It’s our annual Goalie Issue, focusing on the best men and women patrolling the crease. We’ve got features on Marc-Andre Fleury, John Gibson, Shannon Szabados, Sergei Bobrovsky and many more. Also, we count down the top 31 goalie masks in the NHL; we catch up with Dominik Hasek, 20 years after Nagano; and we put Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy head-to-head in Versus.

Goalie Issue 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.08 - December 3, 2018

<div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_rinne" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_rinne3/391441-1-eng-US/buzz_rinne2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(GERRY THOMAS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Who was your mentor growing up?It was two guys. When I was really young, the reason I started being a goalie was my cousin Jari. He&rsquo;s seven years older than me, and he was a goalie, and I always looked up to him. When I got a bit older, my goalie coach back home Ari (Hilli) was a big mentor for me.What was the best advice you received as a young player?Just have fun. Work hard, have fun and try to get better every day.Who did you model your game after?There were always Finnish goalies I looked up to, but you wouldn&rsquo;t necessarily know them. Then when I got a little older and started following the NHL, obviously the best goalies. Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy, Ed Belfour, all those guys. I had all the posters and stuff like that.Favorite team growing up?My local hometown team Oulu, they have a pro hockey team, so that was my favorite team.Why do you wear No. 35?Actually, prior to coming over, I wore No. 33, and then after I came over for the first training camp, (the Predators) just gave me No. 35, and I loved it right away. I was too shy to ask for anything else. To be honest with you, I love the number. After having it for so long, I couldn&rsquo;t picture myself wearing anything else.What was your &lsquo;Welcome to the NHL&rsquo; moment?I was fortunate to play my first NHL game in my first year in North America. I was in the AHL with Milwaukee and got called up in December 2005. I played against Chicago, and they scored on their first shot on a penalty kill. I remember that like it was yesterday. It was Mark Bell who scored. First shot of the game, and right away it was in, and I was really nervous. We ended up winning 5-3, and I ended up playing well. I was over the moon after the game. It was a pretty cool moment.What was your first major purchase after signing your first NHL contract?I think a car. Audi S5.What was your most memorable save?It was in the 2011 playoffs against Vancouver. At the time it felt big, because we had never really made it past the first round. It was OT, Kevin Bieksa had an empty net, and I was able to get it with my stick. I remember that. At the time it felt big because it helped us get to the next game. We ended up losing to Vancouver in six games, but I still remember that at the time it felt big.Is there a part of your game you&rsquo;d still like to improve?Yeah, a lot. You can always improve how efficient you are in net. Being agile and athletic but still saving your energy and (making) it look like it&rsquo;s easy. &#9632;

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BUZZ

RAPID FIRE

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/eastern_rev5/392377-1-eng-US/eastern_rev2.jpg" title="eastern_rev" width="186" height="186"></div>&gt;BOSTON BRUINSAfter impressing the Bruins at their 2017 prospect tournament, KYLE KEYSER signed as an undrafted free agent and has been rising up the ranks since. Once the athletic Oshawa Generals goalie learns not be so overactive in the net, there&rsquo;s a good chance of an NHL future.&gt;BUFFALO SABRESFinland finished a disastrous sixth at the 2018 WJC and goalie UKKO-PEKKA LUUKKONEN disappointed along with his teammates. But the Sabres took a chance on him in the second round in 2017 and it&rsquo;s paying off. He has been a key part of Sudbury&rsquo;s strong start in the OHL.&gt;CAROLINA HURRICANESCarolina has drafted several goalies recently, and finding creases for all of them has been a challenge. JEREMY HELVIG spent an overage year in the OHL for that reason, but he looks like the best in the system. He&rsquo;s big, can steal games and is off to a great start with ECHL Florida.&gt;COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETSColumbus has some intriguing goalie prospects, but 24-year-old ELVIS MERZLIKINS is the furthest along in his development. The Latvian national plays for Lugano in the Swiss League, where he has already won the Jacques Plante Trophy as goalie of the year &ndash; twice.&gt;DETROIT RED WINGSThough he started his season at the University of Denver on the injured list, FILIP LARSSON had already made the jump to North America. He starred for the USHL&rsquo;s Tri-City Storm in 2017-18, where he was goalie of the year after posting the league&rsquo;s best GAA (1.65) and SP (.941).&gt;FLORIDA PANTHERSAfter struggling in his first pro campaign, SAM MONTEMBEAULT has rebounded with a strong start in the AHL this season. The 2015 third-rounder had a 3.25 GAA and .896 SP as a rookie, but the Panthers hope he&rsquo;ll become more consistent and step in once Roberto Luongo retires.&gt;MONTREAL CANADIENSCAYDEN PRIMEAU, a seventh-round pick in 2017 and the son of former NHLer Keith, has impressed Montreal with his performance at Northeastern University, where he was Hockey East&rsquo;s top goalie last season. He has the size and ability to project as a future No. 1 goalie.&gt;NEW JERSEY DEVILSAfter a mediocre start to his AHL career, MACKENZIE BLACKWOOD spent time in the ECHL last season and it seemed to do the trick. He was part of a long playoff run and stepped up in a supporting role. Big and calm, he&rsquo;s back with AHL Binghamton and off to a great start.&gt;NEW YORK ISLANDERSILYA SOROKIN is under contract with CSKA Moscow in the KHL until April 2020. After that, it would help to see him in the AHL in order to get acclimated to the North American game before he joins the Isles, but there&rsquo;s a ton of potential in the mature and athletic Olympic gold medalist.&gt;NEW YORK RANGERSThe rebuilding Rangers are close to getting IGOR SHESTERKIN over to North America. The SKA St. Petersburg goalie is under contract in the KHL until April, so he may not arrive in time for a game this season, but the agile netminder and is worth waiting for.&gt;OTTAWA SENATORSAfter being named the best goalie at the 2018 world juniors and a strong season in Sweden&rsquo;s top pro league, FILIP GUSTAVSSON hasn&rsquo;t missed a beat with a solid start for Ottawa&rsquo;s AHL affiliate. He was also named the best goaltender at the world under-18s in 2016.&gt;PHILADELPHIA FLYERSHow soon can CARTER HART take over in Philadelphia? We kid, we kid. The Flyers&rsquo; ace prospect was getting the lion&rsquo;s share of starts with AHL Lehigh Valley, but his stats weren&rsquo;t great early on. Don&rsquo;t worry, though. The rookie pro has the maturity to succeed, he just needs time to adjust.&gt;PITTSBURGH PENGUINSThe lack of goaltending depth is shocking in Pittsburgh. TRISTAN JARRY is one of two candidates &ndash; free-agent junior signing Alex D&rsquo;Orio is the other &ndash; the franchise has in the system. Jarry had an extended tryout when Matt Murray was hurt last year, but he wasn&rsquo;t convincing.&gt;TAMPA BAY LIGHTNINGThe Bolts liked what they saw from CONNOR INGRAM in his AHL rookie season in 2017-18 and hope he&rsquo;ll continue to develop. It remains to be seen whether he can become a No. 1 goalie in the NHL, but at the very least he projects to be a reliable backup.&gt;TORONTO MAPLE LEAFSAt 20, JOSEPH WOLL is already a junior at Boston College. While he struggled early this season, Woll has displayed enough improvement to warrant the Leafs&rsquo; faith in him. Don&rsquo;t be surprised if he makes the jump to pro hockey when his 2018-19 season with the Terriers ends.&gt;WASHINGTON CAPITALSHe has first-round pedigree and a KHL title, but ILYA SAMSONOV got off to a rough start in his first North American campaign. The big, talented netminder was getting vastly outplayed by the more experienced Vitek Vanecek with AHL Hershey. He needs time to find his footing. &#9632;

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EASTERN CONFERENCE

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0013-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-0162/390700-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg"></div>PLANTE: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; CHEEVERS: B BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES; GRATTON: STEVE BABINEAU/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES; BELFOUR+HAYWARD: GRAIG ABEL COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; JOSEPH: DOUG PENSINGER/ALLSPORT &#9632;

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MASK ICON-O-METER

<div class="byline">PHOTO BY DEREK LEUNG/GETTY IMAGES</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="thousandwor_015" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/thousandwor_0152/390527-1-eng-US/thousandwor_0152.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Seconds after splitting the Calgary defense, Chicago&rsquo;s Brandon Saad decides the best way to guarantee a goal is to hand-deliver it through goaltender David Rittich, just out of his reach after a three-player pileup.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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A Thousand Words

SMOTHERING THE FLAMES

<div class="byline">Jason Kay, Editor in Chief</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="JK-column-ipad-2019" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jk-column-ipad-2019/394019-1-eng-US/jk-column-ipad-2019.jpg"></div>ON NOV. 1, 1959, when Jacques Plante defied coach Toe Blake and donned a mask during a game against the New York Rangers, the pioneering goalie could not have foreseen the avalanche he had triggered. After Plante was sliced below his nose on a shot by Andy Bathgate, bled profusely and was stitched up in the dressing room, it&rsquo;s likely the only thing he envisioned was saving his own vision. And his skull, orbital bone, jaw, sinus cavities and teeth.But in the decades following Plante&rsquo;s dramatic decision, the goalie mask has evolved into the most prolific innovation in all of sport. Hear me out. It&rsquo;s a bold statement considering the advances and novel concepts great minds have conjured. Breakaway basketball rims, Tommy John surgery, interchangeable cleats, vulcanized rubber tennis balls, titanium golf clubs, video replay, headsets in football helmets, the Fosbury Flop &ndash; iceberg meet tip. There is a plethora of important advancements that have been transformative in sports that are more popular than hockey.But none have spawned the variety of touchpoints Plante&rsquo;s piece of facial protection has. It&rsquo;s unrivaled. Here&rsquo;s the checklist:Protection. The original intent of the mask remains its most important feature. It&rsquo;s impossible to fathom today&rsquo;s game without it.Accessibility. There is no empirical evidence to prove the mask opened the position to more candidates, but it has. We know, anecdotally, some players shied away from tending goal due to the inherent head-injury risks. Denis Brodeur, Martin&rsquo;s late father and one-time rising goalie, said he quit the game due to the anxiety he suffered from playing bare-faced. He wasn&rsquo;t alone, never mind those who didn&rsquo;t even consider the occupation for fear of fractures. No-mask goalies were a rare breed, men of extreme courage who sometimes paid a heavy price &ndash; mentally and/or physically &ndash; due to their chosen field.Pop culture. Jason Voorhees accelerated the growth of a cottage industry with his goalie-mask-wearing mayhem in the Friday&nbsp;the 13th films. The Bernie Parent-styled, plain-faced mask became a symbol of the macabre, a staple Halloween costume, an icon of darkness. It took on a very prominent life of its own. Masks have been a quintessential wardrobe piece for a variety of other popular characters, from Denis Lemieux in Slap Shot to the black-rimmed-glasses-through-the-mask-wearing Garth in Wayne&rsquo;s World.Expression. NHL players have taken heat for lacking individuality, for being conformists. The mask steps outside the milquetoast zone. Beginning in the 1970s with the iconic cages of stitch-faced Gerry Cheevers and roaring tiger of Gilles Gratton, to the present-day pieces of art, goalies have infused color into the game with their war paint. We&rsquo;ve devoted three pages of this issue (pgs. 16-18) to ranking this season&rsquo;s best. And on pg. 13, in the O-Meter, we take a playful glimpse at masks over eras.In 2008, we thought so much of the appeal of the mask we published an entire 172-page commemorative magazine on it. It turned out to be one of our best sellers. Let&rsquo;s see a collector&rsquo;s edition on the tennis ball match that.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jasonkay_si_0082/390441-1-eng-US/jasonkay_si_0082.jpg" title="jasonkay_si_008" width="422" height="231"></div><a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/JKTHN">@JKTHN</a> &#9632;

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Column

GOALIE MASK, WE SALUTE THEE

<div class="byline">W. Graeme Roustan</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="Roustan-column-iPad" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/roustan-column-ipad8/394026-1-eng-US/roustan-column-ipad.jpg"></div>Dear readers,I was in a dollar store in early November and saw Christmas decorations already for sale. Yikes!It reminded me to get my list to The Hockey News&rsquo; circulation team so that my friends, family and teammates can get their first issues in December.Free Bronze Memberships are a big hit as part of our &ldquo;Buy 1 Gold And Get 3 Free Bronze Memberships&rdquo; special limited-time offer.I told the team when I acquired The Hockey News that I have a long list of ideas to improve the experience of the readers, with some new concepts being more exciting than others. The Gold Membership is one of the high points.A longtime subscriber contacted me recently and said they received a renewal promotion that simply offered the same package that was available last year and not any of the membership levels. I am constantly preaching to the staff that our readers are the customers and the customer is always right, so we need to fix this.After receiving the subscriber&rsquo;s email, I set up a conference call with the circulation team to make sure that current subscribers can upgrade to become Members and be able to take advantage of the current promotion to give three free Bronze Memberships to their friends, family or teammates.The Hockey News team has implemented so many of my ideas on ways to deliver more to our readers, whether they are subscribers of the past, Members under my ownership, single-copy newsstand readers and unique visitors to our website and digital platforms.But we don&rsquo;t have a monopoly on good ideas. I encourage our readers to reach out to us at <a href="mailto:Editorial@TheHockeyNews.com">editorial@thehockeynews.com</a> and let us know how you think we can make The Hockey News become a better experience for you. The Hockey News is produced by a team. I consider readers to be part of the team, and I welcome your input.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/7207_openin_0122/390491-1-eng-US/7207_openin_0122.jpg" title="7207_openin_012" width="350" height="426"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/graemeroust_0112/390484-1-eng-US/graemeroust_0112.jpg" title="graemeroust_011" width="583" height="123"></div>Executive Chairman & Publisher, Roustan Media Ltd. <a href="http://roustan.com">roustan.com</a><a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/GraemeRoustan">@GraemeRoustan</a>Please send ideas, suggestions & feedback to: <a href="mailto:Editorial@TheHockeyNews.com">EDITORIAL@THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a> &#9632;

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Opening Thoughts

A Dollar For Your Thoughts

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_holtby_017" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_holtby_0172/390570-1-eng-US/buzz_holtby_0172.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Holtby says his job will get &ldquo;real dangerous&rdquo; if stick technology keeps advancing with no limitations. (DAVE SANDFORD/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>BRUISED LIKE CRAZY on my arms.&rdquo; Those words, spoken by Philadelphia Flyers goalie Brian Elliott on Oct. 8, became a microcosm of many stoppers&rsquo; seasons. The NHL&rsquo;s new streamlined goaltending equipment, contoured closer to the upper body, had Elliott feeling the effect of every puck that struck him. A day after he expressed his distaste for the new gear&rsquo;s safety standards: a career-worst eight-goal shelling at the hands of the San Jose Sharks.We&rsquo;re not picking on Elliott. Through early November, goalies had combined for a .909 save percentage, the lowest in 10 years. The league averaged 6.18 goals per game, the most since 1995-96. Part of the surge in offense began last year with the NHL&rsquo;s crackdown on slashing, which slightly increased power-play frequency and gave high-skill players more space to work.This season, we&rsquo;re seeing the most power plays per game since 2010-11, but the additional surge in barnburner offense correlates with goalie pad reduction, which commenced with shrinking the pants and leg padding midway through 2016-17. To summarize the small print in this season&rsquo;s new guidelines: various elements of goalies&rsquo; shoulder, elbow, bicep, forearm, chest and clavicle pads have been reduced. In some cases, that means an inch. In others, it means flattening the gear so it doesn&rsquo;t protrude past a certain measurement.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_elliot_0162/390563-1-eng-US/buzz_elliot_0162.jpg" title="buzz_elliot_016" width="646" height="904"><figcaption class="caption-body">BRIAN&nbsp;ELLIOTT (LEN REDKOLES/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>The changes have produced some shocking on-pace stats. Among skaters with 10 or more games, 12 were scoring at a better than a 50-goal pace to start 2018-19. But all the fun also left many stoppers battered. &ldquo;If goalies were saying now that the reduced equipment is just leading to more goals against and they don&rsquo;t like it, I don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s enough to raise alarm bells, but we&rsquo;ve gone from a somewhat legitimate policy to alleviate a legitimate concern about goalies being too big, and we&rsquo;ve now implemented this policy before ensuring goalies would remain safe while they tend net,&rdquo; said Octagon agent and co-managing director Allan Walsh, whose clients include Marc-Andre Fleury and Jaroslav Halak.Walsh has been as vocal as anyone in the sport on social media about his concerns. He believes it&rsquo;s only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured. He says goalies tell him their arms are covered in welts, that their clavicles and Adam&rsquo;s apples are exposed, that they&rsquo;ve had to change their practice habits to reduce the number of shots they take. Part of the problem, he explains, is the goalies received their new up-to-standard equipment so late in the off-season that they didn&rsquo;t have time to properly test it and get comfortable in it.Retired NHL goalie Kay Whitmore, now the league&rsquo;s vice-president of hockey operations, oversees all equipment changes. He declined to comment for this story because he said he didn&rsquo;t want to rehash a bunch of sound bites from the first week of the season and felt the NHL, NHL Players&rsquo; Association and players had made significant progress by month&rsquo;s end. Despite the safety concerns, the rollout is not completely disastrous. Mathieu Schneider, the NHLPA&rsquo;s special assistant to the executive director, fiercely defends Whitmore and insists he has stayed in constant contact with NHL goaltenders, sponging up their feedback.Schneider also dispels a few myths. For one: goalies are allowed to work with their equipment manufacturers to alter their equipment as long as the reinforcements still follow the required measurements. &ldquo;Guys think, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve got my gear, this is it, I&rsquo;m stuck with it, I&rsquo;ve got to just get used to it,&rsquo; but that&rsquo;s not the case,&rdquo; Schneider said. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want guys to be taking shots off their collarbone or clavicle. We don&rsquo;t want guys coming off practice with their arms being bruised. That should not be happening, and we&rsquo;re working to try and make fixes for that.&rdquo;Schneider also points out that, because every manufacturer is different, with some smaller companies producing their pads locally versus others that ship all the way from China, there was no chance of every netminder receiving his gear at the same time. He also doesn&rsquo;t think getting it in June versus September would&rsquo;ve made any difference. &ldquo;The challenging part to introducing a new piece of equipment like this is that it&rsquo;s next to impossible to simulate an NHL season,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Guys can wear stuff in the off-season and play with it and train, but it&rsquo;s never the same as getting into training camp, getting into the regular season, the day-to-day grind of practices and playing. And a layer on top of that is that this is a piece of equipment where you may have goalies who have played with the same chest protector for five, six, seven, eight years.&rdquo;Washington&rsquo;s Braden Holtby says he&rsquo;s more banged up than before but feels he can handle it. He isn&rsquo;t flinching or afraid. Goalies know their job is to get rubber shot at them for a living, he says, and he believes Whitmore has communicated with goaltenders well to help them make modifications.Holtby&rsquo;s issue is the fact goalies are the target for so many changes, that the equipment is shrinking &ldquo;because a few guys think goalies are too big,&rdquo; and he&rsquo;s frustrated that he has to change gear just when he gets comfortable. A lot of the modifications make the equipment bend and move differently, which can affect athleticism and even sightlines, he says.And when it comes to safety, Holtby wonders if the problem lies beyond goalie equipment. &ldquo;My main concern is stick technology keeps get harder and harder every year, and goalie equipment seems to be going the other way, forced to go the other way, be it the pants a couple years ago and now upper body,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If we&rsquo;re going to keep wearing these, then I&rsquo;d like to see some way to monitor what the stick technology is, because if the trend keeps going this way, it&rsquo;s going to get real dangerous.&rdquo;When Holtby debuted, every team had two or three deadly shooters, but now he feels every single guy on the ice can wire the puck thanks to his stick. It&rsquo;s one more possible explanation for all the pucks popping twine this season. It&rsquo;s also another threat to goalies&rsquo; welfare.The league, players and manufacturers are working hard to fix things on the fly. The question is: will a previously routine save put a stopper on the sidelines before they do?For up-to-the-minute coverage, visit <a href="http://THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a> &#9632;

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WORRIED ABOUT THE WELTS

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE TELJEUR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="charlie_720_032" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/charlie_720_0322/390599-1-eng-US/charlie_720_0322.jpg"></div> &#9632;

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THE INSTIGATOR

<div class="byline">BY BRANDON MARON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_icebur_0302/390628-1-eng-US/buzz_icebur_0302.jpg" title="buzz_icebur_030" width="658" height="842"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DAVE SANDFORD/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>PITTSBURGH PENGUINS | ICEBURGHHockey fan were introduced&nbsp;to Iceburgh, the official mascot of the Pittsburgh Penguins, for the first time in 1992. He was an instant hit, but a few years into his tenure his popularity reached an all-time high. Iceburgh, along with other members of the Penguins such as Luc Robitaille, was featured in the 1995 Hollywood blockbuster movie Sudden Death starring action hero Jean-Claude Van Damme. During Game 7 of a fictional Stanley Cup final at the old Civic Arena, Van Damme&rsquo;s character discovers there is a group of terrorists plotting to blow up the rink. One of the terrorists uses Iceburgh&rsquo;s suit as a disguise and gets into a hilarious, three-minute-long fight scene with Van Damme. Not many mascots can say they&rsquo;ve had that much time on the silver screen. &#9632;

