHL.</i></p><p><b><i>Carlin Miroslaw, Houston, B.C.</i></b></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012515/9981256-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="521" height="792"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(GREGORY SHAMUS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-021724/9981249-1-eng-US/f0006-022.jpg" title="f0006-02" width="168" height="167"></div><p>LOVE OR HATE ONE OF OUR FEATURES/STORIES? LET US KNOW BY EMAILING US AT <a href="mailto:letters@thehockeynews.com">LETTERS@THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-05525/9981242-1-eng-US/f0006-052.jpg" title="f0006-05" width="154" height="96"></div><p>I loved the article on the CWHL. It clearly captured the positives and struggles from the league so far. Having attended the CWHL All-Star Game at the Air Canada Centre, the skill and passion for the game with these women was very apparent. I hope the league can continue to grow and receive the support and exposure it deserves.</p><p><b><i>Will VanNieuwenhuizen, Paris, Ont.</i></b></p><h2><b>CHL SNUBS</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-06376/9981235-1-eng-US/f0006-062.jpg" title="f0006-06" width="154" height="96"></div><p>I&rsquo;m reading the 16th annual 100 People of Power and Influence list (Jan. 26), and wondering how could you overlook folks like Ron Robison, commissioner of the WHL and Gilles Courteau, commissioner of the QMJHL and fill up your list with minions from the front office of the NHL. Really, gentlemen?</p><p><b><i>Bill Yuill, owner, Everett Silvertips (WHL)</i></b></p><h2><b>JEAN, NOT DON</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-07252/9981228-1-eng-US/f0006-072.jpg" title="f0006-07" width="154" height="96"></div><p>One of hockey&rsquo;s last heroes and probably the classiest player of all-time dies and who do you guys put on the cover? Hockey&rsquo;s biggest clown, Don Cherry. You guys are pathetic.</p><p><b><i>Steeve Mavre, Montreal</i></b></p><h2><b>GOLDEN SMILE</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-09110/9981221-1-eng-US/f0006-092.jpg" title="f0006-09" width="154" height="96"></div><p>Congratulations to Curtis Lazar for winning gold with Canada at the world juniors. Every time he was shown on camera he had a smile on his face. His interviews were a pleasure to watch. It was refreshing to see someone his age so enjoying the honor to represent his country. He is the type of young man we need more of in this country. I commend his parents for the great job they have done raising him. (Also, kudos to the Ottawa Senators for allowing him to play for Canada.) Hopefully Curtis will grace your magazine many times more during his career.</p><p><b><i>Frank H. Pyde, Prince Rupert, B.C.</i></b></p><h2><b>ERROR OF AGES</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-08159/9981214-1-eng-US/f0006-082.jpg" title="f0006-08" width="154" height="96"></div><p>In your &ldquo;Golden Boys&rdquo; 2005 WJC oral history (Jan. 5), it mentions &ldquo;Canada had to hold it&rsquo;s breath on Sidney Crosby&rdquo; because of the NHL lockout. Now, you guys are hockey people, and hockey people should know Crosby wasn&rsquo;t draft eligible until that summer, so he would have been on Team Canada whether or not there was a lockout.</p><p><b><i>Ferg McMorrow, Warman, Sask.</i></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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DEPARTMENTS

THN INBOX

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-01481/9982889-1-eng-US/f0049-012.jpg" title="f0049-01" width="523" height="642"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(DENIS BRODEUR/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p><i>&ldquo;I scored 50 goals in each of my first two seasons but never hit the mark again.&rdquo;</i></p><p><i>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a former Flames captain who was traded for their longest-serving captain.&rdquo;</i></p><p><i>&ldquo;I won the Cup in &rsquo;89 with Calgary and &rsquo;99 with Dallas, plus the &rsquo;99 Conn Smythe.&rdquo;</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-01

Guess WHO!

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-011321/9982286-1-eng-US/f0029-012.jpg" title="f0029-01" width="622" height="701"></div><h2><b>MICHAEL HUTCHINSON</b></h2><p>Winnipeg Jets</p><p>6-3 | 202 lbs</p><p>GP: 19 | GAA: 2.00 | SP: .931</p><p><i>The No. 1 reason Winnipeg found itself in the playoff hunt at the season&rsquo;s halfway point: inspired play from Hutchinson, who built off a stellar 2013-14 in the AHL.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-02906/9982279-1-eng-US/f0029-022.jpg" title="f0029-02" width="552" height="691"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(MICHAEL MARTIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>CALVIN PICKARD</b></h2><p>Colorado Avalanche</p><p> 6-1 | 200 lbs</p><p>GP: 15 | GAA: 2.18 | SP: .936</p><p><i>The WHL&rsquo;s all-time saves leader is finally getting his due in the NHL. Pickard had spelled Semyon Varlamov superbly, leading the NHL in save percentage.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-03648/9982272-1-eng-US/f0029-032.jpg" title="f0029-03" width="556" height="775"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>NIKLAS SVEDBERG</b></h2><p>Boston Bruins</p><p>6-0 | 176 lbs</p><p>GP: 12 | GAA: 2.22 | SP: .922</p><p><i>Boston took a chance on the inexperienced Svedberg after losing Chad Johnson. Svedberg has rewarded the faith, playing like a vet behind Tuukka Rask.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0029-04489/9982265-1-eng-US/f0029-042.jpg" title="f0029-04" width="634" height="685"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(BILL SMITH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>ANTTI RAANTA</b></h2><p>Chicago Blackhawks</p><p>6-0 | 193 lbs</p><p>GP: 10 | GAA: 1.96 | SP: .934</p><p><i>The Hawks coveted Raanta in 2013 after he won the Finnish League&rsquo;s regular season and playoff MVP. He&rsquo;s starred in relief of two Corey Crawford injuries.</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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FEATURES

SHOW STOPPERS

<div class="byline">BY ADAM PROTEAU</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0030-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0030-011511/9982324-1-eng-US/f0030-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>W</span>HEN JONATHAN DROUIN WAS SENT</b> back to junior three months after being drafted third overall in 2013, it raised the eyebrows of many. And nowhere were eyebrows higher than in the THN office, where staffers had almost unanimously predicted him to be that season&rsquo;s Calder winner. After all, he was the perfect fit alongside superstar Steven Stamkos.</p><p>But Tampa&rsquo;s braintrust had a plan.</p><p>The Lightning knew they had an impact player on their hands, but they also were under no illusions as to the timeline needed to develop him into an effective, thriving NHLer. And so, where some organizations &ndash; we&rsquo;re looking at you, Edmonton &ndash; would have dropped Drouin into the league immediately, Bolts GM Steve Yzerman saw a better route: a return to major junior and the QMJHL&rsquo;s Halifax Mooseheads for Drouin&rsquo;s third year there.</p><p>The decision led to think pieces casting doubt on its savviness. Were the Lightning destroying Drouin&rsquo;s confidence (or boring him to tears) by shuttling him to a level he&rsquo;d already dominated? As it turns out, no. Drouin&rsquo;s circumstances were unique and unfortunate: he broke his foot in the summer of 2013 and entered his first training camp having not skated the month of August, throwing off his timing and conditioning. And given that Drouin isn&rsquo;t an imposing specimen at 5-foot-11 and 186 pounds, to simply hand him an NHL roster spot then would&rsquo;ve been throwing him to wolves to have his bones and self esteem picked clean.</p><p>But &ndash; and this is important &ndash; Yzerman&rsquo;s management team also didn&rsquo;t send Drouin into a communications abyss when they returned him to Halifax. Former NHLer and now Lightning director of player development Stacy Roest flew there regularly and sent texts to Drouin on a daily basis. Roest&rsquo;s job was to let the young man know he hadn&rsquo;t been forgotten, to teach and offer advice to prepare him for the NHL level when the call came. The two developed a bond and trust that allowed the player to focus on his process, and that, combined with Drouin&rsquo;s natural maturity, ensured his confidence didn&rsquo;t wane. &ldquo;It was fantastic how many times they came to see me in Halifax,&rdquo; Drouin said. &ldquo;Stacy was here every two or three weeks, and I talked to Steve a lot that year. It&rsquo;s great to see they&rsquo;re watching you and helping you get better.&rdquo;</p><p>Added Roest: &ldquo;It takes time and it is a process. The biggest thing is keeping their confidence. Because now, for the first time in their career, there&rsquo;s some stuff not working and they have to really battle through. But Jonathan&rsquo;s a great kid, a real student of the game who wants to learn.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">IT WAS FANTASTIC <b>HOW MANY TIMES THEY CAME TO SEE ME</b>&hellip;IT&rsquo;S GREAT TO SEE THEY&rsquo;RE WATCHING<br>&ndash; Jonathan Drouin</blockquote><p>Drouin, 19, faced another challenge at the start of this season when he fractured his thumb in training camp and missed the first five games. Once again, he&rsquo;s had to play catch-up with colleagues and try making the jump on a stacked squad that&rsquo;s contending for a Stanley Cup. So although he&rsquo;d only scored twice in 35 games, the fact he had 16 assists while playing fourth-line minutes is encouraging.</p><p>You can&rsquo;t underestimate what missing camp can do. Yet Drouin is, slowly, pulling back with the pack. &ldquo;It is a very important component of a player&rsquo;s season,&rdquo; said assistant GM Julien BriseBois. &ldquo;Did it impact the start of his season? Obviously, it did. I don&rsquo;t know how it could not have. But he can do things on the ice not many players can. That&rsquo;s why he&rsquo;s able, as a 19-year-old, to help us win at the NHL level. There&rsquo;s only a handful of players around the league in that situation. For us, what matters most is, can he help us win? And the answer right now is, yes, he can.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-011372/9982317-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="1277" height="1060"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(SCOTT AUDETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>The lesson, when appraising Drouin or any other young NHL talent: dismiss your fast-food expectations. These are complex human athletes, not microwaveable chimichangas. The cooking time with young stars takes much longer than any drivethru process we&rsquo;ve become accustomed to in other aspects of our lives. An NHL star isn&rsquo;t just made by the player himself, but by himself and his development team. If you don&rsquo;t have a good marriage between those groups, it won&rsquo;t matter how much skill any youngster has.</p><p>In that sense, although Drouin&rsquo;s injury luck has been awful, he&rsquo;s one of the luckiest young talents around. &ldquo;Tampa has been unbelievable and Steve Yzerman deserves credit not just for talk and not just for show, but for committing the time, effort and resources to Jonathan for everything he&rsquo;s needed,&rdquo; said Drouin&rsquo;s agent Allan Walsh. &ldquo;When you have a player situated like Jonathan, it&rsquo;s very important to manage expectations and Tampa has been diligent in seeking to do so. Because they look around the league and see examples of what can happen if you don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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WELL WORTH THE WAIT

<div class="byline">WITH JASON KAY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-012285/9981159-1-eng-US/f0004-012.jpg" title="f0004-01" width="526" height="923"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(RYAN BROOK/TC MEDIA)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>W</span>HAT</b>&nbsp;<b>DOES ANDREW RAYCROFT HAVE</b> that Patrick Roy, Jacques Plante and Dominik Hasek don&rsquo;t? The same thing Brit Selby does and Rocket Richard, Bobby Hull, Jean Beliveau, Guy Lafleur, Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky don&rsquo;t: a Calder Trophy.</p><p>The award for NHL rookie of the year is prestigious, exclusive and possibly the toughest individual bauble to win. Players typically have just one crack at it. But the honoree in any given season doesn&rsquo;t always prove to be the cream of his freshman crop, not in career distinction. It&rsquo;s not always a harbinger of future greatness. Check out these examples <i>(as well as pg. 38 for more on Gretzky&rsquo;s miss)</i>:</p><p><b>1947.</b> Winner: Howie Meeker. He dazzled in Toronto with 27 goals, including five in one game. Eventual best in class: Gordie Howe. Mr. Hockey had just seven of his 801 goals in Year 1.</p><p><b>1948.</b> Winner: Jim McFadden. The Red Wing was never able to match the 24 goals he had in his freshman year. Eventual best in class: Doug Harvey, the seven-time Norris Trophy winner began his big-league journey with eight points in 35 games.</p><p><b>1950.</b> Winner: Jack Gelineau. A two-year wonder, Gelineau was the prototypical good goalie on a bad team. Eventual best in class: Bert Olmstead. Began his Hall of Fame career with a respectable 20 goals.</p><p><b>1957.</b> Winner: Larry Reagan. His best goal-production season was his first, when he had 14 for Boston. Eventual best in class: Pierre Pilote. Three Norrises, eight post-season all-star nods, zero Calders.</p><p><b>1966.</b> Winner: Brit Selby. Rookie stud who became a journeyman. Eventual best in class: Bernie Parent. Two Cups, two Conn Smythes.</p><p><b>1997.</b> Winner: Bryan Berard. Misfortune had a hand in limiting his career. Eventual best in class: Jarome Iginla.</p><p><b>2004.</b> Winner: Andrew Raycroft. &lsquo;Rayzor&rsquo; was viewed as the Bruins&rsquo; next great goaltender. Eventual best in class: Patrice Bergeron.</p><p><b>2009.</b> Winner: Steve Mason. He&rsquo;s still writing his story, but he&rsquo;s striving to live up to the expectations set by his success in Year 1. Eventual best in class: Steven Stamkos. Or Drew Doughty. Or Jonathan Quick. Or Pekka Rinne. Or Claude Giroux.</p><p><b>2010.</b> Winner: Tyler Myers. Like Mason, his career arc is a work in progress. Eventual best in class: John Tavares. Or Tuukka Rask.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0004-021936/9981152-1-eng-US/f0004-022.jpg" title="f0004-02" width="414" height="222"></div><p><b>NEXT ISSUE</b> MARCH 9, 2015</p><p>&nbsp;<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><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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FICKLE FATE OF CALDER

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-031032/9981294-1-eng-US/f0006-032.jpg" title="f0006-03" width="522" height="137"></div><p>IN THE LONG RUN, WHO WILL BE THE BEST PLAYER FROM THIS YEAR&rsquo;S ROOKIE CLASS?</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-04664/9981287-1-eng-US/f0006-042.jpg" title="f0006-04" width="523" height="299"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0006-03

PUCKPOLL

<p>WHAT&rsquo;S KEEPING YOU UP AT NIGHT? IF YOU&rsquo;VE GOT A QUESTION ABOUT THE GAME, SEND IT TO COLUMNIST ADAM PROTEAU AT <a href="mailto:ASKADAM@THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM">ASKADAM@THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a></p><p><b>QUESTION:</b> Can we believe NHL injury reports, or are they just something that is put out to satisfy a league requirement? When the Penguins&rsquo; Patric Hornqvist went out, he had taken a shot to the leg. It was almost immediately reported he had a lower-body injury but would be out &ldquo;a few weeks.&rdquo; Now he&rsquo;s listed as having an upper body injury. Smells like post-concussion to me.</p><p><b><i>Raymond Lees, Springhill, N.S.</i></b></p><p><b>ANSWER:</b> The reports aren&rsquo;t fashioned out of thin air, and you should for the most part believe team diagnoses of player injuries. That&rsquo;s not to say each team is 100 percent honest, but there&rsquo;s no evidence to suggest teams are actively fabricating the nature of injuries. That said, I&rsquo;m still an advocate for independent team doctors, because the only way you can be sure teams are honest about head injuries (or any other injuries) is to ensure the physicians examining the players have no emotional or professional stake in the outcome.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-1165/9981325-1-eng-US/f0006-112.jpg" title="f0006-11" width="540" height="621"></div><p><b>QUESTION:</b> How does the NHL track time on ice for players?</p><p><b><i>Zack Brandon, Great Neck, N.Y.</i></b></p><p><b>ANSWER:</b> The NHL&rsquo;s team of off-ice officials is tasked with that job, and there are individual people at every NHL game &ndash; two, to be exact, one for each team &ndash; and it&rsquo;s all synchronized by laptop computers and hightech programs. Other off-ice officials use the same tools to chart shots, takeaways, faceoffs, etc.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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ASK Adam?

<div class="byline">&#x2013; STU HACKEL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-031321/9981370-1-eng-US/f0008-032.jpg" title="f0008-03" width="249" height="282"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-012405/9981363-1-eng-US/f0008-012.jpg" title="f0008-01" width="660" height="877"><figcaption class="caption-body">CLARK <b>GILLIES</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0008-021847/9981356-1-eng-US/f0008-022.jpg" title="f0008-02" width="1573" height="884"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span></b><b>N THE MONTHS REMAINING</b> before the NHL&rsquo;s most reviled arena gives way to what will be its most unusual, the Islanders continue to celebrate their 43 years at Nassau Coliseum. With on-ice ceremonies featuring alumni greats, promotional giveaways, jersey revivals and a &ldquo;Tradition on Ice&rdquo; commemorative logo on their jerseys and at center ice, the club has been honoring its four consecutive Stanley Cup championships and today&rsquo;s young rising stars.</p><p>The Islanders are bound for Brooklyn &ndash; New York City&rsquo;s largest borough &ndash; and the Barclays Center next season. That&rsquo;s 25 miles west of their current locale but a light year away from their suburban enclave in the Nassau County town of Hempstead. That&rsquo;s where politicians, voters and team executives couldn&rsquo;t agree on a plan to revive the old barn and keep the franchise in place.</p><p>Fans were relieved the team wasn&rsquo;t headed far away, but hearing the news still shocked many in Isles country, whose distaste for the city parallels their antipathy toward the rival Rangers. The club&rsquo;s traditions and identity were formed at the Coliseum, which still has some of the best sightlines in the league and retains an intimacy modern arenas lack. &ldquo;One of the things great about the Coliseum was we never got too banged up,&rdquo; said former Islanders all-star winger Clark Gillies. &ldquo;The boards had so much give to them. It was like getting hit up against the ropes in a boxing ring. We never suffered too many shoulder injuries during those four Cup years.&rdquo;</p><p>But decades of neglect and advances in what teams and fans require from their arena made it obsolete long ago. &ldquo;You would load 16,500 in there and it would get very loud, it would send chills down your back,&rdquo; Gillies said. &ldquo;But having been there as a spectator, you really have to work on your timing as far as going to the bathroom or getting a beer. You could miss half the game.&rdquo;</p><p>Saying goodbye isn&rsquo;t easy, however, especially for former players who felt so connected that they put down roots on Long Island after they retired. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s heartbreaking to me to see it happen,&rdquo; said Bob Nystrom, whose overtime goal in 1980 against the Flyers gave the Islanders their first Stanley Cup. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great building. It&rsquo;s had its time, and I certainly understand that it has to be refurbished, but for me there are just tremendous memories here.&rdquo;</p><p>Nystrom spoke prior to the Dec. 6 contest when he was honored pre-game and fans received a Nystrom mini-locker. Gillies, Billy Smith, Denis Potvin and Bryan Trottier have also had mini-locker nights with Mike Bossy still to come. In addition, the club will honor Pat LaFontaine, a healing of sorts with their former star and, briefly, senior advisor to owner Charles Wang in 2006.</p><p>Another night to honor team legends comes April 4 when &ldquo;Decades Night&rdquo; celebrates the careers of Ed Westfall, Garry Howatt, Butch Goring, Pierre Turgeon and Shawn Bates.</p><p>Additionally, the current players will don replicas of the notorious 1990s era &ldquo;Fisherman&rdquo; sweater (suddenly popular again) for pre-game warmup Feb. 3. They will be signed by the players and auctioned for the team&rsquo;s Children&rsquo;s Foundation. On April 11, the final home game, they will wear replicas of the Isles&rsquo; first sweater, with orange numbers, also to be auction items. be auction items.</p><p>Meanwhile, the logistics of the move to Brooklyn are underway. Constructed as a basketball-only arena, the Barclays Center must shoehorn the ice into the available space. The scoreboard will hang over one of the bluelines, not center ice, and about 400 upper level seats have partially obstructed views.</p><p>Even stranger, the rink eliminates most lower bowl seats in the building&rsquo;s west end. And since there&rsquo;s already no seating in the middle level behind the west end goal &ndash; that&rsquo;s where the main entrance leads to a large opening in the arena seating area &ndash; there will be a noticeable absence of fans at that end. &ldquo;Because we have a relatively unique building for hockey, it also lends itself to opportunities,&rdquo; said Brian Basloe, an executive vice president for the Barclays Center&rsquo;s suite and ticket sales.</p><p>They plan to create a &ldquo;West End Zone&rdquo; for those fans seated in the lower bowl at that end of the building, giving them some unique experiences to make the sparsely occupied area more attractive. The price for the obstructed view seats will be deeply discounted.</p><p>The smaller capacity of the arena (15,795, the NHL&rsquo;s second smallest after Winnipeg) will help retain some of the Coliseum&rsquo;s intimacy. It also allows them to raise all the seats by the glass a few feet to give those in premium seats a premium view of the game (and those fans will have access to the arena club and unlimited free food throughout the game). Plus, they are looking at creating something special in that open mid-level area behind the west end goal.</p><p>Still, there will be inevitable adjustments for the Islanders and their current fans, who historically have formed strong bonds. &ldquo;Most of us came from small towns, so we really identified with the community,&rdquo; Nystrom said in December.</p><p>Always proud they were not part of New York City, the Islanders will soon be in the midst of it.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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JUST ABOUT CLOSING TIME

