It¹s THN¹s Free Agency Preview, with everything you need know about your team heading into the summer, plus features on the biggest UFA of all-time (John Tavares), John Carlson, Free Agent Power Rankings and much, much more.

Free Agency Preview 2018

The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. THN is published 18 times a year, including 14 regular issues and four special issues – such as Future Watch, Draft Preview, Yearbook, the #1 selling hockey annual in North America.

The Hockey News vol.71 no.16 - June 18, 2018

<div class="image-hero"><img title="COL_Rantanen" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/col_rantanen/286895-1-eng-US/col_rantanen.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MIKKO RANTANEN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Michael Martin/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>M</span>IKKO RANTANEN</b> is a 2019 RFA but can sign an extension July 1. Expect that to happen, as it will dictate GM Joe Sakic&rsquo;s other off-season moves. After a breakout 84-point season, Rantanen will command Leon Draisaitl- or David Pastrnak-type money. Split the difference and Rantanen should come in at $7 million or more. Colorado has only minor decisions to make with its 2018 UFAs. Blake Comeau is a useful depth forward but he&rsquo;s replaceable. The same goes for veteran backup goaltender Jonathan Bernier. Instead of spending millions to retain those two players, Sakic should pool his funds in pursuit of a younger, higher-impact UFA.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0617/280764-1-eng-US/f0036-062.jpg" title="f0036-06" width="238" height="310"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend23/287382-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NHL-LEGEND

COLORADO AVALANCHE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="OTT_Stone2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ott_stone2/287174-1-eng-US/ott_stone2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MARK STONE</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><b></b><p class="dropcap"><b><span>M</span>ARK STONE</b> has emerged as the Senators&rsquo; most consistent offensive producer &ndash; put him down for at least 25 goals and 60 points next season &ndash; and one of their best two-way forwards. As such, he&rsquo;ll want to be paid accordingly. If he elects for arbitration, the team has the option of choosing a two-year deal. If he does not and the team elects to take him to arbitration, Stone has the option of accepting a one-year deal. Look for one of those two things to happen while both sides work on trying to strike a longterm deal before the arbitration decision comes down. The Senators could also extend Erik Karlsson&rsquo;s contract after July 1, but a lot of signs point to them trading their superstar captain instead.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0621/281630-1-eng-US/f0041-062.jpg" title="f0041-06" width="513" height="143"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend13/287167-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

OTT_Stone2

OTTAWA SENATORS

<div class="byline">BY TOM THOMPSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="BUZZ_VERSUS" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_versus/285708-1-eng-US/buzz_versus.jpg"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>J</span>ULY 1 IS WIDELY</b> referred to in hockey circles as Free Agency Day. A more appropriate title for the managements of the 31 NHL clubs may be Judgment Day. The decisions made on that day can have long-term implications. Which UFAs do you pursue and which do you pass on? Ownerships and fan bases are often impatient to obtain the one particular type of player who will &ldquo;put the team over the top.&rdquo; The price of UFA acquisitions will be high &ndash; in terms of money, length of contract and restrictive no-trade or no-movement clauses. What looks like an ideal short-term fix can have nightmare long-term consequences. It may be preferable to start building a program with very few good players, as compared to a situation where your roster is cluttered with veteran players whose performance cannot justify the value of their contracts. You cannot move these players, and your ability to make useful acquisitions is therefore restricted by the terms of the salary cap. Among a group of interesting UFAs as we approach July 1 are two veteran left wingers. Assuming they don&rsquo;t re-sign with their current teams, James Neal and James van Riemsdyk will both be available to all NHL clubs. Should your favorite club pursue them or take a pass? Which of the two is preferable? Let&rsquo;s take a look at what they offer.</p><h3><b>ROLES</b></h3><p>This is the first&nbsp;question that must be addressed in assessing the value of UFAs. Do not get into bidding wars for penalty killers, checkers, depth defensemen or backup goalies. In this case, both players pass the test. They both have proven track records of generating offense. They&rsquo;ve scored goals throughout their careers regardless of how successful their teams have been, and both perform on the power play.&nbsp;<b>EDGE: NEITHER</b></p><h3><b>RED FLAGS</b></h3><p>No real concern in this area. Both have size: Neal is 6-foot-2 and 221 pounds, van Riemsdyk is 6-foot-3 and 217 pounds. Both can skate and play an up-tempo game. Both have been durable: Neal has played in 89 percent of his team&rsquo;s games during his career, van Riemsdyk 86 percent. Neal will be 31 at the start of next season, van Riemsdyk 29. By the end of a long-term contract, that age difference could be a factor.&nbsp;<b>EDGE: VAN RIEMSDYK</b></p><h3><b>SKILLS</b></h3><p>For the purpose of free agency assessment, the skills must be analyzed as a total package. Both players are big with good reach. They can both skate. Their hockey sense is good. Both are excellent shooters and shot deflectors. Both are very adept at handling the puck in tight quarters. Both are productive scorers from close to the net.&nbsp;<b>EDGE: NEITHER</b></p><h3><b>SCORING PRODUCTION</b></h3><p>Both have had successful careers in this area. Neal has been slightly more productive, averaging 0.70 points per game, while van Riemsdyk has averaged 0.65. The edge exists primarily because Neal has been more productive on the power play, averaging 0.20 power play points per game compared to 0.17 for van Riemsdyk.&nbsp;<b>EDGE: NEAL</b></p><h3><b>NON-SCORING FACTORS</b></h3><p>This category is not close. Neal plays with a consistent physical edge. He plays a hard game. Meanwhile, van Riemsdyk is not a factor in the play when he is not scoring. Overall, he plays a soft game. The two statistics most important in this category are hits and takeaways. In his career, Neal has averaged 1.51 hits per game while van Riemsdyk is at 0.97. In takeaways, Neal is at 0.61 and van Riemsdyk at 0.44. Despite their similar sizes, Neal appears much stronger physically on the ice. The thunderous open-ice hit that Neal laid on Toby Enstrom in the opening game of the West final is typical of his style of play. It is certainly not typical for van Riemsdyk.&nbsp;<b>EDGE: NEAL</b></p><h3><b>VALUE TO TEAM</b></h3><p>Earlier in his career, when the Maple Leafs had poor teams, van Riemsdyk got significantly more ice time than he has received since Mike Babcock became the coach. In the past three seasons, van Riemsdyk has averaged 16:11 per game in the regular season and that figure dipped down to 15:58 in the playoffs. In his three seasons in Nashville and this season in Vegas, Neal has averaged more than 18 minutes per game during the regular season and 19:41 in the playoffs. On good teams with strong teammates, Neal&rsquo;s ice time goes up with the importance of the games. In similar situations, van Riemsdyk&rsquo;s ice time goes down. Significantly, van Riemsdyk&rsquo;s ice time has gone down for four consecutive seasons. In Babcock&rsquo;s first season in Toronto, van Riemsdyk&rsquo;s ice time was 17:46 per game. This season it was 14:54. His playoff ice time one year ago was 17:38. This season it was 14:19.&nbsp;<b>EDGE: NEAL</b></p><h3><b>PERSONALITIES</b></h3><p>This is a tough category to assess but an important one. If you bring in a high-priced free agent in an attempt to put a contending team over the top, how will that incoming player mesh with his new teammates? Will he upset a reasonably successful apple cart? I have never heard anybody say a negative word about van Riemsdyk&rsquo;s personality. He appears to be a gentleman who doesn&rsquo;t make waves. With Neal, I have never heard a hockey person question his talent or competitive fire. But there are rumblings about his relationships with some of his teammates, including some of the game&rsquo;s biggest stars. It&rsquo;s worth asking why a big, skilled, competitive player has been moved three times during his career. Perhaps Neal&rsquo;s abrasiveness is not confined to the ice.&nbsp;<b>EDGE: VAN RIEMSDYK</b></p><h3><b>CONCLUSION</b></h3><p>While both players would&nbsp;add value to a contender, Neal is worth more money per season because he can contribute in more ways. That said, van Riemsdyk might warrant a longer term because he is almost two years younger. I would be reluctant to give either player a totally restrictive no-trade or no-movement clause in his contract. With van Riemsdyk, I would want to keep him motivated to ensure his competitive juices keep flowing. With Neal, I would want a way to move his contract if his personality is not a proper mix with the team. In today&rsquo;s game, a Stanley Cup champion requires forwards who can skate at the NHL tempo, produce offensively in pressure situations and compete like warriors as the playoffs proceed and attrition takes place. Not many potential UFAs meet all three requirements. Neal meets all three, van Riemsdyk meets the first two. By the first week in July, both will be signed to lucrative multi-year contracts. Determining how much of your team&rsquo;s resources should be tied up in either player requires sound judgment. July 1 is indeed Judgment Day in the NHL.</p><p><i>Tom Thompson has been an NHL scout/director/assistant GM since 1985.</i></p><p class="attribute">PHOTOS BY MINAS PANAGIOTAKIS/GETTY IMAGES & MARK BLINCH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BUZZ_VERSUS

BUZZ

JAMES NEAL VS. JAMES VAN RIEMSDYK  

<div class="image-hero"><img title="NSH_Saros" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nsh_saros/286923-1-eng-US/nsh_saros.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JUUSO SAROS</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by John Russell/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he Predators have built a Presidents&rsquo; Trophy-winning powerhouse. To keep it intact long term, they must take a conservative approach this summer. Mike Fisher retired (again) this off-season, and fellow UFAs Scott Hartnell and Alexei Emelin aren&rsquo;t great bets to return. GM David Poile will use his cap space to re-sign RFA <b>JUUSE SAROS</b>, one of the NHL&rsquo;s top backup goalies, plus crash-and-bang RFA winger Ryan Hartman. Next summer, starting goalie Pekka Rinne and star blueliner Ryan Ellis become UFAs. Even if Rinne is deemed too old to keep by then, Ellis is a vital cog, so the Preds need to focus their attention on his extension.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-0329/280900-1-eng-US/f0037-032.jpg" title="f0037-03" width="239" height="247"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend/286916-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NSH_Saros

NASHVILLE PREDATORS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="JK-column-ipad" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jk-column-ipad2/287600-1-eng-US/jk-column-ipad.jpg"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>HORTLY AFTER THE BRUINS</b> were eliminated from the playoffs, pending unrestricted free agent Rick Nash was asked about his priorities for choosing his next landing spot. Winning, he told NHL.com, was &ldquo;obviously No. 1.&rdquo; No. 2? &ldquo;A good place to live that my family enjoys.&rdquo; At no time, for public consumption, did he holler, &ldquo;Show me the money!&rdquo;</p><p>Perhaps that&rsquo;s just implicit. Cash is king, and everything else is aces up sleeves. A veteran agent we consulted conceded that financials are typically alpha, but it&rsquo;s rarely that straightforward. Planning and negotiating UFA deals, for those players who have the luxury of being choosy, will touch on combinations of the following factors:</p><p><b>MONEY:</b> This is as much about term as the annual average. &ldquo;Sometimes fans and media get hung up on AAV,&rdquo; said the agent, &ldquo;but if one guy gets $6 million per for eight years, and another gets $7 million per for five years, who did better? Total dollars count.&rdquo;</p><p><b>EGO:</b> The agent said NHL players aren&rsquo;t focused on keeping up with the Crosbys. In fact, he said, he has only encountered instances of the opposite, clients who don&rsquo;t want to be the highest-paid guy on the team they sign with. How hockey. He cited one example of a player who didn&rsquo;t want the burden of a $100-million contract, so the final amount was less. Just ever-so-slightly less.</p><p><b>PEER PRESSURE:</b> This doesn&rsquo;t exist, he said, overtly or covertly; there are no directives from the NHL Players&rsquo; Association. In the cap era, players get a predetermined percentage of total hockey revenues, so it&rsquo;s simply a matter of how the pie is sliced.</p><p><b>WINNING:</b> Huge. No. 2 after money. The problem is, how do you identify who&rsquo;s going to win? Three of the four conference finalists this spring didn&rsquo;t even make the playoffs last year. &ldquo;Fifteen or 20 years ago this was easier. It&rsquo;s nearly impossible now. Who&rsquo;s going to win a Stanley Cup first, a team like Minnesota or one like Arizona?&rdquo;</p><p><b>FIT:</b> An absolute prerequisite. Players want to know their projected deployment, and they get five days prior to July 1 to consult coaches and GMs of potential suitors to get the lowdown. &ldquo;We encourage our players to ask about their role during this time, but caution them that things can, and often do, change. Personnel changes, situations change. And we stress the onus is on them to fulfill their roles.&rdquo; Some NHLers have very specific fits in mind. Dan Hamhuis, a B.C. native, was determined to play at home in Vancouver. He could have made much more elsewhere. Loui Eriksson, meanwhile, went to the Canucks to play with the Sedins.</p><p><b>COACH:</b> The agent has never encountered a player who said he won&rsquo;t sign with a team because of the coach, but the opposite has occurred. Either through reputation or prior experience, a coach can bring added appeal. Think Brad Richards. It was widely reported that one of the reasons he signed with the Rangers in 2011 was because of his comfort level with John Tortorella. Go figure.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">NOW EVERYONE STAYS AT THE FOUR SEASONS.&nbsp;NOW EVERYONE HAS A CHEF FOR THE DRESSING ROOM</blockquote><p><b>LIFESTYLE:</b> Most UFAs are 27 and older, and many have families. So the glam of a Manhattan isn&rsquo;t typically a consideration. On the other hand, a town that might have a reputation for being less sexy shouldn&rsquo;t be, and usually isn&rsquo;t, a deterrent. &ldquo;Every NHL city, whether it&rsquo;s Detroit or Buffalo or pick a place, they all have upscale neighborhoods, and that&rsquo;s where these older players live.&rdquo; What does factor in is hockey culture. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s true&hellip;some want to play in hockey-crazed markets like Toronto and Montreal, while others want to remain anonymous and not get recognized in the grocery store.&rdquo;</p><p><b>SPOUSE:</b> This is a bit nebulous. No player is ever likely to admit he&rsquo;s steering clear of a city at the behest of his partner, but getting the spousal thumbs-up matters. &ldquo;Wives will sometimes be in meetings or on the phone when we&rsquo;re doing our planning, and it&rsquo;s important that they buy in. If a family member isn&rsquo;t happy in a particular location, it brings added stress that nobody wants.&rdquo; The agent said there is a small subset of American players who&rsquo;ve always played in their homeland that shy away from moving to Canada.</p><p><b>CLIMATE:</b> Probably a bigger factor than you&rsquo;d think. In particular, players who&rsquo;ve gotten used to toiling in warm-weather regions, said the agent, often don&rsquo;t want to leave for a cold-weather town. And those that haven&rsquo;t played in the sun might want to towards the end of their careers.</p><p><b>FRANCHISE REPUTATION:</b> It used to be a big determinant. There was a time when if you signed with the Rangers, you knew you and your family were going to be treated first-class. But that gap has closed, in part due to stipulations in the CBA, in part because teams have realized they need to go posh in order to compete. &ldquo;Twenty years ago, some teams stayed at the Four Seasons, some at a more budget-conscious hotel. Now everyone stays at the Four Seasons. Now everyone has a chef for the dressing room. Everyone pretty much has the same perks.&rdquo;</p><p><b>TAXES:</b> This can be huge. &ldquo;Players understand their (take-home pay) will be much more in Tampa Bay, Nashville, Dallas, places where there is no state tax. And the teams in those states use this to their advantage when making offers to players. This is clearly one area where there is not a level playing field among the teams.&rdquo;</p><p>Who can blame them? Successful teams use necessary means, and with NHL free agents, it&rsquo;s rarely solely about showing them the money. Sometimes it&rsquo;s about showing them the savings.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jasonkay_sig-iphone2/285138-1-eng-US/jasonkay_sig-iphone.jpg" title="JasonKay_Sig-iphone" width="392" height="178"></div><p align="center">Jason Kay,&nbsp;Editor in chief</p><p align="center">Twitter:&nbsp;<a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/JKTHN"><b>@JKTHN</b></a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

JK-column-ipad

Column

TAKE THE MONEY AND WIN

<div class="byline">W. Graeme Roustan</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Roustan-column-iPad" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/roustan-column-ipad2/287607-1-eng-US/roustan-column-ipad.jpg"></div><p>Since I acquired The Hockey News on Jan. 27, I set out to deliver a better experience for our readers.</p><p>To date, I have added more pages to expand coverage of the NHL, CWHL, NWHL, IIHF, grassroots hockey and everything in between.</p><p>In addition, I invested in a brand new state-of-the art app, now available at Google Play and Apple iTunes, which is a must-have for hockey fans. It allows our audience to get digital issues of The Hockey News, anywhere in the world, in a format specifically designed for their phones.</p><p>Now that you&rsquo;ve seen the difference in our product, you might notice with this issue that you actually <i>feel</i> the difference. We&rsquo;ve teamed up with St. Joseph&rsquo;s Media to print The Hockey News in Vaughan, Ont. With this change comes new paper stocks for the contents and cover that I believe are a better quality and will deliver a better experience for our readers.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/7116_yoursay_ipad/285466-1-eng-US/7116_yoursay_ipad.jpg" title="7116_YourSay_iPad" width="900" height="1024"></div><p>None of these investments will make sense if you don&rsquo;t continue to support the best editorial hockey team in the world by subscribing to The Hockey News. Go to Google Play or Apple iTunes to download The Hockey News app.</p><p>I am working on more improvements that I hope you will be as excited to enjoy as I am in making them.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/graemeroustan_sig_ipad3/285145-1-eng-US/graemeroustan_sig_ipad.jpg" title="GraemeRoustan_Sig_iPad" width="320" height="100"></div><p align="center">Executive Chairman & Publisher, Roustan Media Ltd.<br><b><a datastyle href="http://www.roustan.com">roustan.com</a></b><br><a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/GraemeRoustan"><b>@GraemeRoustan</b></a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Roustan-column-iPad

Your Say

FEEL THE DIFFERENCE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="OTT_Karlsson" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ott_karlsson2/285501-1-eng-US/ott_karlsson.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>To the Boston Bruins for a 2019 first-round pick, 2020 second-round pick, Torey Krug, Danton Heinen and Peter Cehlarik.&nbsp;<b>&ndash; @kestabrooks86</b></p><p>Michael McLeod, Steve Santini and a first-round pick this year and next. The Devils have enough offense now to trade McLeod, and Santini isn&rsquo;t much, but the two first-rounders should make it work.&nbsp;<b>&ndash; AJ Rubin</b></p><p>Karlsson and a second-round pick to Philly for its two first-round picks this year, Travis Sanheim and Wayne Simmonds. As a fan I&rsquo;d hate to see Sanheim go, but Karlsson is an all-world difference-maker.&nbsp;<b>&ndash; @rgoalie36</b></p><p>T.J. Brodie, Sam Bennett, 2020 first-rounder and 2021 first- and second-round picks for Karlsson and Bobby Ryan. Ottawa eats 25 percent of Ryan&rsquo;s salary. Karlsson re-signs with Calgary.&nbsp;<b>&ndash; @ColoradoFlames</b></p><p>Karlsson to Edmonton for Oscar Klefbom, Jesse Puljujarvi, Ethan Bear and the Oilers&rsquo; 2018 first-round pick.&nbsp;<b>&ndash; @_RasmusDahlin</b></p><p>The Vegas Golden Knights acquire Karlsson and Zack Smith for Cody Glass, Erik Brannstrom, Malcolm Subban, the Knights&rsquo; 2019 first-round pick and the Canucks&rsquo; 2018 fourth-rounder.&nbsp;<b>&ndash; Jason Schweitzer</b></p><p>Karlsson to the new Unified Korea men&rsquo;s national team in exchange for &ldquo;denuclearization&rdquo; of the peninsula.&nbsp;<b>&ndash; @MelPowell</b></p><div class="sidebar"><p><i>Have your say!</i><br><i>Email us a&nbsp;letter to the Editor at</i><br><i><a datastyle href="mailto:LETTERS@THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM">letters@thehockeynews.com</a></i></p><p><i>Please include your full name and hometown</i></p></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/yoursay-poll3/285494-1-eng-US/yoursay-poll.jpg" title="YourSay-Poll" width="1080" height="1189"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY DAVE REGINEK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

OTT_Karlsson

SOAPBOX

<div class="image-hero"><img title="f0006-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-0175/279301-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Golden Knights get a detailed scouting report on Blake Wheeler&rsquo;s bottom half after a thunderous hit sends the Jets captain on a surprise spelunking expedition during the Western Conference final. <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY JASON HALSTEAD/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0006-01

A Thousand Words

WE’VE GOT A DEEP BENCH

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="BUZZ_Jets2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_jets2/285508-1-eng-US/buzz_jets2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY RUSTY BARTON/HOCKEY HALL OF FAME)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>K</span>EVIN CHEVELDAYOFF</b> vividly recalls the conversation. It was about six weeks before the 2016 trade deadline, a potentially franchise-changing time for the Winnipeg Jets, when he spoke with soon-to-be free agent Dustin Byfuglien. The franchise was at a crossroads. One season removed from its first playoff berth since arriving in Winnipeg, the Jets were outside a wild-card position, and there were rumors were swirling that &lsquo;Big Buff&rsquo; could be wearing a different jersey following the NHL&rsquo;s trade freeze.</p><p>But with the deadline in the offing and Byfuglien inching towards big-money free agency, pen hit paper on a five-year, $38-million contract that kept the blueliner in Aviator Blue. Byfuglien made his reasoning clear to the GM, too. &ldquo;He talked about, &lsquo;I like what we have going here,&rsquo;&rdquo; Cheveldayoff said. &ldquo;&lsquo;I know it takes time, and it&rsquo;s a great place to play, my family likes it here, and we&rsquo;ve got some great young players.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>Byfuglien was prescient, particularly since those were dark days, especially given how far the franchise has come in two-plus years since he signed on the dotted line. But the truth is one didn&rsquo;t need to dig far beneath the surface to see a team oozing with potential, one built on the bedrock of drafting and developing an elite young core on the verge of having outsized expectations. But this has been the plan all along.</p><p>Cheveldayoff remembered early meetings with Jets ownership, back when the organization was seeking to replace former Atlanta Thrashers staff with its own people. Cheveldayoff outlined a plan, drawing on experiences with the Chicago Blackhawks and AHL&rsquo;s Chicago Wolves. He wanted to evaluate the existing talent, no doubt, but &ldquo;the long-term look (was) to grow a group of players through drafting and developing and to have that group of players essentially grow up together and grow into something that becomes a cohesive unit.&rdquo;</p><p>The difference between Winnipeg and others who have adopted the draft-and-develop model in the post-lockout, salary cap era is that the Jets have been wary of fast-tracking the future. Aside from prodigious sniper Patrik Laine, selected second overall in 2017, Cheveldayoff and Co. have slow-played prospects who have since become key contributors.</p><p>Take Mark Scheifele, a burgeoning star among the NHL&rsquo;s best, who spent two additional seasons in the OHL after being drafted seventh overall in 2011. Nikolaj Ehlers, too, was sent back to junior after his selection as the ninth overall pick in 2014. Kyle Connor earned his stripes with the Manitoba Moose before he became the NHL&rsquo;s leading rookie goal-scorer, and Josh Morrissey and Adam Lowry had to make their way through the AHL before becoming featured players. &ldquo;You make decisions that are in the best interests of both the player and the team, both in the short term and the long term,&rdquo; Cheveldayoff said. &ldquo;All these things take a level of buy-in, a level of trust, and an understanding that there&rsquo;s a bigger picture.&rdquo;</p><p>Taking the long view has helped Cheveldayoff keep course, too. There are others &ndash; GMs, organizations, fan bases &ndash; who seek the quick fix after repeated regular season disappointments. Yet Cheveldayoff&rsquo;s trade ledger is relatively barren. He has made 26 trades in seven years. And no one would mistake the Jets GM for a spendthrift. Prior to the 2017-18 off-season, which saw the signings of Steve Mason and Dmitry Kulikov, Winnipeg passed on the high-dollar big fish for cost-effective minnows in free agency. &ldquo;(Ownership) maintained, as they always maintained, if and when there was an opportunity and we needed to spend, that we would,&rdquo; Cheveldayoff said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all about striking when you feel the opportunity is right.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_cheveldayoff/285515-1-eng-US/buzz_cheveldayoff.jpg" title="BUZZ_Cheveldayoff" width="1080" height="775"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>THE MAN WITH THE PLAN</b></p><p>Cheveldayoff went into the Jets job with a long-term winning strategy &ndash; and he stuck with it.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY DAVE SANDFORD/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Not to be undersold is the role that coach Paul Maurice has played since his arrival in 2014. As important as staying true to the plan has been, having a voice in the room who understands big-picture thinking, relays that message to the players and leads them into battle knowing the process necessitates pain en route to the destination. Thus, in hiring Maurice, Cheveldayoff was honest: there would be distressing days. &ldquo;Consequently, he was very candid,&rdquo; Cheveldayoff said. &ldquo;And we&rsquo;ve been very candid with the players we&rsquo;ve been able to retain, keep and be a part of this, as to what our plan was.&rdquo;</p><p>But through the retention of their own big-name free agents, drafting and developing talent, maintaining focus on the broader scope and hiring a coach willing to take lumps and refocus the veteran leadership during tough times, Cheveldayoff maintains that not only formulating but executing a blueprint that can produce a winner comes from the top down. &ldquo;It begins and ends with ownership, the commitment and understanding and the buy-in from that group,&rdquo; Cheveldayoff said. &ldquo;You also need a knowledgeable and understanding fan base. Fortunately, we have both.&rdquo;</p><div class="sidebar"><p><i>For up-to-the-minute coverage, visit&nbsp;<a datastyle href="http://www.THN.com"><b>THN.COM</b></a></i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

