The Hockey News’ World Junior Championship Preview tees up the annual holiday classic with in-depth breakdowns of Team Canada and the United States, plus features on Michael DiPietro and the Hughes Bros. We also key on one prospect to watch for the Swedes, Finns, Russians and Czechs and provide scouting reports on all the squads. Also, we travel back 15 years for an oral history of the incredible 2004 WJC, where the U.S. won its first gold on Marc-Andre Fleury’s own-goal gaffe. On top of our WJC coverage, we have features on San Jose’s Joes (Thornton and Pavelski); Sebastian Aho, Ryan Ellis and Keith Yandle, as well as the amazing story of first-round-bust-turned-rock-star Terry Ryan.

World Juniors 2019

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.09 - World Juniors - January 7, 2019

<div class="byline">BY CHARLIE TELJEUR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="charlie_720_031" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/charlie_720_031/397011-1-eng-US/charlie_720_0312.jpg"></div> &#9632;

charlie_720_031

BUZZ

THE INSTIGATOR

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/mask_dipiet_027/397083-1-eng-US/mask_dipiet_0272.jpg" title="mask_dipiet_027" width="511" height="544"></div>MICHAEL DIPIETRO | WINDSOR SPITFIRESWhen your team's logo&nbsp;and theme lend really well to exciting art, you don&rsquo;t have to overthink it, and that&rsquo;s what we get here from Canucks prospect DiPietro and artist Dave Gunnarsson. On the right cheek of the mask: a Spitfire fighter jet ripping through the clouds. On the left cheek, a higher-concept version, taking you inside the mouth of the snarling Spitfire for more of a 3-D experience.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/mask_dipiet_028/397076-1-eng-US/mask_dipiet_0282.jpg" title="mask_dipiet_028" width="535" height="541"></div>Mask by David Gunnarsson/Daveart.com &#9632;

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BEHIND THE MASK

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="wjc_texier" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_texier/398402-1-eng-US/wjc_texier2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALEXANDRE TEXIER (HELMUT FOHRINGER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THE DIV. I-A BRACKET of the IIHF under-20s doesn&rsquo;t get much publicity. Oh sure, we&rsquo;ll hear about which team won promotion to the World Junior Championship once the tournament is finished, but otherwise you&rsquo;re not going to find a lot of headlines being written on the gathering. This year, however, there are some intriguing names eligible for the tournament, which takes place in Fussen, Germany. The battle for a slot in next year&rsquo;s world juniors in the Czech Republic will be decided between the host nation, Austria, France, Belarus, Norway and Latvia. It should be a very competitive event, and it could&rsquo;ve been even better were it not for some untimely injuries.The Austrians got dinged the worst, with red-hot OHL rookie Marco Rossi hurting his elbow in late November (see pg. 60). Losing the Ottawa 67&rsquo;s center is a huge blow. The host Germans may face some adversity, too, as 2019 draft prospect Moritz Seider was dealing with a shoulder injury. Seider, a big defenseman, is the best German prospect since Leon Draisaitl. He&rsquo;d been playing in the DEL with Adler Mannheim before the setback. But even without Rossi and Seider, the second-tier shindig will be intriguing thanks to a number of prospects worth watching:Dominik Bokk, RW, Germany: The St. Louis Blues&rsquo; first-round pick (25th overall in 2018) has plenty of motivation to lead Germany back up to the top rung of the world juniors, since he&rsquo;ll still be eligible for next year&rsquo;s tournament. Bokk has played all year in the SHL with Vaxjo, chipping in a decent amount of offense for the Swedish squad. Bokk has tons of speed and skill, which will make him a big threat here.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_bokk/398395-1-eng-US/wjc_bokk2.jpg" title="wjc_bokk" width="658" height="646"><figcaption class="caption-body">MANCHILD VS. BOYSTexier (above) and Bokk (pictured here) both play against men in top European leagues, so they figure to dominate in a U-20 tourney. (SCOTT ROVAK/ST. LOUIS BLUES)</figcaption></div>Mathias Emilio Pettersen, C, Norway:&nbsp;One of the top NCAA freshmen nationwide so far, Pettersen has been excellent for the University of Denver, using his grab bag of puck skills to help lead the Pioneers&rsquo; offense. The Calgary Flames pick (167th overall in 2018) has represented Norway before at the Div. I-A under-18s and dominated, so expect him to push his squad offensively in Germany.Vladislav Kolyachonok, D, Belarus:&nbsp;Bumped up to an &lsquo;A&rsquo; rating by NHL Central Scouting once the 2018-19 season began, Kolyachonok has been producing quite well from the blueline for the OHL&rsquo;s Flint Firebirds. A big offensive defenseman who loves to rush the puck, he has previously played for Belarus at the under-18s and will give the under-20s a nice dose of skill on the back end.Alexandre Texier, C, France: The French need Texier to be huge this year, as NHL draft picks are a rarity for the national squad. Texier, a Columbus Blue Jackets prospect (45th overall in 2017), brings talent and grit to the table, not to mention a lot of experience on the international stage. He even played for France at the World Championship this past spring, notching three points in seven games with the men. He&rsquo;s been skating with KalPa in Finland&rsquo;s top league.Leon Gawanke, D, Germany: Now in his third season with the QMJHL&rsquo;s Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, Gawanke is also a veteran of Germany&rsquo;s national junior teams. The Winnipeg Jets prospect (136th overall in 2017) can provide offense from the blueline.Aliaksei Protas, C, Belarus: A towering specimen at 6-foot-5 and 192 pounds, Protas is a 2019 draft prospect with a great release who has put up nearly a point per game for the juggernaut Prince Albert Raiders in his first WHL season. He&rsquo;s another international vet for Belarus, having played for the world under-18 team last year.Kristian Roykas Marthinsen, LW, Norway: Playing in his first WHL season with the Saskatoon Blades, Marthinsen is a Washington Capitals pick (213th overall in 2017) who helped Norway get promoted from Div. I-B last year. He went pointless in that event but had good numbers the year prior at the U-18s.Vladimir Alistrov, LW, Belarus: Alistrov was the top scorer on Belarus&rsquo; world under-18s team last year, and he can have a big impact on the under-20 team, too. The 2019 draft prospect is blessed with size and skill, which helped make him the second overall pick in the CHL import draft this past summer. He&rsquo;s adjusting to the North American game with the WHL&rsquo;s Edmonton Oil Kings. &#9632;

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World Junior Preview

LOOK OUT FOR LITTLE GUYS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/yoursay_hug_014/396791-1-eng-US/yoursay_hug_0142.jpg" title="yoursay_hug_014" width="657" height="625"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY RENA LAVERTY)</figcaption></div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0007-0135/396784-1-eng-US/f0007-012.jpg" title="f0007-01" width="630" height="700"></div> &#9632;

Opening Thoughts

THN POLL

<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-20192/400480-1-eng-US/jk-column-ipad-2019.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY JON BLACKER)</figcaption></div>WHIPPERSNAPPERS, TAKE NOTE OF these signs you&rsquo;re getting old: 1. You groan involuntarily during routine exertion. 2. You start caring about inconsequential minutiae, like the girth of your cutlery. 3. Your eyebrows flow in the wind. 4. You refer to people as whippersnappers.Another symptom you might experience is nostalgia-itis, a frequent default to &ldquo;back-in-the-day&rdquo; thoughts. I&rsquo;m a sufferer. Take our Countdown, ranking the 31 NHL teams&rsquo; groups of centers (pgs. 16-17). When the idea was floated, I began mental Googling some of the best I&rsquo;ve seen in my time. Then I did some research to corroborate or refute my memory (mushy-recall syndrome is another telltale sign of aging) and came up with a top five since 1967 expansion.The list is based on success as a group during an entire and specific season, not about career achievements or a playoff run. For example, the 1991 Stanley Cup-winning Pittsburgh Penguins eventually had Mario Lemieux, Ron Francis, Bryan Trottier and Jiri Hrdina/Randy Gilhen down the middle. But Lemieux lost two-thirds of the year to back issues, Francis was acquired at the trade deadline and Trottier was nearing twilight. The Hall of Famers were brilliant in the playoffs, but the club finished seventh overall in the 21-team league, and aside from Lemieux&rsquo;s Conn Smythe Trophy, none were in the running for major honors.The following top five groups all won Stanley Cups and were in the top third of the standings in the regular season. I limited groups to one season, to avoid multiple Wayne Gretzky-Mark Messier entries, and included each foursome&rsquo;s composite era-adjusted point total, based on data provided at <a href="http://Hockey-reference.com">hockey-reference.com</a>.1986-87 Edmonton Oilers. Not Gretzky&rsquo;s best individual season, but combined with the contributions of Messier, Craig MacTavish and Mike Krushelnyski, this stands as the best single-season foursome of the past 50 years. The Oil cleared the field in the regular season by 11 points. Gretzky claimed his eighth Hart, seventh Art Ross, seventh first all-star berth and fifth goal-scoring title. Messier, who some were calling the best all-around player in the world, was third in the scoring race and second to&hellip;wait for it&hellip;Gretzky in playoff points. The two, along with MacTavish, a prominent checking center and faceoff whiz, combined for 15 shorthanded goals. Krushelnyski could score and settle scores, providing valuable depth down the middle. Era-adjusted points: 322.1995-96 Colorado Avalanche. Joe Sakic was in his prime, and Peter Forsberg had a bust-out sophomore season, giving the Avs ostensibly two first lines. The duo finished third and fifth in league scoring, each topped 100 points and helped Colorado to a second-place overall finish. Notably, it was also the only time they played all 82 games in the same season. Sakic continued his dominance in the playoffs, leading the pack with 18 goals and 34 points en route to the Conn Smythe. Mike Ricci, who missed 20 games during the regular season due to injury, had completed his transformation from No. 4 overall draft pick in 1990 and budding star to elite defensive forward. He anchored the third line and was highly effective in the playoffs, collecting 17 points in 22 games in a shutdown role. Savvy veteran Troy Murray was the perfect role player in the four-hole, contributing vital leadership and faceoff acumen. Era-adjusted points: 273.1971-72 Boston Bruins. The Big, Bad Bruins finished first overall by 10 points, and the slot strength of Phil Esposito, Fred Stanfield and Derek Sanderson was a major reason why (yes, a guy named Orr helped, too). The early 1970s was still primarily three-line hockey; Ivan Boldirev only got into 11 games that season. Esposito was the era&rsquo;s dominant center, leading the league in goals and points, recording a league-best 16 game-winning goals (nine more than anyone else) and earning the first all-star team berth. He also led playoff scoring and was third in Hart Trophy voting. Stanfield, an underrated pivot with a hard shot and soft hands, finished fourth in the NHL in assists and anchored what was considered the best second line in the league, playing between Johnny Bucyk and John McKenzie. He was a Lady Byng contender. Sanderson had evolved into a dangerous two-way center, leading the NHL with seven shorthanded goals. Era-adjusted points: 272.2008-09 Pittsburgh Penguins. This group is a bit of an outlier because they were middling through the first half of the season and finished eighth overall after responding to a mid-year coaching change when Dan Bylsma replaced Michel Therrien. Evgeni Malkin enjoyed one of his best seasons, winning the Art Ross, placing second to Alex Ovechkin in Hart voting and being named the first-team all-star center. Crosby rebounded from an injury-ravaged 2007-08 to finish third in NHL scoring and all-star voting. Emerging third-line force Jordan Staal, who got his career back on track following a tough sophomore campaign, supported them. He placed third in team scoring behind his superstar teammates. Max Talbot and Tyler Kennedy gobbled important fourth-line minutes. Talbot cemented his place in Penguins history when he scored both goals in a 2-1 Game 7 triumph over Detroit in the Cup final. Era-adjusted points: 269.2001-02 Detroit Red Wings. Four centers, four future Hall of Famers. So why aren&rsquo;t they No. 1? Steve Yzerman missed 30 games with a knee injury, Igor Larionov turned 41 and Pavel Datsyuk (not yet in the Hall, but he surely will be) was a rookie. Sergei Fedorov was the mainstay, finishing second in team scoring. While none had his best season, as a group they contributed mightily to the Wings&rsquo; runaway Presidents&rsquo; Trophy year, one in which they cleared the field by 15 points and had a goal differential 29 better than the No. 2 team. A club laden with superstars is etched in all our memories, unless you&rsquo;re foggy and old, or a whippersnapper. Era-adjusted points: 222.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jasonkay_si_0062/396705-1-eng-US/jasonkay_si_0062.jpg" title="jasonkay_si_006" width="422" height="231"></div><a datastyle href="https://twitter.com/jkthn">@JKTHN</a> &#9632;

JK-column-ipad-2019

Column

MIDDLES FOR THE AGES

<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-ipad9/400487-1-eng-US/roustan-column-ipad.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY MICHELLE VALBERG)</figcaption></div>Dear readers,If you are a Gold Member or became one by Nov. 30, you will be getting our first ever Money and Power special edition in January. This exclusive business issue, available on newsstands and via our website, will become an annual staple in our lineup of publications.For the past couple decades, The Hockey News has been assembling and publishing a &ldquo;100 People of Power and Influence&rdquo; list, which has typically run as a large section in a December issue. That ranking, a point of prestige and debate in the hockey world, now moves to the Money and Power issue permanently. In addition to naming the 100 People of Power and Influence, we will present rankings in the individual categories we use to help formulate the century club. These silos include the top 10 or 15 owners, NHL league executives, NHL team executives, players GMs, coaches and so on. This will provide context in an apples-to-apples manner, before we combine them with oranges. It will grant exposure to more than 100 individuals.There will be detailed information on each NHL team and their owners, sponsors and executives to give readers more information on the teams they follow. We will do a deeper dive on the business operations of one team. In this first issue, it will be the Minnesota Wild, and each year afterward we&rsquo;ll profile a different organization.In preparation for this first Money and Power special, we brainstormed and beefed up what we&rsquo;d done in the past in print and on our digital platforms. I also decided to add video, and we shot interviews of Gary Bettman and other heavy hitters to complement what we do with the written word.I promised several times since I acquired The Hockey News I would be delivering more content to you. Promise made, promise delivered. We hope you enjoy delivery of the Money and Power special. If you&rsquo;re not already a Gold member, this is another great reason to visit us at TheHockeyNews.com/Gold and join the club.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/graemeroust_009/396748-1-eng-US/graemeroust_0092.jpg" title="graemeroust_009" width="583" height="124"></div>Executive Chairman & Publisher, Roustan Media Ltd.roustan.com @GraemeRoustan &#9632;

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Gold Brings Money & Power

<div class="byline">PHOTO BY JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="thousandwor_015" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/thousandwor_0153/396834-1-eng-US/thousandwor_0152.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">No one on the planet would trade places with Troy Stecher right now. He sacrifices his body to Jets goal-scoring deity Patrik Laine, who owns a shot so almighty it netted him five goals in another November game.</figcaption></div> &#9632;

thousandwor_015

A Thousand Words

LIFE FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_ottawa_016" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_ottawa_016/396982-1-eng-US/buzz_ottawa_0162.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Canada&rsquo;s win over Sweden in the final helped make the 2009 event in Ottawa the second-most attended WJC. (RICHARD WOLOWICZ/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>IT WAS MORE FIRING squad than press conference. Sure, the 2018 World Junior Championship delivered the first outdoor game in its history, Canada as gold medalist and Team USA&rsquo;s Casey Mittelstadt as MVP. But another enduring image from the event was the pre-semifinal media availability in which organizers were blitzed with questions about poor attendance.Hockey-mad Buffalo is arguably the most successful U.S. NHL market on a pound-for-pound basis, coming close to sellouts regardless of where the Sabres sit in the standings and churning out great TV ratings even when the team misses the playoffs. As WJC host in 2011, the city drew 329,687 spectators, the fourth-most in tournament history. But Buffalo flopped as the WJC host in 2018, drawing 211,210 fans, a number also artificially inflated by the 44,592 attending the Canada-U.S. outdoor game.In the presser, IIHF president Rene Fasel cited inclement weather as one reason for the consistently half-full KeyBank Center and HarborCenter, as it prevented many Canadians from crossing the border. But the problem was bigger than that, and the attendance dip didn&rsquo;t start last year. Between 2015 and 2018, Toronto and Montreal joint-hosted the WJC twice and Buffalo did it once, meaning, in the case of Toronto and Buffalo, the event was drawing crowds from the same 60-mile radius in three of four years. Fatigue had set in. &ldquo;The experience we&rsquo;ve had now with the almost back-to-back tournaments in Montreal and Toronto tells us we have to think differently the city who hosts the world juniors,&rdquo; said organizing committee chairman Luc Tardiff to reporters.The question now is: does the WJC have to rethink its entire hosting strategy? Is it going to the well too often with Canada and American cities bordering Canada? After a year to reflect on what happened in Buffalo, Fasel doesn&rsquo;t think so. He feels it&rsquo;s a matter of perspective. As he points out, the 2016 Helsinki tournament was the largest-drawing WJC of all-time outside North America, yet it drew a total of 215,226 fans, good for ninth all-time.It&rsquo;s the only WJC across the Atlantic to crack the top 10. So even Canada&rsquo;s or the U.S.&rsquo;s &ldquo;worst&rdquo; years attract more bodies than the tournament would get anywhere else. &ldquo;Canada is actually the place where we should play the under-20s maybe every year, because it&rsquo;s something special the fans like,&rdquo; Fasel said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tradition. That&rsquo;s why we come back every second year, more or less. We have great arenas, NHL arenas with a high capacity.&rdquo;Fasel has the utmost confidence in a massive comeback for the 2019 numbers. Vancouver last hosted in 2006 (with Kamloops and Kelowna), drawing 325,138 spectators, placing it in the top five all-time as a host. There&rsquo;s little risk of tournament fatigue there. In mid-October, tournament director Riley Wiwchar said ticket sales &ldquo;exceeded expectations.&rdquo;But if Vancouver (with Victoria this time) does end up performing worse than the last time it hosted, might the IIHF rethink its philosophy? Some less conventional suitors have come forward in recent years. St. Louis and Pittsburgh made plays for the 2018 tournament before losing out to Buffalo. Pat Kelleher, executive director of USA Hockey, believes he&rsquo;ll see another swell of enthusiasm from NHL cities the next time the U.S. gets a chance to host. With a gleeful chuckle, he offers Vegas as an exciting outside-the-box idea. &ldquo;There are plenty of spots we&rsquo;ll examine and weigh the pros and cons for, but I think we&rsquo;ll have some great support,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s an opportunity to leverage a partnership with an NHL club and work to continuously grow the game, it&rsquo;ll be a thing we look at.&rdquo;Fasel is not as optimistic when it comes to out-of-the-ordinary markets, particularly the idea of a sunbelt city getting a chance. How about a Florida-based WJC, co-hosted by the Panthers&rsquo; BB&T Center and the Tampa Bay Lightning&rsquo;s Amalie Arena? Wouldn&rsquo;t it attract a fun blend of locals and Canadian Snowbirds who&rsquo;ve flown south for the holidays? &ldquo;The idea to put the NHL in Florida was that we have Canadian people who retire for the winter there,&rdquo; Fasel said, &ldquo;but even with the top NHL teams, it&rsquo;s not what they expected to have with the spectators. When you see Toronto, Montreal, the spectators there&hellip;here is the place of hockey.&rdquo;The IIHF has announced the host nation for its next 14 WJCs through 2032, with Canada getting the nod six times. We thus shouldn&rsquo;t expect drastic changes in the hosting strategy anytime soon. It took a licking last year, no doubt. But the solution in its mind is returning to another hockey hotbed &ndash; just one thousands of miles away from the last few. The IIHF hasn&rsquo;t yet developed an appetite to take a big risk in North America. The U.S. won&rsquo;t even get a chance to host again until 2025. The citizens of Las Vegas will have to stay patient.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_calgar_017/396968-1-eng-US/buzz_calgar_0172.jpg" title="buzz_calgar_017" width="474" height="500"></div><h1>WJC ATTENDANCE HISTORY</h1><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-0165/396961-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg" title="f0011-01" width="475" height="512"></div><h1>UPCOMING UJC HOST NATIONS</h1><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/canada8/396954-1-eng-US/canada2.jpg" title="canada" width="104" height="68"></div>2019 CANADA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/czechrep4/396947-1-eng-US/czechrep2.jpg" title="czechrep" width="119" height="78"></div>2020 CZECH REPUBLIC</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/canada7/396940-1-eng-US/canada2.jpg" title="canada" width="104" height="68"></div>2021 CANADA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/sweden5/396933-1-eng-US/sweden2.jpg" title="sweden" width="131" height="86"></div>2022 SWEDEN</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/russia4/396926-1-eng-US/russia2.jpg" title="russia" width="119" height="78"></div>2023 RUSSIA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/canada6/396919-1-eng-US/canada2.jpg" title="canada" width="104" height="68"></div>2024 CANADA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/usa4/396912-1-eng-US/usa2.jpg" title="usa" width="104" height="68"></div>2025 USA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/canada5/396905-1-eng-US/canada2.jpg" title="canada" width="104" height="68"></div>2026 CANADA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/finland3/396898-1-eng-US/finland2.jpg" title="finland" width="122" height="78"></div>2027 FINLAND</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/czechrep3/396891-1-eng-US/czechrep2.jpg" title="czechrep" width="119" height="78"></div>2028 CZECH REPUBLIC</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/canada4/396884-1-eng-US/canada2.jpg" title="canada" width="104" height="68"></div>2029 CANADA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/usa3/396877-1-eng-US/usa2.jpg" title="usa" width="104" height="68"></div>2030 USA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/russia3/396870-1-eng-US/russia2.jpg" title="russia" width="119" height="78"></div>2031 RUSSIA</div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="container"><div class="figure-block image-float"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/canada3/396863-1-eng-US/canada2.jpg" title="canada" width="104" height="68"></div>2032 CANADA &#9632;</div>