<div class="byline">By Charlie Teljeur</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0009-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-012133/9981401-1-eng-US/f0009-012.jpg"></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

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THE INSTIGATOR

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0009-021499/9981432-1-eng-US/f0009-022.jpg" title="f0009-02" width="600" height="654"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(DEBORA ROBINSON/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>+PLUS</b></h2><h3><b>LEGENDARY RUNS</b></h3><p><b><i>Teemu Selanne</i></b> (Anaheim), Dominik Hasek (Buffalo) and Rob Blake (L.A.) all get well-earned jersey retirements.</p><h2><b>&ndash;MINUS</b></h2><h3><b>LEAF LETDOWN</b></h3><p>Brad Ross is the second Maple Leafs prospect this year (Carter Ashton) to get a 20-game suspension for banned substances in the AHL.</p><h2><b>+PLUS</b></h2><h3><b>THE JET SET</b></h3><p>The Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; Paul Maurice becomes the second-youngest NHL coach to get 500 wins. Only Scotty Bowman was younger.</p><h2><b>&ndash;MINUS</b></h2><h3><b>THAT&rsquo;S NEVER OK</b></h3><p>Theatre du Rideau Vert in Montreal comes under fire for using a white actor in black-face to portray Canadiens defenseman P.K. Subban.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0009-02

PLUS MINUS

<div class="byline">BY COREY HIRSCH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-012380/9981470-1-eng-US/f0010-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">JORDAN BINNINGTON & <b>COREY HIRSCH</b> <span class="photo-credit">(COREY HIRSCH)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span></b><b>O YOU WANT TO BE A PRO</b> hockey player? Here are five tips professional goalies do that amateurs should include in their training. Repetition and consistency are the keys.</p><h2><b>1. SKATING SKILLS</b></h2><p>The foundation of goaltending is based on balance and edges. The better skater you are, the better goaltender you will be. Before every practice and every game, your warmup should consist of simple skating drills: T-pushes, shuffles and slides. You use a T-push for long crease movements. Push with one leg, turn and point your toe to where you want to go with the other. Push then glide on that blade to the area you want to be. Shuffles are for small positional adjustments moving side to side. It&rsquo;s similar to a small side step. None of them need to take long. It can be one set of 10 reps each and can take anywhere from two to 10 minutes. My NHL goalie routine consisted of the same skating drills every day. The letter drills are the most effective. Use them, do them and become a better goalie.</p><h2><b>2. HAND SKILLS</b></h2><p>With the advancement of the butterfly save in the early to mid-1990s, goaltenders started perfecting their onice coverage, and the use of their hands was a bit forgotten. Catching a puck means possession for your team, and rebounds off your blocker are steered to the corner. In warmup, do a simple drill of catching pucks and blocking shots to the corner. Drop 30 pucks in the slot, and, while in your butterfly, have someone shoot at your hands. The Finnish goalies, especially Kari Lehtonen in Dallas, do this every day as part of their warmup.</p><h2><b>3. MENTAL PREPARATION</b></h2><p>The game of goaltending is 80 percent mental. Prepare your mind before you hit the ice. Take five to 10 minutes and find a quiet spot where you can be alone to focus. Visualizing plays and seeing yourself make the right play will help you immensely. It may mean the difference between making a mistake and making the right decision at the right time.</p><h2><b>4. WORK ETHIC AND FITNESS</b></h2><p>You need to be the hardest worker and most fit player on your team. New York Rangers goalie Mike Richter won the fitness award every year. Hall of Famer Ed Belfour used to run triathlons. St. Louis&rsquo; Brian Elliott is the hardest working goalie I&rsquo;ve ever coached. Your teammates look to you as their rock. Never let them have any doubts. By being fit and working hard, you let them know you have their back.</p><h2><b>5. BOUNCE-BACK MENTALITY</b></h2><p>The best goalies know they&rsquo;re going to have bad goals and more bad games. In an 82-game season, it&rsquo;s impossible not to. They can shrug it off and not let it get to them. Positive self-talk and a positive attitude are the keys to this. Goalies get scored on, but there is no point in letting it bother you. Martin Brodeur has been scored on nearly 3,000 times in his career, and it doesn&rsquo;t bother him. So why should it bother you?</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-021745/9981463-1-eng-US/f0010-022.jpg" title="f0010-02" width="208" height="276"></div><p><b><i>COREY HIRSCH</i></b>&nbsp;<i>won a silver medal at the &rsquo;94 Olympics and played seven years in the NHL. He&rsquo;s coached goalies for eight years with Hockey Canada, Toronto and St. Louis.</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0010-01

GETTING BACK TO THE BASICS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0010-03" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0010-031129/9981501-1-eng-US/f0010-032.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b><i>1.</i></b>&nbsp;<i>T-push to the top of your crease.</i></p><p><b><i>2.</i></b>&nbsp;<i>Square up to face a shot from the slot, then T-push back to your far post.</i></p><p><b><i>1.</i></b>&nbsp;<i>T-push to the top of your crease.</i></p><p><b><i>2.</i></b>&nbsp;<i>Shuffle across crease to the far corner.</i></p><p><b><i>3.</i></b>&nbsp;<i>Recover back to the near post of your net.</i></p><p><b><i>1.</i></b>&nbsp;<i>T-push to the top of your crease.</i></p><p><b><i>2.</i></b>&nbsp;<i>Shuffle across crease to the far corner.</i></p><p><b><i>3.</i></b>&nbsp;<i>Recover back to the far post of your net.</i></p> <span class="photo-credit">(COREY HIRSCH)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0010-03

SKATE TO BE GREAT

<p class="dropcap"><span>M</span>idway through the season, each team has at least one standout player to lean on as the NHL enters its stretch run. Most are doing it with points, some with saves and others through minute munching and good old-fashioned leadership. THN breaks down all 30 teams&rsquo; mid-season MVPs.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-021439/9981735-1-eng-US/f0011-022.jpg" title="f0011-02" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>C RYAN GETZLAF</b></h2><p>Without Corey Perry for 14 games, &lsquo;Getz&rsquo; close to career-best totals.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-03965/9981728-1-eng-US/f0011-032.jpg" title="f0011-03" width="192" height="151"></div><h2><b>D OLIVER EKMAN-LARSSON</b></h2><p>Plays tough minutes and led NHL with six GWG in the first half.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-04718/9981721-1-eng-US/f0011-042.jpg" title="f0011-04" width="192" height="155"></div><h2><b>C PATRICE BERGERON</b></h2><p>The Bruins have underachieved, but Bergeron is still Selke worthy.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-05558/9981714-1-eng-US/f0011-052.jpg" title="f0011-05" width="192" height="158"></div><h2><b>C ZEMGUS GIRGENSONS</b></h2><p>Latvian love made him ASG starter, but he&rsquo;d have made it anyway.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-06469/9981707-1-eng-US/f0011-062.jpg" title="f0011-06" width="192" height="158"></div><h2><b>D MARK GIORDANO</b></h2><p>One of the leading producers from back end also shuts down top lines.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-07417/9981700-1-eng-US/f0011-072.jpg" title="f0011-07" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>D JUSTIN FAULK</b></h2><p>Plays toughest minutes and is still putting up nice offensive numbers.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-08374/9981693-1-eng-US/f0011-082.jpg" title="f0011-08" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>D DUNCAN KEITH</b></h2><p>Has the skill to shut down elite competition and pile up points.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-09352/9981686-1-eng-US/f0011-092.jpg" title="f0011-09" width="192" height="155"></div><h2><b>D ERIK JOHNSON</b></h2><p>Late bloomer inching closer to the form that made him a No. 1 pick.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-10321/9981679-1-eng-US/f0011-102.jpg" title="f0011-10" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>LW NICK FOLIGNO</b></h2><p>Jackets finally got hot when he started lighting up scoresheet.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-11288/9981672-1-eng-US/f0011-112.jpg" title="f0011-11" width="192" height="154"></div><h2><b>C TYLER SEGUIN</b></h2><p>Stars as a whole have disappointed, but he&rsquo;s filled the net regardless.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-12258/9981665-1-eng-US/f0011-122.jpg" title="f0011-12" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>C PAVEL DATSYUK</b></h2><p>Back to a point-per-gamer. The challenge now is staying healthy.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-13206/9981658-1-eng-US/f0011-132.jpg" title="f0011-13" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>C RYAN NUGENT-HOPKINS</b></h2><p>Slowly emerging as a two-way force and is killing penalties.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-14161/9981651-1-eng-US/f0011-142.jpg" title="f0011-14" width="192" height="155"></div><h2><b>C NICK BJUGSTAD</b></h2><p>On a team that struggles to score, Bjugstad is on 30-goal pace.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-15133/9981644-1-eng-US/f0011-152.jpg" title="f0011-15" width="192" height="158"></div><h2><b>D DREW DOUGHTY</b></h2><p>His nearly 30 minutes of average ice time is a career high.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-16104/9981637-1-eng-US/f0011-162.jpg" title="f0011-16" width="192" height="158"></div><h2><b>C MIKKO KOIVU</b></h2><p>Offense is down, but he&rsquo;s been a Selke-caliber defensive forward.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-1786/9981630-1-eng-US/f0011-172.jpg" title="f0011-17" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>G CAREY PRICE</b></h2><p>Habs get outshot regularly, but Price having a season for the ages.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-1870/9981623-1-eng-US/f0011-182.jpg" title="f0011-18" width="192" height="158"></div><h2><b>G PEKKA RINNE</b></h2><p>Preds can afford to take chances on offense with Rinne behind them.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-1960/9981616-1-eng-US/f0011-192.jpg" title="f0011-19" width="192" height="152"></div><h2><b>D ANDY GREENE</b></h2><p>Top defenseman is playing hard minutes and keeping it together.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2043/9981609-1-eng-US/f0011-202.jpg" title="f0011-20" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>C JOHN TAVARES</b></h2><p>Isles are winning with offense and the captain is leading the way.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2135/9981602-1-eng-US/f0011-212.jpg" title="f0011-21" width="192" height="158"></div><h2><b>LW RICK NASH</b></h2><p>Not only the team&rsquo;s top scorer, he&rsquo;s also been lethal short-handed.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2232/9981595-1-eng-US/f0011-222.jpg" title="f0011-22" width="192" height="156"></div><h2><b>RW BOBBY RYAN</b></h2><p>He may not be able to spell &ldquo;intensity,&rdquo; but he can spell &ldquo;big goals.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2326/9981588-1-eng-US/f0011-232.jpg" title="f0011-23" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>C CLAUDE GIROUX</b></h2><p>Has formed a two-man wrecking crew with Jakub Voracek.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2424/9981581-1-eng-US/f0011-242.jpg" title="f0011-24" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>G MARC-ANDRE FLEURY</b></h2><p>Leads the NHL in shutouts in a mumps-ravaged season for Pens.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2523/9981574-1-eng-US/f0011-252.jpg" title="f0011-25" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>C JOE PAVELSKI</b></h2><p>On pace for another 40-goal season and leads the NHL in PP goals.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2623/9981567-1-eng-US/f0011-262.jpg" title="f0011-26" width="192" height="156"></div><h2><b>RW VLADIMIR TARASENKO</b></h2><p>Lack of &lsquo;D&rsquo; forgivable. His sniping makes Blues a different team.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2723/9981560-1-eng-US/f0011-272.jpg" title="f0011-27" width="192" height="155"></div><h2><b>C TYLER JOHNSON</b></h2><p>Rookie of the year finalist last season on pace for 80-plus points.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2823/9981553-1-eng-US/f0011-282.jpg" title="f0011-28" width="192" height="155"></div><h2><b>G JONATHAN BERNIER</b></h2><p>Any success Leafs have had is because Bernier stops the bleeding.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-2923/9981546-1-eng-US/f0011-292.jpg" title="f0011-29" width="192" height="157"></div><h2><b>C HENRIK SEDIN</b></h2><p>He has rebounded nicely from a down year in 2014-15.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-3023/9981539-1-eng-US/f0011-302.jpg" title="f0011-30" width="192" height="158"></div><h2><b>LW ALEX OVECHKIN</b></h2><p>As the captain heated up, so did Caps. &lsquo;Ovie&rsquo; still a top scoring threat.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-3122/9981532-1-eng-US/f0011-312.jpg" title="f0011-31" width="192" height="158"></div><h2><b>G MICHAEL HUTCHINSON</b></h2><p>Even with small sample size, he has put the Jets on playoff radar.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0011-02

MVPS AT THE HALF

<div class="byline">&nbsp;&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011976/9981766-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="837" height="688"><figcaption class="caption-body">PEKKA <b>RINNE</b> <span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>It&rsquo;s always darkest before the light and last season was pretty dark for the Nashville Predators.</p><p>The Southern squad missed the playoffs for a second straight year and a big reason was the absence of star netminder Pekka Rinne, who missed a huge chunk of the season due to hip issues.</p><p>Now Rinne is back and the Predators are flying. New coach Peter Laviolette has been a factor, as has Calder candidate Filip Forsberg, but for THN&rsquo;s staffers, Rinne has been the league&rsquo;s MVP at the halfway point.</p><p>Not only is Rinne putting up the best numbers of his impressive NHL career, but the stability and confidence he gives Nashville have allowed the team to break out of the defensive philosophy that kept them above water in the Barry Trotz era but rarely led to playoff success.</p><p>By any metric, Rinne is having an MVP year. He played 37 of Nashville&rsquo;s first 42 games and led the league in wins by a huge margin (his closest competitor had six fewer wins than the Finnish Fort&rsquo;s 29). His .931 save percentage was tops among starters and that supports the stance that, even though the Preds play great defense, he isn&rsquo;t just a product of the work in front of him.</p><p>So how valuable is Rinne? The Preds are about to find out: Rinne was lost for around a month to a knee injury sustained in mid-January.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0011-01

NASHVILLE KNIGHT

<div class="byline">&nbsp;&#x2013; BENJAMIN WENDORF</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0012-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-012318/9981874-1-eng-US/f0012-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">DAMON <b>SEVERSON</b> <span class="photo-credit">(ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>M</span>UCH OF HOCKEY ANALYTICS INVOLVES FOCUSING ON PRESENT-DAY TOPICS</b> and data, without touching on the players of the past. But there is still enough data from historical NHL players to find a number of ways to compare them to present stars.</p><p>The area of comparison with the greatest potential involves the amount players contribute to their overall team&rsquo;s results. By looking at what share of a team&rsquo;s shot volume a player provides, we can get much closer to understanding what, for example, Brian Leetch contributed versus Aaron Ekblad or, say, Dale Hawerchuk versus Filip Forsberg. In a lot of ways, this is &ldquo;most valuable player&rdquo; thinking: who contributed the most to his team&rsquo;s success.</p><p>The performance of rookies has always been an important piece of the team puzzle. Freshman are typically the most cost-effective players on the roster and no other players carry the potential of being marquee players at less than half the cost. Nothing better illustrates this than looking at how great a share of a team&rsquo;s shot load a rookie might provide. Take, for instance, the greatest rookie forward shooting share season, Alex Ovechkin&rsquo;s 2005-06 (17.6 percent, the eighth-highest mark ever recorded). Ovechkin&rsquo;s salary that season was $925,000. The top NHL forwards were receiving roughly $7.5 million.</p><p>This season, numerous rookies have more than justified their cap hits. The top shooting share rookie forwards and defensemen:</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-021829/9981867-1-eng-US/f0012-022.jpg" title="f0012-02" width="1023" height="262"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-031186/9981860-1-eng-US/f0012-032.jpg" title="f0012-03" width="1024" height="255"></div><p>Even the best-compensated player, Aaron Ekblad, is meeting his cap hit through shooting contributions alone. Never mind that he&rsquo;s been playing heavy minutes for a team in strong contention for a playoff spot. Reaching back to the initial point, it&rsquo;s interesting to see how this year&rsquo;s freshmen stack up against the best rookie performances since 1967:</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-04712/9981853-1-eng-US/f0012-042.jpg" title="f0012-04" width="1024" height="305"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-05500/9981846-1-eng-US/f0012-052.jpg" title="f0012-05" width="1024" height="306"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0012-06404/9981839-1-eng-US/f0012-062.jpg" title="f0012-06" width="544" height="679"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALEX <b>OVECHKIN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Hockey fans with longer memories will nod at some of the forwards above, but you have to have a deep knowledge of NHL history to understand the defensemen. Thanks to the emergence of Bobby Orr, there was a flourish of offense-minded defensemen in the NHL in the 1970s as other teams tried to capture what Harry Sinden had in Boston. Though their attempts were largely in vain, it nevertheless led to the kind of results we see above. At least it gives us a reason to remember the California Golden Seals and Colorado Rockies existed.</p><p>Then there&rsquo;s Milos Holan, the ultimate headscratcher. Chalk his numbers up to a very poor Ducks squad with few offensive options outside Paul Kariya. Hopefully, the ranging eras in these lists point to how well this kind of measure reaches across the decades. This isn&rsquo;t to suggest looking at shots is the only solution. We can also explore which players contributed most to their team&rsquo;s assists:</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-012020/9981832-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg" title="f0013-01" width="1024" height="260"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-021408/9981825-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="1024" height="257"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-031015/9981818-1-eng-US/f0013-032.jpg" title="f0013-03" width="1041" height="1080"><figcaption class="caption-body">ZACH <b>REDMOND</b> <span class="photo-credit">(JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Once again, it&rsquo;s interesting to see how the top rookies of the past performed relative to our contemporary stars:</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-04816/9981811-1-eng-US/f0013-042.jpg" title="f0013-04" width="1024" height="317"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-05630/9981804-1-eng-US/f0013-052.jpg" title="f0013-05" width="1024" height="304"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-06521/9981797-1-eng-US/f0013-062.jpg" title="f0013-06" width="1032" height="1384"><figcaption class="caption-body">AARON <b>EKBLAD</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BILL WIPPERT/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>While it&rsquo;s always fun to remember how solid Espen Knutsen was for those early Columbus Blue Jackets squads, the bigger takeaway is how truly remarkable Ekblad&rsquo;s season is becoming. While the rest of this year&rsquo;s rookie class might not break into the all-time best in these categories, Ekblad&rsquo;s central importance to the surprising Florida Panthers resurgence suggests he has a promising career ahead of him.</p><p>Finally, no examination of contribution would be complete without mentioning the simple fact of playing a large portion of your team&rsquo;s minutes. When thinking about what a player contributes to his squad, one important statement always rings true: you cannot hide on a hockey rink. The play moves too fast for any player to avoid being a part of it, and even if they could they&rsquo;d affect it by not being a part of it. All of the top rookie defensemen this year have been involved in roughly 35 percent of their team&rsquo;s ice time, while all the top forwards lie in the area of 25 percent &ndash; sharp readers will note these percentages fall closely in line with being part of one of three defensive pairings or one of four forward lines. As a group, it means these rookies play a role in roughly 27.5 percent of their team&rsquo;s play (the greater number of forwards decreases this number from an even split between 25 percent and 35 percent). Assuming they are typically one of five skaters, their ultimate contribution is around 5.5 percent of the game, while only taking up three percent of the team&rsquo;s cap hit.</p><p>By breaking down rookie performances into contributions, we not only gain a clearer picture of how today&rsquo;s players compare to rookies of the past, but we also get a convincing argument for the cost-effective  value of rookies in general. No wonder NHL owners in the last CBA pushed so hard for extending entry-level deals two more years &ndash; you can make a killing turning three into 5.5 percent</p><p><i>* Shot and assist data from Hockey Reference; cap hit information from NHL Numbers.</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0012-01