BUZZ_Cheveldayoff

THE AVIATOR BLUEPRINT

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE TELJEUR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Charlie_7116" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/charlie_71162/286602-1-eng-US/charlie_7116.jpg"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Charlie_7116

THE INSTIGATOR

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="MyWeapon-label" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/myweapon-label2/285159-1-eng-US/myweapon-label.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz-oshie1/285529-1-eng-US/buzz-oshie1.jpg" title="Buzz-OSHIE1" width="250" height="250"></div><p>&nbsp;</p><p><b>BAUER | SUPREME 1S</b></p><p>I had originally just&nbsp;used the stock Joe Sakic curve my whole life. In my second or third year, I asked Bauer to make me one of Ovie&rsquo;s curves just to see what it was like. From his curve they made me mine. I kind of stepped on it and molded it to a curve I could handle a little easier, but it was never quite right. There was about five years when I was using Bauer and Warrior that I had 30 different patterns. Then I came here and at the end of my first year in Washington, Ovie was messing around with his curve and just showed it to me. And I asked him if I could just try it in warmups. I was kind of hoping that I wasn&rsquo;t going to like it and make me like my curve better, but I went out and I loved it in warmups and I scored two goals in the game with it. I&rsquo;ve been using that ever since. It&rsquo;s a stick Ovie was messing around with, so he knows everything about it. I just told him to make me that exact stick&hellip;and then (Bauer) made that exact stick for me. Technically it&rsquo;s Ovie&rsquo;s stick, but it just has my name on it.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_oshie/285536-1-eng-US/buzz_oshie.jpg" title="BUZZ_Oshie" width="1080" height="1246"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BUZZ_Oshie

My WEAPON

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKINBY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="BehindTheMask-label" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/behindthemask-label2/285166-1-eng-US/behindthemask-label.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_mask1/285550-1-eng-US/buzz_mask1.jpg" title="BUZZ_Mask1" width="1080" height="746"></div><p><b>STEVE MASON | WINNIPEG JETS</b></p><p>If you're thinking, &ldquo;The pilots on Mason&rsquo;s mask don&rsquo;t really look like pilots,&rdquo; you&rsquo;re not wrong. The faces belong to members of the Jets&rsquo; training and equipment staff. Mason endured a tough season, limited to 13 regular season games because of injury, so he and artist Sylvie Marsolais decided to honor those who helped get him back on his skates. The name &lsquo;Emma&rsquo; on the backplate belongs to Mason&rsquo;s daughter.</p><p><i>Mask by Sylvie Marsolais</i><br><i>Photo by Sebastien Gervais</i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BUZZ_Mask1

BEHIND THE MASK

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-0160/279481-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="699" height="1195"></div><h2><b><i>BACK UP THE BRINKS TRUCK</i></b></h2><h3><b>JOHN TAVARES</b></h3><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>avares&rsquo; six-year deal with a $5.5-million AAV was a steal from Day 1. At that cap hit, he ended 2017-18 as the NHL&rsquo;s 108th-richest player &ndash; but was the NHL&rsquo;s seventh-leading scorer over the course of the contract. As a UFA, Tavares should become the NHL&rsquo;s second-richest player behind Connor McDavid.</p><h2><b><i>CAPITAL TO GAIN</i></b></h2><h3><b>JOHN CARLSON</b></h3><p>Carlson&rsquo;s a right-handed shot in his prime in a brutally barren year for UFA blueliners, so his services couldn&rsquo;t come at more of a premium. Given that he logs monster minutes and led all D-men in scoring this season, he deserves at least $7 million annually, but the suped-up market will bring him more than that.</p><h2><b><i>NOUVEAU RICHE</i></b></h2><h3><b>RILEY NASH</b></h3><p>Nash was a $900,000 player in 2017-18. He&rsquo;ll be a multimillionaire by summer&rsquo;s end. He&rsquo;s a physical checking center who has the skill to handle scoring-line duty, as he proved every time he filled in for Patrice Bergeron between Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak.</p><h2><b><i>TAKING A HAIRCUT</i></b></h2><h3><b>PAUL STASTNY</b></h3><p>Stastny will still command a pretty penny given he&rsquo;s probably the second-best center on the open market, but he finishes up a contract with a $7-million AAV. No way he gets that much again at 32 &ndash; unless some team out there is maniacally desperate.</p><h2><b><i>HOPE YOU SAVED UP</i></b></h2><h3><b>TOMAS PLEKANEC</b></h3><p>He averaged $6 million the past two seasons but is now 35 and no longer a viable offensive center. He&rsquo;s a two-way veteran whose scoring contributions are gravy. Plekanec&rsquo;s days of making comparatively big money have ended.</p><h2><b><i>THERE BETTER BE A DISCOUNT</i></b></h2><h3><b>RICK NASH</b></h3><p>Nash managed just 59 goals in 198 games over Years 6 to 8 of his $63-million deal. He was getting paid for a service he wasn&rsquo;t providing. Teams should treat him as a 25-goal threat now and compensate him accordingly.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

f0011-01

FREE AGENT RAISE-O-METER

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="JerseyHound-label" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jerseyhound-label3/285173-1-eng-US/jerseyhound-label.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_jersey/285625-1-eng-US/buzz_jersey.jpg" title="BUZZ_Jersey" width="1080" height="608"></div><p><b>REGINA PATS | 2017-18</b></p><p>The Regina Pats were a natural choice to host the 100th Memorial Cup since the WHL team is also celebrating its centennial this season. For that special occasion, the Pats created a third jersey that really comes through in the throwback department. Based off the Pats&rsquo; original sweater, this one really pops thanks to modern fabrics and some cool add-ons.</p><p>Details include four crowns on the left flank, one for each Memorial Cup the team has won. The crowns themselves are modelled after the ones on the city&rsquo;s flag. The team&rsquo;s current logo appears on the right shoulder and a 100th anniversary patch on the left.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BUZZ_Jersey

JERSEY HOUND

<div class="byline">BY SAL BARRY OF PUCKJUNK.COM</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="InTheCards-label" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/inthecards-label3/285180-1-eng-US/inthecards-label.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_cards/285632-1-eng-US/buzz_cards.jpg" title="BUZZ_Cards" width="750" height="1044"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>A</span>RGUABLY THE BIGGEST FREE</b> agent signing in history was when the Rangers inked Wayne Gretzky to a two-year deal July 21, 1996. After all, it isn&rsquo;t every day a team can sign hockey&rsquo;s all-time leading scorer. It was the first time Gretzky had UFA status &ndash; and he wanted to play with friend and former Oilers teammate Mark Messier. So hyped was the reunion of these two legends that Messier appeared alongside Gretzky at the announcement. Upper Deck seized the opportunity to show both players at the press conference on Gretzky&rsquo;s 1996-97 Series One card.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BUZZ_Cards

IN THE CARDS

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="BUZZ_Dahlin" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_dahlin/285653-1-eng-US/buzz_dahlin.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>RASMUS DAHLIN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY TOMMY HOLL)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>U</span>NLIKE LAST YEAR&rsquo;S NOLAN</b> Patrick vs. Nico Hischier debate, there isn&rsquo;t a lot of mystery surrounding the No. 1 pick. Barring a meteor strike, Buffalo will take Rasmus Dahlin when the festivities kick off in Dallas June 22.</p><p>After that, there&rsquo;s some intrigue. Carolina holds the second pick but is entertaining the notion of trading down. The Rangers would like to move up, while the Islanders have two high picks in a row. Will the Isles use both selections or package one in a deal? There are plenty of possible permutations here. Toss in the inevitable blockbuster trade (Erik Karlsson?) and the current selection order is gonna get knocked out of whack. Which is a long way of saying that the following mock draft is more instructional than predictive.</p><p>Blueliners will be a hot commodity, while the final third of the first round is wide open. Will teams take chances on high upside or go with safe players who will definitely be pros?</p><p>This mock draft is informed by our rankings in Draft Preview (you bought that one, right?) and features a mixture of Best Player Available, team needs and team preferences &ndash; loosely in that order. The final four selections will change based on playoff results, but assume the players taken by those teams wouldn&rsquo;t change, even if their position in the draft moves a little.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>1. RASMUS DAHLIN</b></h1><p><b>D, FROLUNDA</b></p><p>A no-brainer. The best player in the draft. He fills a big need for Buffalo: a franchise D-man who can move the puck.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>2. ANDREI SVECHNIKOV</b></h1><p><b>RW, BARRIE</b></p><p>Talent, size and drive in one package. He&rsquo;s the second-best player in the draft and will help the Hurricanes score.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>3. FILIP ZADINA</b></h1><p><b>LW, HALIFAX</b></p><p>A shooter with tons of talent and Habs need every weapon they can get. After great WJC, he&rsquo;s ready for the next step.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>4. BRADY TKACHUK</b></h1><p><b>LW, BOSTON U.</b></p><p>Sens have nice stable of prospects, but Tkachuk is unique. Known for physicality and two-way game, he&rsquo;s skilled, too.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>5. ADAM BOQVIST</b></h1><p><b>D, BRYNAS</b></p><p>He won&rsquo;t crack the Coyotes right away but has high ceiling thanks to his superb mobility and passing.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>6. QUINN HUGHES</b></h1><p><b>D, MICHIGAN</b></p><p>A skilled puck-mover who controls the play, he&rsquo;ll develop in Detroit&rsquo;s backyard as he continues his NCAA career.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>7. EVAN BOUCHARD</b></h1><p><b>D, LONDON</b></p><p>There&rsquo;s no rush, but he could probably make the jump to the NHL. A top-notch passer with size and a big shot.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>8. OLIVER WAHLSTROM</b></h1><p><b>RW, U.S. NTDP</b></p><p>The Hawks need assets. In Wahlstrom they get a sniper with an NHL shot. He&rsquo;s not ready yet, but he&rsquo;s exciting.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>9. NOAH DOBSON</b></h1><p><b>D, ACADIE-BATHURST</b></p><p>A building block with plenty of potential. His size and skating make him deadly on the back end.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>10. TY SMITH</b></h1><p><b>D, SPOKANE</b></p><p>The Oilers have talent up front, but their blueline could use more sizzle. Smith has skill and mobility. He just needs time.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>11. JOE VELENO</b></h1><p><b>C, DRUMMONDVILLE</b></p><p>Don&rsquo;t take this pick as a comment on John Tavares&rsquo; future. Veleno is a driven playmaker with a bright future.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>12. BARRETT HAYTON</b></h1><p><b>C, SAULT STE. MARIE</b></p><p>New York can really help its pipeline with Hayton, who brings a fantastic two-way game and tons of upside.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>13. ISAC LUNDESTROM</b></h1><p><b>C, LULEA</b></p><p>Lundestrom can fit anywhere in the lineup. He&rsquo;s a mature two-way pivot with pro experience.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>14. JOEL FARABEE</b></h1><p><b>LW, U.S. NTDP</b></p><p>Farabee helps Flyers&rsquo; forward futures, combining top-notch skill with solid allaround game and superior work ethic.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>15. BODE WILDE</b></h1><p><b>D, U.S. NTDP</b></p><p>There is risk in Wilde&rsquo;s game, but there&rsquo;s also reward. His bomb shot and physicality would be welcome in Florida.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>16. JESPERI KOTKANIEMI</b></h1><p><b>C, ASSAT PORI</b></p><p>A big center with big upside. If Kotkaniemi can improve his skating, the Avs will be stacked down the middle.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>17. RASMUS SANDIN</b></h1><p><b>D, SAULT STE. MARIE</b></p><p>He&rsquo;d be an excellent future foil for Will Butcher. Sandin can put up points as well as be a safety blanket for a freelancer</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>18. TY DELLANDREA</b></h1><p><b>C, FLINT</b></p><p>He took on a ton of responsibility on a bad team. With his smarts, skill and compete level, he&rsquo;d be at home in Ohio.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_dellandrea/285660-1-eng-US/buzz_dellandrea.jpg" title="BUZZ_Dellandrea" width="1080" height="808"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>TY DELLANDREA</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Dennis Pajot/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>19. AKIL THOMAS</b></h1><p><b>C, NIAGARA</b></p><p>With Thomas and Farabee, the Flyers would deepen their pool of forwards. You can never have too much talent.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>20. GRIGORI DENISENKO</b></h1><p><b>LW, LOKOMOTIV</b></p><p>Denisenko boasts top-end skill and physicality. If the Kings can reel in his aggression a bit, he&rsquo;ll be a great add.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>21. JETT WOO</b></h1><p><b>D, MOOSE JAW</b></p><p>Woo provides great physical play, and he continues to develop an offensive dimension in major junior.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>22. RYAN MCLEOD</b></h1><p><b>C, MISSISSAUGA</b></p><p>With his speed and skill, McLeod might be a game-breaker if he can put it all together. Sens could use talent infusion.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>23. K&rsquo;ANDRE MILLER</b></h1><p><b>D, U.S. NTDP</b></p><p>Miller won&rsquo;t help immediately, but his athleticism and skill would be a boon to a team that needs to look ahead.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>24. JACOB OLOFSSON</b></h1><p><b>C, TIMRA</b></p><p>He&rsquo;s the type of center that is always in style. Size and good two-way game. He just needs time to keep developing.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>25. VITALI KRAVTSOV</b></h1><p><b>RW, TRAKTOR</b></p><p>Toronto has great skill up front but not a lot of size. Kravtsov has both and could be a big-time producer for the Leafs.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>26. RASMUS KUPARI</b></h1><p><b>C, KARPAT</b></p><p>With a plethora of picks, the Rangers can take a chance on a tantalizing prospect who can put up points.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>27. MARTIN KAUT</b></h1><p><b>RW, PARDUBICE</b></p><p>Kaut doesn&rsquo;t have the same offensive upside as Wahlstrom, but he can be an effective player anywhere in the lineup.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>28. DOMINIK BOKK</b></h1><p><b>RW, VAXJO</b></p><p>Bokk is skilled with a ton of potential. The German national has only scratched the surface so far.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>29. SERRON NOEL</b></h1><p><b>RW, OSHAWA</b></p><p>Be patient with Noel, a power forward in the making who just needs to put it all together. His size really stands out.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_noel2/285639-1-eng-US/buzz_noel2.jpg" title="BUZZ_Noel2" width="1080" height="820"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SERRON NOEL</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p>&nbsp;</p><h1><b>30. MATTIAS SAMUELSSON</b></h1><p><b>D, U.S. NTDP</b></p><p>Samuelsson has great size, smarts and plays with an edge. Plus, he&rsquo;s headed to nearby Western Michigan for college.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_samuelsson/285646-1-eng-US/buzz_samuelsson.jpg" title="BUZZ_Samuelsson" width="1080" height="1313"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MATTIAS SAMUELSSON</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Dave Reginek/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>31. RYAN MERKLEY</b></h1><p><b>D, GUELPH</b></p><p>Once again, with multiple picks, the Rangers can take chances. Merkley could be a game-breaker defenseman.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BUZZ_Dellandrea

 THE COUNTDOWN  

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="BUZZ_Rooney" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_rooney/285701-1-eng-US/buzz_rooney.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>GOLDEN GOALIE</b></p><p>The 20-year-old Rooney led the U.S. women&rsquo;s team to victory at the worlds in 2017 and Olympics in 2018.</p><p></p> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>N ORDER TO UNDERSTAND</b> Maddie Rooney, the 20-year-old netminder who backstopped Team USA to its first Olympic gold since 1998, you have to go back to her days at Andover High in Minnesota&rsquo;s renowned high school hockey circuit.</p><p>Entering her senior season in 2014-15, Rooney had been a standout for Andover&rsquo;s girls&rsquo; team, leading it to its first state tournament as a junior. But having proven her mettle against girls&rsquo; competition and wanting to test herself further before heading to University of Minnesota-Duluth, Rooney set her sights on the boys&rsquo; varsity team. &ldquo;I wanted to give myself the ultimate challenge possible,&rdquo; Rooney said. &ldquo;And that was to play boys&rsquo; high school hockey.&rdquo;</p><p>As Andover boys&rsquo; coach Mark Manney remembers, Rooney had difficulty broaching the subject. &ldquo;The risk for her was that she couldn&rsquo;t try out for the boys and then say, &lsquo;I don&rsquo;t like this, I&rsquo;m going to go back and play with the girls,&rsquo;&rdquo; Manney said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one or the other in Minnesota&hellip;The day she showed up for our tryouts meant there was no going back.&rdquo;</p><p>But Rooney&rsquo;s trust in herself paid off. Not only did she make varsity, she arguably outperformed her competition. She flourished in her role sharing the crease, which bolstered her confidence heading into her freshman NCAA season and later gave way to her turning in one of the nation&rsquo;s best goaltending performances as a sophomore. Her 2016-17 campaign catapulted her onto Team USA&rsquo;s radar and caught the eye of national team coach Robb Stauber, a former NHL goaltender.</p><p>What impressed Stauber was Rooney&rsquo;s skill set: her athleticism, intuitiveness and belief in her ability. Rooney earned an invite to the 2017 World Championship and eventually to Team USA&rsquo;s Olympic centralization camp, where she secured her ticket to Pyeongchang. &ldquo;She plays with guts. Absolute courage,&rdquo; Stauber said. &ldquo;When you play with 100-percent confidence in your ability, in how you see and how you read the game, and you commit to that, that&rsquo;s what she does.&rdquo;</p><p>That belief was most evident on the biggest stage, under the brightest lights, with the whole world watching. After supplanting her crease mates, Rooney commandeered the U.S. net&nbsp;for all but one game of its Olympic run. That included the gold medal game, where Rooney turned aside 29 of 31 shots before stymying the likes of Marie-Philip Poulin, Natalie Spooner and Meghan Agosta in a winner-take-all shootout. And that was exactly Rooney&rsquo;s kind of game. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always liked playing under pressure,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s why when the pressure is turned up in those big games, I thrive in that environment.&rdquo;</p><p>Her ability to do so is why Stauber thinks she can be the longtime starter Team USA has never had, a stabilizing force akin to Mike Richter during his heyday with the men&rsquo;s team. He said Rooney has the difference-making quality that can turn a World Championship-caliber goalie into a repeat Olympic champion. &ldquo;I had a chance to talk with her three or four weeks ago,&rdquo; Stauber said. &ldquo;And I reminded her that I believed she could be someone who wins several more gold medals.&rdquo;</p><p>Becoming a mainstay won&rsquo;t be easy, though. Rooney will have to remain sharp for another four-year cycle, not to mention continue to outshine a growing crop of women&rsquo;s netminders who will be coming for her now gilded crease. &ldquo;I know there&rsquo;s always someone working hard and wanting to take my place,&rdquo; Rooney said. &ldquo;I know that I have to work just as hard, continue to improve my game and continue to prove myself. That is a goal, to stay starting on Team USA.&rdquo;</p><p>And if Rooney carries with her the same faith she has had since her days at Andover, who would dare bet against her?</p><h2>THREE TO WATCH</h2><p>The U.S.&rsquo;s talent pool is overflowing with impressive young goalies</p><p><b>KATIE BURT, 21, BOSTON COLLEGE&nbsp;</b><br>Burt holds the NCAA wins record (121) and sits fifth all-time in shutouts (35), ninth in GAA (1.47) and 13th in SP (.937). She was NWHL&rsquo;s first overall pick in 2017 and earned an invite to Team USA&rsquo;s pre-Olympic camp.</p><p><b>KENNEDY BLAIR, 20, MERCYHURST</b><br>A casualty of University of North Dakota eliminating its women&rsquo;s program, Blair transferred to Mercyhurst, where she posted the best SP and most shutouts of any freshman.</p><p><b>ALEX GULSTENE, 19, MINNESOTA</b><br>Canadian-born dual citizen led U.S. to consecutive U-18 golds. Her freshman NCAA season at Minnesota had its ups and downs, but her successful track record hints at a bright future.</p><p>&nbsp;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BUZZ_Rooney

STARTING STOPPER

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Malarkey_Dubas" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/malarkey_dubas/285473-1-eng-US/malarkey_dubas.jpg"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>TAN BOWMAN WAS THE</b> great adaptor. It appears his Chicago Blackhawks have exited their dynastic years, but if that&rsquo;s the case, he should take a bow. When they won three Stanley Cups between 2010 and 2015, Bowman deservedly earned a lot of the credit for his trademark ability to navigate salary-cap crunches.</p><p>He dealt Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien from the 2010 title team and let goalie Antti Niemi walk, yet Chicago developed Brandon Saad, Nick Leddy and Corey Crawford en route to a 2013 Cup. Leddy and Dave Bolland got squeezed out, and the Hawks won another Cup in 2015 with Teuvo Teravainen rising up and Brad Richards signing a cheap swan-song deal.</p><p>Chicago was built on the powerhouse core of Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, but because those star players earned increasingly enormous salaries, Bowman had to keep the team competitive via efficient signings and mining talent from within the organization.</p><p>At least, that&rsquo;s how he built the 2013 and 2015 Cup teams. The 2009-10 season feels like a long time ago, so it&rsquo;s easy to forget the Hawks had far fewer roadblocks to building a Cup champ. Toews and Kane combine for a $21-million cap hit today, but they added up to $1.73 million in 2009-10. Keith and Seabrook today: $12.4 million. Back in 2009-10: less than $5 million. So Chicago entered 2009-10 with that key quartet eating less than $7 million. Dale Tallon, days before his removal as GM, bolstered an already rising squad by signing Marian Hossa, John Madden and Tomas Kopecky. The Hawks won the following June.</p><p>Before Chicago&rsquo;s strategy was about overcoming its homegrown stars&rsquo; gargantuan cap hits, it was about recognizing a prime contention window before the key cogs&rsquo; first big contracts kicked in. And that should be a template new Toronto Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas should consider carefully.</p><p>Like the 2009 Blackhawks, the Leafs are an exciting young team, led by homegrown high picks Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly and Nazem Kadri. Nylander will earn a big raise this summer as an RFA, even if he signs a bridge contract, and Rielly and Kadri have already moved on to their first long-term, big deals.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">TORONTO&rsquo;S STRATEGY SHOULD BE ABOUT RECOGNIZING A PRIME CONTENTION WINDOW BEFORE THE BIG CONTRACTS KICK IN</blockquote><p>Matthews and Marner, however, are entering the final years of their entry-level contracts just as Kane and Toews were nine years ago. The Leafs will say goodbye to James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak and Leo Komarov as UFAs. Even after Nylander inks his extension, the Leafs should be swimming in cap space. They could take a shot at a big-ticket free agent or two &ndash; even while doing the arithmetic on Matthews&rsquo; and Marner&rsquo;s extensions, which will activate for 2019-20.</p><p>Teams can still win championships once their stars become expensive commodities, but it takes ingenuity. Bowman had to find surprise gem after surprise gem. The top-heavy Pittsburgh Penguins built around Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel and Kris Letang, but used a nondescript defense corps and some plucky AHL call-ups as key components for their consecutive Cups.</p><p>From 2019-20 on, the Leafs will have to be just as creative. They&rsquo;ll need blueliner Timothy Liljegren to make the jump and produce during his ELC as Travis Dermott has, and they&rsquo;ll give more minutes to speedy wingers Andreas Johnsson and Kasperi Kapanen. They&rsquo;ll rely on their deep farm system to churn out support players. But they don&rsquo;t have to do exclusively that for one more year.</p><p>The 2018-19 campaign gives Toronto a chance to pursue its Hossa. Based on team need, that could mean handing right-shot blueliner John Carlson a mammoth UFA deal and targeting an impactful checking center in the mold of Riley Nash. And doing so shouldn&rsquo;t be considered stupid or reckless. In today&rsquo;s landscape, teams should take their big swings during these entry-level windows. With or without Carlson, the Leafs will have financial hoops to jump through once Matthews&rsquo; AAV exceeds $10 million, so why not do it with Carlson as a top-end No. 1 blueliner? Think the Hawks regret handing Hossa his monster deal? Hell no. They don&rsquo;t win three Cups without him.</p><p>Maybe someday we&rsquo;ll laud Dubas for salary-cap tap dancing just as we have Bowman. For now, the Leafs should make like the 2009 Hawks, not the 2013 to 2015 Hawks. It&rsquo;s time to smash open the piggy bank. [THN]</p><p>Twitter: <b><a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/THNMattLarkin">@THNMATTLARKIN</a></b></p><p class="attribute">Photo By Rene Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Malarkey_Dubas