buzz_ottawa_016

HOTBEDS TRUMP HOT HOMESTEADS

<div class="byline">BY BEN SHELLEY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_sharki_024/397040-1-eng-US/buzz_sharki_0242.jpg" title="buzz_sharki_024" width="658" height="542"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ROCKY W. WIDNER/NHL/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>S.J. SHARKIE | SAN JOSE SHARKSHe may have an&nbsp;unoriginal name, but S.J. Sharkie has become one of the most recognizable mascots in the NHL. Debuting in January 1992, Sharkie has been a ring bearer at a wedding, a date to senior prom and was even run into by Theoren Fleury after a game. He also took center stage in one of the most memorable mascot moments of all-time. Before a game against Detroit in March 1999, Sharkie was tasked with propelling down from the arena rafters to hype up the fans. It was a great stunt &ndash; until his jersey became entangled with the rope and equipment. Sharkie was stranded 40 feet above the Wings&rsquo; crease, dangling. But even as rubber mats were being stacked below to provide a cushion if the rope gave way, the situation didn&rsquo;t stop Sharkie from throwing his arms in the air in an effort to excite the crowd. The game was delayed for 20 minutes as the arena crew worked to help him get down, while Sharkie remained suspended in the air as the starting lineups were announced and Steve Yzerman, among others, laughed below. Eventually he was raised back up to the catwalk and untangled, which garnered cheering from the crowd, but not before creating one of the strangest pre-game events in NHL history. &#9632;

MEET A MASCOT

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0013-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-0163/397112-1-eng-US/f0013-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(WICKENHEISER: BRIAN BAHR/GETTY IMAGES; ALFREDSSON: HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES/NHLI; JOSEPH: GRAIG ABEL COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; GONCHAR: MITCHELL LAYTON/GETTY IMAGES/NHLI; ELIAS: RICK STEWART/ALLSPORT; MOGILNY: JEAN-YVES MICHAUD/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

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HALL OF FAME LOCK-O-METER

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jersey_brui_029/397155-1-eng-US/jersey_brui_0292.jpg" title="jersey_brui_029" width="574" height="583"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ADIDAS HOCKEY)</figcaption></div>BOSTON BRUINS | 2019 WINTER CLASSICThe Bruins have played in a couple outdoor games already and while they wore a similar version of the latest special jersey during the NHL&rsquo;s 75th anniversary season, this iteration is of course an updated Adidas production. The sweater was inspired by the uniforms worn by the team from 1932-36, and features a color scheme that&rsquo;s brown and gold instead of the traditional black and gold. In a nod to the olden days, felt material will be part of the construction. And since the game will be held at Notre Dame&rsquo;s football stadium, Boston&rsquo;s sweater also features six shamrocks on the inside of the collar, representing the franchise&rsquo;s six Stanley Cups.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jersey_brui_030/397148-1-eng-US/jersey_brui_0302.jpg" title="jersey_brui_030" width="211" height="211"></div> &#9632;

jersey_brui_029

JERSEY HOUND

<div class="byline">BY SAL BARRY OF PUCKJUNK.COM</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0013-0255/397184-1-eng-US/f0013-022.jpg" title="f0013-02" width="673" height="681"></div>LOS ANGELES KINGS SEASON-TICKET holders received a collectible holiday card around Christmastime in 1992. It was produced by Upper Deck, serial-numbered to 7,000 copies and about twice the size of a standard hockey card. The front shows the Kings celebrating a victory from earlier in the season and states &ldquo;Season&rsquo;s Greetings from the Los Angeles Kings.&rdquo; The back features action images of players Wayne Gretzky, Rob Blake and Luc Robitaille, as well as shots of coach Barry Melrose and GM Nick Beverley under famous namesake street signs. &#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/f0014-0185/397213-1-eng-US/f0014-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTOS BY JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>IN THE PAST FEW seasons, thinking in hockey has changed. Instead of balancing your offensive talent on different lines, teams are now eager to load up their scoring talent on one line. They are looking for three legitimate scoring threats to play together. As this strategy evolved, there was a strong consensus the Boston Bruins had the top line in the NHL, with Patrice Bergeron between Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak. All three of these players seem better than ever. However, their position at the top of the NHL totem pole is in jeopardy. The Colorado Avalanche have put together a line of Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen flanking Nathan MacKinnon that has been terrorizing the league for the past year and challenging the Boston line as the best in hockey. Each line is centered by a dominant player, two-way veteran Bergeron and turbocharged MacKinnon. Each line has a left winger with a physical and agitating presence: Marchand and Landeskog. And on each line, the right winger is the least experienced member. Pastrnak, 22, was leading the league in goals through late November. Rantanen, also 22, led NHLers in assists and points. Obviously, these are two of the top young players in hockey. How do they compare?<h2>ROLES</h2>Veteran NHL coach Jacques Lemaire had an interesting way of analyzing the value of a good offensive player. If he was matched with other good offensive players, did he make them better? If he did not have offensive players as gifted as he was, could he &ldquo;stand alone&rdquo; and be productive? With his dynamic skating and stickhandling, Pastrnak can certainly stand alone and produce goals if necessary. He can fit in on a good line and make enough good plays to make Bergeron and Marchand better. Pastrnak passes Lemaire&rsquo;s test. However, Rantanen excels in the test. He is the perfect complement for MacKinnon. Rantanen&rsquo;s playmaking skills are as good as any winger&rsquo;s in hockey. He is not looking to stand alone, but some of his goals at key points this year have been outstanding. His stand-alone ability at this time may not be quite at Pastrnak&rsquo;s level, but Rantanen&rsquo;s ability to maximize his linemates&rsquo; talents is so good that it tilts the balance in his favor.&nbsp;EDGE: RANTANEN<h2>CAREERS</h2>Pastrnak came to North&nbsp;America immediately after being drafted in the first round in 2014. After 25 games in the AHL, he was ready for the NHL. He is now in his fourth full season with the Bruins, averaging almost 0.85 points per game over his career. Rantanen also came to North America right away after being drafted in the first round in 2015. He required a full season in the AHL and is now in his third full NHL season. Since the start of 2017-18, his numbers have been better than those of Pastrnak. At this point, Pastrnak has better career totals, including an impressive Stanley Cup playoffs last spring.&nbsp;EDGE: PASTRNAK<h2>SKATING</h2>This comparison is not close. Pastrnak was a dynamic skater in his draft year, and he is clearly an above-average skater at the NHL level. He has speed and quickness, balance and agility. Rantanen&rsquo;s skating was in the &ldquo;iffy&rdquo; category in his draft year. He lacked speed and acceleration, and he looked a bit like Bambi on some of his turns. By last season, his skating had improved enough that he could perform well on a line with skaters like Landeskog and MacKinnon. Rantanen is much stronger on his skates, and his balance and turns are good. His speed and acceleration, however, are not close to Pastrnak&rsquo;s.&nbsp;EDGE: PASTRNAK<h2>HOCKEY SENSE</h2>This comparison is also not close. Pastrnak has above-average hockey sense, particularly in offensive situations. He still at times tries to stickhandle and beat people 1-on-1, but I attribute those situations to immaturity. He makes good plays on a consistent basis and is even being used on the point on the power play. Defensively, he is sometimes confused on who the dangerous opponent may be in defensive zone coverage and can lose his man when backchecking. A close look at Rantanen shows me a player whose hockey sense is at the top of the charts. I am on record in THN as rating the top three NHLers as Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Auston Matthews. Rantanen has hockey sense as good as any of them. The only difference between him and these generational talents is he cannot come close to matching them in skating. You can watch Rantanen play an entire game and not find fault with his decisions. His puck management is as good as anyone&rsquo;s, and his plays are smart and often innovative. What I did not see until putting him &ldquo;under the microscope&rdquo; in recent games is that his defensive positioning is flawless. Rantanen is as smart a player as you can find.&nbsp;EDGE: RANTANEN<h2>PUCK SKILLS</h2>Pastrnak can really dangle with the puck. He can beat players 1-on-1, he can make plays, and he has a quick, powerful shot that is accurate. He can also be sloppy, as evidenced by his 76 giveaways last season. Rantanen manages the puck as well as anybody, controlling it for good parts of every shift, and he made some incredible passes while I was scouting him. They ranged from saucer passes to MacKinnon in full flight to a no-look backhand pass to Landeskog in perfect scoring position. A significant statistic to me is that last season he had only 30 giveaways while controlling the puck so much.&nbsp;EDGE: RANTANEN<h2>SHOOTING</h2>Before closely observing games, I would have given Pastrnak the edge in large part because he was leading the NHL in goals and Rantanen was recording three assists for every goal scored. Now my opinion is different. Pastrnak has a very good release and a quick, powerful shot. Rantanen is looking pass first. However, when the game is on the line, his shooting is lethal. His quick pivot and bullet wrist shot against Boston Nov. 15 was something very few players could have accomplished. Then there&rsquo;s his winner against Anaheim Nov. 18 with 1.3 seconds remaining in overtime. It brought me out of my chair. When he one-timed the slapshot from the high slot, his body was directed to the goalie&rsquo;s left. However, his stick was open and he slapped the puck to the goalie&rsquo;s right and beat him cleanly. It was the same type of shot Wayne Gretzky perfected. Rantanen can shoot at the same level as Pastrnak. Rantanen just does not do it as often.&nbsp;EDGE: NEITHER<h2>CONCLUSION</h2>These two players are two of the hottest commodities in the NHL at this time. Pastrnak can bring a jolt of speed and scoring to any team that needs it, and he plays with passion. Rantanen has improved his skating dramatically, but the tempo of his game is not close to that of Pastrnak. Scoring is secondary to Rantanen at this time but, when required, he can produce. His offensive sense and his defensive awareness are both at the top of the chart. Pastrnak can be one of the best scorers in the NHL for a number of years. Rantanen can be something special. This guy could be at the top of the charts in every category except skating. I would hate to pass on Pastrnak, but I would do so to get Rantanen. Mikko Rantanen is that good. And the scary part is, he is getting better.Tom Thompson has been an NHL scout/director/assistant GM since 1985. &#9632;

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MIKKO RANTANEN VS. DAVID PASTRNAK

<div class="byline">BY BRIAN COSTELLO</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_crosby_039" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_crosby_039/397480-1-eng-US/buzz_crosby_0392.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">SIDNEY&nbsp;CROSBY (CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>IN AN ERA OF&nbsp;hockey obsessed with puck control and dissected with puck-possession metrics, it stands to reason that winning a faceoff is a key component to gaining said puck. But flying in the face of that logic is the fact the past three Stanley Cup champions finished 13th, 28th and 15th in team faceoff efficiency. Go figure.That goes to show you having a one-two center tandem at the top of your depth chart like Pittsburgh&rsquo;s Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin or Washington&rsquo;s Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nicklas Backstrom can go a long way towards moving the puck in a positive direction, even if they&rsquo;re not the best on draws. In ranking each team&rsquo;s crop of centers, Pittsburgh&rsquo;s pair plus reliable bottom six and secondary options kept it at No. 1. Toronto&rsquo;s top-three heavy pivots came in a close second.In our criteria, we considered offensive production followed by two-way prowess and faceoff efficiency as well as other intangibles. Players out all season with injuries were left off. In some cases, a natural center is playing the wing, but is often called upon for faceoffs. Examples are Philadelphia&rsquo;s Claude Giroux, Calgary&rsquo;s Elias Lindholm, Tampa Bay&rsquo;s Tyler Johnson and San Jose&rsquo;s Tomas Hertl. We classified them as wingers in this exercise because that&rsquo;s the position they play more than center.<h2>1. PITTSBURGH PENGUINS</h2>SIDNEY CROSBY, EVGENI MALKIN,&nbsp;DERICK BRASSARD, MATT CULLEN An imposing top three. Sheahan and Grant also very strong in the circle.<h2>2. TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS</h2>AUSTON MATTHEWS, JOHN TAVARES,&nbsp;NAZEM KADRI, PAR LINDHOLM Quality and quantity. Kadri a gem at No. 3 and Lindholm among the best No. 4s.<h2>3. EDMONTON OILERS</h2>CONNOR MCDAVID, LEON DRAISAITL,&nbsp;R. NUGENT-HOPKINS, KYLE BRODZIAK One of RNH or Draisaitl usually on wing. McDavid&rsquo;s flaw is 42.3% career at dot.<h2>4. WASHINGTON CAPITALS</h2>EVGENY KUZNETSOV, N. BACKSTROM, LARS ELLER, NIC DOWD Crafty and talented in top half, and Eller among the top few No. 3 pivots.<h2>5. TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING</h2>STEVEN STAMKOS, BRAYDEN POINT,&nbsp;ANTHONY CIRELLI, CEDRIC PAQUETTE It helps that wingers Johnson, Miller and Gourde also adept, active on draws.<h2>6. BOSTON BRUINS</h2>PATRICE BERGERON, DAVID KREJCI,&nbsp;S. KURALY, J. FORSBACKA KARLSSON Bergeron No. 1 in wins and efficiency in league since lost lockout season.<h2>7. ST. LOUIS BLUES</h2>RYAN O&rsquo;REILLY, BRAYDEN SCHENN,&nbsp;TYLER BOZAK, ROBERT THOMAS O&rsquo;Reilly and Bozak beasts on the draw; production an eye-opener as well.<h2>8. SAN JOSE SHARKS</h2>LOGAN COUTURE, JOE PAVELSKI,&nbsp;JOE THORNTON, ANTTI SUOMELA Growing depth on wings can keep Sharks three-vet strong down middle.<h2>9. NASHVILLE PREDATORS</h2>RYAN JOHANSEN, KYLE TURRIS,&nbsp;NICK BONINO, COLTON SISSONS No jaw-dropping heavyweights here, just a deep group of cruiserweights.<h2>10. DALLAS STARS</h2>TYLER SEGUIN, JASON SPEZZA,&nbsp;RADEK FAKSA, JASON DICKINSON Faceoff ace Spezza playing his best in two years. Stars dominating at dot.<h2>11. ANAHEIM DUCKS</h2>RYAN GETZLAF, RYAN KESLER,&nbsp;ADAM HENRIQUE, KALLE KOSSILA Injuries, age taking a toll on production. But tighten up your chin straps.<h2>12. CALGARY FLAMES</h2>SEAN MONAHAN, MIKAEL BACKLUND,&nbsp;DEREK RYAN, MARK JANKOWSKI A passive bunch physically, but sniping Lindholm takes many draws now.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_barzal_040/397389-1-eng-US/buzz_barzal_0402.jpg" title="buzz_barzal_040" width="1024" height="1125"><figcaption class="caption-body">MATHEW&nbsp;BARZAL (CURTIS COMEAU/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>13. NEW YORK ISLANDERS</h2>MATHEW BARZAL, BROCK NELSON,&nbsp;VALTTERI FILPPULA, CASEY CIZIKAS Quietly the most productive and balanced group of four pivots in league.<h2>14. COLORADO AVALANCHE</h2>NATHAN MACKINNON, ALEX KERFOOT,&nbsp;CARL SODERBERG, TYSON JOST MacKinnon a patsy at dot, but if he&rsquo;s tossed Landeskog comes up strong.<h2>15. VANCOUVER CANUCKS</h2>BO HORVAT, ELIAS PETTERSSON,&nbsp;BRANDON SUTTER, ADAM GAUDETTE Horvat busiest faceoff man in league. Injuries to Sutter, Beagle hurt efficiency.<h2>16. FLORIDA PANTHERS</h2>A. BARKOV, VINCENT TROCHECK,&nbsp;JARED MCCANN, JUHO LAMMIKKO Rare to see top two centers so strong at playmaking, finishing and faceoffs.<h2>17. CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS</h2>JONATHAN TOEWS, ARTEM ANISIMOV,&nbsp;DAVID KAMPF, MARCUS KRUGER Toews aside, this group gets punished on draws as well as offensive output.<h2>18. MINNESOTA WILD</h2>ERIC STAAL, MIKKO KOIVU,&nbsp;JOEL ERIKSSON EK, ERIC FEHR Experience at top. Not as explosive as some teams, but very much two-way.<h2>19. VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS</h2>WILLIAM KARLSSON, ERIK HAULA,&nbsp;CODY EAKIN, P-E BELLEMARE Injury to Stastny has dragged down group. Add him and they crack top 10.<h2>20. CAROLINA HURRICANES</h2>SEBASTIAN AHO, JORDAN STAAL,&nbsp;VICTOR RASK, LUCAS WALLMARK Injury to Rask hurts depth. Aho producing and others winning faceoffs.<h2>21. WINNIPEG JETS</h2>MARK SCHEIFELE, BRYAN LITTLE,&nbsp;ADAM LOWRY, ANDREW COPP Jets more dominant on wings and &lsquo;D,&rsquo; but Scheifele an ace and Lowry unsung.<h2>22. LOS ANGELES KINGS</h2>ANZE KOPITAR, JEFF CARTER,&nbsp;ADRIAN KEMPE, NATE THOMPSON Career credentials and faceoff efficiency solid, but sticks have gone cold.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_coutur_041/397312-1-eng-US/buzz_coutur_0412.jpg" title="buzz_coutur_041" width="1024" height="792"><figcaption class="caption-body">SEAN&nbsp;COUTURIER (STEVEN KINGSMAN/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>23. PHILADELPHIA FLYERS</h2>SEAN COUTURIER, NOLAN PATRICK,&nbsp;JORDAN WEAL, JORI LEHTERA Flyers near top in faceoff prowess as Couturier looks to regain magic.<h2>24. COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS</h2>PIERRE-LUC DUBOIS, BOONE JENNER,&nbsp;ALEXANDER WENNBERG, RILEY NASH Lack of bona fide No. 1 hurts and Nash has been a supreme flop UFA signing.<h2>25. DETROIT RED WINGS</h2>DYLAN LARKIN, FRANS NIELSEN,&nbsp;LUKE GLENDENING, JACOB DE LA ROSE Larkin having his best start. Nielsen and Glendening solid on two-way front.<h2>26. OTTAWA SENATORS</h2>MATT DUCHENE, CHRIS TIERNEY,&nbsp;COLIN WHITE, ZACK SMITH Playing above expectations. This group a 100-percent turnover from a year ago.<h2>27. BUFFALO SABRES</h2>JACK EICHEL, CASEY MITTELSTADT,&nbsp;PATRIK BERGLUND, JOHAN LARSSON Eichel doing some serious man-hauling until Casey&rsquo;s game rounds into form.<h2>28. NEW YORK RANGERS</h2>MIKA ZIBANEJAD, KEVIN HAYES,&nbsp;BRETT HOWDEN, FILIP CHYTIL Early in rebuild, centers playing one line above their weight class. No shame.<h2>29. ARIZONA COYOTES</h2>ALEX GALCHENYUK, DEREK STEPAN,&nbsp;DYLAN STROME, BRAD RICHARDSON Injury to Dvorak takes away the depth. Galchenyuk getting schooled in circle.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_domi/397256-1-eng-US/buzz_domi2.jpg" title="buzz_domi" width="638" height="986"><figcaption class="caption-body">MAX&nbsp;DOMI (FRANCOIS LACASSE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>30. MONTREAL CANADIENS</h2>MAX DOMI, PHILLIP DANAULT,&nbsp;JESPERI KOTKANIEMI, MATTHEW PECA No complaints about Domi&rsquo;s production, but it gets dry or young after that.<h2>31. NEW JERSEY DEVILS</h2>NICO HISCHIER, TRAVIS ZAJAC,&nbsp;PAVEL ZACHA, BRIAN BOYLE Bounce-back for Zajac, reinforcements for Nico are much in demand. &#9632;