FINDING FRESH EFFICIENCIES

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-012299/9981912-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg" title="f0014-01" width="957" height="1009"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b><i>J.P. PARISE</i></b>&nbsp;<i>1941-2015</i></p><p><b>MINNESOTA NICE</b> Parise&rsquo;s best years came during his seven-plus seasons with the North Stars in the late &rsquo;60s and early &rsquo;70s.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(DENIS BRODEUR/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>J</span></b><b>.P. PARISE WILL BE REMEMBERED BY MOST FANS FOR TWO</b> things: almost decapitating referee Josef Kompalla in Game 8 of the 1972 Summit Series and being the father of NHL star Zach Parise. In reality, of course, he was so much more. Parise, who died Jan. 7 at 73 after a long battle with cancer, will be remembered as an industrious player who got the most out of his abilities and willed his way to an NHL career that lasted almost 900 games. More importantly, he&rsquo;ll be remembered as the man who revived the hockey program at Shattuck St-Mary&rsquo;s, a small prep school in Faribault, Minn., that became a hockey factory after he began coaching there in 1996.</p><p>As coach and later director of hockey at Shattuck-St. Mary&rsquo;s, Parise rebuilt a program on the verge of collapse into a national powerhouse. Along the way, it also produced a mother lode of NHL talent on the boys&rsquo; side and international stars on the girls&rsquo; side. Shattuck-St. Mary&rsquo;s was represented in the 2014 Sochi Olympics by eight graduates &ndash; Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews for Canada and Zach Parise and Derek Stepan for USA in the men&rsquo;s tournament, and Amanda Kessel, Brianna Decker and Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux for USA in the women&rsquo;s.</p><p>Even in the Summit Series, Parise&rsquo;s contribution was significant. Canadian teammate Peter Mahovlich said the fact Parise was in the lineup for the pivotal game despite not being a star NHLer is a testament to how valuable he was to the team. Parise played six of the eight games and had two goals and two assists.</p><p>&ldquo;He was a terrific player for us,&rdquo; Mahovlich said. &ldquo;He was a guy, like a lot of us, who were playing right to the end and playing roles that I don&rsquo;t think a lot of people expected we would. But J.P. Parise was the kind of player we needed. He was a no-non-sense guy who never took a shift off. That was the way he played for us, and that was the way he played in the NHL.&rdquo;</p><p>In Game 8 of the Summit Series, with the Soviets leading 1-0, Parise took an interference penalty at the 4:10 mark of the first period that gave the Soviets a 4-on-3 advantage. Even though the penalty was warranted, Parise was so incensed at the call that after receiving a 10-minute misconduct, he came bearing down on Kompalla with his stick over his head, looking as though he would swing it. At the last second, Parise thought better of it, but he still received a game misconduct. &ldquo;Thankfully, he had enough sense not to do it,&rdquo; Mahovlich said. &ldquo;We all learned a lot about ourselves in that series, and J.P. learned about controlling his emotions. That was something he was able to pass on to kids all those years later when he coached them in Minnesota.&rdquo;</p><p>Parise was always a passionate player, and even though his emotions often got the better of him, they were the main reason he ended up in Minnesota. Not quite able to make the cut in the Original Six, Parise and hundreds of other players got a new lease on life when the NHL expanded to 12 teams for 1967-68. Parise got his chance when the California Golden Seals picked him up from the Boston Bruins in the expansion draft. In one pre-season game, he took a penalty that resulted in the tying goal being scored against the Seals, after which coach Bert Olmstead tore into him. In a 2011 interview with THN, Parise said Olmstead called him a &ldquo;frog&rdquo; and said he&rsquo;d ship him &ldquo;right back to Quebec.&rdquo; &ldquo;So me, being feisty and not understanding my place, I said, &lsquo;F---you. First of all, I&rsquo;m not from Quebec, and just because I screwed up, that gives you no (expletive) right to attack my heritage. It was stupidity at my best. The part of the brain that understands consequences was not quite developed.&rdquo;</p><p>Parise thought at the time he&rsquo;d be going back to Smooth Rock Falls in northern Ontario to a life at the paper mill, but he ended up with the North Stars, where he forged a good NHL career. He played seven-plus seasons with them before being dealt to the New York Islanders in 1975, where he set what was then an NHL record for the fastest overtime goal. It came 11 seconds into the extra period against the New York Rangers to give the Islanders their first-ever playoff series win. He went on to notch 16 points in 17 playoff games for the Islanders, which helped set the stage for the Stanley Cup dynasty that was to follow four years later.</p><p>Parise is just the second player from the 1972 Summit Series to pass away. The first was Bill Gold-sworthy, a team-mate of Parise&rsquo;s with the North Stars and one of his closest friends. Goldsworthy died of complications related to AIDS in 1996.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-021733/9981905-1-eng-US/f0014-022.jpg" title="f0014-02" width="634" height="629"><figcaption class="caption-body">ZACH PARISE & <b>J.P. PARISE</b> <span class="photo-credit">(COURTESY OF J-P PARISE)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0014-01

IN THIS ISSUE

GUTS, GLORY AND GUMPTION

<div class="byline">&#x2013; WAYNE FISH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0015-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-011986/9981957-1-eng-US/f0015-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MVP WITH MEANING</b> When Matt Read gets the Flyers&rsquo; post-game award, it&rsquo;s meaningful for myriad reasons. <span class="photo-credit">(LEN REDKOLES/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>L</span></b><b>OTS OF HOCKEY TEAMS HAVE A</b> designated award &ndash; be it a St. Louis workboot, a Washington Lincoln beard or a Calgary fire helmet &ndash; to bestow on the player who demonstrates the most heart in a victory.</p><p>Craig Berube wanted something extra special. So when the Philadelphia Flyers coach happened to be attending a Memorial Day parade last May near his residence in Bucks County, Pa., and saw marchers wearing garb displaying the name of a local fallen military hero, the light bulb went on.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-021411/9981950-1-eng-US/f0015-022.jpg" title="f0015-02" width="199" height="140"></div><p>Berube arranged a meeting with the parents of the soldier, Colby Umbrell, who died in 2007 during combat in Iraq, and asked for permission to use one of his hats, not only to single out his players but also to honor Umbrell&rsquo;s memory. The Umbrells &ndash; Mark and Nancy &ndash; said yes and accepted Berube&rsquo;s invitation to speak to the team.</p><p>If you&rsquo;ve watched any postgame interviews with the Flyers&rsquo; top star of the game, you&rsquo;ll notice that the player wearing Colby&rsquo;s hat often puts it on in reverse so everyone can see the name &ldquo;Umbrell,&rdquo; which is written on the back. &ldquo;His mom talked about the kind of person he was,&rdquo; said captain Claude Giroux, who&rsquo;s worn the hat several times this season. &ldquo;He was a hard worker and kind of an underdog. He had something to prove. For us, when there&rsquo;s a player of the game, that person gets the hat and deserves it.&rdquo;</p><p>Berube, a native of Canada but a longtime U.S. resident, was taken by the spirit and patrio-tism shown at that parade and thought paying tribute to Umbrell would be a perfect fit for his team. &ldquo;I thought having a helmet or a hat from a vet would be unbelievable, out of respect and using it in the dressing room,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They (the Umbrells) are great people. The mother talked to the team for a while. It was very emotional. Talked a lot about her son. They&rsquo;re really big Flyers fans. It was very well done. Talked about her boy and what it meant to them.</p><p>&ldquo;He did a lot of good stuff. He wasn&rsquo;t just a Ranger in the Army. He did a lot of other things. Great athlete, very well received around that area.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0015-03981/9981943-1-eng-US/f0015-032.jpg" title="f0015-03" width="483" height="708"><figcaption class="caption-body">COLBY <b>UMBRELL</b> <span class="photo-credit">(COURTESY UMBRELL FAMILY)</span></figcaption></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;THE ONE THING THAT WE CAN HANG OUR HAT ON IS THAT HE IS REMEMBERED<br>&ndash; Mark Umbrell</blockquote><p>Nancy&rsquo;s speech struck a chord with the Flyers that resonates to this day. The &lsquo;Colby hat&rsquo; is a one-season thing, but the legacy of it will go on long after that. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;ve gone through what we&rsquo;ve had to go through, the one thing that we can hang our hat on is that he is remembered,&rdquo; Mark said. &ldquo;Honored and remembered. So these kinds of things just warm our hearts.&rdquo;</p><p>According to military reports, Colby Umbrell was making sacrifices for others right up until his life ended at 26 years old. When an exploding device went off during that final mission, Umbrell jumped in front of it to save the lives of two other soldiers. He received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for bravery and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.</p><p>Nancy tried to convey some of these special attributes when she spoke to the team. &ldquo;I started by telling them it wasn&rsquo;t so much about how Colby died but how he lived that made him our hero,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;We talked a little bit about not just his military life but his personal life. How he grew up helping people. He was very community oriented. It&rsquo;s exciting because someone else is acknowledging that in such a good, healthy way that Colby would love. He was a big athlete, and he loved being the underdog.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0015-01

WEARING IT WITH PRIDE

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY </div><div class="byline">PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM D&#x2019;OLIVEIRA PHOTOGRAPHY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-012063/9982016-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>FIRE AND ICE</b> Johnny Gaudreau is burning up the NHL on the upstart Calgary Flames.</figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>F</span>ROM THE HOLLYDELL ARENA</b> he runs in New Jersey, Guy Gaudreau can practically see the hockey-mad city of Philadelphia, though in the small town of Carney&rsquo;s Point, hockey has historically taken a backseat to the other major American sports. The most famous person to come out of the town is actor Bruce Willis, but there&rsquo;s a new name on the scene, and it happens to be Gaudreau&rsquo;s son John.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-011941/9982009-1-eng-US/f0018-012.jpg" title="f0018-01" width="1399" height="1426"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>NAY TO NAYSAYERS</b> Gaudreau&rsquo;s critics have looked down on his small size at every level of hockey. <span class="photo-credit">(DEREK LEUNG/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Yes, in Carney&rsquo;s Point, one of the most dynamic and unlikely hockey talents in generations is simply known to friends and family as &lsquo;John,&rsquo; once a tyke whose dad put Skittles on the ice for him and his younger brother to skate toward while Guy was coaching 16-year-olds. &ldquo;It entertained them for the hour,&rdquo; Guy said. &ldquo;They were really wired up by the time they were done.&rdquo;</p><p>But outside the confines of Riverside South Jersey, that tiny tyke is Calgary Flames right winger Johnny Gaudreau, a.k.a. &lsquo;Johnny Hockey,&rsquo; a prospect whose legend grew so fast that the Flames literally had a private jet pick him up after his college career was finished so he and Boston College linemate Bill Arnold could be whisked away to join the NHL as soon as possible.</p><p>And while Arnold is still learning the pro game one season later in the minors, Gaudreau is one of the top-scoring rookies in the NHL &ndash; not to mention one of the smallest in recent memory. When Calgary drafted Gaudreau in the fourth round in 2011 out of the USHL, the youngster was listed at 5-foot-6 and 137 pounds. He&rsquo;s not a whole lot bigger now, but that hasn&rsquo;t stopped him from putting together one of the most impressive pre-NHL careers around and silencing the many doubters he had. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve definitely been questioned at every level,&rdquo; Gaudreau said. &ldquo;When I was in AAA hockey it was whether I could make the jump to the USHL, or going from USHL to college, college to NHL. There&rsquo;s always been those little people doubting me. A lot of people didn&rsquo;t think I could make it, but I tried to prove them wrong.&rdquo;</p><p>Even his current GM in Calgary was on the fence back then. Brad Treliving was the assistant GM in Phoenix in 2011, and while there was no arguing with the fact Gaudreau had scored 36 goals in a USHL circuit where offense is earned the hard way, the most glaring numbers involved height and weight. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t deny the skill set,&rdquo; Treliving said. &ldquo;But let&rsquo;s be honest: we were worried. How is it going to translate? The credit goes to him. He&rsquo;s been told he was too small since he picked up a stick and skates, and all he does is go out and play.&rdquo;</p><p>Treliving now has the joy of constructing a Flames team on the rebound that includes Gaudreau, thanks to forbearers in Calgary such as director of amateur scouting Tod Button and GM Jay Feaster. To land Gaudreau, the Flames had to be careful, however. The Boston Bruins were well aware of that tiny kid from the Dubuque Fighting Saints because their GM, Peter Chiarelli, was partowner of the team. As the story goes, Chiarelli asked the Saints to keep him in the loop about which other NHL teams were keen on Gaudreau so he could plan his draft strategy, but the Flames played coy in public and beat them to the punch. &ldquo;Calgary asked three times, then not again in the last two months of the season,&rdquo; said then-Saints coach Jim Montgomery, now bench boss of the University of Denver Pioneers. &ldquo;Several teams asked about him, and they asked me if he could play in the NHL. I said &lsquo;I can&rsquo;t answer that question, but if you have the chance to get a top-six forward and power play specialist in the draft, why wouldn&rsquo;t you take him?&rsquo; &rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-011694/9982002-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="2131" height="1426"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SLEIGHT OF HAND</b> The Bruins desperately wanted to draft Gaudreau, but the Flames beat them to him. <span class="photo-credit">(ABELIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">YOU CAN&rsquo;T DENY THE SKILL SET, BUT LET&rsquo;S BE HONEST: <b>WE WERE WORRIED.</b> HOW&rsquo;S IT GOING TO TRANSLATE?<br>&ndash; Brad Treliving</blockquote><p>And so the 104th pick in 2011 became Johnny Gaudreau of Carney&rsquo;s Point, N.J.</p><p>By that time, his mojo was already strong. Dubuque had won the USHL championship Clark Cup with Gaudreau as the leading scorer and a clutch performer. Montgomery recalls being tied 2-2 in the semifinal against Sioux Falls, when future San Jose pick Joakim Ryan corralled a turnover for the Saints. &ldquo;Johnny was gone,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;His anticipation was always two seconds ahead of everyone else.&rdquo;</p><p>With a pass from Ryan, Gaudreau screamed down the left side of the ice and put a shot right under the bar to the goalie&rsquo;s blocker side. For a player who didn&rsquo;t impress much in his first couple pre-season scrimmages but got better as he played with more talent (Buffalo&rsquo;s Zemgus Girgensons was on the same team), Gaudreau had become a game-breaker fast. During the season, Montgomery would let 2-on-1 drills in practice go an extra round or two just so he could giggle at the moves Gaudreau came up with. The title run was an incredible coda.</p><p>The next season, Gaudreau was a freshman at Boston College, where he helped the Eagles to a national title and was named the Hockey East conference&rsquo;s playoff MVP. As a sophomore, his play earned him a spot on Team USA&rsquo;s world junior entry in Ufa, Russia. Again and again, Gaudreau was sprung for rushes and breakaways by teammates. He scored seven times in seven games (adding two assists) to lead the tourney in goals, while earning an all-star team nod and most importantly, a gold medal for the Americans. Three straight chances for titles, three straight wins. Not to mention all the professional lessons he learned from those runs. &ldquo;As I got further into the playoffs each year, I could see how tight the guys were in the dressing room together,&rdquo; Gaudreau said. &ldquo;With all three teams there was a unique connection. Even with the world juniors, we were only together for a month and a half, but you could see how well everyone fit in the room and how close everyone was. That related back to the ice.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-011694/9981995-1-eng-US/f0020-012.jpg" title="f0020-01" width="560" height="858"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(ADAM D&rsquo;OLIVEIRA PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption></div><p>Which is why it was heartbreaking for Gaudreau when his Boston College squad didn&rsquo;t win it all his final year. Instead, the Eagles were upset by eventual champs Union College (who also knocked them out the previous year) in the 2014 semifinal. &ldquo;It was really difficult for me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I thought that year was a pretty big chance to win it again, and we fell a goal short. There was a pretty special connection in that dressing room, too, and that was one of my favorite seasons even though we fell short.&rdquo;</p><p>Part of the reason was that Gaudreau&rsquo;s younger brother Matthew was on that Eagles team. It would also be the last Boston College team he would suit up for. As soon as the tournament ended (with Union beating Minnesota for the title) and with a Hobey Baker Award in hand as the nation&rsquo;s top player, Gaudreau officially signed a contract with the Calgary Flames and was literally whisked away to the pros.</p><p>But Boston College will continue to define Gaudreau in one specific way for the time being: that&rsquo;s where he was christened &lsquo;Johnny Hockey&rsquo; by local fans. Coming on the heels of Johnny Manziel, the Texas A&M quarterback known as &lsquo;Johnny Football,&rsquo; Gaudreau was given the tribute nickname, even though he is much less notorious than Manziel was and continues to be on and off the field. The B.C. pep band would always play Chuck Berry&rsquo;s <i>Johnny B. Goode</i> when Gaudreau scored and his agent, Lewis Gross, now has the &lsquo;Johnny Hockey&rsquo; moniker trademarked for him.</p><p>In person, Gaudreau looks like a normal college kid. Not a college hockey player, mind you &ndash; just a normal, gotta-get-to-English-Lit&ndash;today college kid. He&rsquo;s polite, pleasant and, yes, pretty slight. He is destroying the notion of what an NHL player physically looks like so far, since even smaller players such as Martin St-Louis and Brian Gionta had strength where they lacked height. Even on NHL ice, however, those concerns all blow away. Gaudreau can be like a ghost in the offensive zone, but in a positive way. Opponents don&rsquo;t find him until the last second and by then, he&rsquo;s probably doing something incredibly dangerous with the puck. &ldquo;You could see right from Day 1 that he is an intelligent player who reads the game so well,&rdquo; Treliving said. &ldquo;When you take the intelligence and the offensive instincts that he has, he&rsquo;s able to create stuff out of nothing. He has a special skill set: he can find people off the rush, he creates space for himself and he thinks the game at a level beyond his years. He has given us a real spark.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-021211/9981988-1-eng-US/f0020-022.jpg" title="f0020-02" width="2297" height="1384"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>WHAT&rsquo;S MY NAME?</b> No one can claim Gaudreau&rsquo;s &lsquo;Johnny Hockey&rsquo; moniker. His agent had it trademarked.</figcaption></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">SOMETIMES YOU THINK HE&rsquo;S RUNNING OUT OF ROOM, AND ALL OF A SUDDEN, <b>HE SHIFTS SO FAST HE CREATES SPACE FOR HIMSELF</b> AND SNEAKS THROUGH SMALL HOLES<br>&ndash; T.J. Brodie</blockquote><p>And he is doing so in true rookie form. Montgomery remembers Gaudreau as an old-school kind of player, in the sense that he never really wanted to spend too much time around his coach asking questions; he just wanted to do his job on the ice and not ruffle any feathers. The flamboyancy is left for the game itself. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a quiet guy, but he&rsquo;s a fun guy to watch,&rdquo; said Flames defenseman T.J. Brodie. &ldquo;Sometimes you think he&rsquo;s running out of room, and all of a sudden, he shifts so fast that he creates space for himself and finds a way to sneak through those small holes.&rdquo;</p><p>That coveted speed and ability to make plays at full stride has even added a fun little wrinkle to the Flames&rsquo; attack. Sometimes used on the power play, it involves Gaudreau trailing the play just a little more than usual, almost like a running back in football on a delay route. Once the blueline has been breached, Gaudreau will take off with speed and the puck carrier will attempt to feed him in mid-flight. So basically, David can slingshot his way past the opponent&rsquo;s Goliath defenders.</p><p>Is there work to do? Naturally. Gaudreau made it a priority to get stronger before this season, and that will likely be a constant battle. He said he is most comfortable with the puck on his stick, which means defensive play will be more learned than innate, but he&rsquo;s willing to put in the effort.</p><p>Thanks to the most recent collective bargaining agreement, most NHLers no longer have road roommates, but those on rookie deals still share, and Gaudreau has paired up with Josh Jooris. The two are also living together in Calgary this season and, small world, Jooris is a Union College alum. The fact Gaudreau likes to fall asleep while watching TV is one of his few flaws, according to Jooris, since the brightness on his laptop is &ldquo;like a flashlight shining on me,&rdquo; but other than that the two have been getting along swimmingly.</p><p>On a Flames team augmented with veterans such as Mark Giordano, Jonas Hiller and Jiri Hudler, the youth brigade has still been crucial to the team performing above expectations, even if it&rsquo;s a tough league to break into. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a great group in here and I&rsquo;m fortunate that Johnny is in a similar situation as me,&rdquo; Jooris said. &ldquo;We can relate to the little things going on in the dressing room &ndash; rookies are always a tad behind, and it&rsquo;s nice not being the only one.&rdquo;</p><p>With elite youngsters such as Sean Monahan and Sam Bennett also under Calgary&rsquo;s organizational umbrella, the Flames have a lot to be excited about in the present and future, but that little kid from New Jersey still sticks out as the lucky find.</p><p>Crack open the modern history books &ndash; and by that I mean go to YouTube &ndash; and you&rsquo;ll find footage from 2003 of a pre-teen Gaudreau playing at the famous Brick Tournament in Edmonton. Of course he&rsquo;s one of the smallest players on the ice and of course he&rsquo;s dominating, spinning off defenders behind the net and bewitching the helpless goaltender. He was one of just two outside players brought in to play on the Boston Icemen team for that tourney, and it would mark his early landing point in Alberta.</p><p>For a kid who grew up on the East Coast and then played USHL in the Midwest, Gaudreau still had a lot to explore when he got to Calgary for his first rookie camp this past summer. &ldquo;I had never seen a mountain before in my life until I got to Calgary,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Then the next day, I was hiking on one.&rdquo;</p><p>Johnny Hockey, top of the mountain. Seems about right.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0016-01