ACCELERATE THE BE-LEAF

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Pests_Marchand2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_marchand2/285861-1-eng-US/pests_marchand2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Brad Marchand</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>U</span>NDER THE HEADING OF</b> &ldquo;Playing Style&rdquo; on Brad Marchand&rsquo;s Wikipedia page, it says the following: &ldquo;Marchand&rsquo;s scoring ability is often overshadowed by his onice antics and dirty play.&rdquo; In other news, fire is hot, water is wet and standing in front of a Shea Weber slapshot can sometimes result in an ouchy.</p><p>(Later in the entry, it also says, &ldquo;Marchand is also known for his tendency to kiss or lick the neck or face of other players during play, for which he has been formally warned by the NHL administration to stop or face further disciplinary actions.&rdquo; Read that sentence out loud and try not to laugh.)</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_marchand3/285819-1-eng-US/pests_marchand3.jpg" title="Pests_Marchand3" width="968" height="703"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Brad Marchand</b></figcaption></div><p>Marchand is also known as &ndash; take your pick here &ndash; a pest, cheap-shot artist, dirt bag, jerk, annoyance, jackass, public enemy, dangerous, supremely talented, coveted by his teammates and a top-10 player in the NHL. That&rsquo;s what makes him so intriguing. Over the past season, Marchand established himself as an elite talent and the most hated player in the league, with Tom Wilson in hot pursuit of the latter. Marchand&rsquo;s licking exploits in the playoffs not only drew the attention of the league but also elicited a collective &ldquo;WTF.&rdquo; Add in a suspension and two fines so far in 2018 and you have a player who has decisively entrenched himself as one of hockey&rsquo;s all-time shift disturbers.</p><p>Here&rsquo;s our top 10 in that category, listed in alphabetical order because we know people would find them all equally disdainful. You might not agree with our selections, but there are a few caveats. We restricted the list to players who had at least one 20-goal season to their credit as forwards &ndash; which disqualifies the likes of Sean Avery and Matthew Barnaby. Players also had to be less than six feet tall, which disqualifies the likes of Claude Lemieux, Esa Tikkanen and Eddie Shack. And they all had to have very punchable faces.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_ciccarelli1/285777-1-eng-US/pests_ciccarelli1.jpg" title="Pests_Ciccarelli1" width="1080" height="1171"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Dino Ciccarelli</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Steve Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>DINO</b>&nbsp;<b>CICCARELLI</b></h1><p>A Hall of Fame player and a Hall of Fame antagonist, Ciccarelli became one of the greatest undrafted NHL players of all-time. His 21 points as a rookie in the 1981 post-season still stands as an NHL playoff record and, if you can believe it, his 20 goals in the first 15 games of the 1986-87 season remains one of the only offensive records that Wayne Gretzky doesn&rsquo;t own. But Ciccarelli was a nasty, nasty piece of work from the time he played Jr. B in Sarnia in the mid-1970s until he retired in 1999. A stick attack on Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Luke Richardson in 1988 earned Ciccarelli a day in jail and a $1,000 fine. And Ciccarelli did not mellow with age. Late in the 1995-96 season, Ciccarelli drilled Chicago Blackhawks enforcer Enrico Ciccone with a sucker punch that would probably earn him a double-digit suspension in today&rsquo;s NHL.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_fleury1/285770-1-eng-US/pests_fleury1.jpg" title="Pests_Fleury1" width="1080" height="735"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>Theo Fleury</b></p> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo By Allsport)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>THEO FLEURY</b></h1><p>Once in an interview with your trusty correspondent, Fleury referred to himself as &ldquo;one of the greatest small men to ever play the game,&rdquo; and he&rsquo;s not wrong. It remains something of a mystery why Fleury is not yet in the Hall of Fame. When he played in the WHL for the Moose Jaw Warriors, opposing teams used to play <i>Pop Goes the Weasel</i> when he hit the ice and, later in his junior career, he was a central figure in the Piestany Punch-Up that led to Canada being kicked out of the World Junior Championship in 1987. In the NHL, Fleury scored 90-plus points four times and racked up 100-plus penalty minutes 10 times. But Fleury was not only battling opponents during his NHL career. He was also battling his own demons.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_hunter/285784-1-eng-US/pests_hunter.jpg" title="Pests_Hunter" width="1080" height="1543"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Dale Hunter</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo By Rick Stewart/Allsport)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>DALE HUNTER</b></h1><p>Here's an interesting stat: No player in NHL history has as many combined points and penalty minutes as the 4,585 that Hunter accumulated during his career. Tiger Williams is second on the list, and he&rsquo;s more than 100 behind with a combined 4,484. It was only fitting that when Hunter&rsquo;s No. 32 was retired by the Washington Capitals, he was presented with the demolished remains of the Capital Centre penalty box. He remains the only player to rack up 1,000 points and 3,000 PIM, and his 21-game suspension for drilling Pierre Turgeon from behind in the 1993 Eastern Conference final represented the longest suspension for an on-ice indiscretion at the time. Late in his career with the Colorado Avalanche, Hunter played on a line with Fleury and Lemieux. Never in league history had three more hated players been put on the same line.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_kasparaitis/285756-1-eng-US/pests_kasparaitis.jpg" title="Pests_Kasparaitis" width="1080" height="1030"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Darius Kasparaitis</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>DARIUS KASPARAITIS</b></h1><p>The only defenseman and non-Canadian on this list, Kasparaitis once responded to a loss in the World Junior Championship by skating up to his own goalie and punching him in the head. Kasparaitis was not only one of the hardest hitters in the league when he played, but he was also one of the dirtiest and most fearless. He certainly didn&rsquo;t pick his spots, going after star players, which usually forced him to have to answer to a good number of enforcers. His thunderous hit on Eric Lindros in 1998 knocked Lindros out for 18 games and contributed greatly to his well-documented concussion problems. But Kasparaitis endured as much as he dished out, as evidenced by the many injuries that kept him out of the lineup and just as many through which he played.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_leswick/285798-1-eng-US/pests_leswick.jpg" title="Pests_Leswick" width="1080" height="1263"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>Tony Leswick</b></p> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>TONY LESWICK</b></h1><p>Just 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds, Leswick was nicknamed &lsquo;Mighty Mouse&rsquo; and made a career of driving Maurice &lsquo;Rocket&rsquo; Richard to distraction during the playoffs. And in 1954, Leswick really stuck a dagger in the Canadiens, when during overtime in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, he lobbed a puck into the Canadiens&rsquo; end that Doug Harvey tried to bat out of the air before knocking it into the Canadiens net. It still remains the last time the Cup final was decided in OT in Game 7. In fact, hockey lore has it that the Red Wings went out and traded for Leswick from the New York Rangers because he had such success keeping Gordie Howe off the scoresheet. Leswick took on a much less prominent role in Detroit but continued to be one of the league&rsquo;s most notorious pests.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_lindsay/285791-1-eng-US/pests_lindsay.jpg" title="Pests_Lindsay" width="1080" height="861"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Ted Lindsay</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>TED LINDSAY</b></h1><p>One of the reasons why there were so few pests in the early years of the game was that whether you were a superstar or third-liner, you fought your own battles. And Lindsay, another player small in stature but enormous in heart, did all of that and more. Hockey historian Bob Duff said former Red Wing Johnny Wilson told him a story that an upstart in training camp once took a run at Lindsay, who went after the player. Wilson stepped in to break things up and told Lindsay to take it easy on the kid, only to be told that he&rsquo;d be next if he didn&rsquo;t get out of the way. &ldquo;And we were friends,&rdquo; Wilson said. Lindsay&rsquo;s willingness to take on all comers also extended off the ice when he risked his career by becoming one of the founding fathers of the NHL Players&rsquo; Association.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_marchand1/285812-1-eng-US/pests_marchand1.jpg" title="Pests_Marchand1" width="1080" height="988"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Brad Marchand</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>BRAD MARCHAND</b></h1><p>Marchand was pretty frank about what he needs to change when he talked after the Bruins were eliminated from the 2018 playoffs, but his past suggests that he has yet to walk the walk when it comes to responding to league reprimands. There is no disputing he is an elite NHL talent, but that&rsquo;s where the admiration for Marchand ends. Here&rsquo;s the list of what Marchand has been suspended or fined for during his NHL career: elbowing, slew-footing, low-bridge hitting, clipping, tripping, diving and cross-checking. He has been suspended six times for a total of 19 games and with fines and lost wages combined, has paid more than $900,000 for his indiscretions. And then there&rsquo;s the licking thing. Aside from admitting he&rsquo;s got to &ldquo;cut that s--- out&rdquo; of his game, Marchand was reflective after the season. &ldquo;The biggest thing for me now is to really take a pretty hard look in the mirror and realize the actions, some of the things that I&rsquo;m doing,</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_verbeek3/285833-1-eng-US/pests_verbeek3.jpg" title="Pests_Verbeek3" width="1080" height="1145"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Pat Verbeek</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><b></b><h1><b>PAT&nbsp;VERBEEK</b></h1><p>When you're this annoying, they call you &lsquo;The Little Ball of Hate.&rsquo; Verbeek remains the only player in NHL history to score 500 goals and accumulate 2,500 PIM. In the summer of 1985, after his third season in the NHL, a farming accident resulted in one of his thumbs being cut off. The thumb was saved and reattached, and Verbeek was able to resume his career. He later joked that the cement drained out of his hand when the accident happened. Verbeek joined the OHL&rsquo;s Sudbury Wolves one year after Dale Hunter left and picked up right where Hunter left off. Verbeek seriously cut the leg of Washington Capitals defenseman Rod Langway in 1988, and while the NHL ruled the incident an accident, there are those who have their doubts.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_linesman/285805-1-eng-US/pests_linesman.jpg" title="Pests_Linesman" width="1080" height="1165"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Ken Linesman</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>KEN LINSEMAN</b></h1><p>Anyone who is full marks for earning the nickname &lsquo;The Rat&rsquo; merits a spot on this list. Linseman is often cited as the NHL&rsquo;s first true agitator. Even if there were several who came before him, he took it to unparalleled heights and in many ways perfected the craft. He was once charged in junior hockey when he kicked an opponent in the head during a game. During one game, prior to Mario Lemieux winning his two Stanley Cups with Pittsburgh, Linseman lined up against &lsquo;Le Magnifique&rsquo; and before every faceoff asked Lemieux the following question: &ldquo;How many Stanley Cups have you won?&rdquo; To which Lemieux responded, &ldquo;How much money do you make?&rdquo; Linseman was also not afraid to cross swords with the hockey establishment off the ice, challenging the NHL&rsquo;s draft rules in court, which essentially led to the 18-year-old draft.</p><p>have much bigger consequences,&rdquo; Marchand told the media after the Bruins&rsquo; season ended. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ve gotten my game into a pretty decent spot, but I&rsquo;ve got some character things and things that I&rsquo;ve done that clearly need some fixing.&rdquo; Again, we&rsquo;re not going to hold our breath on that one.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pests_williams1/285847-1-eng-US/pests_williams1.jpg" title="Pests_Williams1" width="1080" height="1169"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>Tiger Williams</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Bruce Bennett Studios/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><h1><b>TIGER WILLIAMS</b></h1><p>Williams, the NHL&rsquo;s all-time leader in PIM, earned a spot in the 1981 NHL All-Star Game, playing on the top line with Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy. In his final two years of junior with the WHL&rsquo;s Swift Current Broncos, Williams had 210 points and 576 PIM. How does anyone do that? He continued his belligerent but productive ways in the NHL, racking up 300-plus PIM six times, including 1980-81 when he led Vancouver with 35 goals and 343 PIM. Williams was not a pest in the true sense in that he was willing to drop his gloves and fight &ndash; and often did so &ndash; but he earns pest status simply for his stick-riding goal celebration. In 1987, he became probably the only NHL player in history to publish a cookbook. More recently, Williams was in the news in February when he was charged with sexual assault in connection to an alleged incident on a Canadian military flight. A court date was pending.&nbsp;[THN]<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Feature

10 BIGGEST PESTS OF ALL-TIME

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Tavares1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tavares1/286283-1-eng-US/tavares1.jpg"></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>N</span>INE YEARS. THAT&rsquo;S HOW</b> long John Tavares and the New York Islanders have been together. It&rsquo;s actually longer than the average American marriage these days, and the Islanders hope this relationship continues to buck the trend.</p><p>Tavares was still a teenager when they first met, and now he is a man. There have been ups and downs, highs and lows. And with unrestricted free agency approaching July 1, Tavares is well aware that other suitors around the NHL will try to catch his eye. Speaking at locker clean-out day, GM Garth Snow made the Isles&rsquo; point very clear: &ldquo;We want to be in a situation where he has the Stanley Cup over his head, wearing an Islanders jersey,&rdquo; Snow said. &ldquo;And we want him to retire as an Islander.&rdquo;</p><p>There is genuine love for Tavares in New York, both from the organization and the fans. But there is much to ponder for the gifted center, who, should he decide to test the market, would be one of the best UFAs in the history of the game.</p><p>Needless to say, his potential departure has been an unceasing topic for nearly two years now. Even as Steven Stamkos approached unrestricted free agency in 2016, the buzz around Tavares&rsquo; future had already begun.</p><p>Like Stamkos, Tavares was taken first overall by a floundering club and became its franchise player. And he, too, is a top-end center still in his prime approaching free agency who will command big dollars and term no matter where he lands. And while Stamkos is a two-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner, Tavares has twice been a finalist for the Hart Trophy.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tavares2/286297-1-eng-US/tavares2.jpg" title="Tavares2" width="1080" height="1364"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>BACK TO THE FUTURE</b></p><p>For the first time since the &rsquo;09 draft, the Isles are faced with the possibility of a team without Tavares.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p>But for Tavares&rsquo; agent, the similarities between the two situations end there. &ldquo;Stamkos was completely different,&rdquo; said Pat Brisson. &ldquo;He really wanted to feel the market, from what I understand.&rdquo;</p><p>Keep in mind, Tampa Bay&rsquo;s long-term plans had to include thoughts on Nikita Kucherov&rsquo;s next big contract at the time, among other considerations. Tavares must already know the Islanders will give him whatever money and term he asks for.</p><p>Having gone through the process already, Stamkos could give feedback to Tavares, though the Islanders star tried not to inundate himself with the issue during the season. &ldquo;The times I&rsquo;ve run into &lsquo;Stammer,&rsquo; he told me to just worry about playing, which is what I try to do,&rdquo; Tavares said. &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t gone out of my way to talk to guys. I&rsquo;m just trying to be myself and be the best player and teammate I can be for the Islanders.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tavares3/286311-1-eng-US/tavares3.jpg" title="Tavares3" width="1080" height="775"></div><p>Stamkos did end up re-signing with the Lightning, accepting a hometown discount of $8.5 million per season for eight years to play for a Stanley Cup contender that was pressed for salary cap space. For the Islanders, cap space is not an issue, but there are other factors. Tampa Bay plays in a shiny, modern rink that is filled to the brim every night. The Islanders play in a basketball arena that averaged the lowest attendance in the league this season (based on building capacity, only Carolina&rsquo;s barn was more sparsely filled). This was the solution for vacating Nassau Coliseum, the beloved but decrepit building Tavares first skated in for the Isles, and while a new complex in Belmont Park was recently approved, it won&rsquo;t be ready for several years.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">I WANT TO PLAY FOR A TEAM THAT IS DOING EVERYTHING IT CAN TO WIN, AND THE ISLANDERS ARE CERTAINLY DOING THAT</blockquote><p><i>&ndash; John Tavares</i></p><p>There is also the fact New York is <i>not</i> a Cup contender right now and won&rsquo;t be for a few years, even with Tavares in the lineup, though he sees more light than darkness. &ldquo;Anything that affects my daily life will go into my decision,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I want to play for a team that&rsquo;s doing everything it can to win, and the Islanders are certainly doing that. You can see the potential in our young talent and the guys who have been there a while.&rdquo;</p><p>Under Snow, who took over as GM in 2006, the Islanders have sometimes been good but never great. Winning the Tavares sweepstakes in 2009 was a game-changer for a franchise that hadn&rsquo;t seen glory years since the early 1980s, when Mike Bossy, Bryan Trottier and Denis Potvin helped the Islanders win four straight Cups. But the building has been slow after Tavares. New York had top-five picks in the next three drafts, but none of Nino Niederreiter, Ryan Strome or Griffin Reinhart moved the needle. In fact, Strome&rsquo;s greatest contribution was getting traded for Jordan Eberle last year, while Reinhart should get a banner for being the bait in the deal that landed New York the first-round selection from Edmonton in 2015 that became Calder Trophy favorite Mathew Barzal. Add Barzal to a group of youngsters such as Anthony Beauvillier, Ryan Pulock and Sebastian Aho and you can see some hope for the Isles. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of depth and a lot of potential within the organization,&rdquo; Tavares said. &ldquo;I always believed it and I knew it was there.&rdquo;</p><p>Two other important pieces are Josh Bailey and Anders Lee. Bailey was taken ninth overall one year before Tavares, and the captain&rsquo;s linemate just played in his first NHL All-Star Game. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been a big reason why I&rsquo;ve had a lot of success the last number of years,&rdquo; Tavares said. &ldquo;To see the maturity of his game and him as a person and how relied upon he is on the ice and in the room, it&rsquo;s great to see.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tavares4/286290-1-eng-US/tavares4.jpg" title="Tavares4" width="1080" height="712"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>NO MAN IS AN ISLAND</b></p><p>Tavares can likely get as much money and term as he wants in New York. But can he get a Cup there?</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Bailey also has a unique view of Tavares&rsquo; situation in New York, since he&rsquo;s been there the whole time, growing in his linemate&rsquo;s shadow. Bailey saw Tavares come in as a hyped phenom whose skating was seen as a potential Achilles heel (remember the pundits who pondered if Matt Duchene should have gone first in the 2009 draft?), but soon took the league by storm by finding that next gear. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve grown up together,&rdquo; Bailey said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve grown up as people and players. He&rsquo;s always been that dominant player, and after that first year you could see his skating take off. He puts a lot of work into it, and his work ethic is unmatched by anyone on our team. He deserves everything he gets. He&rsquo;s just a pro about everything. He&rsquo;s had a lot of pressure on him from a young age and he&rsquo;s always been able to handle it well.&rdquo;</p><p>When Tavares first came into the league, he also had a captain he could go to. Not only was Doug Weight a seasoned veteran with a Stanley Cup under his belt from his Carolina days, but he also let Tavares live with him that first year. Now, Weight is Tavares&rsquo; coach &ndash; another factor to consider in The Decision. &ldquo;We got to know each other when I came in as a rookie, and he really helped me as a young player,&rdquo; Tavares said. &ldquo;I really trusted him a lot and tried to soak up as much information as I could. Now, there&rsquo;s a standard he sets for our club and for each individual. I know what he expects from me. I try to reach that every day and possibly more if I can. His door is always open and I can go to him about anything, not just the game. It&rsquo;s nice to have that personable relationship. And his understanding of the game, his commitment and passion to be successful is second to none. I&rsquo;m very thankful to have him as a coach and someone to lean on.&rdquo;</p><p>As for the community itself, Tavares has always been invested in New York&rsquo;s fan base. The move to Brook-lyn was rattling for many Islanders faithful, but at least Belmont Park is slightly closer to the team&rsquo;s Long Island roots, once the team moves there. Nonetheless, that connection is something that Tavares takes pride in. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s part of the tradition and what the Islanders are all about,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;With the team growing up in Nassau County and Long Island, having a community feel, a more rural area, that was a big part of what the Islanders were all about. As players, we felt that was important to keep going.&rdquo;</p><p>But how long should Tavares himself be expected to keep that going? No doubt the Isles can offer him whatever money he wants, plus an eight-year deal (whereas other suitors can only table seven years), so the details are less important than the feel. Let&rsquo;s consider for a moment alternate options that could make sense for &lsquo;JT.&rsquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tavares5/286304-1-eng-US/tavares5.jpg" title="Tavares5" width="1080" height="773"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY BRIAN BABINEAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>In exploring other destinations, it&rsquo;s crucial to look at teams that have cap space to give a new player at least $10 million per season &ndash; that&rsquo;s what Brisson got for a slightly older Anze Kopitar in Los Angeles in early 2016 and the salary cap has gone up since then. You would also need to consider the team&rsquo;s standing and future. Will they be competing for a Cup soon? If not, why would Tavares make the move?</p><p>As is always the case when a bigname player becomes available, Montreal and Toronto are playing heavily in the rumor mill, but neither is a good fit. Montreal isn&rsquo;t a true contender even with Tavares in the lineup and Toronto will need the cap room to sign its star RFAs in 2019.</p><p>San Jose checks all the boxes. Joe Thornton has said he&rsquo;d like to come back, but Tavares would bring so much more to the table and is 11 years younger. San Jose would therefore have the cap space to bring in Tavares while also keeping a talent pool headlined by blueliners Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, solid forwards including Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture and perhaps Evander Kane, plus Tomas Hertl, who is developing into a formidable two-way threat. Northern California is lovely and not too hectic, and the Sharks boast a passionate fan base.</p><p>Should Tavares wish to stick to the East Coast, the New Jersey Devils offer another route, albeit a blasphemous one for rival Islanders fans. New Jersey has the cap space and, more importantly, an exciting young core that helped push the team back into the playoffs ahead of schedule. Taylor Hall became a Hart Trophy finalist, while Nico Hischier and Will Butcher made bigtime contributions as rookies. With more youth on the way (most notably power forward Joey Anderson), things are looking up for the Devils, even if Cory Schneider is a question mark in net because of injuries and recent ineffectiveness.</p><p>There is also the St. Louis Blues to consider, a franchise that just traded center Paul Stastny but remains one of the thicker lineups in the NHL. Of course, the Blues missed the postseason because of injuries and goalie Jake Allen&rsquo;s hiccups, but bring Tavares in and you&rsquo;ve got an intimidating roster that includes sniper Vladimir Tarasenko and top-end defenseman Alex Pietrangelo.</p><p>Or Tavares can stay with the Islanders. While Stamkos had talks with other teams before re-signing in Tampa Bay, Tavares hasn&rsquo;t decided whether or not he&rsquo;ll test the waters. &ldquo;Everything is in motion,&rdquo; Brisson said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re discussing options and there are lots of moving parts. But we&rsquo;re certainly not pushing out the possibility of re-signing with the Islanders before July 1.&rdquo;</p><p>That thumping you hear is the heart rate of Isles fans everywhere.</p><p>It&rsquo;s clear that Tavares&rsquo; decision is going to be monumental. He has been with this organization since the beginning of his NHL career, and he has constantly had to deal with the outside noise that had him wearing his hometown Maple Leafs jersey years before it was even a possibility. He has also dealt with the headlines about New York&rsquo;s dysfunction, from bad trades and bad drafts to building problems, ownership antics and coaching changes. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t take it personally, but sometimes I think people aren&rsquo;t as well informed as we are, being there on a daily basis,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t pay too much attention to it. I know how much is committed to winning and having success.&rdquo;</p><p>Relationships are hard and they never go up in a straight arrow. There is emotional investment, there are the unknowns that come with considering a breakup and if anything could feel like the original love once things are broken. For the Islanders and their diehard fan base, they can only hope Tavares weighs all his options and decides this franchise can be good for him in the future, for him to sign another long-term deal&hellip;you know, for old times&rsquo; sake.&nbsp;[THN]<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Tavares3

