Does Karlsson make the Sharks the Cup favorite? Will the Caps be too hung over to contend? Which version of Carey Price shows up this year? We explore these topics and several others in our Burning Questions Issue. Also in the magazine: Ken Campbell reports from Humboldt after the Broncos' first game following the tragic crash; NHL '94, an oral history; how the NHL will deal with the legalization of marijuana in Canada, and much more.

Burning Questions 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.72 no.04 - Saison Preview - October 8, 2018

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="next_rasmussen" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_rasmussen/366577-1-eng-US/next_rasmussen2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">READY FOR RED & WHITEWith his progression to this point, it won&rsquo;t be long before Rasmussen is wearing the Winged Wheel full time. (JEANINE LEECH/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THE DETROIT RED WINGS had gone more than 25 years without a top-10 draft selection, so when the franchise stepped up to the podium with the ninth overall pick in 2017, its fans were pretty excited. Detroit tabbed Michael Rasmussen, a big center who, at the time, was seen as more of a safe second-liner. The reaction was pretty anxious. Many fans wanted a player with a higher ceiling.But with his 6-foot-6, 221-pound frame and increasing speed, Rasmussen is quelling those concerns. And he doesn&rsquo;t have to do it as a center. &ldquo;When he&rsquo;s going up and down the wing,&rdquo; said Detroit assistant GM Ryan Martin, &ldquo;using his size, when he&rsquo;s great in front of the net, that&rsquo;s where he&rsquo;s so good.&rdquo;At the Traverse City Prospects Tournament in Michigan this fall, the Red Wings experimented with Rasmussen on the wing, playing on the left side with 2018 first-rounders Joe Veleno and Filip Zadina. It was a pretty smokin&rsquo; combination. Rasmussen said playing on the wing freed him up from different responsibilities he had down the middle, and, lest we forget, the Wings put Dylan Larkin on the wing at the beginning of his NHL career before sliding him back to center once he got comfortable.Detroit was set to give Rasmussen a very long look this fall, and a roster spot was open for him to seize, though he has been impressing them since his first training camp in 2017. &ldquo;He had the confidence in his ability where he wasn&rsquo;t just a junior guy waiting to get sent back,&rdquo; Martin said. &ldquo;He was trying to make the Red Wings, and he almost did. He brought it right to the last exhibition game and made it a hard decision on us.&rdquo;In the end, the Wings wanted Rasmussen to have a big role, and he got that back in junior with the WHL&rsquo;s Tri-City Americans. He made a modest offensive improvement in the regular season but caught fire in the playoffs, where the Americans qualified for the first time in three years. Rasmussen put up a staggering 33 points in 14 games before Tri-City was dispatched by Everett in the conference final. Rasmussen also wore the &lsquo;C&rsquo; for the Americans and got stronger, so the time is right for him to take that next step, which he&rsquo;ll do with a businesslike attitude. &ldquo;I want to come in every day and work hard,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a big guy, so I have to play well down low and in front of the net. Overall, just get better every day, work hard and be a good teammate. That&rsquo;s me.&rdquo;As for the hype around the Red Wings&rsquo; rebuild, Rasmussen isn&rsquo;t worried about the expectations of others. &ldquo;We all feel pressure, for sure,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But the biggest pressure for me is what I expect of myself, so I just focus on that.&rdquo;For daily prospect coverage, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a> &#9632;

next_rasmussen

THE RIGHT PATH? JUST WING IT

<div class="byline">BY TOM THOMPSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0016-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0016-0173/365238-1-eng-US/f0016-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTOS BY GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>HOCKEY HAS FAMILY TIES like no other sport. Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull had brothers who played in the NHL and also had sons who became Hall of Fame players like their fathers. Six Sutter brothers played in the league at the same time, four Staal brothers, three Stastny brothers. The list goes on and on. Another family is preparing to enter the upper echelon of the group. In 2010, Keith Tkachuk retired after an 18-year career as a classic power winger. Few players in history can match his combination of scoring ability and physicality. He amassed more than 500 goals and 2,000 penalty minutes. In 1996-97, he was a wrecking machine with 52 goals and 228 PIMs. In 2016, his elder son, Matthew, joined his father as a first-round pick (sixth overall), and in his first two NHL seasons, he has become a key member of the Calgary Flames. Last June, younger son Brady was drafted fourth overall by the Ottawa Senators. If his play in a pre-season rookie tournament is any indication, he&rsquo;s ready to become a contributing member of the Senators this year. How successful will Matthew and Brady become? How do they compare to each other? Could the Tkachuks end up being mentioned in the same breath as the NHL&rsquo;s all-time great family combinations?<h2>SKATING</h2>To veteran hockey observers, Brady and Matthew both suffer in skating comparisons with their father. Keith had a beautifully fluid skating stride on a 235-pound body. Neither son can match it. In fact, prior to his draft, some NHL people were concerned about the &ldquo;clunky&rdquo; nature of Matthew&rsquo;s skating. His play since being drafted has alleviated those concerns, but skating will never be the strength of his game. Brady&rsquo;s skating smoothed out before he was drafted. His acceleration isn&rsquo;t great at this point, but his skating is smoother than Matthew&rsquo;s was at the same age.&nbsp;EDGE: BRADY<h2>ROLES</h2>Brady and Matthew are both blue-chip prospects. Matthew is more proven because he&rsquo;s two years older with two years of NHL experience. Both have the potential to be first-line wingers on a Stanley Cup contender. Both shoot left, but when used on the off-wing, both have looked fine. Both make good plays consistently when they&rsquo;re playing with good teammates. Both can score and have a nose for the net. Both will go to the tough scoring areas and get big goals on deflections or rebounds. Both draw penalties because of their size and perseverance. I see no difference in the roles they are capable of assuming.&nbsp;EDGE: NEITHER<h2>CAREERS</h2>It is interesting to compare the routes the Tkachuk brothers took prior to being drafted. They played minor hockey in St. Louis and then both went to Michigan to play for the U.S. national under-17 and under-18 teams. They both excelled in the U.S. program, including their performances at the world under-18 championship and World Junior Championship. Because they both have birth dates after Sept. 15, neither was eligible for the NHL draft after completing the under-18 program. Matthew elected to play for OHL London while Brady went the college route with Boston University. Both were considered world-class prospects and were high draft picks. Both signed upon being drafted, and I&rsquo;m confident Brady will follow in Matthew&rsquo;s footsteps and jump directly to the NHL as a regular. Both have the potential to become first-liners, but in their pre-draft careers, Matthew was a more consistent scorer.&nbsp;EDGE: MATTHEW<h2>COMPETITIVENESS</h2>This is another area where Keith&rsquo;s career makes it difficult for Brady and Matthew. Keith was huge, fast and mean. His open-ice hits were crushing. His sons play in a different era. With that in mind, both of them should get top grades for grittiness. Neither takes a shift off. Both battle hard in tight quarters. Both can cycle the puck under pressure. Both will go to the dirty areas to score and remain there. Their teammates know the Tkachuk brothers have their backs.&nbsp;EDGE: NEITHER<h2>HOCKEY SENSE</h2>Keith had good hockey sense. And both Brady and Matthew have shown elite-level hockey sense. As the saying goes, &ldquo;These guys can play.&rdquo; They seem to understand what their role should be in all situations. They&rsquo;re poised under pressure, especially when the game is on the line. They play with an element of maturity about them. When it comes to on-ice smarts, both brothers have been really impressive.&nbsp;EDGE: NEITHER<h2>THE X-FACTOR</h2>Former NHL GM Doug Risebrough used to say, &ldquo;In hockey, two plus two does not always equal four.&rdquo; He observed that certain players who appeared to have all of the component requirements could never put everything together, while other players became much more effective than the sum of their parts. Matthew is an example of the latter. His game has an &ldquo;extra&rdquo; dimension beyond his overall talent level. He has the &ldquo;X-factor.&rdquo; I remember vividly the championship game at the 2016 Memorial Cup. The Rouyn-Noranda Huskies seemed to have the momentum over Matthew&rsquo;s London Knights. But in sudden-death overtime, Matthew was the dominant player on the ice, controlling the play and scoring the game-winning goal. Prior to joining the Knights, Matthew was the perfect complement to Auston Matthews on the U.S. under-18 team: he was able to get the puck to Matthews; he sensed when Matthews was tiring and would carry the puck himself; and when older players on USHL teams were trying to rough up Matthews, Matthew arrived in a hurry &ndash; and in a foul mood &ndash; to stand up for his linemate. Early in his NHL career, the Flames were struggling late in a game and looked fatigued. Matthew turned the game around. He stole the puck, drove to the net and competed for a rebound. He drew a penalty and, even though he wasn&rsquo;t involved in the power-play winner, he was a prime factor in the victory. I knew then that his NHL career was off and running. Brady has not had the same high-profile opportunities as his older brother. He competes well in big situations, but it remains to be seen whether he can respond in the same seize-the-moment manner as Matthew. Not all good hockey players have the X-factor.&nbsp;EDGE: MATTHEW<h2>CONCLUSION</h2>Brady and Matthew Tkachuk&nbsp;meet all of the requirements to become top-line players on high-level teams for many years. Both could become NHL stars. Their skating is good enough and their hockey sense, hand skills, scoring ability and competitiveness are all at the elite level. Neither one is the physical behemoth that their father was, and neither has Keith&rsquo;s incredibly fluid skating stride for a big man. Brady and Matthew are also playing in a different era of hockey, where strength is more directed to maintaining puck possession and establishing position than it is to pure physicality. By the end of their careers, Brady and Matthew could build on Keith&rsquo;s legacy and have fans mentioning the Tkachuk name in the same breath as the Sutters, Stastnys, Staals, Hulls and Howes. Take both players for your team if at all possible. If you can only choose one of them, remember the X-factor. Matthew has it. Brady might, but we don&rsquo;t know yet. Never turn down a player with the X-factor. Grab Matthew right away.Tom Thompson has been an NHL scout/director/assistant GM since 1985. &#9632;

f0016-01

BUZZ

BRADY TKACHUK Vs. MATTHEW TKACHUK

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_marlies" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_marlies/365180-1-eng-US/buzz_marlies2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY CHRISTIAN BONIN)</figcaption></div>ASK ANY AHL FAN about the league&rsquo;s online streaming service over the past several seasons and you&rsquo;d hear the same complaints. The price was too high. The quality was hit and miss. The overall experience was lacking. Rest assured, those gripes weren&rsquo;t falling on deaf ears. The AHL, including president David Andrews, had been listening. He&rsquo;d been watching, too. &ldquo;If you were watching games from certain arenas in our league, the quality was outstanding,&rdquo; Andrews said, citing Toronto Marlies, Manitoba Moose and Texas Stars broadcasts. &ldquo;But some of our other buildings where the cameras either weren&rsquo;t as good, the camera operators weren&rsquo;t as good or the bandwidth wasn&rsquo;t as good, that&rsquo;s where things fell down.&rdquo;So, when the AHL&rsquo;s contract with NeuLion was up, the league opened up the floor for proposals. That&rsquo;s when HockeyTech stepped up. Founded by former Florida Panthers CEO Stu Siegel, the company&rsquo;s HockeyTV service provides streams for the AHL, ECHL, Hockey Canada and USA Hockey, among others. And as a longtime AHL partner on projects such as real-time statistics and standings, HockeyTech could offer the league ownership of its own streaming platform. In turn, that allowed the AHL to get more aggressive with the cost and helped spur an infrastructure overhaul in buildings where things weren&rsquo;t quite up to snuff. &ldquo;As part of this entire restructuring with HockeyTech and creating AHLTV, we are addressing those bandwidth issues, we are addressing camera issues, and we have certainly addressed the price point,&rdquo; Andrews said.Chris Nikolis, the AHL&rsquo;s executive vice-president of marketing and business development, helped oversee the transition from NeuLion to HockeyTech and added that the opportunities with the service are farther reaching than ever before. Viewers are no longer confined to their computers. AHLTV will allow for streaming on a mobile device or any over-the-top gadget such as AppleTV and Chromecast. Viewers can now also make use of DVR services, archived games and will have the ability to cut and share highlights with other AHLTV users. And with HockeyTech&rsquo;s ViPr system &ndash; of which Siegel said he would &ldquo;hate to use the word revolutionary, but it pretty much is&rdquo; &ndash; gives mobile users the ability to tap in to a panoramic camera and control their own view, even isolating one player and following him around the ice if they so choose. That opens up greater possibilities for viewers watching for both pleasure and business. &ldquo;It has been a good process,&rdquo; Nikolis said. &ldquo;I think it will be well received not just by fans, but by team management, NHL management and others that are going to use the service in different ways.&rdquo; &#9632;

buzz_marlies

THE ‘A’ GETS UPGRADE

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/yoursay_tavares2/364863-1-eng-US/yoursay_tavares2.jpg" title="yoursay_tavares" width="659" height="787"><figcaption class="caption-body">JOHN TAVARES (CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-0132/364856-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="713" height="768"></div> &#9632;

Your Say

THN POLL

<div class="byline">JASON KAY, EDITOR IN CHIEF</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="firstword_ducks" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/firstword_ducks/364770-1-eng-US/firstword_ducks2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">DEADLY DUCKSDoes San Jose have the 2018-19 version of Anaheim&rsquo;s Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer? (GLENN JAMES/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS. BUT do defensemen? That&rsquo;s one of the sizzling questions we&rsquo;re examining in this issue as we start 2018-19. Specifically, do the San Jose Sharks suddenly become the team to beat now that they&rsquo;ve got the dynamic duo of Erik Karlsson and Brent Burns? Senior writer Matt Larkin ponders this wondrous double rainbow and what it all means in a feature beginning on pg. 28.Because there are so many variables, it&rsquo;s unreasonable to review other great 1-2 &lsquo;D&rsquo; punches in NHL history and expect a meaningful trend to emerge. Still, it&rsquo;s fun. And it&rsquo;s what we do &ndash; give you nuggets of minutiae that you can impress your friends or maybe woo the partner of your dreams with.As you work on that coupling, here are some crazy-good NHL Top Twos to consider. Included are Norris Trophy winners who were impact players during their time together and subsequently were elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Note, these greats weren&rsquo;t necessarily pairs for all or part of their stints on the same roster, just at the top of their team&rsquo;s depth chart.Scott Niedermayer & Chris Pronger, Anaheim, 2006-07 to 2008-09: When Pronger was granted his trade out of Edmonton in the summer of 2006 and landed in Anaheim, The Hockey News predicted a Stanley Cup for the Ducks. And they made us look good. Anaheim was a juggernaut, thanks enormously to its stud blueline. They lost just two of their first 25 games in regulation that first season, setting a then-NHL record with at least one point in each of their first 16 contests. The Ducks bulled their way to a Cup, with Niedermayer earning the Conn Smythe Trophy and first-team all-star honors, while Pronger was rewarded with a second-team all-star accolade. It&rsquo;s the last time defensemen teammates were named all-stars in the same season. Pronger and Niedermayer sometimes played together, but were often split so one was on the ice at all times. The club was unable to match that magic in the ensuing two seasons, before Pronger was traded to Philadelphia.Nicklas Lidstrom & Chris Chelios, Detroit, 1998-99 to 2008-09: The 37-year-old Chelios was supposed to be in the sunset of his career when the Wings acquired him in 1999. He wound up playing nearly 10 seasons in Motown, many at an elite level. The pinnacle was 2001-02, when Chelios, 40, played more than 25 minutes a night, led the NHL at plus-40 and finished second in Norris voting. Lidstrom finished first, and the duo claimed both first-team all-star spots on defense, the only time that&rsquo;s happened in the post-expansion era. Detroit cruised to the Presidents&rsquo; Trophy that season and seized the Cup after a memorable playoff run. Detroit won one other championship during the Lidstrom-Chelios era (2008), though the latter, finally, had become a role player at age 46.Chris Pronger & Al MacInnis, St. Louis, 1995-96 to 2003-04: For nine seasons together in Missouri, MacInnis and his legendary slapshot struck fear into the hearts of goalies, while Pronger took care of everyone else. Both had the ability to control games and combined imposing physicality with elite skill. Each won a Norris during this stretch, while Pronger became just the seventh, and most recent, defenseman to win the Hart Trophy in 2000. That&rsquo;s the same year St. Louis captured the Presidents&rsquo; Trophy. Both served as captains, with Pronger voluntarily handing the &lsquo;C&rsquo; to the older MacInnis. The Blues qualified for the playoffs every year of the pair&rsquo;s reign but curiously never made it further than the conference final.Doug Harvey & Tom Johnson, Montreal 1950-51 to 1960-61: Harvey was the undisputed best defenseman of his era. Johnson, for stretches, was No. 2. In their 11 years on the same Canadiens defense corps, Harvey and Johnson combined for 12 end-of-season all-star berths, seven Norris Trophies and they played on six Cup winners. The first crown came in their third season together, 1952-53, while the other five came consecutively, and unprecedentedly, from 1956 through 1960. While Harvey got the bulk of the acclaim and hardware, Johnson was the defensive conscience of the Habs and was the only NHLer not named Harvey to win a Norris from 1955 to 1962.Honorable mentions go to Shea Weber/Ryan Suter, MacInnis/Gary Suter, Ray Bourque/Rob Blake (who played a handful of games together for the 2001 Avalanche) and the 1970s Canadiens&rsquo; Big Three of Larry Robinson, Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe. We omitted them from our grouping because they fell just outside our criteria.And Karlsson/Burns? They&rsquo;re tantalizingly close. Karlsson already has Hall of Fame credentials, while Burns is a good bet. A Stanley Cup in California could golden-seal it. If Karlsson and Burns play to their reputations, history suggests the Sharks have good reason to sense the ultimate kill. If not this season, then &ndash; assuming Karlsson signs long-term &ndash; in the near future, somewhere over the double rainbow.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jasonkay_sig12/364763-1-eng-US/jasonkay_sig2.jpg" title="jasonkay_sig" width="422" height="231"></div><a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/jkthn">@JKTHN</a>NEXT ISSUE: PROSPECTS UNLIMITED &#9632;

firstword_ducks

Column

SAN JOSE’S DOUBLE RAINBOW

<div class="byline">W. Graeme RoustanExecutive Chairman & Publisher,Roustan Media Ltd.roustan.com</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Roustan-column-iPad" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/roustan-column-ipad5/367956-1-eng-US/roustan-column-ipad.jpg"></div>Dear readers,Relaunching a website in 90 days is a little like going to the dentist. You do it because you feel you have to.That&rsquo;s the position we found ourselves in this summer, when we opted to trade up for a new and improved version of TheHockeyNews.com. It was a huge undertaking, but one I felt we had to prioritize based on the feedback I received from The Hockey News&rsquo; staff and other users. It was long overdue.It was important to us to enter the new hockey season with a fresh vibe, and we pushed the reset button on our new site on Oct. 1. In addition to a streamlined, modern look and a better user experience, we&rsquo;ve added a few other bells and whistles. For starters, you&rsquo;ll find episodes of our new TV show, The Hockey News Live, on the site once a week. Senior writers Matt Larkin, Ken Campbell and Ryan Kennedy have taken their expert knowledge, wry wit and fun interplay of The Hockey News Podcast to the video world. Check it out and let us know what you think.We&rsquo;ve also introduced an All-Access portal where our Members get additional unique and premium content. For example, Members will have the opportunity to interact with our writers once a week, getting their questions answered, and voices heard, in an online chat. Members will also get early access to a digital version of the magazine. It gives you the chance to take your library of issues anyplace on your device of choice. The relaunched site is another example of the investment I&rsquo;m happy to make in order to improve your experience with us. The Hockey News is the international, independent source for all things hockey and deserves platforms that are easily accessible and maximize your enjoyment.There are more improvements are coming soon, especially to our Membership plans, so I suggest, in order to reap those benefits, that you consider signing up at TheHockeyNews.com/Membership.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/graemerousta_002/364820-1-eng-US/graemerousta_0022.jpg" title="graemerousta_002" width="583" height="123"></div><a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/graemeroustan">@GraemeRoustan</a> &#9632;

Roustan-column-iPad

We’ve pressed the refresh button

<div class="image-hero"><img title="thousandword_011" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/thousandword_011/364906-1-eng-US/thousandword_0112.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">If this hockey thing doesn&rsquo;t work out for Toronto&rsquo;s Nazem Kadri and Ottawa&rsquo;s Mark Borowiecki they could always try qualifying for the Olympics in pairs figure skating. (MARK BLINCH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

thousandword_011

A Thousand Words

DOUBLE LUTZ OR DOUBLE KLUTZ?