HERE’S JOHNNY!

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-021431/9982082-1-eng-US/f0018-022.jpg" title="f0018-02" width="222" height="309"></div><p>Center</p><p><b>Tyler Johnson</b></p><p>Tampa Bay Lightning</p><p>5&rsquo;9&rdquo; | 182 lbs.</p><p><i>Forms one of NHL&rsquo;s top trios with O. Palat, N. Kucherov.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-031015/9982075-1-eng-US/f0018-032.jpg" title="f0018-03" width="222" height="299"></div><p>Right Wing</p><p><b>Martin St-Louis</b></p><p>New York Rangers</p><p>5&rsquo;8&rdquo; | 180 lbs.</p><p><i>Reached 1,000 points, likely booked ticket to Hall of Fame.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-04683/9982068-1-eng-US/f0018-042.jpg" title="f0018-04" width="222" height="293"></div><p>Left Wing</p><p><b>Jaden Schwartz</b></p><p>St. Louis Blues</p><p>5&rsquo;9&rdquo; | 195 lbs.</p><p><i>Playmaker racks up points and has the heart of a bulldog.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-05470/9982061-1-eng-US/f0018-052.jpg" title="f0018-05" width="222" height="306"></div><p>Defense</p><p><b>Sami Vatanen</b></p><p>Anaheim Ducks</p><p>5&rsquo;10&rdquo; | 180 lbs.</p><p><i>Has become Ducks&rsquo; PP quarterback at just 23.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-06369/9982054-1-eng-US/f0018-062.jpg" title="f0018-06" width="222" height="311"></div><p>Defense</p><p><b>Tyson Barrie</b></p><p>Colorado Avalanche</p><p>5&rsquo;10&rdquo; | 190 lbs.</p><p><i>Past 82 games: 56 points. Elite offensive producer on &lsquo;D.&rsquo;</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0018-07297/9982047-1-eng-US/f0018-072.jpg" title="f0018-07" width="222" height="298"></div><p>Goalie</p><p><b>Jhonas Enroth</b></p><p>Buffalo Sabres</p><p>5&rsquo;10&rdquo; | 166 lbs.</p><p><i>Weathers storm with little help from team in front of him.</i></p><p><i>*Positions and bio info according to <a href="http://NHL.com">NHL.com</a></i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0018-02

THE HOCKEY NEWS’ ALL-SMALL TEAM

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0020-10" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0020-1098/9982113-1-eng-US/f0020-102.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0020-10

A SMALL ORDER

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0022-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0022-011577/9982158-1-eng-US/f0022-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>ADOPTED CITY</b> He wasn&rsquo;t hot-housed there, but Filip Forsberg feels at home in Nashville. <span class="photo-credit">(LANCE THOMSON/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>A</span></b><b>T CHRISTMASTIME, WE NORTH AMERICANS</b> have our egg nog. Nordic countries have their glogg (pronounced &ldquo;gloog,&rdquo; with a heavy accent on the &lsquo;oo&rsquo;). You could say that in Sweden they love to glug their glogg, a sweet, high-octane mulled wine that is served warm so as to raise the temperature of the mouth and stomach, thereby pushing the blood to the skin to create an all-round glow, warming the body and the soul from the inside out. Swedes like to spend all Christmas Day sitting around drinking glogg and watching Donald Duck cartoons.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">IF YOU JUST GIVE UP, <b>THAT OBVIOUSLY SAYS A LOT</b> ABOUT WHO YOU ARE AS A PLAYER<br>&ndash; Filip Forsberg</blockquote><p>Anyway, it was only a couple sleeps before Christmas and the Presidents&rsquo; Trophy-contending Nashville Predators found themselves with a rare day off. Now, Filip Forsberg and Mattias Ekholm could have spent their off-day concocting a brew of wine, brandy, cardamom, orange peels and cinnamon sticks themselves. Yeah, that&rsquo;s what a couple of guys in their 20s could have done. But that wouldn&rsquo;t have been nearly as much fun as taking a road trip to Ikea to pick up some glogg themselves.</p><p>The only problem is Nashville got itself an NHL team 16 years ago, but sadly still has no Ikea store. Atlanta, on the other hand, lost its team, but can take solace in the fact its residents can buy reasonably priced particle board furniture with names like &lsquo;Kottebo&rsquo; and &lsquo;Riffla&rsquo; that they have to assemble themselves to their hearts&rsquo; content. So it was on this December day when Forsberg and Ekholm decided to jump into Ekholm&rsquo;s 2015 Audi SQ5 SUV and take the I-24 past Chattanooga to the I-75 into Atlanta, which accounts for a drive of about three-and-ahalf hours. Then they got their brew and a little taste of home at the local Ikea outlet and promptly turned around and drove back. &ldquo;We needed some Christmas stuff there, too, furniture and stuff,&rdquo; said Forsberg in a twang that sounds more Lethbridge than Leksand. &ldquo;We got some Swedish hams, too. It was worth the drive. Ekholm&rsquo;s family came in for Christmas, so they cooked food for all of us. It was great, for sure.&rdquo;</p><p>Great doesn&rsquo;t begin to describe how things are going for Forsberg this season. It&rsquo;s better than great that he&rsquo;s leading all rookie scorers and is an odds-on favorite to become just the second Forsberg in NHL history to win the Calder Trophy. It&rsquo;s outstanding that he&rsquo;s a shoo-in to add $700,000 to his $925,000 salary in performance bonuses. It&rsquo;s spectacular that he&rsquo;s so comfortable in his skin, in no small part because of the bond he&rsquo;s built with fellow Swedish Predators Ekholm and Calle Jarnkrok. The three live in the same condominium building, one that is walking distance to the team&rsquo;s practice rink. But they have to drive to the Bridgestone Arena for the games. And to get groceries. And for the occasional road trip to Atlanta. So all three pile into Ekholm&rsquo;s SUV because &ndash; get this &ndash; he&rsquo;s the only one of the three who owns a vehicle.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-011518/9982151-1-eng-US/f0024-012.jpg" title="f0024-01" width="2122" height="1301"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>HANG ONTO IT, KID</b> Forsberg has thrived under coach Peter Laviolette, who emphasizes puck possession. <span class="photo-credit">(JOHN RUSSELL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>What isn&rsquo;t so great is that he&rsquo;s been asked probably a few hundred times in the last couple of years whether he&rsquo;s any relation to Peter Forsberg. For the record, they are not blood relatives in any way, shape or form, and he&rsquo;s starting to get a little annoyed that Peter Forsberg is going around making it out like they are. Forsberg, it turns out, is a fairly common name in Sweden, not quite as common as Anderson, but right up there. He is, however, directly related to Fredrik Forsberg, his younger brother who plays in Sweden and, having just turned 18, has a chance to be a late-round pick in the NHL draft next summer. &ldquo;I guess there are worse names you could have,&rdquo; Forsberg said.</p><p>That Forsberg is the leading contender for the Calder is due to a conspiring of circumstances that traces its roots way back to when the Washington Capitals traded Semyon Varlamov to the Colorado Avalanche almost four years ago. The Avs gave up a first-round pick in that deal, and the Capitals got the 11th pick of the 2012 draft, which they used to take Forsberg.</p><p>Then, less than two years later, with the Predators out of the playoff race and the Capitals looking for some secondary scoring, Forsberg&rsquo;s rights were sent to Nashville in exchange for Martin Erat and Michael Latta. (No need to remind the Capitals that Erat was a bust who is now playing in Arizona and Latta is a fourth-liner, but we&rsquo;ll do so anyway.) Forsberg would have had to bide his time in Washington, but in Nashville he found himself this season earning his way to playing on the top line with playmaker extraordinaire Mike Ribeiro and trigger man James Neal &ndash; since injured and replaced on the top line by Craig Smith &ndash; and with a new coach whose bent for offense and puck possession was a perfect fit.</p><p>So much of gaining confidence as a young player has to do with being placed in situations where you can succeed, and Forsberg has been given that this season. More importantly, after a rookie pro season in which he found himself in the minors and dealing with a couple injuries, he earned his spot on the top line. Since then, Forsberg has scored at a point-per-game pace and proven to be the kind of player the Predators have only seen for short bursts in their existence &ndash; an almost-homegrown talent with the ability to be a natural creator of offense. Alexander Radulov was probably the first and only player who ever fit that mold, and we all know how that worked out.</p><p>The original plan was for Forsberg to play for the Predators last season. But he came in as a 19-year-old, struggled playing both sides of the puck and didn&rsquo;t produce much of anything under former coach Barry Trotz. &ldquo;Looking back, it was probably a little too overwhelming for him,&rdquo; said Predators GM David Poile. &ldquo;It was too much too soon.&rdquo;</p><p>But then a couple things happened. First, the Predators loaned him to the Swedish team for the world juniors, where he finished second in scoring to Teuvo Teravainen of Finland and was a tournament all-star, top forward and MVP. Excelling against the best players in his own age group gave Forsberg some of his confidence back and instead of going back to Sweden to play in the men&rsquo;s league, he finished the season in the AHL with the Milwaukee Admirals. &ldquo;If you just give up,&rdquo; Forsberg said of his decision to stay in North America and continue the learning curve, &ldquo;that obviously says a lot about who you are as a player.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">THE COACHING CHANGE <b>REALLY BENEFITTED SOME OF OUR PLAYERS</b>, AND IT HAS REALLY BENEFITTED FILIP A LOT<br>&ndash; David Poile</blockquote><p>And Forsberg might not have realized it at the time, but it was the best thing for him. He played top-line minutes in Milwaukee and, although the offense didn&rsquo;t come as easily as he would have liked, he learned to deal with the rigors of the pro game in North America. And after a summer in which he added some strength to his 6-foot-1 frame, Forsberg made it clear from the first day of the Predators rookie tournament that he was ready to make the jump to the NHL.</p><p>Despite the fact the Predators loaded up on veteran players at forward &ndash; acquiring Ribeiro, Neal, Derek Roy (since dealt to Edmonton) and Olli Jokinen in an effort to give new coach Peter Laviolette some offensive tools &ndash; Forsberg continued to make his statement through camp and into the season. That Laviolette has a far more offensive bent than Trotz and has a history of developing talented young offensive players such as Eric Staal in Carolina and Claude Giroux  and Jakub Voracek in Philadelphia gave Forsberg an advantage he would have never had under Trotz. &ldquo;The coaching change really benefitted some of our players, and it has really benefitted him a lot,&rdquo; Poile said. &ldquo;Our coach is open-minded, and he wanted to push the envelope a bit more on the offense. And Filip was scoring every game in the rookie camp and in pre-season, so he got moved to the front of the line pretty quickly.&rdquo;</p><p> It helps that Forsberg is a self-motivated, low-maintenance player who, like his countrymen, is not all that impressed with himself. He&rsquo;s confident, though, without coming off as cocky or arrogant. His Swedish agent, Claes Elefalk, refers to Forsberg as, &ldquo;a hockey nerd,&rdquo; the kind of guy who will play roller hockey on the street of his Leksand neighborhood with all the kids or simply show up for shinny hockey at the local arena that is less than a mile from the home in which he grew up. &ldquo;He is quite special, I must say,&rdquo; Elefalk said. &ldquo;He is quite mature. From the first day I met him, I could tell he was very mature, very determined, very calm and always thinking about what he wants to do. Very, very smart.&rdquo;</p><p> Forsberg finished high school while playing in the First Division, which is one below the men&rsquo;s elite league in Sweden, and was fully fluent in English in his early teens. That isn&rsquo;t unique for Swedish teenagers who have designs on playing in the NHL, but Forsberg has almost no hint of an accent. He didn&rsquo;t turn 18 until about two months after he was drafted in 2012, but Elefalk had NHL teams calling him that year and telling him not to bother prepping his client for his draft interviews because they could see by talking to him that he was fully prepared to handle them himself. In fact, in his last year in Sweden, he did color commentary of Leksand&rsquo;s junior games for fasthockey, a website that provides worldwide live streams of amateur games. &ldquo;He got lots of people complimenting him on the job he did,&rdquo; Elefalk said.</p><p> The comments on Forsberg now as a player are just as glowing. Along with Johnny Gaudreau of the Calgary Flames and Aaron Ekblad of the Florida Panthers, Forsberg will undoubtedly figure prominently in the Calder Trophy race. And with Pekka Rinne as a leading candidate for the Vezina, Shea Weber making his annual bid for the Norris and Laviolette carving out a Jack Adams Award-type season, it could make for a special year in Nashville.</p><p>Forsberg, meanwhile, is adjusting to life in the NHL and, as the mid-season approached, was showing encouraging signs of picking up his scoring pace instead of slowing down. The fear of a young player &ldquo;hitting the wall&rdquo; in the second half of the season has been buffered by the fact Forsberg has already accustomed himself to the rigors of pro hockey by playing in the AHL last season. Off the ice, he may be a strange man in a strange land, Sweden and country music might seem a curious mix. But even there, he has been lucky. Forsberg is represented by the Creative Artists Agency, which also has its tentacles in Hollywood and a headquarters in Nashville to serve its clients in the country music industry. John Huie, who runs the Nashville office and is a power in the industry, is a Predators season ticket holder and has given Forsberg his introduction to country music. &ldquo;John has tried to adopt Filip,&rdquo; Elefalk said.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0025-011329/9982144-1-eng-US/f0025-012.jpg" title="f0025-01" width="876" height="1081"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(JOHN RUSSELL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>So when Forsberg finally does decide to get a car of his own, perhaps Huie will be able to hook him up. Until then, Forsberg and his condo neighbors are more than content to travel together and live a pretty simple life, relatively speaking. &ldquo;That might change pretty soon,&rdquo; Forsberg said.</p><p>He was talking about getting his own car when he said that, but he might very well have been talking about his career. With one more year left on his entry-level deal, Forsberg is setting himself up for a bonanza of a second contract if he keeps up his level of production. Yes, a lot might change for Filip Forsberg, even if he doesn&rsquo;t.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0022-01

SOUTHERN COMFORT

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0024-021091/9982189-1-eng-US/f0024-022.jpg" title="f0024-02" width="725" height="1043"></div><p><i>*Graph is rank among 539 NHLers with 25+ GP</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0024-02