MEET A MASCOT

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/mask_gibson_0192/390671-1-eng-US/mask_gibson_0192.jpg" title="mask_gibson_019" width="521" height="517"></div>CHRISTOPHER GIBSON | BRIDGEPORT SOUND TIGERSGibson spends most of his time toiling for the Islanders&rsquo; AHL farm team but pays respect to the big-league squad&rsquo;s history with this design from artist Sylvie Poitras. The star of the mask: Billy Smith. The Hall of Famer, four-time Stanley Cup champion and famous hothead is rendered in his home and away uniforms. On the other side of the mask: a realistic sketch of a lighthouse. Simple but classy.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/mask_gibson_0182/390664-1-eng-US/mask_gibson_0182.jpg" title="mask_gibson_018" width="491" height="534"></div>Mask by Sylvie Poitras/Airbrushzap.com &#9632;

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BEHIND THE MASK

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jersey_chim_0202/390729-1-eng-US/jersey_chim_0202.jpg" title="jersey_chim_020" width="574" height="583"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SAN ANTONIO RAMPAGE)</figcaption></div>SAN ANTONIO RAMPAGE | 2018-19Bravo, San Antonio: You took the concept of themed jerseys to another level. The St. Louis Blues&rsquo; AHL affiliate didn&rsquo;t do Halloween; instead, they went with Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead. The Rampage, who were renamed &lsquo;Los Chimuelos&rsquo; for the night, rocked these sweaters, featuring an ornate skull logo inside an arch &ndash; which represents the traditional altars associated with the holiday (same for the marigolds). The team&rsquo;s standard bull mascot was replaced with a cattle skull on the showstopping skull logo. And what are Chimuelos, you ask? Translation: the men with missing teeth. Perfect. &#9632;

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JERSEY HOUND

<div class="byline">SAL BARRY OF PUCKJUNK.COM</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_cards1_0312/390758-1-eng-US/buzz_cards1_0312.jpg" title="buzz_cards1_031" width="409" height="574"></div>RANDOMLY FOUND ONCE IN about every 72 packs of 1991-92 Pro Set Hockey Series 1 was this card which featured a striking photo of the famous mask worn by Patrick Roy during his tenure with the Montreal Canadiens. A rundown of Roy&rsquo;s accomplishments up to that point could be found on the back of the card. It also credits the mask&rsquo;s manufacturer as Michel Lefebvre and the designer as &ldquo;G.K.&rdquo; from Detroit. This card, the first to really focus on a goalie mask&rsquo;s art, prompted other companies to release their own mask-related sets over the next two decades. &#9632;

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IN THE CARDS

<div class="byline">BY TOM THOMPSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0014-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0014-0184/390787-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(Photos by Getty Images)</figcaption></div>EVERY MAJOR HOCKEY MEDIA outlet, including The Hockey News, established the Winnipeg Jets and Tampa Bay Lightning as top contenders for the Stanley Cup this season. Analysts point to their depth of offensive talent, relative youth and the high tempo of play each team employs. Another factor enhances the high expectations for the Jets and Lightning: they both have one of the top young goalies. Connor Hellebuyck in Winnipeg and Andrei Vasilevskiy in Tampa Bay enjoyed splendid seasons in 2017-18 and elevated their performances in the playoffs. Both teams advanced to the final four. Neither team&rsquo;s demise in the conference final was due to goaltending difficulties. Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy are big, athletic, smart and competitive. Every NHL team would be pleased to have either. But if you could only choose one to take a run at the 2019 Stanley Cup, who would you pick?<h2>CAREERS</h2>Siberia and suburban Michigan have not been traditional breeding grounds for NHL goalies. Their pre-draft careers were also unlikely. Vasilevskiy was drafted in 2012 after playing junior in isolated Ufa, Russia. Hellebuyck was selected in the same draft from the Odessa (Texas) Jackalopes of the NAHL. After developing in the AHL, both goalies became NHL regulars in 2016-17. They&rsquo;re both entering their third full NHL seasons. Their statistics are similar in terms of games, wins, goals-against average and save percentage.&nbsp;EDGE: NEITHER<h2>STYLES</h2>Further to their similar careers, Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy are only one year apart in age, one inch different in height, and their weights are identical. However, their playing styles are dramatically different. Hellebuyck&rsquo;s style is based on anticipation and size. He plays a &ldquo;vertical&rdquo; game, moving laterally to emphasize his size and intimidate opponents. He relies on positioning to make the save, rather than reflexes and reactions. Vasilevskiy&rsquo;s style is based on quickness and agility. He plays a &ldquo;horizontal&rdquo; game, moving rapidly from post to post in a crouched position. His leg action is the key. He seeks to take away the bottom of the net and dares opponents to shoot at openings in the upper part of the net. He relies on quick movements with his upper body and glove to make saves. Very few goalies have the ability to eliminate the bottom of the net as effectively as Vasilevskiy.&nbsp;EDGE: VASILEVSKIY<h2>VULNERABILITY</h2>Every goalie's style leaves him vulnerable to certain types of shots. Hellebuyck is as technically sound as any goalie. He is big, plays square to the puck and keeps his body erect. His footwork and athleticism are good but not great. Look back to last year&rsquo;s playoffs and the opening month of 2018-19. He can sometimes give up goals that seem to &ldquo;go right through him.&rdquo; He&rsquo;s in proper position but doesn&rsquo;t react to the shot. His footwork to move his big body is not fluid, and he is vulnerable between the legs. Vasilevskiy goes from post to post better than any goalie, and his reactions to shots are probably the best. At times he guesses and begins lateral movement too quickly. This leaves the upper part of the net on the short side unguarded. The worst goals allowed by Vasilevskiy can arise from this situation, but they occur less frequently than Hellebuyck&rsquo;s weak goals.&nbsp;EDGE: VASILEVSKIY<h2>REBOUND CONTROL</h2>Hall of Fame icon&nbsp;Glenn Hall describes rebound control as &ldquo;the difference between stopping a puck and making a save.&rdquo; Other than preventing the original shot from entering the net, rebound control is the single most important element in goaltending. Instructors tell goalies to make themselves &ldquo;big and soft.&rdquo; Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy are top-end performers in this area. Very few goals are scored on them because of bad rebounds off initial shots. When their teams are under significant pressure, they have the ability to smother difficult shots in order to get a stoppage in play.&nbsp;EDGE: NEITHER<h2>COMPETITIVENESS</h2>All the physical talent&nbsp;in the world goes for naught if a goalie does not have the proper mental makeup. Goaltending has to rank among the most psychologically challenging positions in sports. How do netminders respond in big games? In particular, how do they respond to the important situations in those games? No goalie is perfect. What is their response to a bad goal? The Jets and Lightning owe much of their success to the play of Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy in big games throughout 2017-18. Both were &ldquo;tigers&rdquo; when the game was on the line. Both were even better during last season&rsquo;s playoffs. Neither goalie was perfect. Their ability to respond positively to the rare bad goals that they allowed spoke volumes about their fierce competitive instincts.&nbsp;EDGE: NEITHER<h2>ATHLETICISM</h2>This comparison is not close. Hellebuyck is above average in every goaltending category, including skating and puckhandling. So is Vasilevskiy. The difference is that Vasilevskiy has some outstanding physical attributes. His leg movements are as quick as any goalie I have ever seen. I love to watch him warm up. His leg exercises remind me of a young Vladislav Tretiak&rsquo;s. No other big goalie has ever been as quick in the lower body. The reactions of Vasilevskiy with his catching hand and upper body are also exceptional. Because of their size and positioning, Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy may on many occasions be equal in defending original shots. The athleticism of Vasilevskiy makes him better able to defend rebounds and multi-shot barrages.&nbsp;EDGE: VASILEVSKIY<h2>CONCLUSION</h2>This is an interesting comparison. I have nothing negative to say about either goalie. Both are above average in every major category. In order to be an elite goalie in today&rsquo;s NHL, you need a combination of size, athleticism, hockey sense and competitiveness. These attributes allow a goalie to establish proper positioning, fight to find pucks, react quickly to shots and control rebounds. Hellebuyck meets all these criteria. He has all the attributes to be an elite NHL goalie. He&rsquo;s good enough to be a cornerstone on a Stanley Cup contender. Vasilevskiy can match Hellebuyck in all major categories, and he can exceed him in one. Vasilevskiy is the most athletic goalie in the NHL. His quick reactions, especially with his legs, are unmatched. His performance in last season&rsquo;s playoffs was the most dominant of any goalie. He stole several big games for his team. His high-level play in goal masked a subpar performance by a talented Tampa Bay team. In a world of &ldquo;good, better, best,&rdquo; Hellebuyck fits into the &ldquo;better&rdquo; category. He can be the No. 1 goalie on a Stanley Cup champion. Vasilevskiy&rsquo;s athleticism makes him the &ldquo;best.&rdquo; He can steal games which his team has no business winning and be the principal figure in winning the Cup. Vasilevskiy is my first choice for a goalie in building a 2018-19 Stanley Cup champion.Tom Thompson has been an NHL scout/director/assistant GM since 1985. &#9632;

f0014-01

CONNOR HELLEBUYCK VS. ANDREI VASILEVSKIY

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_lehner_048" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_lehner_0482/391285-1-eng-US/buzz_lehner_0482.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">ROBIN&nbsp;LEHNER (MIKE STOBE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>WE&rsquo;VE ENTERED THE platinum age of goalie mask designs. It&rsquo;s like television in the streaming era in that the quality has never been higher. Accomplished artists such as Dave Gunnarsson, Stephane Bergeron, Steve Nash and Sylvie Marsolais outfit their NHL clients with everything from 3-D effects to paint that changes colors when wet.Yet something has disappeared during this boom of gorgeous art. Gone are the days when every star goalie sported a distinct, consistent design for which he was known. Gerry Cheevers had his stitches. Ed Belfour had his matching eagles. Today, goalies change masks almost as often as they re-tape their sticks. Some have different masks for home and away. Then we have special outdoor-game masks, one-off masks used for charity auctions and special anniversary designs tied to third-jersey promotions. It&rsquo;s extremely difficult keeping track of who&rsquo;s wearing what.Still, a few netminders have found a way to maintain a degree of iconic consistency. Even if they alter their looks every year, we can count on some singular characteristics. The Leafs&rsquo; Frederik Andersen, for instance, rocks a Lego theme. Robin Lehner, crowned the champ in these rankings, doesn&rsquo;t merely offer a cool-looking demon on his mask. The design represents his battle with bipolar disorder. Designs that reflect something personal and meaningful on top of having great aesthetics get a boost on this list.It&rsquo;s important to note there are no &ldquo;bad&rdquo; designs ranked here, but someone had to finish 31st, so certain traits were penalized, such as cluttered images or overly &ldquo;safe&rdquo; and thus relatively forgettable compositions. Fans everywhere tweeted about Jacob Markstrom&rsquo;s delightfully creepy face-on-face look, whereas Braden Holtby went with simple variations of the Capitals&rsquo; logos. Nothing wrong with that, but it won&rsquo;t win you a mask-art contest.Other criteria: each mask belongs to an NHL starter or predicted No. 1, and one-off masks were not considered &ndash; the look had to be each goalie&rsquo;s primary one.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/01_lehner12/391271-1-eng-US/01_lehner12.jpg" title="01_lehner1" width="520" height="527"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/01_lehner22/391264-1-eng-US/01_lehner22.jpg" title="01_lehner2" width="435" height="571"></div><h1>1. ROBIN LEHNER</h1>TEAM: NEW YORK ISLANDERS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/02_markstro_0352/391250-1-eng-US/02_markstro_0352.jpg" title="02_markstro_035" width="514" height="524"></div><h1>2. JACOB MARKSTROM</h1>TEAM: VANCOUVER CANUCKS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/03_quick2/391236-1-eng-US/03_quick2.jpg" title="03_quick" width="512" height="508"></div><h1>3. JONATHAN QUICK</h1>TEAM: LOS ANGELES KINGS ARTIST: STEVE NASH&nbsp;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/04_andersen_0412/391215-1-eng-US/04_andersen_0412.jpg" title="04_andersen_041" width="514" height="534"></div><h1>4. FREDERIK ANDERSEN</h1>TEAM: TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/05_rask2/391201-1-eng-US/05_rask2.jpg" title="05_rask" width="506" height="483"></div><h1>5. TUUKKA RASK</h1>TEAM: BOSTON BRUINS ARTIST: RON SLATER<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/06_talbot2/391187-1-eng-US/06_talbot2.jpg" title="06_talbot" width="383" height="568"></div><h1>6. CAM TALBOT</h1>TEAM: EDMONTON OILERS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/07_vasilevs_0492/391173-1-eng-US/07_vasilevs_0492.jpg" title="07_vasilevs_049" width="484" height="532"></div><h1>7. ANDREI VASILEVSKIY</h1>TEAM: TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING ARTIST: SYLVIE MARSOLAIS&nbsp;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/08_smith2/391152-1-eng-US/08_smith2.jpg" title="08_smith" width="501" height="497"></div><h1>8. MIKE SMITH</h1>TEAM: CALGARY FLAMES ARTIST: DAVE ARRIGO<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/09_luongo2/391138-1-eng-US/09_luongo2.jpg" title="09_luongo" width="475" height="538"></div><h1>9. ROBERTO LUONGO</h1>TEAM: FLORIDA PANTHERS ARTIST: STEPHANE BERGERON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/10_hellebuy_0422/391124-1-eng-US/10_hellebuy_0422.jpg" title="10_hellebuy_042" width="505" height="512"></div><h1>10. CONNOR HELLEBUYCK</h1>TEAM: WINNIPEG JETS ARTIST: STEVE NASH<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/11_fleury2/391110-1-eng-US/11_fleury2.jpg" title="11_fleury" width="480" height="512"></div><h1>11. MARC-ANDRE FLEURY</h1>TEAM: VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS ARTIST: STEPHANE BERGERON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/12_raanta2/391096-1-eng-US/12_raanta2.jpg" title="12_raanta" width="363" height="545"></div><h1>12. ANTTI RAANTA</h1>TEAM: ARIZONA COYOTES ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/13_murray2/391082-1-eng-US/13_murray2.jpg" title="13_murray" width="488" height="541"></div><h1>13. MATT MURRAY</h1>TEAM: PITTSBURGH PENGUINS ARTIST: STEPHANE BERGERON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/14_anderson_0502/391068-1-eng-US/14_anderson_0502.jpg" title="14_anderson_050" width="488" height="499"></div><h1>14. CRAIG ANDERSON</h1>TEAM: OTTAWA SENATORS ARTIST: SYLVIE MARSOLAIS<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/15_hutton12/391054-1-eng-US/15_hutton12.jpg" title="15_hutton1" width="495" height="522"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/15_hutton22/391047-1-eng-US/15_hutton22.jpg" title="15_hutton2" width="524" height="514"></div><h1>15. CARTER HUTTON</h1>TEAM: BUFFALO SABRES ARTIST: JESSE&rsquo;S CUSTOM DESIGN<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/16_jones2/391033-1-eng-US/16_jones2.jpg" title="16_jones" width="502" height="506"></div><h1>16. MARTIN JONES</h1>TEAM: SAN JOSE SHARKS ARTIST: STEVE NASH<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/17_rinne2/391019-1-eng-US/17_rinne2.jpg" title="17_rinne" width="458" height="484"></div><h1>17. PEKKA RINNE</h1>TEAM: NASHVILLE PREDATORS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/18_darling2/391005-1-eng-US/18_darling2.jpg" title="18_darling" width="468" height="438"></div><h1>18. SCOTT DARLING</h1>TEAM: CAROLINA HURRICANES ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/19_crawford_0512/390991-1-eng-US/19_crawford_0512.jpg" title="19_crawford_051" width="474" height="492"></div><h1>19. COREY CRAWFORD</h1>TEAM: CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS ARTIST: STEPHANE BERGERON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/20_schneide_0432/390977-1-eng-US/20_schneide_0432.jpg" title="20_schneide_043" width="471" height="501"></div><h1>20. CORY SCHNEIDER</h1>TEAM: NEW JERSEY DEVILS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/21_dubnyk2/390963-1-eng-US/21_dubnyk2.jpg" title="21_dubnyk" width="482" height="480"></div><h1>21. DEVAN DUBNYK</h1>TEAM: MINNESOTA WILD ARTIST: FRANNY DRUMMOND<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/22_lundqvis_0442/390949-1-eng-US/22_lundqvis_0442.jpg" title="22_lundqvis_044" width="361" height="511"></div><h1>22. HENRIK LUNDQVIST</h1>TEAM: NEW YORK RANGERS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON&nbsp;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/23_elliott2/390935-1-eng-US/23_elliott2.jpg" title="23_elliott" width="457" height="510"></div><h1>23. BRIAN ELLIOTT</h1>TEAM: PHILADELPHIA FLYERS ARTIST: FRANNY DRUMMOND<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/24_varlamov_0452/390921-1-eng-US/24_varlamov_0452.jpg" title="24_varlamov_045" width="476" height="506"></div><h1>24. SEMYON VARLAMOV</h1>TEAM: COLORADO AVALANCHE ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON&nbsp;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/25_bobrovsk_0462/390907-1-eng-US/25_bobrovsk_0462.jpg" title="25_bobrovsk_046" width="442" height="490"></div><h1>25. SERGEI BOBROVSKY</h1>TEAM: COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/26_price2/390886-1-eng-US/26_price2.jpg" title="26_price" width="463" height="506"></div><h1>26. CAREY PRICE</h1>TEAM: MONTREAL CANADIENS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/27_gibson2/390872-1-eng-US/27_gibson2.jpg" title="27_gibson" width="368" height="547"></div><h1>27. JOHN GIBSON</h1>TEAM: ANAHEIM DUCKS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/28_howard2/390858-1-eng-US/28_howard2.jpg" title="28_howard" width="462" height="482"></div><h1>28. JIMMY HOWARD</h1>TEAM: DETROIT RED WINGS ARTIST: RAY BISHOP<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/29_bishop2/390844-1-eng-US/29_bishop2.jpg" title="29_bishop" width="387" height="491"></div><h1>29. BEN BISHOP</h1>TEAM: DALLAS STARS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/30_allen2/390830-1-eng-US/30_allen2.jpg" title="30_allen" width="488" height="514"></div><h1>30. JAKE ALLEN</h1>TEAM: ST. LOUIS BLUES ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSON<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/31_holtby2/390816-1-eng-US/31_holtby2.jpg" title="31_holtby" width="471" height="530"></div><h1>31. BRADEN HOLTBY</h1>TEAM: WASHINGTON CAPITALS ARTIST: DAVE GUNNARSSONTo get the stories behind these masks, visit&nbsp;<a datastyle href="https://www.THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM/GOALIEMASKS">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM/GOALIEMASKS</a> &#9632;

buzz_lehner_048

THE COUNTDOWN

<div class="byline">BY BEN SHELLEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_top100_0522/391412-1-eng-US/buzz_top100_0522.jpg" title="buzz_top100_052" width="536" height="679"></div>THN&rsquo;S TOP 100 GOALIES of All-Time collector&rsquo;s edition ranks the best netminders to ever grace an NHL crease. For this goalie-centric issue, we broke down the numbers to see where those goalies came from, whom they played the majority of their games for, what decade they played the most in and whether they were inducted into the Hall of Fame. Among those on the list were a goalie from South Africa, another from Kazakhstan, one from Wales and a whole lot from the Montreal Canadiens. Some have gotten their calls to the Hall, but the bulk have not, and quite a few are still strapping up the pads. It should come as a surprise to nobody, but Canada is also a goalie-generating machine.<h1>COUNTRY OF BIRTH</h1>CANADA: 71%UNITED STATES: 12%RUSSIA: 4%FINLAND: 3%CZECH REPUBLIC: 2%SWEDEN: 2%KAZAKHSTAN: 1%LATVIA: 1%SCOTLAND: 1%SLOVAKIA: 1%SOUTH AFRICA: 1%WALES: 1%<h1>BY DECADE</h1>1990s: 19%2010s: 16%2000s: 13%1930s: 10%1970s: 9%1980s: 9%1950s: 8%1960s: 6%1920s: 5%1940s: 5%*Majority of games played<h1>BY TEAM</h1>Montreal Canadiens: 11%Boston Bruins: 9%Chicago Blackhawks/Black Hawks: 7%Detroit Red Wings/Cougars: 7%New York Rangers: 7%Toronto Maple Leafs/St. Pats: 6%Buffalo Sabres: 4%Calgary/Atlanta Flames: 4%Philadelphia Flyers: 4%Dallas Stars/Minnesota North Stars: 3%Carolina Hurricanes/Hartford Whalers: 3%Los Angeles Kings: 3%New York Islanders: 3%Anaheim Ducks: 2%Arizona/Phoenix Coyotes/Winnipeg Jets: 2%Edmonton Oilers: 2%Nashville Predators: 2%New Jersey Devils: 2%New York/Brooklyn Americans: 2%Pittsburgh Penguins: 2%St. Louis Blues: 2%Vancouver Canucks: 2%Washington Capitals: 2%Cleveland Barons/California Golden Seals: 1%Colorado Avalanche: 1%Columbus Blue Jackets: 1%Florida Panthers: 1%Montreal Maroons: 1%Expansion Ottawa Senators: 1%Original Ottawa Senators: 1%San Jose Sharks: 1%Tampa Bay Lightning: 1%*Majority of games played<h1>HALL OF FAME</h1><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0019-0154/391314-1-eng-US/f0019-012.jpg" title="f0019-01" width="491" height="109"></div> &#9632;