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_marijuana" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_marijuana/364956-1-eng-US/buzz_marijuana2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ILLUSTRATION BY KAGAN MCLEOD)</figcaption></div>AS AN OLD, MUMBLY guy once said, the times, they are a changin.&rsquo; And while hockey has always been conservative in its culture, the topic of drugs in the sport is getting more complex as the years go on. Changes to laws regarding marijuana use are putting that notion in the spotlight.Recreational use of marijuana is now legal in nine American states, plus D.C., featuring seven NHL franchises: Anaheim, Boston, Colorado, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vegas and Washington. On Oct. 17, the drug will also be legal for all adults in Canada, adding seven more teams to that list. According to a couple of recently retired NHLers, usage among players is already pretty common, with their estimates ranging from 20 to 40 percent partaking in the herb. &ldquo;If Gary Bettman ever wanted to not get booed,&rdquo; said one anonymous alumnus, &ldquo;he would push the NHL forward on this issue.&rdquo;That retired player said he uses marijuana very frequently to calm down before he sleeps at night and that the pain-relief aspects of the drug can also be beneficial for current players. &ldquo;One-hundred percent, marijuana should be used as the management system away from the game,&rdquo; said former NHLer Sean Avery. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question the science backs it up. It&rsquo;s the most effective in pain management.&rdquo;With more legal avenues to procure it now, marijuana offers an alternative to the harsh painkillers that have sometimes been overprescribed to players in the past. Derek Boogaard, for example, was given literally hundreds of pills over the course of just months by various doctors during his descent into addiction, according to The New York Times, via findings from the late enforcer&rsquo;s father Len. Those painkillers included hydrocodone and oxycodone, the latter of which has become known as an addictive scourge throughout America in the past decade.Another popular painkiller is Toradol, which some players take before games to numb themselves from the physical toll they endure in a typical NHL contest. In this case, marijuana has no advantage. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t play stoned on indica &ndash; you&rsquo;d be in a fog,&rdquo; Avery said. &ldquo;With Toradol, it works from the neck down, so it&rsquo;s perfect for hockey players. You feel like Iron Man when he puts on his armor.&rdquo;The side effects for Toradol misuse, however, include kidney failure and an increased risk of heart attacks or strokes.Marijuana does seem to be getting more popular among NHLers, and part of the reason is cultural: using the drug isn&rsquo;t as stigmatizing as it once was. Avery saw an increase in teammates using it as he got older. &ldquo;In the first half of my career, it was about 10 percent. By the end of the second half, it was 30 or 40 percent. It became more mainstream and wasn&rsquo;t looked down upon. Guys wouldn&rsquo;t hide the fact they smoked pot.&rdquo;With legalization coming to Canada, the NHL community is now looking at an issue where perceptions are morphing at a pretty quick pace. &ldquo;We live in a world in which a lot is changing,&rdquo; said NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr. &ldquo;We live in a world in which the circumstances that an 18- or 19-year-old grew up expecting as normal may be at some considerable variance from what a 33- or 35-year-old, much less his coach or owner, grew up with. You have to take that into account.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_avery/364942-1-eng-US/buzz_avery2.jpg" title="buzz_avery" width="1024" height="1021"><figcaption class="caption-body">NO PAINS, NO GAINSAvery says marijuana works great for pain management, but not for performance enhancement. (LEN REDKOLES/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>On that note, more than one former NHLer has already invested in medicinal marijuana companies, including the anonymous retiree quoted in this story. The most prominent in the market is former Philadelphia Flyers enforcer Riley Cote, who founded BodyChek Wellness, a company that uses hemp extracts for a variety of healing products. Fellow retired fighter Scott Parker, best known for his days in Colorado and San Jose, is a co-founder of the company, along with his wife, Francesca.As it is now, the NHL doesn&rsquo;t punish players for using recreational drugs such as marijuana or even cocaine, though &ldquo;drugs of abuse&rdquo; can get a player referred to the league&rsquo;s Substance Abuse/Behavioral Health Program (SABH) if doctors are concerned about test results. Ryan Malone, for example, was arrested for driving under the influence in 2014 while playing for the Tampa Bay Lightning. The officer who pulled him over found a bag of cocaine in Malone&rsquo;s back pocket, of which Malone claimed to have no knowledge. Malone was placed in the SABH and later signed a two-way contract with the New York Rangers, where he played six games in 2014-15, along with 24 contests in the AHL.Former Flyers and Kings star Mike Richards also ran into legal trouble during a border crossing in 2015 when he was charged with drug possession &ndash; specifically, oxycodone. The charges were eventually stayed by a Manitoba court, but the Kings terminated Richards&rsquo; contract, resulting in an NHL Players&rsquo; Association grievance on the center&rsquo;s behalf that led to a settlement. But oxycodone isn&rsquo;t banned by the NHL, either.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_schmidt/364935-1-eng-US/buzz_schmidt2.jpg" title="buzz_schmidt" width="1573" height="1083"><figcaption class="caption-body">A LITTLE IS ENOUGHSchmidt says only minute traces of a banned substance were found in his positive drug test. (HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>So what is? The league&rsquo;s prohibited substances are based on the World Anti-Doping Agency&rsquo;s list and were agreed upon by the league the NHLPA, as per the collective bargaining agreement.Those banned substances fall into several categories, starting with anabolic agents. This group includes steroids such as Danazol and Clostebol, the latter of which was popular amongst East Germany&rsquo;s athletes during that country&rsquo;s state-sponsored doping scandal during the Cold War. Other banned substances in this category are naturally produced by the body &ndash; such as testosterone &ndash; but cannot be introduced to the body from an external source.The next category is peptide hormones and related growth factors. These substances, which can aid in growth and metabolism, include the commonly known human growth hormone (HGH) but also elements such as argon and cobalt. An exception here is Vitamin B12, which contains cobalt but is not on the banned list and is found in fish, meat, milk and eggs.Beta-2 agonists such as salbutamol also have their own category on the list, though there are exceptions here as well. Salbutamol is used to treat breathing disorders such as asthma or bronchitis, so the NHL provides an out for the drug if it is inhaled (like through an asthma puffer). Still, elevated levels of the drug are considered suspect, and the player must prove that his use was therapeutic.Other categories on the prohibited list include hormone and metabolic modulators; glucocorticoids and diuretics, the last of which falls under the umbrella of masking agents. Along with the actual prohibited substances, the list also bans ways of trying to hide usage through various methods.Urine substitution &ndash; which has been attempted previously in the NFL &ndash; is one illegal method, as is gene doping (the process of using agents to edit genome sequences) and blood manipulation.As for the testing itself, it follows several stages. First, every NHL player must go through an orientation session (either via in-person presentation or webinar) on the testing procedures and potential penalties.During training camp, each NHL club is subject to one team-wide, no-notice test. In the regular season, there&rsquo;s another team-wide, no-notice test. Individual players will also be selected for random tests during the regular season and the playoffs.Once the campaign is finished, players must submit their off-season contact info, and a maximum of 60 tests can be conducted around the league. Again, players are selected randomly. The league can also test a player if it has &ldquo;reasonable cause&rdquo; to believe something is amiss, though the player can dispute this and take the matter to an independent arbitrator. If a player refuses to take a test &ndash; or attempts to tamper with it in any way &ndash; the test is considered positive.Positive tests are determined by program doctors, who have been selected by the NHL or NHLPA. The first positive test results in a 20-game suspension and mandatory referral to the SABH program. A second violation comes with a 60-game suspension and SABH referral, while a third results in a &ldquo;permanent suspension&rdquo; which cannot be appealed for two years.Players are allowed to dispute or attempt to explain test results, which is what Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nate Schmidt did when he recently had a positive test. With the help of the NHLPA, Schmidt found experts to testify on his behalf, and the blueliner maintained that the only supplements he took were issued by the Golden Knights. In a statement released through the NHLPA, Schmidt said, &ldquo;One of the experts in environmental contamination who testified on my behalf at the appeal hearing described the amount of the substance found in my system &ndash; 7 billionths of a milligram/mL &ndash; as the equivalent of a pinch of salt in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.&rdquo;Nonetheless, Schmidt accepted his suspension, albeit with a great deal of disappointment.The controversy harkens to the 2014 Olympics, when Washington Capitals center Nicklas Backstrom was suspended for the gold-medal game by the International Olympic Committee after a positive test for pseudoephedrine. Backstrom had been taking an allergy medication that contained the substance for seven years prior to the test and even asked Sweden&rsquo;s team doctor if he would be OK, but the positive test ended up in the star center missing what turned out to be a loss to Canada in the Olympic final. After months of appeals and negotiations involving the IIHF and WADA, Backstrom was ultimately awarded his silver medal.Navigating the world of drugs and supplements is obviously difficult, despite the efforts of the league and the union to help players along the way. And as marijuana becomes more mainstream, different avenues for recovery will open up as well. The important thing is for the players to know exactly what they are putting in their bodies at all times.For up-to-the-minute coverage, visit <a datastyle href="http://www.thn.com">THN.com</a> &#9632;

buzz_marijuana

POT, PAINKILLERS AND PUCKS

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE TELJEUR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="charlie_7204" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/charlie_7204/364985-1-eng-US/charlie_72042.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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THE INSTIGATOR

<div class="byline">BY BRIAN COSTELLO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_treasures/365021-1-eng-US/buzz_treasures2.jpg" title="buzz_treasures" width="153" height="248"><figcaption class="caption-body">(STEVE POIRIER/HOCKEY HALL OF FAME)</figcaption></div>MORE THAN 100 YEARS ago, a few dozen hockey men came together at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa and created the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association, which is the forerunner to today&rsquo;s Hockey Canada. These men were the trustees of the Allan Cup, awarded to the top amateur hockey team in Canada. Since the Stanley Cup evolved into an award given to the top professional team, the Allan Cup was created in 1909 to honor amateur players and teams. But an association was required to make sure things moved along smoothly. So Claude Robinson pitched the CAHA to trustee members and a group evolved to govern amateur hockey in the country.The original minute book is a formal record of the organization being established. So why is such an iconic documentation handbook in such bad shape? Probably because it was constantly being referred to over the years by executives such as William Northey, Leo Dandurand, Murray Costello, Gordon Juckes, and now Tom Renney, who reviewed bylaws and regulations dating back to that first meeting. Today, updated CAHA annual articles are available online and exceed 200 pages.The CAHA Minute Book is stored at the Hall of Fame&rsquo;s Doc Seaman Hockey Resource Centre in Etobicoke. It occasionally makes an appearance at the Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto, most recently during Hockey Canada&rsquo;s 100-year anniversary in 2014.The Allan Cup was created as a challenge trophy open to any amateur senior team that won its league title. It was determined at that first meeting that surplus proceeds after expenses be donated to charities. The Ottawa Cliffsides were presented with the first Allan Cup in 1909. But a month after the presentation, they lost a challenge to Queen&rsquo;s University. &#9632;

TREASURES FROM THE HALL

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_mask14/365057-1-eng-US/buzz_mask12.jpg" title="buzz_mask1" width="559" height="523"></div>ANTOINE BIBEAU | SAN JOSE SHARKSBibeau&rsquo;s new lid has an on-the-nose theme in the Steven Spielberg film Jaws, and artist Sylvie Poitras blows away expectations with beautifully rendered re-creations of the main characters: Roy Scheider&rsquo;s police chief Martin Brody, Robert Shaw&rsquo;s shark hunter Quint and Richard Dreyfuss&rsquo; oceanographer Matt Hooper, depicted on the left. On the right: the titular shark and the San Jose shark.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_mask26/365050-1-eng-US/buzz_mask22.jpg" title="buzz_mask2" width="524" height="520"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Mask by Sylvie Poitras/Airbrushzap.com)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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BEHIND THE MASK

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-0180/365086-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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TRADE BAIT-O-METER

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_jersey1/365115-1-eng-US/buzz_jersey12.jpg" title="buzz_jersey1" width="686" height="649"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photo by Newfoundland Growlers)</figcaption></div>NEWFOUNDLAND GROWLERS | 2018-19As soon as the logo was released, there was a ton of hype over the new ECHL edition from Newfoundland. The anticipation was worth it.On top of that excellent crest, the Growlers also have a sharp shoulder patch with a stylized &lsquo;G&rsquo; sitting on a compass-like circle. The northeastern portion is emphasized, representing the province&rsquo;s geographic spot in North America.Though the Growlers are affiliated with the Toronto Maple Leafs, their color scheme is closer to that of the Vegas Golden Knights. The reason? Those colors represent the province&rsquo;s military history through the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. &#9632;

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JERSEY HOUND

<div class="byline">BY SAL BARRY OF PUCKJUNK.COM</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_cards12/365144-1-eng-US/buzz_cards12.jpg" title="buzz_cards1" width="684" height="648"></div>NHL &rsquo;94 IS THE ONLY hockey video game cool enough to have its own set of cards. Sega Genesis NHL &rsquo;94 cartridges included two random cards, but the entire 225-card box set could be ordered directly from Electronic Arts for $19.95. Players from every team&rsquo;s starting lineup are featured, and card backs display their in-game ratings, giving gamers a fun way to compare how each team&rsquo;s best players stack up against each other. Also in the set are &ldquo;Special Skills,&rdquo; &ldquo;New Feature&rdquo; and &ldquo;Designer Tip&rdquo; cards.Read Sal Barry&rsquo;s NHL &rsquo;94 oral history in this issue as well! &#9632;

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IN THE CARDS

<div class="byline">BY SAM MCCAIG</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_klefbom/365209-1-eng-US/buzz_klefbom2.jpg" title="buzz_klefbom" width="657" height="675"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Who did you look up to as a young player?I was actually a center until I was 12 or 13, so Peter Forsberg was my big one. When I turned into a defenseman at 14, I started looking up to Nicklas Lidstrom. I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s a better role model. He had so many awards. He was just unbelievable.Who was your favorite team growing up?It was probably the Colorado Avalanche, going back to Forsberg and the Swedes who played over here. It was Colorado and Detroit. The Red Wings got the most coverage back home because they had a lot of Swedes.Why do you wear No. 77?I wore No. 7 back home in Farjestad, but obviously it&rsquo;s pretty tough to get No. 7 in Edmonton with Paul Coffey&rsquo;s number on the wall. I just took No. 77. I wanted a seven on my back somehow.Most important skill to work on as a young player?Skating. Work on your skating as much as you can.First big purchase after signing your first NHL deal?I don&rsquo;t know. I just bought my first condo a few months ago. My first purchase was a vehicle back home.What was your &lsquo;Welcome to the NHL&rsquo; moment?My first goal. When you first get to the NHL, you play an easy game, you watch and learn. But when you score that first goal, you actually have an impact on the game. It&rsquo;s crazy to see your name on the scoresheet.What&rsquo;s the best thing about being in the NHL?The fans. To play for the type of crowds we have in the league, it&rsquo;s unreal. It still feels unreal for me today.What&rsquo;s the worst thing about being in the NHL?For me, it&rsquo;s moving here and not seeing your friends and family for a long time. You&rsquo;re gone nine months a year. That&rsquo;s the toughest thing for me as a Swede.What&rsquo;s your craziest fan interaction?There was a fan at Rexall Place who really wanted my autograph. I was leaving the rink, and I told the guy, &ldquo;Sorry, I have to go because I&rsquo;m late.&rdquo; But he really wanted my autograph so he jumped in front of my car while I was driving. I almost ran him over.What advice would you give your 13-year-old self?Don&rsquo;t think too much. Just go for it. &#9632;