buzz_crosby_039

THE COUNTDOWN

<div class="byline">BY WAYNE FISH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_jvr1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_jvr1/397523-1-eng-US/buzz_jvr12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY ZACK HILL/PHILADELPHIA FLYERS)</figcaption></div>SOMETIMES HAVING A WISH come true can mean almost more than the most powerful medicine to someone battling a life-threatening disease.One look at the smile on Luke Rogers&rsquo; face the morning of Nov. 14 confirmed that. Rogers, 14, said he&rsquo;s been dreaming his whole life of meeting and skating with his boyhood hero, James van Riemsdyk of the Philadelphia Flyers. And maybe that fantasy-come-true can supply him with extra inspiration as the young resident of Marlboro, N.J., battles a disease called Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.Rogers joined van Riemsdyk on the ice at the Flyers&rsquo; practice facility in Voorhees, N.J., for a 15-minute shoot-around with goaltender Calvin Pickard in net. The kid&rsquo;s got some game, and perhaps there was a little extra pep in his step because of the opportunity.Later, after meeting some other Flyers, Rogers walked upstairs to sign a unique one-day contract with the team. Rogers grew up playing on the same rink (originally called Jersey Sports Arena) that JVR played on when he was young.As special as the day was for Rogers, it was also an emotional one for van Riemsdyk, a native of Middletown, N.J. &ldquo;The excitement Luke had for it was pretty cool,&rdquo; van Riemsdyk said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s always great in the situation we&rsquo;re in as athletes, being involved in the community. For me, it&rsquo;s even more important because I&rsquo;m a guy who is relatively local. He grew up playing in the same rink I did. It&rsquo;s a small thing, but you get to make someone&rsquo;s day.&rdquo;Rogers had to give up hockey during treatment and said that absence was the toughest part of the process. The furlough lasted from October 2015 to January 2017. &ldquo;It really ate away at me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Hockey is my life. When I got back to playing it was the joy of my life. That year I couldn&rsquo;t walk or bathe myself. Then I got the &lsquo;port&rsquo; (for intravenous chemotherapy) out and I started playing full contact. Not nearly where I was before, but I&rsquo;ll get there. My treatment is over in February 2019.&rdquo;Rogers and van Riemsdyk discussed the team, how they&rsquo;re doing and how they practice. &ldquo;We talked about how my game can get better, my shot,&rdquo; Rogers said.And getting an NHL contract was exciting as well. &ldquo;Hopefully I&rsquo;ll be able to do it again someday with a professional team,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Maybe this one.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_jvr2/397509-1-eng-US/buzz_jvr22.jpg" title="buzz_jvr2" width="657" height="604"><figcaption class="caption-body">JAMES VAN RIEMSDYK&nbsp;& LUKE ROGERS (PHOTO BY WAYNE FISH)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

buzz_jvr1

FLYER FOR A DAY

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_eberle_044/397552-1-eng-US/buzz_eberle_0442.jpg" title="buzz_eberle_044" width="658" height="675"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY KEVIN SOUSA/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Who was your hockey mentor growing up?It&rsquo;s probably a cliche answer but my dad. He coached me growing up and introduced me to the game.Best advice you received as a young player?I was always a smaller guy, so in the (WHL) bantam draft I got picked late. The best advice I got was to prove people wrong, that I wasn&rsquo;t too small and I could play.Who was your favorite team as a kid?The Edmonton Oilers. Growing up in Regina, there were a lot of Oilers fans. Especially in 2006 when they went to the Stanley Cup final.Why do you wear No. 7?I don&rsquo;t know, I&rsquo;ve just worn it since I was a little kid. At the (2009 and 2010) world juniors, they gave me No. 14 so I had that for a little while. And obviously in Edmonton, Paul Coffey wore No. 7 so it&rsquo;s retired. I was pretty happy to wear No. 7 when I came here.What was your first major purchase after signing your first NHL contract?Honestly, I didn&rsquo;t really buy anything until my second year in the NHL. I bought a house, I was 21. That was the biggest one.What was your &lsquo;welcome to the NHL&rsquo; moment?My first game, for sure. It was on Hockey Night In Canada, we played the Flames in a Battle of Alberta. It was a great night. I scored my first goal that game, too.What&rsquo;s your favorite spot on the ice?You get a pass in the slot, you&rsquo;re in that area with time, that&rsquo;s probably the No. 1 spot.What&rsquo;s the best thing about being in the NHL?Everything. When you&rsquo;re a kid, you&rsquo;re always dreaming about playing in the NHL, so to be here is a treat. Even the bad days are good days.What&rsquo;s the worst thing about being in the NHL?Probably being away from your immediate family, your parents, you don&rsquo;t get to see them too much. There&rsquo;s not too many bad days.What advice would you give to your 13-year-old self?Try and enjoy it, it goes by quick. I can&rsquo;t believe I&rsquo;ve played in the NHL for nine years, I&rsquo;m 28. Enjoy it because it goes by quick. &#9632;

buzz_eberle_044

RAPID FIRE

<div class="byline">BY JAMES JACKSON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_fanell_042" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_fanell_042/397588-1-eng-US/buzz_fanell_0422.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A VOICE OF EXPERIENCEFanelli has channeled his energy into producing a podcast that shares stories of survival and inspiration. (COURTESY OF JAMES JACKSON)</figcaption></div>BEN FANELLI DOESN&rsquo;T remember the night he almost died on the ice.He was a 16-year-old defenseman with the Kitchener Rangers when he went behind his net to retrieve a puck midway through a tilt against the Erie Otters on Oct. 30, 2009. It was his seventh game in the OHL, and it would be almost two years before he&rsquo;d play another.A charging Mike Liambas of the Otters slammed him into the boards with such force that it knocked Fanelli out cold and left him in a pool of blood. (Liambas was suspended for the rest of the season.) The impact broke Fanelli&rsquo;s helmet and his head struck the partition in the glass. He was rushed to hospital in serious condition. He had a fractured skull and his brain was bleeding in three places.Nine years later, and living in nearby Waterloo, Ont., Fanelli still doesn&rsquo;t remember anything from the hit, or even the day for that matter. He doesn&rsquo;t remember the puck drop. He doesn&rsquo;t remember going behind the net. The last memory he has is stepping onto the bus the night before following a game in Brampton. Then, it&rsquo;s waking up in the hospital. Doctors said he was lucky to be alive and that he might never play sports again. He was told he might not even be the same person he was before the hit. &ldquo;That was probably the only time in a long time that hockey didn&rsquo;t matter,&rdquo; Fanelli said. &ldquo;That week in hospital and the first month after was the first time it didn&rsquo;t matter. It was more about surviving.&rdquo;Yet Fanelli did more than survive. Inspired by Lance Armstrong&rsquo;s story of overcoming cancer, combined with his own experience helping students with learning disabilities, Fanelli vowed to return to the ice. He did just that, and more.In June 2011, Fanelli completed his first triathlon and cycled with Armstrong during a stop to the Waterloo area that summer. A few months later, he returned to the Rangers for 2011-12. &ldquo;In all honesty, that first game back was unbelievable,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It felt so surreal.&rdquo;Fanelli became an alternate captain in 2012 and was captain for his final season in 2013-14. Now, almost five years removed from OHL hockey, Fanelli is using his own story to bring other tales of trauma to light.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_fanell_043/397581-1-eng-US/buzz_fanell_0432.jpg" title="buzz_fanell_043" width="1024" height="645"><figcaption class="caption-body">BEN&nbsp;FANELLI (CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>In January 2018, Fanelli launched a podcast series called HeroicMinds in which he chats with guests from all walks of life &ndash; athletes, first responders, doctors, researchers, ex-soldiers &ndash; about their personal struggles and the obstacles they&rsquo;ve overcome. That list includes former NHLer Marc Savard, whose own career ended because of head injuries; NHLers Gabriel Landeskog and Mark Scheifele; paralympic gold medallist Brenna Huckaby, who lost her leg at 14 to cancer; and Olympian Heather Moyse.HeroicMinds started on a whim after a friend suggested he give it a shot. Within a few days, Fanelli had a microphone and installed audio-mixing software onto his laptop.Podcasting presented a steep learning curve for Fanelli, but he relished the challenge. He started with a list of interview subjects, gathered through youth hockey contacts, but he was worried how the show would fare after he got through them all. As the podcast grew and word got around, that list expanded. &ldquo;There are too many incredible people who haven&rsquo;t gotten their story out, and I didn&rsquo;t know that at first,&rdquo; Fanelli said. &ldquo;You forget that everyone is going through something.&rdquo;HeroicMinds has grown to more than 40 shows and 7,000 listeners each month. He has also partnered with the Rangers to establish Head Strong, an initiative to raise awareness about brain injuries, and he is one of the founders of the EMPWR Foundation, a charity that helps athletes recover from concussions and head injuries.Fanelli is a fixture on the local public-speaking circuit and uses his own story along with those from his podcast to inspire youth to make the most of their lives and stare down adversity. &ldquo;People say, &lsquo;Even if it helps one person, that&rsquo;s enough,&rsquo;&rdquo; Fanelli said. &ldquo;The reality is that&rsquo;s how change is made.&rdquo;Now 25, Fanelli wrapped up a communications degree at Wilfrid Laurier and is an assistant coach with the University of Waterloo men&rsquo;s team. Aside from coaching and the odd shinny match, he doesn&rsquo;t get on the ice much anymore. Living through his own story, he remembers what&rsquo;s really important from his playing days. &ldquo;The life lessons and friendships,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what you miss.&rdquo; &#9632;

buzz_fanell_042

THE HEROIC MIND OF BEN FANELLI

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="thornton1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/thornton1/397631-1-eng-US/thornton12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MARK BLINCH/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>IN THE VISITORS&rsquo; DRESSING room at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, the two players who have defined the identity of the San Jose Sharks for more than a decade sit two stalls apart, separated only by Lukas Radil, a 28-year-old NHL freshman from the Czech Republic who is, at the moment, sporting a shiner under both eyes.It&rsquo;s only fitting that Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski are so closely tethered in the Sharks&rsquo; inner sanctum. No two players in franchise history have defined Los Tiburones the way they have. One was a prodigy at 14, dominating in a Jr. B league against players five years older, a shaggy-haired phenom who was pegged for superstardom long before he was drafted first overall, and has not disappointed. The Hall of Fame awaits. The other had to wait an extra year and almost 500 names just to have his name called at the draft &ndash; all 291 in 2002 and 205 in 2003 &ndash; only to become one of the greatest late picks the game has ever seen.The two took polar-opposite ways to San Jose, but have shared a common sense of purpose once they got there. &ldquo;We have a lot of leaders, but our leadership group has expanded because the culture that has been set by the two Joes,&rdquo; said Sharks GM Doug Wilson. &ldquo;How we do things. Love for the game. Preparation. (Our players) have had the privilege of being around those two guys, and that&rsquo;s what sets the tone for our organization. Those two guys are special people, and any young guys we bring into our team, this is the way we do things around here. And that&rsquo;s set by those two.&rdquo;As impossible as it may be to contemplate, the day will come when San Jose will be Sans Joes (see what we did there?). Thornton, who has had reconstructive surgery on both knees over the past 24 months, turns 40 this coming summer and is clearly on the year-to-year plan. Pavelski, who trails only Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos and John Tavares in goals since the start of 2011-12, is in the final year of his contract and will become an unrestricted free agent if he doesn&rsquo;t sign an extension prior to July 1. Where Thornton is gregarious, playful and chatty, Pavelski is, publicly at least, guarded and economical with his words. Nothing illustrates the radically different approaches more than a recent exchange involving both of them regarding Pavelski&rsquo;s future in San Jose.Reporter: &ldquo;Joe, just wondering how you see this all playing out.&rdquo;Joe Pavelski: &ldquo;I want to be in San Jose. You see it in San Jose. You see it in San Jose.&rdquo;Reporter: &ldquo;What does that mean?&rdquo;Pavelski: &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. What does your question mean?&rdquo;Reporter: &ldquo;Well, it is the last year of your contract.&rdquo;Joe Thornton (peeling his gear off): &ldquo;Do you think he&rsquo;s going to give you the honest answer here?&rdquo;Pavelski: &ldquo;You think I&rsquo;m going to retire?&rdquo;Reporter: &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t.&rdquo;Pavelski: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been here. This is what I know, and this is what I want.&rdquo;Thornton: &ldquo;F---in&rsquo; right! The Sharks are the best!&rdquo;Pavelski: &ldquo;Whether it happens, we&rsquo;ll see. I don&rsquo;t know. We&rsquo;ll see.&rdquo;Thornton: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a Shark! He&rsquo;s a Shark!&rdquo;Pavelski: &ldquo;I gave you an answer, and you didn&rsquo;t like it.&rdquo;Reporter: &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t say I didn&rsquo;t like it.&rdquo;Thornton: &ldquo;I liked it!&rdquo;Pavelski: &ldquo;What do you think?&rdquo;Reporter: &ldquo;I think you&rsquo;re going to be here the rest of your career.&rdquo;Thornton: &ldquo;I liked it! I liked it! I love it!&rdquo;Pavelski: &ldquo;Now, (Patrick) Marleau hitting 1,600 games, that&rsquo;s a story. I hope you get that story. That is incredible. That&rsquo;s unbelievable.&rdquo;Thornton: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a machine. The boys said this morning he&rsquo;s played over 600 games straight. 731. That&rsquo;s unbelievable. That&rsquo;s unreal.&rdquo;Pavelski: &ldquo;Nice talk.&rdquo;Yeah, for sure. All of the caginess aside, that exchange illustrates a modus operandi for the Sharks. In San Jose, they have a very distinct way of going about things, and that is made clear to players the moment they set foot in the dressing room.It&rsquo;s all part of the culture that has been created and perpetuated by Thornton and Pavelski that nobody, not even the best players, go before the team. Ever. That&rsquo;s why so many players want to play there and why they often end up staying there. Wilson tries to create an environment where he gives the team the best chance it can have to contend for a Stanley Cup year in and year out, and the players respond by following in lockstep with both Pavelski and Thornton, who place the collective above the individual. Every. Single. Time.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/thornton2/397624-1-eng-US/thornton22.jpg" title="thornton2" width="1501" height="1042"><figcaption class="caption-body">CULTURE CLUBAlong with Pavelski, the soon-to-be 40-year-old Thornton sets the team-first tone for the franchise. (NICK TURCHIARO/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>If Pavelski does end up signing a new contract with the Sharks, it will be the fifth of his career with the same team. Who does that these days? Well, Thornton, who is on his fifth contract with the Sharks this season, clearly does. Then again, Marleau played for the Sharks for a period of five contracts before signing a three-year deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the summer of 2017. But the prospect of either Thornton or Pavelski wearing anything but the logo of a shark biting through a hockey stick would be, well, kind of weird. &ldquo;I keep it short term,&rdquo; Thornton said. &ldquo;My thought process has always been day to day, and that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s got me this far. Keep it simple. I prepare every day the same way I did 10 years ago, and I think that&rsquo;s a good mindset to have.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">I JUST KNOW I ENJOY COMING TO THE RINK, I ENJOY COMPETING EVERY DAY STILL, AND I KNOW I CAN HELP OUT THE TEAM STILL</blockquote>&ndash; Joe ThorntonPlayers never retire from any sport because they don&rsquo;t want to play the games anymore. Quite to the contrary, actually. The games, along with the camaraderie of their teammates, is usually what they miss the most when they decide to quit. What eventually drives most athletes out of the game is the prospect of having to actually prepare for another season. The off-seasons in the gym and the thought of having to push an aging body harder to simply stem the tide of decline is almost always the deciding factor. Father Time, the last we checked, is still undefeated.That reality has smacked Thornton right in the chops the past couple of years. Before injuring his right knee last season, Thornton had been eligible to play in 973 games for the Sharks since joining them in the middle of 2005-06 and he had played in a mind-boggling 961 of them. He had come off surgery on both his medial collateral and arterial cruciate ligaments in his left knee the summer before. The injury limited him to just 47 games last season, then forced him to miss nine more games this season when the knee became infected.&ldquo;It hasn&rsquo;t been easy, that&rsquo;s for sure,&rdquo; Thornton said. &ldquo;After being relatively healthy for 20 years and then, boom, the left knee goes out at the end of the year. Rehabbing all summer and not feeling great at the start of the year and coming back and feeling really good by December and having the other knee blow out it&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;Holy Christ, what&rsquo;s next?&rsquo; Dealing with that all summer, rehabbing and playing a couple of games and knowing you&rsquo;ve got an infection in it and getting shut down and restarting all over again, for a guy who&rsquo;s always been healthy, it&rsquo;s definitely a change, watching games, sitting out, but it is what it is. I&rsquo;ve got nothing to complain about. I&rsquo;m healthy today, and that&rsquo;s all that matters.&rdquo;Those who watched Thornton rehabilitate both his knees coming off those injuries marvel at the work he put in just to get healthy enough to play again. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve never seen anything like it,&rdquo; Wilson said.Added Sharks coach Peter DeBoer: &ldquo;People don&rsquo;t see the behind-the-scenes stuff. The guy has gone through two reconstructions on his knees in the last 24 months. When you do that, you guys see him when he gets out to start to practice, but you don&rsquo;t see the four months of being in the gym every day, twice a day, the rehab, the trainers working on him. It&rsquo;s endless, the hours he&rsquo;s put in over the past 24 months.&rdquo;And it is clearly the love of the game that continued to drive Thornton as he worked his way back into the lineup. He is no longer a top-line player in San Jose. In fact, he has been skating on the third line, behind Pavelski and Logan Couture on the depth chart, with youngsters Marcus Sorensen and Kevin Labanc as his wingers. His ice time is down &ndash; way, way down &ndash; from where it has been most of his career. Through the first third of the season, Thornton was averaging just 15:36 per game, which is the lowest since the second season of his career.In many ways, Thornton has already passed the torch. Pavelski, meanwhile, continues to chug along at 19 minutes a game, which is actually slightly higher than his career average. Some of that has to do with power-play time, but a lot of it has to do with the fact he&rsquo;s still an elite scorer with a deadly shot and an ability to create plays and win faceoffs. It has been some time since the Sharks became Pavelski&rsquo;s team, the one that was passed to him from Thornton, and the same one that one day he&rsquo;ll pass along to Couture. &ldquo;I let that go years ago,&rdquo; Thornton said. &ldquo;I just know I enjoy coming to the rink, I enjoy competing every day still, and I know I can help out the team still.&rdquo;The Sharks, meanwhile, spent the first third of the season in the thick of the playoff race looking like a lot of teams in the Pacific Division, great one night and not so great the next. This is a team that seems to take its time gaining its footing most seasons but has the ability to know when to start making a push. For his part, Thornton feels that in his own game. He reckons it will be sometime in 2019 when he really begins to hit his stride and get his timing back. Like his team, there have been some stops and starts. After a 5-3 loss to Toronto in late November, Pavelski said he thought the Sharks were close to finding their game. Couture, the burgeoning leader of this group, was far more blunt in his assessment. &ldquo;In my personal opinion, I don&rsquo;t think we&rsquo;re close,&rdquo; Couture said. &ldquo;We have to figure it out soon. I&rsquo;m a believer that it takes time.&rdquo;Time is an interesting commodity when it comes to the Sharks. There was a period when it looked like only a matter of time before this group, led by Thornton and Pavelski, would win a Cup. That hasn&rsquo;t happened yet. The acquisition of superstar defenseman Erik Karlsson, another player who faces an uncertain future at the moment, was part of Wilson&rsquo;s pledge to his team that he would do whatever he could to keep that hope alive.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/thornton3/397617-1-eng-US/thornton32.jpg" title="thornton3" width="1249" height="858"><figcaption class="caption-body">MUDDY WATERSPavelski&rsquo;s future is in question given his pending UFA status, but it would be downright shocking if he leaves San Jose. (DOUGLAS STRINGER/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Brent Burns remains an elite defenseman, and the Sharks do have the wherewithal to put together a long run in the playoffs. If they were to win the Cup, Pavelski would be the first to take it, and would immediately hand it off to Thornton. The time for that to happen in San Jose is waning. The handoff of the &lsquo;C&rsquo; from Thornton to Pavelski, which came after the Sharks blew a 3-0 first-round series lead to Los Angeles in 2014, then missed the playoffs entirely the next season, was awkward to say the least. There were some major reparations needed to the relationship between Wilson and Thornton, but the latter never directed any of his dissatisfaction at Pavelski.<blockquote class="pullQuote">I&rsquo;VE BEEN HERE. THIS IS WHAT I KNOW, AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT</blockquote>&ndash; Joe PavelskiAs Thornton said, he let that go a long time ago. As the milestones continue to fall &ndash; next up are Teemu Selanne and Stan Mikita on the NHL&rsquo;s all-time scoring list &ndash; Thornton only knows about them when he&rsquo;s informed he&rsquo;s approaching one, usually by members of the team&rsquo;s support staff. As for Pavelski, only one player drafted later than 205th has more career goals than he does. That would be Dave Taylor, who was taken 210th in 1975, then went on to score 431 times. Pavelski is within 100 of that total, and there&rsquo;s no reason to believe he won&rsquo;t eclipse that mark in the next three seasons.Pavelski wants to come back, and the Sharks will almost certainly find a way. And it looks as though Thornton wants to stay. &ldquo;I love it,&rdquo; said Thornton of his career. &ldquo;I love the road, I like the late nights, I like the plane rides. It&rsquo;s great. I love it. Who knows? Day to day. It&rsquo;s a good way to look at it.&rdquo; &#9632;