buzz_top100_052

THE BEST BY THE NUMBERS

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_tufts1_056" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_tufts1_0562/391477-1-eng-US/buzz_tufts1_0562.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALLYSON & BROCK&nbsp;TUFTS (PHOTO COURTESY OF BROCK TUFTS)</figcaption></div>FORTY YEARS AGO, COUNTRY music superstars Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings stumbled onto a huge hit when they covered a song called Mammas (sic) Don&rsquo;t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys. With that in mind, somebody might make a lot of money off hockey parents by penning a tune called Mamas Don&rsquo;t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Goalies.There are few sentences a young hockey player can say that will send his parents into more of a tizzy than, &ldquo;I want to be a goalie.&rdquo; There are only two of them on a team, which renders making teams harder. Goaltending equipment at the higher levels is far more expensive, and the pressure of responsibility that comes with playing the position is nothing like what skaters feel. Allyson Tufts should know, because she experienced that very thing with her son, Brock, and went on to write and self-publish a book titled Lessons from Behind the Glass. She has also done a series of videos on the subject that can be seen at <a href="http://www.lessonsfrombehindtheglass.com">www.lessonsfrombehindtheglass.com</a>. &ldquo;I could have cried when my son decided he wanted to be a goalie,&rdquo; Tufts said. &ldquo;But it was what he wanted to do, and you have to support your kids in what they want to do.&rdquo;Brock Tufts was actually a pretty good goalie. He played AAA rep hockey in Belleville, Ont., through midget, then was a starter for a Jr. C team and a backup on a Jr. B team. He actually dressed, but never played, for a handful of games with the OHL&rsquo;s Belleville Bulls, including the franchise&rsquo;s final regular-season game in 2015.One of the interesting things in the dynamic between the two is their different perspectives of the same experience. Brock said he often wore headphones to tune his mother out on the way to games. And in one of the videos, Allyson was asked what she thought she handled best as a hockey parent, and her response was the drive home.At that point, Brock cringed and said he hated the drives home. &ldquo;She just asked question after question after question,&rdquo; said Brock, now a radio personality in Brockville, Ont. &ldquo;If the game went well, you didn&rsquo;t mind talking about it a little more, but if it didn&rsquo;t go well, you didn&rsquo;t want to talk about every single detail, especially to someone who has never played the game before.&rdquo;Brock also pointed out that, like many, many hockey parents, his mother overestimated his skills and ability. And this is where perspective on the parental side is very important. Even Allyson herself started the conversation by saying it was impossible for her to be objective because she had one child who played hockey and he was a goalie. That was her prism for her son&rsquo;s hockey career.Along with the frayed nerves often came the confusion over why her son wasn&rsquo;t playing or wasn&rsquo;t able to make a team when he seemed to be so good at the position. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re in that situation, if you have the right mind, you tend to know when you deserve to play and when you deserve to not play,&rdquo; Brock said. &ldquo;I think in my mom&rsquo;s situation, she always thought I should be No. 1 all the time.&rdquo;Then there is, of course, the cost of playing the position. Youth hockey, particularly at the elite level, is a money pit. But as Hockey Canada vice-president of hockey development Paul Carson points out, it doesn&rsquo;t always need to be that way. In fact, at the houseleague and community hockey levels, goaltending equipment is often provided free of charge. And a goalie who might be willing to settle for less than top-of-the-line gear would be able to get away cheaper than a skater who demands the best of everything.That&rsquo;s great in theory, until it&rsquo;s your kid who has to stand in the way of a speeding piece of frozen vulcanized rubber. And as well intentioned as youth hockey volunteers are, there&rsquo;s a good chance the coach doesn&rsquo;t know a whole lot about the goaltending position.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_tufts2_0572/391470-1-eng-US/buzz_tufts2_0572.jpg" title="buzz_tufts2_057" width="644" height="644"><figcaption class="caption-body">BROCK&nbsp;TUFTS (PHOTO COURTESY OF BROCK TUFTS)</figcaption></div>So unless your team has a dedicated goalie coach, that might mean you&rsquo;re out of pocket for extra ice time with a goaltending instructor. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an absolute true story that there were many times when I wanted to redecorate or I wanted to do something to the house, but he needed pads or he needed a really good chest protector,&rdquo; Allyson said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a position where you don&rsquo;t want him to be well protected.&rdquo;Brock, now 21, hasn&rsquo;t played competitively in three years but was an assistant coach with a AAA team and does goalie instruction in his spare time. Long after the ride ended, he and his mother relished the experience, although Brock wonders how things might have been different had he been a skater. &ldquo;You hear stories about goalies being outcasts, and that wasn&rsquo;t really me, which is maybe why I didn&rsquo;t go very far,&rdquo; Brock said. &ldquo;I would say that when you&rsquo;re in the zone and the game is on the line and you know you&rsquo;re playing well, there&rsquo;s nothing better than that.&rdquo; &#9632;

buzz_tufts1_056

MAKING SAVES IS A SACRIFICE

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="malarkey_ba_055" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/malarkey_ba_0552/391513-1-eng-US/malarkey_ba_0552.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">THE GLOVES COME OFFBaruchel bares his hockey soul in Born Into It, from the deep-seated hatred in Original Six rivalries to fans&rsquo; feelings about fighting. (NOEL VASQUEZ/GC IMAGES)</figcaption></div>ACTOR JAY BARUCHEL WEIGHS about 150 pounds soaking wet, and he typically plays underdogs in movies, from Million Dollar Baby to She&rsquo;s Out of My League. But he has a fighter&rsquo;s spirit. He was raised scrappy in a lower-class Montreal household with a drug addict for a father. That life forged Baruchel&rsquo;s fiery relationship with old-time hockey, the violent, bloody style of play celebrated in the past but often derided today.The same passion inspired Baruchel to pen a love letter to fighting in hockey, the 2011 film Goon, and his new book, Born Into It. It&rsquo;s a raw, emotional and often hilarious look inside the minds and especially the hearts of Montreal Canadiens fans. Baruchel always felt that Ken Dryden&rsquo;s The Game was a peerless reveal of life as an NHL player but that no one had written the equivalent all-access account of the fan experience.Baruchel paints the picture of being a Canadian on a Saturday night, inviting friends over for greasy food before Hockey Night in Canada. In another passage, he explains why he celebrates his Canadian heritage even while working in Hollywood.<blockquote class="pullQuote">IF IT&rsquo;S BETTER FOR THE PLAYERS FOR THERE TO BE NO FIGHTING&hellip;I CAN&rsquo;T SIT HERE AND BE PRO-CONCUSSION, RIGHT?</blockquote>&ndash; Jay BaruchelLater, he dissects in detail why Habs fans detest the Toronto Maple Leafs so deeply. &ldquo;So much of being a Habs fan is a real strain of pettiness throughout all of it,&rdquo; Baruchel said. &ldquo;If given the option, &lsquo;Would you rather win the Stanley Cup, but then the Leafs have a high draft pick, or would you rather the Leafs have the worst season ever, but the cost of that is you guys having the second-worst season ever?&rsquo; &ndash; I think a lot of Habs fans would rather just see the Leafs or the Bruins f---ing implode. We are defined not just by our history and differentness but also by how much we f---ing detest our rivals. And by the way, it&rsquo;s the highest form of admiration and respect. If we don&rsquo;t hate you, that means you&rsquo;re not worth hating.&rdquo;In one of the book&rsquo;s most electric chapters, Baruchel spends time exploring fans&rsquo; feelings about fighting. Contact sport fandom is complicated in 2018, isn&rsquo;t it? We&rsquo;ve never known more about the brain&rsquo;s long-term reactions to repetitive trauma than we do right now. The widespread understanding of CTE emerged in the NFL with Dr. Bennet Omalu and has permeated hockey. We&rsquo;ve seen retired players with significant brain damage lose their lives, from Steve Montador to Derek Boogaard.Fighting is being phased out, and even our reactions to bodychecking continue to evolve. I&rsquo;ve always compared fighting to smoking. Everyone loved it when we didn&rsquo;t understand its long-term effects, and we can&rsquo;t unlearn what we&rsquo;ve learned about it.Yet, so much of hockey fandom is founded on, let&rsquo;s face it, aggression and adrenaline. We cheer thunderous hits for our teams, at least in the moment before reviewing the GIFs on Twitter to dissect whether they were clean. We pop out of our seats when a fight occurs. We understand the violence differently today, but it still spikes many spectators&rsquo; heart rates. &ldquo;It would be incredibly disingenuous and hypocritical of me to be against it when I found it as exhilarating as I have my entire life,&rdquo; Baruchel said. &ldquo;I was a season-ticket holder at the Bell Centre for two seasons, and I can tell you that when there&rsquo;s a real tilt happening, it&rsquo;s f---ing electric in the stadium. It&rsquo;s matched only by a goal scored in the post-season, in terms of 21,000 basically all rooting for the same f---ing end.&ldquo;However, I can&rsquo;t argue in its favor. I can argue that I&rsquo;ve enjoyed it. Long-term damage to a brain is long-term damage to a brain, period. If it&rsquo;s better for the players for there to be no fighting, then that&rsquo;s the end of the debate, right? I can&rsquo;t sit here and be pro-concussion, right? That&rsquo;s insane.&rdquo;Baruchel deserves credit for his pure honesty. Maybe he speaks for the majority of fans. Maybe he doesn&rsquo;t. Maybe the next generation of hockey fans won&rsquo;t be born into any affinity for the rougher side of hockey. Whatever you think, give Born Into It a read. It&rsquo;ll make you ask difficult questions about yourself as a fan.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/malarkey_ba_0542/391506-1-eng-US/malarkey_ba_0542.jpg" title="malarkey_ba_054" width="360" height="590"><figcaption class="caption-body">BORN INTO IT:&nbsp;A FAN&rsquo;S LIFE $22.99, HarperCollins Canada, 272 pgs, 6" x 9", paperback</figcaption></div> &#9632;

malarkey_ba_055

A HOCKEY FAN’S RECONCILIATION

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="szabados1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/szabados12/391619-1-eng-US/szabados12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY MICHAEL HETZEL)</figcaption></div>IT&rsquo;S A TUESDAY afternoon, and the greatest goaltender in women&rsquo;s hockey history has her car packed and is making her way across the interstate between Ohio and New York. For Shannon Szabados, a three-time Olympian with two golds and a silver to her name, this is the new normal, a weekly routine she&rsquo;ll undertake over the course of the season. The three-and-a-half-hour trek, one that sees her cross two state lines, takes Szabados to Buffalo, where she&rsquo;ll play for the NWHL&rsquo;s Beauts in her first foray into the women&rsquo;s professional ranks.&ldquo;I played (in men&rsquo;s leagues) my entire life, and it wasn&rsquo;t anything new to me, but at the same time, there were a lot of challenges along the way,&rdquo; Szabados said. &ldquo;Anytime I went anywhere, there was a debate about whether I was even allowed to play in the league or not because nobody knew, it was a new thing. And when I did play, 90 percent of the support was positive, but everywhere I went there were always people in my ear, in the newspaper or announcers or other teams or whatever the case may be.&rdquo;Szabados&rsquo; most recent stop was the Southern Professional League, but she spent plenty of time in the Alberta Jr. A League as well as the province&rsquo;s college circuit. She even had a one-game stint in the WHL. But making the jump to the NWHL &ndash; a decision based on proximity to her new home in Ohio, where she lives with Carl Nielsen, her fiance, not preference over the league&rsquo;s Canadian counterpart, the CWHL &ndash; isn&rsquo;t about avoiding the challenges men&rsquo;s leagues present. Rather, it&rsquo;s an opportunity for Szabados to extend her career, avoiding the slog of a 50-game slate, not to mention five or six on-ice sessions each week, in minor-pro men&rsquo;s leagues.The arduous expedition aside, Szabados called the schedule more &ldquo;conducive&rdquo; to her longevity and long-term health, which are important factors given the 32-year-old considered walking away from the game following the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.How seriously Szabados considered walking away, mind you, is up for debate. She says the thought entered her mind prior to the 2018 Games, particularly after a battle with the injury bug last season limited her to only a handful of appearances leading up to the Olympics. But it&rsquo;s the same injury-laden campaign that prompted her to find a landing spot with the Beauts, which she did by reaching out to the team about an opportunity. Szabados didn&rsquo;t want her career to end with a season primarily spent on the sidelines. She also wasn&rsquo;t sold on the idea of retirement. &ldquo;In the back of my mind I always kind of knew I wanted to continue playing,&rdquo; Szabados said. &ldquo;It was just in what capacity that was, whether internationally or the NWHL or whether it was just beer-league hockey.&rdquo;Szabados&rsquo; decision to return was likely met with sighs of relief &ndash; maybe even champagne popping &ndash; throughout Hockey Canada&rsquo;s headquarters. At the past three Olympics, dating back to 2010 in Vancouver, Szabados has been a fixture on the national team, where she&rsquo;s risen to prominence as the most dominant women&rsquo;s keeper in Canadian history.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/szabados32/391612-1-eng-US/szabados32.jpg" title="szabados3" width="1176" height="686"><figcaption class="caption-body">(KEN MURRAY/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>She owns a dazzling 0.74 goals-against average and .964 save percentage across nine Olympic contests. She&rsquo;s won top-goalie honors twice and has had the best GAA and SP at all three tournaments she&rsquo;s appeared. The only blemish on her record, if you can call it that, is the most recent silver medal in Pyeongchang.Szabados doesn&rsquo;t classify it that way. &ldquo;Maybe in my younger playing days I probably would&rsquo;ve taken it a little harder, but I remember &ndash; and I have a picture of it, somebody snapped a picture of the moment &ndash; looking at the silver medal and being like, &lsquo;You know what? This is pretty darn cool.&rsquo; Maybe it was the season I went through, I didn&rsquo;t get to play a ton before heading over there, so the fact I was there alone was pretty special to me.&rdquo;Playing in the NWHL, too, will allow Szabados to be &ldquo;there&rdquo; for a lot more. Her stint in the SPHL cost her the opportunity to appear in three World Championships, but scheduled breaks in the women&rsquo;s league offers Szabados the chance to take her rightful place in the blue paint with Team Canada. It should also keep her sharp, fresh and healthy. So, does that mean after uncertainty about her career after Pyeongchang that Szabados has her sights set on commanding the crease for a last time at the 2022 Olympics? &ldquo;It&rsquo;s strange,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m at a weird place in my career. If you asked me four years ago if I would have played in the past Olympics, I would&rsquo;ve told you you&rsquo;re crazy. And now, I&rsquo;m kind of the same way. But I feel the later you are in your career, the more you want to, not hang on to it, but the more you appreciate the opportunities. And now I&rsquo;m like, &lsquo;Yeah, you know, it&rsquo;s only a few years away. Maybe I can do it again.&rsquo;&rdquo;<h1>WHO&rsquo;S NEXT</h1>Szabados&rsquo; time with Canada might not be through yet, but the clock is ticking. Eventually, the national team will need a replacement. Who is part of the next wave in the Canadian crease?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/maschmeyer__0632/391598-1-eng-US/maschmeyer__0632.jpg" title="maschmeyer__063" width="390" height="299"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DAVE HOLLAND/HOCKEY CANADA IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h1>EMERANCE MASCHMEYER</h1>The grooming began during her junior year at Harvard when she was a third-stringer at the 2015 worlds. A gold-medal winner with Canada&rsquo;s under-18 team, Maschmeyer was top goalie at the 2016 worlds and the 24-year-old CHWL standout will be Szabados&rsquo; backup at this year&rsquo;s Four Nations Cup.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/desbiens_an_0642/391584-1-eng-US/desbiens_an_0642.jpg" title="desbiens_an_064" width="440" height="294"><figcaption class="caption-body">(CANDICE WARD/HOCKEY CANADA IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h1>ANN-RENEE DESBIENS</h1>The 2017 Patty Kazmaier Award winner as the top player in the NCAA won a silver as the starter for Canada at the 2015 worlds. Desbiens, 24, carried the load in pre-Olympic action with Szabados sidelined and pitched a shutout against Russia in her one appearance in Pyeongchang.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/tiley_shea2/391570-1-eng-US/tiley_shea2.jpg" title="tiley_shea" width="455" height="343"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DAVE HOLLAND/HOCKEY CANADA IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h1>SHEA TILEY</h1>She isn&rsquo;t wasting time getting her chance with the national team, as the CWHL rookie will be one of three Canadian netminders at the Four Nations Cup. Tiley, 21, wrapped up her NCAA tenure at Clarkson as a two-time national champion with one of the best save percentages in collegiate history.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/suave_kassi_0652/391556-1-eng-US/suave_kassi_0652.jpg" title="suave_kassi_065" width="427" height="338"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DAVE HOLLAND/HOCKEY CANADA IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h1>KASSIDY SAUVE</h1>The 22-year-old transferred from Ohio State to Clarkson, where she&rsquo;s sure to pursue a national title with the Golden Knights. She won a gold alongside Tiley at the 2014 under-18s, and Sauve has remained on Team Canada&rsquo;s radar since, earning invites to development camps each of the past two summers. &#9632;