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RAPID FIRE

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_subban" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_subban/365505-1-eng-US/buzz_subban2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">P.K. SUBBAN (JASON HALSTEAD/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THE ERIK KARLSSON TRADE was a blockbuster and, as such, there will be obvious ramifications. The Ottawa Senators, naturally, look like locks for last overall in the NHL this season. The Sharks find themselves in the top tier of Stanley Cup contenders, and their defense corps is a big reason why. With Karlsson in the fold, San Jose boasts the two most offensively dangerous blueliners in the world, with Brent Burns already patrolling the back end for the Sharks. Not only that, but shutdown ace Marc-Edouard Vlasic is also in San Jose, giving the franchise three elite defenders.Does that give the Sharks the best blueline in the league? Not so fast. We&rsquo;ve put together our ranking of all 31 NHL teams, with an eye on both statistics and depth. Nashville, for example, has been the gold standard on defense for years, and the Preds&rsquo; ability to roll out two full pairings of excellence makes them a force to be reckoned with every night.On the other side of the equation, Ottawa&rsquo;s defense corps looks badly depleted now that Karlsson&rsquo;s nearly 27 minutes of nightly service and point-per-game potential have flown west. Similarly, an already weak Montreal will be inconvenienced again by Shea Weber&rsquo;s absence due to injury.So who goes No. 1? It was a tough choice, but when you bring your best defenders to the poker table, we believe that four kings beat three aces.<h2>1. NASHVILLE PREDATORS</h2>Fantastic collective led by P.K. Subban also features Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis and Mattias Ekholm, all of whom would get more pub if they played on another team. This group can move the puck.<h2>2. SAN JOSE SHARKS</h2>The only team in the NHL with two Norris Trophy winners (Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson), the Sharks also boast shutdown stud Marc-Edouard Vlasic, giving them unparalleled coverage.<h2>3. CAROLINA HURRICANES</h2>The Canes weren&rsquo;t quite &ldquo;Nashville East&rdquo; last year, but with Dougie Hamilton and Calvin de Haan coming in, they get even better. Jaccob Slavin had a great second half and Carolina&rsquo;s &lsquo;D&rsquo; depth is excellent.<h2>4. TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING</h2>Reigning Norris winner Victor Hedman leads a group that also includes savvy vets Anton Stralman and Ryan McDonagh. Mikhail Sergachev showed great promise in limited minutes.<h2>5. WINNIPEG JETS</h2>Starting with Dustin Byfuglien and including &ndash; but not limited to &ndash; Jacob Trouba and Josh Morrissey, the Jets are thick on the back end, while also blessed with various different skill sets.<h2>6. CALGARY FLAMES</h2>Dougie&rsquo;s gone, but so is coach Glen Gulutzan. Can Mark Giordano&rsquo;s crew right the ship with Noah Hanifin subbing in for Hamilton? With their talent, the quick answer is a definitive &ldquo;yes.&rdquo;<h2>7. MINNESOTA WILDa</h2>A little top-heavy, but Ryan Suter just can&rsquo;t stop playing big minutes with great efficiency. Mathew Dumba proved his elite credentials, while Jared Spurgeon is solid. Depth is a slight question.<h2>8. BOSTON BRUINS</h2>Apparently Zdeno Chara will never be too old to be effective. In the meantime, Torey Krug is still statistically better than he gets credit for, while Charlie McAvoy is well on his way to beast territory.<h2>9. ANAHEIM DUCKS</h2>Hampus Lindholm is the most underrated defenseman in the league, but Ducks fans know that. Cam Fowler is a mobile minute-muncher, and Josh Manson is Lindholm&rsquo;s perfect foil.<h2>10. COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS</h2>Seth Jones is the The Truth and a Norris Trophy is coming soon. Zach Werenski isn&rsquo;t far behind, but depth is not a strength. Can Ryan Murray finally break through and make a difference?<h2>11. WASHINGTON CAPITALS</h2>Defense was Todd Reirden&rsquo;s specialty as an assistant before taking over as coach and in that time, John Carlson became elite. Dmitry Orlov continues to grow while Brooks Orpik was repatriated.<h2>12. LOS ANGELES KINGS</h2>The Kings are a great all-around team defensively, but the blueliners aren&rsquo;t slacking. Led by Norris winner and minute-muncher Drew Doughty, this crew gets it done.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_pietrangelo/365498-1-eng-US/buzz_pietrangelo2.jpg" title="buzz_pietrangelo" width="1024" height="1042"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALEX PIETRANGELO (CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>13. ST. LOUIS BLUES</h2>It&rsquo;s all about Alex Pietrangelo and Colton Parayko now. Jay Bouwmeester can still help and Joel Edmundson is ready for more, but the depth isn&rsquo;t what it used to be. Next generation is key.<h2>14. VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS</h2>Like the forwards, Vegas&rsquo; defense plays at a rapid pace and can really push the puck. The Knights have no stars, but Shea Theodore has plenty of potential. Nate Schmidt&rsquo;s suspension hurts.<h2>15. PHILADELPHIA FLYERS</h2>Ivan Provorov will be the No. 1 very soon, while Shayne Gostisbehere is the type of rushing D-man that teams covet. Internal competition will help youngsters Travis Sanheim and Philippe Myers.<h2>16. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS</h2>Kris Letang is still an offensive threat, though subtlety has been the team&rsquo;s &lsquo;D&rsquo; strength: just get the puck up to Sid and Geno. Brian Dumoulin is solid. Jack Johnson signing was curious.<h2>17. TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS</h2>Morgan Rielly takes a lot of undue flak, as he&rsquo;s a very good two-way defender. Leafs are trying to get better from within, and Travis Dermott is one answer. Nikita Zaitsev should bounce back.<h2>18. FLORIDA PANTHERS</h2>Aaron Ekblad is the focal point and Keith Yandle has been a great asset for him as he grows. Michael Matheson has traction now, but who else will step up? Bogdan Kiselevich is intriguing.<h2>19. COLORADO AVALANCHE</h2>Erik Johnson has matured into the top-end D-man he was forecast as when he went first overall in 2006, while Tyson Barrie remains a great mobile threat. Rookie Samuel Girard finished strong.<h2>20. DALLAS STARS</h2>John Klingberg is the undisputed No. 1, but he&rsquo;s still better with the puck than without it. Miro Heiskanen will be a big help, despite being a teenage rookie. Can Julius Honka finally seize a spot?<h2>21. NEW YORK RANGERS</h2>Most of the flash is gone as the Rangers strip it down, but Kevin Shattenkirk and Brady Skjei can move the puck. Marc Staal brings a veteran presence while the next generation grows.<h2>22. ARIZONA COYOTES</h2>New captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson has established himself as elite, but he doesn&rsquo;t have a lot of help. Niklas Hjalmarsson has been through the wars, while Jakob Chychrun has potential.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_vatanen/365491-1-eng-US/buzz_vatanen2.jpg" title="buzz_vatanen" width="1024" height="729"><figcaption class="caption-body">SAMI VATANEN (FRANCOIS LACASSE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>23. NEW JERSEY DEVILS</h2>Quietly efficient, the Devils&rsquo; defense corps got a couple of great boosts from rookie Will Butcher and trade acquisition Sami Vatanen last year. But the ceiling is only so high with this group.<h2>24. EDMONTON OILERS</h2>Last season was a disaster for Adam Larsson and Oscar Klefbom, and the Oilers didn&rsquo;t have the depth to cover up. On the bright side, Darnell Nurse took his game to the next level.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_dahlin2/365484-1-eng-US/buzz_dahlin2.jpg" title="buzz_dahlin" width="563" height="928"><figcaption class="caption-body">RASMUS DAHLIN (JEROME DAVIS/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>25. BUFFALO SABRES</h2>Rasmus Dahlin is a big X-factor, but this group suffered last year. Will Dahlin help Rasmus Ristolainen&rsquo;s usage? And what will a healthy Zach Bogosian mean &ndash; assuming he stays healthy?<h2>26 VANCOUVER CANUCKS</h2>With Chris Tanev, the Canucks won&rsquo;t be putrid, but they won&rsquo;t be good, either. This unit is all over the place with a motley assortment of vets. Quinn Hughes rules, but he&rsquo;s still at Michigan.<h2>27. NEW YORK ISLANDERS</h2>Things have to be better than last year, when the Isles&rsquo; back end got crumpled up on a nightly basis, though losing de Haan was an ominous sign. Can Ryan Pulock or Sebastian Aho step up?<h2>28. CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS</h2>You hear the names Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook and you think Stanley Cups, but that was a long time ago in hockey years. The Hawks are rebuilding, and the young generation isn&rsquo;t ready yet.<h2>29. MONTREAL CANADIENS</h2>Losing Shea Weber before the season began is brutal, but at least expectations for Montreal are low. Victor Mete has the chance to build on an impressive rookie season, but he needs help.<h2>30. DETR NGS</h2>The Wings have a cohort of youngsters on the cusp, but spots must be earned. Mike Green returns as a vet, while Danny DeKeyser needs to get back on track after a couple down years.<h2>31. OTTAWA SENATORS</h2>Without Karlsson, the Sens are left with the other guys &ndash; and that&rsquo;s frightening. Thomas Chabot is an up-and-comer, but now he has no cover. How do you feel about 25 minutes a night for Cody Ceci? &#9632;

buzz_subban

THE COUNTDOWN

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_gritty6" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_gritty6/365569-1-eng-US/buzz_gritty62.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DARCY FINLEY/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>FIRST, A CONFESSION: I&rsquo;VE always kind of thought of the New York Rangers as the Evil Empire, even though the narrative usually doesn&rsquo;t fit. But that all changes this season. Why, you ask? Because the Rangers are the only team in the NHL that hasn&rsquo;t stooped to employing a mascot.With the Philadelphia Flyers unveiling Gritty, the Rangers are the last holdout on a trend that has seen teams create a bunch of big, dopey doofuses aimed at attracting a younger audience &ndash; even though it&rsquo;s hard to envision a universe in which a creature such as Gritty would do that.First impressions on social media were not flattering. The memes were instant and hilarious. One Philadelphia sports blog introduced Gritty with the headline, &ldquo;The Flyers&rsquo; New Mascot Is Here To Murder You.&rdquo;First, Gritty is seven feet tall and he eats ice from the Zamboni. His appearance is what you would get if Youppi! and Jakub Voracek had a love child, then Scott Hartnell and that love child had a love child of their own that shoved nothing but Burger King Triple Whoppers and 7-Eleven Double Gulps down its throat. According to a team release, Gritty was forced out of his hermit-like existence when his secret hideout at the Wells Fargo Center was disturbed by renovations. That makes the hairy amorphous blob at most 22 years old, since the building has only existed since 1996. Bruce Springsteen has played the venue 56 times. You&rsquo;d have thought he would have run into Gritty before now.The Flyers introduced Gritty in late September to great fanfare, producing a video where he skates out from behind a bunch of bright lights, then jiggles his massive belly around while his Cookie Monster eyes bulge out of his head. It certainly wasn&rsquo;t the worst mascot debut of all-time. Not even close. That distinction belongs to Scorch, the short-lived mascot for the AHL&rsquo;s Adirondack Flames. Scorch was extinguished just five days after his unveiling in 2014, in part because he looked ridiculous, but mostly because he owed his existence to a fire that wiped out more than 100 businesses in Glens Falls, N.Y., 150 years before.But the general notion is that the Flyers swung and missed on this one, not Luke Schenn-for-James van Riemsdyk bad, but a miss nonetheless. Particularly when they had so many other options, such as:&gt; CLARKIE: He could take out his false teeth and show them to the kids for kicks. The only problem is those kids would never know if he&rsquo;s going to cuddle them or slash them in the ankle or punch them in the face.&gt; PRONGS: This towering, gap-toothed beast is best known for sneaking up behind you and cross-checking you in the back, then laughing about it.&gt; FIVE-HOLE: In deference to the long line of illustrious goaltenders the Flyers have had, Five-Hole could be part of a promotion where fans get to shoot pucks at him and discover he&rsquo;s impossible to hit.&gt; BIG BIRD: That&rsquo;s an easy one. Just have Don Saleski come out of retirement.&gt; HEXY: If for no other reason, just to see how he&rsquo;d react to being bumped into in the crease at the Mascots&rsquo; Game.&gt; HAMMER: Again, just to see him pummel the daylights out of every other mascot, then get inducted into the Flyers&rsquo; Hall of Fame.And finally&hellip;&gt; BRYZ: Sure, he would be afraid of bears, but the Flyers will be paying Ilya Bryzgalov $1,642,857 a year until 2027, so why not get some use out of him?<h2>BEST OF TWITTER</h2>SOCIAL MEDIA WENT CRAZY&nbsp;after the Flyers introduced Gritty to the masses with his mesmerizing dance video. And things only got hotter after Gritty had a Twitter tete-a-tete with the Penguins, then took a hard and hilarious spill during an intermission skate at a pre-season game later that night. The photoshop work was in overdrive, so who won the internet after the big reveal? Even Gritty himself made the podium.&nbsp;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_gritty3/365555-1-eng-US/buzz_gritty32.jpg" title="buzz_gritty3" width="493" height="500"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_gritty5/365548-1-eng-US/buzz_gritty52.jpg" title="buzz_gritty5" width="493" height="750"></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_gritty4/365541-1-eng-US/buzz_gritty42.jpg" title="buzz_gritty4" width="493" height="708"></div><h2>&ndash; EDWARD FRASER &#9632;</h2>

buzz_gritty6

MEET GRITTY

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="malarkey_josi" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/malarkey_josi/365598-1-eng-US/malarkey_josi2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">CHEAP SKATESJosi has become the NHL&rsquo;s best bargain due to a decision to sign long-term instead of inking a bridge deal.</figcaption></div>THE NASHVILLE PREDATORS DID some brilliant speculating in the 2013 off-season with a relatively obscure young defenseman named Roman Josi. He&rsquo;d just completed his second NHL season, a lockout-abbreviated 48-game sample. His ice time had jumped from 18 to 23 minutes a night, and he&rsquo;d snagged a plum role alongside Shea Weber on Nashville&rsquo;s top pair.Blessed with great skating, poise and smooth hands, Josi had tremendous upside, but it hadn&rsquo;t yet translated into big offensive totals. GM David Poile, however, understood what he had. He locked Josi up for what may have looked like an overpay at the time: seven years at a $4-million annual cap hit.It didn&rsquo;t take long for that &ldquo;gamble&rdquo; to become hockey&rsquo;s biggest bargain. Within three years, Josi had two top-five finishes in Norris Trophy voting. He&rsquo;s worth at least double his cap hit today, yet he&rsquo;s still under contract for two more years. Dallas followed suit after John Klingberg&rsquo;s stellar rookie season in 2014-15, giving him a seven-year pact with a $4.25-million AAV, good for about 6.16 percent of the cap, similar to Josi&rsquo;s 6.22 percent. Among D-men the past three seasons, only Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson and Victor Hedman have more points than Klingberg, and he&rsquo;ll remain underpaid through 2021-22.When finalizing those contracts, it&rsquo;s as if the GMs had more confidence in the players than the players had in themselves. That&rsquo;s why the players chose long-term security over betting on their own play to determine higher value. Josi, 28, will get P.A.I.D. on his next contract when he&rsquo;s 30, but left a lot of money on the table through his prime years.<blockquote class="pullQuote">CAREY PRICE PARLAYED A BRIDGE CONTRACT INTO TWO MAMMOTH DEALS PAYING HIM $123 MILLION ACROSS 14 SEASONS</blockquote>Are players starting to rethink the Josi contract model? Nikita Kucherov had established himself as a crucial part of Tampa Bay&rsquo;s future by October 2016 when he was 23, but signed a &ldquo;team-friendly&rdquo; bridge for three years at $4.77-million AAV. Over the next two seasons, he was a top-three forward in the NHL. He qualified for an extension as an RFA by 25, smack in the middle of his prime. Then came another crack at a long-term deal &ndash; and a jackpot AAV of $9.5 million. It kicks in next year, so he&rsquo;ll be 34 when it ends. He&rsquo;ll still have value as a scorer then and secure another multi-year deal. By betting on himself to explode his value on a bridge deal across his peak years, Kucherov set himself up for multiple monster paydays.Is it a coincidence Winnipeg&rsquo;s Josh Morrissey used a similar strategy this summer? He landed a two-year bridge at a $3.15-million cap hit. The next day, Edmonton&rsquo;s Darnell Nurse signed a similar deal. In both cases, the teams&rsquo; cap crunches necessitated the bridges. &ldquo;If a team wanted to sign a player to a long-term deal that was reasonable, I think any agent would take that deal, but sometimes the team&rsquo;s not quite in that spot,&rdquo; said Gerry Johannson, Morrissey&rsquo;s agent. &ldquo;But a bridge is a really smart move, generally speaking, for good players. Carey Price signed a bridge deal as I recall. It&rsquo;s not a bad move for a player that believes in his game.&rdquo;If it was long-term deal or bust, a player like Morrissey could&rsquo;ve held out. Instead, he, Nurse and others are understanding that, as much as a bridge does help the team, it helps certain players in the long run, too. Morrissey&rsquo;s next deal will come when he&rsquo;s 25 and, theoretically, playing at his top level. Morrissey, like Kucherov, has set himself up for two &ldquo;set for life&rdquo; contracts. Price parlayed a bridge into two mammoth deals paying him $123 million across 14 years.Could the Price/Kucherov/Morrissey/Nurse route become the new en vogue way to negotiate? It means deferring unrestricted free agency until into one&rsquo;s 30s but, from a financial perspective, essentially gives a player &ldquo;UFA&rdquo; market price on his second RFA contract in his mid-20s, when he&rsquo;s worth the most he&rsquo;ll ever be worth. Bridge deals are nothing new, but it&rsquo;s time for players to think of them as the smart and selfish thing to do, not just taking one for the team. It&rsquo;s good business for any player who believes in his skills enough to take the risk.<a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/THNMattLarkin">@THNMATTLARKIN</a> &#9632;