BOY AMONG MEN

<div class="byline">BY JEREMY RUTHERFORD</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0026-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0026-011526/9982234-1-eng-US/f0026-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>BLUES</b>&nbsp;<b>GOALTENDER JAKE ALLEN CHUCKLES</b> at the fact he&rsquo;s still a rookie by NHL standards.</p><p>In 2012-13, Allen started 13 games for the Blues, won nine and was named to the league&rsquo;s all-rookie team. He wasn&rsquo;t needed in St. Louis last season, as the club had Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliott under contract and healthy, so Allen returned to the AHL for a fourth season and won its goaltender of the year award.</p><p>Now 24, seven years after being drafted by the Blues, Allen is back in the NHL &ndash; as a rookie. &ldquo;I have no idea about any of the rules behind that,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know the qualifications that I need, games played or whatever. It&rsquo;s pretty funny, but I&rsquo;ll take it.&rdquo;</p><p>The NHL considers a rookie to be someone who hasn&rsquo;t played &ldquo;in more than 25 NHL games in any preceding seasons, nor in six or more NHL games in each of the two preceding seasons.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s true Allen meets the criteria, but as he said, call him whatever you wish. Just pinch him while you&rsquo;re at it.</p><p>Allen, who stood just 5-foot-7 until he was 15, is now a regular in the Blues&rsquo; crease, and if that weren&rsquo;t exciting enough, he&rsquo;s sharing a dressing room and a golf cart with future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur. &ldquo;Jake idolized Brodeur,&rdquo; said Jordan Allen, his younger brother. &ldquo;I still remember playing hockey in my grandfather&rsquo;s basement, and Jake was always pretending to be Martin Brodeur. Now he&rsquo;s hanging out with him. That&rsquo;s crazy.&rdquo;</p><p>The eldest son of Kurt and Susan Allen, Jake was born in Fredericton, N.B., a town perhaps best known in hockey for being the hometown of Willie O&rsquo;Ree, the NHL&rsquo;s first black player. Shortly after Jake was born, however, the Allens moved to St. Stephen, N.B., where his dad had found a teaching job. It was there Jake, at five years old, first stepped onto the ice with a babysitter. It was an inauspicious start. &ldquo;I cried, turned around and came right back off,&rdquo; he said.</p><p>Jake overcame those early fears and, after playing forward for three seasons, he became a full-time goalie at eight years old. While his son spent his formative years in St. Stephen, Kurt didn&rsquo;t believe the small town (pop. 5,000) afforded Jake enough opportunity. &ldquo;Hockey is not very big there, there was no AAA program,&rdquo; Kurt said. &ldquo;So by moving back to Fredericton, it gave him the exposure and the opportunity to take his game to the next level.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">JAKE IDOLIZED MARTIN BRODEUR&hellip; <b>NOW HE&rsquo;S HANGING OUT WITH HIM.</b> THAT&rsquo;S CRAZY<br>&ndash; Jordan Allen, Jake&rsquo;s younger brother</blockquote><p>Fredericton (pop. 56,000) opened Leo Hayes High School in 1999, and Kurt was named its athletic director. Jake, by then 10, went on to play peewee, bantam and midget in the town&rsquo;s AAA program. &ldquo;Honestly if we don&rsquo;t make that move, I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d be in the NHL,&rdquo; Allen said. &ldquo;Some people, if their parents don&rsquo;t have the ability to move, things just don&rsquo;t work out. It made me blossom into a hockey player. Things could have been a lot different in my life.&rdquo;</p><p>But there would be another turn in Allen&rsquo;s career that, had it not occurred, may have kept him from reaching the NHL.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0027-011401/9982227-1-eng-US/f0027-012.jpg" title="f0027-01" width="1595" height="1105"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SENIOR FRESHMAN</b> Nearly seven years since being drafted, Jake Allen is still considered a rookie. <span class="photo-credit">(SCOTT ROVAK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Allen played his first season of junior hockey with the QMJHL&rsquo;s St. John&rsquo;s Fog Devils. When the team&rsquo;s starting goalie, Timo Pielmeier, left to play in the world juniors in 2007-08, Allen was thrust into action. That got him on Team Canada&rsquo;s radar, and when the Fog Devils were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs it allowed Allen to play in the under-18s in Kazan, Russia, where he led a club coached by Pat Quinn to a gold medal. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all about timing,&rdquo; said Allen, who won the tournament&rsquo;s top goalie honor, an award he accepted from Russian legend Vladislav Tretiak. &ldquo;You never know who&rsquo;s watching. It was a tournament in the middle of nowhere in Russia, but I was able to get noticed by the Blues.&rdquo;</p><p>The Blues took Allen, who had sprouted six inches to 6-foot-1 that season, in the second round (34th overall) in 2008. He played two-plus seasons in the AHL before getting a taste of the NHL in 2012-13. Returning to the minors last season was difficult, but it was made easier by having watched former teammate Ben Bishop put in his time before being traded twice and eventually becoming the starter in Tampa Bay. &ldquo;He was battling every game, and I learned a lot from him,&rdquo; said Allen, who played 172 games with the Peoria Rivermen and Chicago Wolves. &ldquo;I had to bide my time, but I learned a lot about myself. It&rsquo;s been a while since I was drafted, but now I&rsquo;m 24 and actually getting my chance. So, seven years of work&hellip;but it was worth it.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0028-011502/9982220-1-eng-US/f0028-012.jpg" title="f0028-01" width="2122" height="1426"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SLOW &rsquo;N&rsquo; STEADY</b> The Blues let Allen marinate in the minors, playing almost 200 games in the AHL. <span class="photo-credit">(FRANCOIS LACASSE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Allen has a lot of work ahead of him, but the Blues have been impressed so far. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen a guy so even-keeled,&rdquo; said coach Ken Hitchcock. &ldquo;It looks like not much bothers him. He&rsquo;s not afraid of the limelight. The size of the game, the quality of the opponent doesn&rsquo;t bother him. I&rsquo;m not sure, quite frankly, he even knows who we&rsquo;re playing.&rdquo;</p><p>Well, that&rsquo;s not exactly true.</p><p>Last November, Allen got a start at the Bell Centre in Montreal, the city where he played two seasons of junior. It was the first time his grandmother attended an NHL game and the first time his parents and other family members had seen him start. &ldquo;That game meant more than just hockey,&rdquo; said Jake, whose Blues fell 4-1. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t just about winning or losing. It was pretty cool to have them all there.&rdquo;</p><p>An injury to Elliott in November has led to another awe-inspiring moment for Allen.</p><p>The Blues brought in Brodeur, 42, to help shoulder the load &ndash; the same Brodeur whose replica pads Allen received for Christmas when he was 12 years old. &ldquo;Every kid that grew up in my era (was) wanting to be Marty Brodeur,&rdquo; Allen said. &ldquo;I still think he&rsquo;s the biggest thing to ever strap up a set of pads. It&rsquo;s cool to see how much of a regular Joe he is, a regular guy.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">HE&rsquo;S NOT AFRAID OF THE LIMELIGHT. <b>THE SIZE OF THE GAME</b> AND QUALITY OF THE OPPONENT DOESN&rsquo;T BOTHER HIM<br>&ndash; Ken Hitchcock</blockquote><p>The two golfed together on a Blues&rsquo; recent road trip, with Brodeur winning by one stroke. He might have gotten the best of Allen on the course, but Brodeur believes the young goalie has a bright future on the ice. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s his work ethic,&rdquo; Brodeur said. &ldquo;From what I&rsquo;ve seen so far, he works really hard in practices and he&rsquo;s really intense in games. He&rsquo;s got the size (now 6-foot-2), he&rsquo;s got the mobility and he&rsquo;s got that drive to be one of the top goalies.&rdquo;</p><p>Blues goalie coach Jim Corsi, who worked with Vezina winners Dominik Hasek and Ryan Miller in Buffalo, added: &ldquo;He is one of the top guys at his age. His skill set is so strong. He&rsquo;s the modern example of great goaltending today&hellip;so we&rsquo;re very fortunate to have a stud like Jake. He&rsquo;s been ready for a long time.&rdquo;</p><p>Yet if Allen were to have a successful season, much to his amusement, he would still be in consideration for the Calder Trophy, the NHL&rsquo;s rookie of the year award. &ldquo;That,&rdquo; Allen said, &ldquo;would be comical.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0026-01

DREAMS CAN COME TRUE

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0032-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0032-011490/9982390-1-eng-US/f0032-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(SCOTT ROVAK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>AARON</b>&nbsp;<b>EKBLAD&rsquo;S MAIDEN NHL VOYAGE IS</b> equally predictable and shocking.</p><p>On one hand, everything the mammoth defenseman has accomplished with Florida matches what the world expected of him. Prospects didn&rsquo;t come more can&rsquo;t-miss than Ekblad, who at 15 was the first defenseman to earn exceptional status and join the OHL a year early, a la the John Tavares rule. Ekblad logged Clydesdale minutes with the Barrie Colts. He spearheaded a serious stab at the Memorial Cup in 2013. He manned Canada&rsquo;s blueline at the 2014 world juniors with middle-aged poise. Months after the Panthers made him the first D-man in eight years to go first overall in the NHL draft, he entered the world&rsquo;s best circuit already 6-foot-4 and 216 pounds.</p><p>Ekblad wasn&rsquo;t old enough to legally drink, and he was barely eligible to attend an R-rated movie without mommy and daddy, but he was as ready as he could possibly be, built like a tank and noticeably polished in interviews. It seemed like the kid would make it look easy, and he largely has. His 24 points after 40 games placed him third among rookies and miles ahead of the pack for the lead among freshman blueliners. Only Damon Severson averaged more minutes among rookies. It was precisely the smooth transition Ekblad was supposed to make. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t feel intimidated at all, actually,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I had guys like Willie Mitchell, and obviously this is a young team, so guys like (Aleksander) Barkov and (Nick) Bjugstad were able to welcome me with open arms. So that counts as fairly easy in my mind.&rdquo;</p><p><i>Fairly easy?</i> It makes you want to grab Ekblad&rsquo;s enormous shoulders and shake him. <i>Don&rsquo;t you realize what you&rsquo;ve done?</i></p><p>We&rsquo;re not witnessing run-of-the-mill rookie excellence. Context is everything and the deck should&rsquo;ve been stacked against Ekblad as (a) a defenseman and (b) an 18-year-old defenseman. How hard is it for players of this ilk to produce immediately in the NHL? Per <a href="http://quanthockey.com">quanthockey.com</a>, only five D-men in history have started an NHL season at 18 and produced more than 25 points. Each did it in 61 or more games. In 40 contests, Ekblad already had the eighth-best total alltime for an 18-year-old D-man. His 49-point pace put him on track to pass Robert Gordon &lsquo;Bobby&rsquo; Orr for second all-time, trailing only Phil Housley&rsquo;s virtuoso 66-point showing. (Doug Bodger, Petr Svoboda and Jim Benning are the other three 18-year-old rookie blueliners to exceed 25 points.)</p><p>Why is Ekblad in such rare company? The thinking has always been that forwards have an easier time transitioning to the NHL and that it&rsquo;s an extremely tough racket for a teenage blueliner to navigate the position. A direct jump for an elite defense prospect takes longer on average. We crunched the numbers of skaters drafted in the first round of the past 20 drafts. We excluded players who were 20 or older when chosen, and we disqualified draft classes that had a lockout immediately afterward, so the &ldquo;past 20&rdquo; drafts excluded 1994, 2004 and 2012 and included 1992 and 1993. In that time 18.6 percent of skaters went on to start their next season with their NHL clubs. Forwards made the jump 21.2 percent of the time. Defensemen? Just 13.1 percent.</p><p>An obvious reason D-men transition slower is they fight for one of six starting roster spots, not 12. But many who&rsquo;ve done it believe it&rsquo;s more than that. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re the last line of defense, and when you make a mistake it&rsquo;s a lot more likely to end up in your net, rather than being a forward when you still have the defense backing you up,&rdquo; said Flyers defenseman Luke Schenn, who went right to the NHL at 18 in 2008-09 after Toronto drafted him fifth overall. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re relied on for many different things. Battling big, strong veteran forwards in corners and in front of the net, moving the puck efficiently and being matched up against good forwards every team you play, every night.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-021060/9982383-1-eng-US/f0034-022.jpg" title="f0034-02" width="2336" height="1322"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>RUDE AWAKENING</b> Seth Jones excelled as a rookie teen before his heavy workload caught up to him. <span class="photo-credit">(JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>&ldquo;Maybe I&rsquo;m a little biased toward it, but I definitely see, with young defensemen, it takes a while to find their way in the NHL versus a forward. Not to say forward&rsquo;s easy by any means, but, obviously, playing &lsquo;D&rsquo; you just have that much more responsibility.&rdquo;</p><p>Housley offers especially unique perspective on life as an 18-year-old NHL defenseman. Not only did he pull it off with historic success as a Buffalo Sabre in 1982-83, but he also witnessed the feat again last season as an assistant coach in Nashville. Housley watched Seth Jones, 2013&rsquo;s No. 4 overall pick, stick with the Predators. Housley had already coached Jones with the U.S. gold medallist WJC team in 2013, and Housley continues to mine from his experiences more than 30 years ago to teach Jones today.</p><p>For Housley, there&rsquo;s nothing tougher for a teenage blueliner than learning what kinds of forwards they&rsquo;ll face every game. The most dynamic attackers, from Alex Ovechkin to Rick Nash, have outstanding peripheral vision, allowing them to make unexpected plays, Housley says, so young D-men must learn to never let their guard down.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-011512/9982376-1-eng-US/f0034-012.jpg" title="f0034-01" width="725" height="780"><figcaption class="caption-body">PHIL HOUSLEY & <b>SETH JONES</b> <span class="photo-credit">(FREDERICK BREEDON/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>They have to maintain their body position and not get beat to the net. &ldquo;They say you don&rsquo;t really come into your own as a defenseman until you&rsquo;re about 24 or 25,&rdquo; Housley said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve played three or four seasons when you really get an understanding of the players you&rsquo;re up against, their systems, what they do on their forecheck, how to break out versus pressure, using your feet.&rdquo;</p><p>Defensemen have more to process on any given shift than forwards. And perhaps that&rsquo;s why the position can be so mentally taxing for a teenager. Jones said he felt great about his start in 2013-14, in which he logged 24-plus minutes a game and played alongside superstar Shea Weber while Roman Josi was injured. But the weight of everything Jones had to learn and the grind of adjusting to competing against grown men caught up with him. Housley even admits he and the Preds played Jones too much too early and paid for it. &ldquo;I was playing off adrenaline, the first 25 to 30 games, just excited to be there, and it kind of took a dive on me,&rdquo; Jones said.</p><p>Jones is overly hard on himself, being the competitor he is. He still played 77 games and tallied 25 points as a 19-year-old. But his point is valid and one the Panthers and Ekblad should consider in the coming months.</p><p>Good teams look to exploit that vulnerability, too. Schenn says some veterans believed they had a physical advantage over him and tried to impose their will. Ekblad says he knows during road games opponents will deploy their best players against him and partner Brian &lsquo;Soupy&rsquo; Campbell, looking to test an 18-year-old kid&rsquo;s mettle and create a mismatch. As a result, Ekblad has faced a who&rsquo;s who of elite players. He says the Sedins wowed him, that Ovechkin&rsquo;s speed, skill and shot &ldquo;are ridiculous,&rdquo; that Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby are obviously great, and that Jaromir Jagr is, well, a devil of a defensive assignment because of &ldquo;that butt he sticks out, and he holds onto the puck like no other.&rdquo;</p><p>With so much responsibility and so many opponents preying on defensemen, cautionary tales emerge of coveted blueliner prospects psychologically damaged after being rushed to the NHL. New Jersey&rsquo;s Adam Larsson, picked fourth overall in 2011, lost his confidence after an inconsistent rookie campaign and watched most of the Devils&rsquo; run to the Cup final from the press box. Only now, three years later at 22, is he back looking like an everyday NHLer. GM Lou Lamoriello feels Larsson deserved to make the team at 18, as he&rsquo;d played against men in Sweden and had a mature build, but Lamoriello acknowledges there were risks. &ldquo;When things are going good (in the NHL), you don&rsquo;t have a chance to fail and then recover without everybody seeing it or it costing you a game,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Whereas in the minors, when you go through the growing process, you can learn, because everybody knows it&rsquo;s a development team, and you&rsquo;re going through these mistakes, and you have to live with them.&rdquo;</p><p>Blunders in the high-stakes NHL get rookie D-men benched. Depending on their mental makeup, some may start questioning themselves as they wait to play again, Lamoriello said. That&rsquo;s why he much prefers to let his D-men develop a year or two in the AHL. &ldquo;Confidence plays a major role,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an overused word and maybe under-respected at times. We think that at 18 and 19, they&rsquo;re 30 years old. They&rsquo;re not.&rdquo;</p><p>The Leafs took heat for deploying Schenn in such a hockey mad-market, too. He held his own quite well at 18 but struggled at times in subsequent seasons and wound up dealt to Philadelphia by 2012. He insists he has no regrets about making the immediate jump but ponders what would&rsquo;ve happened had he stayed in WHL Kelowna one more year on a star-studded team that had Memorial Cup aspirations. Jones doesn&rsquo;t like to look back, either. The way he sees it, if he was meant to return to his junior team in WHL Portland, it would&rsquo;ve happened.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0035-011397/9982369-1-eng-US/f0035-012.jpg" title="f0035-01" width="1399" height="1042"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>KILL OR BE KILLED</b> At 18, in just his eighth NHL game, Luke Schenn fought veteran enforcer Chris Neil. <span class="photo-credit">(GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>The key to avoiding post-traumatic stress disorder for a teenage rookie defenseman, Housley says, is not just putting in the work to avoid the mistakes, which he says is best done by watching as much video as possible, studying &ldquo;the book&rdquo; on opposing forwards and learning how to eat and rest properly. It&rsquo;s mainly about expecting and not fearing the mistakes that do happen. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not going to have only good games,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just hard to do at a young age on an 82-game schedule. What you have to do is, whatever you have that day, if you have 85 percent, bring your best 85 percent.&rdquo;</p><p>Schenn says he&rsquo;d continue to tell himself he belonged in the NHL after giving up a goal or having a passive shift. Part of surviving in the wild is not showing fear, right? And the quintessential example came eight games into Schenn&rsquo;s career. Ottawa Senators enforcer Chris Neil caught Matt Stajan with a knee, and Schenn decided to retaliate. &ldquo;Obviously, Chris Neil, me as an 18-year-old, he&rsquo;s not a guy you&rsquo;re going to go up to all the time and ask to fight, but I just felt like that was a way of sticking up for a teammate and showing, physically, that you can compete with some of the bigger, stronger guys out there.&rdquo;</p><p>And in a lot of ways, that moment signified a paradigm shift. Of Schenn&rsquo;s draft class, five of the 12 defensemen taken in Round 1 played their next games in the NHL, including him, Drew Doughty, Alex Pietrangelo and Zach Bogosian. It was by far the most successful D-man draft class of the past 20, with a 41.7 percent success rate in the first round. In the five qualified classes we studied since then, 18.2 percent of D-men made the jump, versus 20.2 percent of forwards. Is the game changing? Is the gap closing?</p><p>Ekblad sure makes it seem that way. It helps being blessed with the physicality of a 25-year-old, but while he owes much of that to his frame, he worked for some of it. He knew he&rsquo;d have men thrown at him instead of boys. &ldquo;The best piece of advice I ever got was to be ready for that, and I spent the summer training,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And there haven&rsquo;t been too many huge surprises. It&rsquo;s just more or less adaptation and the transition&rsquo;s gone smoothly so far.&rdquo;</p><p>The mental rigors of the position and the lack of spots will always limit how many teenage D-men reach the NHL right away, but expect the upward trend to continue. Instead of waiting to fill out, kids now do it manually via vigorous fitness regimens like Ekblad&rsquo;s. As Schenn puts it, guys work out at 13 and 14 like they used to at 17 and 18. They have better access to information than any past NHL generation. They can watch every game every opponent has ever played. They can fine-tune their bodies with the right foods to have them humming along at peak energy. So maybe Ekblad is justified to be so darned relaxed about the whole thing. If the NHL is a Darwinian landscape, Ekblad had every evolutionary advantage to be naturally selected.</p><h2><b>PAST 20 NHL DRAFTS 1<sup>ST</sup> ROUND PICKS</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-011320/9982362-1-eng-US/f0033-012.jpg" title="f0033-01" width="1393" height="506"></div><p><i>*Excludes lockout draft classes (1994, 2004, 2012). Includes 1992 and 1993 draft classes</i></p><h2><b>PAST 5 NHL DRAFTS 1<sup>ST</sup> ROUND PICKS</b></h2><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0034-03834/9982355-1-eng-US/f0034-032.jpg" title="f0034-03" width="1380" height="493"></div><p><i>*Excludes lockout draft class of 2012. Includes 2009 draft class</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0032-01