szabados1

Feature

MORE SAVES TO COME

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="fleury1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/fleury12/391669-1-eng-US/fleury12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(CCM HOCKEY)</figcaption></div>THE REALITY IS THAT in the opening month of this season, the Vegas Golden Knights looked much more like an expansion team than they did in Season No. 1. In their infancy, they would jump out to an early lead, dictate the pace of the game and create offense with a style of play that was a joy to watch. Early in 2018-19, they were chasing games instead of taking control of them. The offense that stunned the hockey world had gone dry, and those close games they were winning last season were going the other way. Injuries mounted, and the Golden Knights were looking up, way up, at all but one team in the Western Conference. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re pushing uphill right now,&rdquo; acknowledged Vegas coach Gerard Gallant in early November. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little more of a grind.&rdquo;It was against this backdrop that Marc-Andre Fleury sat at his stall after a road game against the Toronto Maple Leafs had provided a microcosm of his team&rsquo;s season. The Golden Knights outshot Toronto 37-21 and pretty much Corsied them to death by an 82-40 margin but could muster only one goal. And just for good measure, the Golden Knights lost Erik Haula to a gruesome injury. Even though Fleury allowed only two goals on shots that were borderline unstoppable, when there is so little margin for error, much of the responsibility for winning falls on the guy between the goalposts. As he pushed a mop of sweaty hair away from his eyes, Fleury did not look like a beaten man. The fact is, it takes an awful lot to keep this 33-year-old down. As he led the Golden Knights out for the warmups that night, there were a handful of kids wearing Vegas sweaters with their hands out for fist bumps. Fleury complied, then went back when he realized he had missed a couple of them. &ldquo;The kids were cheering for us, right?&rdquo; said Fleury, managing a smile. &ldquo;So I thought I would give them a little love, I guess.&rdquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s time Fleury began to receive a little love himself when it comes to his place among the all-time great goaltenders in NHL history. With 410 career wins as of early November, Fleury is 10th all-time on the NHL&rsquo;s win list for goalies with Hall of Famer Tony Esposito and his 423 victories well within sight this season. But at 33 and with the better part of four seasons remaining on his current deal and the three-year extension he signed over the summer, Fleury has a chance to make some serious headway on this list. And it might be a stretch, but if he puts together a string of 30-win seasons over that span and can extend his career by another year and win another 30, he will find himself in second place on the all-time wins list ahead of Patrick Roy.Let&rsquo;s get one thing straight. Nobody is touching Martin Brodeur&rsquo;s 691 wins anytime in the immediate, or probably long-term, future. But Fleury was within 141 wins of Roy after 15 games this season, which puts him in shouting distance. But on that front, every victory is crucial for Fleury and he must stay healthy, consistent and capable of stringing together a good run of seasons with a minimum of 30 wins.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/fleury25/391662-1-eng-US/fleury22.jpg" title="fleury2" width="2121" height="1292"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>He has had injury problems, particularly with concussions, but Fleury is still youthful, in great shape and is as much a competitor or battler as he was when he entered the league. With the help of Vegas goaltending coach Dave Prior, Fleury has recaptured his game, largely because Prior has made it a priority to have Fleury practise more efficiently. And with all due respect to Malcolm Subban and the Golden Knights&rsquo; goalie prospects, this is not an organization brimming with NHL-caliber talent at the moment. The net in Vegas is Fleury&rsquo;s to keep as long as he&rsquo;s capable of shouldering the workload.So let&rsquo;s compare apples to apples here. At 33 years and 345 days, Fleury had 410 wins and had a points percentage of .622. At precisely the same age, Brodeur had 445 wins and Roy had 412, with Brodeur carrying a .629 points percentage and Roy at .613. Ed Belfour, who is No. 3 on the all-time wins list with 484, had just 273 wins to his credit and a points percentage of .597 at this age. Henrik Lundqvist, who sat eighth with 436 wins and has this season and two more remaining on his contract, had 366 wins and a .610 points percentage at Fleury&rsquo;s current age. So it&rsquo;s clear to see that Fleury is right there when it comes to this conversation.When those numbers were pointed out to Fleury, he perked up a little, as if he was surprised by them. Asked if he knew where he sat on the league&rsquo;s all-time wins list, Fleury correctly pointed out he is No. 10, but that was only because he recently passed Glenn Hall at 407. He is flattered that he might have a chance to catch Roy. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve looked at it, but it&rsquo;s not something I wake up thinking about,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Those guys on that list are guys I looked up to for a long time. I&rsquo;ve been fortunate to play on a lot of good teams.&rdquo;Of course, goaltender wins are not all created equally. Three of the players Fleury is chasing &ndash; Terry Sawchuk (445), Jacques Plante (437) and Esposito (423), didn&rsquo;t have the benefit of picking up overtime or shootout wins. (Esposito played 18 games in his final season of 1983-84, the first year that regular-season overtime was implemented, but didn&rsquo;t win a game in OT.) Roy did not have the benefit of the shootout at all during his career, while Belfour only had two seasons (in which he picked up three shootout wins) and Curtis Joseph had the last four seasons of his career (in which he earned seven shootout wins). Fleury, who has played under the shootout in 14 of his 15 seasons, has 13 skills contest victories to his credit.But you get the idea. Fleury is chasing greatness and further cements his legacy with every victory. Vegas GM George McPhee signed Fleury to his three-year extension, which is worth $7 million per season, precisely because he thought Fleury had a lot of quality hockey left in him. Prior was a big part of that decision, giving a ringing endorsement of Fleury when they acquired him and extended his contract. And it&rsquo;s clear Fleury has the unwavering confidence of his coaches and teammates. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s won three Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh, and hopefully he&rsquo;s going to win one in Vegas soon,&rdquo; Gallant said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been outstanding. He&rsquo;s a really good leader. The way Marc is, he comes into the dressing room every day, and he&rsquo;s smiling and having fun, so I don&rsquo;t think he really worries about (how many wins he has). Sometimes he doesn&rsquo;t get the credit other guys do, but I know in our dressing room, we think a lot of him. We know he&rsquo;s our best player.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">THERE&rsquo;S NO DOUBT HE&rsquo;LL BE IN THE HALL OF FAME. HE DOESN&rsquo;T GET AS MUCH RECOGNITION AS SOME OTHER GOALIES</blockquote>&ndash; Vegas defenseman Colin MillerSince the day he was taken in the expansion draft, Fleury has been the face of the franchise. Until both he and his team wore down in the Cup final, Fleury was on an incredible playoff run. When he has been healthy, he has been the backbone of a team that probably wasn&rsquo;t quite as good as it showed in its first season but is also better than its record has suggested in the first part of its second season. He remains one of the league&rsquo;s elite puckhandlers and no longer seems prone to drastic swings in the quality of his play. &ldquo;Well, he just signed a three-year contract worth how much?&rdquo; said Golden Knights right winger Alex Tuch. &ldquo;And he&rsquo;s worth every penny of it. He&rsquo;s unbelievable in the dressing room. I&rsquo;ve never seen a guy battle harder, not only in games but in practices. He hates getting scored on, and that&rsquo;s his mentality, and we all see that drive.&rdquo;And that&rsquo;s not something that should be discounted. The Golden Knights have done an outstanding job of creating a culture of accountability in their room. They refused to use their tag as an expansion team last season as an excuse to be bad and, despite the relative lack of success, don&rsquo;t seem intent on resting on their laurels in their second campaign. Largely because McPhee was able to bring in so many quality veteran players, it is truly a meritocracy in Vegas, and if you&rsquo;re not producing, you&rsquo;re not playing.So when players see their best player (in Gallant&rsquo;s words) putting in that kind of work, they&rsquo;re more apt to pick up the pace themselves. That then leads to more chances for wins and more opportunities for Fleury to move up the list. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no doubt he&rsquo;ll be in the Hall of Fame,&rdquo; said Golden Knights defenseman Colin Miller. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a huge, huge, huge part of this team. Maybe he doesn&rsquo;t get as much recognition as some of the other goalies in the league, but in this room, we know how good he is, and we know how important he is for our team.&rdquo;In many ways, Fleury&rsquo;s rejuvenation in Vegas, fuelled by a 29-win season and the playoff run, has sparked this climb. It wasn&rsquo;t that long ago Fleury was deemed to be a surplus body at the goaltending position in Pittsburgh, a decision the Penguins would likely revisit if they had the chance. But Fleury has worked with a sports psychologist to keep his perspective and, with Prior, to play in practice the way he does during the games, which means no cheating in order to make an impossible save. The result is a more streamlined, more reliable goaltender who, in reality, should still have several quality years remaining.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/fleury35/391655-1-eng-US/fleury32.jpg" title="fleury3" width="1241" height="727"><figcaption class="caption-body">IT&rsquo;S MORE ABOUT TEAM VICTORIESHard to believe that with all his key saves, wins and Stanley Cups over 15 NHL seasons, Fleury has never finished higher than fifth in Vezina Trophy voting. (ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Fleury has never finished higher than fifth in Vezina Trophy voting, and that happened last season. But Tim Thomas didn&rsquo;t win his first Vezina until he was 35. And if Fleury seeks any inspiration, he need look no further than last year&rsquo;s winner, Pekka Rinne of the Nashville Predators, who picked up his first Vezina at 35 as well.Where Fleury ends up on the all-time list depends a lot on whether or not he&rsquo;ll play beyond the three-year extension. That will take him past his 37th birthday, and it&rsquo;s certainly not an issue that Fleury is interested in exploring at the moment. &ldquo;I have a lot of wins before I get there, so I don&rsquo;t want to be thinking too far ahead,&rdquo; Fleury said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just trying to get some wins here once in a while. I know I&rsquo;m really fortunate to get this contract at this age. I want to play hopefully until I&rsquo;m not having fun anymore.&rdquo;And let&rsquo;s face it. That&rsquo;s not likely to happen anytime soon. &#9632;

fleury1

A KNIGHT’S PURSUIT

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="kinkaid1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/kinkaid12/391789-1-eng-US/kinkaid12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY FRANCOIS LAPLANTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>SO, AN UNDRAFTED kid gets waived through the highest junior circuit in the U.S., drops down a level to find his game, then helps put a relatively unknown college team on the national map, after which he works his way up through the minors to push an underdog NHL team into the playoffs when the starter gets hurt. It sounds like a fairy tale for a small-town kid with NHL dreams, but in reality the whole journey reads more like a manual for New Jersey Devils goaltender Keith Kinkaid. Equal parts quirky and down-to-earth, Kinkaid has quickly gone from &ldquo;that guy&rdquo; to an important part of a scrappy Devils team that upended expectations last season and has quickly built a rock-solid culture in Newark.Kinkaid, 29, grew up in Farmingville, N.Y., located on Long Island, where he became a New York Islanders fan as a kid. And from the time he began playing organized hockey, he knew he wanted to be a goalie. Kinkaid played in a couple junior leagues as a teenager, doing well until he reached the top rung in 2007-08, when he headed to the Midwest to play for the USHL&rsquo;s Des Moines Buccaneers. Unfortunately, the results weren&rsquo;t there. In fact, none of Des Moines&rsquo; goaltenders played well that season, and all three ended up with nearly identical unimpressive save percentages and goals-against averages. Yet it was Kinkaid who was let go after just 15 appearances.But sometimes the hockey gods show you a door after throwing you out a window. Instead of heading back east, Kinkaid was picked up by the North American League&rsquo;s St. Louis Bandits, the two-time defending NAHL champs, who were looking to make it three. Coach Jon Cooper had left after those two titles to helm USHL Green Bay, eventually landing with the Tampa Bay Lightning. His replacement was former NHL defenseman Jeff Brown, part of a generation of ex-Blues (including the likes of Al MacInnis and Keith Tkachuk) who helped build up the grassroots game in St. Louis. The new coach was more than happy to grab a 6-foot-3 goalie with USHL experience for his squad. &ldquo;He fell into our lap,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;He was waived through the United States League, which is kind of wild. But the NAHL has spit out some pretty good goalies.&rdquo;Indeed. Ben Bishop was also cut from the USHL during his formative years, only to find his game with the NAHL&rsquo;s Texas Tornado. Connor Hellebuyck cut his teeth with the Odessa Jackalopes after playing Michigan high-school hockey.In Kinkaid, Brown found a quiet, respectful kid who had a ton of potential to unlock. But for the old-school coach, patience was needed. &ldquo;The knock on him at the time was that he got rattled easily, so I would stay away from him at first,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;But one night against Topeka &ndash; our top competitor &ndash; he let in a soft one, and I said &lsquo;I can&rsquo;t take it anymore&rsquo; and let him have it. But you know what? He responded. The last month of the season and all through the playoffs, his numbers were sick. He had an unbelievable run.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">YOU NEVER WANT TO BE CONTENT WITH BEING A BACKUP. I WANTED TO PROVE TO PEOPLE THAT I CAN HANDLE THE WORKLOAD</blockquote>&ndash; Keith KinkaidPart of that run included a playoff series victory over those Roadrunners that saw Kinkaid atone for his past mistakes in a major way, giving up just four goals total in a 3-1 series victory. By the time the Bandits dispatched Wenatchee in the final, Kinkaid had a .951 SP and 1.15 GAA in the post-season. His regular season had been stellar, too, and the rookie was named league MVP and goalie of the year. &ldquo;I remember just how quick he was,&rdquo; Brown said. &ldquo;He was a big kid, and the only time he looked spectacular was when he had to be spectacular, if that makes sense. He had the athleticism, as everyone sees now.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/kinkaid42/391782-1-eng-US/kinkaid42.jpg" title="kinkaid4" width="1241" height="727"><figcaption class="caption-body">LONG AND WINDING ROADKinkaid&rsquo;s career path, much of which he planned out in advance, included stops in the USHL, NAHL, NCAA, AHL and, finally, breaking into the NHL by his mid-20s. (BRUCE BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>From there, Kinkaid headed back to New York state, where he enrolled in Union College. Though hockey has been played at Union since 1904, the Dutchmen didn&rsquo;t have a Div. I team until 1991, and Schenectady wasn&rsquo;t exactly a powerhouse right away. But Kinkaid saw his path. &ldquo;Mostly it was the opportunity to play as a freshman,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was also a great school and close to home. I was always doing well, going into juniors. The next step was college. I always wanted to do two years and then sign a professional contract. In college, you gain interest and you see a reality.&rdquo;Pretty standard, right? Go to a program with no Div. I conference titles and no NCAA tournament berths and decide before you get there that you&rsquo;re going to sign with an NHL team early after going undrafted. Wait, what?But self-confidence is a great thing for an athlete and, to Kinkaid&rsquo;s credit, he did exactly what he said he would. His run with the St. Louis Bandits came during his final year of draft eligibility, but no NHL team took a flyer on him. At Union, he could quickly build a resume and then &ndash; hopefully &ndash; pick the organization he wanted to turn pro with.As a freshman at Union, Kinkaid had decent numbers, but more importantly he got the majority of starts. The Dutchmen made it to the ECAC final before losing to Cornell, but even that run wasn&rsquo;t enough to earn a Frozen Four bid. The next season, however, Kinkaid was a force. As a sophomore, his 1.99 GAA and .920 SP earned him ECAC goalie-of-the-year honors, and the team clinched its first conference regular-season title &ndash; not to mention a slot in the Frozen Four&rsquo;s field of 16.Three years later, the Dutchmen won the national championship thanks to future NHLers Shayne Gostisbehere and Daniel Carr, though Kinkaid was long gone by then. He wanted to turn pro after two years, and that&rsquo;s exactly what he did &ndash; joining the New Jersey Devils organization at 22 in 2011. &ldquo;You can always go back to school,&rdquo; Kinkaid said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t always go back on these offers. The opportunity was there in the AHL. Marty Brodeur only had a couple years left, and you need a couple years as a goalie to develop.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s matter-of-fact to the point of stunning, but Kinkaid, again, was not wrong. Eventually, Brodeur left the Devils for a brief sojourn in St. Louis before retiring altogether. The No. 1 job belonged to Cory Schneider, acquired in a 2013 draft-day deal with Vancouver, and for the next few seasons, the Devils struggled, despite some incredible performances by Schneider. Kinkaid, meanwhile, was honing his game in the AHL and eventually, by 2014-15, became Schneider&rsquo;s full-time backup in New Jersey at 25.Considering Schneider comes from Massachusetts and Kinkaid from New York, the off-ice dynamic between the two sports fans is raucous, to say the least. &ldquo;If Boston sports has a good day, he&rsquo;ll let everyone know,&rdquo; Kinkaid said. &ldquo;But I can always remind him that Tom Brady has never beaten the Giants in the Super Bowl.&rdquo;Given that Kinkaid has lived his pro life mostly on a series of short-term, low-risk contracts, you would assume him to have a backup&rsquo;s mindset, but that&rsquo;s not the case. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been with Cory quite a few years now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We always push each other and help each other out. You never want to be content with being a backup. I wanted to prove to people that I can handle the workload.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/kinkaid32/391775-1-eng-US/kinkaid32.jpg" title="kinkaid3" width="1241" height="1256"><figcaption class="caption-body">STOPPER&rsquo;S SOAPBOXKinkaid, somewhat of an eccentric, enjoys writing impassioned mini-rants on Twitter to celebrate the Devils&rsquo; victories &ndash; composed almost entirely of emojis. (DAVID KIROUAC/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Kinkaid got that chance last season when Schneider was hobbled by a groin injury. As it was, the Devils weren&rsquo;t supposed to be much of a threat in the East, having coming off a 27th-placed finish in 2016-17. But a fast start from a team that played with pace and had the dynamic duo of Taylor Hall and first-overall pick Nico Hischier put the Devils in the mix. Kinkaid held the fort in net and won crucial games for New Jersey in early March, even after Schneider had returned from a conditioning stint with AHL Binghamton. The Devils got into the playoffs, squeezing out Florida for the final spot in the East.This season, Schneider&rsquo;s injury woes continued, and Kinkaid was thrust into the starter&rsquo;s role again. Though New Jersey is no longer catching opponents by surprise, the hockey world is learning more about Kinkaid, who has become known for his emoji-filled inspirational missives on Twitter after a Devils win. And like most goalies, he&rsquo;s got his own vibe going on. His go-to meal on game days right now is blackened chicken with pasta, and though many players are ritualistic with their food, Kinkaid doesn&rsquo;t stop at the pre-game meal: he also snacks between periods. &ldquo;I always get hungry during games,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I like soft pretzels right now. You get your carbs, you get your salt, and they taste a lot better than protein bars.&rdquo;And he&rsquo;s finding them in NHL arenas. Not bad for an undrafted kid from Long Island. Kinkaid is on the final year of a two-year pact with the Devils, and this summer he&rsquo;s eligible for unrestricted free agency. Will he turn the page on his New Jersey career or stay with the organization that gave him his crack at the big time? Whichever path he takes, it would be no surprise if Kinkaid already had the answer written down in his head.<h2>WHO&rsquo;S THAT GUY?</h2>You might mistake any of these guys for a cashier at your local supermarket. But these lesser-known netminders are playing vital roles in their teams&rsquo; creases this season<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/campbell_ja_0662/391761-1-eng-US/campbell_ja_0662.jpg" title="campbell_ja_066" width="197" height="239"></div><h3>1. JACK CAMPBELL</h3>26, LOS ANGELES KINGSThere was a time when Campbell was the hottest goalie prospect in the world &ndash; right around when he came into Team USA&rsquo;s crease at the 2010 world juniors to help knock off Canada for the gold medal. The Dallas Stars drafted him 11th overall that spring. Since then, it&rsquo;s been more of a battle, and Campbell even spent time in the ECHL. But with Jonathan Quick hurt, Campbell has done his part in net for the Kings.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rittich_dav_0672/391747-1-eng-US/rittich_dav_0672.jpg" title="rittich_dav_067" width="234" height="259"></div><h3>2. DAVID RITTICH</h3>26, CALGARY FLAMESMike Smith was supposed to be the answer in net for Calgary, but the veteran, now 36, has struggled mightily this season. Luckily, the Flames have Rittich at their disposal. A 2016 free-agent signing out of Mlada Boleslav of the Czech Republic, Rittich has filled the void with his strong play while Calgary waits for one of its prospects (Jon Gillies or Tyler Parsons) to seize the reins in AHL Stockton.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/korpisalo_j_0682/391733-1-eng-US/korpisalo_j_0682.jpg" title="korpisalo_j_068" width="232" height="245"></div><h3>3. JOONAS KORPISALO</h3>24, COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETSWith Sergei Bobrovsky scuffling (and most likely out of town by or before July 1), Korpisalo has seen more crease time than expected in Columbus. He even played the season opener. The son of a Finnish Liiga right winger, Korpisalo is a Calder Cup champion and has been the Blue Jackets&rsquo; backup for a couple years. His stats haven&rsquo;t been great this season, but the uncertainty surrounding Bobrovsky makes Korpisalo necessary.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/hutton_cart_0692/391719-1-eng-US/hutton_cart_0692.jpg" title="hutton_cart_069" width="237" height="261"></div><h3>4. CARTER HUTTON</h3>32, BUFFALO SABRESWhile the St. Louis Blues tried to help Jake Allen get his game back, Hutton was the one actually winning them contests last year. That led to a golden opportunity in Buffalo via free agency, where Hutton went from unknown to hot commodity. This year with the Sabres, Hutton is still adjusting, but the UMass-Lowell alumnus has plenty of time to grow with the rebuilding franchise.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/greiss_thom_0702/391705-1-eng-US/greiss_thom_0702.jpg" title="greiss_thom_070" width="244" height="260"></div><h3>5. THOMAS GREISS</h3>32, NEW YORK ISLANDERSAn afterthought in San Jose, Phoenix and Pittsburgh, Greiss has found a home with the Islanders in recent years, and his early play was part of the reason New York didn&rsquo;t immediately sink to the bottom this season as some folks had predicted. In fact, his .940 save percentage ranked among the league leaders. The German is a two-time Olympian and has also represented his country at pretty much every level conceivable. &#9632;

kinkaid1

KINKAID CALLS HIS SHOTS

THE WALL COMES DOWN

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="techniques__076" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/techniques__0762/391966-1-eng-US/techniques__0762.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">NO ICE IN THE SUMMERTalbot believes goalies must leave their creases behind several months a year to avoid physically wearing down. (JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THERE IS AN ORTHODOXY in modern goaltending, and while the techniques are the most efficient the game has ever seen, serious cracks are beginning to show in the dominant butterfly style. While Glenn Hall and Tony Esposito were two of the first notables to break from the rigid &ldquo;standup&rdquo; style of the old days, the butterfly was popularized by Patrick Roy and preached by coach Francois Allaire.The butterfly technique held many advantages over the standup styles of yesteryear, particularly the ability to take away the bottom of the net. But changes to the modern game have made the techniques involved in the butterfly (which includes variations such as &ldquo;profly&rdquo; and &ldquo;hybrid&rdquo;) a little more leaky than they used to be. Meanwhile, the long-term consequences of the style are beginning to come to the fore.Young goaltenders have been beset by chronic injuries that, in the past, had only been seen in older athletes, and the repetition used to practise the butterfly is an obvious factor.Vancouver Canucks goalie-in-waiting Thatcher Demko, for example, had hip surgery back in 2015 when still a teenager. The problem had gotten so bad that he had barely any internal rotation in his hips before he went under the knife. But there is still a reticence among the kids to cut down their reps. &ldquo;Goaltending does put a lot of stress on your hips, for sure,&rdquo; said Detroit Red Wings pick Keith Petruzzelli, who plays for NCAA Quinnipiac. &ldquo;I do a lot of hip mobility stuff to counteract that. It&rsquo;s just part of the game. I don&rsquo;t try to avoid it.&rdquo;Thomas Speer is the goaltending coach for USA Hockey&rsquo;s National Team Development Program and a former netminder himself. He says the goalie world is still experimenting with how to fix the injury problems associated with the butterfly, but instituting the equivalent of baseball&rsquo;s pitch count when it comes to practice is one avenue. &ldquo;When I was going to goalie school, it was up-down-up-down for five hours a day,&rdquo; Speer said. &ldquo;That 10,000-rep mentality has taken a toll.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">IN GOALIE SCHOOL, IT WAS UP-DOWN-UP-DOWN FIVE HOURS A DAY. THAT 10,000-REP MENTALITY HAS TAKEN A TOLL</blockquote>&ndash; Thomas Speer, goaltending coach, U.S. National Team Development ProgramThe idea of dropping to your knees and popping back up over and over again &ndash; in skates and heavy equipment, mind you &ndash; doesn&rsquo;t sound super healthy, and Speer believes reacting to a play instead of defaulting to the drop can help protect goalies from wear and tear but also in stopping pucks. Once you&rsquo;re down in the butterfly, a cross-ice pass can be deadly, and the only option at that point is to slide across. &ldquo;If there was ever a pass, they&rsquo;d slide,&rdquo; said Speer of his young pupils. &ldquo;But guys are passing the puck better now, especially with the NHL crackdown on slashing, so if you&rsquo;re going down all the time now, you&rsquo;re going to let in goals. I tell my guys, you slide if you&rsquo;re late on a pass. So much can happen before the shot now.&rdquo;Edmonton Oilers goalie Cam Talbot has another thought on the issue, and it&rsquo;s one that is not just applicable to netminders but is interesting nonetheless. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s more that kids are so sport-specific now,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When I was growing up, you put your equipment away in the summer and did something else. Now, it&rsquo;s 12 months a year. For me, I don&rsquo;t go back on the ice until mid-July or August.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/techniques__0752/391952-1-eng-US/techniques__0752.jpg" title="techniques__075" width="1572" height="1040"><figcaption class="caption-body">MONSIEUR BUTTERFLYAllaire, left, has coached the style with great success, but it works best with big goalies like Semyon Varlamov. (AARON ONTIVEROZ/THE DENVER POST VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Teaching the butterfly at the grassroots level is also quietly becoming controversial. For Montreal Canadiens director of goalie development Vincent Riendeau, the physical necessities that come with playing the butterfly at a high level are disqualifying kids from the position before they even get a chance to spread their wings, so to speak.&ldquo;You have goalies so big now, their five-hole is huge, so they have to play the butterfly,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The two biggest guys on your team these days are often the goalies. Unfortunately, this takes away a lot of smaller goalies. I loved basketball when I was a kid, but I couldn&rsquo;t do what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did. Style should be later on. You can&rsquo;t teach a 5-foot-10 kid to play like he&rsquo;s 6-foot-5.&rdquo;One of the most famous female goaltenders of all-time has a similar sentiment. &ldquo;It sounds silly, but the butterfly is getting overused in my opinion,&rdquo; said Manon Rheaume. &ldquo;You have these kids who are barely five feet tall, sliding and playing on their knees. A 6-foot-4 NHL goalie on his knees covers a lot of net. A 4-foot-8 goalie covers nothing.&rdquo;Rheaume coaches the Detroit Little Caesars AAA under-12 girls team, but she also gets insight when she goes on the road to watch her son play: Dylan St-Cyr is the backup goaltender for the NCAA&rsquo;s Notre Dame Fighting Irish and, at just 5-foot-9, he&rsquo;s a great case study.Since her son doesn&rsquo;t have the height of NHL prospects such as Cayden Primeau or Joseph Woll, Rheaume has encouraged St-Cyr to stay on his feet longer and learn to read the play before committing to a movement. Similarly, Speer sees top 2019 goalie prospect Spencer Knight (who does have the requisite size at 6-foot-3) staying on his feet if the NTDP star reads a shot as coming in high.One final pet peeve from the coaching ranks? The reverse V-H &ndash; which sees a goalie put one pad flat on the ice, a skate on the post, while the other knee is raised &ndash; was made famous by Jonathan Quick when he was helping the Los Angeles Kings win two Stanley Cups. But Quick is a freakishly elite athlete, and the usefulness of the move against wraparounds or jam plays isn&rsquo;t so useful in today&rsquo;s game, according to Riendeau. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s way overused, but everyone does it these days,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The puck&rsquo;s in the corner, they pass it out front and you&rsquo;re stuck deep in the net. Look at some of the goals Sidney Crosby has scored this year.&rdquo;So what comes next? That&rsquo;s the intriguing aspect of the game and why everyone from the coaches to the goalies themselves are always tweaking their ideals. Shooters keep getting better &ndash; and the netminding world has to respond. &#9632;