malarkey_josi

THE JOY OF BRIDGE

Feature

THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

sharks_opener2

SHARKS LAND THE MEG

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_jets1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_jets13/365818-1-eng-US/nhl_jets12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>WINNIPEG, THE CITY, isn&rsquo;t exactly known for its luxuries. Matter of fact, according to a few San Jose Sharks last season, you would be lucky to get some sunshine, half-decent cell service and a wireless internet connection in Manitoba&rsquo;s capital.But Winnipeg, the team, is living life lavishly. So lavishly that the Jets let what most would call a top-tier second-line center, Paul Stastny, leave town as a free agent to sign with not only a conference rival but the very same team that ousted them from the Western Conference final, the Vegas Golden Knights, without breaking so much as a sweat. And for that, the Jets have Jack Roslovic to thank.No doubt, Stastny&rsquo;s shoes are sizeable ones to fill. He was a deadline acquisition who nearly put Winnipeg over the top in its quest to parade the Stanley Cup down to Portage and Main. In Roslovic, though, the Jets may have a fit for the Stastny-shaped hole that now resides on the second line between speedster Nikolaj Ehlers and sharpshooter Patrik Laine. Roslovic doesn&rsquo;t quite see it that way, however, even if it is Stastny&rsquo;s old job he&rsquo;s chasing. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going out there to be myself,&rdquo; Roslovic said. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t replace what Paul Stastny did and does. On the other hand, he can&rsquo;t replace what I do, too.&rdquo;What stands out about Roslovic, 21, and what he confidently calls his greatest asset, is his blazing speed. There were moments he flashed his wheels during his cup of coffee with the Jets last season &ndash; he played sparingly in 31 regular-season games and 10 post-season contests &ndash; but one particularly eye-popping end-to-end rush this pre-season against the Edmonton Oilers left the mouths of an entire fan base watering.Roslovic, selected 25th overall by the Jets in 2015, has game-breaking quickness, the kind that makes him a weapon no matter where he picks up the puck. &ldquo;Some guys are as fast with the puck as they are without the puck &ndash; you think of Nik Ehlers and Kyle Connor,&rdquo; said Manitoba Moose coach Pascal Vincent, who has watched over Roslovic&rsquo;s development the past two seasons in the AHL. &ldquo;Jack Roslovic is one of those guys. He has the ability to not slow down with the puck.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_jets23/365804-1-eng-US/nhl_jets22.jpg" title="nhl_jets2" width="1024" height="875"><figcaption class="caption-body">WELCOMING PARTYPlaying with the supremely skilled Laine and Ehlers would make NHL life easier for any young player. (MINAS PANAGIOTAKIS/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Don&rsquo;t mistake Roslovic&rsquo;s breakneck speed for a purely north-south game, either. Vincent praised the elusiveness Roslovic displayed during his time in the AHL, the way he could cut back to find space, escape pressure in no more than a few strides or explode into a hole to turn something into nothing, a quality most successful scorers boast.And while Vincent is hesitant to liken Roslovic to any other player, just as Roslovic himself was reticent about comparisons to Stastny, Jets coach Paul Maurice isn&rsquo;t afraid to draw a bold parallel. &ldquo;Mark Scheifele can play this game a bunch of different ways,&rdquo; Maurice said. &ldquo;He can be a passer, he can be a guy that works in the holes and be effective at a slower pace. I look at Roslovic, I see a lot of the same things. He can slow the game down, play in holes, (make) passes, and he&rsquo;s a really smart guy.&rdquo;On-ice intelligence is another thing Roslovic shares with Scheifele, and Vincent has seen it firsthand. Roslovic&rsquo;s focal point last season was rounding out his defensive game, and that meant refining his stick positioning, body positioning and the way he reads the play as it comes together.<blockquote class="pullQuote">I CAN&rsquo;T REPLACE WHAT PAUL STASTNY DID. BUT HE CAN&rsquo;T REPLACE WHAT I DO, TOO</blockquote>&ndash; Jack RoslovicVincent praised Roslovic as a &ldquo;cerebral player&rdquo; with a high hockey IQ, one who pays attention to those minute details and craves the knowledge necessary to raise his game. &ldquo;I remember talking about the power play with him, and he was asking more advanced questions for a younger guy,&rdquo; Vincent said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a thinker. He&rsquo;s watching. He studies the game. When I have a player telling me, &lsquo;Hey coach, did you see that play last night in the game between L.A. and Carolina?&rsquo; I know they&rsquo;re watching hockey. He&rsquo;s that kind of guy.&rdquo;For Roslovic, who would be entering his senior year at Miami University (Ohio) had he not departed the NCAA after his standout freshman season, watching and studying a night&rsquo;s action, not to mention going over his own footage with the coaching staff, is the new breed of homework. The results can be seen on ice, too.Vincent noted how the youngster will borrow from the great players and implement their techniques into his own game. There&rsquo;s a lot of communication, as well, with Roslovic picking the brains of the coaching staff, his teammates and even former mentors. &ldquo;You always try to develop your game,&rdquo; Roslovic said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re always trying to get better. Mark is always trying to get better, Blake (Wheeler) is always trying to get better, and those are the best guys on our team. They&rsquo;re working every day to make improvements.&rdquo;Even a marginally improved Roslovic would be a frightening thing. His five goals and 14 regular season points and three playoff assists may not have him on the league-wide radar just yet, but stat heads highlight his name as a breakout candidate on what is already one of the league&rsquo;s highest-scoring attacks. The evidence of Roslovic&rsquo;s immense offensive potential ahead of his sophomore season came in his per-minute production at even strength in the post-season, which was bested on the team only by Stastny, Scheifele and Wheeler.Roslovic&rsquo;s smooth navigation of the AHL, where he registered 28 goals and 83 points in 97 contests across two seasons, will also go a long way toward giving him the belief he can be an NHL difference-maker. &ldquo;You learn every second you&rsquo;re on the ice,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And just to have that confidence that you can (play) at the next-highest level and dominate there, that definitely gives me a little bit of confidence to come here and try to do the same thing.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_jets3/365797-1-eng-US/nhl_jets32.jpg" title="nhl_jets3" width="474" height="594"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARK SCHEIFELE (JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>FLASHY FORWARDS</h2>In addition to Roslovic, the Jets are loaded with first-round successes<h3>PATRIK LAINE, RW</h3>2016 DRAFT, 2ND OVERALL155 GP, 80 G, 54 A, 134 PTSA brick of a man with a devastating shot, he earned immediate comparisons to Alex Ovechkin. Laine has lived up to the billing through two seasons, racking up 80 goals at an age when Ovie wasn&rsquo;t even playing in the NHL yet.<h3>MARK SCHEIFELE, C</h3>2011 DRAFT, 7TH OVERALL366 GP, 113 G, 174 A, 287 PTSRemember when Scheifele was labelled a reach? Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff knew better in his first draft with the team. Scheifele posted easily the best playoff performance in Jets/Thrashers history with 14 goals last spring.<h3>NIKOLAJ EHLERS, LW</h3>2014 DRAFT, 9TH OVERALL 236 GP, 69 G, 93 A, 162 PTSOne of many Jets forwards with incredible speed to match his skill, Ehlers ranks third in his draft class in goals and points, trailing only David Pastrnak and Leon Draisaitl. Ehlers was a steal from Day 1.<h3>BRYAN LITTLE, C</h3>2006 DRAFT, 12TH OVERALL 754 GP, 200 G, 275 A, 475 PTSUnsung pivot leads the Jets/Thrashers franchise in games and is second only to Ilya Kovalchuk in goals. Little has the rare distinction of surviving the demoralizing Atlanta years and taking part in the Jets&rsquo; rise to contender status.<h3>KYLE CONNOR, LW</h3>2015 DRAFT, 17TH OVERALL 96 GP, 33 G, 29 A, 62 PTSDemoted to the AHL two seasons ago for extra seasoning, he arrived a polished product last year and was the lone NHL rookie to crest 30 goals. Connor, a speedy net-crasher on a dynamite first line, is just getting started.For up-to-the-minute coverage, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a> &#9632;

nhl_jets1

WHO’S THE JETS’ NO. 2 CENTER?

<div class="byline">BY DAVID BOCLAIR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_rinne" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_rinne/365868-1-eng-US/nhl_rinne2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">MEN IN THE MIRRORTheir physical stature could not be more different, but Saros and Rinne have nearly identical stats over the past two seasons. (JOHN RUSSELL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>NO ONE HAS COME out and said that Pekka Rinne is in danger of losing his place as the Nashville Predators&rsquo; No. 1 netminder, a distinction he has held for a decade.Then again, no one has to. Peter Laviolette&rsquo;s actions back in May spoke volumes.It was one of the more remarkable moments of the 2018 NHL playoffs. Rinne, in the wake of arguably the best season of his career &ndash; he won 42 games as Nashville claimed the Presidents&rsquo; Trophy &ndash; was pulled after he allowed two goals on seven shots in just 10:31 of Game 7 in the second-round playoff series against the Winnipeg Jets.With the season on the line, Laviolette decided 23-year-old backup goalie Juuse Saros gave the Predators their best chance to stabilize the contest and, perhaps, to rally. It did not work out that way. Saros allowed two goals of his own (on 16 shots), and Winnipeg advanced to the Western Conference final.<blockquote class="pullQuote">I STILL HAVE GOOD GAMES IN ME AND GOOD YEARS IN ME, BUT AT THE SAME TIME I REALIZE THAT SAROS IS BREATHING DOWN MY NECK</blockquote>&ndash; Pekka RinneIf nothing else, it was a move that showed just how much the veteran coach trusted the young netminder. And it offered a glimpse at what might happen if Rinne slips &ndash; even a little &ndash; from the Vezina Trophy form he displayed throughout the 2017-18 season. If a guy is good enough to be on the ice when a team&rsquo;s post-season run comes to an end, it&rsquo;s not a stretch to think he could be the guy out there again when the 2019 playoffs commence. &ldquo;Certainly, we&rsquo;re going to rely on both goaltenders,&rdquo; Laviolette said of his plan for the 2018-19 campaign.As Rinne enters the final season of a seven-year, $49-million contract, his hold on the starting job has never been so tenuous. Nevermind that over the past six seasons he has started more games between the pipes than every NHL goalie other than Boston&rsquo;s Tuukka Rask, Washington&rsquo;s Braden Holtby and the New York Rangers&rsquo; Henrik Lundqvist. Or that Rinne is one of five goaltenders with at least 30 post-season wins during that span (all five led their teams to the Stanley Cup final at least once). Or that he is the reigning Vezina winner, coming off a season in which he posted an impressive .927 save percentage and eight shutouts.In the two seasons since Saros made the jump to the NHL, the statistics of Nashville&rsquo;s two goalies have been virtually indistinguishable. Rinne has a 2.37 goals-against average and .923 SP, Saros has a 2.40 GAA and .924 SP. The only real difference is in their respective points percentages in games for which they earned the decision (.674 for Rinne, .591 for Saros), but Saros was unbeaten in regulation in his final eight decisions (6-0-2) at the end of last season, which contributed to Laviolette&rsquo;s willingness to insert him in playoff games. He never started in the post-season, but he replaced Rinne in four games, including three times in the Winnipeg series. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s great,&rdquo; said Rinne, who turns 36 in November. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a very healthy competition between us. I feel like I still have good games in me and good years in me, but at the same time I realize (Saros) is breathing down my neck and that he&rsquo;s ready to go.&rdquo;Saros, a fourth-round draft pick in 2013, is 5-foot-11 and does not fill up the net the way the 6-foot-5 Rinne does, nor is Saros as athletic. He does, however, read the play with remarkable aplomb, and much more often than not he gets square to the shooter and simply waits for the puck to arrive.If he anticipates an opportunity to seize the spot at the top of Nashville&rsquo;s goaltending depth chart, however, the youngster has not let on. An RFA this past off-season, Saros agreed to a three-year, $4.5-million contract that does not skew the Predators&rsquo; pay scale. In fact, it opens the door for Rinne to get a new deal that allows him to stick around beyond this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_laviolette2/365854-1-eng-US/nhl_laviolette2.jpg" title="nhl_laviolette" width="804" height="1271"><figcaption class="caption-body">PETER LAVIOLETTE (JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Make no mistake: management&rsquo;s desire is to make sure Rinne does not go anywhere except into retirement, if that&rsquo;s what he wants. Yet it is clear he is not going to earn the same sort of money or enjoy the same sort of job security. &ldquo;First and foremost, my desire is that Pekka retires a Predator,&rdquo; said GM David Poile. &ldquo;We need to talk more, and I have to share with him more my thoughts on the future and the different components coming and going, in general. I need to hear from Pekka, too, in terms of where he is physically, mentally, what his desires are and all those things. Hopefully we can get on the same page.&rdquo;Even if they reach an agreement, it won&rsquo;t change the fact the Predators eventually will turn the page and move on from the best and most accomplished goalie in franchise history. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m healthy and energized and feel really good,&rdquo; Rinne said. &ldquo;So I&rsquo;m looking forward to this season. We both had a strong (2017-18) season and I don&rsquo;t expect any less this year.&rdquo;He can expect more scrutiny and, if he&rsquo;s not careful, a lot more time on the bench. &#9632;

nhl_rinne

WHO’S NO. 1 IN NASHVILLE?

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/western_rev2/366002-1-eng-US/western_rev2.jpg" title="western_rev" width="188" height="188"></div>ANAHEIM DUCKSCan the Ducks keep up? Division rivals Calgary, San Jose, L.A. and Vegas bulked up offensively in the summer while Anaheim was mostly status quo. Unless Sam Steel makes a rookie impact and Ryan Kesler and Corey Perry return healthy, Anaheim&rsquo;s 18th-ranked offense will stagnate.ARIZONA COYOTESCan Rick Tocchet find the tonic to keep his young players progressing? Past Arizona coaches have faltered. For the Coyotes to build upon a strong finish, they&rsquo;ll need Clayton Keller, Brendan Perlini, Christian Dvorak and Dylan Strome to keep their trajectories pointing upward.CALGARY FLAMESCan the Flames resist the temptation to overplay Mike Smith to the point he breaks down? Without a proven backup and with Smith turning 37 later this season, Calgary will have to live with the idea it can&rsquo;t play its injury-prone MVP from last season in every key game.CHICAGO BLACKHAWKSHave the Blackhawks repaired their goaltending? Even if Corey Crawford gets healthy, his concussion history makes him a threat for re-injury. Newcomer Cam Ward is an experienced safety net but graded out below average in most goaltending metrics. He&rsquo;s well-worn at 34.COLORADO AVALANCHECan the Avs find secondary scoring? The powerhouse line of Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen scored 36.5 percent of their goals last year. No one else hit the 20-goal mark. Tyson Jost and Alexander Kerfoot must prove themselves as top-six options.DALLAS STARSIs Dallas&rsquo; young defense corps ready? Sure, grizzled Marc Methot and Roman Polak handle support roles, but this blueline belongs to John Klingberg, Esa Lindell, Julius Honka, Stephen Johns and Miro Heiskanen. The latter, a rookie phenom, will get big minutes and responsibility.EDMONTON OILERSDid the reset button work on Cam Talbot and Milan Lucic? Sometimes unplugging your device, waiting a bit, then plugging it back in works. That&rsquo;s what the Oilers are banking on. Cosmetic roster adds like Ty Rattie, Kailer Yamamoto and Tobias Rieder should help as well.LOS ANGELES KINGSIs Ilya Kovalchuk his old dominant self or a shadow of him? The answer is likely somewhere in the middle. A slight lean in either direction will be pivotal in the competitive Pacific. At 35, there&rsquo;s still tread on the Kovy tire, but it&rsquo;s a matter of how much and when will it wear thin.MINNESOTA WILDWill the kids help Minnesota improve from within after new GM Paul Fenton&rsquo;s quiet off-season? Jordan Greenway looks ready as a crash-and-bang power forward. Joel Eriksson Ek needs to rediscover offense. Luke Kunin, recovering from a torn ACL, will be rusty when he returns.NASHVILLE PREDATORSCan the Preds win a Cup with no elite sniper? In their 19 seasons they&rsquo;ve never had a player top 33 goals. Filip Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson are safe bets for 30, but GM David Poile might need to shop for an upgrade, especially with prospect Eeli Tolvanen not making the team.SAN JOSE SHARKSWhat will San Jose do if Erik Karlsson can&rsquo;t grow a Sharks-style beard? Or will Brent Burns and Joe Thornton fashion their facial hair to Karlsson&rsquo;s look? That won&rsquo;t matter. Question is, which star (Logan Couture, Joe Pavelski, Evander Kane) gets bumped to the No. 2 power play unit?ST. LOUIS BLUESThe Blues improved with aggressive off-season signings and trades, but will that matter if Jake Allen doesn&rsquo;t deliver a season as a true No. 1? Among goalies with 50-plus games since 2012-13, he ranks 41st in save percentage, and the Blues lost Carter Hutton as a fallback.VANCOUVER CANUCKSDoes Elias Pettersson have the physical maturity and durability to be a front-line NHLer at 19? We saw last season and in the NHL pre-season he has the playmaking and scoring skills, but how much of a learning curve will there be playing in the league&rsquo;s most physical division?VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS&nbsp;Can the Golden Knights keep the magic going? It was just 12 months ago most of us had Vegas slotted for 30th or 31st with a roster that hasn&rsquo;t changed a whole lot. Max Pacioretty and Paul Stastny are in, but James Neal and David Perron are out. Is that enough to maintain things?WINNIPEG JETSDid the Jets learn enough from the third-round loss to Vegas? Winnipeg has few other questions. Mark Scheifele, Patrik Laine, Connor Hellebuyck, Nikolaj Ehlers, Kyle Connor and Josh Morrissey were playoff novices last year. They&rsquo;re less likely to burn out in the spring this time. &#9632;