BOY WONDERS ON THE BLUELINE

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-011413/9982449-1-eng-US/f0036-012.jpg" title="f0036-01" width="320" height="268"></div><h2><b>COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS<sub>&trade;</sub></b></h2><p>Hey Buddy:</p><p>January 14, 2015</p><p>Wow, that was some hit, wasn&rsquo;t it? You&rsquo;ll probably never skate through the neutral zone with your head down when Darren Langdon is on the ice again, right? In case you&rsquo;re wondering where you are at the moment, you&rsquo;re in Raleigh, N.C. Actually, you&rsquo;re in an ambulance and, yeah, that&rsquo;s your dad riding with you. Way to screw up the Dads&rsquo; Trip there, pal.</p><p>You&rsquo;re probably in no mood to read this right now, but this is as good a time as any. It&rsquo;s your 32-year-old self here, and in case your head is too scrambled to figure out, it&rsquo;s 2015. Hey, and guess what, you&rsquo;re playing for the Columbus Blue Jackets these days. They&rsquo;re the guys who came into the league as an expansion team a couple months ago.</p><p>I&rsquo;m writing to you because you need to know everything has turned out pretty great. I know things don&rsquo;t look so promising right now, with you being carted off to the hospital and all, but you&rsquo;ll learn to stop playing like what your coach Barry Trotz calls, &ldquo;a bull in a china shop.&rdquo; You&rsquo;ll still be a physical player, but you&rsquo;ll learn to pick your spots better. By the way, you have a concussion, and you&rsquo;re going to miss the next six games, but you&rsquo;ll finish the season in Nashville without having to go back to Prince Albert, and you&rsquo;ll go 14 years without ever playing in the minors. That&rsquo;s pretty sweet.</p><p>You know those two goals you have right now? Well, you can forget about getting any more of those for the rest of this season. Seriously. Two goals in 75 games. Two goals used to be a good period when you played minor hockey in Regina, but you&rsquo;re in the big leagues now. So you&rsquo;ve probably already figured out that you&rsquo;re not winning the Calder Trophy this year. But you are going to learn some valuable lessons. You know the other night when you were out there in overtime against Peter Forsberg and he juked you for a great scoring chance and Trotz nailed you to the bench for the rest of the overtime period? Remember how stupid Forsberg made you look when you tried to poke the puck away from him? Yeah, you&rsquo;ll learn to laugh about that one in time.</p><p>I&rsquo;m here to let you know about a couple things you don&rsquo;t realize yet. The first is that even though you&rsquo;re 18 and it looks like you&rsquo;re going to play this game forever, appreciate every day in the league like it&rsquo;s your last. You&rsquo;re going to grow into a really good team guy who shows up every night and can score 30 goals in a good season, and that&rsquo;s all good. There will be some bumps along the way, too, but in 14 years you&rsquo;re going to look back and realize how lucky you&rsquo;ve been to play for as long as you have.</p><p>And as soon as you realize the rent is due on the first of the month, you&rsquo;re going to be just fine. It&rsquo;s funny how a landlord who wants his rent doesn&rsquo;t really seem to care that you were out of town on a road trip and forgot to pay him before you left. You&rsquo;ve been living with your parents and your billets in Prince Albert all your life, and you probably thought those things got taken care of on their own. Well, guess what? They don&rsquo;t. You&rsquo;re going to pay a bunch of late fees until you figure this one out on your own.</p><p>But the most important thing I can tell you is never, ever forget the golden rule. You know those guys who work at the rink? Treat every one of them well, all the time. Your trainers, man, those guys work really hard. Appreciate them. There are a bunch of guys in this room, like Greg Johnson, Tom Fitzgerald, Bill Houlder and Cale Hulse, who have treated you pretty well and made you feel welcomed around here. One day you&rsquo;re going to be in their shoes, so remember how good they were to you when you deal with the young guys that come into your dressing room.</p><p>By the way, Carolina is not a good place for you. A couple years from now, you&rsquo;re going to get suspended for something you did there. And guess what? The two games you&rsquo;re going to miss are going to be the Dads&rsquo; Trip again. Lucky for you, your dad is going to have lots of opportunities to watch you play. So just lay back and take it easy. Everything is going to be fine.</p><p>Yours truly,</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-04641/9982442-1-eng-US/f0036-042.jpg" title="f0036-04" width="338" height="247"></div><p>You in the Year 2015</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-03801/9982435-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg" title="f0036-03" width="154" height="1268"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-02971/9982428-1-eng-US/f0036-022.jpg" title="f0036-02" width="3407" height="3513"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-011262/9982421-1-eng-US/f0037-012.jpg" title="f0037-01" width="916" height="1094"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(NHAN CHU/ALLSPORT)</span></figcaption></div><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span>

f0036-01

SCOTT HARTNELL

<div class="byline">BY BRIAN COSTELLO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-011371/9982564-1-eng-US/f0038-012.jpg" title="f0038-01" width="711" height="711"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-011256/9982557-1-eng-US/f0039-012.jpg" title="f0039-01" width="450" height="90"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-02960/9982550-1-eng-US/f0038-022.jpg" title="f0038-02" width="1731" height="2257"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span></b><b>HE CALDER TROPHY IS SURELY THE MOST</b> prized and special of NHL awards. If you plan on winning the trophy, you have to be spectacular at a young age and pretty lights-out right off the hop. And no matter how dominant you were in capturing the Calder, young man, you&rsquo;ll never be able to win it again.</p><p>There have been a lot of exceptional freshman seasons over the years. Three first-year NHLers were so good, they won the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP. Wayne Gretzky, Nels Stewart and Herb Gardiner are the centerpieces of our all-time all-rookie team, because, quite frankly, you can&rsquo;t do any better as a rookie than also being named best player in the league.</p><h3><b>FORWARD</b></h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-10217/9982543-1-eng-US/f0038-102.jpg" title="f0038-10" width="634" height="185"></div><h2><b>WAYNE</b>&nbsp;<b>GRETZKY</b></h2><p>First things first. Wayne Gretzky did not win the Calder Trophy his first year in the NHL in 1979-80. We know that. Please don&rsquo;t send us a letter. What cannot be debated, however, is he had an exceptional rookie season.</p><p>Before they started calling him The Great One, Gretzky was &lsquo;The Kid&rsquo; and &lsquo;The Kid&rsquo; had game as an 18-year-old Edmonton Oiler. He scored 51 goals and 137 points in 79 games and had the best-ever rookie season at that point in time by a 32-point margin. The 137 points still haven&rsquo;t been bested.</p><p>Gretzky didn&rsquo;t win the Calder because he spent the previous year in the World Hockey Association as a 17-year-old. And because the defunct WHA was a pro league, the NHL ruled Gretzky and other rival league transients like him not eligible for the Calder. Nevermind that Sergei Makarov was 31 and a veteran of 11 pro seasons in Russia when he won the Calder in 1990. Focus on the fact Gretzky had one heckuva rookie season.</p><p>The Calder wasn&rsquo;t the only award Gretzky got scuppered on because of bylaws that year. He should have been given a share of the Art Ross Trophy as scoring champ because his 137 points were the same as Marcel Dionne&rsquo;s of Los Angeles. But because Dionne outscored Gretzky 53-51, the award went to Dionne. Forget the fact Gretzky played one fewer game than Dionne, thereby having a better points-per-game average.</p><p>Gretzky&rsquo;s rookie season was special enough to win him the Hart Trophy, though. He received 38.4 percent of the vote from the Professional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association compared to 30.2 percent for Dionne. It was the first of eight consecutive Harts for The Great One. He also edged out Dionne for the Lady Byng. If you&rsquo;re curious, the Calder that year went to defenseman Ray Bourque.</p><p>Perusing through the 1979-80 issues of The Hockey News, I was surprised to see there wasn&rsquo;t at least a minor uproar in Edmonton that Gretzky was ineligible for the Calder. That&rsquo;s because the city was just thrilled to have an NHL team, not to mention an 18-year-old superstar playing for them. And the rules on the Calder were laid out from Day 1 after the NHL absorbed the four teams from the WHA. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t make that much of a difference,&rdquo; wrote Oilers owner Peter Pocklington in an opinion piece April 18, 1980. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter one way or the other, because the kid is great. I sure as hell don&rsquo;t want to get a squabble going over something that doesn&rsquo;t mean that much.&rdquo;</p><p>Prior to the start of his rookie season, Gretzky told THN expectations should be tempered because of what hockey people were telling him. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve heard more talk about how it&rsquo;s going to be a different story this year. That I won&rsquo;t get 110 points like I got in the WHA in my first year of pro. Every year people have told me how I&rsquo;m going to be in trouble at a higher level. I heard more of that talk this summer than I heard all my life.&rdquo;</p><p>Gretzky had points in each of his first six games but didn&rsquo;t hit a groove until his second month. At one point in the scoring race, he even trailed Dionne in points 33-14.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-02856/9982536-1-eng-US/f0039-022.jpg" title="f0039-02" width="724" height="1056"></div><h3><b>DEFENSEMAN</b></h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-10211/9982529-1-eng-US/f0039-102.jpg" title="f0039-10" width="702" height="187"></div><h2><b>HERB</b>&nbsp;<b>GARDINER</b></h2><p>For hockey players in the 1920s, making the NHL wasn&rsquo;t the be-all, end-all it is today. If you were from the west and excelled at the game, you probably played in the Western Canada Hockey League.</p><p>Teams in Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, Vancouver, Regina and Saskatoon had all-world stars such as Newsy Lalonde, Red Dutton, Frank Boucher, Dick Irvin, Bill and Bun Cook skating for them. The caliber of play was on par with the four-team NHL. For a few seasons, the WCHL champs played the NHL winners for the Stanley Cup.</p><p>Players of that era generally had other paying jobs outside hockey, especially in the off-season. So it didn&rsquo;t make a lot of sense for WCHLers to pack up and go play in the NHL, unless there was an offer just too good to turn down. It would be akin to asking your family to move across the country because you wanted to change men&rsquo;s evening bowling leagues.</p><p>When the Montreal Canadiens played the Calgary Tigers for the Stanley Cup in 1923-24, the Habs had 21-year-old rookie Howie Morenz in the lineup playing alongside 22-year-old Aurel Joliat and 23-year-old Bill Boucher. They were a dominant trio all season, scoring 44 of the team&rsquo;s 59 goals (it was just a 24-game season).</p><p>Montreal beat Calgary 6-1 and 3-0 in the Cup final, but Canadiens coach-GM Leo Dandurand was so impressed with Calgary defenseman Herb Gardiner, he approached him on the ice post-series and offered him a playing and off-season job if he&rsquo;d move to Montreal. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I&rsquo;m a great nephew of Herb Gardiner. Family legend has it, Gardiner sent Morenz flying over the boards into the stands with a devastating hipcheck early in the series and Montreal did all of its scoring when Gardiner wasn&rsquo;t on the ice.)</p><p>Herb said no thanks. He was, right to the core, a stay-at-home defenseman.</p><p>Gardiner grew up on a military base in Winnipeg in the 1890s. He learned to skate going to school, using the city&rsquo;s frozen rivers as a quicker mode of transportation. At 17, he played senior hockey with the Winnipeg Victorias and joined a local bankers&rsquo; league. He gave up hockey at 19 to study engineering while also working as a surveyor for the Canadian Pacific Railway in Calgary in 1910.</p><p>During the First World War, Gardiner served for the Canadian Forces, rising to the rank of lieutenant, fighting in France and Belgium (Flanders) starting in 1914. He was wounded in 1918 and returned to Calgary a year later to resume working as a surveyor. Nine years removed from skating, Gardiner started playing again for the Calgary Wanderers senior team. He joined the Tigers in the WCHL the next season and flourished.</p><p>The offer from the Montreal Canadiens a couple years later in 1924 was flattering, but Gardiner never considered it. He was now a 33-year-old married man with his first child on the way. He had a good job and also played hockey in his adopted hometown.</p><p>Montreal won the NHL title in 1925, but lost the Cup final to Victoria. The following season, Habs goalie Georges Vezina came down with tuberculosis in November (dying a few months later) and Montreal bottomed out, finishing last in the seven-team NHL.</p><p>Knowing the WCHL was folding in the spring of 1926, Dandurand approached Gardiner again, espousing the virtues of Montreal and planting visions of being teammates rather than rivals with Morenz.</p><p>By then, Gardiner was 35 and severely bitten by the hockey bug after such a long layoff. Without a team or league to play in and still feeling young, he quit his job and moved his family to Montreal.</p><p>It was early in his freshman NHL year with Montreal that Gardiner earned the nickname &lsquo;The Ironman of Hockey.&rsquo; For each of the team&rsquo;s 44 games that season, Gardiner played every second of every game, forming a sublime defense tandem with fellow future Hall of Famer Sylvio Mantha. It wasn&rsquo;t offense that earned Gardiner the Hart Trophy as a rookie (award runner-up Bill Cook of the New York Rangers outscored him 33 to six). It was Gardiner&rsquo;s ability to maintain his defensive dominance without taking so much as a breather on the bench.</p><h3><b>GOAL TENDER</b></h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-10152/9982522-1-eng-US/f0040-102.jpg" title="f0040-10" width="725" height="186"></div><h2><b>TOM</b>&nbsp;<b>BARRASSO</b></h2><p>The passage of time has made Tom Barrasso&rsquo;s feat in 1983-84 more remarkable. NHL teams increasingly shy away from drafting goalies in the first round, and if they do it&rsquo;s with long-term objectives. Carey Price was taken fifth overall in 2005 but didn&rsquo;t stick in Montreal until 2007. Roberto Luongo went fourth overall in 1997 but stayed in junior another two seasons.</p><p>First-overall goalie picks Marc-Andre Fleury and Rick DiPietro made the NHL as 18-year-olds but eventually were demoted that same season and retained their rookie status until they made it as 20-year-olds.</p><p>Barrasso? Not only did he step in as an 18-year-old after being drafted by Buffalo fifth overall in 1983, but he made the gargantuan leap from tiny Acton-Boxborough High School in suburban Massachusetts.</p><p>Buffalo&rsquo;s plan was Barrasso would need seasoning in college or with the 1984 U.S. Olympic team. The Sabres were set between the pipes with 27-year-old Bob Sauve and 23-year-old Jacques Cloutier. They were coming off a season in which they were sixth among 21 teams in goals against. But coach Scotty Bowman acknowledged Barrasso beat out Cloutier in training camp. And the teenager ended up playing more games with better numbers than Sauve. Barrasso had a 2.84 GAA and .893 SP in 42 games compared to 3.49 and .869 in 40 games for Sauve. (Remember, that was the live puck era.) Buffalo finished second to Washington in fewest goals allowed and Barrasso beat Calgary&rsquo;s Rejean Lemelin for the Vezina. &ldquo;Let me tell you, that was an unbelievable story,&rdquo; former Boston Bruins GM Harry Sinden told THN in 2009. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been 25 years since that happened, and it gets more remarkable the more you think about it&hellip;an 18-year-old kid from high school stepping in and becoming the best goalie in the NHL. Think about that for a second.&rdquo;</p><h3><b>DEFENSE MAN</b></h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-1576/9982515-1-eng-US/f0040-152.jpg" title="f0040-15" width="601" height="185"></div><h2><b>DENIS POTVIN</b></h2><p>It was a close battle for the other defenseman spot on our all-time all-rookie team. Denis Potvin gets a slight nod over Bobby Orr and Ray Bourque because he stepped in right away and became a leader whereas the other two had strong supporting casts.</p><p>The Islanders were a struggling secondyear expansion team in 1973 when Potvin was the first-overall draft selection. Draft age was 20 back then and Potvin made an impact immediately, leading the team in scoring and commanding respect leaguewide. From Season 1, Potvin was physically and mentally mature and played both sides of the game like a poised 10-year veteran. He even accumulated 175 penalty minutes as a rookie, which ranked seventh in the NHL. &ldquo;What impresses me about him is his intelligence,&rdquo; said Islanders GM Bill Torrey halfway through Potvin&rsquo;s rookie season. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s smart enough to know he doesn&rsquo;t know it all. He&rsquo;s willing to work.&rdquo;</p><p>The Bruins were a powerhouse in 1979-80 when Bourque came in as an 18-year-old and had 65 points to win the Calder. And the Bruins had a veteran team led by John Bucyk when Orr arrived in 1966-67.</p><h3><b>FORWARD</b></h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-10129/9982508-1-eng-US/f0041-102.jpg" title="f0041-10" width="633" height="190"></div><h2><b>TEEMU SELANNE</b></h2><p>The footage of Teemu Selanne throwing his right glove up in the air and mock-shooting it with his stick is iconic. What&rsquo;s surprising is real bullets didn&rsquo;t come out of that weapon and ventilate the glove. His stick was that deadly in 1992-93.</p><p>Selanne&rsquo;s memorable celebration came in Game 64 after breaking Mike Bossy&rsquo;s rookie record with 54 goals in a season. He finished with 76, which stands as a tie for the fifth most goals in a season by <i>any</i> NHL player. He was a 22-year-old rookie. He easily won the Calder Trophy, getting firstplace ballots from all 50 voters, but what&rsquo;s remarkable is Selanne finished just sixth in Hart Trophy balloting, getting just five thirdplace votes from the 50 panelists. Mario Lemieux beat Doug Gilmour that year and Pat LaFontaine, Adam Oates and Pierre Turgeon got more votes than Teemu.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-04398/9982501-1-eng-US/f0041-042.jpg" title="f0041-04" width="320" height="458"></div><p>Yes, his feat came in the final innings of the live puck era, but the number 76 is absolutely gaudy and has become synonymous with Selanne. Consider that the top three goal-scoring rookies in the NHL in 2013-14 combined for just 71 goals.</p><p>Teemu&rsquo;s fourth quarter that rookie season with the Winnipeg Jets was absolutely magical. In his first three 20-game blocks, Selanne scored 16, 15 and 14 goals, which prorates out to a boffo 60-goal season. Then in his fourth 20-game segment, he exploded for 29 goals, including nine in a three-game span that enveloped the iconic shoot-the-glove record-breaking goal.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-03460/9982494-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="1530" height="1835"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-05359/9982487-1-eng-US/f0041-052.jpg" title="f0041-05" width="724" height="1193"></div><h3><b>FORWARD</b></h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1549/9982480-1-eng-US/f0041-152.jpg" title="f0041-15" width="651" height="186"></div><h2><b>NELS STEWART</b></h2><p>Nels Stewart earned the nickname &lsquo;Old Poison&rsquo; because of how he scored virtually every one of his 324 NHL goals. He&rsquo;d park himself in front of the net &ndash; two generations before Phil Esposito became famous for doing the same &ndash; and bang away at centering passes and loose pucks.</p><p>Stewart had a quick release and the heaviest shot of his era. Maskless goalies had no choice but to stand in the crease and take the punishment like slow-acting poison. Playmaking linemates Babe Siebert and Hooley Smith &ndash; the &lsquo;S Line&rsquo; was among the best early lines in the NHL &ndash; helped turn Stewart into Old Poison.</p><p>The Montreal native played amateur hockey for five seasons in Cleveland of the United States League before signing with the expansion Montreal Maroons in 1925. There was no NHL learning curve at all for him as he led all players with 34 goals and 42 points and guided the Maroons to the Stanley Cup. For that, the league named rookie Stewart winner of the Hart Trophy.</p><p>Stewart, who played with a mean streak and was often called a dirty player, also played for Boston and the New York Americans during his 15-year career. He&rsquo;s one of just seven players to lead the NHL in career goals. He surpassed Howie Morenz in 1936 and was passed by Rocket Richard in &rsquo;52.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0038-01