techniques__076

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

<div class="byline">BY DAVID POLLAK</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_jones1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_jones12/392009-1-eng-US/nhl_jones12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>MARTIN JONES REMEMBERS the first time he was blocking shots in front of a big crowd inside an NHL arena. He was 13. The Vancouver Canucks were holding their annual skills competition at what was then GM Place. It was a charity fundraiser, and his peewee team had been selected to go through the same drills as the pros.Young Martin felt at home in the building. His father, Harvey, was an executive in the Canucks&rsquo; front office and was the administrator in charge of the 18,910-seat rink. There were a handful of times when young Martin got to hang around the dressing room when the players were there, giving him a taste of what was to come. Still, Jones played down the idea that his family connection gave him a leg up in his pursuit of an NHL career. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know about that, but just being around it did help grow my passion for the game,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty exciting as a young kid, getting to see NHL players, getting to NHL games.&rdquo;At 28, Jones is now in his fourth season as the San Jose Sharks&rsquo; starting goalie, fulfilling the promise he showed in youth hockey when his peewee team not only skated with the Canucks but also won the 2003 Quebec International Peewee Hockey Tournament, considered the pinnacle of youth hockey competition. And Jones wasn&rsquo;t the only current Sharks member on that team, the North Shore Winter Club. Although 18 months younger than the goalie, left winger Evander Kane was Jones&rsquo; teammate at both events. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s always really focused on his performance,&rdquo; said Kane of Jones, with whom he was reunited in San Jose after being acquired from the Buffalo Sabres last February. &ldquo;Really, I look at him now and play with him now, and not much has changed.&rdquo;Somehow, though, the two have different recollections of what happened when Kane faced Jones in a shootout drill during that skills competition 15 years ago. &ldquo;I remember scoring in front of all the fans at GM Place,&rdquo; Kane said. &ldquo;I was pretty surprised, but happy because he usually stopped me.&rdquo;That, Jones said, isn&rsquo;t how he remembers it, adding, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have to check the tape.&rdquo;Jones&rsquo; path to an NHL starting job has been a circuitous one. Disappointed at not being drafted at 18 in 2008, he got a tryout with the Los Angeles Kings that September and signed an entry-level deal in October before rejoining the WHL&rsquo;s Calgary Hitmen. After he concluded his junior career in 2010, Jones spent three seasons with the AHL&rsquo;s Manchester Monarchs. In 2013-14, he was elevated to the backup role in L.A. behind Jonathan Quick for two seasons. During the Kings&rsquo; run to the 2014 Stanley Cup, Jones made two relief appearances and stopped the seven shots he faced.<blockquote class="pullQuote">WE DID RESEARCH INTO WHAT TYPE OF GOALIES WERE HAVING SUCCESS &ndash; BODY TYPE AND STYLE</blockquote>&ndash; Doug WilsonLess than a week before he was about to become an RFA, the Kings traded Jones to the Boston Bruins June 26, 2015 in the deal that sent Milan Lucic to Los Angeles. Four days later, the Bruins traded Jones to the Sharks for a first-round draft pick and prospect Sean Kuraly. Sharks GM Doug Wilson said the team envisioned the 6-foot-4, 190-pound Jones as its future No. 1 goalie for reasons that went beyond the 34 NHL games he had played to that point. &ldquo;We had seen him a lot in Manchester,&rdquo; said Wilson, alluding to the fact the Kings&rsquo; farm team in New Hampshire was a geographic rival to the Sharks&rsquo; farm team that was then based in Worcester, Mass. &ldquo;We did a lot of research into what type of goalies were having success in the league &ndash; body type and style. To get a guy at that point who was just beginning his prime as a goalie, we felt was a great fit.&rdquo;The Sharks signed the 25-year-old Jones to a three-year, $9-million contract one day after acquiring him. On July 1, 2017 &ndash; a little more than a year after Jones backstopped San Jose to its first appearance in the Cup final &ndash; they locked him up with a six-year, $34.5-million extension.Sharks coach Peter DeBoer says Jones&rsquo; consistency is what gives the team confidence in him. DeBoer also described him as &ldquo;unflappable,&rdquo; noting that Jones has taken recent changes in goalie equipment in stride as one example. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think that stuff affects &lsquo;Jonesy,&rsquo;&rdquo; DeBoer said. &ldquo;Whether you let him wear Michelin pads or nothing, he&rsquo;s going to go out and do what he does.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_jones22/391995-1-eng-US/nhl_jones22.jpg" title="nhl_jones2" width="1084" height="1456"><figcaption class="caption-body">POACHING ALLOWEDThe Sharks targeted Jones when he was playing for the Kings&rsquo; affiliate in the AHL but got him from Boston. (RICHARD A. WHITTAKER/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Jones developed the technical side of his game early, building on a foundation that he established while attending a goaltending school run by Ian Clark, then the Canucks&rsquo; goalie coach. Nowadays, Jones is concentrating more on improving his ability to react quickly to odd bounces and broken plays. &ldquo;When you get to the next level,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s more about adding a second layer, where you&rsquo;re making saves outside the box and being more reactive.&rdquo;Jones has averaged 63 games per season with the Sharks and, he said, that accumulated experience makes it easier to rebound mentally after a bad outing. Has he discovered a trick to that? &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have any tricks,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You just move on.&rdquo;Statistically, there has been a slight drop-off in performance over Jones&rsquo; first three seasons with San Jose. But Sharks captain Joe Pavelski said the goalie&rsquo;s contributions show up in ways that aren&rsquo;t reflected in his save percentage or goals-against average. &ldquo;I wouldn&rsquo;t say his numbers have jumped off the chart,&rdquo; Pavelski said, &ldquo;but there were just times where we would have a team down to 20-25 shots, but a couple of them would be breakaways at crucial times, or there&rsquo;d be a 2-on-1, and he comes across and makes a big save. It really keeps your team going.&rdquo;Sharks defenseman Brenden Dillon is pretty much Jones&rsquo; year-round friend and neighbor. In the summer, Dillon lives about 30 minutes from Jones&rsquo; North Vancouver home with a view of the downtown skyline. During the season, the two live a few doors apart from each other in a San Jose residential-entertainment complex popular with several Sharks over the years.Away from the rink, Dillon said Jones is the same calm figure he is in the crease. &ldquo;And if you think he&rsquo;s a good goalie, he&rsquo;s just as good of a golfer,&rdquo; said Dillon, adding that Jones could eventually challenge Pavelski &ndash; a regular at Lake Tahoe&rsquo;s celebrity golf tournament each summer &ndash; as the team&rsquo;s top linksman.On the ice, Jones still hopes to take the sting of losing the 2016 Stanley Cup final to Pittsburgh and transform it into a positive experience that leads to a different outcome next time. &ldquo;Obviously it&rsquo;s tough when you lose,&rdquo; Jones said, &ldquo;but as time passes you kind of realize the accomplishment and things you can learn from it.&rdquo;For up-to-the-minute coverage, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a> &#9632;

nhl_jones1

KEEPING UP WITH JONES

<div class="byline">BY JASON BUCKLAND</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_raanta2_078" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_raanta2_0782/392059-1-eng-US/nhl_raanta2_0782.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">DESERT OASISRaanta&rsquo;s play since his arrival in Arizona last season offers promise for a Coyotes team that has endured a long dry spell. (GERRY THOMAS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>RICK TOCCHET HAS a story about his goaltender.It was Feb. 15, 2018, and the Arizona Coyotes were well on their way to missing the playoffs for yet another season, another year in the desert many would forget. But on this night&hellip;a spark. Tocchet, the hardnosed 18-year NHL veteran who had returned behind the bench as a head coach for the first time since 2010, was under some duress. Arizona had opened a 3-0 lead over Montreal at home, but in the third period his team was coming undone.Less than eight minutes into the frame, the Habs made it 3-2. It looked like another win was slipping away. According to the site <a href="http://morehockeystats.com">morehockeystats.com</a>, the Coyotes lost a league-worst 27 games last year that they had been leading.Tocchet called a timeout. The team skated over to the bench. Suddenly there it was: THWACK! Antti Raanta slashed his stick against the boards. He was frustrated. The mild-mannered goalie from Finland could take it no longer. &ldquo;Hey!&rdquo; he barked. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve gotta start competing. It&rsquo;s not good enough!&rdquo;OK. Perhaps Raanta, soft and often elegant in his English, may not have precisely recalled the Ultimate Warrior on the ice that night, veins popping and spittle flying. But nonetheless, his coach will tell you, this was a moment when the whole team perked up and took notice.&ldquo;Very rarely would he do that, but he went out of character for him,&rdquo; Tocchet said. &ldquo;It really woke up our team.&rdquo;The anecdote has a happy ending, of course: the Coyotes rallied after their goalie&rsquo;s outburst, scored two more goals in the third, and finished off Montreal 5-2. It&rsquo;s a perfect, tidy narrative to share, though you would be wise not to dismiss tales of Raanta&rsquo;s growing prowess.He is 29. He was a career backup, but he is no longer. For more than a season, he has become the man in Arizona, where he has oh-so-quietly become one of the NHL&rsquo;s top netminders. &ldquo;Arguably,&rdquo; Tocchet said, &ldquo;he&rsquo;s been the best goalie in the league for a calendar year now.&rdquo;Not bad for somebody who, not long ago, saw no future for himself in hockey at the highest level. &ldquo;I never thought about playing in the NHL when I was 18, 19, 20,&rdquo; Raanta said. And here he remarks what many might say about his own star turn: &ldquo;It pretty much came out of nowhere.&rdquo;In the beginning, the goalie was a defenseman. Until he was 12, Raanta never formally played the position that would make his career. He was a blueliner who rarely roamed far from his own team&rsquo;s net, always staying back, rarely attacking. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t the fastest skater on the team,&rdquo; Raanta said.In that life, Raanta would have amounted to little in the sport, destined for other lines of work. A firefighter or cop, he always wanted to be. A salesman, he says now, he likely would have become. But it all changed when his youth coach asked for a volunteer to play net, and on Raanta&rsquo;s first day of practice between the pipes, he played 10 minutes of 5-on-5 without letting in a goal. &ldquo;Mom,&rdquo; he beamed to his mother, Teija. &ldquo;I got the shutout.&rdquo; It didn&rsquo;t matter to Raanta that he never actually faced any shots on net.A whirlwind through the sport followed, though it wasn&rsquo;t until he was 18 that Raanta found himself with a regular goalie coach for the first time. So many of his peers had already enjoyed dedicated counsel throughout their entire junior careers. But he proved a quick study. When he first turned pro, for his hometown Lukko of the Finnish Liiga, the NHL seemed so far away. Maybe &ndash; maybe &ndash; he could play in a Swedish league or elsewhere in Europe. But the NHL was not a consideration.And then a break. Later, in 2013, when Raanta was part of a long winning streak in the Liiga, NHL scouts showed up for one of his games. Play well, his agent advised. &ldquo;Oh, my God,&rdquo; Raanta said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;ve ever been that nervous about a hockey game.&rdquo;He arrived in the NHL as a backup in 2013-14 with the contending Chicago Blackhawks, and found himself learning much on the fly: how to eat; how to train, heck, how to write a deposit cheque to secure his first apartment in the United States. He also had to learn the hard way about context, specifically some in the media&rsquo;s refusal to provide it. When Raanta gave an interview to a local Finnish paper in the summer of 2015, he was painted as being unhappy with his place on the Blackhawks&rsquo; depth chart, quoted as suggesting he preferred Chicago had lost in the playoffs so he could have left the team early. That isn&rsquo;t what he really meant. He was saying instead that he wished he had also been able to play for the Hawks&rsquo; AHL team, the Rockford IceHogs, to have kept himself sharp in case he was needed for a Cup run should incumbents Corey Crawford or Scott Darling have gone down.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_raanta1_0772/392045-1-eng-US/nhl_raanta1_0772.jpg" title="nhl_raanta1_077" width="804" height="1063"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JONATHAN KOZUB/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Yet the damage was done, and in some circles Raanta was labelled a turncoat. &ldquo;It was a super weird and confusing time,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Why would I ever want to say something bad about (the Blackhawks)? They made my dream of the NHL come true.&rdquo;Raanta was traded to the Rangers prior to 2015-16, and soon enough his reputation changed for the better. As he had behind Crawford in Chicago, he shined in limited runs behind Henrik Lundqvist in New York. After two seasons, he began to have ambitious thoughts. &ldquo;I started to get the feeling that I could actually be the No. 1 guy,&rdquo; Raanta said. &ldquo;I can actually do this.&rdquo;Which led him to Arizona, where he was moved in 2017 &ndash; a starter, finally, for the first time in his NHL career. Already, he has made a believer of Tocchet. The coach relishes his goalie of the present and future, who between Jan. 1 and the end of last season led the NHL in goals-against average (1.84) and save percentage (.942). &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a real leader on this team, he could definitely wear a letter on his sweater,&rdquo; Tocchet said. &ldquo;With his work ethic, his desire to be that guy, who knows? The sky&rsquo;s the limit.&rdquo; &#9632;

nhl_raanta2_078

THE COYOTES’ UNDERDOG

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/western_rev5/392193-1-eng-US/western_rev2.jpg" title="western_rev" width="188" height="188"></div>&gt;ANAHEIM DUCKSWith John Gibson just 25 and looking solid for another decade, does it matter? LUKAS DOSTAL was the sixth goalie drafted in 2018 (85th overall) and will spend a few seasons working his way up the ladder in the Czech Republic. Not big, but he&rsquo;s very quick and athletic.&gt;ARIZONA COYOTESWith seven goalies in the system, the Coyotes are taking a dart board approach to their crease future. None of the seven are true bluechippers, but ADIN HILL and HUNTER MISKA have shown potential with Tucson. Hill is a towering 6-foot-6 shot-blocker, while Miska is more acrobatic.&gt;CALGARY FLAMESTYLER PARSONS has had a rough start to his pro career, with pedestrian numbers in the ECHL last season and spotty play early this year in the AHL. But the WJC star for Team USA has impressive credentials, including being the No. 34-ranked NHL prospect in Future Watch 2017.&gt;CHICAGO BLACKHAWKSALEXIS GRAVEL will backstop host Halifax at this year&rsquo;s Memorial Cup and won&rsquo;t be intimidated by the spotlight. He grew up around the game. His father, also a goalie, was a 1987 Montreal Canadiens pick who played pro in Europe. Born in Germany, Gravel lived in Italy until he was six.&gt;COLORADO AVALANCHEJUSTUS ANNUNEN is 6-foot-4 and 216 pounds at 18, and his goalie coach, Ari Hilli, had great success with another big Finn: Pekka Rinne. With Semyon Varlamov in the last year of his deal and Philipp Grubauer on a three-year pact, Annunen might be the Avs&rsquo; long-term answer.&gt;DALLAS STARSTall, rangy JAKE OETTINGER has an elite pedigree as the only goalie picked in the first round of the past three drafts. Stopping pucks for Boston U. and Team USA at last year&rsquo;s WJC, he&rsquo;s following a similar path to Vancouver prospect Thatcher Demko, a Boston College alumnus.&gt;EDMONTON OILERSThe Oilers have drafted six goalies since 2014, hoping one pushes Cam Talbot in the coming seasons. OLIVIER RODRIGUE, the second goalie drafted in 2018 (62nd overall), is the best of the bunch, but he&rsquo;s years away. He had a tough start to the QMJHL season in Drummondville.&gt;LOS ANGELES KINGSCAL PETERSEN was drafted by Buffalo in 2013 but turned pro after his junior year at Notre Dame and was signed as a free agent by the Kings in 2017. As a 23-year-old rookie pro last season, Petersen had better stats than Jack Campbell, but the latter won the backup job in L.A.&gt;MINNESOTA WILDAfter slow-cooking as a high-workload starter in Finland&rsquo;s Liiga, KAAPO KAHKONEN is in the AHL hoping to become Devan Dubnyk&rsquo;s successor. Kahkonen is best known for scoring two goals in two weeks in 2015 &ndash; one for his club team, another for Finland&rsquo;s under-20s squad.&gt;NASHVILLE PREDATORSAthletic TOMAS VOMACKA was young when he left the Czech Republic to develop in North America. First came Corpus Christi in the NAHL, then Lincoln in the USHL, then the University of Connecticut. The Preds aren&rsquo;t flush with goalie prospects, so he&rsquo;ll climb the depth chart quickly.&gt;SAN JOSE SHARKSEvgeni Nabokov still makes saves for the Sharks. San Jose&rsquo;s special-assignment scout watched undrafted JOSEF KORENAR with USHL Lincoln in 2016-17. The 19-year-old was unable to attend school, but Nabokov insisted the team sign him. Korenar is off to a great start in the AHL.&gt;ST. LOUIS BLUESHow long until VILLE HUSSO gets his NHL shot? Jake Allen hasn&rsquo;t found his consistency, while Husso has posted a save percentage of .920 or better two straight seasons in the AHL. He&rsquo;s a technically sound, cool-headed stopper who has long been projected as a NHL starter.&gt;VANCOUVER CANUCKSTHATCHER DEMKO has been the future in the Vancouver crease for five seasons now. He apprenticed with Boston College in the first two years and has been with AHL Utica ever since. He&rsquo;s sure to replace Canucks backup and pending UFA Anders Nilsson next season, if not sooner.&gt;VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTSThe Golden Knights have former high picks Zach Fucale and Oscar Dansk in the system, but MAKSIM ZHUKOV is the best bet to make the NHL. He&rsquo;s played well internationally for Russia and is in his third season in North America, as a 19-year-old mainstay for OHL Barrie.&gt;WINNIPEG JETSERIC COMRIE and Laurent Brossoit battled in camp to back up Connor Hellebuyck. Comrie &ldquo;lost,&rdquo; largely because he was waiver-exempt whereas Brossoit had a one-way deal, but Comrie is better off as No. 1 for AHL Manitoba. He&rsquo;ll need a trade for a real shot at NHL starter. &#9632;