thornton1

Feature

THE JOES’ LAST STAND?

<div class="image-hero"><img title="wjc_opener" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_opener/397709-1-eng-US/wjc_opener2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">STANDING ON GUARDThe defending champions are on home ice this year. When Vancouver last hosted in 2006, Canada defended its gold. (KEVIN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>VANCOUVER PLAYS HOST TO the World Junior Championship for the first time since 2006, and surely Canadian fans are hoping for a repeat of that event. Back then, Team Canada won the second of what turned out to be five straight gold medals at the WJC, and looking at this year&rsquo;s crew, a follow-up to last year&rsquo;s title win is very realistic.This year&rsquo;s tournament will see games played in both Vancouver and Victoria, and the pools are set up in a way that could result in maximum carnage in the crossover medal round. Sweden doesn&rsquo;t look to have the scoring to get back to the final this year, but perhaps a little more adversity in the round-robin will help. The Swedes will have to beat Finland and the Americans to preserve their 44-game win streak spanning 11 years in the preliminary stage.Russia will be a challenge as always, but what if the Young Red Machine comes up against Team USA again in the medal round? The Americans have begun to turn the tide in that Cold War. On the bottom end, Kazakhstan plays against the big boys in the WJC for the first time since 2009 and will be looking for a better result, but they&rsquo;ll have an uphill battle. At the least, the Kazakhs can tell their buddies back home that they got to play against Jack Hughes&hellip;<h2>2019 WJC ODDS</h2>CANADA: 2-1UNITED STATES: 3-1RUSSIA: 4-1CZECH REPUBLIC:&nbsp;7-1FINLAND: 8-1SWEDEN: 10-1 &#9632;

wjc_opener

WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP PREVIEW

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="wjc_comtois_048" src="tois_0482.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">MAX POWERComtois, second from left, brings a physical two-way game and some NHL experience. He projects to be a crucial team leader. (NICHOLAS T. LOVERDE/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THE CANADIANS TOOK HOME WJC gold last year in Buffalo thanks to a total team effort that saw all four lines contribute up front and the tournament-winning tally notched by Tyler Steenbergen &ndash; the only forward who hadn&rsquo;t scored for the team until then. There was no superstar on the team, with goaltender Carter Hart perhaps the closest to warrant that distinction, but Canada played as a wolf pack and was unstoppable after losing the outdoor game to Team USA &ndash; though the Swedes probably got jobbed a bit by the officials near the end of the gold-medal game.Nonetheless, expect a similar look from Team Canada this season, where a plethora of talent makes them a conservative favorite to repeat as champions.<h2>OFFENSE</h2>Thanks to a wealth of choice at this position, Canada will be dangerous no matter which line is on the ice. The fluidity of the roster before the final camp in December was a nod to that depth. The Anaheim Ducks sent Max Comtois back to junior and, as one of the few players eligible to return from last year, the big two-way winger will be a favorite to wear a letter in Vancouver.Canada could also get another potent 200-foot player back in Robert Thomas (St. Louis), but that may be a last-minute decision for the Blues. Alex Formenton (Ottawa) was returned to junior earlier this season, and he too brings experience from last year &ndash; not to mention some intimidating speed. Hockey Canada will also circle back on Michael Rasmussen (Detroit) and injured Gabe Vilardi (Los Angeles).Elsewhere, a lot of the decisions could be made based on how much pace Canada wants to play with. A high tempo favors names such as Barrett Hayton (Arizona), Joe Veleno (Detroit) and Liam Foudy (Columbus), with Foudy leading the team in scoring at the World Junior Summer Showcase in Kamloops. A more nuanced approach could come with versatile Nick Suzuki (Montreal), scoring machine Morgan Frost (Philadelphia) and elite playmaker Cody Glass (Vegas), but all would be worthy candidates either way.The X-factors among the forward group include Owen Tippett (Florida) &ndash; who is blessed with speed, size and scoring acumen, but not so much attention away from the puck &ndash; and top 2020 draft prospect Alexis Lafreniere, one of the most prolific scorers in the QMJHL, despite his young age. Lafreniere will be a key part of next year&rsquo;s edition, but because he&rsquo;s more than just a point-producer, he could be that underager that actually makes Team Canada, something we haven&rsquo;t seen much of in recent years.<blockquote class="pullQuote">THANKS TO THEIR WEALTH OF SKILL AT FORWARD, CANADA WILL BE DANGEROUS NO MATTER WHICH LINE IS ON THE ICE</blockquote><h2>DEFENSE</h2>There will be no returnees on the blueline for Canada, but it&rsquo;s hard to see the position as a weakness, based on the candidates available.Evan Bouchard (Edmonton) started the year in the NHL and has not missed a beat since returning to the OHL, tallying more than a point per game for the London Knights. He&rsquo;ll be a solid presence thanks to his all-around game. Out in the &lsquo;Q,&rsquo; Canada has several high-end options in puck-movers Pierre-Olivier Joseph (Arizona) and Noah Dobson (New York Islanders). Joseph is one of the top-scoring blueliners in the league, while Dobson won a Memorial Cup last year with Acadie-Bathurst and is now doing his best on a young, rebuilding team.Another great puck-mover is Ty Smith (New Jersey), a frequent international player for Canada who has also been leading the WHL in offense from the blueline as a member of the Spokane Chiefs.Tidily enough, Canada has an equal amount of left and right shots in that group, which is preferable (though not necessary) for this tournament. Whether that&rsquo;s a consideration for the rest of the roster remains to be seen, but it may end up helping a gifted talent such as Nicolas Beaudin (Chicago), who could fill that final left-shot slot. Look for the aggressive Josh Brook (Montreal) to get a long look, too, as he plays for Canada coach Tim Hunter with WHL Moose Jaw. And if the team dips into NCAA territory, Denver&rsquo;s Ian Mitchell (Chicago) surely has the necessary skills to contribute.The X-factor on defense is Ryan Merkley (San Jose), who skates like the wind and can really make a power play hum, but his defensive issues may be seen as too much to overcome. It will also be interesting to see how many offensively leaning D-men Canada chooses to take, as Calen Addison (Pittsburgh) also has that skill set.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_bouchar_047/397745-1-eng-US/wjc_bouchar_0472.jpg" title="wjc_bouchar_047" width="942" height="938"><figcaption class="caption-body">BET ON THIS BACKBONEDiPietro brings athleticism and fire to Canada&rsquo;s net, and the well-rounded Bouchard, right, will be a rock on defense. (MATTHEW MURNAGHAN/HOCKEY CANADA)</figcaption></div><h2>GOALTENDING</h2>While nothing is air-tight for Canada, it really does look like the starter&rsquo;s job is there for Michael DiPietro (Vancouver) to take and run with. Not only has the Canucks prospect won a Memorial Cup and set the OHL Windsor Spitfires&rsquo; franchise record for wins, but he was also a rare third goalie taken by Canada to the World Championship last year. Hmm, what experience could that have been preparing him for? DiPietro doesn&rsquo;t have the traditional size of a big-time goaltender, but everything he has done so far in his junior career points to an athletic competitor who simply gets the job done.But after DiPietro, it&rsquo;s a guessing game. Ian Scott (Toronto) wasn&rsquo;t invited to Canada&rsquo;s summer camp, but he&rsquo;s been nearly unbeatable for WHL Prince Albert this season, losing just once in his first 20 decisions. Scott also played well in the CHL-Russia series, winning his leg of the WHL portion and surrendering just a single goal. At 6-foot-3, he should get a chance to make his case in December.Elsewhere, Olivier Rodrigue (Edmonton) gains notice thanks to his history of international play, but he was roughed up at the WJSS as well as in the CHL-Russia series. Back in the QMJHL, Rodrigue has put up good numbers for a strong Drummondville team. Matthew Villalta (Los Angeles) is another option, but the goalie for OHL Sault Ste. Marie needs to round into form due to missing three weeks after a linesman stepped on the back of his leg. Like DiPietro, Villalta has some solid crunch-time experience. &#9632;

wjc_comtois_048

THERE’S NO ‘I’ IN CANADA

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_dipietr_049/397809-1-eng-US/wjc_dipietr_0492.jpg" title="wjc_dipietr_049" width="988" height="1375"><figcaption class="caption-body">LEARNING EXPERIENCEDiPietro didn&rsquo;t play any games for Canada at the 2018 worlds, but he was there in a support role as a third-stringer. (MATTHEW MURNAGHAN/HOCKEY CANADA)</figcaption></div>FOR CANADIANS IN particular, the World Junior Championship has been a family affair for decades now. Because the tournament begins on Boxing Day, it&rsquo;s common for everyone to gather around and watch the country&rsquo;s top teens compete on the international stage together. Michael DiPietro was no different. &ldquo;The world junior tournament was a staple at Christmas for my family and I,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Jordan Eberle&rsquo;s goal (in 2009) is one that sticks out for me.&rdquo;But DiPietro&rsquo;s family has also changed over the years.His biological mother, Rebecca, died of cancer when he was just five. That left his father Vic to deal with heartache and the responsibilities of raising a young son by himself. &ldquo;I can only imagine what a daunting and scary task it was, putting up with me and wearing so many hats,&rdquo; DiPietro said. &ldquo;We have a really special bond, no doubt about it.&rdquo;A few years later, DiPietro developed a couple more important bonds when Vic married Assunta Fenty. She was also a widower with one son &ndash; Mark, who is six years older than Michael. The affection DiPietro has for both of them is obvious. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m skinny because of her,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was a chubby kid, and she introduced me to salad. And Mark is the reason I&rsquo;m a goaltender.&rdquo;Mark tended net for several years and played Div. III college hockey before settling in as an architectural engineer who now lives in Kansas City. For DiPietro, goaltending looks to be his present and future job.Warren Rychel has known DiPietro since the youngster was a 10-year-old suiting up for the Sun County Panthers, based near Windsor, Ont. Rychel&rsquo;s son Maddox was on those Sun County squads, as was Boston Bruins prospect Jack Studnicka. And the former NHLer liked to test the young netminder. &ldquo;I was blasting away as hard as I could on him since he was a peewee,&rdquo; Rychel said.Rychel is also the longtime GM of the OHL&rsquo;s Windsor Spitfires, so when he had a chance to draft DiPietro in 2015, he snapped up the opportunity with the 23rd overall pick. DiPietro played well as an OHL rookie in 2015-16, appearing in 29 games on a squad that used four netminders.But it was as a sophomore in 2016-17 when he really took off. It was his NHL draft year, and DiPietro seized the crease in Windsor, playing in 51 games for the Memorial Cup hosts &ndash; who were loaded with talents such as Mikhail Sergachev, Logan Brown and Gabe Vilardi.The Spits lost in the first round of the OHL playoffs, taking the wrong end of a seven-game burner against the defending champion London Knights. But the team rebounded from a long layoff to win the 2017 Memorial Cup on home ice, defeating an Erie Otters squad led by Dylan Strome and Alex DeBrincat.DiPietro was sensational in the final, battling through traffic and making crucial highlight-reel saves against the potent Otters. At six-foot, DiPietro doesn&rsquo;t have the ideal size for a typical NHL goalie but, with his talent, he may be one of those rare birds like Jonathan Quick or Juuse Saros for whom it doesn&rsquo;t matter. The Vancouver Canucks weren&rsquo;t too concerned, as they drafted DiPietro 64th overall in 2017.With the Spitfires rebuilding the past two seasons, DiPietro has been a wall and now holds the franchise record for career wins at 83 and counting. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been consistent, and he&rsquo;s seen it all,&rdquo; Rychel said. &ldquo;Up or down, 60 days off before the Memorial Cup, losing top players over the summer, playing in front of a lesser team, he&rsquo;s always been consistent with his work ethic and his attitude.&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve only seen him stumble once, this year when he came back from NHL training camp in Vancouver. For the first couple of weeks his body was here, but his brain was in Vancouver. I call it &lsquo;NHL brain.&rsquo; But we corrected it.&rdquo;Before DiPietro even got to Vancouver&rsquo;s training camp, he was on a rollercoaster when he got a unique opportunity with Team Canada in the spring of 2018. Traditionally, Canada has only taken two netminders to the World Championship and since the NHL playoffs are on at the same time, it&rsquo;s hard enough to find top-end stoppers. But this time, the team brain trust decided to bring a third goalie along, and DiPietro was their choice, having already played at a high level for the national team at the World Under-17 Challenge and the under-18 Ivan Hlinka tournament. &ldquo;Michael has had a great track record with our program, and he was one of our final cuts for the world junior team last year,&rdquo; said Shawn Bullock, Hockey Canada&rsquo;s director of national teams. &ldquo;We saw an opportunity for him to grow and be around some incredible influences, (not just) Connor McDavid, Ryan O&rsquo;Reilly and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, but also (staff members) Sean Burke and Martin Brodeur.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_dipietr_050/397802-1-eng-US/wjc_dipietr_0502.jpg" title="wjc_dipietr_050" width="1615" height="958"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MATTHEW MURNAGHAN/HOCKEY CANADA)</figcaption></div>Convincing DiPietro of the offer took some effort. His season with Windsor had ended, and a minor knee injury had been hampering him when he got a call out of the blue from Rychel. &ldquo;Warren called and asked if I was 100 percent,&rdquo; DiPietro said. &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;Yes,&rsquo; and he hung up the phone. A few days later he called again and asked if I wanted to go to the worlds. I said &lsquo;Warren, I&rsquo;m too old for the under-18s,&rsquo; and he said &lsquo;No, you idiot, the men&rsquo;s championship.&rsquo; After the fourth time he said it, I finally believed him.&rdquo;Rychel still chuckles about how serious DiPietro was in his preparation for the trip: the youngster showed up at the airport in a full suit, only to find McDavid at the boarding gate in sweatpants. But DiPietro was on a mission, even though he knew he wasn&rsquo;t going to play in any games at the tourney in Denmark. &ldquo;I knew heading in that I wanted to learn a lot about the preparation, the strategies that made for success,&rdquo; DiPietro said. &ldquo;I roomed with Curtis McElhinney, and he had been thrown into some tough situations in Toronto.&rdquo;DiPietro sees Vancouver as a similar high-pressure market, and his experience at camp with the Canucks has him excited for the future. &ldquo;You get a small taste of how great and passionate the fans are,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lot bigger than Windsor, but hockey for me is life, and those fans share that feeling.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_dipietr_051/397795-1-eng-US/wjc_dipietr_0512.jpg" title="wjc_dipietr_051" width="867" height="1104"><figcaption class="caption-body">COOL AND COLLECTEDThe big stage of the WJC won&rsquo;t be unnerving for DiPietro. He was a Memorial Cup standout for Windsor in 2017. (MATTHEW MURNAGHAN/HOCKEY CANADA)</figcaption></div>And those fans will get a long look at DiPietro at the world juniors this year &ndash; assuming he&rsquo;s the starter, as projected &ndash; since Canada will play its games in the same building the Canucks call home. His big-game experience with Windsor means that no stage is too intimidating for him, while the time in Denmark gave him insight into what the pros do to stay on top. Plus, he&rsquo;s got his own innate skill set. &ldquo;Michael is an incredible competitor,&rdquo; Bullock said. &ldquo;Think of the Memorial Cup performances he had in his own building. His athleticism and preparation make Michael successful, and he continues to soak up information.&rdquo;Rychel sees DiPietro as a leader in the crease and compared him to former Spitfires captain Mickey Renaud, A calgary Flames draft pick who passed away at 19 in 2008 due to a rare heart disorder and now has an OHL award for leadership named after him.Will DiPietro end his junior career as a lifelong Spitfire? That&rsquo;s another storyline to keep an eye on. Windsor is in a rebuilding mode and isn&rsquo;t considered a contender this year. Teams were trying to pry him away from the Spitfires last season &ndash; the Barrie Colts were reportedly very serious &ndash; but neither Rychel nor DiPietro were inclined to move on at the time. This year, it&rsquo;s only fair to accept that Rychel will do his job as GM, even if it means trading a player with whom he has had a long and meaningful bond. DiPietro says he&rsquo;ll always be a Spitfire at heart, no matter what happens in the future.In the short term, putting DiPietro in net gives Team Canada the best chance of winning at the 2019 WJC. And for Canucks fans who will surely be flocking to games at the world juniors, they might see a key part of their NHL team&rsquo;s future, too. &#9632;