western_rev

WESTERN CONFERENCE

<div class="byline">BY BEN RABY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_wilson" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_wilson/366045-1-eng-US/nhl_wilson2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">RESPECT THE BIRDWilson has newfound admiration for the Penguins&rsquo; repeat performance after winning a Cup of his own. (HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>TOM WILSON FIGURED THAT Capitals fans might find his thoughts cringeworthy. So, before sharing them, the top-line winger hesitated. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know why I&rsquo;m saying this,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;but you respect a team like Pittsburgh.&rdquo;Like a Wilson fist to the noggin, sometimes the truth hurts. &ldquo;When you see a team repeat like that,&rdquo; said Wilson, before pausing, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s so hard to win, let alone to do it twice. It&rsquo;s a huge achievement. That&rsquo;s one that we&rsquo;re ready for.&rdquo;The Capitals begin their title defense with a nearly identical lineup as the one that won the Stanley Cup in June. Eighteen of the 20 Caps players in uniform in Game 5 of the Cup final are back, with fourth-line center Jay Beagle and backup goalie Philipp Grubauer the lone exceptions. While much of the roster has returned to D.C., the constant reminders of past playoff disappointments have not. &ldquo;I think the organization feels a little bit different,&rdquo; said GM Brian MacLellan. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s less tension or pressure. It doesn&rsquo;t mean that we don&rsquo;t want to win or repeat. It just feels different. It feels a little more relaxed.&rdquo;Besides a different vibe, the defending champs also face new questions. Chief among them: can they avoid the proverbial Stanley Cup hangover? Insert joke here for a team that hardly shied away from celebratory soda pops and mastered the art of the Stanley Cup keg stand.Although the Capitals skate into the 2018-19 season with a healthy swagger, they know better than to assume smooth sailing in the months ahead. There&rsquo;s a reason the 2016 and &rsquo;17 Penguins are the only team in the past 20 years to repeat as champions. &ldquo;At some point, it&rsquo;s going to be hard,&rdquo; said defenseman Matt Niskanen. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know when it&rsquo;s going to come, but I&rsquo;m guessing based on past teams that have won, we&rsquo;re going to hit a tough portion of the season.&rdquo;The Capitals have hockey&rsquo;s version of a first-world problem. They won a championship, had a short off-season and must now fight early-season complacency while getting every opponent&rsquo;s best game. Thirty other NHL teams would sign up for this. &ldquo;Every team is going to try to beat us,&rdquo; said Alex Ovechkin. &ldquo;But, for us, we just have to try to win every game, especially at the beginning of the year. Because if you don&rsquo;t win those games, in the end you&rsquo;re probably going to miss a couple points and you&rsquo;re going to go, &lsquo;Oh, Jesus, why did we have a bad start?&rsquo;&rdquo;First-year coach Todd Reirden has been proactive in dealing with a potential hangover. During the off-season, he reached out to championship-winning coaches from different sports in search of advice. Reirden was cautioned that some champions who struggled the next season had eased into training camp. &ldquo;They ended up chasing it from the beginning of the year,&rdquo; he said.<blockquote class="pullQuote">THE ORGANIZATION FEELS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT. THERE&rsquo;S LESS PRESSURE. IT DOESN&rsquo;T MEAN WE DON&rsquo;T WANT TO WIN OR REPEAT</blockquote><blockquote class="pullQuote">&ndash; Capitals GM Brian MacLellan</blockquote>That&rsquo;s why Reirden emailed his players over the summer and told them to be ready to hit the ground running at camp. The challenge, Reirden has been told, is to know when to ease up once the season starts. &ldquo;You have to set the level of work that&rsquo;s needed, but you have to be cognizant that your team went all the way to June and put in the work for a long time,&rdquo; said former Penguins coach Dan Bylsma, now an assistant in Detroit.Bylsma led Pittsburgh to the 2009 Stanley Cup and watched his team win nine of its first 10 games the following season. By New Year&rsquo;s Day, the Penguins were in the midst of losing five straight and seven of nine. &ldquo;Our guys just hit a wall,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They got to December and they ran out of steam. They didn&rsquo;t have any energy. They were a group of walking zombies. So, you may have to pull back a little bit and keep a close temperature of your team somewhere around that time frame where you might anticipate your team going low-energy or not having it.&rdquo;Bylsma and Reirden were college teammates at Bowling Green in the early 1990s and later coached together in the AHL and Pittsburgh. Bylsma also told Reirden to keep his team focused on the season ahead. &ldquo;The difficult thing is you get reminded everywhere you go that you&rsquo;re the Stanley Cup champions and that the champs are in town,&rdquo; Bylsma said. &ldquo;You have to try to shed that. It&rsquo;s a thing of the past. It&rsquo;s not a tour.&rdquo;Capitals defenseman Brooks Orpik, who also won the Cup with Pittsburgh in 2009, is the only two-time champ in Washington. He agrees that drowning out the noise can limit the perceived challenges. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t let people outside the situation talk you into being more tired than you actually are,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Everyone says, &lsquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s a long season, you should be tired, you should be fatigued,&rsquo; and if you let people convince you that you&rsquo;re tired, then you&rsquo;re going to feel tired.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_reirden/366031-1-eng-US/nhl_reirden2.jpg" title="nhl_reirden" width="803" height="729"><figcaption class="caption-body">TODD REIRDEN (JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Orpik said one advantage the Caps have over other past champions is that the team returned healthy from their shortened summer. There were no surgeries or lingering injuries that required lengthy rehab. The Capitals are also confident that with so few changes to the roster, they can always draw back on how they performed late last season. &ldquo;We set a new standard for how we play,&rdquo; said winger T.J. Oshie. &ldquo;Whether it&rsquo;s Game 1, Game 82 or we&rsquo;re into the playoffs, I feel like our standard is set and if we drop below that I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;re going to be happy with ourselves.&rdquo;Talk of a hangover will only grow with a slow start, but the Capitals won&rsquo;t necessarily panic. Washington began last season with a modest 11-10-1 mark before finishing 38-16-6. We all know how that turned out.Another driving force for the team, unlike in years past, is that they finally know what it feels like to be on top. As evidenced by their celebrations, they seemed to enjoy it. &ldquo;When you taste it, you want it more and more,&rdquo; Ovechkin said. &ldquo;I think you can see lots of guys still have memories of what they did with the Cup and how awesome it was when the whole town was just going nuts. It&rsquo;s something special, you know. You don&rsquo;t want to stop it, and you just want to continue to do it.&rdquo; &#9632;

nhl_wilson

WILL HANGOVER PREVENT REPEAT?

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/eastern_rev2/366186-1-eng-US/eastern_rev2.jpg" title="eastern_rev" width="188" height="188"></div>BOSTON BRUINSHow much longer can Zdeno Chara be the workhorse? Since joining the Bruins in 2006-07, Chara has led the team in time on ice per game every year. But with Chara in his 40s and Charlie McAvoy coming on, changing of the guard may come as soon as this season.BUFFALO SABRESAfter years of misery, can the Sabres finally break through and seriously compete for a playoff spot? There is a lot of youth, but Jack Eichel is maturing into a bona fide star, and he finally has a supporting cast around him. If Buffalo isn&rsquo;t in the hunt in March, it&rsquo;d be a serious setback.CAROLINA HURRICANESDo they have the centers to compete? Goaltending is also a work in progress, but if the Canes don&rsquo;t get stronger performances down the middle, they&rsquo;re toast. Jordan Staal is a shutdown guy and Sebastian Aho is a No. 2 at best. Rookie Martin Necas has potential but is unproven.COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETSHow many Russian stars will Columbus have after the trade deadline? Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky are both set to be UFAs in July and neither is close to signing an extension. With the Jackets primed for a long playoff run, trades would be risky. Do the Jackets stand pat?DETROIT RED WINGSWhat will life look like without Henrik Zetterberg? The Red Wings lost their on- and off-ice leader when Zetterberg retired due to back problems. His offense will be missed, and it vaults Dylan Larkin into a No. 1 spot at center he may or may not be ready to fill.FLORIDA PANTHERSCan Roberto Luongo stay healthy? The team would like Luongo to play 50 games, but that would be 15 more than he played last year when he was terrific. The Panthers do have a capable backup in James Reimer. They&rsquo;ll need solid play from both to capitalize on the young talent.MONTREAL CANADIENSCan Max Domi be the No. 1 center the Canadiens have lacked for a long time? They are hoping Domi will mesh with Jonathan Drouin on his wing. The pre-season would have been a good test, given how sparingly Domi has played in the middle in the NHL, but he got suspended.NEW JERSEY DEVILSWho is the starting goaltender? The simple answer is $6 million Cory Schneider, but he wasn&rsquo;t his usual self last year and the Devils got into the playoffs thanks to backup Keith Kinkaid. Schneider has four years left on his contract, while Kinkaid is a UFA this summer.NEW YORK ISLANDERSCan Matt Barzal avoid a sophomore slump? The Islanders offense now runs through second-year center Barzal, who won the Calder Trophy on the strength of 85 points. He still has weapons to play with (Jordan Eberle, Anders Lee), but now Barzal will face all the tough matchups.NEW YORK RANGERSAre the kids ready? GM Jeff Gorton has done a great job of retooling through the draft, and now it&rsquo;s time for the first wave of those picks to get busy. Centers Lias Andersson and Filip Chytil both looked good at the Traverse City prospects tournament, but that wasn&rsquo;t against NHLers.OTTAWA SENATORSWTF? Seriously, that&rsquo;s the biggest question. Sixteen months after they were an OT goal away from the Cup final, the Sens are in complete disarray. They are primed for a last-overall finish, but that wouldn&rsquo;t help them since they traded their 2019 first-round pick last season.PHILADELPHIA FLYERSWill goaltending doom the Flyers again? It feels like they are just waiting for Carter Hart to be NHL-ready, and maybe he gets a chance this year, but the incumbents are Brian Elliott and Michal Neuvirth, neither of whom have shown enough consistency for this otherwise solid club.PITTSBURGH PENGUINSWill depth finally undermine the Penguins? They still have Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, so they&rsquo;ll always be fine, but if the Pens want to get back on top, the rest of the guys will have to be good. Phil Kessel returns on wing, but Jake Guentzel needs to produce in the regular season.TAMPA BAY LIGHTNINGCan the Lightning get over the hump? They&rsquo;ve teased with their dizzying array of talent at all positions but have made a habit of stalling at crucial times in the playoffs. Last spring in the East final against the Caps, they failed to score in Games 6 and 7 after leading the series 3-2.TORONTO MAPLE LEAFSIs the defense good enough? The Leafs are downright scary offensively, but the team did nothing to bolster its much-maligned blueline. So any improvement will have to come from within. One or two of the youngsters need to step up to take the pressure off veteran Ron Hainsey.WASHINGTON CAPITALSWhat can coach Todd Reirden do in Year 1? A defensive expert, Reirden is tasked with taking the champions through the challenge of being a target. Luckily, he&rsquo;s already familiar with practically everyone in the room &ndash; but being the big boss always brings a different dynamic. &#9632;

eastern_rev

EASTERN CONFERENCE

<div class="byline">BY &#xC9;TIENNE LAJOIE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="vitale2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/vitale2/366222-1-eng-US/vitale22.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">NEXT CHAPTERAfter years of misery, Vitale has turned a corner in his recovery, allowing for a return to the game as a broadcaster. (JEFF LE/ST. LOUIS BLUES)</figcaption></div>JOE VITALE HAD NEVER been hurt like this before. He&rsquo;d fought 10 times to that point in his five seasons in the NHL, but the aftermath of this fight was different. His face was numb and his left eye hurt like hell. As he sat beside Arizona Coyotes teammate Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the penalty box, he knew something was seriously wrong but couldn&rsquo;t communicate how badly he was feeling.&ldquo;I was just really sick,&rdquo; Vitale said. &ldquo;I knew I was just in so much pain.&rdquo;At 5-foot-11 and 205 pounds, Vitale was no heavyweight, so when he took on Kevan Miller on Oct. 17, 2015, he was giving up at least three inches and five pounds to the Boston Bruins defenseman. But after being a healthy scratch in the first four games of the 2015-16 season, Vitale finally got into the Arizona lineup and was eager to stay. When Miller engaged him during a scrum after the whistle, in front of the Coyotes&rsquo; home crowd, Vitale willingly obliged.Miller was punishing but, thankfully, not relentless. In the final seconds of the bout, after pounding Vitale with several hard shots, Miller&rsquo;s knuckles finally met Vitale&rsquo;s defenseless face one last time. It was the fifth and final blow. &ldquo;When he hit me,&rdquo; Vitale said, &ldquo;it felt like a bomb went off in my ear.&rdquo;Vitale stopped and looked away. With his face numb, he gamely skated to the penalty box, feeling for his left eye as he went.When the next whistle blew, Ekman-Larsson motioned to the referee to let Vitale go to the bench. An X-ray in the trainer&rsquo;s room afterward showed an injury far more serious than what the trainers could deal with. &ldquo;When I saw that punch, I immediately texted him,&rdquo; said Kyle Kraemer, Vitale&rsquo;s former teammate in high school and college. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t get a text back for a while, so I knew something was wrong.&rdquo;His temporal, jaw and orbital bones were all broken, and he sustained a concussion. He was taken to the hospital and spent three nights there. A CAT scan showed no bleeding in the brain, luckily. &ldquo;I got hit so much throughout my career,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but nothing like what happened that night in October.&rdquo;In the months afterward, Vitale found little improvement. And about six months after that game, he realized his playing career was over. Along with nausea and headaches, he&rsquo;d been experiencing spinning episodes during his recovery. One day, he was watching one of his three kids play soccer when things started spinning. The sun was out, and his head suddenly felt like it was swollen, making it difficult for him to watch. &ldquo;I just had to retreat to my room,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and find darkness and silence.&rdquo;The spinning episodes continued until early 2018, when Vitale finally had what he described as a &ldquo;turnaround.&rdquo; He attributes it to special glasses he was given by a doctor &ndash; the sixth or seventh he&rsquo;d seen, by his count &ndash; from Washington University in St. Louis, Vitale&rsquo;s hometown. At that point in his recovery, almost two years after the fight, Vitale had given up on seeing another specialist but thought it couldn&rsquo;t hurt. The doctor diagnosed an eye problem. &ldquo;Your eye is not on the same level anymore, so that&rsquo;s why it&rsquo;s hard for you to pick up things,&rdquo; the doctor told him. &ldquo;Every time you don&rsquo;t do that, your brain gets flustered and confused.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">AFTER WHAT I&rsquo;VE EXPERIENCED, IF I KNEW THIS HEADING INTO THE LEAGUE, I WOULD NEVER HAVE FOUGHT. I WOULD NEVER HAVE PUT MY BODY OR MY HEAD AT RISK</blockquote>&ndash; Joe VitaleSince getting his new glasses, Vitale has been sleeping better, and his overall quality of life has improved. Although his vision still isn&rsquo;t perfect, he&rsquo;s feeling more like himself, and the people who&rsquo;ve long known him have noticed the change. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen a turnaround in Joey&rsquo;s mood, just in hearing his voice on the phone or in person,&rdquo; Kraemer said. &ldquo;Those glasses helped him out a lot.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/vitale1/366215-1-eng-US/vitale12.jpg" title="vitale1" width="1573" height="1000"><figcaption class="caption-body">LAST GASPVitale&rsquo;s fight with Miller was his 11th bout in the NHL &ndash; and the final moment of his playing career. (NORM HALL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Despite visits to multiple doctors, Vitale is unsure if his symptoms (occasional queasiness and migraines, for example) are the result of the Miller fight or if previous concussions have also influenced his current state. As a seventh-round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2005, Vitale was never supposed to make the NHL, but he scratched and clawed his way through four years at Northeastern University and three years in the AHL with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, willing to do anything to make it to the big time. He finally made it nearly six years later, when he debuted with Pittsburgh on Feb. 10, 2011. As a fourth-liner, however, he had to keep laying it all on the line every game if he wanted to stay there.Vitale feels the NHL has done a good job limiting head shots and believes players are taking notice of the league&rsquo;s measures, such as harsher suspensions and hefty fines, but he thinks more needs to be done, especially from his former peers. He said players &ldquo;at the pinnacle of the sport&rdquo; should lead the charge when it comes to supporting retired players who suffer from mental illness and post-concussions syndromes. &ldquo;If we want change in this game,&rdquo; Vitale said, &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s going start with stars who have that voice.&rdquo;Initially, Vitale was unsure if he&rsquo;d ever get back into hockey, but he eventually started skating again, which &ldquo;got that fire back in his belly.&rdquo; It was an energy he hadn&rsquo;t felt since playing &ndash; the same energy that made him a selfless, hardworking player.Today, Vitale is back in the game on two fronts. He&rsquo;s an assistant coach with the Carshield 2005 AAA minor bantam team in St. Louis and also the Blues&rsquo; new color analyst for their radio broadcasts.The injuries he sustained that October night three years ago have had a major impact on Vitale&rsquo;s life. The Miller fight has even made him question his career &ndash; and what he had to do to get there. &ldquo;After what I&rsquo;ve experienced, if I knew this heading into the league, I would never have fought, I would never have put my body or my head at risk,&rdquo; Vitale said. &ldquo;You do it as a young player. Why? You have a dream. You want to play in the NHL. It&rsquo;s your goal. It&rsquo;s all you&rsquo;ve worked for your whole life. You&rsquo;ll do anything to get in.&ldquo;Was it worth it? Absolutely not. Nothing is worth your health. Nothing is worth that. As great as hockey was &ndash; it was a dream come true, it was a wonderful time &ndash; nothing is worth feeling the way I did for as long as I did. I&rsquo;m a father, I&rsquo;m a husband, I have three young children. I have a whole life still ahead of me.&rdquo; &#9632;