western_rev

WESTERN CONFERENCE

<div class="byline">BY AARON PORTZLINE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_bobrovs_079" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_bobrovs_0792/392236-1-eng-US/nhl_bobrovs_0792.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">TALK TO THE BLOCKERBobrovsky is adamant about not needing or wanting to sort out a string of playoff struggles with a sports psychologist. (GERRY THOMAS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>SO YOU WANT TO be an NHL general manager? Consider the plight of Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen, who has been steadily building a deep and dangerous roster in Columbus, only to find out this summer that the team&rsquo;s two best players &ndash; winger Artemi Panarin and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky &ndash; are probably gone after this season, if not sooner.Panarin has drawn the most headlines because he&rsquo;s been the most public, but it&rsquo;s easier &ndash; not easy, but easier &ndash; to replace a top-end left winger than it is to replace a franchise goalie, one who has two Vezina Trophies in his collection. And the situation with Panarin, while bleak, hasn&rsquo;t gotten nearly as personal or awkward as it has with Bobrovsky.First, some background. Bobrovsky, perhaps more than any other player, has played a major role in the Blue Jackets&rsquo; fairly recent rise to respectability. He was traded to Columbus in 2012 by Philadelphia &ndash; oh, the Flyers and their goaltending &ndash; and immediately won his first Vezina Trophy. Since then, other than frustrating bouts with groin injuries in 2013-14 and &rsquo;14-15, Bobrovsky has been the Blue Jackets&rsquo; rock, their best player most nights and the biggest reason they&rsquo;ve had three playoff berths in the past five seasons.<blockquote class="pullQuote">HOW MANY TEAMS WOULD BE WILLING TO CARVE OUT ALMOST $11 MILLION FOR A GOALIE WITH NO TRACK RECORD OF PLAYOFF SUCCESS?</blockquote>But about those playoffs. Bobrovsky has suffered unimaginable struggles in the post-season where he looks like a completely different goaltender than the regular-season version. Bobrovsky is 5-12 with a 3.38 goals-against average and .898 save percentage in the playoffs with Columbus, as the Blue Jackets have bowed out in the first round twice to Pittsburgh and last season to eventual Stanley Cup-champion Washington.Those numbers cannot be ignored, and the Blue Jackets have stopped even trying. After the 2016-17 playoff exit to Pittsburgh in five games, Bobrovsky bristled at even the faint suggestion by the Blue Jackets &ndash; or questions from reporters &ndash; that he seek help to clear this hurdle, perhaps with a sports psychologist.After the 2017-18 exit to the Capitals in six games, coach John Tortorella, while not pinning all of the blame on Bobrovsky, made it clear that his goaltender needs to be better in big games. All of this, apparently, has roiled Bobrovsky, and when the Blue Jackets&rsquo; initial contract extension offer this summer came in lower than desired, he felt fully snubbed. His agent, Paul Theofanous, has not spoken publicly regarding Bobrovsky&rsquo;s situation, but reports suggest that Bobrovsky is looking for &ldquo;Carey Price-like&rdquo; numbers with his next deal. Price is in the first season of an eight-year, $84-million contract with Montreal.Bobrovsky showed up for training camp on time, but nobody who has spent any significant time around him could recall him being as grumpy and defiant as he was when he spoke with the media one day before camp. He said the Blue Jackets knew what he was planning to do since the end of 2017-18, that he was done talking contract once camp got underway. &ldquo;They know exactly what we&rsquo;re going to do,&rdquo; Bobrovsky said, although Kekalainen has denied that anything has been settled.The Blue Jackets do not appear willing to stroke Bobrovsky&rsquo;s ego by making him the highest-paid goaltender in the NHL. If there were playoff runs on his resume, maybe they&rsquo;d slide a blank check across the table for him to sign, but they appear ready to let him walk at Price&rsquo;s price.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_bobrovs_0802/392222-1-eng-US/nhl_bobrovs_0802.jpg" title="nhl_bobrovs_080" width="802" height="1186"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MARK BLINCH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Also, the Blue Jackets believe they have significantly more leverage in their talks with Bobrovsky than Panarin. How many NHL teams need a No. 1 goaltender? How many of those teams would be willing to carve out almost $11 million &ndash; roughly one-seventh of the salary cap &ndash; for a goalie with no track record of playoff success?Perhaps only a handful of NHL teams fit those criteria, but the free-agent market could be flooded with goaltenders on July 1. The Blue Jackets think Columbus at, say, $9 million per season, might look better to Bobrovsky next July.But the Blue Jackets aren&rsquo;t of a mind to beg him to stay, either. Tortorella has already made it clear that the club must start taking a longer look at backup Joonas Korpisalo, who started on opening night in Detroit and, in one stretch, made three consecutive starts for the Jackets. Bobrovsky hadn&rsquo;t sat out for three straight starts while healthy since he arrived in 2012-13.Columbus could turn the crease over to Korpisalo next year, but there&rsquo;s another wild card waiting in the wings. Elvis Merzlikins, 24, has been a star in Switzerland in recent seasons and has looked strong for his native Latvia in international competition. Three years ago, when it came time to sign an extension with Lugano, he asked for a three-year deal with his eyes on 2019-20. He knew when Bobrovsky&rsquo;s deal expired.If Bob leaves the building, so to speak, maybe Elvis will enter. &#9632;

nhl_bobrovs_079

THE BOBROVSKY BOONDOGGLE

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="hasek1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/hasek12/392427-1-eng-US/hasek12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>TWENTY YEARS AFTER ONE of the most memorable performances in Olympic hockey history, Dominik Hasek spends his days in his homeland doing a lot of hunting and golfing. He has also developed a beverage called Smarty Premium Drink, which, when you think about the way Hasek approached the game, probably should be the Czech Republic&rsquo;s version of Red Bull. Instead, Smarty Premium Drink is a relaxing herbal beverage culled from spring water in Moravia. &ldquo;It is for everyone who loves nature,&rdquo; insists Hasek on a promotional video in which he&rsquo;s wearing a black fedora. &ldquo;Not just for hunters, fishermen and beekeepers.&rdquo;Well, OK. Not surprisingly, Hasek manages to keep busy, not quite as busy as he was in the goal crease during his remarkable NHL and international career, but he still speaks in that hyper-staccato manner that seemed almost as haphazard and unpredictable as the way he played. Reflecting upon the 1998 Nagano Olympics, where he delivered a performance every bit as memorable for an underdog team as Jack McCartan did for Team USA in 1960 and Jim Craig duplicated for the Americans 20 years later, Hasek sometimes still can&rsquo;t believe what he and his teammates were able to accomplish in the first best-on-best Olympics. &ldquo;It was something I always dreamed of winning, my whole career I dreamed about it,&rdquo; said Hasek in a telephone interview from Prague. &ldquo;And my vision came true. It was more than a dream for me. So many great players never got to do this. I dreamed about doing it, and when it happened, it was more than a dream.&rdquo;Perhaps it&rsquo;s only fitting that Hasek, who broke the mold with a reckless abandon never seen before or since, holds one hockey distinction that nobody else in the history of the game shares, or perhaps will ever share. The only player who has ever been the top goalie in the Olympics, the World Championship, the World Junior Championship and the NHL &ndash; as his six Vezina Trophies attest &ndash; is Hasek. (Only Carey Price, who&rsquo;s yet to be named top goalie in a World Championship, comes close.) They were all remarkable feats for a goaltender who had to be convinced by Mike Keenan to keep slugging away in North America. By the time the Czechs came to Nagano in 1998, Hasek was at the apex of his game. He had already won three Vezinas, he was the defending Hart Trophy winner and at 33 was in the midst of a season that would see him named league MVP again.But the Czechs? Seriously? Going into that tournament, all the focus was on Canada and the U.S., for which a gold-medal showdown seemed almost a foregone conclusion. The Canadians, eager to avenge their loss to the U.S. in the 1996 World Cup of Hockey, had a murderer&rsquo;s row lineup consisting of 13 future Hall of Famers. The Americans had five Hall of Famers on the roster, including some of the most talented players in the world.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/hasek52/392420-1-eng-US/hasek52.jpg" title="hasek5" width="1241" height="894"><figcaption class="caption-body">THE DOMINATORHasek and the Czechs lost 2-1 to Pavel Bure and the Russians in the round robin, but they captured the 1998 Olympic gold in a rematch. (B BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>The Czechs, though, who had won the World Championship in 1996 and finished third in 1997, were a relatively young and unknown bunch, but they had the best goalie in the world with them and were not carrying the burden of expectation the way Canada and the U.S. were. &ldquo;I think that the way they treated our team and the way they looked at us, it was definitely an advantage,&rdquo; Hasek said. &ldquo;There was only two big stars on this team, Jaromir Jagr and me. The rest of the players, the world didn&rsquo;t know them much yet. They knew, but they didn&rsquo;t know these guys could be such great players.&rdquo;And having Ivan Hlinka behind the bench was a huge factor for the Czechs. In Hlinka, they had a coach who had been one of the greatest players in the country&rsquo;s history, with tons of experience in international tournaments. He was a coach who garnered respect from his players because they knew he had seen everything and was accomplished. His defensive system limited opportunities and gave the Czechs the chance to compete in every game.So by the time they arrived in Nagano, free to fly under the radar, the Czechs and Hasek were feeling good about their chances to sneak in and perhaps grab a medal. Their first test came against the Finns, a team that was equally unheralded. It was an easy game for Hasek. He faced only 17 shots and registered a shutout. But more than anything, that game set the template for the Czechs, and the snowball started rolling. Their confidence swelled with their performance and Hasek was able to sense during and after that game that there might be something special about this group of players. &ldquo;I was a little nervous because I didn&rsquo;t know what to expect from our team,&rdquo; Hasek said. &ldquo;Some of the guys I met for the first time there. But I started to think at this time that maybe this team can do something big. I could feel it on the ice, the way we played. I could just feel it.&rdquo;After a predictable 8-2 blowout of Kazakhstan, the Czechs faced the Russians in the last game of group play with first place on the line. The difference between winning and losing was enormous. The winner would face Belarus in the quarterfinal, while the loser would have a much more difficult path to the gold medal. Leading 1-0 going into the third period, the Czechs gave up two goals in 10 seconds and lost 2-1. Because of that win, the Russians drew Belarus in the quarterfinal and Finland in the semifinal, while the Czechs drew the powerful Americans in the quarterfinal. As it turned out, the U.S. team hugely underachieved to that point, going just 1-2-0 in group play, but now that the games were of the win-or-go-home variety and everyone was starting again with a blank slate, it was expected the Americans would start playing their &lsquo;A&rsquo; game.The quarterfinal game against the U.S. was, from Hasek&rsquo;s standpoint, an incredible and intriguing study in contrasts. &ldquo;The first period was, I think, our worst period in the whole tournament,&rdquo; Hasek said. &ldquo;We played terrible hockey. We came to the locker room and we were down only 1-0 and we felt terrible. Our captain, Vladimir Ruzicka, told us, &lsquo;We cannot worry about their team. We have to skate, we have to pass and we cannot be afraid.&rsquo; He said, &lsquo;We are good hockey players. We can be as good as they are.&rsquo; We came on the ice in the second period and it was Jaromir Jagr&rsquo;s game. I think that after we scored our first goal in that game, we were the best team in the Olympics.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/hasek22/392413-1-eng-US/hasek22.jpg" title="hasek2" width="2285" height="1623"><figcaption class="caption-body">(WALLY MCNAMEE/CORBIS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>With the chance to play for a medal, the Czechs sent the Americans home, but not before the guys from the U.S. took their frustrations out on the furniture in their rooms in the athletes&rsquo; village. After the 4-1 win, the Czechs moved on to a date with Canada in a game that looked to be almost as much as a mismatch as when the powerful Soviets faced the U.S. in 1980. Hasek was coming off a brilliant game against the Americans in which he stopped 38 of 39 shots and was riding a .955 save percentage entering the semifinal. The Canadian team played a slow, tentative game that fell right into the Czechs&rsquo; hands. Whereas the game against the U.S. was a wide-open affair, the game against Canada was more like a chess match. Trevor Linden finally beat Hasek to tie the score 1-1 with 1:03 remaining in regulation, which set up the most dramatic shootout in international hockey history.Quite simply, Hasek crushed the spirits of both the Canadian team and the entire country of Canada with his performance in the shootout. Canada&rsquo;s shooters seemed confused and tentative, not sure what approach to take and completely in the dark about how Hasek would react. Hasek&rsquo;s unorthodox approach, coupled with the success he was having in the NHL, was in the heads of the Canadian shooters as they approached. And other than the fourth shot when Eric Lindros hit the post, Canada didn&rsquo;t come close to solving Hasek.<blockquote class="pullQuote">I DREAMED ABOUT DOING IT, AND WHEN IT HAPPENED, IT WAS MORE THAN A DREAM</blockquote>&ndash; Dominik HasekWith members of the Czech team standing arm-in-arm on their bench, Theoren Fleury was the first shooter for Canada and the first in the shootout. Hasek came out to meet Fleury, giving no ground and staring him down. &ldquo;I got it with the right shoulder.&rdquo; Then Robert Reichel scored on Patrick Roy, which gave Hasek all the cushion he needed. Realizing that he could still make a mistake and his team would be tied in the shootout emboldened Hasek to be aggressive against the Canadian shooters.Next was Ray Bourque, a curious choice who missed the net completely. Then came Joe Nieuwendyk, a left shot who tried a backhand deke that didn&rsquo;t even come close to fooling Hasek, who followed it all the way. With Canadian captain Eric Lindros coming in with speed, he also went to his backhand on the other side of the cage and hit the post past a sprawling Hasek. It has long been debated whether Hasek got a piece of Lindros&rsquo; backhand on the play. &ldquo;Maybe yes, maybe no,&rdquo; Hasek said. &ldquo;Who knows?&rdquo;By the time Brendan Shanahan was getting ready to shoot, a Czech victory almost seemed a foregone conclusion. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t feel this way,&rdquo; Hasek said. &ldquo;At the time I didn&rsquo;t think about it. I was just hoping I could stop the puck. People ask me about this, and I tell them you can&rsquo;t think about these things. All I could think about was stopping the puck.&rdquo;Nobody would have thought that the Russians and the Czechs, whose hockey programs had fallen on lean times, would be the two teams to meet in the final. The Russians seemed to fall into the same trap as Team Canada, not forcing the issue in the final game, a strategy that gave the Czechs a huge advantage by allowing them to play in their comfort zone. With Hasek guarding the net, the Czechs were more than content to play a patient game and attempt to capitalize on one of their limited opportunities. Even Hasek was a little perplexed at the way the Russians played. They took only 20 shots.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/hasek62/392406-1-eng-US/hasek62.jpg" title="hasek6" width="802" height="831"><figcaption class="caption-body">DREAM SEQUENCEHasek allowed just six goals in six games (including just one versus Canada in the semi) against the world&rsquo;s best players in Nagano. (JOHN TLUMACKI/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>But as the Czechs had stressed from the beginning, they weren&rsquo;t going to worry about how other teams played, and at that point, they had their own problems&nbsp;to worry about. &ldquo;Actually in the second, we had three or four really good chances, we hit a post, we missed an open net, and we didn&rsquo;t score,&rdquo; Hasek said. &ldquo;I started to get a feeling like, &lsquo;Something is wrong here.&rsquo;&rdquo; I was feeling like, &lsquo;What&rsquo;s going on here?&rsquo; and I started to be a little bit afraid. But right in the middle, when nobody expected, we scored the goal.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">THERE WAS ONLY TWO STARS ON THIS TEAM, JAROMIR JAGR AND ME</blockquote>&ndash; Dominik HasekAnd even though there was still a lot of hockey left after Petr Svoboda&rsquo;s goal, the game was essentially over. The Russians didn&rsquo;t even really press and were smothered by the Czechs. Whenever there was a chance, Hasek was there to make an easy save. &ldquo;The way we played, we didn&rsquo;t give them anything,&rdquo; Hasek said of the 1-0 win. &ldquo;No one big chance. Unbelievable. I wasn&rsquo;t very busy. In the second half of the game, they didn&rsquo;t shoot much.&rdquo;Even if he didn&rsquo;t have to stop many shots, Hasek forced his opponents to play a tentative, careful game, trying to manufacture the perfect scoring opportunity. But Hasek felt very much part of a large, wonderful collective, both with his team and his people. The Czech team returned to Prague after the tournament and received a Beatles-like welcome. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of those moments where people remember what they were doing, where they were, even where they were sitting, when it happened,&rdquo; said Hasek, now 53. &ldquo;And it seems that when we celebrated the 20th anniversary, it seemed just as important as it did when it happened. I think it is one of the biggest things to happen in the history of our country. A week never goes by where somebody doesn&rsquo;t want to talk to me about it.&rdquo; &#9632;

HOW HASEK LED THE CZECH REPUBLIC TO GLORY

<div class="byline">BY RONNIE SHUKER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="travellingg_082" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/travellingg_0822/392484-1-eng-US/travellingg_0822.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTOS COURTESY OF ADRIAN MIZZI)</figcaption></div>WHEREVER ADRIAN MIZZI TRAVELS HE TENDS TO GET ODD LOOKS. Of course, putting on full goalie gear in front of the pyramids in Egypt will get you that, as it will in a grocery store in Brazil or in a public square in Portugal. Heck, even in the so-called Center of the Hockey Universe, Mizzi&rsquo;s hometown, strapping on the pads in front of the CN Tower or the World&rsquo;s Largest Rubber Duck guarantees a sideways glance. But it&rsquo;s a small price to pay to get that perfect peculiar photo for his scrapbook.For more than decade now, Mizzi has resided at the intersection of hockey and travel, living a semi-nomadic existence that has taken him through 38 countries and counting &ndash; always with his goalie gear in tow. He&rsquo;s been everywhere from the &lsquo;End of the World&rsquo; in Ushuaia, Argentina, to the &lsquo;Roof of the World&rsquo; on the Changthang plateau in India, and all points in between. And it all started in Dubai back in 2005.Mizzi had been a goaltender all through public school, idolizing the likes of Pelle Lindbergh and Grant Fuhr, but he lost touch with the game in his late 20s after his best friend, Chris Brzezicki, died in a freak accident while working on a construction site. By his account, Mizzi fell into depression afterward, and his life spiralled out of control, hitting its nadir in Amsterdam after getting caught up with the wrong crowd. He had no money to his name and was living with relatives in the U.K. after some rather large unsavory characters in the Netherlands offered him a choice between leaving the country and being gifted a new orifice. That&rsquo;s when Mizzi, a Canadian of Maltese heritage who holds dual citizenship, took to Google. &ldquo;In my lonely state, I looked up ice hockey in Malta,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s when I got in touch with the Maltese national hockey team, I guess you could call them. They were the only hockey guys in Malta. I saw an article that they had just played a tournament in Dubai. I sent them an email, and one of the guys wrote back to me.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0053-0171/392477-1-eng-US/f0053-012.jpg" title="f0053-01" width="2590" height="3011"></div>Armed with only an invitation to try out, Mizzi returned to Canada and got his guano together. By the following year, he&rsquo;d saved enough money to fly to Dubai for the same tournament. He practised with the team, got the goaltending gig and led the Malta Pirates to the final in their division. &ldquo;I came back home and right away I said, &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve got to find another tournament,&rsquo;&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;I was fully hooked, fully hooked. I always loved tournaments as a kid. The atmosphere of being among likeminded people who just want to play hockey and have as much fun as possible is very addictive. Dubai really changed my life. I found something. I really found my true calling.&rdquo;And so &lsquo;The Travelling Goalie&rsquo; was born.A few years later, Mizzi made it official when he began blogging his travels, which have included everything from snapping stealth photos off the ice to gutting out several hazards on the ice &ndash; all in the name of hockey.<blockquote class="pullQuote">I FOUND SOMETHING. I REALLY FOUND MY TRUE CALLING</blockquote>&ndash; MizziIn Italy, a fluke shot during warmups broke his nose and sent him to the hospital, but not before Mizzi gutted out the game with cotton balls stuffed up his busted beak. In the Himalayas, warmed only by frequent nips of whiskey, he endured thin air, frigid temperatures and some rather disconcerting aromatherapy from a fire some locals were burning at one end of the rink &ndash; just to be a part of the Guinness World Record for the highest-altitude hockey game ever played. &ldquo;I was 100-percent certain it was diesel, but after the second period I was told it was yak s---,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s when it came to me: I&rsquo;m fully inhaling particles of yak s---. I&rsquo;m eating s--- while I&rsquo;m playing hockey. I&rsquo;m gasping for air and I&rsquo;m eating s---. Like, what the heck?&rdquo;By his own admission, Mizzi frequently puts the &ldquo;beer&rdquo; in beer-leaguer wherever he travels, never more so than one night in Austria when he played a game fully corked, using the crossbar for balance. Surprisingly, Mizzi was able to keep the contents of his stomach from making an appearance, and he even led his team to victory. But he did have a Glenn Hall moment one evening in Romania &ndash; unfortunately, it came during the game instead of before it after eating a heavy meal too close to start time. &ldquo;It was gross, really gross,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;I kind of lifted my mask up and made it look like I was just spitting, but really I was spitting mouthfuls of puke right into the blue area of my crease&hellip;The play would come into our end and I wouldn&rsquo;t puke again, but then the puck would leave the zone and I&rsquo;d lift up my mask and throw up again. This went on for about 15 minutes. I must&rsquo;ve puked four or five times.&rdquo;Another stinky situation came when Mizzi and a few of his beer-league buddies all piled into a campervan to travel around Europe for three weeks, looking for a place to happen upon some hockey. The camper came completely equipped, with beds, a kitchen and a bathroom, which even had a fully functioning shower &ndash; if only they had read the vehicle&rsquo;s operating manual. &ldquo;We&rsquo;d stop in a town, and we&rsquo;d beg to play hockey,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;d just show up at a rink and say, &lsquo;Hey, let us play hockey! Can you let us play hockey?&rsquo; And the reason was so that we could shower, because we couldn&rsquo;t figure out that the stupid switch for the shower was under the passenger seat.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0054-0172/392470-1-eng-US/f0054-012.jpg" title="f0054-01" width="4844" height="2880"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTOS COURTESY OF ADRIAN MIZZI)</figcaption></div>One of Mizzi&rsquo;s personal highlights came during a tournament in Hungary, where he met Attila Ambrus, a.k.a. &lsquo;The Whiskey Robber,&rsquo; a former goalie/janitor for Ujpesti Torna Egylet in the Hungarian League who committed a string of robberies in and around Budapest during the 1990s, sometimes while wearing elaborate disguises. With help from a local IIHF referee, Mizzi was able to track down Ambrus working at a nearby mall. &ldquo;I went out there, got to the mall, came out of the elevator, had my GoPro, turned it on as soon as the elevator door opened and lo and behold there&rsquo;s the Whiskey Robber,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got a little kiosk where he&rsquo;s selling porcelain. He learned how to make porcelain while he was in jail. We were talking and he asked, &lsquo;Where are you from?&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;Toronto&rsquo; and he was like, &lsquo;When I was robbing banks, one of my trips was to Toronto.&rsquo; I said, &lsquo;Did you rob any banks there?&rsquo; And he was like, &lsquo;No, I was on holiday.&rsquo;&rdquo;Mizzi, 44, travels about two or three times a year (most often with the Rainman All-Stars out of Germany) whether for tournaments, pickup games, charity events, hockey camps, you name it. Along the way, he&rsquo;s played with and against a bevy of former European pros, including ex-NHLers Jyrki Lumme and Michal Sivek, who was part of the Jaromir Jagr trade to the Washington Capitals in 2001. Even in Toronto, where Mizzi gets his hockey fix running his beer-league team, the Ghetto Blasters, he faces ex-pros often as a fill-in goalie for games with NHL alumni featuring the likes of Marcel Dionne, Wendel Clark and Brad May. &ldquo;Somehow I always end up playing with these guys that are like, you know, they played really, really good hockey, and I&rsquo;m just a beer-league dude,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s always a pleasure to be on the ice with former professional hockey players, but it&rsquo;s an even bigger honor to get to talk to them and get a grasp of how it was to be in The Show.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">I&rsquo;M PROBABLY GOING TO BE THE FIRST GOALIE TO PLAY ON EVERY CONTINENT</blockquote>&ndash; MizziWhen he&rsquo;s not playing the role of The Travelling Goalie, Mizzi funds his travels with work behind the scenes in film production, whether driving a food stylist truck or working as a production assistant for commercials or TV shows. He&rsquo;s even been in a couple commercials himself &ndash; as a goalie, of course &ndash; including one for Budweiser.With no kids and blessed with a patient and supportive longtime girlfriend, Mizzi is able to dump all his disposable income into his Bedouin backstopping lifestyle. He&rsquo;s also garnered a handful of sponsorships, including Goalie Heaven in Toronto, which provides him with free gear and sticks. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s something that, to this day, people can&rsquo;t grasp, that some guy is coming all the way from Canada with his goalie equipment just to play hockey,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;They can&rsquo;t grasp this. It&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;What do you mean? Why are you coming all the way here?&rsquo;&rdquo;It may not be the NHL, but Mizzi feels like he&rsquo;s living the dream &ndash; travelling the world and playing hockey. He names Kenya, Turkmenistan and Iran as upcoming destinations in 2019, but his next stop will be extra special, when he rings in the New Year Down Under. &ldquo;Australia is the last inhabited continent for me,&rdquo; Mizzi said. &ldquo;I guess I could go on record and say I&rsquo;m probably going to be the first goalie to play on every continent.&rdquo; &#9632;

travellingg_082

HAVE PADS. WILL TRAVEL. LITERALLY.