wjc_dipietr_049

MICHAEL DIPIETRO

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="wjc_hughes" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_hughes/397859-1-eng-US/wjc_hughes2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">YOUNG GUNJack Hughes won&rsquo;t turn 18 until after the WJC, but the pressure to produce will be on the top 2019 NHL draft prospect. (MATTHEW MURNAGHAN/HOCKEY CANADA IMAGES)</figcaption></div>LAST YEAR IN BUFFALO, the Americans came out flat against Sweden in the semifinal, and it cost them a chance at gold. Team USA still came away with a bronze after drubbing the Czechs in the third-place match, but for a squad that had already beaten Canada in an outdoor game, the end result was a little hollow.That American team had a ton of firepower up front, led by Casey Mittelstadt and Kieffer Bellows. Both of them have aged out of the world juniors, but the U.S. will still have a loaded arsenal at its disposal thanks to the latest top NHL draft prospect, Jack Hughes. Team USA will likely ask the Ottawa Senators to loan budding power forward Brady Tkachuk for the tourney, but it&rsquo;s hard to see the Sens agreeing to that request, given how well the rookie has played while healthy.This will be a good U.S. team with a chance at gold, assuming all the parts come together &ndash; particularly in net.<h2>OFFENSE</h2>The name at the top of everyone&rsquo;s watch list is Jack Hughes and rightly so. The top 2019 draft prospect and NTDP superstar can create dangerous opportunities practically every shift due to his speed, creativity and hands. But more importantly, the U.S. will be able to create matchup problems for a lot of teams thanks to a wealth of talent up the middle.Along with Hughes, they also have two 2018 returnees in St. Cloud State&rsquo;s Ryan Poehling (Montreal) and Michigan&rsquo;s Josh Norris (Ottawa). Poehling and Norris are two-way players with offensive skills, and Poehling in particular can be used to shut down opponents&rsquo; top lines thanks to his size and responsible nature. Norris, whose NHL rights went from San Jose to Ottawa as part of the Erik Karlsson trade, is off to a great start with the NCAA&rsquo;s Wolverines, leading the team in scoring and contributing on both special teams.On the wings, Team USA has a lot of options, and the final camp in December will be crucial. OHL Kingston&rsquo;s Jason Robertson (Dallas) is a power-play ace who wins puck battles and keeps plays alive, but he&rsquo;s not the fleetest of foot. Neither is Harvard&rsquo;s Jack Drury (Carolina), but he&rsquo;s reliable and plays like a warrior &ndash; which could make him a great bottom-sixer.Oliver Wahlstrom (New York Islanders) has gotten off to a slow start in his NCAA career with Boston College, but his past NTDP work and scoring ability give him a great chance of sticking. Joel Farabee (Philadelphia) brings a relentless motor, and it would be fun if the Americans reunited last year&rsquo;s sick NTDP top line of Farabee-Hughes-Wahlstrom.The U.S. team brass is also intrigued by Providence freshman Jay O&rsquo;Brien (Philadelphia), though he is working his way back from a concussion. The door is also open for 2019 draft prospect Matthew Boldy, who plays a similar game to Wahlstrom.<blockquote class="pullQuote">THIS WILL BE A GOOD U.S. TEAM WITH A CHANCE AT GOLD, ASSUMING ALL THE PARTS COME TOGETHER &ndash; PARTICULARLY IN NET</blockquote><h2>DEFENSE</h2>The back end holds a ton of promise with a group that includes three returnees from last year&rsquo;s team: Quinn Hughes (Vancouver), Mikey Anderson (Los Angeles) and Dylan Samberg (Winnipeg). In Hughes, the U.S. has an incredible skater who dominates when he has the puck and is also the older brother of center Jack Hughes. The two loved playing together at the World Junior Summer Showcase, and this will be a rare chance for them to suit up on the same team, unless the Canucks win the draft lottery. Anderson is a steady presence on the blueline, while Samberg brings an aggressive element to the proceedings. Anderson and Samberg play for NCAA national champion Minnesota-Duluth.From there, Team USA can go in a couple directions, but the braintrust wants a variety of skills. Phil Kemp (Edmonton) is the classic defensive defenseman, while Reilly Walsh (New Jersey) has the offense and transition game to get the puck moving in the right direction. Mattias Samuelsson (Buffalo), an NTDP alumnus now at Western Michigan, offers size, smarts and a positionally sound game.When the Americans cut down their initial roster at the WJSS, nine D-men lasted to the end. Should anyone usurp the names above, the frontrunners would be Joey Keane (New York Rangers), Ben Mirageas (New York Islanders) and undrafted Matt Anderson. Keane is a great athlete who can move the puck and is playing well for OHL Barrie, while Anderson is another Duluth kid who goes about his work quietly and efficiently. Mirageas, an NCAA sophomore at Providence, is a two-way option.Perhaps the most exciting new name is K&rsquo;Andre Miller (New York Rangers), the Wisconsin freshman who missed the WJSS due to illness. He&rsquo;s been outstanding for the Badgers and plays a high-end two-way game. One potential issue in the selections? The only right shots in the bunch are Keane, Kemp and Walsh.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_anderso_052/397852-1-eng-US/wjc_anderso_0522.jpg" title="wjc_anderso_052" width="942" height="1104"><figcaption class="caption-body">RELIABLE REARGUARDMikey Anderson is one of three returnees to the U.S. blueline. He brings a winning pedigree from Minnesota-Duluth. (KEVIN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>GOALTENDING</h2>This is the big X-factor for Team USA. The Americans didn&rsquo;t get great goaltending last year, and they&rsquo;ll need it in Vancouver and Victoria if they want gold. Cayden Primeau (Montreal) came into the year as a favorite, but he has battled consistency issues at Northeastern after a stellar freshman campaign. Keith Petruzzelli (Detroit) has the size but not the numbers at Quinnipiac. Kyle Keyser (Boston) has been solid for OHL Oshawa and had a good showing at the WJSS, while Spencer Knight (2019 draft) is clearly the future in net but is still young for this tournament. Knight has the most upside, and there could be a case made for him to earn a spot based on merit alone: he led Team USA to silver at the world under-18s as an underager, and he has been dominant against NCAA competition while playing for the U.S. NTDP this year. Could he not have a Jack Campbell effect this year before coming in as the starter in 2020? The final camp in Everett, Wash., will determine the roster and the Americans must choose wisely &ndash; because the difference between playing in the final and settling for less is often just one game. &#9632;

wjc_hughes

TIMING REALLY MATTERS

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="wjc_hughes2_053" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_hughes2_053/397909-1-eng-US/wjc_hughes2_0532.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">QUINN&rsquo;S QUIETERHighly skilled blueliner Quinn Hughes is poised, patient and silky smooth moving the puck from the back end. (MATTHEW MURNAGHAN/HOCKEY CANADA IMAGES)</figcaption></div>AS FAR AS SURPRISES go in hockey, this was a pretty good one. The night before the U.S. National Team Development Program&rsquo;s under-18 squad took on the University of Michigan in October, NTDP coach John Wroblewski was texting back and forth with two of his former charges, Michigan stars Josh Norris and Quinn Hughes.Quinn, a defenseman, would be playing against NTDP center and younger brother Jack in the game, and a plan was hatched for Quinn to take the opening draw instead of Norris. Jack didn&rsquo;t know of the plan &ndash; and neither did Wolverines coach Mel Pearson &ndash; but it turned out to be a fun moment for the brothers.Due to their age gap (19 months) and the fact Jack will surely skip college altogether and go straight to the NHL next year, there haven&rsquo;t been many chances for the Hughes brothers to line up on the same sheet of ice. But in Vancouver this year, expect Team USA&rsquo;s chances of winning gold to rest on the siblings, because they are, indeed, special players.The hockey community got a taste of the brother act in the summer when Jack and Quinn played for Team USA at the World Junior Summer Showcase in Kamloops. Quinn tied for the tournament lead in scoring with seven points in six games, while Jack wasn&rsquo;t far behind, notching five points in seven contests. When they were on the ice together, the chemistry was obvious, though American world junior coach Mike Hastings is quick to point out that they didn&rsquo;t simply focus on each other. They were making the best plays available. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a mutual respect, and the communication between them was such a positive,&rdquo; Hastings said. &ldquo;Good players like to play with good players, and both can see the rink really well.&rdquo;Though Jack was the youngest player on Team USA&rsquo;s entry (the tournament also featured Canada, Sweden and Finland), he wasn&rsquo;t coming to stargaze. &ldquo;For me, I&rsquo;m not really looking at it like that,&rdquo; Jack said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going in there, trying to be one of the top players. It wasn&rsquo;t about age. It was about skill and how well you played, so I wasn&rsquo;t too worried.&rdquo;Wroblewski has a unique view on the Hughes brothers (there&rsquo;s a third coming up in 2003-born defenseman Luke), as he spent two years with Quinn at the NTDP and is now coaching Jack&rsquo;s second campaign with the program. The coach sees their personalities reflected on the ice: Jack is more energetic and in-your-face. He uses that as a center to devastate defenses by often going full-tilt on the ice and carrying the puck a lot.Quinn, on the other hand, is more laid-back, and that carries over to his game as a defenseman, where patience and mindfulness are needed, even by one of the best offensive blueline prospects we&rsquo;ve seen in years. Quinn has phenomenal edgework in his skating, and Wroblewski doesn&rsquo;t think he has ever seen the kid go more than 80 percent of his top speed in a game. Despite that, Quinn is one of the most elite puck-rushers around thanks to his glide. &ldquo;Their 1-on-1 ability is so uncanny,&rdquo; Wroblewski said. &ldquo;But the way they generate is completely different.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">THEIR 1-ON-1 ABILITY IS SO UNCANNY, BUT THE WAY THEY GENERATE IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT</blockquote>&ndash; U.S. NTDP coach John WroblewskiTheir time at the NTDP was also different. &ldquo;Quinn was a special story for us, he didn&rsquo;t come in with the same accolades as Jack,&rdquo; Wroblewski said. &ldquo;He really broke the mold in terms of what a &lsquo;smaller&rsquo; defenseman could do. He smashed it, in fact.&rdquo;Jack, on the other hand, has been on the radar for years already. With him, it&rsquo;s been more of a challenge to make sure the outside noise of being a phenom and consensus first overall pick in the 2019 draft doesn&rsquo;t hurt his game. &ldquo;The plan is simple with every single one of our guys, it&rsquo;s to keep them on track,&rdquo; Wroblewski said. &ldquo;Our schedule is so flexible with international play and college games that the kids are constantly getting thrown in the blender. This kid is at his best when he&rsquo;s enjoying the game and not worrying about the distractions and hype. And that is a massive challenge.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_hughes3_054/397902-1-eng-US/wjc_hughes3_0542.jpg" title="wjc_hughes3_054" width="1695" height="1063"><figcaption class="caption-body">JACK ATTACKSJack Hughes has real swagger to his game. He charges at defenders on the rush and pushes them back on their heels. (MATTHEW MURNAGHAN/HOCKEY CANADA IMAGES)</figcaption></div>Quinn helped the Americans earn bronze at last year&rsquo;s world juniors in Buffalo, but his return to the stage will be much bigger this time out. Since claiming bronze over the Czechs, he was drafted seventh overall by the Canucks and as it so happens, Vancouver hosts the holiday classic this year. With Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser and Bo Horvat established as Vancouver&rsquo;s offensive present and future, Hughes is the obvious catalyst on the blueline once he signs his first NHL contract.Quinn probably could have turned pro this summer, but he wanted another shot at an NCAA title with Michigan after the Wolverines made a surprising run to the Frozen Four semifinal last season. Over the summer, there was a lot of chatter about Jack joining the Wolverines for this year, but it would&rsquo;ve involved him graduating high school early and a very busy summer. But he did consider it. &ldquo;I looked at it a lot,&rdquo; Jack said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t get a chance to play with your brother much. Michigan&rsquo;s a great place, and it was really appealing with Quinn being there. I looked into it, but I felt the NTDP was the best spot for me, and I&rsquo;m confident in my decision.&rdquo;Had the Canucks been as bad as many pundits expected this season, we could easily be making this a story about Jack being reunited with Quinn in Vancouver next season, but the lottery balls would have to be especially fortuitous at this point. So Team USA may be the only outfit to benefit from the brother act in the near future, starting with the WJC.With Jack, Hastings sees a game-breaker up front. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s dynamic,&rdquo; Hastings said. &ldquo;He can break you down by moving the puck to the open man, he can break you down with deception, and he can break you down with his speed. There&rsquo;s quite a lot to his game. The second part is his competitiveness. Sometimes with young, skilled players, they can get caught watching the play, and he didn&rsquo;t do that (this summer). He was assertive.&rdquo;Quinn not only brings experience to the U.S. squad, but he also has the skills to help the team play the style Hastings wants to implement. &ldquo;He has the ability to make guys miss by making good decisions with the puck and having quick feet,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You need to get in and out of both zones with possession. If you&rsquo;re chipping and chasing, the game can get away from you.&rdquo;This summer, Quinn was asked if he was going to prepare his Michigan teammates for their showdown with Jack and the NTDP. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I need to warn them,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Everyone knows what he can do now. No secrets. The cat&rsquo;s out of the bag.&rdquo;In the end, it didn&rsquo;t matter: Jack collected three assists, and the kids beat the college guys 6-3. But at least Quinn won the opening faceoff. &#9632;

wjc_hughes2_053

QUINN & JACK HUGHES

<div class="byline">BY COLIN STEPHENSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_kravtso_055/397966-1-eng-US/wjc_kravtso_0552.jpg" title="wjc_kravtso_055" width="867" height="1396"><figcaption class="caption-body">FOUR SCOREKravtsov posted an impressive four-point game against the host Czechs at a recent Four Nations tournament. (RUSSIAN ICE HOCKEY FEDERATION)</figcaption></div>IT WAS SOMETHING OF a mild surprise when the New York Rangers took Russian winger Vitali Kravtsov with the ninth pick in the 2018 NHL draft, but the team couldn&rsquo;t be more pleased with their selection.The KHL&rsquo;s rookie of the year last season, Kravtsov is having a fine sophomore year in the KHL and is expected to lead Russia&rsquo;s contingent at the 2019 WJC in Vancouver. &ldquo;What he&rsquo;s doing is pretty impressive at his age,&rdquo; said Rangers assistant GM Chris Drury. &ldquo;He just came off a U-20 (Four Nations Tournament) where he was captain and played really, really well. All of us, I know, are very excited to see him in Vancouver.&rdquo;Kravtsov, who turns 19 on Dec. 23, has had an eventful past few months. After he was drafted, he considered buying out the final year of his contract with Traktor Chelyabinsk so he could come to North America. Ultimately, he and the Rangers decided one more season in Russia would be good for him. However, his Traktor team has been in turmoil, with coach German Titov getting fired and the club languishing at the bottom of its division in the Eastern Conference.Despite the team&rsquo;s struggles, the lanky 6-foot-4, 183-pounder with explosive speed and skill has four goals and 13 points through 29 games. At the Four Nations Tournament in the Czech Republic in November, he had five points in three games, including a four-point effort against the host squad where he was on the ice for all six of Russia&rsquo;s goals in a 6-5 win.The Rangers expect to bring Kravtsov to North America after the KHL season ends in April, if either they or their AHL affiliate in Hartford are still playing at that time. For now, the club is expecting Kravtsov and several other of its draft prospects to play at the WJC.Drury said the Rangers place a high value on what the tournament can do to aid in the development of young prospects. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t speak for the other 30 teams, but we look at it as a very important piece, not only for draft-eligible kids, but for seeing a player&rsquo;s development,&rdquo; Drury said. &ldquo;There are a lot of good teams, there are a lot of games in a short amount of time, in high-pressure situations. So it&rsquo;s a good tournament to gauge someone&rsquo;s development and see where they&rsquo;re at.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_shen/397959-1-eng-US/wjc_shen2.jpg" title="wjc_shen" width="824" height="616"><figcaption class="caption-body">PAVEL&nbsp;SHEN (LUKE DURDA/OHL IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h1>SCOUTING REPORT</h1>The Russians tend to go with as many 19-year-olds as possible at the world juniors, meaning only Dmitri Samorukov (Edmonton) and Klim Kostin (St. Louis) are eligible to return from last year&rsquo;s squad &ndash; assuming that Andrei Svechnikov is too busy in the NHL with Carolina.But there&rsquo;s still a good deal of talent at coach Valeri Bragin&rsquo;s disposal, and this iteration can once again play a staunch defensive game. Up front, players such as Kirill Marchenko (Columbus) and Ivan Morozov (Vegas) were given big roles in international tune-ups, while Pavel Shen (Boston) captained the squad that won the annual series against the CHL teams in Canada. Shen is very hard to play against, while the size of players such as Marchenko and Kostin is imposing. Toss in Nikolai Kovalenko (Colorado) and first-rounder Vitali Kravtsov (Rangers), and you&rsquo;ve got the makings for a tough opponent. Expect another big Russian team that can clog up the middle and limit enemy scoring chances. Offensively, the diminutive Dmitry Zavgorodny (Calgary) and fellow QMJHLer Ivan Chekhovich (San Jose) bring more firepower.On the blueline, the team will be led by Alexander Alexeyev (Washington), who has been burning up scoresheets in the WHL with the Red Deer Rebels. Alexander Romanov (Montreal) had a strong CHL-Russia series and brings mobility and offense to the blueline. Otherwise, the defense will surely be filled with older, undrafted players.In net, the Russians have a couple solid options, and it will make for a tough decision in the end. The headliner is Daniil Tarasov (Columbus), the big kid whose dad was Andrei Vasilevskiy&rsquo;s goalie coach and Sergei Bobrovsky&rsquo;s childhood hero. Tarasov missed almost his entire draft year due to a growth on his shin, but the Blue Jackets snagged him in the third round based on his potential. So far, he&rsquo;s making them look smart.&nbsp;&ndash; Ryan Kennedy &#9632;