JOHN TAVARES: THE DECISION

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Carlson_Opener" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/carlson_opener/286318-1-eng-US/carlson_opener.jpg"></div><p>&nbsp;</p><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span>HEY'RE CALLED &ldquo;TEACHABLE</b> moments,&rdquo; and they can happen almost anywhere. For a lot of hockey families, they present themselves during the car ride home after a game. And for a lot of hockey families, sometimes the lines can be blurred between the one doing the teaching and the one doing the learning.</p><p>So it was that night when Dick Carlson, a former Div. III defenseman at Framingham State College, was driving home from a New Jersey Rockets game with his son John, who was about 12. Dick remembers the Rockets had lost badly. He was irate and made no efforts to hide it. Being the kind of coach who didn&rsquo;t want to handle his own child with kid gloves, lest he be accused of favoritism, he was particularly hard on the lad. That was until the middle of Dick&rsquo;s rant when John finally said, &ldquo;Dad, why are you going so crazy? We have another game tomorrow.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;I wanted to throw him out of the car,&rdquo; Dick recalled.</p><p>Dick brought up the story because, even though it happened 16 years ago, it reveals so much about what makes his son tick. Carlson, the star defenseman for the Washington Capitals, has always been able to maintain a sense of perspective and compartmentalize his life. He&rsquo;s equal parts measured, poised and unflappable. Through all of the ups and downs of his NHL career, and there have been many, Carlson has remained true to himself and his teammates. He&rsquo;s extended that to his personal life, too, which has had its fair share of tribulation. When the waters around him have swirled in any number of directions, Carlson has been able to weather the storm.</p><p>Those traits have served him well and will continue to do so as he enters a period of uncertainty for the first time in his career. At 28 and coming off the best season of his career, Carlson stands to become a UFA July 1. He&rsquo;s made it clear he wants to stay with the Capitals and continue to live in his beautiful house in Chevy Chase with his Maryland-born wife, Gina, and sons, Lucca and Rudy, the latter of whom came into the world between Games 5 and 6 of Washington&rsquo;s second-round series against the Pittsburgh Penguins.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/carlson1/286325-1-eng-US/carlson1.jpg" title="Carlson1" width="1080" height="821"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>ICE TIME WORKHORSE</b></p><p>The Capitals leaned heavily on Carlson this year, especially early on. He topped 26 minutes 15 times in the first 18 games and averaged a career-high 24:47.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY MARK BLINCH/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>And the Caps want him back. But these things can be complicated with the salary cap, and if it doesn&rsquo;t work out with Washington, Carlson will have no problem taking his family with him to another NHL city. After leading NHL defensemen in points this season, there&rsquo;ll be no shortage of teams interested in signing him. A right-shot blueliner who can run a power play, create offense and defend acceptably equals big dollars.</p><p>When Carlson met with his longtime agent, Rick Curran, before the season, Curran asked him how he wanted things handled. In typical Carlson fashion, he told his agent, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want any bulls---.&rdquo;</p><p>He didn&rsquo;t want to be <i>that</i> guy. Of course, fellow pending UFA John Tavares has done everything possible to avoid being <i>that</i> guy, but that hasn&rsquo;t stopped him from becoming <i>that</i> guy. That&rsquo;s why Carlson has a major advantage playing for the Capitals, since Alex Ovechkin takes up an awful lot of the oxygen. And Carlson likes it that way. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just my personality,&rdquo; Carlson said. &ldquo;I follow news around the league and how certain players get a lot of buzz and how it&rsquo;s a constant, &lsquo;Where is this guy going? What&rsquo;s going to happen? He said no to this. He wants this.&rsquo; I didn&rsquo;t really want to be in that sort of news cycle and that&rsquo;s just what we&rsquo;ve gone with.&rdquo;</p><p>It&rsquo;s a lot easier avoiding the news cycle when your name isn&rsquo;t Tavares or Steven Stamkos, but it&rsquo;s uncanny how we never hear much about Carlson. The guy has been in the league nine years now, and we don&rsquo;t know much about him other than he&rsquo;s a heck of a player. It&rsquo;s not that he doesn&rsquo;t like the on-ice spotlight. He sure enjoyed himself when he scored in overtime to stick a dagger in Canada&rsquo;s bid for a sixth straight World Junior Championship on home ice in 2010.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">THAT&rsquo;S JUST MY PERSONALITY&hellip; I DIDN&rsquo;T REALLY WANT TO BE IN THAT SORT OF NEWS CYCLE</blockquote><p><i>&ndash; John Carlson, on keeping a low profile as a pending UFA</i></p><p>And he did a good job of vaulting himself atop the UFA defensemen chart when Matt Niskanen missed 13 games early in the season. Although Washington only went 7-6-0 during that span, Carlson stepped up in a big way: he had two goals and 11 points and averaged 27 minutes a game while shepherding a young blueline corps.</p><p>&ldquo;He carried the bulk of the minutes for our team and really allowed us to survive,&rdquo; said coach Barry Trotz. &ldquo;The first 20 games of the year, we had a lot of change, we had a lot of turnover and we were using three rookie defensemen on a regular basis. He kept getting to the next level as one of the leaders because more and more was put on him. He hasn&rsquo;t backed away from it, he&rsquo;s actually thrived on it. A lot goes to where we ended up this year on what John did early for us.&rdquo;</p><p>Part of the reason why Carlson has been overlooked is that he isn&rsquo;t flashy, despite playing for a team where there has historically been far more sizzle than steak. For all their explosive talent, the Capitals until this spring have been spectacular playoff underachievers, with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin being their kryptonite. But they poked the voodoo dolls in the right places in 2018, which has allowed the spotlight to shine more brightly on everyone, Carlson included.</p><p>The Capitals have Ovechkin, a human highlight machine and the greatest goal scorer of his generation. They have Nicklas Backstrom, one of the league&rsquo;s most prolific setup men. They have Evgeny Kuznetsov, a slick center who does a funny bird dance when he scores, which he does with some frequency. And they have 2016 Vezina winner Braden Holtby, who casts a large shadow in net.</p><p>Until two years ago, the blueline was led by Mike Green, the tattooclad, guitar-playing offensive machine who was a threat at both ends of the ice. Then last season at the deadline, Washington got Kevin Shattenkirk in what could only be described as an ill-advised deal. Meanwhile, the No. 1 defenseman they were looking for was there all along, hidden in plain sight. Carlson just needed the right circumstances to emerge.</p><p>Now that he has, it might provide him with a one-way ticket out of town. If Washington can make this work and give Carlson between $7 million and $8 million on an eight-year deal, he&rsquo;ll be wearing Capitals&rsquo; red, white and blue for a long time. But Washington doesn&rsquo;t have much wiggle room, even if the cap tops $80 million next season. He&rsquo;s coming off a six-year deal that paid him an average of $3.97 million, which is outstanding money by anyone&rsquo;s standards, but this is the one time in his career where he&rsquo;ll be able to put himself into another stratosphere. As much as Carlson wants to remain in Washington and the Caps want him to stay, a significant hometown discount doesn&rsquo;t appear to be in the cards.</p><p>But Washington checks off a lot of boxes for Carlson, and he&rsquo;s not driven solely by dollars. He grew up in a middle-class household, with his father working in administration for a hospital network in New Jersey until he was laid off at 55. Unable to find a job and too young to retire, Dick hit the reset button and started over, purchasing a residential window cleaning franchise. He&rsquo;s now known as the Window Genie, at least for Ocean County and Southern Monmouth County in New Jersey. &ldquo;It all comes back to you&hellip;and the product you produce is a reflection of you,&rdquo; Dick said, with no hint of irony. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a struggle every day, but it&rsquo;s going well.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/carlson2/286339-1-eng-US/carlson2.jpg" title="Carlson2" width="1080" height="864"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>UP THE CHART</b></p><p>Carlson has never been his team&rsquo;s highest paid D-man. He ranked fourth this season.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p>If John Carlson has to hit the reset button himself, that&rsquo;s OK. He was put on Earth primarily to play hockey and that&rsquo;s what he wants to do. His new contract will be based mainly on what he feels his value is &ndash; nothing more, nothing less. &ldquo;John is not looking to make up for anything he feels he didn&rsquo;t get (in the last contract), that&rsquo;s not his nature,&rdquo; Curran said. &ldquo;If Washington can step up and get to his range, his preference would be to stay in Washington. And the biggest factors there are whether the Capitals recognize his value and whether they can find a way to get to that. But there won&rsquo;t be any games, and there won&rsquo;t be any bulls---.&rdquo;</p><p>Regardless of what happens, Carlson will make the decision in a measured, pragmatic way, which is how he approaches everything in life. It took him almost a year to convince Gina to get in a relationship with him, so he has the requisite patience. So what took so long? &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not the right person to ask that question,&rdquo; Carlson said.</p><p>He credits his wife for taming his youthful ways, and with two children now he&rsquo;s come to realize it&rsquo;s not all about him anymore. He&rsquo;s a man in a happy place with a wife and two young boys, but the journey to get there hasn&rsquo;t come without heartbreak.</p><p>John and Gina welcomed Lucca into the world in June 2015, and everything was falling into place nicely. Eight months later, Gina was pregnant again and the couple was expecting a Christmas baby. But four months into the pregnancy, on Lucca&rsquo;s first birthday, Gina was rushed to hospital to have a pregnancy-terminating surgery. She had had an ectopic pregnancy, one in which a fertilized egg implants itself in a fallopian tube rather than in the uterus. Nine months later, Gina miscarried again. Two months after that, Gina became pregnant but learned during her first appointment that the baby had stopped growing. &ldquo;John told me over and over again God wouldn&rsquo;t give me anything I couldn&rsquo;t handle,&rdquo; Gina said in a candid Instagram post while she was carrying Rudy.</p><p>Meanwhile, for the first time in his career, Carlson was getting injured. Even when he was healthy, he wasn&rsquo;t happy with the way he was playing, and he was beginning to doubt himself. &ldquo;It just seemed to be going the wrong way with a lot of things,&rdquo; Carlson said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no real formula, you just get through it together. (Gina) is one tough cookie when it comes to that stuff.&rdquo;</p><p>Through all of that, Carlson gained a fair amount of perspective and maturity, both as a person and a player. When Rudy arrived healthy, he and his wife were over the moon. &ldquo;It was really special,&rdquo; Carlson said. &ldquo;It probably wasn&rsquo;t until a couple hours after that we started talking about everything we had been through to lead us up to this point and just how much more special it was after all the heartbreak.&rdquo;</p><p>On a personal level, the Carlsons&rsquo; growing family has helped ease the pain of what might have been. On a professional level, he&rsquo;s at the top of his game and will be richly rewarded for it by the Capitals or somebody else. Breaking a D.C. sports curse by finally getting past the Penguins and advancing to the East final was a huge load off the Caps&rsquo; collective psyche. Should Washington advance further, it&rsquo;ll make it easier for management to keep the band together. (It&rsquo;s important to note that coach Barry Trotz will also be a free agent after the season. When he was shaking hands with Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella after the Capitals vanquished them in the first round, it sure looked as though Trotz was saying he was gone.)</p><p>As far as Carlson&rsquo;s own situation is concerned, there&rsquo;s no real formula here. He&rsquo;ll follow his instincts, the way he has throughout his life.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">HE KEPT GETTING TO THE NEXT LEVEL AS ONE OF THE LEADERS BECAUSE MORE AND MORE WAS PUT ON HIM</blockquote><p><i>&ndash; Barry Trotz</i></p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/carlson3/286332-1-eng-US/carlson3.jpg" title="Carlson3" width="1080" height="1113"></div><p>Carlson was born in Natick, Mass., but his family moved to Colonia, N.J., when he was five. It was there he played all of his youth hockey and where his father coached him. He wrote in a grade school yearbook that he wanted to be a famous hockey player one day and was getting noticed as a teenager, both by the OHL and the NCAA.</p><p>After weighing his options, Carlson decided he wasn&rsquo;t ready for the OHL and instead decided to play for the Indiana Ice of the USHL as a 17-yearold. It was then that he accepted a scholarship to the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, something his father learned when he sat down with the coach after their second visit. &ldquo;He doesn&rsquo;t always communicate what his thoughts are, never did,&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;But he knows without communicating to anybody, including his father, the thought process he is going through.&rdquo;</p><p>That was no more evident than when Carlson decided to play in the OHL as an 18-year-old. The Kitchener Rangers had originally displayed a lot of interest in Carlson but never drafted him. Once he got to Indiana, he realized he was as good as a lot of the other players there, and many of them were headed to Div. I schools on full rides. That was when he knew he had a chance to be a pro hockey player. So he went the OHL route and the London Knights took him in the second round of the draft. &ldquo;I said to him at the time, &lsquo;You know, we could have done this two years ago,&rsquo;&rdquo; Dick said. &ldquo;And he said, &lsquo;Two years ago I didn&rsquo;t know if I was good enough, so I had to go through the steps.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>It&rsquo;s difficult to argue with that logic. It&rsquo;s also tough to fault Carlson for his laid-back attitude. As it was when he played youth hockey in New Jersey, there&rsquo;s always another game. And as it has been as a pro in Washington, there&rsquo;s always another season. The Capitals looked primed for a setback this season but still won the Metropolitan Division. They don&rsquo;t appear to be going anywhere for at least a couple more seasons, something that&rsquo;ll be even more solidified if they can keep Carlson. &ldquo;People always want to talk about a window, but we&rsquo;ve had a lot of windows,&rdquo; Carlson said. &ldquo;I guess you could consider Ovie&rsquo;s career a window. I don&rsquo;t really think we put a window on ourselves.&rdquo;</p><p>There&rsquo;ll be a team out there willing to sign Carlson to a contract that&rsquo;ll set him, his children and his children&rsquo;s children up quite nicely. He knows that and he&rsquo;s not sweating it. If that team happens to be the Capitals, that window will remain open even longer.&nbsp;[THN]</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-0161/280240-1-eng-US/f0031-012.jpg" title="f0031-01" width="443" height="292"></div><h1><b>CARLSON IS SET TO GET A BIG PAYDAY, BUT WILL IT BE ENOUGH TO JOIN THE NHL&rsquo;S HIGHEST-PAID D-MEN NEXT SEASON?</b></h1><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0031-0242/280233-1-eng-US/f0031-022.jpg" title="f0031-02" width="435" height="424"></div><p class="attribute">Photo by Andre Ringuette/World Cup of Hockey via Getty Images<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Carlson2

JOHN CARLSON: NO B.S. IN D.C.  

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="UFA_Kovalchuk" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ufa_kovalchuk/286353-1-eng-US/ufa_kovalchuk.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>PYEONG-BANG!</b></p><p>Kovalchuk had five goals and seven points in six games at the Olympics, further showing he can still snipe.</p><p></p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>T&rsquo;S JOHN TAVARES&rsquo; YEAR.</b> He&rsquo;s undeniably the best 2018 UFA. But with all due respect to No. 91, there&rsquo;s no free agent this summer more fascinating than Ilya Kovalchuk.</p><p>On resume alone, he should be as coveted as any player. He sniped 417 goals in his 11 NHL seasons from 2001-02 to 2012-13, more than any other player over that span. His 0.51 goals per game rank 18th all-time. He owns a Rocket Richard Trophy, nine seasons of 30-or-more goals, six seasons of 40-or-more goals and two seasons of 50-plus goals. After retiring from the NHL five years ago and heading to the KHL, he won two Gagarin Cup titles and enters the 2018 off-season as the league&rsquo;s reigning scoring champ. He even took home Olympic gold and tournament MVP honors in Pyeongchang this past winter.</p><p>So, yes, Kovalchuk won&rsquo;t have any trouble finding NHL suitors now that he&rsquo;s decided to re-enter the market, but signing him still comes with questions. Will he still be a dominant NHL player at 35? Is it possible the KHL has dulled his skills? What type of contract will he seek?</p><p>Kovalchuk&rsquo;s age isn&rsquo;t likely to scare off any teams, especially because he won&rsquo;t be seeking a monster long-term commitment. For comparison: Jaromir Jagr returned to the NHL in 2011-12 at 39 and played another 460 NHL games, amassing 120 goals and 322 points. That&rsquo;s not to say Kovalchuk is Jagr &ndash; no one is &ndash; but Kovalchuk doesn&rsquo;t have to be considering he&rsquo;s four years younger than Jagr was after his KHL hiatus. And Kovalchuk is no slouch. Three more productive NHL seasons could get him to 500 goals and warrant Hall of Fame consideration.</p><p>There&rsquo;s also little reason thus far for teams to worry about Kovalchuk having &ldquo;lost it.&rdquo; The KHL is a highly competitive league, second-best in the world, and Kovalchuk has been arguably its best player since he left the NHL. He&rsquo;s handled a big leadership role there, too, with SKA St. Petersburg. More importantly, Kovalchuk has earned the benefit of the doubt. He isn&rsquo;t an unknown coming over such as Roman Cervenka &ndash; nor is he even Alexander Radulov, who is the most logical comparison. Radulov had just 154 NHL games and a career high of 26 goals when the Montreal Canadiens signed him in 2016. His sample size was small enough that he had to &ldquo;prove it.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ufa_kovalchuk2/286346-1-eng-US/ufa_kovalchuk2.jpg" title="UFA_Kovalchuk2" width="1080" height="759"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p>That&rsquo;s why Radulov inked a one-year deal when he came back to North America. Kovalchuk won&rsquo;t necessarily have to given that he&rsquo;s an established commodity. On the other hand, Kovalchuk is 35. He&rsquo;s at best on the downslope of his prime and more likely past it. So while Kovalchuk won&rsquo;t sign a one-year deal like Radulov did, he also likely won&rsquo;t command a five-year pact like the one Radulov did with the Dallas Stars last summer at 30. The best bet for Kovalchuk is something in between. Think a two or three-year contract.</p><p>The ideal fit for Kovalchuk, then, is a team hoping to contend for a Stanley Cup right away or within the next couple years. We should thus count out any rebuilding squads in the Kovalchuk sweepstakes.&nbsp;[THN]<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

UFA_Kovalchuk

DON’T SLEEP ON KOVALCHUK

<div class="image-hero"><img title="UFA_Stastny" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ufa_stastny/286360-1-eng-US/ufa_stastny.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>PAUL&nbsp;STASTNY</b></p><p><b>&nbsp;</b></p> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Andre Ringuette/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>&gt;</b> NHL free agency begins on July 1 at 12 p.m. EST.</p><p><b>&gt;</b> There is a five-day negotiating/exploration window between teams and free agents before July 1, but no deals can officially be signed until free agency begins. The five-day window starts after the NHL draft ends.</p><p><b>&gt;</b> Players who re-sign with their original teams can get a maximum contract term of eight years. Any UFA signing with a new team can get a maximum contract term of seven years.</p><p><b>&gt;</b> No player&rsquo;s AAV can exceed 20 percent of the league salary cap&rsquo;s upper limit.</p><p><b>&gt;</b> The NHL salary cap for 2018-19 is projected to land between $78 million and $82 million.</p><p><b>&gt;</b> If a UFA is 35 or older as of June 30 and signs a multi-year contract, his cap hit will count for his new team regardless of whether he remains an active player.<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

UFA_Stastny

FREE AGENT FRENZY: HOW IT WORKS

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Tavares4" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tavares42/286401-1-eng-US/tavares4.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-0247/280628-1-eng-US/f0033-022.jpg" title="f0033-02" width="105" height="113"></div><p><b>1. JOHN&nbsp;TAVARES, NYI</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>27<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>C<br><b>CAP HIT:&nbsp;</b> $5.5m</p><p><i>Isles have the arena deal and the money. Now he must ask himself if he can win a Stanley Cup with this franchise.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: NJ, SJ, STL</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-0419/280614-1-eng-US/f0033-042.jpg" title="f0033-04" width="105" height="114"></div><p><b>2. JOHN&nbsp;CARLSON, WSH</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>28<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>D<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$3.97m</p><p><i>Right shot, led all NHL defensemen in scoring and had monster playoffs? He&rsquo;s about to become very, very rich.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: WSH, TOR, NJ</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-0612/280600-1-eng-US/f0033-062.jpg" title="f0033-06" width="105" height="113"></div><p><b>3. JAMES&nbsp;VAN RIEMSDYK, TOR</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>29<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>LW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$4.25m</p><p><i>Has one trick, but it&rsquo;s a good trick. Few players are better from within three feet of goalie. Need 30 goals? Get JVR.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: BOS, EDM, NJ</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-0810/280586-1-eng-US/f0033-082.jpg" title="f0033-08" width="105" height="111"></div><p><b>4. PAUL&nbsp;STASTNY, WPG</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>32<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>C<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$7m</p><p><i>Really revived his value as rental No. 2 pivot in Winnipeg. In line for another big payday given dearth of scoring centers.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: WPG, CLB, CAR</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-106/280572-1-eng-US/f0033-102.jpg" title="f0033-10" width="106" height="111"></div><p><b>5. MIKE&nbsp;GREEN, DET</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>32<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>D<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$6m</p><p><i>Neck injury scared teams away at trade deadline and may cost him money as UFA. Still, easily second-best &lsquo;D&rsquo; out there.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: WSH, DET, EDM</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-126/280558-1-eng-US/f0033-122.jpg" title="f0033-12" width="105" height="113"></div><p><b>6. EVANDER&nbsp;KANE, SJ</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>26<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>LW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$5.25m</p><p><i>Proved that playoff hockey is where he does his best work. That should attract as many contenders as rebuilders.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: SJ, ANA, LA</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-144/280544-1-eng-US/f0033-142.jpg" title="f0033-14" width="105" height="112"></div><p><b>7. ILYA&nbsp;KOVALCHUK, KHL</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>35<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>RW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$6.67m</p><p><i>Nothing but dominant in KHL. No reason why he can&rsquo;t be a 30-goal man for a couple seasons upon returning to NHL.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: DAL, CAR, VEG</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-163/280530-1-eng-US/f0033-162.jpg" title="f0033-16" width="105" height="114"></div><p><b>8. JAMES&nbsp;NEAL, VEG</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>30<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>RW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$5m</p><p><i>Health woes killed his stats in second half, but he recouped value with playoff effort. One of game&rsquo;s better power forwards.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: VEG, DAL, BOS</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-182/280516-1-eng-US/f0033-182.jpg" title="f0033-18" width="105" height="114"></div><p><b>9. JOE&nbsp;THORNTON, SJ</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>38<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>C<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$8m</p><p><i>Mutually beneficial if Sharks and &lsquo;Jumbo&rsquo; part ways. He&rsquo;d make a great middle-six center on a contender. Marleau reunion?</i><br><b>BEST FITS: SJ, TOR, CLB</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-202/280502-1-eng-US/f0033-202.jpg" title="f0033-20" width="106" height="114"></div><p><b>10. DAVID&nbsp;PERRON, VEG</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>30<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>LW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$3.75m</p><p><i>Career year, but Vegas likely can&rsquo;t re-sign everyone. Is he odd man out? More complementary piece than driver of play.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: DAL, SJ, VAN</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-222/280488-1-eng-US/f0033-222.jpg" title="f0033-22" width="105" height="111"></div><p><b>11. RICK&nbsp;NASH, BOS</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>34<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>LW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$7.8m</p><p><i>Risky to overpay for name brand. Forget 40 goals &ndash; Nash may never score 30 again. Still big, talented, defensively deft.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: DAL, CLB, CGY</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-242/280474-1-eng-US/f0033-242.jpg" title="f0033-24" width="105" height="111"></div><p><b>12. PATRICK&nbsp;MAROON, NJ</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>30<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>LW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$2m</p><p><i>Wasn&rsquo;t half-bad as a Devil, proving he can play a scoring-line role without Connor McDavid. Plus, Maroon is a tank of a man.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: NJ, SJ, PIT</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-262/280460-1-eng-US/f0033-262.jpg" title="f0033-26" width="105" height="112"></div><p><b>13. RILEY&nbsp;NASH, BOS</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>29<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>C<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$900k</p><p><i>Did any player spike his value more in 2017-18? Great defensive pivot was point-per-game filling in for Patrice Bergeron, too.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: BOS, TOR, WPG</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-282/280446-1-eng-US/f0033-282.jpg" title="f0033-28" width="105" height="114"></div><p><b>14. TYLER&nbsp;BOZAK, TOR</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>32<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>C<br><b>CAP HIT:</b> $4.2m</p><p>Will never win a<i>&nbsp;Selke but is a perfectly capable scoring-line stopgap. Good on power play and in shootouts.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: ARI, CLB, COL</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-302/280432-1-eng-US/f0033-302.jpg" title="f0033-30" width="106" height="111"></div><p><b>15. MICHAEL&nbsp;GRABNER, NJ</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>30<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>RW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$1.65m</p><p><i>As many even-strength goals as Patrik Laine past two years, but speedy PK maven was healthy scratch for several playoff games.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: LA, EDM, CHI</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-322/280418-1-eng-US/f0033-322.jpg" title="f0033-32" width="105" height="112"></div><p><b>16. THOMAS&nbsp;VANEK, CLB</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>34<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>LW<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$2m</p><p><i>Hired gun can still help a power play and provide veteran mentorship, but you can&rsquo;t trust him in playoffs.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: ARI, VAN, CGY</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-342/280404-1-eng-US/f0033-342.jpg" title="f0033-34" width="105" height="115"></div><p><b>17. CARTER&nbsp;HUTTON, STL</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>32<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>G<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$1.13m</p><p><i>Amazing story. Does he deserve a starting gig? Any team signing him for that purpose is betting on him being Tim Thomas 2.0.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: STL, COL, TB</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-362/280390-1-eng-US/f0033-362.jpg" title="f0033-36" width="105" height="114"></div><p><b>18. CALVIN&nbsp;DE HAAN, NYI</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>27<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>D<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$3.3m</p><p><i>Injury shortened his year and could make him a bargain. Can play second or third pair, blocks shots, adds a pinch of offense.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: PIT, WPG, BOS</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-382/280376-1-eng-US/f0033-382.jpg" title="f0033-38" width="105" height="111"></div><p><b>19. JAROSLAV&nbsp;HALAK, NYI</b></p><p><b>AGE: </b>33<b>&nbsp;POS: </b>G<br><b>CAP HIT: </b>$4.5m</p><p><i>Hutton is the ceiling play, Halak is the floor play. You know you&rsquo;re getting a guy capable of starting at least 40 games if needed.</i><br><b>BEST FITS: CAR, COL, DAL</b></p></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0033-402/280362-1-eng-US/f0033-402.jpg" title="f0033-40" width="106" height="113"></div><p><b>20. VALTTERI&nbsp;FILPPULA, PHI</b></p><p><b>AGE: 34 POS: </b>C<br><b>CAP HIT: $5.5</b>m</p><p>He was overpaid, but now that his contract is done he offers potential value. Plays in all situations, good on faceoffs.<br><b>BEST FITS: PHI, CLB, WPG</b><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