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="europe_irvi_102" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/europe_irvi_1022/392527-1-eng-US/europe_irvi_1022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">SWEET SIXTEENThanks in big part to Irving&rsquo;s standout play, Bolzano is the first Italian team ever to reach the CHL Round of 16. (HCB/VANNA ANTONELLO)</figcaption></div>IN THE BRIEF HISTORY of the Champions League, no Italian team had ever made the round of 16&hellip;until now.The Bolzano Foxes punched their ticket by coming out of their pool alongside Sweden&rsquo;s Skelleftea, meaning IFK Helsinki from Finland was done. The Foxes are led by a group of former NHLers, including Michael Blunden, Daniel Catenacci and Andrew Crescenzi. The star in net is 2006 Calgary Flames first-rounder Leland Irving, who has found a prime landing spot for himself and his young family. &ldquo;Bolzano has been awesome,&rdquo; Irving said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a beautiful area right by the mountains with nice, warm weather, vineyards and apple orchards. And the food is hard to beat.&rdquo;Irving got his first taste of Europe back in 2013-14 with Jokerit in Finland. The next year, he joined Salavat Yulaev Ufa in the KHL, a more remote spot than cosmopolitan Helsinki (yet try the vak balish!) but still good competition. Another stint in Finland with KooKoo was bookended by AHL gigs in Iowa and San Diego, which is where Pat Curcio caught up with the netminder.Curcio is the former coach and assistant GM of Bolzano, and still works with the team as a consultant and recruiter (his new day job is working for Optima World Sports, a player agency that specializes in European leagues).After helping put together a championship team in Bolzano last season, Curcio needed 10 new players, as the small-market Foxes lost talent to teams with deeper pockets. He remembered Irving from the goalie&rsquo;s early pro days with the ECHL Victoria Salmon Kings when Curcio was an assistant with the Utah Grizzlies. &ldquo;He was outstanding but wasn&rsquo;t typical for an NHL goalie because of his (smaller) size,&rdquo; Curcio said. &ldquo;But I loved his skill and his ability.&rdquo;Irving went to Bolzano and has been a standout for the squad, helping them achieve unprecedented success in the Champions League while also posting an impressive .941 save percentage and 1.88 goals-against average locally.The Foxes actually play in the Austrian League, also known as the EBEL. That circuit features teams from five countries, including Austrian heavy hitters Red Bull Salzburg and the Vienna Capitals. Bolzano is located in northern Italy but many residents speak German. Irving brought along his wife, Ashley, and three young daughters &ndash; Halle, Brooklyn and Brynn &ndash; so location was important. &ldquo;That was part of the process,&rdquo; Irving said. &ldquo;It seemed like a fun place to come, and it has exceeded expectations. My kids are learning German in school. They&rsquo;ll be translating for us eventually.&rdquo;The EBEL has a favorable travel schedule, as well. Curcio notes the longest bus ride is six hours (Vienna), but many other spots are three hours or less. That means Irving is never away from home for more than a day or two. The team also gives the 30-year-old and many of his other former NHL teammates a chance to build their games and perhaps get another crack in North America. &ldquo;You never let the dream die,&rdquo; Curcio said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an opportunity to get better, an opportunity to get a new outlook on the game. The ice time is different and there&rsquo;s more time for practice and development. Leland has played almost every game.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/europe_irvi_1032/392513-1-eng-US/europe_irvi_1032.jpg" title="europe_irvi_103" width="1022" height="644"><figcaption class="caption-body">(HCB/VANNA ANTONELLO)</figcaption></div>Curcio cites Derek Ryan as an example of a player who went to the EBEL for a few years (with Hungary&rsquo;s Fehervar and Austria&rsquo;s Villacher) before a season in Sweden and then to the Carolina Hurricanes organization, where he became a contributor before signing a multi-year deal with Calgary.Calgary is where Irving began his NHL career. He played 13 games with the Flames over two seasons before embarking on his European adventure. At six-foot and 177 pounds, Irving didn&rsquo;t have the build for the new game, though he doesn&rsquo;t take his NHL experience for granted. &ldquo;It felt like it went by in the blink of an eye, but it was something I&rsquo;ll never forget,&rdquo; Irving said. &ldquo;I played well, but it wasn&rsquo;t what I was capable of. But I have no regrets.&rdquo;Now his aim is to help the Foxes win for their raucous fans. And in a league where playing styles vary greatly from defense-first to run-and-gun, Irving knows he has to be ready every night. &#9632;

europe_irvi_102

Eye on Europe

ITALIAN JOB A FAMILY AFFAIR

<div class="byline">BY RISTO PAKARINEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="europe_vehv_101" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/europe_vehv_1012/392563-1-eng-US/europe_vehv_1012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">FOURTH TIME THE CHARMVehvilainen was passed over in three NHL drafts before making good on his fourth attempt this year at 21. (VILLE HONKONEN / LIIGA)</figcaption></div>LAST YEAR AT AROUND this time, Veini Vehvilainen was a solid backup to Jussi Rynnas for Karpat Oulu, a modern-day Finnish dynasty that had won the league title six times since 2000.Now, thanks to the emergence of Vehvilainen, Karpat has seven championships since 2000. The 21-year-old took over the starting job in Karpat&rsquo;s second game of the playoffs, posted a league-best 1.57 goals-against average and .933 save percentage, and recorded three shutouts, two of them in the final. What a difference a year makes. &ldquo;A huge difference,&rdquo; said Vehvilainen, speaking in Finnish. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve taken another step forward. I&rsquo;m stronger mentally and physically, and I&rsquo;m a technically better goalie.&rdquo;Back in October 2016, Vehvilainen had played only five games for JYP Jyvaskyla, his hometown team, in Finland&rsquo;s Liiga. A few months after that, he was part of Finland&rsquo;s entry that won the world juniors on home ice &ndash; but he lost the starter&rsquo;s job to Kaapo Kahkonen. He was then passed over for a second time at the 2016 NHL draft. And then again in 2017.Vehvilainen was the Finnish starter at the 2017 WJC, and while he posted impressive numbers &ndash; 1.51 GAA and .931 SP in six games &ndash; it was also the year Finland made dubious history by becoming the first defending champion to end up in the relegation round, while also making a mid-tournament coaching change.Add to that the sudden passing of Vehvilainen&rsquo;s father last season, and you begin to understand the emotional rollercoaster he has endured in recent years. Now, it&rsquo;s evident he&rsquo;s come through it as a stronger person. &ldquo;A part of that is simply growing up,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Of course, I&rsquo;ve had some success lately that has helped my confidence, but I also use mental coaches, and that gives me tools that make me better, just like I use coaching tips to become technically better.&rdquo;This season, back with Karpat, his stock is climbing fast. He posted a 1.22 GAA and .945 SP with four shutouts through 13 games and was named Liiga&rsquo;s player of the month for October. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s difficult to see your own development,&rdquo; Vehvilainen said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s probably easier for an outsider to see it. Having said that, when I&rsquo;ve seen old tapes of my games, I can tell that I move better and my foundation is more solid, thanks to the good work with our goalie coach Ari Hilli.&ldquo;I know it&rsquo;s a cliche, but it&rsquo;s simply a result of hard and smart work. Now I have a good foundation to build on.&rdquo;Vehvilainen was drafted into the NHL &ndash; finally &ndash; this summer by Columbus. The Jackets took him in the sixth round in June, despite the fact Vehvilainen was 21 and could have signed shortly after as a free agent.Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen is bullish on Vehvilainen: &ldquo;He could play North American hockey right now,&rdquo; he told the Columbus Dispatch. &ldquo;He was a heck of a goalie for Karpat last year. We studied him not only this year but in the past.&rdquo;&ldquo;I had a goalie in Helsinki who didn&rsquo;t make it to the NHL until he was 32,&rdquo; Kekalainen added, referring to 2011 Stanley Cup champion and Smythe Trophy winner Tim Thomas.Thomas played for Karpat in 2001-02. The season after that, Pekka Rinne made his Karpat debut and then went to Nashville in the eighth round of the 2004 draft as an overager. The path is open for Vehvilainen, too. &ldquo;I try to do my best every day to get better, that&rsquo;s all I can do,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I leave other decisions to people in charge of those. I try to take it one day at a time and hope I get rewarded for my work at some point.&rdquo;Where will he be a year from now? &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to say since it&rsquo;s not 100 percent up to me, but I hope to be a better goalie and a more mature person,&rdquo; Vehvilainen said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d love to play in North America, but I&rsquo;m in no hurry. I&rsquo;m still just 21, the top goalies tend to be at least a few years older than that.&rdquo; &#9632;

europe_vehv_101

VEHVILAINEN IN NO HURRY

<div class="byline">BY BEN RABY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="next_samson_105" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_samson_1052/392620-1-eng-US/next_samson_1052.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Samsonov has impressed with his play and demeanor in Hershey, but the Capitals will not rush him to the NHL. (JUST SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY)</figcaption></div>WHEN ILYA SAMSONOV arrived at the Washington Capitals&rsquo; development camp this summer, nearly everything was foreign. The 21-year-old couldn&rsquo;t speak English and the practices were longer and more intense than he was used to. Even his equipment was new after his own goalie gear got lost during his travel across the Atlantic.The camp was an early reminder that although the Capitals have high expectations for their 2015 first-round pick (22nd overall), he&rsquo;ll have to first navigate through a potentially challenging maiden campaign in North America. &ldquo;He understands there&rsquo;s a transition,&rdquo; said Washington goaltending coach Scott Murray, &ldquo;and there are things that are different from where he was to where he is now.&rdquo;After three years spent primarily as the backup for his hometown Magnitogorsk Metallurg in the KHL, Samsonov is set to handle a heavier workload this season with the AHL&rsquo;s Hershey Bears. On the ice, he&rsquo;s adjusting to the smaller surface, which, for a goalie, could mean more touches and more congestion in the slot.Off the ice, Samsonov is acclimating to North America life and meeting with an English tutor multiple times a week. The lessons began in the summer when Samsonov spent eight weeks in Detroit on a recommendation from his agent and mentor, Igor Larionov. &ldquo;He wants to be here,&rdquo; said Bryan Helmer, Hershey&rsquo;s vice-president of hockey operations. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the type of kid that wants to learn.&rdquo;With Braden Holtby signed through 2019-20, the Capitals can afford to take their time with Samsonov. He could serve as Holtby&rsquo;s backup next season, but the organization sees value in the volume of games he can play in Hershey. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s not a better spot than the AHL to work on your habits and make them as bulletproof as possible,&rdquo; said Murray, who points to Tampa Bay&rsquo;s Andrei Vasilevskiy as a potential model. Vasilevskiy spent parts of two seasons in the AHL before emerging as a full-time NHLer in his third year in North America.At 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, Samsonov covers plenty of net. He has been the best goaltending prospect since debuting at No. 7 in Future Watch 2016 &ndash; he was No. 18 overall in both 2017 and 2018. He reads the game well and can quickly react accordingly. &ldquo;Mentally, the game happens at an extremely slow pace for him, but he can play it at an extremely fast and controlled pace,&rdquo; Murray said. &ldquo;There are no limitations to what his body can do.&rdquo;Added Helmer: &ldquo;Even in practice, sometimes you catch yourself in awe of him making it look so easy on 2-on-1s, he slides over and gets there before the pass does. He&rsquo;s very composed. He looks like a pro. He doesn&rsquo;t look like a 21-year-old that can&rsquo;t speak much English and is from Russia. He looks very confident in his abilities. Nothing rattles this kid.&rdquo; &#9632;

next_samson_105

MINOR LESSONS, MAJOR UPSIDE

<div class="image-hero"><img title="next_primea_104" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_primea_1042/392649-1-eng-US/next_primea_1042.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(RICHARD T GAGNON/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>CAYDEN PRIMEAU IS COMING off a memorable freshman season with NCAA Northeastern, helping the Huskies win the Beanpot tournament for the first time in 30 years. The son of former NHLer Keith Primeau, Cayden was drafted 199th overall by Montreal in 2017. We asked Vincent Riendeau, the Canadiens&rsquo; director of goalie development, to break down his game. &#9632;

next_primea_104

SCOUTING REPORT: CAYDEN PRIMEAU

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="next_hart" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_hart2/392685-1-eng-US/next_hart2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">ON THE RADARHart is on track to become one of the NHL&rsquo;s next great goalies, but he needs time to test his game in the AHL first. (LEHIGH VALLEY PHANTOMS/JUSTSPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;BOY, I BET HE wishes he could have that one back,&rdquo; is a phrase I&rsquo;m sure Flyers fans have gotten used to on Philadelphia broadcasts over the years, and the current goaltending platoon of Brian Elliott, Michal Neuvirth and now Calvin Pickard have not helped the situation. The potential cure for all this is youngster Carter Hart, who had a wonderful junior career that included a gold medal at the world juniors with Canada, not to mention countless awards with the WHL&rsquo;s Everett Silvertips. Hart was twice named the CHL&rsquo;s goaltender of the year, and last season he was the WHL&rsquo;s player of the year thanks to his dominance between the pipes.And yes, I see the appeal in getting the Flyers some decent goaltending right now. Up front, the squad is blessed with talents such as Claude Giroux, Sean Couturier, Jakub Voracek, Wayne Simmonds and the rising Nolan Patrick. The blueline is similarly stocked with exciting names such as Ivan Provorov and Shayne Gostisbehere.If Hart played any other position in hockey, he would be in the NHL already. But as everybody knows, goaltending is a different beast, and Hart&rsquo;s rookie pro campaign is proving why the Flyers must wait for their savior in net.Hart, who turned 20 in August, has kicked off his pro career with the AHL&rsquo;s Lehigh Valley Phantoms and, no, it hasn&rsquo;t been a smooth transition. In his first six starts, the rookie surrendered at least two goals in every game and usually several more than that. His .882 save percentage and 3.77 goals-against average were odorous, to be sure.But I assure you, this is all OK. When the Flyers&rsquo; goaltending once again began the season in putrid fashion, it was tempting to look at young Hart and say, give the kid a chance, he can&rsquo;t do any worse than the other guys, but that would miss the point. Philadelphia needs Hart to be at his best when he finally does land in the Flyers&rsquo; crease, and rushing him can only do harm.These are not the days of Tom Barrasso waltzing into the NHL as an 18-year-old, winning the Calder Trophy and Vezina Trophy straight out of Massachusetts high-school hockey. No, this is a buzzsaw league where you have to be on the tippy-top of your game, lest you get destroyed by the likes of Connor McDavid, Patrik Laine and Sidney Crosby. A &ldquo;young&rdquo; goalie these days is still in his early-to-mid 20s, and there&rsquo;s a reason for that. Even the best netminders need to be strong on their skates and mentally dialled in through years of work, usually in the AHL.That&rsquo;s where Hart is right now, and it&rsquo;s also where the Washington Capitals have sent another top goaltending prospect, 21-year-old Ilya Samsonov.Now, Samsonov has spent years in Russia playing against men in the KHL. But the European game is different and, once again, Samsonov&rsquo;s stats with the AHL&rsquo;s Hershey Bears so far have not been very happy. The big Russian kid is splitting the workload in Hershey with the slightly older Vitek Vanecek and giving up a goal per game more than his Czech counterpart, but again: this is OK. The Capitals in particular don&rsquo;t need to rush their top goalie prospect since they already have Braden Holtby and, oh yeah, they just won the Stanley Cup. I have no doubt that once Samsonov gets used to the smaller North American ice surface and all the nuances it brings to a newbie netminder, he&rsquo;ll be fine &ndash; more than fine, in fact. Everything about Samsonov&rsquo;s pedigree suggests he&rsquo;ll be a very good NHL goaltender one day, just as Hart&rsquo;s resume says he will lord over Philadelphia&rsquo;s crease in the not-so-distant future.But today is not that day.If you already have a reliable goaltender, you can bring a kid up a bit early. Andrei Vasilevskiy had Ben Bishop in Tampa Bay, Matt Murray had Marc-Andre Fleury in Pittsburgh, and John Gibson had Frederik Andersen in Anaheim.Right now, the Flyers do not have that luxury. And Hart clearly needs some time to get used to the manly shots he is now facing in the pro ranks, which obviously come in faster and more precise than those in junior. This summer, I asked Hart if Flyers GM Ron Hextall ever gives him advice on playing net in Philadelphia &ndash; as Hextall did at a high level in the 1980s and &rsquo;90s. &ldquo;No, he keeps saying he&rsquo;s not in the goalie&rsquo;s union anymore,&rdquo; said Hart with a laugh. &ldquo;He said he cut up his card many years ago. I don&rsquo;t think he likes to talk about goaltending anymore. I&rsquo;ve tried.&rdquo;Given what Hextall has seen in his time as GM, perhaps it&rsquo;s not surprising. But so far, he&rsquo;s handling Hart the right way. Credit Hextall with not letting that one get by him. &#9632;