wjc_kravtso_055

VITALI KRAVTSOV

<div class="byline">BY BOB DUFF</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="wjc_zadina" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_zadina/398023-1-eng-US/wjc_zadina2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(KEVIN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>LIKE A COWBOY WHO is still getting accustomed to life in the big city, Filip Zadina longs for those wide-open spaces.He couldn&rsquo;t locate them in training camp, and that&rsquo;s why Zadina&rsquo;s NHL dream has gone on temporary hiatus. He&rsquo;s finding them on occasion in the AHL and maybe, just maybe, an explosive performance for the Czech Republic at the 2019 WJC can put Zadina&rsquo;s big-league mission back on the fast track.At the NHL draft last June, even though their most pressing need was for a puck-moving blueliner, the Detroit Red Wings couldn&rsquo;t resist when right winger Zadina slid out of the top five to them at sixth overall.Considered the purest goal-scorer in the 2018 draft class, the 18-year-old Zadina piled up an impressive 44 goals in 57 games last season with the QMJHL&rsquo;s Halifax Mooseheads. But after an impressive showing at Detroit&rsquo;s summer development camp as well as the team&rsquo;s prospect tournament in the fall, Zadina&rsquo;s scoring touch vanished and he was assigned to AHL Grand Rapids in order to find it. &ldquo;You have to learn how to manage that time and space and create offense,&rdquo; said Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill. &ldquo;It was something that he struggled with in the pre-season with us.&rdquo;Zadina admitted the pace of the NHL caught him off-guard. &ldquo;It was tough for me because I never played the pro game,&rdquo; Zadina said. &ldquo;They are smarter, they know how to move. I probably should play a little bit quicker with the puck.&rdquo;Since Halifax didn&rsquo;t draft Zadina, his placement wasn&rsquo;t governed by the NHL-CHL agreement, so the Wings opted to assign him to the AHL rather than return him to junior. &ldquo;Once you&rsquo;ve dominated the level, it&rsquo;s time to move on,&rdquo; Blashill said. &ldquo;The American League is a very hard league and it&rsquo;s a bigger step from junior to the American League than it is from the American League to the NHL.&rdquo;The six-foot, 195-pounder scored six goals in his first 16 AHL games but was still finding his footing defensively. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a learning process,&rdquo; Blashill said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be a rollercoaster. You just hope the rollercoaster keeps trending in the positive direction.&ldquo;We will not bring Filip Zadina up until Filip Zadina is ready to be a full-time NHL impact player. There will be no shortcuts for short term. We need Filip Zadina to ultimately become an elite player. The best way to do that is not bring him into a situation where he could potentially lose confidence. He&rsquo;s just starting to gain confidence down there. Let&rsquo;s let him be and keep gaining tons of confidence and hopefully keep taking steps in the right direction.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_skarek/398016-1-eng-US/wjc_skarek2.jpg" title="wjc_skarek" width="730" height="584"><figcaption class="caption-body">JAKUB&nbsp;SKAREK (KEVIN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>SCOUTING REPORT</h2>Last year was a&nbsp;taste. Could we see something even more dramatic from the Czechs in Vancouver? The semifinalists in Buffalo got clobbered by both Canada and the U.S. in the medal round, but they showed a lot of spark early in the tournament thanks to a deadly top line of Martin Necas (Carolina), Filip Zadina (Detroit) and Martin Kaut (Colorado).Well, guess what? All three are eligible to return, as is speedy banger Jakub Lauko (Boston), who has been performing well with his new team, the QMJHL&rsquo;s Rouyn-Noranda Huskies. Ostap Safin (Edmonton) brings his big body back to the forward corps, too. The high-end potential of the top line and the depth behind it will give the team a chance to win on any night.On defense, the Czechs have similar experience, albeit not as elite as the first-rounders up front. Jakub Galvas (Chicago), Filip Kral (Toronto) and Radim Salda (Tampa Bay) all return from last year&rsquo;s squad, and while none have the individual potency of last year&rsquo;s linchpin, Libor Hajek, they can work as a collective to keep the puck moving in the right direction. This could be a weak spot for the Czechs, but they do have depth.In net, Jakub Skarek (New York Islanders) returns for his third WJC, having played minor roles in the previous two. That experience will be crucial for Skarek, who has been stellar in his first season with the Lahti Pelicans of Finland&rsquo;s top league.Should Skarek falter, the Czechs also have another drafted NHL goalie prospect in Lukas Dostal (Anaheim). He doesn&rsquo;t have Skarek&rsquo;s size, but Dostal has played well internationally and helped the national team take silver at the 2017 Ivan Hlinka tournament. Don&rsquo;t be surprised if the Czechs end up using both keepers at some point.&nbsp;&ndash; Ryan Kennedy &#9632;

wjc_zadina

FILIP ZADINA

<div class="byline">BY DAVID BOCLAIR</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_tolvanen/398080-1-eng-US/wjc_tolvanen2.jpg" title="WJC_Tolvanen" width="596" height="515"><figcaption class="caption-body">(KEVIN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>EELI TOLVANEN HAS TWO older brothers, so he knows how to wait his turn.A year ago at this time, the 30th overall pick in 2017 looked to be on the fast track to stardom with Nashville. His record-setting season in the KHL was underway and fuelled the hype train in Music City.The 2018-19 season has turned into a detour, surprising to some but absolutely necessary in the collective mind of Predators management. His three-game stint with Nashville at the end of last season produced no highlights (zero points, three shots on goal) and relegated him to nothing more than a practice player during the post-season. &ldquo;The coaching staff told me that I have to get bigger, stronger, faster to make the next step and play in the NHL,&rdquo; he said.Tolvanen was assigned to AHL Milwaukee before the end of training camp in September, and there he has remained even as injuries and Austin Watson&rsquo;s suspension forced multiple roster moves involving forwards.If he is in a hurry to get out of there, he hasn&rsquo;t shown it. &ldquo;His attitude has been unbelievable,&rdquo; said Scott Nichol, the Predators&rsquo; director of player development and Milwaukee&rsquo;s GM. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s gone down there. He&rsquo;s embraced it. He&rsquo;s got his own apartment. He lives on his own. His girlfriend has been there. He&rsquo;s really enjoying himself. He always comes to the rink with a smile on his face.&rdquo;Last season, no matter where Tolvanen played &ndash; the KHL, the world juniors, the Olympics, the World Championship &ndash; he produced. In Milwaukee, the points have not come as easily. Through the first quarter of the season he averaged about one goal every five games. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s getting the chances, and he&rsquo;s working for the chances,&rdquo; Nichol said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s basically what we want him to do.&rdquo;Another dominating performance at this year&rsquo;s WJC would serve his development well. Regardless, few, if any, doubt that Tolvanen eventually will get his opportunity in the NHL. Perspective on the pursuit of that goal is readily apparent with his brothers. One, Joona, is a 26-year-old undrafted defenseman who had played his entire career in Finland before leaving to play in Poland this season. The other, Atte, is a senior goalie at Northern Michigan who also was never drafted. &ldquo;He leans on them quite a bit,&rdquo; Nichol said. &ldquo;His brothers talk to him, and he&rsquo;s got a really level head. He knows what&rsquo;s right and the process and the path that a lot of our guys go through.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_kupari/398073-1-eng-US/wjc_kupari2.jpg" title="wjc_kupari" width="437" height="680"><figcaption class="caption-body">RASMUS&nbsp;KUPARI (KEVIN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>SCOUTING REPORT</h2>Times have been tough for the Finns since they won gold back in 2016. The country became the first nation in tournament history to go from the top of the podium down to the relegation series in one year, and 2018 wasn&rsquo;t much better: Finland crumbled against the underdog Czechs in the quarterfinal. For some critics, the Finns are playing too much like the teams of yesteryear, trying to grind things out, even though the squad now has more talent.Headlining the forwards are returnees Eeli Tolvanen (Nashville) and Kristian Vesalainen (Winnipeg), both of whom will want to make amends for last year&rsquo;s subpar performances. Vesalainen had been bouncing between the NHL&rsquo;s Jets and AHL Manitoba before being reassigned to KHL Jokerit in late November. The Finns didn&rsquo;t fare very well at the World Junior Summer Showcase, but offense from Aarne Talvitie (New Jersey) and Rasmus Kupari (Los Angeles) was encouraging. Meanwhile, undrafted Linus Nyman looked excellent at November&rsquo;s Four Nations tune-up in the Czech Republic. The biggest hole to fill will be at center, with Jesperi Kotkaniemi entrenched in Montreal. Perhaps his former international linemate Kaapo Kakko (2019 draft) can pitch in.On defense, the Finns will feel the loss of Dallas&rsquo; Miro Heiskanen and Chicago&rsquo;s Henri Jokiharju, and likely Boston&rsquo;s Urho Vaakanainen, too, due to injuries on the Bruins&rsquo; blueline. This could make for a very dodgy situation and put a lot of pressure on Oskari Laaksonen (Buffalo), who has been solid this season back home with Ilves.Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (Buffalo) will get the chance to carry the load in net. He didn&rsquo;t have a great tournament last year but has been lights-out with his new team, the OHL&rsquo;s Sudbury Wolves. He has the tools to be a game-changer.&nbsp;&ndash; Ryan Kennedy &#9632;

WJC_Tolvanen

EELI TOLVANEN

<div class="byline">BY MATT CARLSON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_brannst_057/398137-1-eng-US/wjc_brannst_0572.jpg" title="wjc_brannst_057" width="867" height="869"><figcaption class="caption-body">FLASHY PRODUCERBrannstrom has had a smooth transition to the AHL at 19. He&rsquo;s at the top of the freshman class on the blueline. (RENA LAVERTY)</figcaption></div>ERIK BRANNSTROM IS ONLY 5-foot-10, but he&rsquo;s well on his way to becoming a big-time, high-skill defenseman in the NHL.The 19-year-old Swede&rsquo;s slick skating and puckhandling already stand out in his rookie AHL season with the Chicago Wolves. Brannstrom, drafted 15th overall by Vegas in 2017, has made the jump effortlessly after coming over from HV71 of the Swedish League.The Golden Knights&rsquo; top A-list prospect on the blueline, Brannstrom flashed his ability at Vegas&rsquo; training camp but was sent to Chicago for seasoning. Then he got hurt in the Wolves&rsquo; second game when he was slammed into the boards by Sergei Boikov of the Colorado Eagles.But Brannstrom recovered quickly and has quarterbacked the Wolves from the blueline at even strength and on the power play. The native of Eksjo, Sweden, can wheel and dish the puck with panache and precision. Chicago coach Rocky Thompson is impressed with Brannstrom&rsquo;s poise with the puck and rapid acclimation to the AHL. &ldquo;Playing pro in North America is a different animal than the Swedish League,&rdquo; Thompson said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s learning the power-play position, working the top, doing a good job. He makes mistakes, like everybody does, and he&rsquo;s learning from those, but I&rsquo;m really happy with his progress.&rdquo;Through 17 games with the Wolves, Brannstrom had three goals and 13 points, tied for tops among AHL rookie defensemen with Utica&rsquo;s Olli Juolevi, whose NHL rights belong to Vancouver. Brannstrom is focused on advancing his game in the AHL with the goal of moving up to Vegas. &ldquo;I want to play with the puck and make good plays,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It feels better and better. I&rsquo;m happy to be out there and make an impact on the game.&rdquo;Thompson believes Brannstrom will improve as he learns to &ldquo;activate more into the rush&rdquo; without the puck. &ldquo;We give our defensemen freedom to join as a forward where they can drive the net,&rdquo; Thompson said. &ldquo;He really hasn&rsquo;t grasped hold of that yet, but you see glimpses of it. I think it can take his game offensively to another level.&rdquo;Unlike some defensemen of his ilk and age, Brannstrom isn&rsquo;t a liability when the other team has the puck. Thompson said he&rsquo;s done &ldquo;a great job in how he&rsquo;s defending off the rush and in our own end.&rdquo;Brannstrom uses his quickness and hockey sense to compensate on defense for his lack of size. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not tall, so I need to be a step ahead all the time,&rdquo; he said.Brannstrom gets his skill and instinct from solid hockey roots. His father, Niklas, played professionally for 16 seasons in Sweden and Germany. Older brother Isac is a forward for HV71, in Jonkoping in Sweden&rsquo;s southern province of Smaland. &ldquo;We were with my dad on practices when we were kids, so it&rsquo;s been all hockey in the family,&rdquo; Brannstrom said.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_lundest_056/398130-1-eng-US/wjc_lundest_0562.jpg" title="wjc_lundest_056" width="539" height="672"><figcaption class="caption-body">ISAC&nbsp;LUNDESTROM (KEVIN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h2>SCOUTING REPORT</h2>The Swedes went with&nbsp;an older group last year, and that helped them make it all the way to the final, where they lost in a controversial finish to Canada. The flip side is this year&rsquo;s team won&rsquo;t have much experience at this level, especially since No. 1 overall draft pick Rasmus Dahlin is busy in the NHL.Isac Lundestrom (Anaheim) is a perfect candidate to lead the team up front, but overall the forward group doesn&rsquo;t have a lot of &ldquo;wow&rdquo; factor going for it. Emil Bemstrom (Columbus) has been hot, as has Filip Sveningsson (Calgary), but Lundestrom is the only first-rounder among the forwards. This group had trouble scoring at both the World Junior Summer Showcase and a Four Nations tune-up in November.On defense, Sweden will rule. Erik Brannstrom (Vegas), Timothy Liljegren (Toronto) and Adam Boqvist (Chicago) lead the charge amongst the puck-movers, while Rasmus Sandin (Toronto) can also contribute in that capacity. Since the team has traditionally craved balance, expect long looks for Adam Ginning (Philadelphia) and Filip Johansson (Minnesota), both of whom excel defensively.In goal, Sweden has Olle Eriksson Ek (Anaheim) as its presumptive starter, since he got the most work at the WJSS and was also the third-stringer on the team that won silver in Buffalo. He has the size but not the consistency just yet. Eriksson Ek is on loan to second-tier Karlskoga, so at least he&rsquo;s playing against men and seeing plenty of action. If Eriksson Ek stumbles, the Swedes also have Samuel Ersson (Philadelphia), who is playing great in that same Allsvenskan circuit with Vasteras. Undrafted Adam Ahman is also having a splendid year, but he doesn&rsquo;t have much size.As always, this will be a competitive squad, and the blueline could be special. But we&rsquo;ve seen great defenses fall flat when the goals aren&rsquo;t going in at the other end (Finland, for example), and that, plus goaltending, will be a concern for Sweden in this tournament.&nbsp;&ndash; Ryan Kennedy &#9632;

wjc_brannst_057

ERIK BRANNSTROM

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_cajkovi_058/398180-1-eng-US/wjc_cajkovi_0582.jpg" title="wjc_cajkovi_058" width="854" height="1163"><figcaption class="caption-body">MAXIM&nbsp;CAJKOVIC (SLOVAK ICE HOCKEY FEDERATION)</figcaption></div>IN ALL LIKELIHOOD, Slovakia's most important game of the round-robin will also be its final one of that round, with Kazakhstan as the opponent. The outcome will probably determine which team has to fight in the relegation series and which one gets a quarterfinal berth.There&rsquo;s a chance Slovakia could surprise one of the bigger fish in their pool, as the team does have some talent, but the depth is not there. Should the squad be competitive, they&rsquo;ll need big performances from forwards Adam Ruzicka (Calgary), Milos Roman (Calgary) and Maxim Cajkovic (2019 draft). Ruzicka and Roman have already played in two previous WJCs, while Cajkovic emerged as a breakout star at the world under-18s last year, leading the tournament in assists and posting 11 points in five games. The youngster had great chemistry with linemate Oliver Okuliar at that event, and they could be reunited in Victoria.On the back end, Slovakia looks shallow, though they will have some experience. Martin Fehervary (Washington) is the big name, and he&rsquo;ll keep opposing forwards honest. Undrafted Michal Ivan and Marek Korencik are also eligible to return.Whenever Slovakia has made a run at the world juniors, goaltending has always been the key, and the stars haven&rsquo;t always been household names coming into the competition. Undrafted Juraj Sklenar has been playing the majority of games for the HK Orange 20 program, which acts as a feeder system for the national junior team, and at 6-foot-2, he has the requisite goalie size for this era. He also put up great numbers during a short stint with HK Nitra&rsquo;s junior team this year.Veteran coach Ernest Bokros returns behind the bench for Slovakia, and he has pretty much seen it all during his years at the tournament. &#9632;

wjc_cajkovi_058

MISSION IMPROBABLE

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_kurashe_059/398223-1-eng-US/wjc_kurashe_0592.jpg" title="wjc_kurashe_059" width="784" height="1100"><figcaption class="caption-body">PHILIPP&nbsp;KURASHEV (KEVIN HOFFMAN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THE SWISS KNOW THIS is not their year. When the team has a Nico Hischier or a Nino Niederreiter, they can run with the big dogs at least for a little while, but this group will be a lot more pedestrian &ndash; though serviceable.Up front, the team can trot out decent weapons, including undrafted Axel Simic, Philipp Kurashev (Chicago) and Valentin Nussbaumer (2019 draft). All three played at last year&rsquo;s tournament, and Kurashev has shown a lot of growth in his game since then, becoming more of a complete player while still producing for the QMJHL&rsquo;s Quebec Remparts. Nussbaumer got off to a hot start with the rival Shawinigan Cataractes, though his scoring pace slowed down once opponents returned from NHL camps.Defenseman Nico Gross (New York Rangers) is set to participate in his third WJC tournament, and he&rsquo;s eligible next year as well. He&rsquo;s been playing with the OHL&rsquo;s Oshawa Generals and is developing well after getting a crash course in North American hockey last year in his rookie campaign. Gross, 18, can move the puck up the ice and help with the offense.Elsewhere on the blueline, Tobias Geisser (Washington) returns to the fray, and he too has been getting experience on this side of the Atlantic. The big, two-way defenseman has been skating in the AHL with Hershey, where the points haven&rsquo;t been there but the lessons have been useful.When Switzerland has been successful in the past, strong goaltending has been a crucial factor, and that position will be interesting in Vancouver. Akira Schmid (New Jersey) has been an international workhorse but rarely got the support in front of him. He has bounced between the WHL, NAHL and now the USHL, where he finally seems to have a home with Omaha. Can he steal games for the Swiss, or is next year his time to shine? &#9632;

wjc_kurashe_059

BALANCE, BUT NO BIG BOOMERS

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_rondbje_060/398259-1-eng-US/wjc_rondbje_0602.jpg" title="wjc_rondbje_060" width="941" height="1136"><figcaption class="caption-body">JONAS&nbsp;RONDBJERG (MINAS PANAGIOTAKIS/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THE DANES WILL BE seen as one of the weaker teams in their pool, but they do have one thing going for them: experience. Eleven players from last year&rsquo;s squad are eligible to return, including a couple NHL prospects.The key to the offense will be Jonas Rondbjerg (Vegas), who led the team in scoring in Buffalo a year ago and will be even more important this time around. Rondbjerg has been playing against men all season with the Vaxjo Lakers in Sweden&rsquo;s top pro league. Undrafted forwards such as Phillip Schultz and Andreas Grundtvig are also veterans of last year&rsquo;s entry and have had decent success in other international appearances.The big man on the blueline is Malte Setkov (Detroit), and he has also chipped in some offense while wearing a Danish jersey. Setkov has a 6-foot-6 frame that he has been growing into since the Red Wings drafted him 100th overall in 2017. Undrafted Lasse Holm Mortensen also brings size and experience to the blueline.In the crease, the Danes have options. Albert Adamsen and William Rorth have both suited up for Denmark internationally and have been playing against men in the country&rsquo;s top league this season, but there&rsquo;s another choice in the WHL with 2019 draft prospect Mads Sogaard. Towering at 6-foot-7, Sogaard has played for Denmark often in his junior career and is now tending net with the Medicine Hat Tigers, where he&rsquo;s putting up some of the best numbers in the league on a team that is middle-of-the-pack offensively. With his calm demeanour and massive frame capable of taking away the bottom of the net, Sogaard is the kind of netminder who can steal a game. And given the fact that Denmark is in a rather top-heavy pool, one surprise victory could vault them into the medal round, with someone else facing the dreaded relegation series. &#9632;

wjc_rondbje_060

GOALIES WILL BE KEY TO UPSET

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/kaz_orekhov_061/398302-1-eng-US/kaz_orekhov_0612.jpg" title="kaz_orekhov_061" width="800" height="1117"><figcaption class="caption-body">VALERI&nbsp;OREKHOV (AKIMZHANOV MARAT)</figcaption></div>MAKE NO MISTAKE: Kazakhstan faces an arduous task if the team hopes to stay in the top rung of the world juniors. The winners of last year&rsquo;s Div. I-A grouping earned promotion through that tournament victory, with Belarus going the other way. But getting to the top level and staying there are two very different things, especially now that relegation is determined by a best-of-3 series (so you can&rsquo;t fluke your way to survival with one good game at the end).The Kazakhs will have experience in Victoria, thanks to 10 players still eligible from last year&rsquo;s entry, but no NHL draft picks. Of course, the top-level competition will be much steeper as well, but at least this crew will have some chemistry to build off.Leading scorer Artur Gatiyatov and defenseman Valeri Orekhov return, with Orekhov spending most of this season in the KHL with Barys Astana. The diminutive Gatiyatov has been one of the leading offensive threats on Astana&rsquo;s junior team, where a lot of Kazakhstan&rsquo;s WJC candidates are playing. All in all, four of the team&rsquo;s top six scorers from last year&rsquo;s Div. 1-A tournament can suit up in Victoria, which will help proceedings.In net, Kazakhstan can rely on Denis Karatayev, who played the majority of games for the team last year and will undoubtedly lean on that pressure-packed experience moving forward. Another option is Demid Yeremeyev, Karatayev&rsquo;s battery mate with Astana&rsquo;s junior team. Yeremeyev actually has the better save percentage back home and a slight edge in appearances.A key for Kazakhstan will be to suppress the urge to get starstruck by the big names around them. Some solid teams are trying to take their place in next year&rsquo;s WJC, so the Kazakhs will have to be dialed in from Day 1. Most crucial will be their showdown with Slovakia and, failing that, a fight for their lives in the relegation series. &#9632;