Tavares4

FREE AGENCY POWER RANKINGS

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="NHL_JVR" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_jvr/286847-1-eng-US/nhl_jvr.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>BLUE & WHITE TO GREEN</b></p><p>As one of just five UFA-to-be NHLers who scored 25-plus goals this season, van Riemsdyk is set to strike it rich.</p><p></p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY MARK BLINCH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>E</span>VER WORK AT A</b> supermarket? There&rsquo;s an old trick to stocking the shelves known as &ldquo;facing the store,&rdquo; in which you pull products to the front of each shelf to make every aisle look full. Behind all those soup cans and cereal boxes, of course, is blank space. The shelves are dressed up to look bountiful when the pickings are actually slim.</p><p>It&rsquo;s a lot like the 2018 NHL free agent class. It looks great at the front. If John Tavares makes it to market, he&rsquo;ll be an unprecedented commodity as a point-per-game star player and team captain in the middle of his prime at 27. James van Riemsdyk joins him as a fellow 36-goal scorer. NHL GMs can probably treat KHL returnee Ilya Kovalchuk like a 30-goal man when it comes to bidding on his contract, too. Add in Evander Kane, Michael Grabner and James Neal and there are six 25-goal men available.</p><p>And John Carlson deserves almost as much hype as Tavares considering Carlson is the league&rsquo;s reigning scoring champion among defensemen.</p><p>But peer deeper into the shelf and the UFA list starts to look depressing in a hurry. Remove Daniel and Henrik Sedin and you have just seven players on the market coming off seasons of 50 or more points. Want a workhorse blueliner this summer? It may take a trade. Only Carlson and Mike Green topped even 21 minutes a game in 2017-18 among current UFAs. It&rsquo;s telling that Calvin de Haan, coming off season-ending shoulder surgery, looks like the third-best option on defense.</p><p>And things look even more barren in goal. Jaroslav Halak and Cam Ward are the only UFA netminders coming off seasons in which they played in more than half their team&rsquo;s games, and the top prize is Carter Hutton, fresh off an amazing breakout season that came in a 32-game sample at age 32.</p><p>It&rsquo;s a low-supply market, meaning the 2018 off-season sets up for some major bidding wars on the few useful options, most of whom are good-but-not-great veterans.</p><p>And yes, competition does matter. &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s say you have a number for a free agent. You might go one extra year but you&rsquo;re not going to go three extra years, or if you&rsquo;re at seven years, you&rsquo;re not going to go from paying the guy $3 million to $7 million at the end,&rdquo; said New Jersey GM Ray Shero. &ldquo;You have to be able to walk away. At the same time, it&rsquo;s competitive, and when you really want the player, sometimes you find out which team he&rsquo;s talking to. Do you really want him to go to Philadelphia? Do you really want him to go to Pittsburgh? Do you really want him to go to Dallas?&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_kane/286840-1-eng-US/nhl_kane.jpg" title="NHL_Kane" width="1080" height="946"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>HARD MILES</b></p><p>GMs should be wary of signing battleworn players like Kane to long-term deals. They tend to age quickly.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY SCOTT DINN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>Upgrade-hungry teams may feel especially courageous this July since the salary cap will spike from $75 million to at least $80 million. But given how much competition there stands to be for a select group of players, it&rsquo;s fair to wonder if teams who miss out on the two marquee acquisitions, Tavares and Carlson, might be smarter standing pat to save themselves from themselves.</p><p>Otherwise, we might see a repeat of the 2013 off-season, also known as the infamous David Clarkson year. He inked a seven-year, $36.75-million deal with Toronto that was all but doomed from Day 1. That summer&rsquo;s horrors weren&rsquo;t all on Clarkson, though. It was also the year of Nathan Horton (seven years, $37.1 million with Columbus), Valtteri Filppula (five years, $25 million with Tampa Bay) and Stephen Weiss (five years, $24.5 million with Detroit).</p><p>Horton managed just 36 games as a Blue Jacket before back woes essentially ended his career, while Clarkson and Weiss lasted parts of two seasons with their new teams.</p><p>This summer&rsquo;s free agent class is obviously stronger than 2013&rsquo;s at the top &ndash; but once the biggest names are gone, we could see an overspend spree in the vein of 2013. For some GMs, the inflated prices are a necessary evil. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re going to be involved in free agency, you&rsquo;ve got to go in under the premise that you&rsquo;re trying to get a deal done where you feel you&rsquo;re adding a player you think is going to make your team better, but I don&rsquo;t really think you can plan on getting a team-friendly contract,&rdquo; said Detroit GM Ken Holland. &ldquo;Not when there are numerous suitors.&rdquo;</p><p>What will it take to sign van Riemsdyk, who has more goals than Jamie Benn the past two seasons? The bids should drive his price north of $6 million annually and land him a least a five-year term if he wants it. He&rsquo;s great at scoring from in tight, but since he&rsquo;s 29, the team who signs him will be paying for more of his decline years than his prime years.</p><p>Kane, meanwhile, is a lot like Horton &ndash; a warrior power forward who plays a style virtually guaranteed to age his body quicker than most.</p><p>Two of the top defensemen, Green and de Haan, are coming off major injuries, yet teams will line up to sign them. After all, who else can you target if you need a top-four defenseman?</p><p>If a team feels it has a chance to win soon, down-the-road risks can be worth it. &ldquo;Historically, when you sign a player at 24 to a seven-year deal, what is that return versus when you sign him at 28 or 30 to a seven-year deal, and when is the drop-off?&rdquo; Shero said. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re in a one- or two-year (contention) window, you&rsquo;re really not worried sometimes until the last five years, but that&rsquo;s really not the GM&rsquo;s call. That&rsquo;s the ownership&rsquo;s call.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">IF YOU&rsquo;RE INVOLVED IN FREE AGENCY&hellip; YOU CAN&rsquo;T PLAN ON GETTING A TEAM-FRIENDLY CONTRACT</blockquote><p><i>&ndash; Ken Holland</i></p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_green/286833-1-eng-US/nhl_green.jpg" title="NHL_Green" width="1080" height="1104"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MIKE GREEN</b></figcaption></div><p>Shero surmises the one truly great, worth-every-penny free agent signing of the salary cap era is Zdeno Chara. With so few high-impact UFAs available, teams pay star money to what are ultimately support players, and those are the types of contracts that cripple teams the most when they go bad.</p><p>It appears 2018 has potential for some pitfall deals. Might the smarter strategy be to wait on what looks like a deeper 2019 class? Up for unrestricted free agency next year are Erik Karlsson, Drew Doughty, Ryan Ellis, Tyler Seguin, Pekka Rinne, Sergei Bobrovsky, Blake Wheeler, Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski, Jordan Eberle, Jeff Skinner, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Max Pacioretty, Wayne Simmonds, Jake Gardiner, Ryan McDonagh, John Gibson&hellip;and that&rsquo;s just a sample of the top names. Of course, the majority of these players will re-sign before their contracts end &ndash; the likes of Wheeler and Seguin aren&rsquo;t going anywhere &ndash; but even once the best players are gone from that group, it projects to be a deeper, more versatile class than 2018&rsquo;s.</p><p>This year&rsquo;s field might also end up even weaker than it appears now before July 1 arrives. Remember, Steven Stamkos, the greatest-ever UFA-to-be, ended up re-signing with Tampa Bay during the pre-free agency negotiating period, killing all the hype before it peaked. Might Tavares strike a late deal with the New York Islanders after hearing a few offers from other teams? The frontrunner to land a franchise player in free agency is still typically his existing club.</p><p>The Washington Capitals have also made it clear they&rsquo;ll do everything in their power to retain Carlson, so it&rsquo;s entirely possible Green, who turns 33 in October, becomes the top UFA defenseman.</p><p>Maybe, then, 2018 is the summer to play things conservatively in free agency. And maybe it&rsquo;s the type of off-season that will bring better fortune to the aggressive traders on draft day in June than to the frivolous spenders in July.</p><div class="sidebar"><p><i>For up-to-the-minute coverage, visit&nbsp;<a datastyle href="http://www.THN.com"><b>THN.COM</b></a></i></p></div><p class="attribute">PHOTO BY NICK WOSIKA/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NHL_JVR

TOP HEAVY TO THE EXTREME

<div class="image-hero"><img title="CHI_Duclair" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/chi_duclair/286854-1-eng-US/chi_duclair.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>ANTHONY DUCLAIR</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>W</span>ith the salary cap expected to rise significantly, the Blackhawks&rsquo; modest $7.5 million in projected space could grow to $12 million or so. They have no major resignings to worry about, as even RFA <b>ANTHONY DUCLAIR</b> is in bridge-deal territory. They&rsquo;re also caught between rebuilding and contending, having missed the playoffs this season but with tens of millions tied up in veterans who aren&rsquo;t going anywhere, from Patrick Kane to Jonathan Toews to Duncan Keith. It thus might make sense for GM Stan Bowman to keep his foot on the gas and pursue a big-ticket free agent. The Blackhawks desperately need a top-four defender to stabilize the blueline.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0336/280714-1-eng-US/f0036-032.jpg" title="f0036-03" width="239" height="309"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend22/287375-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="DAL_Janmark" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/dal_janmark/286902-1-eng-US/dal_janmark.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MATTIAS JANMARK</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Bill Smith/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>D</span>allas <i>owned</i> free agency last summer, but bringing in Ben Bishop, Alexander Radulov and Martin Hanzal still didn&rsquo;t yield a playoff berth. The Stars could be players again, as the anticipated departures of UFAs Kari Lehtonen and Dan Hamhuis will free up almost $10 million. Dallas has to re-sign RFAs <b>MATTIAS JANMARK</b>, Devin Shore and Stephen Johns, but it will have money left over. The team&rsquo;s biggest need is a scoring winger, which just happens to be the most plentiful resource of the 2018 UFA class. Tyler Seguin is a 2019 UFA, however, so his extension is a top priority. Dallas needs to find a trading partner who&rsquo;s close to the salary-cap floor to eat the last year of Jason Spezza&rsquo;s deal at $7.5 million.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-0912/280807-1-eng-US/f0036-092.jpg" title="f0036-09" width="514" height="185"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend24/287389-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

DALLAS STARS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="MIN_Zucker" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/min_zucker/286909-1-eng-US/min_zucker.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JASON ZUCKER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>W</span>hether it was his decision or pressure from ownership, Chuck Fletcher bogged down the Wild with too many monster veteran deals and couldn&rsquo;t get them deep in the playoffs. Now Fletcher is out as GM, and the team is paying for past mistakes. Even with the salary cap expected to rise from $75 million to the $80-million range, Minnesota barely has room to sign crucial RFAs <b>JASON ZUCKER</b> and Mathew Dumba. Both have earned long-term contracts. Zucker broke out for 33 goals and Dumba racked up 50 points on the blueline, so this pair should combine for $10 million at minimum. That leaves no spending money for other upgrades unless the Wild can dump veteran salary. Zach Parise&rsquo;s contract has crippled them.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/min-chart2/287655-1-eng-US/min-chart.jpg" title="MIN-CHART" width="617" height="235"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0036-137/280850-1-eng-US/f0036-132.jpg" title="f0036-13" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

MIN-CHART

MINNESOTA WILD

<div class="image-hero"><img title="STL_Edmundson" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/stl_edmundson/286937-1-eng-US/stl_edmundson.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JOEL EDMUNDSON</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>D</span>on&rsquo;t sleep on the Blues this off-season. Their RFAs won&rsquo;t empty GM Doug Armstrong&rsquo;s wallet. <b>JOEL EDMUNDSON</b> deserves a long-term extension but won&rsquo;t command a monster salary as a stay-at-home blueliner, and Robby Fabbri&rsquo;s torn ACL will make him relatively cheap to re-sign. With Paul Stastny&rsquo;s $7-million cap hit off the books, the Blues have the room to become a major player in free agency and take aim at the elite forward options in hopes of adding depth behind Jaden Schwartz, Brayden Schenn and Vladimir Tarasenko, who do far too much of the team&rsquo;s scoring. One of St. Louis&rsquo; toughest decisions: whether to re-sign backup goalie Carter Hutton, who was out-of-no-where brilliant outplaying supposed starter Jake Allen. Is Hutton for real or a one-year wonder? Betting on a repeat of a breakout season at 32 is risky, but the inconsistent Allen needs a viable safety net, and Hutton may be the best UFA option in an oddly weak year for goalies on the open market.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-0619/280943-1-eng-US/f0037-062.jpg" title="f0037-06" width="513" height="208"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend2/286930-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

STL_Edmundson

ST. LOUIS BLUES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="WPG_Hellebuyck" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wpg_hellebuyck/286944-1-eng-US/wpg_hellebuyck.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>CONNOR HELLEBUYCK</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Jason Halstead/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>K</span>evin Cheveldayoff will be the busiest GM of the 2018 off-season. The Jets have a truckload of major RFAs to sign, goaltender <b>CONNOR HELLEBUYCK</b> chief among them. As a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, he&rsquo;s earned a multi-year extension. Frederik Andersen&rsquo;s five-year, $25-million deal with the Maple Leafs is a reasonable starting point, but Hellebuyck has cause to ask for more. He led the NHL with 44 wins, played in his first All-Star Game and keyed the deepest, most successful playoff run in franchise history. Shutdown specialists and partners Jacob Trouba and Josh Morrissey, two of Winnipeg&rsquo;s top three blueliners, are also RFAs. Even the secondary RFAs include important bottom-sixers Adam Lowry, Joel Armia and Brandon Tanev. Paul Stastny was arguably the best trade rental of 2017-18 by any team, emerging as a great No. 2 center between Nikolaj Ehlers and Patrik Laine, but re-signing Stastny is a luxury until Cheveldayoff sorts out the Jets&rsquo; complex RFA situation.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-0913/280993-1-eng-US/f0037-092.jpg" title="f0037-09" width="513" height="250"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0037-1013/280986-1-eng-US/f0037-102.jpg" title="f0037-10" width="570" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

WPG_Hellebuyck

WINNIPEG JETS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend3/286951-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p class="dropcap"><span>I</span>f <b>BRANDON MONTOUR</b> needs a comparable for what he&rsquo;s worth as a top-four &lsquo;D&rsquo; on the Ducks blueline, he can glance just a few stalls down in the dressing room. Prior to the start of the season, John Manson signed a four-year extension with an AAV of $4.1 million. Manson had 74 more NHL games under his belt than Montour does now, but the two of them posted remarkably similar numbers this season &ndash; Manson with five more points, Montour with two more goals and seven more seconds of average ice time. The two play different styles, but both are vital cogs. It would be a shock if Montour&rsquo;s RFA deal wasn&rsquo;t in the Manson ballpark.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-0331/281036-1-eng-US/f0038-032.jpg" title="f0038-03" width="239" height="415"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

ANAHEIM DUCKS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="ARI_Domi" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ari_domi/286972-1-eng-US/ari_domi.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MAX DOMI</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Darcy Finley/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>W</span>hat to make of 23-year-old RFA <b>MAX DOMI</b>. Is he the precocious left winger who burst onto the NHL scene at 20 and led Arizona forwards with 52 points, including 18 goals? Or is he the snake-bitten winger coming off back-to-back nine-goal seasons, a 2016-17 injury and a declining shooting percentage? With Domi&rsquo;s first-round pedigree, you&rsquo;d like to think he&rsquo;s more the former, but GM John Chayka shouldn&rsquo;t lock him up to a big-ticket contract when he&rsquo;s been more of the latter. A two-year bridge deal is fair for both sides, though if the Coyotes really believe in him, they&rsquo;ll want to get his name on a long-term deal with an average annual stipend in the more modest $4-million neighborhood.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-0619/281086-1-eng-US/f0038-062.jpg" title="f0038-06" width="513" height="167"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend4/286965-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

ARI_Domi

ARIZONA COYOTES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="CGY_Jankowski" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cgy_jankowski/286986-1-eng-US/cgy_jankowski.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MARK JANKOWSKI</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Gerry Thomas/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>W</span>hen <b>MARK JANKOWSKI</b> was selected 21st overall in 2012, Flames GM Jay Feaster said the Quebec private school pivot had the potential to be the best pick in the draft. It took Jankowski five years to make a dent in the NHL, and his 17-goal campaign as a No. 3 center showed promise, including a four-goal game against Vegas on the last day of the season. Calgary is surely looking at a two-year bridge deal for the RFA. That&rsquo;s because it will take the team past Matthew Tkachuk&rsquo;s big negotiation in 2019 and the expiration of overpriced contracts for the likes of Troy Brouwer, Michael Stone and Michael Frolik. By then, when Jankowski is 25, the Flames will have a much better handle on what they have in him.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-098/281129-1-eng-US/f0038-092.jpg" title="f0038-09" width="513" height="227"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend5/286979-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

CGY_Jankowski

CALGARY FLAMES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="EDM_Nurse" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/edm_nurse2/286993-1-eng-US/edm_nurse.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>DARNELL NURSE</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>A</span>fter <b>DARNELL NURSE</b> led Edmonton defensemen in scoring (27 points) and ranked a close second to Oscar Klefbom in average ice time (22:15), the case could be made the Oilers should lock him up to a maximum-term deal with a decent pay day, certainly well north of $4 million. But Edmonton already has four blueliners on the books the next three-plus seasons making $4 million or more. And the Oilers badly need a point-producing rearguard who can add sizzle to the power play. So where does that leave 23-year-old RFA Nurse? Probably stuck on a one- or two-year bridge deal until the Oilers can shed some excess weight.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-127/281179-1-eng-US/f0038-122.jpg" title="f0038-12" width="239" height="292"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0038-134/281172-1-eng-US/f0038-132.jpg" title="f0038-13" width="471" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

EDM_Nurse

EDMONTON OILERS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="LA_Rieder" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/la_rieder/287007-1-eng-US/la_rieder.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>TOBIAS RIEDER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>Y</span>ou won&rsquo;t see the Los Angeles Kings opening up the vault come free agent season. They just can&rsquo;t. Not if they want to keep Drew Doughty in the fold when he becomes a UFA in 2019. With <b>TOBIAS RIEDER</b> the only significant RFA on the docket and Christian Folin and Kevin Gravel UFAs on the blueline, the Kings will aim to keep things cheap. Los Angeles has about $57 million committed to 14 players (including a $1.32-million recapture penalty for Mike Richards) for 2019-20. Keeping Doughty will cost at least $10 million, which leaves about $15 million for the remaining 10 roster spots. So they&rsquo;re not looking to chew up much of that this summer.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-0333/281222-1-eng-US/f0039-032.jpg" title="f0039-03" width="239" height="289"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend6/287000-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

LA_Rieder

LOS ANGELES KINGS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="SJ_Thornton" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/sj_thornton/287021-1-eng-US/sj_thornton.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JOE THORNTON</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>here&rsquo;s a whole lot of permutating and combinating going on in San Jose this off-season. There&rsquo;s a good chunk of dollars on the table (probably $20 million) and a variety of ways to spend it. Tomas Hertl, Chris Tierney and Dylan DeMelo are all RFAs and will combine for close to half that available cap space after breakout seasons. The question is what to do with the other $11 million (or more if Paul Martin&rsquo;s $4.85 million is bought out). Does UFA <b>JOE THORNTON</b> come back at a discount from his $8 million? Does UFA Evander Kane sign and stay? Do the Sharks instead throw the whole wad at UFA John Tavares, as is speculated?</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-0622/281265-1-eng-US/f0039-062.jpg" title="f0039-06" width="238" height="227"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend7/287014-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

SJ_Thornton

SAN JOSE SHARKS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="VAN_Baertschi" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/van_baertschi/287028-1-eng-US/van_baertschi.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SVEN BAERTSCHI</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><b></b><p class="dropcap"><b><span>S</span>VEN BAERTSCHI</b> was having a career season when a puck deflected off the glass and broke his jaw in December. That may have cost him a million dollars or so, because he wasn&rsquo;t quite the same offensive playmaker and producer when he returned to the lineup a month later. Baertschi spent part of the first half of the season on Vancouver&rsquo;s first line with Bo Horvat and rookie sensation Brock Boeser and was on pace for 22 goals and 49 points, both career highs. The 25-year-old scored at a 39-point pace upon his return from injury. But that&rsquo;s enough to keep the Canucks intrigued on a deal that&rsquo;s three or four years.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-0915/281308-1-eng-US/f0039-092.jpg" title="f0039-09" width="513" height="186"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend8/287035-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

VANCOUVER CANUCKS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="VEG_Karlsson" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/veg_karlsson/287063-1-eng-US/veg_karlsson.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>WILLIAM KARLSSON</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Darcy Finley/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><b></b><p class="dropcap"><b><span>W</span>ILLIAM KARLSSON</b> made $3.2 million his first five pro seasons in North America. It&rsquo;s conceivable he&rsquo;ll make double that next season alone. A 43-goal, 78-point season as a 25-year-old RFA will do that. The Golden Knights love everything about Karlsson&rsquo;s game and quiet leadership. They aren&rsquo;t going to mess around with a prove-it-again or bridge contract offer. Halfway through this season, Vegas signed pending UFA Jonathan Marchessault to a six-year deal paying $5 million per season. The team will probably want to do that again, plus a little more for Karlsson, even though he&rsquo;s only had one big year compared to Marchessault&rsquo;s two. GM George McPhee will be busy with 18 free agents of various sizes and shapes on the docket.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-1210/281358-1-eng-US/f0039-122.jpg" title="f0039-12" width="513" height="250"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0039-137/281351-1-eng-US/f0039-132.jpg" title="f0039-13" width="570" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

VEG_Karlsson

VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="BOS_Nash2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/bos_nash2/287077-1-eng-US/bos_nash2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>RICK NASH</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Bill Wippert/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he Bruins gave up a king&rsquo;s ransom to acquire <b>RICK NASH</b> from the New York Rangers at the trade deadline, but it didn&rsquo;t exactly work out as planned. Regarded primarily as a rental for the stretch drive and playoffs, the right winger probably didn&rsquo;t do enough to warrant the Bruins locking him into a long-term, big-money deal at 34 that they would have trouble affording. Riley Nash turned out to be a versatile, two-way center and will command a large raise as a UFA, while backup goalie Anton Khudobin, another UFA, had a terrific bounce-back season and gave the Bruins one of the best goaltending tandems in the regular season.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0331/281401-1-eng-US/f0040-032.jpg" title="f0040-03" width="239" height="354"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend9/287070-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BOS_Nash2

BOSTON BRUINS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="BUF_Reinhart" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buf_reinhart2/287091-1-eng-US/buf_reinhart.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>SAM REINHART</b></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he Sabres have to determine which version of <b>SAM REINHART</b> they are going to have moving forward. Will it be the one who scored 15 goals and 30 points in his final 33 games &ndash; or the one who posted a paltry 10 goals and 20 points in his first 49 games? If it&rsquo;s the former, a long-term deal is in order for the RFA. If it&rsquo;s the latter, the Sabres will want to do a bridge deal to see what he evolves into in a year or two. They face a similar decision with No. 1 goalie Robin Lehner, who is an RFA with arbitration rights. If Lehner or the Sabres file for arbitration, it will force a one-year deal and buy both sides time to work on something long term.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0619/281451-1-eng-US/f0040-062.jpg" title="f0040-06" width="238" height="456"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend10/287084-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p class="attribute">Photo by Steven Kingsman/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