vitale2

PUTTING IT ALL IN PERSPECTIVE

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="ouellette-opener" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ouellette-opener/366279-1-eng-US/ouellette-opener2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">HALL OF FAME HOCKEY CAREEROuellette skates away from the game with a long list of accolades, most notably her status as a four-time Olympic champion. (JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast or easy; and choosing to practise our values rather than simply professing them&nbsp;&ndash; Bren&eacute; Brown, Rising StrongBY ANY MEASURE YOU care to apply, Caroline Ouellette is teeming with integrity. And now that she&rsquo;s free to live her best life on her terms, unencumbered by the demands of being one of the world&rsquo;s greatest hockey players and a society that is increasingly finding itself on the right side of equality and tolerance, this seemed like as good a time as any for Ouellette to hang up her skates and move on to the next chapters of her life.And those two chapters are, in very distinct order, motherhood and coaching. Ouellette, one of the greatest women hockey players Canada has ever produced, announced her retirement from the game in mid-September at 39. Surely, the Hall of Fame awaits her in three years, and until then she&rsquo;ll remain firmly entrenched in the game as a coach &ndash; doing skills work with Les Canadiennes de Montreal, the Canadian Women&rsquo;s League team for which she starred for nine seasons; serving as an assistant coach with Concordia University; and coaching with Hockey Canada, with her first assignment as an assistant coach for this year&rsquo;s entry into the Four Nations Cup in Saskatoon in November.But those roles pale in comparison to what Ouellette views as her primary focus in life, sharing the motherhood duties of 11-month-old Liv Chu-Ouellette with fiancee Julie Chu, former captain of Team USA and longtime rival on the ice. Parenthood changes everything. Just ask anyone who has had a child. And with an unconditional well of love to give to a very lucky baby girl, Ouellette has found she&rsquo;s really good at something else. She has discovered a maternal instinct she never knew she had. Ouellette had never spent much time or felt terribly comfortable around infants until she had her own. And now that has all changed. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s crazy to have someone who absolutely and completely depends on you,&rdquo; Ouellette said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s so incredible and so powerful and so beautiful, but it&rsquo;s also so scary. Right now she&rsquo;s kind of started to hug and she crawls to us really quickly when she sees us arrive, and my heart melts every time. It&rsquo;s the most beautiful thing. I have loved every stage. We were telling this to our doctor and she said, &lsquo;Just imagine the first time she says, &lsquo;Mama, I love you.&rsquo; &rsquo; I think that will be too much for me.&rdquo;Thanks to Ouellette&rsquo;s association with CCM, Liv already has a pair of skates and a custom-made mini-stick with her name and the Canadian and American flags embossed on it. It all makes for an interesting dynamic. What if Liv ends up being as talented in hockey as her mothers? Will she play for Canada or the U.S.? For that matter, what if both Ouellette and Chu end up reaching the pinnacle of their coaching professions and again compete on opposite sides, with Chu coaching Team USA and Ouellette behind the bench for Canada? It could happen. Ouellette wants nothing more than to coach Canada at the Olympics someday. Chu, who is actually Ouellette&rsquo;s boss as head coach of the women&rsquo;s team at Concordia, is a rising star in the coaching ranks as well. Ouellette said they often butt heads, with Ouellette deferring to Chu with the Concordia team because Chu is the head coach. &ldquo;We both have strong personalities, but we always joke that we make great hockey together,&rdquo; Ouellette said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s strong-minded, and I love that about her, and most of the times she&rsquo;s right. We&rsquo;ve already talked about it, and there&rsquo;s no way we can go to the Olympics against each other. I don&rsquo;t think we can go through that again.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ouellette-ac_009/366272-1-eng-US/ouellette-ac_0092.jpg" title="ouellette-ac_009" width="822" height="708"><figcaption class="caption-body">ULTIMATE VICTORYOuellette celebrates Olympic gold with Canadian stars Jayna Hefford in Vancouver in 2010 (BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>It may seem strange that two players who have been rivals on the ice for so long can be as close as Ouellette and Chu are, but it&rsquo;s not strange to them. Their on-ice rivalry began in 2003 when Ouellette&rsquo;s University of Minnesota-Duluth team defeated Chu&rsquo;s Harvard squad in overtime in the NCAA championship game. They&rsquo;ve been in a relationship since prior to the Torino Olympics in 2006, with Ouellette coming out on top in all three Winter Games. The most dramatic was in Sochi in 2014 when the U.S. controlled much of the gold-medal game against Canada and seemed on the verge of winning its first&nbsp;gold medal since 1998. Leading 2-0 late in the game, the U.S. gave up two goals in the final four minutes and then one in overtime on the power play, with Chu out killing the penalty. It was a seminal moment for both. It&rsquo;s not easy to experience the most exhilarating moment of your life when you know that less than 200 feet away, the person you love most in the world is crushed. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;ve lost three in a row before that, and this is your chance to win, it&rsquo;s very heartbreaking and awful, that&rsquo;s for sure,&rdquo; Ouellette said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to lie. You&rsquo;re happy, but then you&rsquo;re also hurting because the person you love most is in so much pain.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ouellette-ac_010/366265-1-eng-US/ouellette-ac_0102.jpg" title="ouellette-ac_010" width="729" height="1016"><figcaption class="caption-body">ULTIMATE VICTORYDanielle Goyette in Salt Lake City in 2002 (KIM KULISH/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Chu does have the edge in world championships, though, winning gold in five of them in which they have gone head-to-head, while Ouellette won four. All told, Ouellette won six worlds, one NCAA title and five championships in the NWHL/CWHL &ndash; the last of which she won in 2017 with Chu as her teammate, only days after finding out she was pregnant with Liv &ndash; which makes her legacy secure. But most importantly, Ouellette left the game on her terms, finishing her career with Les Canadiennes last season after giving birth to her daughter. And not every athlete is that lucky. Marcel Dionne was put on waivers in his last NHL season and finished his career in the minors. Angela James, one of the great pioneers of the game, was Team Canada&rsquo;s last cut before the 1998 Olympics, the first to feature women&rsquo;s hockey. Ouellette was cut from the 2015 Canadian women&rsquo;s team and was told by coach Doug Derraugh that she&rsquo;d be the first one called if there was an injury. And that&rsquo;s exactly what happened. Ouellette started on the fourth line and worked her way up to the top unit with Rebecca Johnston and Marie-Philip Poulin, scoring a goal in her last-ever outing with the team as Canada lost 7-5 to Team USA in the golden game.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ouellette-ac_008/366258-1-eng-US/ouellette-ac_0082.jpg" title="ouellette-ac_008" width="2287" height="1375"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BRIAN BABINEAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>And the individual accomplishments are just as impressive. She was named CWHL MVP and won the scoring title in 2010-11. Three times in the World Championship she was named one of Canada&rsquo;s top three players and scored at least a point-per-game pace at practically every level of competition over the course of her career. In her combined NWHL/CWHL career, she registered 482 points in just 260 games, and in three years with the University of Minnesota-Duluth, she averaged 2.36 points per game.Ouellette played for two full decades at the highest level of the women&rsquo;s game because she had the combination of a rare array of gifts, an insatiable desire to learn and improve and an ability to adapt her game. Team USA legend Cammi Granato recalled going up against Ouellette when Granato was playing with Concordia in the mid-1990s. Ouellette was just a raw teenager then, a player who used her obvious size and strength to her advantage. But as her career progressed, she learned to refine her game to become a more dangerous player. &ldquo;Initially, when she first came onto the scene, everybody thought of her as this power forward,&rdquo; said former Canadian teammate Jennifer Botterill. &ldquo;But she continued to evolve and develop her game. She always respected the evolution of the game and was always finding new ways to get better and find ways to be dominant every time she played. Playing against her in the CWHL and playing with her on Team Canada, she always elevated the people around her. I think Marie-Philip (Poulin) learned a lot from her.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ouellette-chu-1/366251-1-eng-US/ouellette-chu-12.jpg" title="ouellette-chu-1" width="1024" height="1188"><figcaption class="caption-body">FROM FOE TO FAMILYFormer Olympic rivals Ouellette and Chu were CWHL teammates. Off the ice, the couple is busy coaching as well as raising baby daughter Liv. (COURTESY OF CAROLINE OUELLETTE)</figcaption></div>Said Ouellette: &ldquo;I loved every minute of playing hockey. For me, there was never too much training, too many practices, too many games. I loved it, and I was honestly afraid that I would never get to the point where I could move on from playing hockey. I came back to play with Les Canadiennes last year a couple months after giving birth, and I&rsquo;m glad I did it. It really gave me the closure of really feeling, &lsquo;OK, this is it and I&rsquo;m OK with it.&rsquo; Today, I&rsquo;m completely at peace, and I never thought I would get there.&rdquo; &#8233;The same could be said for the life Ouellette is building with Chu and Liv. Until they both retired from the game, Ouellette and Chu had a relationship that was an open secret in the hockey world. They didn&rsquo;t go out of their way to tell people about it, nor did they make any attempts to hide it from those who knew. We have all come a long way &ndash; society, the hockey world, Hockey Canada and USA Hockey. There was a time when Ouellette and Chu could not openly declare their love for each other. Now, they have an Instagram account that is overrun with pictures of them with their baby. Two other players on opposite sides of the border battle &ndash; U.S. captain Meghan Duggan and longtime Canadian player Gillian Apps &ndash; were recently married. Jayna Hefford, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in November and was recently named commissioner of the CWHL, is married to former Team USA player Kathleen Kauth.<blockquote class="pullQuote">I WAS AFRAID THAT I WOULD NEVER GET TO THE POINT WHERE I COULD MOVE ON FROM HOCKEY</blockquote>&ndash; Caroline OuelletteOuellette, like many players in women&rsquo;s hockey, has been knocking down barriers since she was the only girl on an all-boys team in Quebec in the early &rsquo;80s. In fact, she and some other Canadiennes players conducted a hockey camp in Gander, Nfld., with boys and girls in attendance, and when it was over, she had her picture taken with a couple of young boy players who had caps and hoodies with her name on them. &ldquo;I couldn&rsquo;t help but think this could have never happened before the Vancouver Olympic Games (in 2010),&rdquo; Ouellette said. &ldquo;Those young boys, they&rsquo;re going to grow up respecting women, respecting female athletes and being fans of our sport. The power of sport proves that equality has no limits, and it&rsquo;s the same with sexual orientation, I think.&rdquo;Gains that once came in small and painful increments are now happening seemingly at breakneck speed. Think about it. Both Ouellette and Chu live and work in a society where they can raise a child together and pursue their dual objectives of becoming high-performance coaches. Things are coming together quite well. She points to Duggan and Apps getting married and says it&rsquo;s an indication that people are finally beginning to be free to live the lives they were meant to live. &ldquo;Believe me, if Julie and I had our choice, we could have gone the much easier road by having a normal family and a normal life,&rdquo; Ouellette said. &ldquo;This is not a choice. It&rsquo;s who you are and whether you choose to live who you are. I still can&rsquo;t comprehend how many people are still struggling with their sexuality and how many people we might have helped with that. There are so many things in life that are difficult, that are negative, that are painful, that are sad. What we have is an expression of love between two people, and it doesn&rsquo;t matter about the gender.&rdquo; &#9632;

ouellette-opener

LEAVING ON HER TERMS

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="marin1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/marin1/366322-1-eng-US/marin12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY DUMAISPHOTO/CWHL)</figcaption></div>NOEMIE MARIN CHUCKLES as she laments her lack of jewelry. It&rsquo;s not that she doesn&rsquo;t have any from her playing days. She most certainly does. Four Clarkson Cup rings to be exact, making Marin the only player other than the recently retired Caroline Ouellette to win four CWHL crowns. But it&rsquo;s what she doesn&rsquo;t have that bothers her. &ldquo;I wanted to have one full hand, obviously,&rdquo; she laughed. &ldquo;I wish I could&rsquo;ve had a big high-five in the air.&rdquo;The truth is there isn&rsquo;t much else Marin, 34, could&rsquo;ve accomplished during her decade-long CWHL career, one that came to a close in mid-September when she retired. Her resume is impeccable. Across her 200-plus game CWHL lifespan, all of which was spent in Montreal with the Stars and Les Canadiennes, she amassed 259 points, good for second all-time behind Ouellette. Last season saw Marin claim one of the circuit&rsquo;s all-time marks for herself.In her final regular-season game, she scored to push her career goal total to 133, surpassing Ouellette to become the CWHL&rsquo;s all-time leading goal-scorer.Marin seemed primed to pad her totals this season, too, but her 18-goal, 33-point performance in 2017-18, which put her sixth in CWHL scoring, belied the fact her body was reaching its limits. Add that physical toll to the responsibility of an off-ice career &ndash; Marin has been teaching full time for the past six years &ndash; and her duties as coach of John Abbott College&rsquo;s women&rsquo;s program, and Marin felt it was best to go out on top. &ldquo;My knees especially are having a hard time and were having a hard time in previous years,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;So, I thought, this year, with all the work that I do outside of playing for Les Canadiennes, it was a good time to hang up the skates.&rdquo;Despite her success in the women&rsquo;s pro game, not to mention standout play in the NCAA with the University of Minnesota-Duluth where she twice finished top-10 in Patty Kazmaier Award voting, she&rsquo;ll walk away having never played for Canada at the World Championship or Olympics. Though she was invited to Team Canada camps on numerous occasions, Marin never made the cut. Injuries, she said, played a part in that, as did her hiatus in 2007-08, when she put her hockey career on hold after earning a spot on Canada&rsquo;s softball squad for the 2008 Beijing Games.That her one Olympic appearance was in softball, not hockey, makes for an odd footnote to a tremendous on-ice career. It&rsquo;s not an asterisk over which Marin is about to lose sleep, however. &ldquo;You talk to anybody that played and coached, and they&rsquo;ll tell you as a player you always want to achieve at the highest level,&rdquo; Marin said. &ldquo;So, obviously, yes, I wish I was picked. I would never say otherwise. I wish I was an Olympian in hockey as well. But you come to a time when you&rsquo;re finally at peace with those decisions that were made in the past, and realize you&rsquo;ve learned from those moments in your life, and it made you a better person for it.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/marin2/366308-1-eng-US/marin22.jpg" title="marin2" width="1024" height="604"><figcaption class="caption-body">NOEMIE MARIN (BRIAN BABINEAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Not only did it make Marin the player and, more importantly, the person she is today, those camps also opened doors for her. The connections she made at Hockey Canada have given her opportunities she may not have had otherwise. Thanks to her efforts at John Abbott College and with Hockey Quebec, Marin got the chance to work the bench with Canada&rsquo;s under-18 team at the 2015 worlds and held the top job with the national women&rsquo;s development team at the 2017 and 2018 Nations Cup tournaments, as well as heading up the coaching staff during a three-game exhibition against rival Team USA in 2016.So, maybe there&rsquo;s a place yet on Team Canada for the woman who retired as the CWHL&rsquo;s most prolific goal-scorer. &ldquo;Obviously, there&rsquo;s always going to be a part of myself that might be disappointed for not going (as a player) because it was my dream,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But now, hopefully, I&rsquo;m going to work towards realizing other dreams and maybe, eventually, coach at the Olympics.&rdquo; &#9632;

marin1

MORE GOALS TO COME

<div class="byline">BY STAN FISCHLER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="rewind_fischler2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_fischler2/366358-1-eng-US/rewind_fischler22.jpg"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_fischler1/366351-1-eng-US/rewind_fischler12.jpg" title="rewind_fischler1" width="1024" height="896"><figcaption class="caption-body">THE GREATER GOODShirley&rsquo;s fight cost the Fischlers some male friends, but they didn&rsquo;t care. The cause was more important. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF STAN FISCHLER)</figcaption></div>WHEN I WORKED WITH the New York Rangers&rsquo; publicity department in 1954-55, women were not allowed in the press box at Madison Square Garden. It said so on every press ticket given to reporters: &ldquo;Ladies not allowed in press box.&rdquo;Brazen? By contemporary standards, yes, but that&rsquo;s the way it was. In 1971, my wife Shirley was assigned to cover an NHL game between the Rangers and Toronto. The Rangers refused to allow her in the press box. But she refused to accept the ban and fought to have it rescinded. She soon penned an article that appeared in the March 1971 edition of Hockey Illustrated. She wasn&rsquo;t going to let it go.Her decision to bring her case to the New York City Human Rights Commission was the right one, because the commission was created for situations such as this. After the case was heard, Shirley won. The Rangers were ordered to grant Shirley the &ldquo;little green ticket&rdquo; which granted her entrance into the previously all-male press box. &ldquo;The moment was here,&rdquo; Shirley wrote in Hockey Illustrated. &ldquo;The ticket symbolized the end of the struggle. I was to be the first woman in the Garden press box in 48 years.&rdquo;As much as I was pleased Shirley won, I also look back at the &ldquo;cost&rdquo; in friendships lost along the way. I had been president of the New York Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association and was surrounded by members of the now Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA).I was stunned when close friends Mel Woody of the Newark News and Hal Bock of The Associated Press opposed Shirley&rsquo;s bid for a press-box seat. Likewise, I was no less dismayed when my closest buddy Gerald Eskenazi of The New York Times walked the fence, never providing support. Only a young Neil Often, then writing for the New York Post, went on record backing my wife&rsquo;s bid. &ldquo;I was called a &lsquo;crybaby,&rsquo; a &lsquo;troublemaker,&rsquo; a &lsquo;phony&rsquo; and a &lsquo;publicity hound,&rsquo; just to name a few of the mildest expletives,&rdquo; Shirley wrote at the time. &ldquo;But I had won the battle.&rdquo;The moment of truth occurred Oct. 4, 1971, when she received her press pass. Now she had to sit among her enemies. Neither of us knew what to expect. They were, as Shirley put it, &ldquo;featureless, motionless, plastic faces&rdquo; watching the Rangers beat the Bruins.But Shirley and I knew her night&rsquo;s work was not complete. At game&rsquo;s end, she made her way to the coach&rsquo;s room where Rangers boss Emile &lsquo;The Cat&rsquo; Francis talked to media. Even though it was the NYHWA which had barred Shirley, the writers were backed by Rangers management, its public relations department and, most of all, Francis. &ldquo;It was a tough moment,&rdquo; Shirley wrote, &ldquo;and I was positive (Francis) would pretend I didn&rsquo;t exist. Instead, it was, &lsquo;Hi ya, Shirley,&rsquo; Francis said in the pleasantest of tones. &lsquo;How&rsquo;s it going? How have you been?&rsquo;&rdquo;To his credit, Francis was a gentleman and a gracious loser. The same could not be said for the newspapermen who had fiercely fought Shirley&rsquo;s admission. Or, as one put it when Francis&rsquo; press scrum was over, pointing out Shirley: &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s that, one of the player&rsquo;s wives?&rdquo;Both Shirley and I agreed that, while one war had been won, another would continue for years. Friendships we once had enjoyed with the likes of Woody, Bock and Eskenazi were over and done with, forever.Not that their behavior affected Shirley&rsquo;s career. She continued writing hockey and was the force behind The Hockey Encyclopedia, the first stats-minded book printed. She continued to cover the Rangers and the NHL and authored Everybody&rsquo;s Hockey Book, a landmark publication. Shirley followed the game until her death in 2014.Over the years, I&rsquo;ve been asked why more wasn&rsquo;t made of this trailblazing event at the time. Answer: Shirley never was a publicity hound, and her quiet reaction was Exhibit A. Also, none of the newsmen involved would write the facts because they were, as it turned out, enemies first and journalists second. Shirley never expected accolades for her revolutionary accomplishment in the hockey realm. She didn&rsquo;t think anything of it &ndash; other than it was the right thing to do. &#9632;