ALL-TIME ROOKIE TEAM

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-02594/9982595-1-eng-US/f0042-022.jpg" title="f0042-02" width="843" height="1328"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>AFTER FURTHER REVIEW&hellip;</b> You can be sure Pia Toscano would have undivided attention explaining the result of a reviewed goal. <span class="photo-credit">(NOAH GRAHAM/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-01897/9982602-1-eng-US/f0042-012.jpg" title="f0042-01" width="200" height="238"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>L</span></b><b>OS ANGELES KINGS COACH DARRYL</b> Sutter is known by those who&rsquo;ve covered him to have a subtle, wry sense of humor, so when he told Rich Hammond of the <i>Orange County Register</i> he had some ideas for changing the NHL, we can safely assume he wasn&rsquo;t 100 percent serious about them. Considering Sutter epitomizes the old-school side of the game, he should be commended for thinking outside the box.</p><p>But as always at THN, we&rsquo;re here to pitch in and improve on the great ideas. So let&rsquo;s explore Sutter&rsquo;s original, already inspired suggestions (in red) and try to polish them to perfection (in blue):</p><p><b><i>&gt; REFEREES SINGING THE NATIONAL ANTHEMS</i></b></p><p>Tired of the agonizing vocal gymnastics that often accompany the singing of <i>O Canada</i> and <i>The Star Spangled Ban ner</i>? You&rsquo;d never have to worry about that again if refs like Paul Devorski and Tim Peel were tasked with belting out the anthems, because those guys couldn&rsquo;t hit a high note with a crane and a bazooka. Or maybe they could, and voila! &ndash; the league has an instant American/Canadian Idol star.</p><p><b><i>&gt; NATIONAL ANTHEMS SINGERS ALSO BECOME REFEREES</i></b></p><p>If we&rsquo;re going to allow refs to sing the anthems, we&rsquo;re putting the usual singers out of work. The least we owe them is the chance to keep singing &ndash; that is, if they can put on the stripes and officiate games. If you&rsquo;re telling me you don&rsquo;t want to see Boston&rsquo;s Rene Rancourt wildly gesticulating as he calls penalties, or Pia Toscano at center ice explaining a reviewed goal, you&rsquo;re lying.</p><p><b><i>&gt; BACKUP GOALIES BROADCAST THE GAME</i></b></p><p>Sutter told Hammond he liked this &ldquo;because (goalies) aren&rsquo;t doing anything.&rdquo; Sutter is right, but the logistics are tricky: if the coach pulls the starter, the backup will have to haul ass from six stories up in the press box to ice level, and media elevators aren&rsquo;t the speediest modes of transport. Still, this concept would be worth it just so 20,000 fans in the arena could see that elevator journey on the JumboTron.</p><p><b><i>&gt; GOALIES WHO GET THE HOOK HAVE TO REPLACE THE BACKUP AS BROADCASTER</i></b></p><p>If you thought the backup&rsquo;s comments (especially if it were Ilya Bryzgalov) as a TV analyst would be entertaining, imagine the fun you&rsquo;d get if a goalie who&rsquo;d just been pulled had to head up to the broadcast booth and provide insight through gritted teeth. &ldquo;Yeah, great energy play by our guys there&hellip;shame that f---ing effort wasn&rsquo;t there 20 f---ing minutes ago when I was f---ing playing.&rdquo;</p><p><b><i>&gt; ELIMINATE THE PENALTY BOX AND HAVE PENALIZED PLAYERS SIT ON THE OTHER TEAM&rsquo;S BENCH</i></b></p><p>Team owners would love this, as, without penalty boxes, they&rsquo;d have more high-priced seats to sell every game. And the Players&rsquo; Emergency Assistance Fund would also surely appreciate it, because with players sitting on the opposition&rsquo;s bench after a penalty, the suspension rates (and the lost salaries donated to the fund) would skyrocket. For that reason, the NHL Players&rsquo; Association likely wouldn&rsquo;t buy in as well.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;IF YOU DON&rsquo;T WANT TO SEE BOSTON&rsquo;S RENE RANCOURT WILDLY GESTICULATING AS HE CALLS PENALTIES, YOU&rsquo;RE LYING</blockquote><p><b><i>&gt; CAST PENALIZED PLAYERS OUT INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE ARENA AND MAKE THEM RACE BACK</i></b></p><p>Instead of sitting on the other team&rsquo;s bench, penalized players are drivenona golf cart two minutes away from the ice surface, where they have to put on skate guards and make their way back. NHL arenas are gigantic and labyrinthine, and the league could easily have players shuttled away to a designated and distant spot from which they&rsquo;d be allowed to return once the penalty began. Added twist: if the penalized player is fast enough on his skate guards to get back to the ice before the two minutes are up, the penalty expires no matter what.</p><p><b>WANT MORE PROTEAU?</b> GET DAILY UPDATES AT <b><a href="http://thehockeynews.com">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0042-02

PUSHING THE SUTTER ENVELOPE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0043-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-02616/9982633-1-eng-US/f0043-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SETTING THE TABLE</b> Jonathan and Christopher Cerf don Penguins jerseys during the first &ndash; and last &ndash; T.J. Rugg playdowns. <span class="photo-credit">(THN ARCHIVEST)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-01874/9982640-1-eng-US/f0043-012.jpg" title="f0043-01" width="199" height="238"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span>ABLE</b>&nbsp;<b>HOCKEY HAS HAD ITS EXCITING MOMENTS, BUT NOTHING</b> like the first New York Professional Tournament played at the George Washington Hotel in March 1971.</p><p>Historians have argued for decades over the precise birth of hockey in Canada. But when it comes to when and where professional table hockey was born in Manhattan, I have no problem citing the site, players and purse. I even remember the championship silverware &ndash; known as the T.J. Rugg Trophy, because it originally was my wife, Shirley&rsquo;s, antique samovar (a metal container used to boil water).</p><p>The first tiny puck was dropped in our living room. This premiere table hockey event happened by accident. Actually, it came about because of pure snobbery. To celebrate moving into our new Upper West Side apartment, my wife and I decided to throw a party, inviting two sets of friends. On one hand, there were the hockey nuts like us. On the other were pseudo-intellectuals who neither knew nor cared about our beloved ice game. With that in mind, we segregated the groups; heavy-thinkers in the dining room while puck-followers were around the corner where Shirley set up our brand-new table hockey set. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s have a tournament to make it interesting,&rdquo; urged jazz guru Ira Gitler. And so we did with such notables as sportscaster Marv Albert, Michael Hopp, a young plastics industrialist reporter, Joe Breu of UPI and Bob Blume, who worked for NBC.</p><p>&ldquo;Are Canadians allowed to play?&rdquo; wondered publisher Bob Stampleman. The games began and within minutes a strange development took place. A couple of curious intellectuals drifted into the hitherto off-limits hockey area. Soon, the trickle became a flood and members of the brainy-bloc got hooked on the stickhandlers. &ldquo;This &lsquo;Original Six&rsquo; you got here should expand,&rdquo; demanded Christopher Cerf who, along with his brother, Jonathan, were sons of famed publisher-author Bennett Cerf. &ldquo;Make room for more teams &ndash; give us a chance to play.&rdquo;</p><p>Shirley produced a better idea. &ldquo;Since we don&rsquo;t have enough space in my living room for all you nutcases, we&rsquo;ll have a real tournament at a hotel next year.&rdquo;</p><p>No sooner had NHL training camps opened in 1970, our phone ran off the hook with choruses of &ldquo;When&rsquo;s the big tournament? We want in.&rdquo; My wife and I decided to turn table hockey pro. But it wasn&rsquo;t about the money. We set a $50 expansion fee for each team with a grand prize of $40 going to the winners.</p><p>We booked the George Washington Hotel ballroom and ordered a dozen standard table hockey games. The next challenge was finding a suitable answer to the Stanley Cup. &ldquo;Why not this?&rdquo; brainstormed Shirley, pointing to her beat-up silver samovar, virtually hidden on a kitchen shelf. &ldquo;Fine,&rdquo; I shot back, &ldquo;but we have to give it a name; like Stanley.&rdquo;</p><p>Shirley remembered a Detroit friend who ran a Monopoly tourney and so her tarnished silver hunk became the T.J. Rugg Trophy. Ugly as it was, the Rugg soon would become eagerly pursued by a cast of dozens in assorted regalia and temperament. For example, the Cerf Brothers showed up in Pittsburgh Penguins jerseys, angry that they were seeded seventh at 9-1 odds, well behind the Hopp-Breu and Gitler-Blume favorites. &ldquo;Tenacity and utter concentration are the keys to the championship,&rdquo; Gitler explained in an interview. &ldquo;Tilting the board doesn&rsquo;t hurt either.&rdquo;</p><p>As it happened, the Hopp-Breu team reached the final, facing the Cerfs who later revealed they had revolutionized table hockey with a new technique. &ldquo;I handle four rods, leaving Chris with only two,&rdquo; said Jonathan. &ldquo;I operate the goalie with my left hand and the other three with my right.&rdquo;</p><p>The Cerfs opened the best-of-three final with a 3-0 win after which Breu claimed the brothers secretly had snapped the springs on his forwards. Referee Rich Friedman checked the underside of the game and ruled that there had been no tampering. Then, as the Cerfs and Hopp prepared for the second game, came the Manhattan melodrama. Breu had disappeared, but where? Suddenly, out of the crowd a messenger arrived with a Western Union telegram: &ldquo;Had to leave &ndash; our babysitter threatened to quit if I didn&rsquo;t get home &ndash; see you next year. Breu!&rdquo;</p><p>Ah, but there would be no table hockey next year. In March, 1972, Shirley and I were back in our living room, doing our ice game the right way: watching the Rangers on television while the T.J. Rugg Trophy sat forlorn and forgotten on its kitchen shelf. C&rsquo;est la hockey.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0043-02

DON’T TILT THE RINK

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0044-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-02511/9982678-1-eng-US/f0044-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>LAZAR BEAMS</b> From WJC start to winning gold with Connor McDavid, Captain Curtis never stopped grinning. <span class="photo-credit">(MINAS PANAGIOTAKIS/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-01777/9982685-1-eng-US/f0044-012.jpg" title="f0044-01" width="60" height="68"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span></b><b>ECHNICALLY, HE WAS THE LAST</b> player to join Team Canada&rsquo;s world junior squad, but he turned out to be one of the most valuable. Curtis Lazar had been in the NHL with the Ottawa Senators, but the team loaned him out for the holiday classic and the unfailingly happy teenager helped break a five-year hex for his country.</p><p>Hockey Canada president Tom Renney, a former NHL exec, knew he&rsquo;d have to be patient with Ottawa in securing Lazar&rsquo;s services, but the wait for the gifted center was worth it. &ldquo;We felt all along he would be captain of this team if made available,&rdquo; Renney said. &ldquo;As you can see from the metamorphosis of this team, he was the right choice.&rdquo;</p><p>Not only did Lazar bring experience from last year&rsquo;s team, where he and Buffalo Sabres pick Sam Reinhart were the disappointing fourth-place squad&rsquo;s best forwards, but he also had a Memorial Cup title under his belt from the 2014 Edmonton Oil Kings. And Renney had a hunch that Lazar&rsquo;s NHL experience with the Senators would allow him to thrive alongside the preternaturally talented Connor McDavid, who had to shake off more than a month of rust due to a broken hand.</p><p>Indeed, McDavid got better as the games went on and he, Lazar and Winnipeg Jets prospect Nic Petan provided the lion&rsquo;s share of Canada&rsquo;s offense in the 5-1 semifinal win over Slovakia, with McDavid also scoring against Russia for gold. But Lazar&rsquo;s impact went well beyond the scoresheet. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s everything,&rdquo; McDavid said. &ldquo;When he comes in the room, he&rsquo;s so positive and he&rsquo;s able to calm everybody down. I can&rsquo;t say enough good stuff about him.&rdquo;</p><p>That positivity has become a social media meme, with reporters and fans cheekily asking on Twitter if Lazar is smiling after certain big moments (and the answer is yes). Even in discussing Russia&rsquo;s harrowing second-period comeback in the final, Canada&rsquo;s captain was jovial. &ldquo;</p><p>That&rsquo;s the beauty of junior hockey; back and forth,&rdquo; Lazar said. &ldquo;You think you have it in the bag and the other team comes back.&rdquo;</p><p>Going back to the summer, Lazar was excited about the chance to represent Canada again and at the time had said he wanted the team to play with more swagger. Fast forward to the post-gold-medal festivities and it was mission accomplished in the confidence department. &ldquo;I knew from the get-go with this group we had that we wouldn&rsquo;t be stopped,&rdquo; Lazar said. &ldquo;Regardless of adversity, we were going to find a way and that&rsquo;s what we did. To end the streak of Canada not being on top, it&rsquo;s big. We can finally call this game ours &ndash; and what a way to do it.&rdquo;</p><p>Now Lazar returns to a Senators team with little chance at a Stanley Cup this year, but hopes that a young core that includes him, Swedish center Mika Zibanejad and Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Erik Karlsson can lead to better days ahead.</p><p>The beauty of Lazar is how diverse his game can be: The Sens can use him as a grinder or penalty killer without wasting him, but he also has top-six scoring acumen. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s whatever they want,&rdquo; Lazar said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m comfortable playing all three forward positions. If they want to put some offense on the board, I&rsquo;ll try to supply that. But it&rsquo;s even the little things: getting the fans excited, establishing a forecheck, taking the body, having fun with it&hellip;spreading some energy into the lineup. I know there is going to be some growing pains &ndash; I&rsquo;m 19.&rdquo;</p><p>Though few teenagers can claim as much success as Lazar had in the past year, his experiences will help as his NHL career blossoms. And if anyone knows how to make Ottawa&rsquo;s fans smile, it&rsquo;s probably the happiest guy at the rink.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0044-04308/9982671-1-eng-US/f0044-042.jpg" title="f0044-04" width="284" height="309"></div><h2><b>CURTIS LAZAR</b></h2><p><b>POSITION</b> Center</p><p><b>AGE</b>&nbsp;19</p><p><b>HEIGHT</b> 6-0</p><p>&nbsp;<b>WEIGHT</b> 196 lbs</p><p><b>DRAFTED</b>&nbsp;OTT, 17th in 2013<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0044-02

SMILES AND CHUCKLES

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0045-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-02464/9982730-1-eng-US/f0045-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SLIPPERY WHEN WET</b> Reway was both elusive and a craftsman with the puck for a surprising Slovak team.</figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-01683/9982737-1-eng-US/f0045-012.jpg" title="f0045-01" width="60" height="68"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>M</span></b><b>ONTREAL MAY BE A HABS</b> town, not a hockey town, but even that doesn&rsquo;t explain why fans didn&rsquo;t turn out to see one of the NHL franchise&rsquo;s hottest prospects at the world juniors. Slovakian left winger Martin Reway ended up playing in front of a half-empty Bell Centre for most of the tournament, but he made it count.</p><p>The captain, who has the word &ldquo;Believe&rdquo; tattooed on his right wrist, led his underdog country to a surprise bronze medal in Toronto, beating the Czechs in the quarterfinal in Montreal along the way. &ldquo;He decided a few games for us, that&rsquo;s why he&rsquo;s so valuable,&rdquo; said coach Ernest Bokros. &ldquo;What is in his head, he can transfer into his hands and feet.&rdquo;</p><p>Reway is indeed a slick offensive player and he saved his best games at the world juniors for the ones Slovakia needed him most. The day after Canada blitzed the Slovaks 8-0 in the opener, Reway and crew took on the defending champs from Finland. Though the Finns were not as mighty this year, they should have been better and Slovakia caught them for a 2-1 upset with Reway figuring in on both goals. The captain also tallied the empty-netter against the Czechs in a 3-0 quarterfinal shocker, but saved his best effort for the bronze showdown with Sweden, one of only two games the Slovaks played outside of Montreal.</p><p>Reway had three points on four Slovakia goals in the 4-2 win. For a national team that had just one WJC medal (bronze in 1999), this was a big deal. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s huge for Slovakia,&rdquo; Reway said. &ldquo;Not only for success this year, but for us to start thinking we can win big games, not just to go to this tournament to lose. We&rsquo;ve got to start thinking positively: we want to win and be one of the top teams, not just this year.&rdquo;</p><p>Reway has been to hell and back with Slovakia. Though he actually had more points at the WJC last year, his team was wiped out by the Swedes in the quarterfinal, and in 2013 he had to help his team stave off relegation. &ldquo;My first year, I was looking around at the way everybody played,&rdquo; Reway said. &ldquo;I was looking at the top players like, &lsquo;Oh my god, it&rsquo;s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. I&rsquo;m going to play against him!&rsquo; Now some of them are looking at me. Year after year, you get more experience.&rdquo;</p><p>Today, Reway is an emerging star in the Czech Republic with Sparta Prague, where he is the top teenaged scorer in the nation&rsquo;s best league. His Sparta team is one of the best squads and even when compared to his adult teammates, Reway is prolific: he came back from the world juniors tied for fourth in team scoring, with 21 points through 23 games, despite playing 10 fewer games than his contemporaries.</p><p>Coincidentally, part of the credit can go to Canada&rsquo;s goldmedal-winning world junior coach, Benoit Groulx. Reway spent two years in the Quebec League with Gatineau before heading home this season and Groulx was his bench boss.</p><p>When the Slovakian kid first came to town, there were a lot of kinks to iron out of his game and, though gifted, he would often try to do too much on his own. Groulx hammered home the importance of conditioning and rewarded him with more ice time as a result.</p><p>Now, Reway is still agile and talented, but also more mature. Slovakia easily could have let that bronze slip away to the powerful Swedes, but captain Reway wouldn&rsquo;t let that happen. &ldquo;We had to make sure we held the game until the end,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m very proud of the boys.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-04334/9982723-1-eng-US/f0045-042.jpg" title="f0045-04" width="1127" height="826"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>BRONZE FEELS LIKE GOLD</b> The Slovaks, picked by THN to finish eighth, probably surprised even themselves with a bronze. <span class="photo-credit">(CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0045-03394/9982716-1-eng-US/f0045-032.jpg" title="f0045-03" width="233" height="233"></div><h2><b>MARTIN REWAY</b></h2><p><b>POS</b> LW <b>AGE</b> 20 <b>HT</b> 5-10 <b>WT</b> 172 lbs</p><p><b>DRAFTED</b> Montreal, 116th overall in 2013<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0045-02

OH MY GOD, IT’S REWAY

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0046-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-02462/9982775-1-eng-US/f0046-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>THE NEXT ONE</b> At 16, Jesse Puljujarvi is already playing regularly for Karpat Oulu in Finland&rsquo;s top league. <span class="photo-credit">(MINAS PANAGIOTAKIS/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-01691/9982782-1-eng-US/f0046-012.jpg" title="f0046-01" width="60" height="68"></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>D</span></b><b>URING ONE OF THE OFF-DAYS</b> at the World Junior Championship, the way the camera lights were pointed, Auston Matthews of Team USA was literally standing in the shadow of Jack Eichel.</p><p>Don&rsquo;t count on that lasting much longer. The Great American NHL Draft Hope of 2015&trade; (Eichel) and The Great American NHL Draft Hope of 2016&trade; (Matthews) were roommates at the WJC, a tournament that began what those at USA Hockey hope will be a long, championship-filled relationship.</p><p>It didn&rsquo;t exactly work out as planned in 2015, but there&rsquo;s still a lot of time left, particularly for Matthews, an Arizona-born and -trained center at the top of the charts for the 2016 draft. It&rsquo;s akin to having the next great baseball prodigy come out of the Northwest Territories. But at 6-foot-2 and 194 pounds with a great work ethic and a deft touch, Matthews has made geography a moot point.</p><p>Matthews has some company at the top of the 2016 draft list in the form of Finnish prospect Jesse Puljujarvi. The Swedish-born Finn represented his country as a 16-year-old in the world juniors and is playing a regular shift as a right winger for Karpat Oulu in the Finnish League. And let&rsquo;s not forget Jakob Chychrun, another 16-year-old boy-man playing defense for the Sarnia Sting of the OHL. Like Matthews, Chychrun is also a prodigy of the Sun Belt, having played his youth hockey in Florida. At 6-foot-2, 195 pounds, the son of former NHL defenseman Jeff Chychrun, could walk into an NHL dressing room without anyone batting an eyelash.</p><p>So while the hockey world debates the merits of Connor McDavid vs. Jack Eichel for 2015, you can expect just as much anticipation when it comes to Matthews vs. Puljujarvi (with some Chychrun added into the mix) for next season.</p><p>Like Matthews, Puljujarvi is mature beyond his years &ndash; on and off the ice. He&rsquo;s 6-foot-3 and weighs 196 pounds and does not look out of place against men for the defending champs in Finland. &ldquo;I want to be stronger,&rdquo; he said via an interpreter. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a long time to the draft and I have much work to do.&rdquo;</p><p>Neither player dominated at the WJC, but both played regularly and proved they belonged. Puljujarvi did not get a point for the goal-starved Finns in five games, but led his team with 26 shots, while Matthews scored a goal and three points in a third role.</p><p>Some scouts would have liked to see Matthews as a winger on a top line to see what he could accomplish. &ldquo;He understands if he&rsquo;s had a good shift, a poor shift and he&rsquo;s able to channel it in the right direction and not get frustrated,&rdquo; said Team USA coach Mark Osiecki. &ldquo;He has a good handle on where he&rsquo;s at as a player.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0046-03318/9982768-1-eng-US/f0046-032.jpg" title="f0046-03" width="877" height="1064"><figcaption class="caption-body">AUSTON <b>MATTHEWS</b></figcaption></div><p>That much is clear with Matthews, who played his youth hockey in Arizona before joining the U.S. National Team Development Program last year. All he has done since is outperform Eichel offensively each step of the way and establish himself as a generational player who can change the course of a game. One scout said at an under-18 Four Nations tournament in Sweden in December, Matthews excelled. &ldquo;He did things I&rsquo;ve never seen,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He was absolutely dominant.&rdquo;</p><p>Puljujarvi didn&rsquo;t play in that tournament because he was playing for Finland at an under-20 tournament where he led all players in scoring. Leading up to the WJC, both had established themselves as physical specimens. One scout said in a pre-tournament game against Sweden, Matthews swept aside 2014 first-rounder William Nylander with one arm and created a prime scoring chance.</p><p>Next season will be an important one for both. They figure on being prominent parts of strong teams in the WJC and will be subject to more intense scrutiny during their draft years. Puljujarvi will continue to play in the Finnish men&rsquo;s league, but the hockey world is still waiting to find out where Matthews will play. His major junior rights are owned by the Everett Silvertips of the Western League and Matthews says he&rsquo;s &ldquo;50-50&rdquo; on whether to play major junior or go the U.S. college route. A lot of scouts surmise that since he hasn&rsquo;t made a commitment to any school yet, that&rsquo;s a good indication he&rsquo;ll be playing major junior.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not something I think about too much,&rdquo; Matthews said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just trying to focus on now.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0046-02