BUF_Reinhart

BUFFALO SABRES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="DET_Larkin" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/det_larkin/287105-1-eng-US/det_larkin.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>DYLAN LARKIN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Francois Lacasse/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he downside of breaking in so many young players simultaneously is their contracts all come up for renewal simultaneously, which will make for a busy summer for GM Ken Holland. The core of the team&rsquo;s forward group &ndash; <b>DYLAN LARKIN</b>, Anthony Mantha, Andreas Athanasiou, Tyler Bertuzzi and Martin Frk &ndash; are all RFAs. It&rsquo;s highly unlikely any of them will receive an offer sheet, so the Red Wings do have a degree of control, but Larkin and Mantha will surely merit long-term deals. And if last year&rsquo;s cantankerous negotiations with Athanasiou are any indication, arbitration looks like a very real possibility. The Wings have just under $23 million in cap space, and that will get eaten up quickly.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-0911/281494-1-eng-US/f0040-092.jpg" title="f0040-09" width="513" height="167"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend11/287098-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

DET_Larkin

DETROIT RED WINGS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="FLA_Vrbata3" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/fla_vrbata3/287146-1-eng-US/fla_vrbata3.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>RADIM VRBATA</b></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>here might not be a GM with an easier summer from a contract standpoint than Florida&rsquo;s Dale Tallon. Most of the heavy lifting with the core players has already been done. They could have a pending arbitration with Alex Petrovic, but with almost $12 million in cap space, the Panthers&rsquo; biggest decision will be whether to stick to a budget or look elsewhere to replace all the goals they lost with Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith heading to Vegas. Defensemen Petrovic and Mackenzie Weegar, along with winger Frank Vatrano, are RFAs with arbitration rights. Petrovic is coming off a one-year deal and merits a longer-term deal at a higher salary. The Panthers will move on from UFA <b>RADIM VRBATA</b>, who lost his scoring touch at 36 and retired in April.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-129/281544-1-eng-US/f0040-122.jpg" title="f0040-12" width="513" height="125"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-136/281537-1-eng-US/f0040-132.jpg" title="f0040-13" width="571" height="12"></div><p class="attribute">Photo by Juan Salas/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

FLA_Vrbata3

FLORIDA PANTHERS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="MTL_Niemi" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/mtl_niemi/287160-1-eng-US/mtl_niemi.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>ANTTI NIEMI</b></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>O</span>f all the problems the Canadiens have with their roster &ndash; and there are many &ndash; keeping their players under contract is not one of them. The only real UFA of note is backup goalie <b>ANTTI NIEMI</b>, who actually performed quite admirably in Carey Price&rsquo;s absence. At 34, however, Niemi is also likely expendable with the emergence of Charlie Lindgren. The Habs have four RFA forwards with arbitration rights, the most prominent of whom is Phillip Danault. Given that Ales Hemsky played only seven games after signing a bargain-basement one-year deal, it&rsquo;s clear he won&rsquo;t be back. Montreal has more than $15 million to sign its players and fill its many roster holes.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0330/281587-1-eng-US/f0041-032.jpg" title="f0041-03" width="239" height="289"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend12/287153-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p class="attribute">Photo by Vincent Ethier/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

MTL_Niemi

MONTREAL CANADIENS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="TB_Miller2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tb_miller2/287188-1-eng-US/tb_miller2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>J.T. MILLER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he Lightning gave up a significant package to obtain <b>J.T. MILLER</b> and Ryan McDonagh at the trade deadline. Mc-Donagh is signed through next season, but Tampa Bay has to renew Miller, a pending RFA. GM Steve Yzerman&rsquo;s biggest task, however, will be working on an extension for Nikita Kucherov, something that can be announced after July 1. Kucherov signed a three-year bridge deal in 2016 with a cap hit of just $4.8 million, which helped the team gain cap relief, but he won&rsquo;t be as charitable this time around, particularly after finishing third in NHL scoring with 100 points. Any new deal won&rsquo;t kick in until 2019-20, so the Bolts might want to get this done before Kucherov goes out and lights it up again next season.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-0914/281673-1-eng-US/f0041-092.jpg" title="f0041-09" width="513" height="143"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend14/287181-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

TB_Miller2

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING

<div class="image-hero"><img title="TOR_Nylander" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tor_nylander2/287195-1-eng-US/tor_nylander.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>WILLIAM NYLANDER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Claus Andersen/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>N</span>o team in the Atlantic faces more vexing roster and contract decisions than the Maple Leafs. It would not be a surprise to see every significant UFA &ndash; James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak, Leo Komarov, Roman Polak, Tomas Plekanec and Dominic Moore &ndash; move on, but those players have to be replaced. On the RFA front, <b>WILLIAM NYLANDER</b> proved during the regular season that he deserves a long-term deal, but his play in the playoffs indicates that a bridge deal might be the more prudent way for the team to go. And this will all be done with the backdrop of Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, whose entry-level deals can be extended after July 1.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0041-1210/281723-1-eng-US/f0041-122.jpg" title="f0041-12" width="239" height="372"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0040-137/281716-1-eng-US/f0040-132.jpg" title="f0040-13" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

TOR_Nylander

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="CAR_Hanifin" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/car_hanifin/287243-1-eng-US/car_hanifin.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>NOAH HANIFIN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Mark Blinch/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>here has been a lot of turnover in Carolina&rsquo;s front office under new owner Tom Dundon &ndash; new GM Don Waddell, new coach Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour &ndash; but re-signing the team&rsquo;s assets should be smooth. At the top of the list is RFA <b>NOAH HANIFIN</b>, who played in his first NHL All-Star Game this season and is part of a burgeoning blueline that is a strength for the team. Given how defensemen Brett Pesce and Jaccob Slavin were locked up long term, a lengthy deal right off Hanifin&rsquo;s rookie contract wouldn&rsquo;t be a shock. Up front, the big RFA is Elias Lindholm, but he&rsquo;s more of a candidate for a bridge deal. Veteran goalie Cam Ward is the team&rsquo;s most prominent UFA.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0334/281766-1-eng-US/f0042-032.jpg" title="f0042-03" width="513" height="227"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend15/287236-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

CAR_Hanifin

CAROLINA HURRICANES

<div class="image-hero"><img title="CLB_Jenner2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/clb_jenner2/287291-1-eng-US/clb_jenner2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>BOONE JENNER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Jamie Sabau/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he big headlines in Columbus will revolve around massive contract extensions for Sergei Bobrovsky, Artemi Panarin and possibly Zach Werenski, all of whom are free agents in 2019. But in the here and now, the Blue Jackets also need to take care of several prominent RFAs. Oliver Bjorkstrand, Ryan Murray and <b>BOONE JENNER</b> head the list, and Columbus doesn&rsquo;t have a ton of cap space to play with, so it surely will be a bit of a dance. UFA forwards Matt Calvert, Thomas Vanek and Mark Letestu are destined to move on and sign elsewhere. Defenseman Ian Cole would be a nice UFA to retain if the price is right. Meanwhile, we&rsquo;re probably seeing the end of the Jack Johnson era in Ohio.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0620/281816-1-eng-US/f0042-062.jpg" title="f0042-06" width="513" height="208"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend16/287284-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

CLB_Jenner2

COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="NJ_Grabner" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nj_grabner/287305-1-eng-US/nj_grabner.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>MICHAEL GRABNER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Adam Hunger/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>I</span>t&rsquo;s going to be a fun summer for Devils GM Ray Shero. After a surprising regular season resulted in a playoff berth, New Jersey finds itself with plenty of cap space and an intriguing core led by Hart Trophy finalist Taylor Hall and young gun Nico Hischier. Look for them to peruse talent on the open market. In-house, Shero has choices to make on UFA veterans such as <b>MICHAEL GRABNER</b>, Patrick Maroon and Drew Stafford, while Brian Gibbons earned himself a fatter contract with his breakout season. On the RFA front, forwards Blake Coleman and Miles Wood and defenseman Steven Santini need deals, but they won&rsquo;t break the budget.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-0910/281859-1-eng-US/f0042-092.jpg" title="f0042-09" width="238" height="352"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend17/287298-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NJ_Grabner

NEW JERSEY DEVILS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="NYI_Tavares" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nyi_tavares2/287312-1-eng-US/nyi_tavares.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JOHN TAVARES</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Kevin Sousa/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he retention of captain and franchise center <b>JOHN TAVARES</b> is the tip-top priority for the Isles, who have to hold out hope the talented pivot weighs his UFA options and decides there&rsquo;s no place like home. It would be devastating if he signs elsewhere and the Islanders have nothing to show for it. Aside from Tavares, GM Garth Snow must also make a decision on the goaltending, as it was a glaring weakness and Jaroslav Halak is a UFA. It&rsquo;s hard to envision Halak coming back. On the blueline, Calvin de Haan poses an interesting UFA scenario, as he missed most of the season due to shoulder surgery, but he&rsquo;s young and talented enough to make a difference.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-126/281909-1-eng-US/f0042-122.jpg" title="f0042-12" width="239" height="375"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0042-134/281902-1-eng-US/f0042-132.jpg" title="f0042-13" width="728" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NYI_Tavares

NEW YORK ISLANDERS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="NYR_Skjei" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nyr_skjei/287326-1-eng-US/nyr_skjei.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>BRADY SKJEI</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>C</span>ontinuing a modest teardown that will see the Rangers bring in younger talent, GM Jeff Gorton will focus on RFAs such as defenseman <b>BRADY SKJEI</b> and several intriguing forwards. Vlad Namestnikov was the most tangible asset in the Ryan McDonagh/J.T. Miller deal with Tampa Bay, while Ryan Spooner had success after coming over from Boston in the Rick Nash trade. Those two, plus Kevin Hayes and Jimmy Vesey, are eligible for arbitration. In terms of UFAs, the Rangers don&rsquo;t have many question marks. Backup goalie Ondrej Pavelec can easily be replaced, as can veteran center David Desharnais.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0331/281952-1-eng-US/f0043-032.jpg" title="f0043-03" width="239" height="396"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend18/287319-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NYR_Skjei

NEW YORK RANGERS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="PHI_Mrazek" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/phi_mrazek/287340-1-eng-US/phi_mrazek.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>PETR MRAZEK</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Len Redkoles/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he Flyers have their entire core locked up, so now it&rsquo;s time for a culling, and it&rsquo;s for the best. Say farewell to Matt Read and veteran defenseman Johnny Oduya, who was a waiver claim. The Flyers have interest in bringing back UFA Valtteri Filppula, but only if he takes a major pay cut from $5 million. Coming off an effective rookie season, RFA Robert Hagg is part of a promising young blueline and won&rsquo;t be difficult to re-sign. Perhaps the most interesting case is RFA <b>PETR MRAZEK</b>, who ended up as the No. 3 guy in an inefficient three-headed goalie monster that also includes already-signed Brian Elliott and Michal Neuvirth. Something&rsquo;s gotta give back there.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0620/281995-1-eng-US/f0043-062.jpg" title="f0043-06" width="513" height="208"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend19/287333-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

PHI_Mrazek

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="PIT_Rowney" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pit_rowney/287354-1-eng-US/pit_rowney.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>CARTER ROWNEY</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Jana Chytilova/Freestyle Photography/Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>T</span>he Pens&rsquo; only UFA is no-fuss forward <b>CARTER ROWNEY</b>, and the RFAs are all on the affordable end of the spectrum, too. Forwards Bryan Rust, Riley Sheahan, Dominik Simon and Tom Kuhnhackl and defenseman Jamie Oleksiak need new deals, but none of those pacts will be of the bank-breaking variety. That&rsquo;s a good thing for GM Jim Rutherford, because he has, at most, about $10 million in cap space. Fatigue and injuries hurt Pittsburgh in the playoffs against Washington, but this roster is still loaded when all is said and done. All the Penguins&rsquo; star players &ndash; as well as several key secondary contributors &ndash; are locked up through 2021-22.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-0912/282038-1-eng-US/f0043-092.jpg" title="f0043-09" width="513" height="250"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend20/287347-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

PIT_Rowney

PITTSBURGH PENGUINS

<div class="image-hero"><img title="WSH_Carlson" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wsh_carlson2/287368-1-eng-US/wsh_carlson.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JOHN CARLSON</b> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><span>W</span>hatever sting the Capitals feel this summer will be slightly mitigated by the fact they finally beat Pittsburgh in the playoffs. But all jokes aside, there will be upheaval. Washington doesn&rsquo;t have a lot of cap space to play with, and it feels like a foregone conclusion No. 1 defenseman and pending UFA <b>JOHN CARLSON</b> will leave for the open market. Re-signing RFA power forward Tom Wilson will be a priority, while Madison Bowey is the key RFA blueliner to get under contract. Without Carlson, the back end will need a big renovation, as the depth was far from strong to begin with. Veteran grinder Jay Beagle is a key UFA up front.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0043-126/282081-1-eng-US/f0043-122.jpg" title="f0043-12" width="239" height="375"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl-legend21/287361-1-eng-US/nhl-legend.jpg" title="NHL-LEGEND" width="571" height="12"></div><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

WSH_Carlson

WASHINGTON CAPITALS

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="KimDavis1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/kimdavis1/286408-1-eng-US/kimdavis1.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>THE MORE, THE MERRIER</b></p><p>Davis&rsquo; mission: find a way to make hockey more accessible to everyone without alienating existing fans.</p><p></p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>K</span>IM DAVIS&rsquo; GRANDMOTHER</b> was different from everyone on campus, and that didn&rsquo;t stop her from becoming the first African-American woman to earn a PhD at Harvard. Kim Davis&rsquo; mother was different, and that didn&rsquo;t stop her from becoming a working professional in a time when so many doors were closed to black women in America. Today, Kim Davis knows she&rsquo;s different, and she&rsquo;s not afraid. She welcomes it. That&rsquo;s exactly why she&rsquo;s here.</p><p>She&rsquo;s a striking presence walking the halls of the NHL&rsquo;s Toronto office on a visit from its New York headquarters. There&rsquo;s no way around it: she looks like no one else holding the position of executive vice-president at the company, which has primarily been run by (a) men and (b) white men in its 101-year history. The league signalled a shift in thinking when it named Davis, a black woman, as executive vice-president of social impact, growth initiatives and legislative affairs last November. If it seemed like an overly strategic hiring &ndash; it was. Davis, a Chicago native with decades of experience as an executive in U.S. high finance, joined the league with no background in hockey. In a time when the NHL is trying to adapt and become more welcoming to those who feel they don&rsquo;t belong or haven&rsquo;t been allowed to belong in the sport, the perfect person to initiate change was someone from the outside, someone free of a hockey culture that has become stale by 2018 social standards.</p><p>The NHL and its followers get accused of being tone deaf or at least resistant to change, whether it&rsquo;s players hurling homophobic slurs, a team announcing a White House visit on the same day NFL and MLB players are kneeling in support of equality or fans issuing death threats after J.T. Brown raises his first during the national anthem. There was also the Devante Smith-Pelly incident this season in which fans taunted him with &ldquo;basketball, basketball.&rdquo; The league is working hard to improve its commitment to inclusivity with initiatives like the Declaration of Principles and Hockey is for Everyone, but change doesn&rsquo;t come easily for this fan base.</p><p>Davis represents the NHL&rsquo;s attempt to shepherd the game through social change &ndash; internally and externally. That&rsquo;s been her area of expertise throughout her professional life. At JPMorgan Chase she endured nine different mergers, and her job was to help her employees prepare for change. &ldquo;Most people aren&rsquo;t comfortable with change, and often when they say that, what they really mean is that they are comfortable with change, but they aren&rsquo;t comfortable with change happening to <i>them</i>,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all about what happens to us, so how as a leader do you help people get through that?</p><p>&ldquo;I hopefully bring that to the league as we think about our sport and the future of our sport, and how we have to not only take care of our avid fans but be mindful to build stronger relationships with casual fans. But just as importantly, how do we attract, engage, develop and retain the non-fan and the person who&rsquo;s never experienced or touched our sport?&rdquo;</p><p>That&rsquo;s been a crucial focus of Davis&rsquo; career to date: understanding and learning how to give a voice to those who have been shut out in the past. She&rsquo;s a champion for equality. During her time at JPMorgan Chase, she pioneered a mentorship program specifically for women and women of color in senior roles. After crunching data, she came to the realization that while all women had a tough time making it on Wall Street in the early 1990s, there was a double-reinforced barrier for women of color. &ldquo;What the data showed us was that for women of color that ceiling actually started much lower, and so for white women it was sort of the VP level, and for women of color it was actually at the associate level. As you moved up it went from not just being a glass ceiling for women of color, it was a cement ceiling, and then we said a titanium ceiling. And that really became a rallying call.&rdquo;</p><p>Davis was profiled in 2012 alongside Michelle Obama in <i>Essence</i> magazine as one of the 28 most influential black women in America and has also worked extensively with one of the all-time great equality crusaders in sport, tennis legend Billie Jean King, to establish a non-profit leadership initiative promoting equality. The NHL wanted help improving its corporate social responsibility &ndash; which includes philanthropic work but is also tied to establishing integrity and morality within a company&rsquo;s culture &ndash; and hired Davis as a consultant. After seeing how well she communicated with the league, interviewing upwards of 50 people, from the teams to the stakeholders, the NHL asked Davis to help full-time. She loved the idea of seeing her project through to the end and accepted a job offer. &ldquo;Kim has had an extremely positive impact, both internally within our organization, but also with our clubs,&rdquo; said NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly via email. &ldquo;She adds a new perspective to everyday issues that is fresh, forward-thinking and valuable. She listens well and is easy to talk to. She has already acquired a firm grasp of the business, the people in the game and the opportunities that are available to us to further grow and expand the game&rsquo;s reach. Kim&rsquo;s a winner.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">MOST PEOPLE AREN&rsquo;T COMFORTABLE WITH CHANGE. OFTEN WHEN THEY SAY THAT, WHAT THEY REALLY MEAN IS THAT THEY ARE COMFORTABLE WITH CHANGE, BUT THEY AREN&rsquo;T COMFORTABLE WITH CHANGE HAPPENING TO <i>THEM</i></blockquote><p><i>&ndash; Kim Davis</i></p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/kimdavis2/286415-1-eng-US/kimdavis2.jpg" title="KimDavis2" width="1080" height="1517"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY WENDY BARROWS)</span></figcaption></div><p>But what, specifically, is Davis doing, and how does it pertain to the NHL and its fans? Well, think again about who she represents. She professes to have no prior ties to hockey and is (enthusiastically) learning about the sport on the fly. As she explains, it&rsquo;s more difficult than ever for major pro sports to retain fans today, with so many other distractions and so many ways to consume a sport that don&rsquo;t involve being physically present. The NHL, then, can&rsquo;t pander only to its existing, aging fan base &ndash; which is dominated by white males &ndash; and must start appealing to a greater audience. It&rsquo;s the morally decent thing to do, and it&rsquo;s just good business. It is Davis&rsquo; job, then, to be on the hunt for ways to reach this new audience. &ldquo;What I&rsquo;ve learned is, and I felt this way through those 50 interviews I did when I was a consultant, is that the sport is very tribal,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And I use that term in a very respectful way, because I think the beauty of a tribe is that when you&rsquo;re in it, you&rsquo;re a part of it, and you&rsquo;re embraced, and you&rsquo;re really, really loved, but often when you&rsquo;re standing on the outside looking in you don&rsquo;t know how to enter.</p><p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;re like, &lsquo;Am I welcome? I&rsquo;m not really sure that I am welcome,&rsquo; and so how do we create those many entry points that allow people to feel welcome in the sport, without making people who are hockey traditionalists feel that they are losing something?&rdquo;</p><p>That&rsquo;s quite a tightrope to walk. Do you cater to the fan who had no problem with Kid Rock performing at the NHL All-Star Game? Or do you try to create a more welcoming environment for the demographic turned off by that decision?</p><p>The NHL seems to understand the latter group represents the future. The Declaration of Principles, among its many tenets, states: &ldquo;All hockey programs should provide a safe, positive and inclusive environment for players and families regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. Simply put, hockey is for everyone.&rdquo;</p><p>So how does Davis go about helping the NHL connect with every type of fan more effectively? For one, she thinks outside the&hellip;arena, using the state of Nevada as an example. If Nevada has only a handful of rinks compared to every other state (albeit the Golden Knights should inspire that number to grow soon), who says the NHL can&rsquo;t promote other versions of hockey &ndash; such as ball hockey? That opens the sport to a new tier of socioeconomic status who might previously have felt shut out. Davis is also re-evaluating the league&rsquo;s business partners and searching for new ones who can reach and include this new generation of fans.</p><p>Might these initiatives invoke groans from the &ldquo;shut up and drop the puck&rdquo; contingent of NHL fans? Sure. But Davis doesn&rsquo;t fear them. She understands they&rsquo;re not the future. They&rsquo;ll be the outsiders someday if they don&rsquo;t learn the importance of opening the game up to all people. &ldquo;We may not be able to control that fan and that microcosm of society that is over-indexed in our sport,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Over time it will change as we introduce new fans, and guess what? Even that classic model of our fans, that white male, generationally, their kids, they&rsquo;re not buying into that even if their parents are. We see that with (the Parkland school shootings). Those are affluent white kids leading the charge. This generation is teaching us something different about sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, race and socioeconomics.&rdquo;</p><p>Find another hockey executive who will touch a topic like that. And that&rsquo;s why Kim Davis is here. She&rsquo;s the outsider turned insider, the voice of those formerly neglected. And she&rsquo;s just getting started.&nbsp;[THN]<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

KimDavis2

FROM THE OUTSIDER TO THE INSIDER

<div class="byline">BY CAROL SCHRAM</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Korea1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/korea1/286429-1-eng-US/korea1.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(Photo by Matt Zambonin/HHOF-IIHF Images)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span>HEY&rsquo;RE NOT RACKING UP</b> wins like the Vegas Golden Knights, but the South Korean national team has been another fresh face in the hockey world.</p><p>After playing at the Olympics for the first time, on their home ice in Pyeongchang in February, the Korean team also made its debut in the top-level tournament of the World Championship in Denmark in May.</p><p>Korea&rsquo;s results haven&rsquo;t come close to matching Vegas&rsquo; stunning success: outscored 19-3 in four games at the Olympics and crushed 8-1 by Finland and 10-0 by Canada in its first two games in Denmark. But for this group, the goal was to ice a squad in Pyeongchang that was respectable enough to help grow the game of hockey at the grassroots level in South Korea.</p><p>Since NHL players didn&rsquo;t participate in the 2018 Olympics, Team Korea faced them for the first time in Group B round-robin play in Herning. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s night and day,&rdquo; said Korea coach and director of hockey Jim Paek. &ldquo;The skill level, the payrolls&hellip;they&rsquo;ve earned their right to earn that much money, the way they play.&rdquo;</p><p>Despite the blowouts, Paek has enjoyed the experience. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been fantastic for our guys,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My gosh, we&rsquo;re on the ice with (Sebastian) Aho and Connor McDavid. We&rsquo;re fans, too. To see players that we only see on the Internet and to play against them, it&rsquo;s a great shot in the arm for us.&rdquo;</p><p>In a country where top athletes tend to gravitate toward sports like soccer, baseball and short-track speed skating, South Korea&rsquo;s hockey program has made great strides since Pyeongchang won its Olympic bid back in 2011. At that time, Korea was ranked 31st in the world by the IIHF.</p><p>In his playing days, Paek was a defenseman who played 217 NHL games in the early 1990s, winning the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and &rsquo;92. Born in Seoul, Paek immigrated to Canada with his family as a young child.</p><p>After his playing career ended in the British League in 2003, Paek started coaching. He spent nine years as an assistant with the AHL&rsquo;s Grand Rapids Griffins from 2005 to 2014, winning the Calder Cup as part of Jeff Blashill&rsquo;s staff in 2013.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/korea2/286443-1-eng-US/korea2.jpg" title="Korea2" width="1080" height="736"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>WORDS OF WISDOM</b></p><p>Coach Paek won a pair of Stanley Cups as a young defenseman with Pittsburgh in the early 1990s.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>In July 2014, Paek left the Griffins to sign on as director of hockey for the Korea Ice Hockey Association and coach of the South Korean national team.</p><p>His first order of business was to secure a berth in Pyeongchang&rsquo;s 12-team men&rsquo;s tourney. After the 2014 Olympics and World Championship, Korea was ranked 23rd worldwide. Expecting to have a hard time earning an Olympic spot through qualifying tournaments, the group requested an automatic entry as host nation.</p><p>&ldquo;We had to prepare a presentation and present it to the IIHF committee about our plan to be competitive in the Olympics,&rdquo; Paek said.</p><p>In September 2014, the application was approved. The next order of business was to get to work on team building &ndash; blending Korean-born players with a group of Canadians, some of whom had flirted with NHL careers before settling into long, stable careers in the Asian League. &ldquo;They have been great for Korean hockey,&rdquo; said Paek of his imports, who are now Korean citizens. &ldquo;Brock (Radunske) has been there 10 years, (cousins) Bryan Young eight and Michael Swift seven. They were there before I was even there, to bring that North American standard of hockey. They&rsquo;ve done a great job doing that, and the Korean players have done a great job of executing and meeting those standards.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;Under Paek&rsquo;s guidance, and with another former NHL player, Richard Park, as an assistant coach, the Korean team slowly began to show improvement.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">TO SEE PLAYERS THAT WE ONLY SEE ON THE INTERNET AND TO PLAY AGAINST THEM, IT&rsquo;S A GREAT SHOT IN THE ARM FOR US</blockquote><p><i>&ndash; Korea coach Jim Paek</i></p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/korea4/286436-1-eng-US/korea4.jpg" title="Korea4" width="1080" height="1113"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>KISUNG KIM</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY MATT ZAMBONIN/HHOF-IIHF IMAGES)</span></figcaption></div><p>The group&rsquo;s crowning achievement came at the IIHF&rsquo;s 2017 Division I-A Championship in Kiev, when Korea beat the host team from Ukraine in a shootout in the six-team tournament final. Swift&rsquo;s winning goal gave Korea a second-place finish &ndash; good enough for promotion to the top division in 2018 and a berth at this year&rsquo;s tournament in Denmark. &ldquo;Getting promoted on that last shot in the shootout, what a feeling that was,&rdquo; Paek said. &ldquo;What an accomplishment, that these players have earned the right to be here (at the toplevel tournament).&rdquo;</p><p>The win moved Korea up to 21st in the 2017 IIHF world rankings, ahead of Japan as Asia&rsquo;s top-ranked hockey nation. After Pyeongchang, Paek&rsquo;s group climbed to 18th.</p><p>In Denmark, Korea drew round-robin matchups against opponents such as McDavid and Canada, Patrick Kane and Team USA, Aho and Finland and Leon Draisaitl and Germany. With just two goals scored and 29 against through four games, the quality of competition was daunting. &ldquo;You expected the skill level, you expected the standard, you expected the intensity, you expected everything like this. I just didn&rsquo;t expect the numbers (of goals) going in,&rdquo; Paek said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s difficult, but we have to take that all in stride and see the good in it. We have to find solutions and not problems.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/korea3/286422-1-eng-US/korea3.jpg" title="Korea3" width="1080" height="679"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>POPULARITY CONTEST</b></p><p>The more time Korea spends in the international hockey spotlight, the greater the following back home.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(Photo by JOE KLAMAR / AFP)</span></figcaption></div><p>Though the results on the scoreboard were often humbling, the overall experience for the South Korean team has been invaluable. &ldquo;This is the first time playing at this level of hockey, so everything&rsquo;s new to these guys,&rdquo; Paek said. &ldquo;In order for us to grow and develop, we have to experience these things. It&rsquo;s not going to be instant. They&rsquo;re just learning experiences in order for us to get better and better.&rdquo;</p><p>Paek is certain the exposure that has come from playing at the Olympics and at the top level of the World Championship will help grow the game back home. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s slowly but surely,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard changing the culture and the popularity, but the media there has been real positive in promoting the game, especially during the Olympics.</p><p>&ldquo;You see a lot of young kids wanting to play hockey. Now, we have to set up a system, a structure where we can develop those young kids. Build more rinks and grow the game&rsquo;s popularity.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a special year&hellip;a special four years leading up to the Olympics and the bonus round here, being in the top division at the worlds.&rdquo;&nbsp;[THN]<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Korea2