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Rewind

THE FORGOTTEN BREAKTHROUGH

nhl94_screen3

’94 FOREVER

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="next_gruden1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_gruden1/366620-1-eng-US/next_gruden12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">FRESHMAN 15Gruden plans to spend time bulking up in the weight room at Miami and work on the strength of his shot. (RENA LAVERTY AND USA HOCKEY’S NTDP)</figcaption></div>THERE IS NO SHAME in being pushed out of the No. 1 center spot by Jack Hughes. Guys will have to get used to that happening for a long time. And it&rsquo;s a lot easier to endure when it produces a career opportunity you might not have seen coming.Such was the case with Jonathan Gruden, the Ottawa Senators fourth-round pick in 2018. Gruden was humming along as a center until Hughes, the phenom almost certain to be taken first overall in 2019&rsquo;s draft, came up to play with the under-18s on the U.S. National Team Development Program. Instead of pushing Gruden down the depth chart, the coaching staff decided to keep him on the left side of the line along with New York Islanders 2018 first-rounder Oliver Wahlstrom on the right side, and a funny thing happened. It opened up Gruden&rsquo;s game and made him a more versatile player.So when Gruden hits the ice with Miami University (Ohio) this season &ndash; he&rsquo;s one of the few elite American players to eschew the London Knights of the OHL for college hockey &ndash; he&rsquo;ll do so as a winger. &ldquo;Honestly, it doesn&rsquo;t matter where I play &ndash; it&rsquo;s not going to change who I am as a player,&rdquo; Gruden said. &ldquo;I made the change to the wing last year, and I was comfortable with that.&rdquo;Moving to the wing has not only diminished Gruden&rsquo;s defensive responsibilities down low, it also gave him an opportunity to explore his offensive game. Growing up, Gruden was always a pass-first player, which is a great attribute when you&rsquo;re a center, but moving over means he&rsquo;s getting more opportunities to shoot. And that means beyond getting in the weight room and getting bigger and stronger, he&rsquo;ll be spending a lot of time in the shooting area in Miami. &ldquo;My shot is one of my weaknesses,&rdquo; Gruden said. &ldquo;So I&rsquo;m going to work on that a lot here. A lot of it is just working with the coaches and putting in the time to get bigger and stronger, and the rest will take care of itself.&rdquo;Gruden is the son of John Gruden, Sr., the former NHLer journeyman who coincidentally played 22 of his 92 big-league games with the Senators. The elder Gruden coached the Hamilton Bulldogs to the OHL championship before taking an assistant coaching job with the New York Islanders this season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_samuelsson/366606-1-eng-US/next_samuelsson2.jpg" title="next_samuelsson" width="440" height="904"><figcaption class="caption-body">MATTIAS SAMUELSSON (DAVE REGINEK/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>YOU&rsquo;RE YOUR FATHER&rsquo;S SON</h2>Gruden isn&rsquo;t the only 2018 draftee whose dad played in the NHL<h3>1. MATTIAS SAMUELSSON</h3>WESTERN MICHIGAN (NCHC)Sabres: 32nd overallThe Buffalo pick and son of Kjell also happens to be a big D-man. Mattias has great hockey IQ, poise with the puck and a nasty streak.<h3>2. JACK DRURY</h3>HARVARD (ECAC)Hurricanes: 42nd overallDrury has father Ted and uncle Chris to lean on. The Carolina second-rounder has a high motor, puck skills and great versatility in his game.<h3>3. JACK MCBAIN</h3>BOSTON COLLEGE (HE)Wild: 63rd overallAndrew&rsquo;s kid has excellent size, great reach and slick hands. The Minnesota third-rounder will get a great challenge in Hockey East this year.<h3>4. TYLER MADDEN</h3>NORTHEASTERN (HE)Canucks: 68th overallHis dad John won Cups with New Jersey, but Tyler was picked by Vancouver. The Huskies freshman has a great release and some nice upside.<h3>5. JAKE PIVONKA</h3>NOTRE DAME (BIG TEN)Islanders: 103rd overallFather Michal developed in Europe. Jake went through the U.S. NTDP. Continuing a great draft, the Isles grabbed Jake, a toolsy kid who skates well. &#9632;

next_gruden1

FOLLOWING DAD TO OTTAWA

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="next_glass" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_glass/366649-1-eng-US/next_glass2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MARISSA BAECKER/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>HE WAS THE FIRST player ever taken by the Golden Knights in the NHL draft, but center Cody Glass (sixth overall, 2017) won&rsquo;t be rushed into the Vegas lineup. With the Knights making the Stanley Cup final in their first season, Glass can continue to develop with WHL Portland before turning pro. According to director of amateur scouting Scott Luce, that&rsquo;s an organizational philosophy. We asked Luce to break down Glass&rsquo; game for us.DEFENSE&ldquo;The problem in junior&nbsp;is that he&rsquo;s always in the offensive zone, so he doesn&rsquo;t have to play much defense. But he&rsquo;s actually very good away from the puck. When he transitions to the pros, that will be his biggest adjustment, as it is for many young centers facing older and stronger players. He projects to be fine, but that&rsquo;s a work in progress for many youngsters.&rdquo;PHYSICALITY&ldquo;He has added a&nbsp;new level of compete and a new degree of physicality every year. In Vegas this fall, our scouts noted that his compete level and the physical side of his game were a lot higher.&rdquo;SKATING&ldquo;It's all about his&nbsp;strength. When he was drafted, he was a slight guy, but over the past summer, he has added a half-stride through hard work in the gym and some work on his technique.&rdquo;SHOT&ldquo;It's good when he&nbsp;uses it, but he&rsquo;s a pass-first guy. He has a deceptive release. It&rsquo;s not necessarily hard in velocity, but it&rsquo;s accurate. He can pick corners. His shot is an underrated part of his game.&rdquo;PLAYMAKING&ldquo;He is an elite&nbsp;playmaker. He has shown it in two NHL training camps and rookie games already. It&rsquo;s probably his best quality.&rdquo;HOCKEY SENSE&ldquo;It's right up there&nbsp;with his playmaking ability. He sees the game and feels the game well. He reads and reacts in the offensive zone, and he knows what to do in both the offensive and defensive zones.&rdquo; &#9632;

next_glass

SCOUTING REPORT: CODY GLASS

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="next_mcdavid" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_mcdavid/366678-1-eng-US/next_mcdavid2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">WHO&rsquo;S NEXT IN LINE?McDavid was a household hockey name by the time he arrived in the OHL with Erie, never mind his NHL exploits. (CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>WHAT WERE YOU DOING at 13? Probably not getting courted by the best hockey agents in the world, but that&rsquo;s the reality today for many elite teenagers. It seems bizarre to be chasing talent that hasn&rsquo;t yet hit high school, but the reality is securing representation for a prospect has to happen before the competition gets there first. But what&rsquo;s it like for the kids themselves? &ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty cool,&rdquo; said Connor Bedard. &ldquo;All of them offer great aspects, and it&rsquo;s cool getting to know them.&rdquo;Bedard is a lethal center from Vancouver whose puck-protection skills set him apart from the pack. He played two age groups up last season and could get &ldquo;exceptional status&rdquo; to play in the WHL a year early. Oh, and he&rsquo;s about to enter Grade 8. Yes, Bedard is 13, but he and his family have already talked to rafts of agents who want to represent the young man. For the most part, his father talks to potential advisors over the phone, but Bedard&rsquo;s parents have also had dinner with agents in Vancouver. Recently, Bedard was in Toronto at the Power Edge Pro camp, where he got to meet a few others in person.Also attending Power Edge Pro was Shane Wright, a scoring center who is deciding whether to go for exceptional status in the OHL after this season. Wright is 14 and got his first call from an agent last summer. &ldquo;I was just looking for someone who could provide us with the necessary resources to improve my skills,&rdquo; Wright said. &ldquo;And experience as well, to make the right decision on where I should go with my path. I wanted a genuine person who I can trust and rely on.&rdquo;Wright decided on KO Sports, the firm that represents Dylan Larkin, Jacob Trouba and John Gibson, among other NHLers.I&rsquo;ve spoken to many agents about this issue, and none of them particularly enjoys chasing clients who are so young, but this is where the race has led, and competition for the next Connor McDavid or John Tavares is fierce. One joke I&rsquo;ve enjoyed is agents telling each other they&rsquo;re not going to a certain youth tournament that weekend, then arriving to find they all showed up anyway.Personally, I&rsquo;d love if kids didn&rsquo;t have to sign with agents until they were at least 15. At that point, a decision has to be made in terms of their path: play even a single exhibition game in major junior, and your NCAA eligibility is damaged. And if you&rsquo;re planning on going to college, where should you play beforehand? There&rsquo;s a wide variance in the quality of Jr. A programs in Canada, and not everyone can play for the Penticton Vees. In the U.S., the USHL is a solid bet, while the NAHL has some nice programs, too. But what are the good destinations in the USPHL, for example? Agents (or &ldquo;family advisors&rdquo; if the player is on the college track &ndash; same person, different guidelines) know these things. Parents may be guessing.On the major junior track, agents can get great scholarship packages for clients, ensuring that if the player doesn&rsquo;t end up playing pro, at least he&rsquo;ll get his university education paid for by the team. And if a player isn&rsquo;t getting treated well, the agent can act as an advocate for a trade.<blockquote class="pullQuote">IF A TOP AGENT IS INTERESTED IN MY KID, THEN SIGNING WITH A RANDOM GUY WHO MAKES PROMISES SHOULDN&rsquo;T BE AN OPTION</blockquote>But there is one reason I believe it&rsquo;s OK for top-end agents to sign up kids when they are 13 and 14: if they don&rsquo;t, a less reputable agent may dig their claws into a kid who deserves better. If Newport or Octagon or the Orr Group are interested in my kid, then signing with a random guy who makes a lot of promises shouldn&rsquo;t be an option. I want Pat Brisson on my side, or Ryan Barnes, or Joe Resnick.It&rsquo;s nearly impossible to make it to the NHL, and that&rsquo;s just the mathematics of the situation. Every player wants to get there, and few have the talent to actually make it happen. Of that select group, some will be waylaid by outside factors or just downright bad luck. But protecting the dreams of those kids should be up to those who do it best and have the right priorities. If they have to start talking to those players when they are 13, then so be it.<a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/THNRYANKENNEDY">@THNRYANKENNEDY</a> &#9632;

next_mcdavid

HOW YOUNG IS TOO YOUNG?

<div class="byline">BY JAMES BENESH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="rewind_benedict2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_benedict2/366749-1-eng-US/rewind_benedict22.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">CLINT BENEDICT (HHOF IMAGES)</figcaption></div>This is the fourth in our series revisiting the years in which the NHL&rsquo;s official trophies weren&rsquo;t awarded or had different criteria.THE OBJECTIVES OF THE retroactive awards series are to learn more about NHL history, spark debate, and honor early players whose performances would have been award-worthy, while also respecting those who earned the awards when they did exist. Historical revisionism is not on the menu. Accordingly, in our first three installments, (Conn Smythe, Norris and Hart), we focused on the seasons before the existence of each award, going back to 1917-18, the NHL&rsquo;s first season.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/vezina_trophy3/366742-1-eng-US/vezina_trophy2.jpg" title="vezina_trophy" width="168" height="283"></div>The Vezina Trophy is a unique case that requires further explanation. Following Georges Vezina&rsquo;s death of tuberculosis at 39 in 1926, the award was created to honor the NHL&rsquo;s top goalie. Unfortunately, the way the top stopper was determined was not the most sound: the goalie who played the most games for the team that allowed the fewest goals won it. No vote.If that sounds familiar, it&rsquo;s because it&rsquo;s almost exactly how the William M. Jennings Trophy has been awarded since 1981-82. That&rsquo;s the season the NHL changed things up and made the Vezina a vote award, while the old stats standards of the Vezina became the Jennings.Granted, if a team allows the fewest goals in the NHL, it might mean they have the best goalie, but that is by no means a given. The Jennings Trophy has been won by Roman Turek all by himself, plus tandems like Rick Wamsley/Denis Herron, Brian Elliott/Jaroslav Halak, Al Jensen/Pat Riggin, and Niklas Backstrom/Manny Fernandez.In the 36 times the Jennings has been awarded, there have only been nine instances where a goalie won it, didn&rsquo;t share it with a goalie from another team, and was also voted the winner of the Vezina. That&rsquo;s an overlap rate of just 25 percent.So it&rsquo;s clear that when the NHL&rsquo;s GMs vote on the top goalie every spring, they take much more into consideration than just a team&rsquo;s goals-against average. Does this mean we rescind the first 55 Vezina Trophies because they went straight by the numbers? No, but based on the criteria under which they won those awards, it&rsquo;s only fair to treat them more as &ldquo;Retro Jennings Trophies&rdquo; than as Vezinas, and award a new retroactive winner when applicable.The story of how and why the NHL changed the way the Vezina was awarded is one of the more bizarre in history. First, some background: through 1964, the trophy had only one winner every season &ndash; and that was fair, since most goalies played the full schedule. But the trend of platooning goalies arrived right around this time, and there had already been a handful of occasions where a team&rsquo;s starter didn&rsquo;t play significantly more games than the backup. This had never happened to a Vezina-winning team, but it had become evident that a situation could arise where the starter could win the award in 36 games, while a teammate who played 34 would be left empty-handed. This necessitated a slight change in the wording of the award. Starting in 1964-65, it was decided that all goalies who had at least 25 appearances in a season for the best defensive team would share the award.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_hall/366735-1-eng-US/rewind_hall2.jpg" title="rewind_hall" width="474" height="646"><figcaption class="caption-body">GLENN HALL (BETTMANN/CORBIS/BETTMANN ARCHIVE)</figcaption></div>And that&rsquo;s exactly what happened. In the next 17 seasons, the award was shared by a tandem 12 times (and once, by goalies from different teams). It&rsquo;s the 12th and final time this occurred in 1980-81 that is a story in itself. The Montreal&nbsp;Canadiens, despite losing Ken Dryden following the 1979 Cup win, still had the &ldquo;Big 3&rdquo; of Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe and Serge Savard on defense, and added future stars Rod Langway and Brian Engblom, so they were a powerhouse.Michel &lsquo;Bunny&rsquo; Larocque, who had shared three earlier Vezinas with Dryden, was the starting goalie early in 1980-81, before incurring a hand injury. Backup Denis Herron was also injured, breaking a collarbone. Third-stringer Richard Sevigny performed well in their absence &ndash; it&rsquo;s almost like anyone would look good with that defense corps &ndash; and Montreal closed in on the league lead in GAA. When Larocque returned from injury, the Habs weren&rsquo;t about to just hand him the crease while Sevigny was red-hot (he finished the year with a .908 SP; Larocque&rsquo;s was .880 with the Habs). So Larocque complained, was made a healthy scratch for a month, demanded a trade, and was a Maple Leaf by March.Sevigny&rsquo;s strong play continued, and the Canadiens had the NHL&rsquo;s best defensive record, making them the front-runners for the Vezina as the season wound down. The problem was, the only goalie to have 25 games played for the team was Larocque, who was no longer a Hab. The Canadiens, wary of the ridiculous situation that was imminent, went to work making it more absurd: In their final 16 games, they switched goalies mid-game seven times in order to pump up Herron&rsquo;s games played total.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_dryden/366728-1-eng-US/rewind_dryden2.jpg" title="rewind_dryden" width="1024" height="1125"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEN DRYDEN (DENIS BRODEUR/NHLI/VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>The team&rsquo;s 9-4-3 record and 2.81 GAA during this time indicate the team and goalies were not struggling; this was pure manipulation on the Habs&rsquo; part. Herron just barely made the 25-game minimum (with just 19 games worth of minutes played), and thus, the league saw the only instance in which three goalies won the Vezina, and the only instance in which one of the winners had been traded from the winning team.As a result of these shenanigans, the definition of the Vezina changed forever &ndash; and the Jennings was created. The Vezina became a strict &ldquo;most outstanding goaltender&rdquo; honor, voted on by the GMs. In October 1981, THN referred to &ldquo;hockey zealots who have long complained that the present Vezina Trophy system isn&rsquo;t justifiable,&rdquo; indicating there was always appetite for a change, and the 1980-81 season finally made it happen. In the same issue, guest columnist and Blues&rsquo; GM Emile Francis, as zealous a hockey man as you&rsquo;ll ever find, wrote, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in favor of this change 100 percent&hellip;I&rsquo;ve always considered the Vezina a team trophy&hellip;The best goalkeeper hasn&rsquo;t always had a chance to win&hellip;&rdquo;Essentially, the lineage of Jennings Trophies winners can be continued back to 1926, by looking at the Vezina winners. And the list of goalies voted the best in the league can be quite easily traced all the way back to 1930-31, when all-star team voting began. This is highly reliable, considering that in the past 36 seasons, the NHL&rsquo;s GMs (who vote on the Vezina) and the Professional Hockey Writers&rsquo; Association (who vote on all-star teams) have only disagreed on the top goalie twice, and even then, just barely.In the seven seasons preceding 1930-31, our best clue to help us award a retroactive Vezina is voting for the Hart Trophy, which was introduced in 1923-24. It&rsquo;s not perfect &ndash; there is a difference between &ldquo;best/most outstanding&rdquo; (which all-star teams recognize) and &ldquo;most valuable to his team&rdquo; (which the Hart is for). However, Hart voting records conveniently featured one standout goalie each season, leaving little doubt as to who would likely be considered the best.In the first six NHL seasons (1917-18 to 1922-23), the NHL had only four teams and just two true Vezina contenders &ndash; Clint Benedict and Vezina &ndash; and these two claimed the first six. Benedict, who was in his prime, took four of them, but the older Vezina would have at least four more if this project was extended to include his seven NHA seasons (1910-11 to 1916-17).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_sawchuk/366721-1-eng-US/rewind_sawchuk2.jpg" title="rewind_sawchuk" width="474" height="792"><figcaption class="caption-body">TERRY SAWCHUK (HHOF IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>RETRO VEZINA VS. JENNINGS</h2>The actual Vezina Trophy winner, for lowest goals-against average, would have been our pick for the Retro Vezina on 30 occasions. As such, we omitted them from this list. For example, we deemed 1931-32 Vezina winner Charlie Gardiner the best stopper that season, so there is no Retro Vezina to give him. In some cases, before 1980-81, the old Vezina went to multiple goalies who met statistical criteria. The Retro Vezina declares just one true winner of the Vezina.1917-18 GEORGES VEZINAMontreal CanadiensCould&rsquo;ve won Hart on best defensive team1918-19 CLINT BENEDICTOttawa SenatorsHis 2.85 GAA well ahead of next best 3.271919-20 CLINT BENEDICTOttawa SenatorsOut-did himself as encore with a 1.68 GAA1920-21 CLINT BENEDICTOttawa SenatorsDidn&rsquo;t allow a single goal in the playoffs1921-22 CLINT BENEDICTOttawa SenatorsGoalies were out-shone, but his stats on top1922-23 GEORGES VEZINAMontreal CanadiensMatched Benedict&rsquo;s stats on a lesser team1923-24 JOHN ROSS ROACHToronto St. Patrick&rsquo;sUnderrated historically, but was a Hart finalist1924-25 CLINT BENEDICTMontreal MaroonsMVP of expansion team and a Hart finalist1925-26 ROY WORTERSPittsburgh PiratesFourth in Hart voting, no other goalie in top 101926-27 ROY WORTERSPittsburgh PiratesNewspaper reporters loved his athleticism1927-28 ROY WORTERSPittsburgh PiratesPrivate GM vote unearthed for this season1928-29 ROY WORTERSNew York AmericansAgain overshadowed Hainsworth&rsquo;s top stats1929-30 CHARLIE GARDINERChicago Black HawksLast Retro winner before all-star teams named1930-31 CHARLIE GARDINERChicago Black HawksWorters won Vezina, but GMs voted Charlie1932-33 JOHN ROSS ROACHDetroit Red WingsLast flash of greatness, nine years after win1950-51 TERRY SAWCHUKDetroit Red WingsEnded 17-year run of Vezina matching all-star1954-55 HARRY LUMLEYToronto Maple LeafsHart runner-up more valuable than Sawchuk1956-57 GLENN HALLChicago Black HawksFirst of three Plante won but Hall was all-star1957-58 GLENN HALLChicago Black HawksWon narrow all-star vote over Plante, 108-1041959-60 GLENN HALLChicago Black HawksAn even closer edge vote over Plante, 106-1051963-64 GLENN HALLChicago Black HawksHis .930 SP the best since shots tracked1964-65 ROGER CROZIERDetroit Red WingsHis 70 games started put him over the top1965-66 GLENN HALLChicago Black HawksSimilar stats to Worsley, but Hall had more GP1966-67 ED GIACOMINNew York RangersHis 68 GP tops as platoons became vogue1967-68 GUMP WORSLEYMontreal CanadiensA seven-horse race won by Gumper by a nose1968-69 GLENN HALLSt. Louis BluesShared Vezina with Plante, but Hall got votes1970-71 ED GIACOMINNew York RangersDeserved, but supported by backup Villemure1971-72 TONY ESPOSITOChicago Black HawksOutstanding .934 SP. Backup Smith just .9111973-74 BERNIE PARENTPhiladelphia FlyersCo-Vezina with Espo, but only one first-teamer1976-77 KEN DRYDENMontreal CanadiensNo disputing he was the man over Larocque1977-78 KEN DRYDENMontreal CanadiensDryden&rsquo;s SP .922, Larocque&rsquo;s .8951978-79 KEN DRYDENMontreal CanadiensSecond-worst stats of career good enough1979-80 TONY ESPOSITOChicago Black HawksSabres best defensively, but Espo was No. 11980-81 MIKE LIUTSt. Louis BluesRan away with first-team nod, Hart runner-up &#9632;