kaz_orekhov_061

COUNTING ON EXPERIENCE

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="wjc_canucks_062" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_canucks_062/398345-1-eng-US/wjc_canucks_0622.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">ENVIABLE DEPTHDiPietro gives the Canucks another high-end prospect option in net, just in case blue-chipper Demko doesn&rsquo;t pan out. (JEFF VINNICK/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THE WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP is a global celebration of the game we all love &ndash; OK, maybe just the northern part of the globe &ndash; but I have the feeling this will be an extra-special tournament for Vancouver Canucks fans.Vancouver, of course, hosts Canada&rsquo;s pool in the preliminary round, not to mention the majority of the medal-round matches, with Victoria taking care of the remaining contests. And Western Canada has traditionally been a very strong market for the tournament, which has been on the eastern side of North America the past three times the continent has hosted the holiday classic.But for Canucks fans, this year&rsquo;s installment will also provide some delicious sneak previews of a couple high-end Vancouver prospects in Canadian goalie Michael DiPietro and American defenseman Quinn Hughes, either of whom could end up with the MVP award at the conclusion of the tournament.And of course, there&rsquo;s also still the possibility Vancouver wins the draft lottery this spring and earns the right to select Quinn&rsquo;s younger brother Jack Hughes first overall. Jack, the dynamic center, is another player to watch at the world juniors, and the idea of him and Quinn together in a Canucks uniform has to be pretty tantalizing for Vancouver fans.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wjc_canucks_063/398338-1-eng-US/wjc_canucks_0632.jpg" title="wjc_canucks_063" width="658" height="750"><figcaption class="caption-body">QUINN&nbsp;HUGHES (TOM PENNINGTON/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>True, the Canucks aren&rsquo;t basement-bad this year, but let&rsquo;s not forget the Philadelphia Flyers jumping way up in the draft in 2017 to snag Nolan Patrick when the ping-pong balls gifted them with the second overall selection. A Hughes brothers reunion is possible, people.Even the present is fun for Canucks partisans right now. Sure, the team doesn&rsquo;t always win, but Vancouver is an exciting squad led by Calder Trophy frontrunner Elias Pettersson, with Brock Boeser, Bo Horvat and Nikolay Goldobin also playing big roles up front. Add in the sudden success of &lsquo;Shotgun&rsquo; Jake Virtanen and the first NHL goal for Adam Gaudette, and you&rsquo;ve got a forward corps that is already pretty exciting.On the back end, Olli Juolevi is still coming up the pipeline (though it looks like he just hurt his knee), and Hughes will do wonders for the unit once he leaves the University of Michigan. I say &ldquo;leaves&rdquo; and not &ldquo;graduates&rdquo; because, in my mind, he&rsquo;s playing regular minutes in the NHL next season. He can still graduate, but he&rsquo;ll be doing so by taking summer classes, like many ex-college guys do after they&rsquo;ve left early for the NHL.And it&rsquo;s funny now to think about how many folks (myself included) thought the Canucks should have traded veteran defenseman Chris Tanev as part of their rebuild, because we&rsquo;ve already seen Vancouver play very competitive stretches of hockey, and it doesn&rsquo;t even have its full complement of youngsters on the roster yet. Tanev is still just 28, and it&rsquo;s an advantage to have guys like him around when the kiddie blueliners start to filter up.In net, the future is still Thatcher Demko, but it&rsquo;s never good to put all your faith in one goalie, which is why DiPietro&rsquo;s stellar play is such a boon, as there will be options in the coming years. Demko missed all of October and most of November while recovering from a concussion but looked good in his first games back. I&rsquo;ve said this before and I&rsquo;ll say it again: I like the idea of Demko at least getting a couple starts for the Canucks at the end of this season (unless they&rsquo;re fighting for a playoff spot, which, in the dreadful Pacific Division, is very possible), just as preparation for more duty next season.There&rsquo;s a lot of optimism for this roster, but let&rsquo;s also do a little brake-pumping here, because the Canucks may need some time before they are truly a contender again. Demko won&rsquo;t be your starter next season, and there&rsquo;s always the possibility Pettersson hits the dreaded sophomore slump. Maybe Vancouver misses the playoffs altogether despite having Hughes on the blueline. And that&rsquo;s fine; this roster is built for the future, and you have to take steps in order to get to the top. Travis Green is a good coach, and he is being given the right tools to do the job.In the meantime, Vancouver, enjoy the show at the world juniors. &#9632;

wjc_canucks_062

EXCITING TIME FOR VANCOUVER FANS

wjc2004_1

Oral History: 2004 WJC

YOU’LL NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST

<div class="byline">BY LUKE DECOCK</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_aho1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_aho1/398558-1-eng-US/nhl_aho12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>AFTER SPENDING HIS entire hockey career out west, Micheal Ferland freely admits his off-season trade to the Carolina Hurricanes was eye-opening in many respects, not the least of which was the ability of the player who ended up centering his line.The Hurricanes acquired Ferland in part to ride shotgun to Sebastian Aho, whose name was familiar to Ferland but not his game. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t really know much, honestly,&rdquo; Ferland said. &ldquo;I knew he was a good player. I heard his name a lot. But barely playing them, I didn&rsquo;t really know much about him.&rdquo;Two months into the season, Ferland&rsquo;s a little ahead of the curve on the question the rest of the NHL has been asking: Where, exactly, did Aho come from, and how has he piled up so many points? &ldquo;Obviously he&rsquo;s one of the best players,&rdquo; Ferland said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s skilled. But I didn&rsquo;t realize how hard he played. He finishes his checks. That part of his game, I didn&rsquo;t realize.&rdquo;What may have been a surprise to Ferland wasn&rsquo;t a surprise for the man himself. &ldquo;You have to believe in yourself,&rdquo; Aho said. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t believe in yourself, nobody can. That&rsquo;s the first thing.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s been the case since Carolina drafted the six-foot, 176-pound forward 35th overall in 2015. Anticipation for his NHL arrival reached such heights that then-GM Ron Francis actually had to take the unusual off-season step of tempering enthusiasm for Aho&rsquo;s NHL debut.Three seasons later, Aho&rsquo;s breakthrough has surprised no one around the team. They saw this coming a long way away from the son of a hockey family born with a burning competitive desire, who came over from Finland with a willingness to be physically better suited for NHL ice and with skills that have made him the cornerstone of the Hurricanes. Aho&rsquo;s so popular that one of Justin Williams&rsquo; sons wears an Aho jersey to games instead of his father&rsquo;s.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_aho2/398544-1-eng-US/nhl_aho22.jpg" title="nhl_aho2" width="1573" height="833"><figcaption class="caption-body">MORE, BUT NOT ENOUGHDespite scoring at a point-per-game pace, Aho says he needs to do more. If he does, he&rsquo;ll soon be a rich man. (DARCY FINLEY/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>From 24 goals as a rookie to 29 last season, from 49 to 65 points, anyone who didn&rsquo;t see his rise coming this fall just wasn&rsquo;t paying attention. Aho&rsquo;s point-per-game pace through&nbsp;late November was the result of a natural progression. &ldquo;As a teammate watching every game, playing with him, knowing what he could do, I could see it,&rdquo; Jordan Staal said. &ldquo;Maybe it wasn&rsquo;t the points as much, but every time he was out on the ice, he was a danger and a tough player to play against. I could see this coming. This year, he&rsquo;s taken it to another level. Fun to watch. Players like that can carry a team.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">EVERY TIME HE WAS OUT ON THE ICE, HE WAS A DANGER. I COULD SEE THIS COMING</blockquote>&ndash; Jordan StaalIf there&rsquo;s a surprise, it&rsquo;s that Aho&rsquo;s done it all while making the move from mostly left wing to center. The transition hasn&rsquo;t been an easy one, which makes Aho&rsquo;s production all the more remarkable.Aho&rsquo;s move to the middle is a product of the Hurricanes&rsquo; weakness at the position as much as anything, born of necessity and not necessarily preference. They really had no choice but to move their best player there in the absence of other options capable of joining Staal on their top two lines.Long term, it&rsquo;s possible Aho, 21, could end up back on the wing. In the short term, his chemistry with Finnish countryman Teuvo Teravainen and the ability of the burly Ferland to create space for them has been a productive formula. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s been producing,&rdquo; said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour. &ldquo;That goes to show &ndash; great players find ways to produce. The question we&rsquo;re going to have to figure out is, is it the best for our group? Are we getting the most out of him?&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_aho3/398537-1-eng-US/nhl_aho32.jpg" title="nhl_aho3" width="1024" height="854"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JAYLYNN NASH/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>For now, it&rsquo;s hard to imagine much more. After waiting a month for his first goal in his first two seasons, Aho got on the board in the Hurricanes&rsquo; second game this year. He also opened the season on a 12-game assist streak &ndash; moving him past Ron Francis in the franchise record book and putting him next to Wayne Gretzky in NHL history &ndash; and he&rsquo;s scored some spectacular goals, from an overtime-winner against Chicago where he faked Brent Seabrook off his feet to a backhanded wraparound against Columbus&rsquo; Sergei Bobrovsky.And yet the most important play of Aho&rsquo;s season might have happened last season. In an otherwise ordinary January game against Calgary, Aho cut across the slot and got levelled by Mark Giordano. It was a double whammy, with Aho&rsquo;s left knee bent in an unnatural way and Giordano&rsquo;s shoulder catching him square on the jaw. Aho sustained a concussion and a sprained knee but was back in only two weeks.Even for a player as fearless as Aho, a play like that can be a career-changer. After the injuries fade, the memory of what happened cutting across the middle may not. But Aho didn&rsquo;t become puck shy. If anything, he threw his body around with more abandon. Brind&rsquo;Amour said he was never worried. &ldquo;Not him, not him,&rdquo; Brind&rsquo;Amour said. &ldquo;Competitors, they find ways.&rdquo;Nevertheless, the Hurricanes still went out and got Ferland from Calgary as part of the biggest trade of the draft (also including Dougie Hamilton and prospect defenseman Adam Fox in exchange for Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm.)It&rsquo;s a measure of Aho&rsquo;s competitiveness that despite the production, he still isn&rsquo;t happy. Far from it. &ldquo;I have my own expectations, my own ideas of how I should play,&rdquo; Aho said. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s still some things I need to get better and improve my game. Especially now that I&rsquo;m a center, it&rsquo;s a different game, and I have to be better. I haven&rsquo;t played my best, although I&rsquo;ve put up some points. There are many things I have to improve and get better.&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t like to talk about myself. We haven&rsquo;t won enough. We&rsquo;ve played all right, but we just have to find a way to get some wins. That&rsquo;s me, too. I have to be better and get some more wins for our team.&rdquo;One thing is certain: his start to the season should prove to be lucrative. Aho, whose entry-level contract expires after this season, turned down the Hurricanes&rsquo; offers of an extension over the summer in hopes his performance would merit a bigger raise. At this point, he has all the leverage. If the rest of the NHL has been surprised by his production, wait until it sees what his next contract looks like.For up-to-the-minute coverage, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a> &#9632;

nhl_aho1

THE SECRET IS GETTING OUT

<div class="byline">BY DAVID BOCLAIR</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_ellis1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_ellis1/398608-1-eng-US/nhl_ellis12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">FRANCHISE PILLAREllis cashed in with an eight-year, $50-million extension, but even at that price it was a team-friendly signing. (GERRY THOMAS/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>IT IS SAID THAT you can tell a lot about a man by his dog. That is not the case with Ryan Ellis. At least not when it comes to his hockey career.The 27-year-old Nashville Predators defenseman and his wife, Kaitlyn, have a two-year-old Rottweiler, a breed known for its brutish size, which, according to the American Kennel Club, &ldquo;observes the outside world with a self-assured aloofness.&rdquo;Ellis&rsquo; self-confidence always has been evident, but in his case that belief manifested itself more in the manner of a Jack Russell Terrier. He never considered the possibility he was &ndash; in terms of traditional metrics &ndash; too small to measure up on the sport&rsquo;s biggest stage no matter how many people tried to tell him otherwise. And he certainly is not aloof when it comes to his place in the dressing room. Instead, he is a central figure whose leadership qualities were as impossible to ignore as the absurd numbers he put up during his junior days with the OHL&rsquo;s Windsor Spitfires.<blockquote class="pullQuote">HE&rsquo;S PROVED HIMSELF AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. HE&rsquo;S ONE OF THE TOP DEFENSEMEN IN THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE</blockquote>&ndash; Predators GM David Poile on EllisNow in his eighth NHL season, he is still too small in terms of height and weight. The simple truth is he always will be.What has changed is he has a contract that measures up to those of some of the biggest stars, biggest producers and &ndash; yes &ndash; biggest bodies in the game. The eight-year, $50-million extension Ellis signed shortly before training camp goes into effect next season and runs through the end of 2026-27, when he will be 36.No longer does he have to nip at any proverbial ankles in order to get recognized. He finally has the financial clout that gives him a bite equal to whatever barking he has done in recent years. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s only a certain amount of time to make your money, and if you&rsquo;re lucky, you&rsquo;ll get a 15-year career,&rdquo; Ellis said. &ldquo;A typical career in hockey is three years, and you have to take full advantage of making that money for your family going forward. People can call you selfish and this and that, but at the end of the day, if you retire at 35, you have a lot of years left to look after your family and your kids and your kids&rsquo; kids.&rdquo;And here&rsquo;s the thing: Ellis actually could have gotten even more money had he played this season and become a UFA on July 1.As a primary member of Nashville&rsquo;s leadership group (he has been associate captain since the start of 2017-18) and a homegrown product, Ellis proudly noted he elected to take a little less in order to help keep together the majority of a roster that played in the 2017 Stanley Cup final and won the Presidents&rsquo; Trophy in 2018. &ldquo;It starts with the city,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The fans, the organization, the lifestyle here, it suits hockey players. You see a lot of hockey players that are quiet, humble and just want to fit in. That&rsquo;s a lot of our team, and Nashville is the perfect place to do that.&rdquo;For the record, Ellis is listed at 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds. That means he is the shortest of Nashville&rsquo;s defenseman and the slightest by 20 pounds. Still, he cuts a sizable figure on and off the ice. He plays on the top pairing with team captain Roman Josi and has a chance this season to join Josi and Shea Weber as the only Nashville players ever to average more than 25 minutes of ice time per game for an entire season. Through 25 games, he was at 24:53.To that point, Ellis&rsquo; ice time has been steadily increasing since he joined the Predators midway through 2011-12. After playing 14:50 per game as a rookie, then 16:23 in 2012-13 and 16:04 in 2013-14, Ellis jumped up to nearly 19 minutes in 2014-15, and then up to nearly 21 minutes in 2015-16. And the more he plays, the more valuable he becomes to the team. Ellis had a career-high average ice time of 23:57 in 2016-17, which dropped slightly to 23:21 last season as he recovered from injury.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_ellis2/398594-1-eng-US/nhl_ellis22.jpg" title="nhl_ellis2" width="804" height="1104"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ANDY DEVLIN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure Ryan&rsquo;s size has come up once or twice as he&rsquo;s moved up the ladder,&rdquo; said Nashville GM David Poile. &ldquo;Now he&rsquo;s a player that plays big minutes every night in every situation. So there&rsquo;s nothing he can&rsquo;t do. Honestly, it was probably a process to always have to prove himself at every level. And he&rsquo;s proved himself at the highest level. On the biggest stage. He is one of the top defensemen in the National Hockey League.&rdquo;Since the start of 2015-16, Ellis ranks 35th among NHL blueliners with 114 points but has played fewer games than any of the top 34. Most notably, off-season knee surgery kept him sidelined until almost halfway through last season. His plus-64 rating over that span is second among all defensemen.And in the 44 games he did play in 2017-18, Ellis was a plus-26, one shy of the franchise record. Nashville went 30-8-6 after his return, all of which enhanced his reputation, particularly within his own team. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think it really kicks in until you have a meeting or you have a big game coming up and people are looking at you to say something or do something,&rdquo; Ellis said.Actually, they&rsquo;re looking up to him. &#9632;

nhl_ellis1

IT’S NOT THE SIZE OF THE DOG

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/western_rev6/398749-1-eng-US/western_rev2.jpg" title="western_rev" width="188" height="188"></div>&gt;ANAHEIM DUCKSISAC LUNDESTROM is on a quest for a gold medal to go along with two silvers (last year&rsquo;s WJC and the 2016 world under-18s) and a bronze (world under-17s in 2015). The two-way faceoff ace will take on more of the offensive load after the graduation of so many Swedes.&gt;ARIZONA COYOTESThe good thing about BARRETT HAYTON&rsquo;S well-rounded style is he can be a valuable piece for Canada even if he&rsquo;s not slotted in the top-six or power-play units. The surprise fifth overall pick out of the Soo in 2018, Hayton plays a responsible 200-foot game &ndash; and he&rsquo;s been producing.&gt;CALGARY FLAMESAdam Ruzicka and Milos Roman have both played in two WJCs for Slovakia, but they may end up watching countryman MARTIN POSPISIL steal the spotlight. The Flames&rsquo; first pick in 2018 wasn&rsquo;t until 105th overall, but they found a gem who&rsquo;s close to two points per game in the USHL.&gt;CHICAGO BLACKHAWKSADAM BOQVIST should be a force for Sweden in his first WJC. His puck skills are the most dynamic of any defenseman in the tournament. He&rsquo;s also cut his teeth in the OHL with London, so the competition, not to mention Vancouver&rsquo;s NHL-sized ice surface, won&rsquo;t feel too foreign.&gt;COLORADO AVALANCHEThe Czechs iced a breakout line of MARTIN KAUT and Filip Zadina between Martin Necas at the 2018 WJC and may get all three back. The all-first-rounder trio will be even stronger since each spent the fall in the AHL. Kaut is the most versatile, equally adept at scoring and setups.&gt;DALLAS STARSSuiting up for Canada will give center TY DELLANDREA a welcome dose of winning culture, as he toils for an awful Flint team in the OHL. Because he&rsquo;s an excellent skater with two-way intelligence, he can fit on any line in any role. He&rsquo;ll be a Swiss Army Knife.&gt;EDMONTON OILERSPlaying seven games with the Oilers &ndash; and scoring his first NHL goal &ndash; has raised the bar of expectations for EVAN BOUCHARD. The mobile blueliner has great hockey sense and a solid work ethic. He&rsquo;s been a force since returning to OHL London and may play on Canada&rsquo;s top pair.&gt;LOS ANGELES KINGSRASMUS KUPARI was held off the scoresheet as a 17-year-old in last year&rsquo;s WJC, but he&rsquo;s been scoring regularly in Finland&rsquo;s Liiga for two seasons now. He&rsquo;ll join forces with Karpat teammate Aleksi Heponiemi as the go-to forwards for Finland. Kupari can be an elite-level scorer.&gt;MINNESOTA WILDFILIP JOHANSSON adds to a stacked Swedish defense corps. He&rsquo;s similar to future Wild teammate Jonas Brodin in that Johansson plays a steady, mobile game but doesn&rsquo;t bring much offense. He&rsquo;s tidy in his own end, making him a good partner for a full-throttle offensive D-man.&gt;NASHVILLE PREDATORSPlaymaking pivot JACHYM KONDELIK was viewed as a project entering the 2018 NHL draft. The German-born Czech is a staggering 6-foot-6 and 227 pounds &ndash; and, at 18, he&rsquo;s still growing. Scouts have questioned whether he can keep up in the NHL, so the high-skill WJC is a good test.&gt;SAN JOSE SHARKSIVAN CHEKHOVICH was a terrific seventh-round draft selection in 2017. He led the Russians in scoring at the world under-18s in 2017 and has been a force with Baie-Comeau in the QMJHL for three seasons. Chekhovich had two points in two games for Russia in the Jr. Super Series.&gt;ST. LOUIS BLUESNow 19, 6-foot-3 and 212 pounds, with a WJC and almost 100 AHL games, KLIM KOSTIN is the WJC&rsquo;s most mature player. The Russians expect him to manhandle checkers. Will younger competition light his scoring spark? He&rsquo;s a physical AHLer, but his offense has disappointed.&gt;VANCOUVER CANUCKSLocal focus will be on Quinn Hughes, but two other defensemen drafted in 2018 have a chance to show their wares. Moose Jaw&rsquo;s JETT WOO is battling to crack a deep blueline for Canada while Toni Utunen, taken 130th overall, is a stay-at-home type for Finland. He&rsquo;s with Tappara.&gt;VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTSIt&rsquo;s hard to believe CODY GLASS has spent parts of five seasons with Portland in the WHL yet is still eligible for the world juniors. The crafty playmaker, drafted sixth overall in 2017, is projected to be an offensive leader for Canada. He&rsquo;s closing in on 300 points in the WHL.&gt;WINNIPEG JETSDYLAN SAMBERG might be a first-rounder if teams redrafted the 2017 class. He impressed at last year&rsquo;s WJC and won an NCAA title with Minnesota-Duluth. He&rsquo;s not flashy but moves fluidly for a big guy. He missed one game for the Bulldogs this year &ndash; they allowed seven goals. &#9632;