COMING TOGETHER

<div class="byline">BY RONNIE SHUKER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Himalayas1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/himalayas1/286457-1-eng-US/himalayas1.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY COREY ADAMS)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span>HE DRY MOUNTAIN</b> air was already bone-chilling cold when the wind whipped up before the start of the second period. I was still riding high after scoring the first goal of the recordsetting game, albeit a garbage goal that a two-year-old tyke could&rsquo;ve tapped in. At center ice, grinning widely underneath his black balaclava, was recently retired referee Mike Leggo, YouTube famous for once telling a penalized Shawn Horcoff &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t do that!&rdquo; over his microphone. Only nine months earlier, Leggo had been living the high life in the NHL, officiating the best players on the planet. And yet here he was, on a jury-rigged rink on a remote floodplain in northern India near the Tibetan border, gleefully refereeing a bunch of beer-leaguers from all over the world. The smile on his face seemed to say, &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t get much better than this, does it?&rdquo;</p><p>There, surrounding us on all sides like the walls of an empty open-air stadium, were the Himalayas &ndash; brown and barren yet beautifully brutal in the treeless landscape. In the distance, yak grazed on what little they could find in the harsh winter climate, dropping road apples, which the locals burn for heat, as they ate. Scattered along the base of the mountains were people from four nearby villages, watching intently as we attempted to make some obscure hockey history.</p><p>My teammates and I, representing The Hockey Foundation, had all managed to get through the first period just fine, as did our opponents on Team Ladakh, made up mostly of players from the Indian men&rsquo;s national team. But as the second period wore on, the thin air began to take its toll.</p><p>At over 14,300 feet, the rink was nearly three miles above sea level, the equivalent of roughly halfway up Mount Everest. Playing hockey at such an altitude is a war between the body and the mind. For the first 20 to 30 seconds of a shift, you feel fine. Then your body begins to ignore messages sent by your brain. You try to push through it, but eventually your legs start to seize up and your lungs begin to scream. All of a sudden, your body decides to block all messages entirely, as if your brain were some sort of obnoxious Twitter troll. From the bench, you could see the moment when players&rsquo; bodies would tell their brains, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not listening to you anymore.&rdquo; Click. Block.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/himalayas2/286450-1-eng-US/himalayas2.jpg" title="Himalayas2" width="1080" height="990"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>MOUNTAIN ZEBRA</b></p><p>Former NHL referee Mike Leggo made the trek to northern India to help oversee the world-record attempt at high-altitude hockey.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY BRYAN LIPTZIN)</span></figcaption></div><p>The altitude had already felled a few players back in Leh, the capital of Ladakh, a region in the heavily militarized northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, which is sandwiched between Pakistan to the west and China to the east. In Leh, everyone had acclimatized for at least three days to a more comfortable elevation of 11,500 feet. Of the 100 or so players in the six-team tournament, many were taking Diamox, a prescription drug used to prevent Acute Mountain Sickness, though there was also a large contingent of Darwin Award nominees who self-medicated with liberal doses of alcohol.</p><p>At just 7,000 feet above sea level, AMS &ndash; of which symptoms include headaches, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, loss of appetite and flu-like malaise &ndash; is common. With every 1,000 feet of higher elevation, the risk increases, and if untreated, it can deteriorate into High Altitude Pulmonary Edema, a condition in which fluid accumulates in the lungs. In extreme cases, it can be fatal.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">WHAT I WAS SMELLING AND BREATHING WHILE I WAS GASPING FOR AIR WAS, IN FACT, YAK DUNG&hellip;THAT DIDN&rsquo;T MAKE ME FEEL ANY BETTER</blockquote><p><i>&ndash; Adam Mizzi, &lsquo;The Travelling Goalie&rsquo;</i></p><p>We all knew the risks. We were playing hockey in the Himalayas on the Changthang Plateau, known as the &lsquo;Roof of the World.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s one of the remotest and highest inhabited places on the planet. The Hockey Foundation, which organized the event, had taken every precaution possible &ndash; a doctor travelled with us, a defibrillator was on hand, there were oxygen tanks to help us get through the games and we had an emergency beacon to alert the Indian army in case someone had to be flown out to a hospital &ndash; but, really, we were on our own.</p><p>Most Guinness World Records range from the ridiculous to the absurd: the world&rsquo;s largest coconut orchestra (5,567), most toilet seats broken by the head in one minute (46), fastest 100 meters on a skateboard by a dog (19.65 seconds), most watermelons sliced open on someone&rsquo;s stomach in one minute (49), greatest distance moonwalked in one hour (3.54 miles), most candles extinguished by a fart (five).</p><p>By comparison, &ldquo;the highest altitude hockey game ever played&rdquo; sounds almost mundane, even boring. At times, however, attempting the record felt no less crazy.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/himalayas7/286492-1-eng-US/himalayas7.jpg" title="Himalayas7" width="1080" height="557"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME</b></p><p>To be eligible for the world record, the game had to take place at least 4,000 meters above sea level on a regulation-sized rink.</p></figcaption></div><p>That was especially true on the ride from Leh to our homestays for the tournament. The drive took us on switchbacks right along the precipitous edge of the Himalayas, with nothing between our caravan of taxis and the worst rollercoaster ride ever. About halfway there, in the valley below, we came across the wreckage of three obliterated army trucks (or was it one in three pieces?), the innards gutted like those of a slaughtered cow. Judging by the profusion of road signs, India&rsquo;s Ministry of Transportation had opted to encourage safe driving on this precarious mountain road with goofy gallows humor: &ldquo;Speed is a knife that cuts life,&rdquo; &ldquo;You are not being chased,&rdquo; &ldquo;Speed thrills but kills&rdquo; and &ldquo;Life is a journey. Complete it!&rdquo; It must not have occurred to the bureaucrats that the money would&rsquo;ve been better spent on, oh, I don&rsquo;t know, maybe some bloody guardrails.</p><p>The three-hour drive was followed by three days of bare-bones accommodations stripped down to the marrow in a tiny town called Tangste, about 20 miles from the site of the rink. Tangste had no heat or running water and received only a few hours of electricity every day. Inevitable gastral emergencies, courtesy of India&rsquo;s mouthwatering yet bowel-blasting fare, had to take place outside over a dirt hole in frigid February temperatures as the cold winter wind blew up our bare behinds. Nights were spent mummified in our sleeping bags, warmed only by the generous hospitality of the locals, who&rsquo;d graciously given everything of what little they had to make us feel welcome. &ldquo;For 21 years, I lived in the Matrix,&rdquo; Leggo said. &ldquo;I flew first class, I stayed in five-star hotels and ate at five-star restaurants where everything was, &lsquo;Yes, sir. What can I do for you, sir?&rsquo; This experience has been truly humbling.&rdquo;</p><p>This isn&rsquo;t the India you think you know &ndash; hot, humid, congested, polluted and cricket-crazy. Ladakh smashes every stereotype of India. It is desert-dry, sparsely populated, Canada-cold in the winter &ndash; and here hockey rules the roost.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/himalayas5/286467-1-eng-US/himalayas5.jpg" title="Himalayas5" width="1080" height="716"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>HISTORIC MOMENT</b></p><p>Ronnie Shuker, THN&rsquo;s editor at large and this story&rsquo;s author, scored the first goal in the highest hockey game ever played.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY BRYAN LIPTZIN)</span></figcaption></div><p>Few know that India has a rabid hockey culture, though it is limited to the very north of the country. In the early 1970s, a battalion from the Indian army took up the game on the frozen streams and high-altitude lakes of the Changthang Plateau. With limited access to equipment, many of the players had to nail blades to the bottom of their army boots to make skates and carve rubber boot heels for pucks. The game slowly grew in popularity, and eventually exhibition matches were played in Leh. Canadian diplomats in India got wind that there was hockey in Ladakh and started playing friendlies against the locals, which morphed into the annual Indo-Canadian Friendship Cup.</p><p>Since 2009, The Hockey Foundation has been volunteering in Ladakh every winter. Two years ago, the New York-based charity came up with the idea of attempting the Guinness World Record as a way to draw attention to hockey in the region. More importantly, finding a set of boards to help finish a half-built arena in Leh would finally give the hockey-mad Ladakhis a real rink to play in.</p><p>Bringing the idea to fruition was no small undertaking. Guinness stipulated 14 requirements that The Hockey Foundation had to meet to set the record. Among them, the game had to take place at an altitude over 4,000 meters on a regulation-sized rink under rules from either the IIHF or the NHL. That meant we had to play three 20-minute periods of stop time in full equipment at an altitude nearly two miles higher than where the Colorado Avalanche play. Leggo and an Austrian official from the IIHF fulfilled the requirement for certified referees, while four witnesses had to watch and two cameras had to film the game for verification.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/himalayas4/286485-1-eng-US/himalayas4.jpg" title="Himalayas4" width="1080" height="863"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>RONNIE SHUKER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY COREY ADAMS)</span></figcaption></div><p>But by far the biggest requirement was building the rink. The Hockey Foundation bought a set of used Olympic-sized boards from Austria and had them shipped to India months in advance of the Guinness game, which opened the tournament. Less than a week before it was set to start, however, the boards were still stuck in the country&rsquo;s protracted bureaucracy. The foundation&rsquo;s partners in Ladakh had to escalate a petition all the way up to India&rsquo;s minister of defense, who signed off on using a Russian-made IL-76 military cargo plane to airlift the boards to Leh (just imagine U.S. secretary of defense James Mattis ordering a B-52 bomber to fly in equipment for a recreational cricket game in Alaska). By the time the boards were trucked through the Himalayas to the site of the rink, volunteers had to compress a three-week job into just five days. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve being coming here enough years to know that it never works out the way you planned, but it always seems to get done in the end,&rdquo; said Adam Sherlip, executive director of The Hockey Foundation and former coach of the Indian men&rsquo;s national team. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been through this so many times before that when I got word that the boards actually arrived my reaction was just, &lsquo;Uh, OK. Welcome to India.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>By the end of the second period, Team Ladakh had tied the game 1-1. A minor sandstorm kicked up as the players congregated at their respective benches to empty the oxygen tanks. One was set aside for our netminder, Adrian Mizzi, a.k.a. &lsquo;The Travelling Goalie,&rsquo; who has played hockey in nearly 40 countries around the world. Not only did he need to replenish his depleted oxygen stores, he also needed to clean out his lungs after inhaling a strange smell that had been wafting in from the north. &ldquo;In the second period, I had the wind in my face and I was breathing what I thought was diesel,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;I was told during the second intermission that what I was smelling and breathing in while I was gasping for air was, in fact, yak dung, which was being burned with kerosene. That didn&rsquo;t make me feel any better. I almost would&rsquo;ve rather known it was diesel.&rdquo;</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">WHEN I GOT WORD THE BOARDS ACTUALLY ARRIVED, MY REACTION WAS JUST, &lsquo;UH, OK. WELCOME TO INDIA&rsquo;</blockquote><p><i>&ndash; Adam Sherlip, executive director of The Hockey Foundation & India&rsquo;s former national coach</i></p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/himalayas6/286478-1-eng-US/himalayas6.jpg" title="Himalayas6" width="1080" height="733"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>HOCKEY DAY IN INDIA</b></p><p>Residents from four nearby villages came out to watch the action. Cricket is the No. 1 sport in India, but hockey rules the far north.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY COREY ADAMS)</span></figcaption></div><p>Early in the third period, Montana-resident Pete Kamman tipped in a shot from the point to give us the lead. A flurry of goals followed and a rejuvenated Mizzi repeatedly turned away the younger, faster Ladakhis (including stopping a penalty shot), allowing only one more goal. We finished the game with a 6-2 win.</p><p>After all the post-game photos, hugs and handshakes, I skated off to the dressing room, which was just an empty unheated army tent set up over the ice at the edge of the floodplain. I couldn&rsquo;t feel my feet at all and my frozen fingers struggled to unlace my skates. I gave up, slumped back into the red plastic lawn chair and got lost in thought. It was then that it dawned on me that I was the first person to score a goal in an organized hockey game over 14,000 feet.</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/himalayas3/286464-1-eng-US/himalayas3.jpg" title="Himalayas3" width="1080" height="668"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>ELEVATION JUBILATION</b></p><p>It was cold, windy and hard to breathe, but when you&rsquo;re going for hockey glory in the Himalayas, what else would you expect?</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY BRYAN LIPTZIN)</span></figcaption></div><p>I eventually got dressed and went out to watch the next game. Among the players was one of our Ladakhi translators. The day before he&rsquo;d told me his dream was to play for the Indian men&rsquo;s national team. I watched as he took a puck to the mouth. After the game, filled with pride, he showed off the stitches in his upper lip. It was the unmistakable, cross-cultural smile of a hockey player. Don Cherry would&rsquo;ve been proud.</p><p>Also on the ice was Riley Konsella, a stray player we&rsquo;d picked up in Leh who was wrapping up a year-long $30,000 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to travel the world after graduating from Union College in New York state. Konsella had just quit a 10-day meditation retreat in Leh after having enough of meditating for 10 hours a day. While we were acclimatizing in Leh, he stumbled upon some of the participants playing shinny on a pond in the area and volunteered to help build the rink for the Guinness game. Instead of trying to meditate his way to nirvana, he found it playing hockey on a distant sheet of ice near Tibet. &ldquo;The way I&rsquo;m going to tell the story is that I came to India on a meditation retreat and it changed my life,&rdquo; Konsella said, &ldquo;because I quit it and became part of the Guinness World Record for the highest altitude hockey game ever played.&rdquo;&nbsp;[THN]<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Himalayas7

TOP OF THE WORLD

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Grassroots1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/grassroots1/287049-1-eng-US/grassroots1.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><span class="photo-credit">(TWO POINT PHOTOGRAPHY & DESIGN)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>A</span> MONUMENTAL AND</b> fascinating shift is happening in WHL territory right now, one that has brought together some of the biggest program names in development from across several provinces. The shift involves private sports academies that, particularly at the bantam level, have taken many of the western provinces&rsquo; most elite players away from their traditional hometown AAA teams and put them together on super-squads that play against each other.</p><p>The academies play in the Canadian Sports School Hockey League (CSSHL), and in a very short amount of time, it has become a force. &ldquo;It has really turned things on its head,&rdquo; said Saskatoon Blades GM Colin Priestner. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking at potentially 18 of the 22 firstrounders (in the 2018 WHL bantam draft) coming from academies this year. It has really changed the dynamic.&rdquo;</p><p>The 2017 WHL bantam draft was pretty eye-opening itself. The top seven selections (including Saskatoon taking Aidan De La Gorgendiere at No. 5) came from the CSSHL and only one pick in the top 10 came from outside the league.</p><p>The roots of these sports academies stretch back decades, but they&rsquo;re not without controversy. Back in the 1960s, the Burnaby Winter Club and North Shore Winter Club were granted exemptions to play in the B.C. minor hockey system. Both were private organizations that offered members activities such as curling, skating and hockey. Soon after that, Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Saskatchewan &ndash; whose alumni would eventually include Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour, Vincent Lecavalier and Sean Couturier &ndash; was granted the same exemption. The &rsquo;60s also saw the creation of the Okanagan Hockey Academy in B.C., and as the years went on, more sports-specific academies began to dot the map. These academies would also pick up minor hockey system exemptions, but some of the traditional local programs weren&rsquo;t too impressed. In fact, some teams would schedule games against the academies and then not show up. Alberta was a particularly contentious region for the academies.</p><p>In 2009, the CSSHL was formed by five members: Okanagan, Pursuit of Excellence, Edge School, Banff Hockey Academy and International Hockey Academy. Andy Oakes, president and director of Okanagan, is credited with spearheading the movement. &ldquo;The whole genesis was to build meaningful competition with like-minded programs,&rdquo; Oakes said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a choice within the Hockey Canada system, and that&rsquo;s really important to us, to contribute to the membership.&rdquo;</p><p>The allure of the sports academies is obvious: the &ldquo;student-athletes&rdquo; go to school in the morning and then have the afternoon to train both on and off the ice. The evenings, when traditional teams usually practice, are reserved for rest. The CSSHL quickly picked up steam and less than a decade later, it has teams from 20 different academies playing in its various divisions. Old-school programs such as Notre Dame and the Burnaby Winter Club have also joined, as the pull of the league&rsquo;s orbit was so strong. &ldquo;The landscape started to change,&rdquo; said Burnaby academy director Maco Balkovec. &ldquo;We had won back-to-back bantam championships, but our players weren&rsquo;t playing against the best competition anymore.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/grassroots2/287042-1-eng-US/grassroots2.jpg" title="Grassroots2" width="1080" height="871"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>STUDENT OF THE GAME</b></p><p>Michael Rasmussen, drafted ninth overall by Detroit in 2017, spent two years at a private academy in B.C.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY STINKYLOCKERS.COM)</span></figcaption></div><p>Not only that, but many of the academy kids live with billet families, preparing them for their future WHL lives. That updraft of talent and experience continues to funnel players to the circuit. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve definitely created a comprehensive program on the ice and off, with elite coaching and competition,&rdquo; said agent J.P. Barry. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very difficult for minor hockey, whose mandate is not to focus only on the elite, to keep up.&rdquo;</p><p>Indeed, the CSSHL has practically cornered the market on bantam-aged talent, making it difficult for traditional local teams to keep their best kids. &ldquo;As a coach, it definitely affects your planning,&rdquo; said Curtis Johnson of the Lloydminster AAA Bobcats in Alberta. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s tough. You can always look back and say, &lsquo;If these kids stayed, what would it have done for our high end or our depth?&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>But there are advantages to staying at home. For example, the cost of playing for a CSSHL team can range anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 a year, and that&rsquo;s just for the hockey. If the academy is affiliated with a private school for the educational portion of the program, that tacks on even more of an expense. And being on a team of superstars isn&rsquo;t always the best environment for a player. &ldquo;There are players that get lost in the shuffle because the teams are so top-heavy,&rdquo; said Priestner. &ldquo;You can become the small fish in a big pond.&rdquo;</p><p>One trend that has emerged is transitoriness; a player signs up for academy duty in his bantam year, then goes back home for minor midget after he&rsquo;s been drafted by a WHL team. Spokane Chiefs defenseman Ty Smith is the top WHL player available for the NHL draft this summer. After playing for Delta Academy in 2014-15, he went back to Lloydminster to play for the Bobcats. &ldquo;That was always my plan,&rdquo; Smith said. &ldquo;I wanted to spend one more year with my family and finish my minor hockey in the place that started it all. We had a really good team in Lloydminster and ended up going to the (national championship) Telus Cup, so it was a fun year.&rdquo;</p><p>For Priestner, there is no wrong path for getting drafted into the WHL. His regional scouts still hit the highways across Western Canada and the United States to find the local kids, but now the CSSHL provides excellent opportunities to see a bunch of elite players all at once, too. The league&rsquo;s championship tournament in Penticton, B.C., is now the most important WHL scouting event of the season. Not only that, but Saskatoon hosted its own four-team CSSHL showcase this year to let potential future Blades players know what the organization was all about, while also getting to see the teams play each other.</p><p>With the west nearly conquered, there are new frontiers for the sports academies to investigate. Elite girls hockey, for example, is an underserved market that the CSSHL can really help with, since many teens grow up playing against boys due to a lack of suitable competition. Canadian Olympic silver medallist Emily Clark played for Okanagan before heading to the University of Wisconsin and she is likely at the vanguard in that respect. The CSSHL featured 12 girls teams this year, eight in the prep class and four in the varsity division.</p><p>The Okanagan Hockey Group is also expanding into the most competitive market on the planet: the Greater Toronto Area. OHG recently announced a new operation in nearby Whitby, Ont., adding to its programs already established in Penticton and Edmonton, as well as overseas in England and Austria. &ldquo;Looking at the Ontario market, with its population, it made a lot of sense,&rdquo; Oakes said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to start with an under-18 team and go from there.&rdquo;</p><p>The new OHG could play similar nearby programs such as Ottawa&rsquo;s CIHA (where L.A. Kings first-rounder Gabe Vilardi played), but what will be truly interesting is to see if it can hang with traditional powers like the Toronto Marlboros (with graduates such as Connor McDavid and Jack Hughes) or Don Mills Flyers (Max Domi, Darnell Nurse).</p><p>Back out west, high-end kids are becoming WHL stars, whether they played in the CSSHL or stuck with their hometown programs. &ldquo;Everyone puts so much on the bantam draft, it&rsquo;s the be-all, end-all,&rdquo; Johnson said. &ldquo;Everyone thinks it&rsquo;s a race to get to the next level, but it&rsquo;s not. It&rsquo;s a marathon.&rdquo;</p><div class="sidebar"><p><i>For daily prospect coverage, visit&nbsp;<a datastyle href="http://www.THN.com"><b>THN.COM</b></a></i><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p></div>