rewind_benedict2

MAKING VEZINA THE VEZINA

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="swiss2" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/swiss2/366785-1-eng-US/swiss22.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">LOCALS NEED THE REPSThe Swiss national team will suffer if its NLA players have developmental ice time stolen away by imports. (MATTEO COGLIATI/PACIFIC PRESS/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>ALL IS NOT WELL in Switzerland, and the problem is one that has been building for years: salaries for Swiss players in the country&rsquo;s top league, the NLA, are much higher than the market would ordinarily dictate. The culprit? Supply and demand: not enough top-end Swiss players to fill out the NLA&rsquo;s 12 franchises.One solution that is seriously being lobbied is an increase in the number of import players allowed on a team. Currently, that number is four, but some teams would like to see it increased to six. &ldquo;We just spend too much on salaries,&rdquo; said Sacha Weibel, CEO of Lausanne HC. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t go with a salary cap because of relegation, so we have to save teams from themselves. We want to give teams more options.&rdquo;Swiss hockey has been growing in leaps and bounds recently. When the New Jersey Devils drafted Nico Hischier first overall in 2017, it represented the first time a Swiss player had gone No. 1, but that success is a double-edged sword: Hischier&rsquo;s final development came in the QMJHL with Halifax, and every year up to a dozen youngsters leave for North America. Not only that, but 15 Swiss players suited up for at least one NHL game last season. The talent drain is tough for the NLA to keep up with. &ldquo;We are 12 teams in the top league and another one in North America,&rdquo; said Marc Luthi, CEO of SC Bern. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m convinced we do not have enough Swiss players for the clubs. If we increase the number of imports, then we have a chance to find more players on the world market.&rdquo;Top-end Swiss players can make their money in the NHL or NLA, but in recent years Swiss teams have found themselves paying as much as $300,000 (U.S.) for bottom-end local talent (a top player can make around $600,000). While internal budgets in Switzerland vary greatly, it&rsquo;s becoming too much for franchises that also place a high priority on client services, player development and infrastructure. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather save 30 percent on salaries,&rdquo; Weibel said, &ldquo;and then build two ice rinks in town.&rdquo;Switzerland&rsquo;s national team has seen great highs and lows in recent years, from silver at the most recent World Championship to missing the quarterfinal bracket altogether at the 2014 Olympics. When things are bad, it&rsquo;s because the power play is weak and the team doesn&rsquo;t have enough depth at center or in net. Some argue an extra 24 NLA imports won&rsquo;t help those issues. &ldquo;If we change something, it won&rsquo;t get better,&rdquo; said Raeto Raffainer, GM of Switzerland&rsquo;s national teams. &ldquo;It will take away jobs at center and goalie and for sure power-play time for Swiss players. I understand the economic side of it, they&rsquo;re trying to find a solution. From the sport side? It&rsquo;s the million-dollar question.&rdquo;There is also the matter of competitive imbalance, though it is basically assumed by those in the league that the best imports will still go to a handful of top teams. Increasing the amount just means other GMs can find the hidden gems.Luckily, finding players who are interested in the NLA isn&rsquo;t hard: playing in Switzerland is very appealing. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the first country they want to go to,&rdquo; said agent Allain Roy. &ldquo;Outside of the KHL, because of the money, Switzerland is the best league to play in. You sleep in your own bed every night, the travel is easy, and the money is good. It&rsquo;s a great opportunity.&rdquo;Roy, whose NHL clients include Hischier, Ben Bishop and Jake Allen, said he&rsquo;s &ldquo;torn down the middle&rdquo; on the import issue, since he represents NLA locals such as Gaetan Haas and Noah Rod but also successful imports such as Mark Arcobello and other clients who may want to go over and live that sweet Swiss hockey life. Roy noted that the NHL youth movement has pushed out some of those guys who used to get bottom-six roles there. Now players like Arcobello or Andrew Ebbett, both of whom play for SC Bern, are stars making decent money and getting lots of ice time.Luthi doesn&rsquo;t think an import increase will happen this year, but he does believe it will pass eventually. Another solution would be to relegate two franchises to the second tier and return the NLA to 10 teams, which was the standard as recently as 1999-2000. But that, Luthi points out, would be even less palatable to the smaller franchises. &#9632;

swiss2

FOREIGN VS. DOMESTIC

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-0331/366828-1-eng-US/f0065-032.jpg" title="f0065-03" width="472" height="627"><figcaption class="caption-body">(COURTESY OF WASHINGTON CAPITALS)</figcaption></div>CLUE #1&ldquo;I rank second among all NHLers in assists over the past 10 seasons.&rdquo;CLUE #2&ldquo;I was barred from the 2014 Olympic men&rsquo;s final for taking cold medicine.&rdquo;CLUE #3&ldquo;At almost 40 percent, I have assisted on more Alex Ovechkin goals than anyone.&rdquo;TRIVIABY LARRY HUMBER1. Where Jim Nill is GM2. First name of &lsquo;Little Beaver&rsquo;3. Shot the puck hard4. Allow to enter: 2 words5. Give out6. Calgary&rsquo;s &lsquo;Boring&rsquo; Sean ___7. Training ___8. Derek Sanderson&rsquo;s nickname9. City that got NHL hockey in 199310. ___ Vachon was MVP in L.A. four times11. John ___ was All-Star Game MVP in 201612. &lsquo;Shark Tank&rsquo; city13. Pond hockey14. &lsquo;___ Hockey&rsquo; Gaudreau, pictured15. Pierre-Luc ___16. Auston&rsquo;s team17. Where Canada first won Olympic gold in hockey18. Cup first offered in 1909, won by Queen&rsquo;s19. Goalie&rsquo;s glove20. Taking positions for a faceoff, ___ up21. Brett&rsquo;s buddy with the Blues22. Hall of Famer ___ Tarasov23. Home of the newly named Scotiabank Arena24. Some are saucers25. The &lsquo;J&rsquo; in &lsquo;J.R.,&rsquo; he played in nine All-Star Games26. Mark ___ hoisted the Cup with Pittsburgh27. &lsquo;Jake the Snake&rsquo; wore one28. Area that&rsquo;s susceptible to injury<h2>NAME GAME</h2>Use the picture clues to uncover the name of a prominent hockey personality.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-0237/366821-1-eng-US/f0065-022.jpg" title="f0065-02" width="1064" height="736"><figcaption class="caption-body">(GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>PUCK PUZZLE</h2>Can your hockey brain bring its A-game? The challenge is on!The late Stan Mikita won four Art Ross Trophies. His best season was 1966-67, when he had 97 points. Fill in the blanks with the names of other top-10 scorers that season. The name of the line Mikita centered will appear in the red boxes.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-0426/366814-1-eng-US/f0065-042.jpg" title="f0065-04" width="912" height="784"></div>GUESS WHO SOLUTION:&nbsp;NICKLAS BACKSTROM&nbsp; TRIVIA SOLUTIONS:&nbsp;1. DALLAS, 2. MARCEL, 3. BLASTED, 4. LET IN, 5. ISSUE, 6. MONAHAN, 7. CAMP, 8. TURK, 9. ANAHEIM, 10. ROGIE, 11. SCOTT, 12. SAN JOSE, 13. SHINNY, 14. JOHNNY&nbsp;15. DUBOIS, 16. LEAFS, 17. ANTWERP, 18. ALLAN, 19. CATCHER, 20. LINING, 21. ADAM, 22. ANATOLI, 23. TORONTO, 24. PASSES, 25. JEREMY, 26. EATON, 27. MASK, 28. GROIN NAME GAME SOLUTION: MAX PACIORETTY PUCK PUZZLE SOLUTION: ESPOSITO, RICHARD, HOWE, ROUSSEAU, GOYETTE, DELVECCHIO, WHARRAM (FINAL ANSWER: SCOOTER) &#9632;

Time Out

GUESS WHO?

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="lastword_price" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/lastword_price/366864-1-eng-US/lastword_price2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DAVID KIROUAC/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>WHITHER CAREY PRICE? IF you&rsquo;re searching for a Burning Question&trade; heading into the 2018-19 NHL season, they don&rsquo;t get much more scorching, or vexing, than that one. All right, we&rsquo;ll concede it&rsquo;s not quite as white-hot as whether or not Bert and Ernie are gay &ndash; duh, they&rsquo;re puppets &ndash; or precisely when Gritty, the Philadelphia Flyers&rsquo; new mascot, goes on his first murderous rampage, but it&rsquo;s safe to say no star/superstar player in the NHL faces more uncertainty than Price does.And both the short- and long-term fates of one of the most tradition-steeped franchises in NHL history hang in the balance depending upon the answer to that very question. It wasn&rsquo;t long ago Price was at the top of the food chain when it came to the best goalies in the world and not even four years ago he was named both the best goalie and best player in the NHL. But when TSN compiled its list of the top 50 players at the start of the season, Price was nowhere to be found after being ranked fifth the previous year. We at THN were more charitable. Our Ryan Kennedy had Price 39th on his list of the top 50 players in the 2018-19 THN Yearbook, and when we ranked players by position, Price graded out as the fifth-best goalie, which was, ahem, generous.That Price is entering the first season of an eight-year deal that will pay him $84 million &ndash; $70 million of it coming in guaranteed signing-bonus money &ndash; one year after enduring the worst season of his career, sets the stakes even higher. Only John Tavares will take home more money than Price this season. Tavares will make $15.9 million, while Price and Connor McDavid will have to make do with just $15 million. When it comes to cap hit, Price&rsquo;s $10.5 million places him third with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, behind McDavid and Tavares. At 31, Price is the oldest among those players.<blockquote class="pullQuote">IT HAS BEEN A SPECTACULAR FALL FOR PRICE, WHO REALLY COULD NOT HAVE HAD A WORSE SEASON THAN THE ONE HE TURNED IN</blockquote>It was a spectacular plunge for Price, who really could not have had a worse season than the one he turned in last year. Among goalies who played 500 minutes, Price had a .746 save percentage on high-danger shots in 5-on-5 play, which placed him 64th among the 68 goalies who met that criterion. When it came to medium-danger chances, Price&rsquo;s SP was .895, which put him 61st. That basically meant that last season, not only could Montreal not count on Price to bail them out when they gave up a 10-bell chance, they couldn&rsquo;t even really rely on him to make the more routine saves.If the Canadiens are to salvage anything from this season, that simply cannot happen again. There is not a lot to feel good about when it comes to this team, both for this season and the next couple, and not having Shea Weber anchoring the defense for at least half the season won&rsquo;t help. And if one terrible season turns into two consecutive terrible seasons for Price, that will put the Canadiens in an almost untenable bind.If that indeed does happen, Montreal will be looking at seven more years of an ironclad, likely untradeable contract, with what looks to be a rapidly declining asset on their hands. The Habs knew they were taking a risk signing a goalie who turned 31 this summer to a maximum extension last summer, but nobody could&rsquo;ve envisioned Price would respond by turning in the worst season of his career. But Price would have turned down anything less than a maximum-term deal had he been offered it last summer and the Canadiens would have been faced with the prospect of losing him for nothing in unrestricted free agency. So they did what almost every team in the NHL would do in that situation and they took the path of least resistance. Instead of daring Price to be one of the best goalies and risk losing him, they signed him to a deal that would keep them beholden to him for nine more years and that&rsquo;s where things sit now.Price cannot do anything about the fact the team he will be backstopping is sure to be a bottom-feeder this season. He can&rsquo;t change the fact the Canadiens&rsquo; search for a No. 1 center has again been a fruitless endeavor and it&rsquo;s likely Max Domi will be the one to carry that load. Price cannot control Weber&rsquo;s injury status, nor can he do anything about a roster that is sorely lacking depth at both forward and defense.But he can control the way he plays. By all accounts, he came to camp leaner and fitter and with a fresh attitude. Last season, a bout of chronic fatigue was blamed for his first-half woes when both he and the Habs fell hopelessly into a hole from which they were never able to extricate themselves. It&rsquo;s safe to assume that even if Price can rebound, he won&rsquo;t be the same goalie who ruled the world just four years ago, given his age. But he can be better. And he must.<a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/THNKENCAMPBELL">@THNKENCAMPBELL</a> &#9632;

lastword_price

SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/asset-2018-thn-logo8/367931-1-eng-US/asset-2018-thn-logo.jpg" title="Asset-2018-THN-Logo" width="637" height="156"></div>Executive Chairman &&nbsp; Publisher,&nbsp;Roustan Media Ltd. W. Graeme RoustanEditor in Chief&nbsp; Jason KaySenior Editor &nbsp;Brian Costello&nbsp;Managing Editor &nbsp;Edward Fraser&nbsp;Senior Writer &nbsp;Ken CampbellAssociate&nbsp;Senior Writer Ryan KennedySenior Content Producer Matt LarkinArt Director &nbsp;Shea BerencsiFeatures Editor &nbsp;Sam McCaigWeb Editor &nbsp;Jared ClintonEditor At Large Ronnie Shuker&nbsp;Contributing Writers Sal Barry, James Benesh, David Boclair, Stan Fischler, Etiene Lajoie, Ben Raby, Tom ThompsonContributing Editor Bobby MihalikDirector Of Technology Erika VanderveerBrand Manager Carlie McGheeSpecial Advisor To The Publisher Wayne Roustan, Ivy DraperAdvertising BY TOTEM: Contact Nicole Mullin, Commercial Director&nbsp; 416-847-8187 <a datastyle href="mailto:nicole.mullin@totemcontent.com">nicole.mullin@totemcontent.com</a>Subscriptions: 1-888-361-9768 <a href="https://secure.thehockeynews.com%E2%80%9D%20customattributes=">www.thehockeynews.com/mag</a>One-year Subscription Price $39.95 + tax for print and digital $29.95 + tax for digitalThe Hockey News (ISSN 0018-3016) publishes 17 issues per year, including the Yearbook and Collector&rsquo;s EditionMail In Canada The Hockey News, PO Box 5300, STN Industrial Park, Markham, ON L3R 9Z9Mail In the US The Hockey News, PO Box 904, Buffalo, NY 14240-9554Global <a href="http://secure.thehockeynews.com">www.thehockeynews.com/mag</a>THN Offices Canada: 1137 Centre Street, Suite 210, Thornhill, ON L4J 3M6 U.S.: 420 East Third Street, Suite 806, Los Angeles, CA, USA 90013 (c/o David La Salle)Our Privacy Policy On occasion, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened organizations whose product or service might interest you. If you prefer that we not share your name and postal address, you can easily remove your name from our mailing list by reaching us at any of the listed contact points. Review our complete Privacy Policy at <a datastyle href="http://www.thn.com">THN.com</a>.The Hockey News was co-founded by Ken McKenzie and W.V. Cote in 1947.Contents copyright 2018 for Roustan Media Ltd. &copy; All rights reserved articles and photos 2018<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/asset-roustanmedia-logo8/367924-1-eng-US/asset-roustanmedia-logo.jpg" title="Asset-RoustanMedia-Logo" width="637" height="156"></div> &#9632;

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Burning Questions 2018

THE RIGHT PATH? JUST WING IT

BRADY TKACHUK Vs. MATTHEW TKACHUK

THE ‘A’ GETS UPGRADE

THN POLL