MATTHEWS VS. PULJUJARVI IN ’16

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0047-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-02409/9982820-1-eng-US/f0047-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>GOLDEN BOY RETURNS</b> Anthony Duclair is back in Quebec after an NHL stint and starring for Canada at the world juniors. <span class="photo-credit">(RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-01623/9982827-1-eng-US/f0047-012.jpg" title="f0047-01" width="199" height="238"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>B</span></b><b>ACK IN 2011, THE SASKATOON BLADES</b> went for it. The WHL team traded for A-list prospect Brayden Schenn, giving up three first-round bantam picks and a second-rounder in the process, along with two players. The Blades had a serious roster before Schenn arrived, but with him, the club smelled glory. Instead, Kootenay made a splash of its own by nabbing Cody Eakin from Swift Current and in the second round of the playoffs, the Ice swept Schenn and the Blades into the dustbin.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0047-03323/9982813-1-eng-US/f0047-032.jpg" title="f0047-03" width="368" height="204"></div><p>Someone always has to lose in hockey, but hope springs eternal, especially in the CHL where the cycle of construction and destruction is a tight one. This season is no different.</p><p>With the Memorial Cup being hosted by the Quebec Remparts, that powerhouse has loaded up, adding goalie Zach Fucale and the skilled Vladimir Tkachev to a roster already dotted with great juniors. The Remparts also got a boost when the New York Rangers assigned Anthony Duclair, another world junior gold medallist, back to the squad.</p><p>But as hosts, the Remparts are guaranteed a slot in the Memorial Cup. Sure, you want to look good in front of the home fans and no team wants to &ldquo;back in&rdquo; to the tourney, but teams have lost in the early rounds of their league playoffs and still won the Memorial Cup.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;THE CYCLE OF CONSTRUCTION AND DESTRUCTION IS A TIGHT ONE. THIS SEASON IS NO DIFFERENT</blockquote><p>No, the higher stakes now belong to the teams in the WHL and Ontario League. The Kelowna Rockets made a statement by acquiring Josh Morrissey, one of the Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; best prospects, and Leon Draisaitl, the No. 3 overall pick of the Edmonton Oilers, who had been in the NHL. The Rockets were already one of the best teams in the nation. If they fail, next year will be almost out of the question, since most of their top players will be off to the pro ranks.</p><p>The Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds were one of the best in the OHL and loaded up at the deadline, grabbing Buffalo pick Justin Bailey, Tampa Bay first-rounder Anthony DeAngelo and top-10 Anaheim selection Nick Ritchie. All three, not to mention homegrown star defenseman Darnell Nurse (Edmonton), will likely end their junior careers this season.</p><p>Are these teams locks? No way. Kelowna must contend with Brandon, while Sault Ste. Marie has Oshawa and North Bay to worry about. But a line was drawn in the sand. &ldquo;Those teams have separated themselves,&rdquo; said Peterborough GM Mike Oke, who sent Ritchie to the Soo.</p><p>Oke&rsquo;s team was not going to win it all this year, but in the tight circle of CHL life, next year&rsquo;s looking decent. The Petes have a lot of good 1996-born players, plus a potential NHL first-rounder in D-man Matthew Spencer. Trading Ritchie has allowed youngsters to get more ice time and responsibility, which they will build on for next season. And Kyle Jenkins, a Carolina prospect who came to the Petes in the Ritchie deal, can contribute right away on defense.</p><p>And since draft picks are thrown around major junior like gift cards at an office Christmas exchange, those big trade plunges aren&rsquo;t as risky as they may seem: You lose a bunch of selections when you go all-in, then gain a bunch back when you trade your big guy a season or two later.</p><p>Only four teams can play for the Memorial Cup and we know Quebec is one of them. So there&rsquo;s going to be heart-break even for franchises that threw everything they could into this season. But in a CHL where you can go first-to-worst-to-first, there&rsquo;s always next year. Or at least the year after that.</p><p>READ FEATURES FROM RYAN KENNEDY EVERY DAY AT <b><a href="http://thehockeynews.com">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a></b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0047-02

THE BIG, BANG AND BUST THEORY

<div class="byline">BY DENIS GIBBONS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0048-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0048-01488/9982858-1-eng-US/f0048-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>THE LAST ELDERLY ROOKIE</b> When Sergei Makarov won the Calder at 31, the league changed the eligibility rules for the award. <span class="photo-credit">(B BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span></b><b>ERRY CRISP BENT OVER BACKWARDS TO SHOW SERGEI</b> Makarov respect when the great Soviet winger came to play in the NHL for Calgary in 1989. One day the Flames coach was drawing up a play on the board, illustrating to Makarov how to position himself. Suddenly, Makarov grabbed the chalk, crossed everything out and started making his own diagrams. &ldquo;Tikhonov bad guy, good coach,&rdquo; he said to Crisp (in reference to the late Soviet bench boss). &ldquo;You? Good guy, bad coach.&rdquo;</p><p>Crisp, who had led the Flames to a Stanley Cup the year before, said Makarov, who played in the Soviet Union on the KLM line with Vladimir Krutov and Igor Larionov, probably had more talent than anybody he had ever coached. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;d played for Scotty Bowman and Fred Shero, two of the best coaches in the business,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t as if I just fell off a turnip truck.&rdquo;</p><p>The Flames signed Makarov to take the spot of Hakan Loob, who returned to Sweden after the Cup win. Loob had scored 50 goals in 1987-88. Makarov had legs like tree trunks and a bowlegged style of skating which made him almost impossible to knock off the puck. One of his favorite moves was dropping the puck between his legs to his skates then kicking it back up to his stick at the same time as he was speeding around a defenseman.</p><p>He played four seasons in Calgary, then two in San Jose, where he was instrumental in getting the Sharks to within a game of the Western Conference final in 1993-94.</p><p>Few players know him better than Larionov. &ldquo;Sergei was a quiet guy, who was very modest and didn&rsquo;t like to be in the spotlight,&rdquo; Larionov said. &ldquo;When Kevin Constantine took over as coach in San Jose, the team had lost 71 games the season before, he introduced a system of defensive hockey and Sergei, who was 36 at that time, wasn&rsquo;t happy about it.&rdquo;</p><p>When he was 38, Makarov signed with Dallas after being released by the Sharks. A few years ago, he told the Russian newspaper <i>Sport Express</i> how amused he was when Stars coach Ken Hitchcock started drawing him diagrams showing him how to go around players and where to be open on the ice.</p><p>Makarov said when younger players on Dallas started paying attention to him, rather than Hitchcock, the coach complained to GM Bob Gainey and eventually his contract was terminated.</p><p>Makarov, who doesn&rsquo;t often talk to the media, granted me an interview at the 2012 KHL All-Star Game in Riga, Latvia, but only after plenty of persuasion. When I asked for his phone number, hoping to continue our chat later, he refused. He also did not return a message requesting an interview for this story.</p><p>Of all the players looking into the Hall of Fame from the outside, none gets as little attention as Makarov, who is now 56. He was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2001.</p><p>Makarov&rsquo;s career stats are remarkable. A two-time gold Olympic medalist, he also earned eight world titles and two WJC gold and was a key member of the Soviet Union&rsquo;s victorious team in the 1981 Canada Cup. He led the Soviet Elite League in scoring a record nine times. Makarov played 424 NHL games for Calgary, San Jose and Dallas, scoring 134 goals and 384 points.</p><p>He won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year in 1990, though he was 31 at the time. As a result, the rules were changed, and now only players under 26 qualify. After retiring as a player, Makarov worked for Slava Fetisov, who was Russia&rsquo;s Minister of Sport from 2002 to 2008. He also was vice-president of the CSKA Moscow, the old Red Army hockey club, for a year.</p><p>In 2005, with the support of Fetisov, he was a candidate for president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, but eventually withdrew, citing a lack of equal opportunities for those running. Alexander Steblin, a former KGB member, was re-elected.</p><p>He now is director-general of Russia&rsquo;s new Night Hockey League. It&rsquo;s a recreational league for people who work all day but love the game so much they&rsquo;re even willing to play at mid-night. Coincidentally, the abbreviation for the league is NHL.</p><p>In 2014, he was named vice-president of Traktor Chelyabinsk, the club with which he launched his hockey career but has since resigned. He now lives in Moscow.</p><p>FOR MORE TALES OF PLAYERS PAST, CLICK ON <a href="http://THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM/BACKCHECKING">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM/BACKCHECKING</a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0048-01

SPEAKS SOFTLY, HAD BIG STICK

<div class="byline">By Larry Humber</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0049-04" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-04275/9982920-1-eng-US/f0049-042.jpg"></div><p><b>ANSWERS AVAILABLE IN THE NEXT ISSUE AND AT <a href="http://THN.com/XWORD">THN.com/XWORD</a></b></p><h2><b>ACROSS</b></h2><p>1 They last won the Cup in 1967</p><p>8 Chicago&rsquo;s arena is known as &lsquo;The ___ on Madison&rsquo;</p><p>9 Plus-___</p><p>10 Roberto Luongo&rsquo;s team</p><p>11 Rick Middleton&rsquo;s nickname</p><p>14 Boston&rsquo;s building was once called the ___Center</p><p>15 &lsquo;Sid the Kid&rsquo; went first in the 2005 ___</p><p>20 Hall of Famer ___ Shore</p><p>21 Kari ___, pictured, is in goal in Dallas</p><p>22 Take the puck from an opponent</p><p>23 Ben ___ tends net in Edmonton</p><p>24 Practice exercise</p><h2><b>DOWN</b></h2><p>2 Qualified</p><p>3 Number worn by Leaf legend Dave Keon</p><p>4 Where Mario Lemieux played as a junior</p><p>5 The S in SOG</p><p>6 Fights, ___ it out</p><p>7 The Avs play at the ___ Center</p><p>12 Nashville player, such as Pekka Rinne</p><p>13 Referee or linesman</p><p>16 Hard shot</p><p>17 He was Norris Trophy winner in 2009</p><p>18 Figure out (a goalie, say)</p><p>19 Players aged 13-19</p><p><b>LAST</b>&nbsp;<b>ISSUE&rsquo;S CROSSWORD SOLUTION ACROSS</b> 1. BRUCE, 8. GAUDREAU, 9. FLOAT, 10. HAMILTON, 11. RAFFI, 14. PERRY, 15. MOTOR, 20. LOGAN, 21. LOPSIDED, 22. WASHY, 23. SYRACUSE, 24. GOONS <b>DOWN</b> 2. RELEASES, 3. CRAWFORD, 4. JAPAN, 5. EDDIE, 6. MEETS, 7. BUNNY, 12. COLORADO, 13. JONATHAN, 16. SLASH, 17. SPARS, 18. HITCH, 19. JESSE<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-04

CROSSWORD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-02373/9982958-1-eng-US/f0049-022.jpg" title="f0049-02" width="244" height="436"></div><h2><b>COREY PERRY</b></h2><p>Mean Duck often agitates opposing defensemen. Resume filled with all-star nods. Makes life hell for L.A.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-03296/9982951-1-eng-US/f0049-032.jpg" title="f0049-03" width="245" height="437"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(FRANCO ORIGLIA/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><h2><b>GORDON RAMSAY</b></h2><p>Cooks a mean duck. Often agitated. Resume filled with Michelin Star nods. Films <i>Hell&rsquo;s Kitchen</i> in L.A.</p><p>Email your suggestions to <b><a href="mailto:sab@thehockeynews.com">sab@thehockeynews.com</a></b></p><p>WHO AM I: JOE NIEUWENDYK<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-02

Separated AT BIRTH

<div class="byline">&nbsp;&#x2013; MATT LARKIN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-05220/9982989-1-eng-US/f0049-052.jpg" title="f0049-05" width="892" height="869"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(JASON LIVERY/HEADSTRONGGRAFX.COM)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>R</span>yan Ramshaw won a fan contest to design Allen&rsquo;s mask. He honored Allen&rsquo;s moniker, &lsquo;Jake the Snake,&rsquo; with a snake head and an eye on each side. Allen&rsquo;s regular artist, Jason Livery, painted it, adding the arch and the phrase &ldquo;Long Live The Note.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-05

Behind THE MASK

<div class="byline">&nbsp;&#x2013; RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0049-06141/9983020-1-eng-US/f0049-062.jpg" title="f0049-06" width="676" height="795"><figcaption class="caption-body">NIKOLAJ <b>EHLERS</b> <span class="photo-credit">(CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>hanks in large part to offensive wunderkinds Nikolaj Ehlers and Oliver Bjorkstrand, Denmark&rsquo;s world junior team was an underdog favorite in Toronto this year.</p><p>But the surprise quarterfinalists would have left a mark even without their win over the Swiss, due to their sweet uniforms. The white edition was especially cool, highlighted by an off-centered lion that dominates the left ribcage of the sweater and even bleeds onto the arm. The actual team name is pretty small on the front, but adds to the uniqueness of the creation.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0049-06

JerseyHOUND

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0050-02" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-02357/9983051-1-eng-US/f0050-022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">FRANK <b>LITTLEJOHN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(BRAMPTON BEAST)</span></figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0050-01470/9983058-1-eng-US/f0050-012.jpg" title="f0050-01" width="200" height="238"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>F</span></b><b>RANK LITTLEJOHN WAS MOST RECENTLY</b> a Beast. Truth is, he&rsquo;s been many beastly incarnations since he began his pro hockey career 16 years ago. He&rsquo;s been a Glaciercat, an IceHawk, a Falcon, a River Rat, a River Otter, a Mallard, a Jackal and an IceGator. And that doesn&rsquo;t cover half the teams he&rsquo;s played for over the course of his hockey travels. He&rsquo;s ranked as high as General, a Baron and a Privateer, but he&rsquo;s also been a Lumberjack. He&rsquo;s been a Nailer and a Checker, literally and figuratively. He&rsquo;s even covered off the winter weather conditions as a Chill, a Blizzard and a Frostbite.</p><p>This issue of The Hockey News is known as our Rookie Issue, which showcases the players you&rsquo;ll be seeing starring in the best league in the world for years to come. But for every Aaron Ekblad and Filip Forsberg, there are guys like Frank Littlejohn, who at 37 waits for the phone to ring with a minor league coach or GM on the other end, wondering whether he might be able to suit up and continue chasing the dream.</p><p>Littlejohn has played for 22 minor pro teams in eight leagues since he started drawing a paycheck from the game in 1998-99. But he knew what he was getting into, having played for five Jr. A teams in Ontario in five seasons before embarking on a hockey career. The longest he&rsquo;s been in one place is four seasons when he played for the Adirondack IceHawks of the defunct United League. His shortest tenure has been one game, mostly with AHL teams for a couple all-too-brief call-ups.</p><p>His most recent stint was two games this season with the Brampton Beast of the ECHL. It all started last year when he got a call from the St. Charles Chill of the (also) defunct Central League, asking him to fill in for a few games while the team was playing in Brampton. He hadn&rsquo;t played pro hockey for a year, and even then his last stint was in the Federal League. Yes, there used to actually be a Federal League. Littlejohn had always wanted to hit the 700-game mark, so he decided to play, and that led to Brampton offering him a contract down the stretch and into the playoffs.</p><p>So Littlejohn worked out this past summer, hoping to resume his career with Brampton. But then the Central League folded and the Beast was absorbed by the ECHL, a younger, more competitive league that limits the number of veterans each team can have. But in December, the Beast ran into injury trouble and asked Littlejohn to come back to play three games in three nights. It turned into just two in two nights when Wheeling&rsquo;s bus broke down on the way to Brampton and the Nailers couldn&rsquo;t make the game. &ldquo;As soon as I heard that Sunday morning, I said, &lsquo;My body&rsquo;s pretty sore from the first two games. I&rsquo;m glad their bus broke down.&rsquo; &rdquo; Littlejohn said.</p><p>The great thing about Littlejohn is his story is not one of failure, even though he never came close to playing in the NHL. It is, in fact, one of triumph. He&rsquo;s 37 with four young kids and works as a part-time firefighter in eastern Ontario. He plays in a pretty good fire-fighters league these days, on account of so many good hockey players go on to become smoke eaters. He may never play a pro game again, but he&rsquo;ll continue to wait for that call and if it comes, he&rsquo;ll answer it without hesitating. The stint with Brampton allowed him to score his 500th career point last season to go along with 2,381 penalty minutes and more fights than he can remember. He spends time running hockey schools and coaching his son, who plays atom AAA hockey and is just beginning his own journey in the game.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;THE GREAT THING ABOUT LITTLEJOHN IS HIS STORY IS NOT ONE OF FAILURE. IT IS ONE OF TRIUMPH</blockquote><p>How can someone who has played that many years in that many places with so much passion for the game be considered anything but a success? &ldquo;I always hoped to stick in the AHL so that maybe I could get that shot (at the NHL),&rdquo; Littlejohn said. &ldquo;It didn&rsquo;t pan out for me. I would have loved it and I would have taken it by the horns for sure, but I can&rsquo;t look back and say, &lsquo;Geez, what did I do wrong?&rsquo; At whatever level I was at, I just loved it. Just loved it.&rdquo;</p><p>So Frank Littlejohn will continue to wait for a phone call that may never come again. If it doesn&rsquo;t, he&rsquo;ll most miss the guys in the room and on the bus, the same things Hall of Famers and fourth-line pluggers long for when the game is over. His paycheque is much smaller, and his hockey lifeline has been a lot more circuitous, but in reality, Frank Littlejohn isn&rsquo;t that much different than Aaron Ekblad or Filip Forsberg, after all.</p><p><b>CAN&rsquo;T GET ENOUGH CAMPBELL?</b> GO TO <b><a href="http://thehockeynews.com">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a></b> FOR DAILY UPDATES<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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February 16, 2015

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