Grassroots1

HOCKEY SCHOOL GAME-CHANGER

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDYBY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Grassroots3" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/grassroots3/287056-1-eng-US/grassroots3.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JAKE BEAN</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY EDGE SCHOOL)</span></figcaption></div><b></b><h1><b>MICHAEL RASMUSSEN, C</b></h1><p><b>OKANAGAN HOCKEY ACADEMY</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2017 Round 1 (9th overall) by Detroit Red Wings</p><h1><b>JARET ANDERSON-DOLAN, C</b></h1><p><b>EDGE PREP SCHOOL</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2017 Round 2 (41st overall) by Los Angeles Kings</p><h1><b>TYSON JOST, C</b></h1><p><b>PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2016 Round 1 (10th overall) by Colorado Avalanche</p><h1><b>JAKE BEAN, D</b></h1><p><b>EDGE SCHOOL PREP</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2016 Round 1 (13th overall) by Carolina Hurricanes</p><h1><b>DANTE FABBRO, D</b></h1><p><b>BURNABY WINTER CLUB</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2016 Round 1 (17th overall) by Nashville Predators</p><h1><b>DENNIS CHOLOWSKI, D</b></h1><p><b>YALE HOCKEY ACADEMY</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2016 Round 1 (20th overall) by Detroit Red Wings</p><h1><b>TYLER BENSON, LW</b></h1><p><b>PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2016 Round 2 (32nd overall) by Edmonton Oilers</p><h1><b>MATHEW BARZAL, C</b></h1><p><b>BURNABY WINTER CLUB</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2015 Round 1 (16th overall) by New York Islanders</p><h1><b>RYAN GROPP, LW</b></h1><p><b>OKANAGAN HOCKEY ACADEMY</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> 2015 Round 2 (41st overall) by New York Rangers</p><h1><b>CURTIS LAZAR, C</b></h1><p><b>OKANAGAN HOCKEY ACADEMY</b><br><b>Drafted:</b> Round 1 2013 (17th overall) by Ottawa Senators</p><p><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

Grassroots3

AT THE HEAD OF THE CLASS

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="NEXT_Tychonick2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_tychonick2/286567-1-eng-US/next_tychonick2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>MIND GAMES</b></p><p>A priority for Tychonick is to work on staying positive when things aren&rsquo;t going well on the ice.</p><p></p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY GARRETT JAMES)</span></figcaption></div><p>&nbsp;</p><p class="dropcap"><b><span>T</span>HE JR. A</b> leagues in western Canada have spoiled us lately. Two years ago, the BCHL counted Tyson Jost, Dante Fabbro and Dennis Cholowski as NHL first-rounders, while Alberta produced the fourth overall selection last year in Cale Makar.</p><p>While Jonny Tychonick may not go as high as his predecessors, the Penticton Vees defenseman does bring a lot of potential and confidence to the draft this summer. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an NHL skater,&rdquo; said one scout. &ldquo;Highly competitive, wants to win and has a good skill set. He can play fast and he can play aggressive.&rdquo;</p><p>The Vees have been the jewel of the BCHL for years now, pumping out NCAA and NHL talent (such as Fabbro and Jost) under the stewardship of coach-GM Fred Harbinson. So what have the Vees helped Tychonick with? &ldquo;I&rsquo;d say everything,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;From who I am as a person to who I am as a player. The biggest thing was the adversity I faced as a 16-year-old. It helped build me for my second year, and every day I&rsquo;m learning to be more of a professional. Fred runs an excellent program, and from the owners on down, they expect you to be a professional and they treat you that way.&rdquo;</p><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_tychonick1/286574-1-eng-US/next_tychonick1.jpg" title="NEXT_Tychonick1" width="1080" height="1059"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>JONNY&nbsp;TYCHONICK</b></p><p><b>&nbsp;</b></p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY GARRETT JAMES)</span></figcaption></div><p>The adversity he refers to came from being far from home (he&rsquo;s from Calgary) and being the youngest player on the team last season. It was hard to create bonds since he was still in high school and had homework to do when everyone else on the team could just hang out. Plus, he was playing against opponents who were as much as four years older. &ldquo;It was a big step,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But if I didn&rsquo;t do that last year, I wouldn&rsquo;t be where I am right now.&rdquo;</p><p>Tychonick &ndash; pronounced <i>tie-kon-ick</i> &ndash; is committed to the University of North Dakota (see sidebar), where he likes the program&rsquo;s knack for developing NHLers. Scouts see a confident kid who tries to make an impact every shift &ndash; to a fault, on occasion. He could stand to dial it back a bit, and the coaches at UND can help with that.</p><p>In the meantime, Tychonick is keeping his eyes on the prize by focusing on every aspect of his development. &ldquo;Lots of players forget about the mental side of the game,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I feel it&rsquo;s a huge part. Getting down on yourself after a mistake&hellip;I&rsquo;m learning how to cope with it and bounce back. Just looking at the cup half full instead of half empty.&rdquo;&nbsp;[THN]<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NEXT_Tychonick1

FROM VEE TO SHINING ‘D’

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="NEXT_Bernard-Docker" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_bernard-docker/286581-1-eng-US/next_bernard-docker.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><b>JACOB BERNARD-DOCKER</b> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY AVID PHOTOGRAPHY)</span></figcaption></div><p><b>BLUELINERS JONNY TYCHONICK </b>and Jacob Bernard-Docker have known each other since they were kids playing spring hockey together in Alberta.</p><p>At the World Jr. A Challenge, they reunited to help Canada West win the gold medal. At the CJHL Prospects Game, they also played as a pairing for the victorious Team West squad. And in the near future, both will be suiting up for the University of North Dakota. Needless to say, they like playing on the same side. &ldquo;We click well together,&rdquo; Bernard-Docker said. &ldquo;(Tychonick) skates extremely well and has great vision for the ice, so he&rsquo;s definitely a fun guy to play with. It&rsquo;s out of our hands, but hopefully one day we&rsquo;ll end up as &lsquo;D&rsquo; partners at North Dakota.&rdquo;</p><p>It&rsquo;s hard not to think about it. Tychonick is a left shot, Bernard-Docker a right shot. Both have great mobility, but Bernard-Docker brings structure and efficiency to the back end, whereas Tychonick is more of a freelancer.</p><p>A big fan of Toronto&rsquo;s Morgan Rielly, Bernard-Docker averaged nearly a point per game for the AJHL&rsquo;s Okotoks Oilers in the playoffs. Like his buddy Tychonick, Bernard-Docker will likely be a second-round pick in the NHL draft this summer. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s smooth, efficient and low-panic,&rdquo; said a scout. &ldquo;He comes to make plays.&rdquo;<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NEXT_Bernard-Docker

JACOB AND JONNY WANT TO PUT THE ‘D’ IN UND

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="NEXT_Wassermann" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_wassermann/285480-1-eng-US/next_wassermann.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>WILL HE HEAR HIS NAME?</b></p><p>Wassermann&rsquo;s future in the game is uncertain. He&rsquo;s a big draft-eligible goalie who moves well in his crease.</p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY MARLA POSSBERG)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>B</span>ACK IN JANUARY, </b>I went to the Canadian Junior Hockey League Prospects Game to scout the best 2018 draft hopefuls from the Jr. A ranks. There were some high-end names taking part and I wanted to see kids like Jonny Tychonick and Jacob Bernard-Docker in person. The game was informative but also rambunctious and chaotic, largely thanks to my new favorite prospect, Okotoks&rsquo; Austin Wong.</p><p>One kid who caught my eye was goalie Jacob Wassermann. I hadn&rsquo;t heard of him, and the Saskatchewan Jr. A League never produces draft-eligible talent without the player going somewhere else first. But Wassermann was 6-foot-5 and moved well. I kept his name in mind.</p><p>Sadly, Wassermann&rsquo;s name would come up later in the year, as he was a member of the Humboldt Broncos and the horrific bus crash that took 16 lives and caused the hockey community at large to mourn. He survived the crash, but his hockey future is unknown. The Broncos had hoped he&rsquo;d be the first Humboldt player drafted by an NHL team. For me, I think that should still happen.</p><p>Jacob Wassermann deserves to hear his name called at the NHL draft in Dallas.</p><p>This concept is not without precedent. In 2008, David Carle was a promising defenseman with Shattuck-St. Mary&rsquo;s prep school in Minnesota. His brother Matt Carle was already in the NHL, and David was pegged as a second- or third-rounder until a physical at the draft combine led to a harrowing diagnosis: Carle had a heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, that would prevent him from playing competitive hockey ever again.</p><blockquote class="pullQuote">WASSERMANN PUT IN A LOT OF WORK TO GET TO THAT PROSPECTS GAME, AND HE SURE LOOKED LIKE A DRAFT PICK TO ME AT THE TIME</blockquote><p>But Carle&rsquo;s story did not end there. The University of Denver honored the scholarship he had been promised and he became a student-assistant coach under George Gwozdecky. And the Tampa Bay Lightning (whom brother Matt would later play for) used the team&rsquo;s final pick that year, 203rd overall, to draft him.</p><p>Not that I expect a lot of devil&rsquo;s advocates when it comes to the survivor of a bus crash, but some folks may chafe at the idea of drafting a player who might never suit up for the team. Is it not depriving another player of the chance to be drafted? Well, yeah. But teams take flyers on players in the late rounds all the time. Not only that, but teams often end up signing undrafted kids later.</p><p>Wassermann needs a champion. For Carle, that person was Oren Koules, one of Tampa Bay&rsquo;s owners at the time. Koules&rsquo; son Miles attended Shattuck-St. Mary&rsquo;s with Carle, so the owner was aware of how much hard work the defenseman had put in. He believed Carle deserved to be rewarded for that, even if he would never play in the NHL.</p><p>Carle found out he was drafted while he was at the airport in Minneapolis, waiting to fly home to Alaska. Instead of going to the draft in Ottawa, he had spent the week getting tests done at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Teams had been informed about his diagnosis, so he was confused by all the texts he was getting. &ldquo;I thought to myself, &lsquo;Whoever drafted me isn&rsquo;t very smart if they don&rsquo;t believe the doctors,&rsquo;&rdquo; Carle said. &ldquo;But Oren reached out to me and we had a nice phone call. With every passing year, I appreciate it more. There&rsquo;s not a summer that goes by that I don&rsquo;t text him.&rdquo;</p><p>Carle was included in Tampa&rsquo;s training camp that year, though he didn&rsquo;t go on the ice. Koules told me it&rsquo;s one of the things he is most proud of from his time in Tampa.</p><p>The outpouring of support for Humboldt was an incredible unifier in the hockey world. But we can&rsquo;t forget the survivors of the crash just because the news is no longer on the front page. The rehabilitation &ndash; both physical and mental &ndash; the Broncos are going through will continue to be arduous. Wassermann put in a lot of work to get to that Prospects Game, and he sure looked like a draft pick to me at the time. I don&rsquo;t think an NHL team can go wrong by calling his name in Dallas. [THN]</p><p>Twitter: <a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/THNRYANKENNEDY"><b>@THNRYANKENNEDY</b></a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

NEXT_Wassermann

A SELECTION FROM THE HEART

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="InMemoriam_Torrey" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/inmemoriam_torrey/286588-1-eng-US/inmemoriam_torrey.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>QUICK WITH A QUIP</b></p><p>Torrey always loved to joke, even when his team was struggling or he was paying bills from his own pocket.</p><p></p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY PAUL BERESWILL/HOCKEY HALL OF FAME)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>T&rsquo;S A GIVEN THAT</b> no team ever will ever match the New York Islanders&rsquo; feat of winning 19 consecutive playoff series, starting in 1980 and completed in 1984.</p><p>Likewise, few in the NHL&rsquo;s builders palace can match Bill Torrey&rsquo;s speedy creation of that four-Cup dynasty, and doing so while always wearing his signature bowtie. Uncanny was his ability to discover and nurture so many stars so fast. These include Hall of Famers Denis Potvin, Billy Smith, Bryan Trottier, Clark Gillies and Mike Bossy. Not to mention, aides Al Arbour and Jim Devellano, also Hall of Famers. &lsquo;Bowtie Bill,&rsquo; who died in May at age 83, was as much fun as he was fabulous at managing a hockey club, even when it was sinking in red ink.</p><p>When the expansion Islanders entered the NHL in 1972, Torrey not only had to buck the rival WHA player-raiders but stingy owners in his own fraternity who offered mostly mediocre players in the draft. &ldquo;I committed myself to youth,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to draft people who will be around for years rather than those who will not be with us in a year or two.&rdquo;</p><p>Torrey&rsquo;s foundation draft pick was Denis Potvin. He craftily ensured that Potvin would bypass the WHA offers. Before drafting Potvin, Torrey traded for Potvin&rsquo;s older brother, Jean, a decent defenseman. &ldquo;When Bill got me,&rdquo; Jean said, &ldquo;it was to make sure that I got Denis to join us. Of course, he wanted to play alongside his big brother.&rdquo;</p><p>To draft Denis, Torrey had to fight off wizardly Canadiens GM Sam Pollock, who tried every imaginable trade offer to obtain the Isles&rsquo; first pick. Just prior to the draft at Montreal&rsquo;s Mount Royal Hotel, Pollock took a walk with Torrey. &ldquo;We walked around the block once, and Sam was working on me pretty good,&rdquo; Torrey said. &ldquo;He had several trade possibilities, and I considered them all. But I was convinced we had to build the team around Denis and never budged.&rdquo;</p><p>In addition to sagacious draft picks, Bowtie was equally adroit at trades. His deals that brought J-P Parise and Jude Drouin to Nassau Coliseum from Minnesota turned the franchise. &ldquo;I was so happy when Bill got me,&rdquo; Drouin said. &ldquo;And I was lucky to set up J-P for the goal that gave us the 1975 playoff win over the Rangers.&rdquo;</p><p>Torrey: &ldquo;We beat the team from the big city. It gave us legitimacy.&rdquo;</p><p>That was a colossal upset but not as dramatic as the Isles losing three straight to Pittsburgh and then winning four in a row to win the next series. Torrey&rsquo;s fifth 1972 expansion pick, captain Ed Westfall, scored the series-winning goal in that one.</p><p>After two dismaying playoff losses to Toronto (1978) and Rangers (1979), Torrey completed one headline-making &ndash; and one subtle &ndash; trade that completed the dynasty roster. From Los Angeles, he obtained center Butch Goring, who was able to take considerable offensive load off Trottier. From Washington, he added intimidating defenseman Gord Lane. &ldquo;Getting Butchie added so much more to our attack,&rdquo; said Glenn Resch, who shared goaltending duties with Smith. &ldquo;Meanwhile, Gordie was as tough as they come, just the ice cop we needed.&rdquo;</p><p>Win or lose, &lsquo;Bowtie Bill&rsquo; did it with a sprinkling of good humor. In the club&rsquo;s first losing year, he got a laugh when he suggested the team&rsquo;s first name was Hapless. &ldquo;Look at it this way,&rdquo; Torrey said, &ldquo;every time I open a newspaper the hockey writers are calling us the &lsquo;Hapless Islanders.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p><p>After the second Cup, Stan Epstein, a SportsChannel producer of the club&rsquo;s telecasts, visited Torrey&rsquo;s office demanding to know why his TV crew didn&rsquo;t get Cup rings. &ldquo;After all,&rdquo; Epstein said, &ldquo;we&rsquo;re part of the team as well.&rdquo;</p><p>&ldquo;Stan,&rdquo; Torrey asked, &ldquo;how many goals did you score for us last year?&rdquo; As Epstein gulped, Torrey showed him the door.</p><p>At the time, the Islanders were still pinching pennies, often saved from folding by Torrey himself. &ldquo;More than once,&rdquo; said <i>Newsday&rsquo;s</i> Mark Herrmann, who covered the team, &ldquo;Bill had to hurry off the team bus so he could pay the hotel bill in cash before the players checked in.&rdquo;</p><p>Sometimes, he used his own credit card when the team&rsquo;s checks had the value of Monopoly money. Eventually, Torrey found a fiscal savior in John Pickett, who bought the team and steered it to its dynasty.</p><p>By 1993, Pickett had sold the team and the new owners decided to take a new direction. Torrey resigned and took his bowties to Florida, where he turned the Panthers into a Cup finalist three years after the franchise was born. That was another of the many reasons why Torrey earned his Hall of Fame selection. During the induction festivities, Torrey couldn&rsquo;t resist a quip after a reporter asked why he only wore bowties. &ldquo;I like them because they&rsquo;re small,&rdquo; Torrey said, &ldquo;you can fold them up and put them in your pocket.&rdquo; Then, a pause and a whimsical grin: &ldquo;Plus, you can&rsquo;t spill on them!&rdquo;</p><p>As Pollock and Epstein learned over the years, Torrey had an answer for everything. And when it came to producing a champion, he usually was right.&nbsp;[THN]<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

InMemoriam_Torrey

In Memoriam

BOWTIE BILL, DYNASTY BUILDER

<div class="image-hero"><img title="TimeOut_Henrique" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/timeout_henrique/286595-1-eng-US/timeout_henrique.jpg"></div><p><b>CLUE #1</b>&nbsp;&ldquo;I won back-to-back Memorial Cups as a Windsor Spitfire in 2009 and 2010.&rdquo;</p><p><b>CLUE #2</b>&nbsp;&ldquo;I finished third in Calder Trophy voting in my rookie season of 2011-12.&rdquo;</p><p><b>CLUE #3</b>&nbsp;&ldquo;I scored the Devils&rsquo; Game 6 OT winner in 2012&rsquo;s Eastern Conference final.&rdquo;</p><h2><b>TRIVIA</b></h2><p><i>By Larry Humber</i></p><p>1. Team that fittingly has a saber-toothed cat as its logo</p><p>2. First name of the goalie who played for four of &lsquo;The Original Six&rsquo; and also L.A.</p><p>3. Citi Field hosted the 2018 Winter ___</p><p>4. Defeated</p><p>5. Applauds</p><p>6. Pictured, he wears the &lsquo;C&rsquo; in Minny</p><p>7. Marty ___ was between the pipes in Dallas</p><p>8. First name of Edmonton&rsquo;s captain</p><p>9. Montreal-born blueliner with the Pens</p><p>10. Jacques Plante was dubbed &lsquo;___ ___ Snake&rsquo;</p><p>11. ___ Dansk was the first Knight to post a SO</p><p>12. Texan who&rsquo;s on defense in Columbus</p><p>13. This Backstrom helped the Habs to six Cups</p><p>14.&nbsp;<i>The Mighty Ducks</i> was a 1992 ___ film</p><p>15. Rich and Ron Sutter, e.g.</p><p>16. Series of consecutive wins or losses</p><p>17. Great ___ was a founding member of the IIHF</p><p>18. Minny blueliner from Madison</p><p>19. Netminder who posted a team record wins last season</p><p>20. Fans may be the harshest ones</p><p>21. Eugene Melnyk and Bill Foley are two</p><p>22. ___ Esposito was a junior sensation, likened to Guy Lafleur, but couldn&rsquo;t cut it in the NHL</p><p>23. &lsquo;Badger Bob,&rsquo; for one</p><p>24. Wears No. 77 with Washington</p><h2><b>NAME GAME</b></h2><p><i>Use the picture clues to uncover the name of a prominent hockey personality.</i></p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0057-0250/282553-1-eng-US/f0057-022.jpg" title="f0057-02" width="470" height="460"></div><h2><b>PUCK PUZZLE</b></h2><p><i>Can your hockey brain bring its A-game? The challenge is on!</i></p><p>Ten of this summer&rsquo;s big free agents are listed here, each missing some letters. Once you&rsquo;ve got them, the full name of arguably the top signing ever will appear in the red boxes. He&rsquo;s won the Norris Trophy in 2009.</p><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0057-0436/282546-1-eng-US/f0057-042.jpg" title="f0057-04" width="511" height="467"></div><p><b>TRIVIA ANSWERS: </b>&nbsp;<br>1. PREDATORS, 2. TERRY, 3. CLASSIC, 4. BEATEN, 5. CHEERS, 6. KOIVU, 7. TURCO, 8. CONNOR, 9. LETANG, 10. JAKE THE, 11. OSCAR, 12. SETH JONES 13. RALPH, 14. DISNEY, 15. TWINS, 16. STREAK, 17. BRITAIN, 18. RYAN SUTER, 19. CAM TALBOT, 20. CRITICS, 21. OWNERS, 22. ANGELO, 23. COACH, 24. OSHIE</p><p><b>GUESS WHO SOLUTION:</b><br>ADAM HENRIQUE</p><p><b>NAME GAME SOLUTION:</b><br>MARC-ANDRE FLEURY</p><p><b>PUCK PUZZLE SOLUTION:</b><br>BOZAK, VAN RIEMSDYK, TAVARES, STASTNY, PERRON, KOVALCHUK, THORNTON, KANE, CARLSON, NEAL (<b>FINAL ANSWER:</b> ZDENO CHARA)<span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

TimeOut_Henrique

Time Out

GUESS WHO?

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="LastWord_KC" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/lastword_kc/285487-1-eng-US/lastword_kc.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body"><p><b>MOTLEY CREW</b></p><p>Who knew a beer league squad could include kids you coached &ndash; and your own kid&rsquo;s geography teacher?</p><p></p> <span class="photo-credit">(PHOTO BY MICHEAL OLIVEIRA)</span></figcaption></div><p class="dropcap"><b><span>I</span>T STARTED ABOUT A</b> year ago when Ron Poulton, one of Canada&rsquo;s best immigration lawyers and worst skaters, came up with an idea. We were at an arena in Toronto as 2016-17 was winding down and, being a couple of 50-somethings at a crossroads in life, we were in a reflective mood. Our sons had played together with the Ted Reeve Tornados on and off for a few years but were wrapping up their youth hockey careers and getting ready to go to university. My coaching tenure was coming to an end, and he was becoming an empty nester.</p><p>&ldquo;What are we going to do next season when we won&rsquo;t be in an arena three nights a week?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t we put a team together and play in a league?&rdquo; Hey, that&rsquo;s pretty much how the Ottawa Senators were born, although I think we might have had more seed money than they did at the time.</p><p>Such were the humble beginnings of the Brooklyn Tavern juggernaut in the C Division of the Moss Park Thursday Night Beer League. Like the Senators 25 years before, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then reality struck. And it was ugly. But it got better. I hadn&rsquo;t played in a league in more than 20 years, which coincides with the time my wife and I thought it a good idea to start having kids. It wasn&rsquo;t supposed to turn out that way, but with a busy career where I was travelling constantly, playing hockey at an ungodly hour on a weeknight took a permanent back seat to driving and coaching youth hockey and getting involved in my son&rsquo;s swim club and trying to do my part to keep pace with a busy lifestyle with two growing boys. I&rsquo;m pretty sure a family of squirrels took up residence in my hockey bag a couple years ago, but I figured it was the least I could do since I wasn&rsquo;t using it.</p><p>Two decades later, with youthful vigor that belied our grey hair, we reckoned it would be a simple matter of updating the equipment, throwing on skates and hitting the ice. So Ron rounded up players and collected fees and suddenly, we had a team, a sponsor and a rag-tag group of players from age 19 to 60. This was going to be fun.</p><p>The first month of the season was humbling and depressing. Egregious giveaways, an inability to handle the puck while moving, a terrible shot and, the worst of all, a sense of panic every time I came near the puck, led to me wondering what I thought I was doing. Now I know how Phil Kessel feels when he comes back to the bench, props his hands on the top of the boards and pants heavily with his head down.</p><p>But as I worked my way up from hopeless to pathetic to bad, I&rsquo;m pretty sure I finished the season approaching mediocrity. It wasn&rsquo;t exactly a Gordie Howe thing, but there aren&rsquo;t many people who end up playing beer league hockey with kids they once coached. That was cool.</p><p>And things got better for all of us. We ended up being a middling team in a league made up of teams of much younger players. And the best part was that we tied The Boozecans, the team that ended up winning the league title, twice. I ended up playing with a guy who taught my kid geography in the ninth grade, another guy who once worked for The Hockey News, a couple of financial guys and a few in the legal profession. After dreading the first couple of games, I found myself boring more and more people with stories about my beer league exploits and counting the hours until Thursday nights. I even scored five goals, including one where I took a pass inside the blueline and got off a wrist shot high to the glove side before sprawling to the ice. And I learned a couple of things along the way:</p><p>&bull; Just because you push pucks around and skate a couple of laps during practice with your kids for 10 years in no way means you can keep up with the pace of a game.</p><p>&bull; When you play at this age, you should always know where the arena defibrillator is. Seriously, know where the defibrillator is.</p><p>&bull; You know you play on a team of older guys when one guy has to bail midway through the season for prostate surgery.</p><p>&bull; I&rsquo;m Brad Marchand without talent. Or as my teammate Barry O&rsquo;Shea put it after one game late in the season: &ldquo;You know Ken, you&rsquo;re an a--hole. But you&rsquo;re our a--hole.&rdquo;</p><p>&bull; When you have a team made up of 40- and 50-year-olds and you&rsquo;re playing in a league of 20- and 30-year-olds, you need a really good goalie. Ours was Mithilan Savayogarajah, a kid I coached back in the day.</p><p>&bull; Hockey is as much about the relationships as it is about the playing. After games, we&rsquo;d head to the Brooklyn Tavern and talk about hockey, politics and family, all the while replaying and breaking down the game. We&rsquo;d bust each other&rsquo;s chops and trade barbs, which is the point when you&rsquo;ve reached a comfort level in your relationship.</p><p>In my email the other day was a message from Ron trying to get me to commit for next season. It took about three seconds to respond. Can hardly wait for September.&nbsp;[THN]</p><p>Twitter: <a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/thnkencampbell"><b>@THNKENCAMPBELL</b></a><span class="end-marker"> &#9632;</span></p>

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