next_hart

SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST

<div class="byline">BY STEPHEN SMITH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buddymaracl_110" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buddymaracl_1102/392742-1-eng-US/buddymaracl_1102.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">HOCKEY PIONEERMaracle, top right, played 11 NHL games in 1931, more than two decades before Sasakamoose made his debut. (COURTESY OF THE NY RANGERS)</figcaption></div>BUDDY MARACLE&rsquo;S TIME in the NHL lasted less than two months in 1931, and when it was over it quickly subsided into the thickets of history. A review of records indicates that, beyond the big league, he played all over North America in a career that lasted nearly 20 years.What they don&rsquo;t so readily reveal is why now, 60 years after his death, Maracle is being recognized as a hockey trailblazer. That has to do with something the NHL itself has been reluctant to acknowledge: Maracle&rsquo;s legacy as the league&rsquo;s first Indigenous player.For years, Fred Sasakamoose has been credited as the man who made that breakthrough when he skated as a 19-year-old for the Chicago Black Hawks in 1953. Now 84, Sasakamoose, from Saskatchewan&rsquo;s Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation, has been justly celebrated for his hockey exploits and as a mentor to Indigenous youth. Earlier this year, he was named a Member of the Order of Canada, the nation&rsquo;s highest civilian honor.And yet history suggests at least two other Indigenous players preceded Sasakamoose to the NHL. The oversight has a long if not exactly distinguished history: those who&rsquo;d gone before had already been all but forgotten by the time Sasakamoose joined Chicago for the 11 games he played over the course of the 1953-54 season.The question of who is the NHL&rsquo;s original Indigenous player goes back to the league&rsquo;s beginnings. According to NHL records, Paul Jacobs lined up for the Toronto Arenas for a single game in 1918 during the league&rsquo;s second season. Jacobs, who was Mohawk from Kahnawake, near Montreal, did practice with the team in the pre-season, but the evidence he made it to regular-season ice is thin, at best.Taffy Abel, who played defense for the 1924 U.S. Olympic team, had Chippewa background, though it&rsquo;s not clear how much. When New York launched its first NHL team in 1925, the Americans, someone had the bright idea of pretending that a non-Indigenous Montreal-born center, Rene Boileau, was in fact a Mohawk star by the name of Rainy Drinkwater. New York manager Tommy Gorman might have been behind the stunt, though he later said it was all co-owner Tom Duggan&rsquo;s idea. Either way, it quickly flopped.When the New York Rangers joined the league the following year, Conn Smythe was briefly in charge of assembling the roster. The man who&rsquo;d go on to shape the destiny of the Toronto Maple Leafs was fired from his first NHL job before his fledglings had even played a game. Smythe did recruit Abel before he ceded his job to Lester Patrick, and he seemed to have had an eye on Maracle, too, who was by then skating in the Toronto Mercantile League. As it was, the 22-year-old Maracle found a home with a Rangers farm team that fall.There&rsquo;s much we don&rsquo;t know about how Maracle got to that point. Most of what is known of his earliest years has been pieced together by Irene Schmidt-Adeney, a reporter for the Ayr News who took an interest in the Maracle story earlier this year.A town of 4,000 in southwestern Ontario, Ayr is arranged around a curve of the Nith River, a frozen stretch of which, just to the south, Wayne Gretzky skated as a boy. It&rsquo;s by way of Schmidt-Adeney&rsquo;s research that we understand young Albert Maracle and his family, who were Oneida Mohawks, seem to have moved close to town after departing the nearby Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in the early 1900s. At some point, Albert married Elsie Hill. Their son, Buddy-to-be, was born Henry Elmer Maracle in Ayr in September 1904.The family later headed north to Haileybury, which is where Henry got his start in hockey, first at high school, then as a junior in nearby North Bay with the Trappers. He seems to have gone mostly by &lsquo;Elmer&rsquo; in those years, though over the course of his career he began to show up in newspapers as &lsquo;Bud,&rsquo; &lsquo;Clarence,&rsquo; &lsquo;Moose&rsquo; and (inevitably) &lsquo;Chief.&rsquo; &lsquo;Buddy&rsquo; seems to have taken hold by the time, in 1926, that he found himself farmed out to New York&rsquo;s affiliate in Springfield, Mass. &ndash; which just happened to be nicknamed the Indians.Accounts of Maracle from his hockey heyday in the late 1920s and early &rsquo;30s note his size and speed, his deft stickhandling, his &ldquo;tireless&rdquo; checking. &ldquo;Comes at you from all directions,&rdquo; was one opponent&rsquo;s assessment of his play on the left wing. &ldquo;Maracle is so big that stiff bodychecks hurt the checker more than they do him,&rdquo; the Boston Globe enthused. &ldquo;Players just bounce off him.&rdquo;He&rsquo;d end up playing six seasons in Springfield, captaining the team and becoming a favorite with the fans for his industrious, relentless style. Watching him play in Philadelphia, one admiring writer decided he &ldquo;personified the ideal of American sportsmanship.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buddymaracl_1082/392728-1-eng-US/buddymaracl_1082.jpg" title="buddymaracl_108" width="1022" height="998"><figcaption class="caption-body">MODERN MARACLEThe Rangers recently acknowledged Maracle by donating sweaters to two rinks in the area where he grew up. (STEPHEN SMTIH)</figcaption></div>For all the admiration Maracle garnered in his playing days, many newspapers had trouble getting his heritage straight. Over the years, he was variously identified as Iroquois, Blackfoot, Sioux, Sac Fox and &ldquo;the last Mohican.&rdquo; Casual stereotyping and outright racism featured throughout his career. He was also called the &ldquo;Redskin Icer.&rdquo; Recounting his hockey deeds, reporters also sprayed their columns with references to &ldquo;war whoops&rdquo; and &ldquo;wigwams,&rdquo; &ldquo;tomahawks&rdquo; and &ldquo;scalps.&rdquo;When Springfield visited Boston Garden in 1929 to play the hometown Tigers, local fans singled out Maracle for abuse: whenever he touched the puck, a local columnist blithely reported, &ldquo;there were shouts of &lsquo;Kill him.&rsquo;&rdquo;Maracle was 26 when he finally got his NHL opportunity towards the end of the 1930-31 season. &ldquo;Those who used to boo the Noble Red Man in the Canadian-American League can now boo him in the National Hockey League,&rdquo; the&nbsp;Boston Globe&nbsp;advised, &ldquo;though, of course, it will cost more.&rdquo;Maracle joined a Rangers lineup featuring Frank Boucher as well as brothers Bun and Bill Cook, who went to the Stanley Cup final in 1932 and again a year later, when they overwhelmed the Toronto Maple Leafs. Maracle played his first NHL game in Detroit, debuting in the Rangers&rsquo; 1-1 tie with the local (pre-Red Wings) Falcons. He didn&rsquo;t figure on the scoresheet that night and also failed to score in New York&rsquo;s next two games.<blockquote class="pullQuote">MARACLE IS SO BIG THAT STIFF BODYCHECKS HURT THE CHECKER MORE THAN THEY DO HIM. PLAYERS JUST BOUNCE OFF HIM</blockquote>&ndash; Boston GlobeIt was in Maracle&rsquo;s fourth game with the Rangers that he made his best showing as an NHLer. Hosting the lowly Philadelphia Quakers on Feb. 22, 1931, New York cruised to a 6-1 win. Maracle assisted when Cecil Dillon scored the Rangers&rsquo; fifth goal in the second period. In the third, Dillon returned the favor when Maracle beat the Quakers&rsquo; Wilf Cude to score his lone NHL goal. One newspaper account rated it &ldquo;clever;&rdquo; getting the puck from Dillon, Maracle &ldquo;swept through everybody to leave Cude helpless with a wicked shot.&rdquo;Along with his 11 regular-season games, Maracle played in all four of New York&rsquo;s playoff games that year. He registered no points and took no penalties.In the fall of 1931, the Rangers cut him loose. He went on to play in the Bronx, Philadelphia, New Haven and Tulsa for teams, long since vanished, nicknamed Tigers, Arrows, Eagles and Oilers. As a veteran &ldquo;with an oft-broken nose,&rdquo; he played in Detroit in the late &rsquo;30s, dropping back to defense. It was here, incidentally, that he played against another Mohawk player from southwestern Ontario, Wendell &lsquo;Jimmy&rsquo; Jamieson, whose brother &ndash; named James but also called &lsquo;Jimmy&rsquo; &ndash; became the NHL&rsquo;s (probably) second Indigenous player when he played a single game for the Rangers in 1944.Maracle&rsquo;s last stop as a minor-leaguer was in San Diego, toward the end of the Second World War, where he joined the senior-league Skyhawks. It was there that, for a series of exhibition games raising money for war charities, Maracle was briefly a teammate of Turk Broda&rsquo;s and the Bentley brothers, Max and Doug.Maracle was 39 by the time he retired. Away from the ice, he faded from the attention of newspapers, which makes biographical details hard to come by. He had two grown children, including a son who was killed serving with the Canadian Army near the end of the Second World War. Divorced and then remarried, Maracle seems to have renounced his Mohawk status and become a U.S. citizen.Archives afford glimpses, over the years, of the jobs Maracle worked when he wasn&rsquo;t playing hockey. A 1933 Springfield city directory has him employed in &ldquo;fishing tackle.&rdquo; Elsewhere, he gave his occupation as riveter, tiremaker and machinist. Settled in Dallas in the 1950s, he worked as a truck driver for the American Produce Co.Maracle was 53 when he died of a kidney disease in June 1958. His Texas death certificate notes he&rsquo;s buried in Dallas&rsquo; Oakland Cemetery, and lists his &ldquo;Color or Race&rdquo; as white.Back in Maracle&rsquo;s hometown of Ayr, Schmidt-Adeney has connected with members of his family. Along with officials representing the Six Nations of the Grand River, some of them were on hand at two community ceremonies organized this year to commemorate Maracle&rsquo;s legacy. The Rangers, in June, donated a pair of modern-day jerseys emblazoned with Maracle&rsquo;s name and number (14) to rinks in Ayr and at Six Nations.As for the NHL, the league&rsquo;s focus, so far as it goes, has not shifted. &ldquo;As far as we know,&rdquo; a representative said earlier this year, &ldquo;(Fred) Sasakamoose was the first Canadian Indigenous player with ties to First Nations.&rdquo; &#9632;

buddymaracl_110

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

<div class="byline">BY STU HACKEL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="inmemoriam__111" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/inmemoriam__1112/392771-1-eng-US/inmemoriam__1112.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ziegler was responsible for helping turn around a money-losing operation into a league focused on growth. (BRUCE BENNETT STUDIOS/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>JOHN A. ZIEGLER JR., whose tenure as NHL president was bookended by two tumultuous events &ndash; the league&rsquo;s war with the WHA in the late 1970s and the 1992 NHLPA strike &ndash; died at 84 in Florida Oct. 25, 2018. No cause was given by the league in its announcement, although it was believed Ziegler had been in failing health for months.A native of Grosse Pointe, Mich., Ziegler became the NHL&rsquo;s first U.S.-born chief executive in 1977, replacing 72-year-old Clarence Campbell, who had been president since 1946. Ziegler was a force in the league&rsquo;s boardroom before becoming president &ndash; first as an alternate governor for the Detroit Red Wings, then chairman of the board of governors &ndash; and was admired for his diplomacy.Throughout the 1970s, the NHL was hemorrhaging money due to the poaching of players by the rebel WHA. When Ziegler became president, 10 of the NHL&rsquo;s 18 teams were losing a combined $18 million. The league itself was insolvent, which Ziegler kept secret.He executed or oversaw a series of moves that changed the NHL&rsquo;s direction: merging Cleveland&rsquo;s failing Barons franchise with the Minnesota North Stars; negotiating CBA changes with NHLPA head Alan Eagleson; settling the WHA conflict by adding Edmonton, Quebec, Winnipeg and Hartford in 1979; and, restructuring league operations to erase the red ink.The emergence of cable TV led to pioneering deals with USA Network and ESPN, returning the league to a U.S. national platform after NBC dropped hockey in 1976. Corporate. This period of stability and growth set up the league&rsquo;s huge expansion under Gary Bettman. &ldquo;John provided invaluable counsel during my early days as commissioner,&rdquo; said Bettman in his statement on Ziegler&rsquo;s passing.On the ice, divisions were realigned to emphasize geographic rivalries. It was the &ldquo;Gretzky Era&rdquo; &ndash; a blend of hyper-offensive hockey combined with fisticuffs. Fans began filling arenas to around 90-percent capacity league-wide and if Ziegler&rsquo;s critics questioned the league&rsquo;s direction, he&rsquo;d respond, &ldquo;If it ain&rsquo;t broke, don&rsquo;t fix it.&rdquo;A Hall of Fame builder inductee in 1987 and Lester Patrick Trophy winner in 1984, Ziegler was described as &ldquo;conservative&rdquo; by the New York Times, despite a dapper yellow tie a frequent accessory of his. Intelligent, well-spoken and thoughtful in public settings, Ziegler was admittedly shy and, in the words of one longtime employee, &ldquo;never really comfortable in the spotlight,&rdquo; especially with the media, which grew critical of his performance while overlooking his accomplishments.The criticism peaked during the 1988 New Jersey-Boston playoff semifinal when Ziegler could not be located after Devils coach Jim Schoenfeld&rsquo;s one-game suspension for a Game 3 confrontation with referee Don Koharski. The Devils obtained a court order permitting Schoenfeld to coach Game 4. In protest, the on-ice officials refused to work, necessitating local amateurs to fill in, wearing yellow practice jerseys until striped shirts could be found. It became known as &ldquo;Yellow Sunday.&rdquo;Ziegler remained absent until the afternoon of Game 5 when, in a Boston hotel, he had to face a room of reporters who grilled him mercilessly. He never disclosed his whereabouts or explained his absence.Although he oversaw significant innovations afterward &ndash; a return to U.S. network TV with NBC, the NHL All-Star Weekend, video review and the development a blueprint for the league&rsquo;s eventual expansion, which began with the San Jose Sharks in 1991 &ndash; &ldquo;Yellow Sunday&rdquo; was viewed as the start of Ziegler&rsquo;s fall.Some well-intentioned measures backfired. In 1988, he helped forge a U.S. TV deal with startup SportsChannel America, spurning ESPN for a more lucrative offer. But many cable operators declined to carry the overpriced newcomer, leaving most American hockey fans without access to national telecasts for four seasons.Most contentious to critics was his close relationship with Eagleson, a closeness Ziegler did not share with Eagleson&rsquo;s successor Bob Goodenow. NHL owners voted Ziegler out after settling the 10-day April 1992 strike. The popular theory was owners didn&rsquo;t like the terms of the deal. But some maintain Ziegler&rsquo;s fate was sealed when he and Goodenow failed to reach a new CBA prior to the season&rsquo;s start and Ziegler allowed it to proceed, handing the NHLPA all the leverage.After his presidency, Ziegler maintained a low profile, but served as an alternate governor for the Chicago Blackhawks for many years. Hawks owner Rocky Wirtz acknowledged &ldquo;John was a friend, to me and to my family,&rdquo; adding that Ziegler&rsquo;s positive imprint on the game &ldquo;cannot ever be overstated.&rdquo; &#9632;

inmemoriam__111

In Memoriam

THE BRIDGE PRESIDENT

<div class="byline">By Larry Humber </div><div class="byline">1. The Rangers once had Lady ___ on their jerseys</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-0241/392807-1-eng-US/f0065-022.jpg" title="f0065-02" width="999" height="768"><figcaption class="caption-body">(GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>TRIVIA</h2>2. The 2012 Stanley Cup winners3. Avs captain Landeskog, informally4. Tryout5. He was taken first overall in 20106. Port ___ was once home of the IHL&rsquo;s Flags7. Scored a goal: bulged the ___8. Where the Toronto Toros relocated in 1976, becoming the Bulls9. &lsquo;10 Across&rsquo; did this 54 times in 2017-1810. Sidney Crosby was once dubbed &lsquo;The ___ One&rsquo;11. Ryan Strome&rsquo;s bro, pictured12. The ___ and deciding game13. Former netminder &lsquo;Red ___&rsquo; Racicot won a Cup with Montreal14. He got the Cup-winner in 1970, now reps 10 Across15. Young player16. Penguin with multiple Cups and two world junior golds17. First name of the player taken first overall in 2012 (or, hit hard)18. Shark Tank locale19. This Duck shared the Jennings Trophy in 201620. Draft age21. Home of hockey&rsquo;s Crimson, Jimmy Vesey&rsquo;s old team22. Winnipeg&rsquo;s Tyler ___23. First name of the Leaf who wears No. 1624. An American junior league, abbreviated<h2>SEPARATED AT BIRTH</h2>Hockey meets Hollywood: can you tell these two familiar faces apart?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/separated_m_1122/392821-1-eng-US/separated_m_1122.jpg" title="separated_m_112" width="215" height="331"></div>AUSTON MATTHEWS Wears blue and white stripes. Went No. 1 overall in draft to the delight of Leaf Nation. Escaped Arizona heat shooting pucks in his garage as kid.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/separated_w_1132/392814-1-eng-US/separated_w_1132.jpg" title="separated_w_113" width="215" height="331"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MATT CARR/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>JACK WHITE One half of The White Stripes. Reached No. 1 on Billboard alternative chart with Seven Nation Army. Helped make garage rock hot again.<h2>PUCK PUZZLE</h2>Can your hockey brain bring its A-game? The challenge is on!A team of U.S. college kids upset the Soviets at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics&rsquo; &lsquo;Miracle on Ice.&rsquo; Listed here: seven U.S. team members. Fill in the blanks. The star Soviet goalie who was pulled from the game will appear in the red boxes.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-0335/392800-1-eng-US/f0065-032.jpg" title="f0065-03" width="817" height="779"></div>TRIVIA ANSWERS:&nbsp;1. LIBERTY, 2. KINGS, 3. GABE, 4. AUDITION, 5. TAYLOR HALL, 6. HURON, 7. TWINE, 8. BIRMINGHAM, 9. ASSISTED, 10. NEXT, 11. DYLAN, 12. SEVENTH, 13. LIGHT, 14. BOBBY ORR, 15. YOUTH, 16. KRIS LETANG, 17. NAIL, 18. SAN JOSE, 19. JOHN GIBSON, 20. EIGHTEEN, 21. HARVARD, 22. MYERS, 23. MITCH, 24. USHL NAME GAME SOLUTION: CONNOR HELLEBUYCK PUCK PUZZLE SOLUTION: BROTEN, MORROW, ERUZIONE, CHRISTIAN, PAVELICH, RAMSEY, SILK (FINAL ANSWER: TRETIAK) &#9632;

Time Out

NAME GAME

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="lastword_ri_115" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/lastword_ri_1152/392857-1-eng-US/lastword_ri_1152.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Pekka Rinne became the oldest first-time winner of the Vezina since GMs began voting on the trophy in 1982. (JOHN RUSSELL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>TURN ON YOUR TELEVISION on any given night and retire to the barcalounger and you&rsquo;re bound to see a 21-year-old Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews do something so incredible that it will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Is that a 22-year-old Mikko Rantanen we see leading the whole freakin&rsquo; league in scoring? And what about that 21-year-old Thomas Chabot kid in Ottawa? Ain&rsquo;t he something special?Everything we&rsquo;ve heard and everything we&rsquo;ve seen keeps pounding at the notion that the NHL is now a young man&rsquo;s league. Like the late Whitney Houston, the NHL believes that children are the future. And it&rsquo;s right. What were once thought to be &ldquo;generational talents&rdquo; are now being churned out every couple of years. And if you go to your local youth hockey arena and watch the kids, chances are you&rsquo;re going to see some young boys and girls who can do some very special things on the ice.But take a dive into the most important position in the game and you find that the goaltending fraternity has clearly not received the memo. While the rest of the league is having trouble developing a duster in the month of November, the goaltenders are at the point where they&rsquo;re applying Grecian Formula and getting two minutes for looking so good.It seems that once teams find a reliable goaltender, and it often takes a while, they hang onto him and ride him well into his 30s. That&rsquo;s certainly the case these days, which leaves us wondering from where their replacements are going to come.Consider this: the 31 No. 1 goalies in the NHL have an average age of 31.3. Last year, the average age of an NHL player was 27.1. Twenty-two of these starting goalies (or co-No. 1s) have already blown out 30 candles on their birthday cakes, and just two &ndash; Matt Murray of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning &ndash; are younger than 25. Pekka Rinne, who became the oldest first-time Vezina Trophy winner since the league began awarding it to the best goalie as chosen by the NHL&rsquo;s GMs in 1982, just signed a two-year extension with the Nashville Predators that will take him past his 38th birthday, despite the fact the Preds have a top-notch 23-year-old backup in Juuse Saros patiently waiting his turn.In The Hockey News&rsquo; annual Future Watch edition in 2018, we had only eight goaltenders in our top 100 NHL-affiliated prospects. Only 12 teams had a future goaltender among its top five prospects, and six teams &ndash; the Anaheim Ducks, Carolina Hurricanes, Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild, Nashville and the San Jose Sharks &ndash; did not have a single stopper among their top 10.When THN prospect savant Ryan Kennedy produced the top 100 players aged 21-and-under in the world, which included non-drafted players, just four goalies appeared on the list, and only one &ndash; Carter Hart of the Philadelphia Flyers &ndash; ranked in the top 25. Only one goalie, Jake Oettinger by the Dallas Stars, has been selected in the first round of the past three NHL drafts.We realize that some of this is due to the fact goaltenders are notorious for taking longer to develop than skaters, and they often only do it with their second or third organizations. And there are probably some young men out there toiling in the minors who have yet to blossom. But with the greying of the goaltending position and the prospect of a good number of them aging out in the next few years, you have to wonder where teams are going to find their replacements.By the end of this season, five No. 1 goalies will have eclipsed their 35th birthdays, and within five years, 11 of them will be at least 38. It&rsquo;s been clearly established that it takes about five years for a goaltender to develop from the day he&rsquo;s drafted, so either some of the backups in the NHL are going to have to step up or the league might be looking at a dearth of quality goaltending &ndash; which, when combined with the talent that is on the way, might not be a bad thing for hockey fans who prefer offense.Ask any amateur scout how easy it is to find good goalies these days and he or she will tell you a tale of woe. Part of that is because Canada, which was once a place where you shook a tree and good goalies would fall out, has lagged in producing elite netminders.One scout had a theory that it might be because from the time kids are seven until they&rsquo;re 14 or 15, they&rsquo;re sharing the goaltending duties and it doesn&rsquo;t allow them to develop quickly enough. In fact, the Canadian Hockey League, tired of seeing the best European netminders go to the USHL, opened its doors once again to European goalies this season.And these things tend to ebb and flow. Finland was once the country producing all the talent, and now Russia &ndash; with top prospects Ilya Samsonov, Igor Shestyorkin, Ilya Sorokin and Daniil Tarasov &ndash; seems to be providing the pipeline.The top players on a good number of teams would have trouble getting into a bar where the drinking age is 21. But the goalies? They&rsquo;d have a 31-seat table all to themselves. And it doesn&rsquo;t look as though they&rsquo;re going to be giving up their comfortable spots anytime soon. &#9632;

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Goalie Issue 2018

RAPID FIRE

EASTERN CONFERENCE

MASK ICON-O-METER

SMOTHERING THE FLAMES