western_rev

WESTERN CONFERENCE

<div class="byline">BY GEORGE RICHARDS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nhl_yandle2_066" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_yandle2_066/398792-1-eng-US/nhl_yandle2_0662.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A COACH ON SKATESMany of Yandle&rsquo;s younger teammates praise him for his ability to share wisdom and communicate during games. (RICHARD A. WHITTAKER/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>KEITH YANDLE ISN&rsquo;T PLAYING for the streak and says he doesn&rsquo;t suit up every night for the notoriety or the attention. It was just the way he was raised.The Florida Panthers defenseman played his 738th consecutive contest Nov. 28 against Anaheim, adding to the longest active ironman streak in the league and passing former Florida blueliner Jay Bouwmeester for sixth place on the all-time list.In an odd twist, Andrew Cogliano was in the Ducks&rsquo; lineup opposite Yandle for Game 738. Cogliano was the NHL&rsquo;s active leader in consecutive games played until his streak ended last January at 830 when he was suspended for two games. &ldquo;You feel bad for him,&rdquo; said Yandle when Cogliano&rsquo;s streak came to a halt last season. &ldquo;I know what type of guy he is. He brings it every single night, and you hate to see anybody lose a streak like that, especially for such a long one that he&rsquo;s had. Definitely feel bad for him.&rdquo;Through 23 games of this season, Yandle led Florida rearguards with 21 points, including four goals. Since his rights were traded to the Panthers in 2016 and he signed a seven-year deal worth $6.35 million per season, he&rsquo;s closing in on 200 consecutive games with Florida. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve often pointed to my parents who went to work every single day and never complained about anything,&rdquo; he said.When Yandle grew up in the Boston area, his father, Bud, was a coach. &ldquo;If my parents were sick or hurting a little bit, they went to work and showed me, my brother and my sister the right way to do things. There have been a few times where the decision to play came down to game time, but when it came down to it, I decided to grind it out.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">THERE HAVE BEEN A FEW TIMES WHERE THE DECISION TO PLAY CAME DOWN TO GAME TIME, BUT I DECIDED TO GRIND IT OUT</blockquote>&ndash; Keith YandleYandle&rsquo;s streak began early in his career with the Arizona (then Phoenix) Coyotes, who picked him in the fourth round of the 2005 draft. In his third NHL campaign, he took the ice against Edmonton March 26, 2009 and hasn&rsquo;t missed a game since. Yandle sees the all-time NHL record of 964 consecutive games played by Doug Jarvis from 1975 to 1987 on the horizon, but naturally doesn&rsquo;t make it the focus of his attention.Good health permitting, Yandle will pass Craig Ramsay (776 games) into fifth place on the all-time list in late February. After that, it&rsquo;s Cogliano midway through 2019-20. Then, Steve Larmer (884) and Garry Unger (914) are next up in the first half of 2020-21. The timeline to pass Jarvis for the all-time benchmark would be the fourth game of 2021-22, shortly after Yandle&rsquo;s 35th birthday. He&rsquo;s under contract with the Panthers through 2022-23.Yandle&rsquo;s Florida teammates are appreciative of the dedication not only to them, but to the game itself. At 32, he&rsquo;s an important piece of what Florida is trying to accomplish. Not only does he show up to play every night, but he logs the most ice time at almost 23 minutes per game and has responsibilities on and off the ice. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a very easy guy to play with,&rdquo; said Alex Petrovic, a defensive partner of Yandle at times. &ldquo;He communicates a lot on the ice and he&rsquo;s an offensive guy who wants the puck. He makes your life easier. He is the kind of player you want in there every game. He&rsquo;s prepared every night, comes into each game with a very business-like approach.&rdquo;Not only does Yandle remain Florida&rsquo;s best defenseman, he&rsquo;s a big part of a rapidly improving power play. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve actually cut his minutes down a little on the penalty kill and in other situations because we know he&rsquo;s our main power-play guy,&rdquo; said coach Bob Boughner. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t want to wear him out and make sure he&rsquo;s the same player in Game 80 as he is in No. 15.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nhl_yandle1_067/398778-1-eng-US/nhl_yandle1_0672.jpg" title="nhl_yandle1_067" width="804" height="979"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ANDRE RINGUETTE/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>When the season started, Yandle was quarterbacking the second unit as Florida experimented with five forwards on the top group. The Panthers got plenty of chances with that look but were not getting the results. The power-play goals started going in once Yandle went back to running the top unit. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s so reliable,&rdquo; said center Jared McCann. &ldquo;Few people know the game as well as he does, and we rely on him. He has been a rock for us all year and all the years I&rsquo;ve been here.&rdquo;Boughner has had many things to worry about in his two seasons with the Panthers. Yandle, however, has not been one of those things. So, how nice is it for a coach to be able to count on having a high-impact player game in and game out? &ldquo;Is there some wood over there for me to knock on?&rdquo; Boughner said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s so steady, a guy who is maintenance-free. Yandle gets himself ready for games and what he has to do physically. It&rsquo;s great to have a guy like that.&rdquo; &#9632;

nhl_yandle2_066

IRON IS IN HIS BLOOD

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/eastern_rev6/398940-1-eng-US/eastern_rev2.jpg" title="eastern_rev" width="188" height="188"></div>&gt;BOSTON BRUINSOne thing that could keep URHO VAAKANAINEN from representing Finland would be if Boston&rsquo;s D-men keep dropping like flies. After almost making the Bruins out of camp, Vaakanainen has impressed in the AHL. He has a gold and silver from Finland&rsquo;s under-18 team.&gt;BUFFALO SABRESThe Finns were a disappointment in 2018, and goalie UKKO-PEKKA LUUKKONEN was part of that, but he has responded nicely after moving to Sudbury. He was among OHL leaders in GAA and save percentage. He was on the under-18 all-star team in 2016, leading Finland to gold.&gt;CAROLINA HURRICANESAn excellent playmaker who pushes the pace, MARTIN NECAS will be one of the most dangerous centers in the WJC as he tries to direct the Czech Republic back to the semifinal &ndash; or even further. He made magic with Filip Zadina last year. Why not go for an encore?&gt;COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETSWith his combination of size and skill, KIRILL MARCHENKO is a perfect fit for Russia&rsquo;s roster, and he was given a top-line spot in November when he played in a tune-up Four Nations tourney. Back home, Marchenko has been ripping it up for St. Petersburg&rsquo;s junior team, SKA-1946.&gt;DETROIT RED WINGSAlthough he struggled in the Swedish men&rsquo;s league, JONATAN BERGGREN has been dominant in his own age group. He was the best player at the world under-18s last spring and tore up Sweden&rsquo;s under-20 league. The Wings got him at No. 33 despite his first-round credentials.&gt;FLORIDA PANTHERSAfter going home to play rather than return to Swift Current where he scored 118 points last season, ALEKSI HEPONIEMI is putting up great stats for a first-place Karpat team. Heponiemi will be relied upon to provide Finland with offense and rebound from a terrible showing in 2018.&gt;MONTREAL CANADIENSRYAN POEHLING will turn 20 two days before the WJC ends. A veteran of last year&rsquo;s bronze-winning squad for Team USA, Poehling will be counted upon to provide leadership and two-way play. The junior at St. Cloud State could join the Habs after his NCAA season ends.&gt;NEW JERSEY DEVILSIt&rsquo;s been a chaotic year for big goalie AKIRA SCHMID, now in his third North American junior league. He started in WHL Lethbridge, went to NAHL Corpus Christi and now has a home with USHL Omaha. Switzerland will need him to take on a heavy workload, but that&rsquo;s old hat for him.&gt;NEW YORK ISLANDERSWhile his Titan are nursing a championship hangover, NOAH DOBSON&rsquo;S talens as a blueliner are beyond doubt. His combination of skating and puck skills would make him a welcome addition on Canada&rsquo;s blueline. At the World Junior Summer Showcase, Dobson was a top goal-scorer.&gt;NEW YORK RANGERSDespite his freshman status, defenseman K&rsquo;ANDRE MILLER has been a big driver at Wisconsin, where the first-rounder is one of the top scorers and a threat on the power play. He will have to push for a slot on Team USA, but his two-way game and athleticism give him an opportunity.&gt;OTTAWA SENATORSAfter starting last season and this season with the Senators, ALEX FORMENTON returned to junior and is sure to be a force with the London Knights. As one of the returnees from last year&rsquo;s gold-medal winning Canadian team, Formenton brings skill and speed to the lineup.&gt;PHILADELPHIA FLYERSHe had success with Jack Hughes last year at the U.S. NTDP, and maybe JOEL FARABEE can hook up with his friend again at the world juniors. Farabee is a talented left winger with a great motor who has put up good numbers as a freshman at Boston University.&gt;PITTSBURGH PENGUINSFILIP HALLANDER helped Timra earn promotion to the SHL, and now he has a chance to help his country at the WJC. The versatile two-way center has been a frequent member of Sweden&rsquo;s national teams, including an under-17 gold in 2016. He&rsquo;s been up against men as an 18-year-old.&gt;TAMPA BAY LIGHTNINGOne of the last players chosen in the 2018 draft, defenseman RADIM SALDA made the all-rookie team in the QMJHL last season but was dealt from St. John to Rimouski so the Sea Dogs could load up for the 2019 draft. The Czechs will be counting on the 2018 returnee to provide offense.&gt;TORONTO MAPLE LEAFSThe Leafs have a keen interest in Sweden&rsquo;s blueline, with first-rounders TIMOTHY LILJEGREN and Rasmus Sandin as the top two D-men. With a silver medal in last year&rsquo;s WJC and a Calder Cup on his resume, Liljegren will provide the Swedes with a solid two-way presence.&gt;WASHINGTON CAPITALSHis draft season was difficult, but ALEXANDER ALEXEYEV&rsquo;S potential was never in question. The 2018 first-rounder has been a top-scoring blueliner in the WHL and played two games at the Canada-Russia Series. With his size, skating and two-way game, there is lots of upside. &#9632;

eastern_rev

EASTERN CONFERENCE

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="ryan1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ryan1/399011-1-eng-US/ryan12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MATHEW TSANG/RIVERSPIRAL PHOTOGRAPHY)</figcaption></div>IN THE VERY FIRST scene of the very first episode of the Netflix series Frontier, a beaten and bloodied British Redcoat is kneeling on the ground with his hands tied behind his back while Declan Harp, a part-Irish, part-Cree outlaw, sharpens his knife. &ldquo;Pl&hellip;plea&hellip;please, have mercy. Please,&rdquo; the Redcoat begs, just before Declan Harp slits his throat. That gurgling &lsquo;British Soldier No. 1&rsquo; is none other than Terry Ryan, who, in the almost 16 years since ending his pro hockey career as a first-round NHL flop has become a university graduate, best-selling author, actor, stuntman, stand-up comedian, ball hockey superstar, master storyteller and all-around bon vivant.&ldquo;Those three words got me into the acting union,&rdquo; said Ryan, now 41. &ldquo;Because once you speak on camera, you get in.&rdquo;Almost a quarter-century ago, before the Montreal Canadiens took Terry Ryan with the eighth overall pick, three agonizing selections before the Dallas Stars drafted future Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla, a scout had this to say about Ryan in THN&rsquo;s Draft Preview: &ldquo;He was born to be a hockey player.&rdquo; That was back when Ryan was an 18-year-old stud who had left Newfoundland at 14 to play junior hockey on the other side of the country. He was 6-foot-1 and 207 pounds and could score, hit and fight with equal aplomb. In the season prior to his draft in 1995, he had 50 goals and 207 penalty minutes in the WHL, and scouts were willing to overlook his skating because everything else he did made them drool.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ryan3/398997-1-eng-US/ryan32.jpg" title="ryan3" width="1024" height="1008"><figcaption class="caption-body">(CLAUS ANDERSEN/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>It&rsquo;s pretty clear that scout, and a lot of others, had it wrong. Turns out Terry Ryan was not born to be a hockey player. But he was smart enough to use the game as a conduit to a personal and professional life that makes The Most Interesting Man in the World look like a Volvo-driving chartered accountant. All told, Ryan played just eight NHL games and did not score a single goal. He never made much of a mark as a Montreal Canadien, but he was a Grizzly, Maple Leaf, Ice Dog, Gold King, Bear, Steelhead, Cyclone and Seal in the minors before a high-ankle sprain ultimately ended his pro career. Then he was a General, Royal, Blade, CeeBee Star, Caribou and Flyer in senior amateur hockey in Newfoundland. The subtitle of his 2014 book, Tales of a First-Round Nothing: My Life as an NHL Footnote, pretty succinctly sums things up. &ldquo;People used to say to me all the time, &lsquo;Oh, you got sent down to senior hockey,&rsquo;&rdquo; said Ryan, who played in two Allan Cup finals as an amateur. &ldquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t get sent down to senior. I love hockey and I&rsquo;m playing on one f---in&rsquo; foot.&rdquo;So you call Terry Ryan on a Friday afternoon to talk to him about recently winning a world championship in ball hockey and the first words out of his mouth are, &ldquo;Long story short&hellip;&rdquo; Then he makes a long story long. Boy, can the man spin a yarn, which probably explains why he went back to school at Memorial University in Newfoundland in his mid-30s to earn a degree in Folklore with a minor in English. (&ldquo;F---in&rsquo; bulls--- degree. It&rsquo;s the worst degree you could possibly get.&rdquo;) Ryan&rsquo;s father, who played one season in the WHA and is a hockey legend himself on The Rock, used to make him either read or write for a half hour each night, and the result was books and books of journals that he kept through his hockey career, which started when he was 14 in Jr. A in Quesnel, B.C., and stretched into the early 2000s when he retired after a playoff run in the Atlantic Coast League, which is about as low as the professional hockey food chain goes. His hockey experiences provided much of the fodder for his book. The part where he chronicles knocking his own teeth out with a sledgehammer in Idaho in order to take advantage of the league dental plan is worth the cover price alone.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ryan2/399004-1-eng-US/ryan22.jpg" title="ryan2" width="396" height="648"><figcaption class="caption-body">WRITE STUFFRyan&rsquo;s first book, which details the rise and fall of his hockey career, is set to be followed by a sequel.</figcaption></div>Writing is still a huge part of Ryan&rsquo;s life. He&rsquo;s penning a sequel to his memoir, which will focus on the life of tough guys in pro hockey. But thanks to circumstance and a bit of luck, Ryan has found a new passion in life, both in front of and behind the camera. A friendship with Allan Hawco, fellow Newfoundlander and the lead actor in the CBC hit series Republic of Doyle, has led Ryan on an odyssey where he now spends his days building sets, doing stunts and acting.It has led to friendships with Ethan Hawke and Jason Momoa of Game of Thrones fame. In fact, Ryan spent the first three months of 2018 in Scotland and England doing stunts for Momoa for Frontier. This season, he gets beaten up in an episode of the CBC boxing series called Little Dog, he plays a cop in another series called Caught and spends most of his days preparing sets for an upcoming CTV show called Rex, which is a reboot of a crime-fighting dog that has been popular in Europe for years.<blockquote class="pullQuote">NO, I DIDN&rsquo;T GET SENT DOWN TO SENIOR. I LOVE HOCKEY AND I&rsquo;M PLAYING ON ONE F---IN&rsquo; FOOT</blockquote>&ndash; Terry RyanBut what Ryan is most excited about is his role in an upcoming movie called A Fire in the Cold Season, where he plays a character from Newfoundland who went to work on the oil rigs in Alberta but lost his job and family and becomes a mercenary who pledges his loyalty to whomever is willing to pay him the most. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s kind of like No Country for Old Men,&rdquo; Ryan said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m the psycho. I&rsquo;m a bad dude. I&rsquo;m a gangster and a kind of sociopath, and I really don&rsquo;t care. I just did a scene where I have to kind of rough up a girl who&rsquo;s pregnant and there&rsquo;s a gun involved.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ryan4/398990-1-eng-US/ryan42.jpg" title="ryan4" width="1024" height="645"><figcaption class="caption-body">MEMORIES OF MONTREALA first-round pick by the Canadiens in 1995, Ryan played a grand total of eight games in the NHL. (ANDRE PICHETTE/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>To say Ryan kind of fell into his foray into the entertainment industry would qualify as a huge understatement. Because of the Canadian dollar and the fact the Newfoundland government provides a 40-percent tax cut to production companies willing to shoot on location there, scores of television shows and movies are shot in and around St. John&rsquo;s. An actor who is in the guild can earn up to $1,000 for one day of work, and because there are so few qualified actors in the province, there is a lot of work. Ryan was basically doing what is called &ldquo;locations,&rdquo; working on the set for 15 hours a day, when he met with Hawke, who was filming a movie called Maudie. The shoot was in rural Newfoundland, and there was little to do, so one night over a bottle of Jack Daniel&rsquo;s, Ryan told Hawke his story and gave him a copy of his book. Hawke encouraged Ryan to audition for parts in movies.The book, the title for which was inspired by Judy Blume&rsquo;s Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing, Ryan&rsquo;s favorite book as a child, is also responsible for him dabbling in stand-up comedy. Two years ago, Ryan got a call from Canadian actor Gerry Dee, who expressed interest in optioning the book, perhaps for a future movie. Ryan came to Toronto to meet with Dee, who gave him two days&rsquo; notice before telling Ryan he would be opening for him at a local comedy club. &ldquo;And I was like, &lsquo;What the f---? What am I going to do?&rsquo;,&rdquo; said Ryan. &ldquo;He just said, &lsquo;Tell one of those stories in your book.&rsquo; I was nervous as hell. I got loaded and I did it. The next day, I figured, &lsquo;That&rsquo;s off my bucket list,&rsquo; and I thought that was it. And he said, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re opening tonight for me in Oshawa.&rsquo; And I went to the arena where the Generals play and there were like 5,000 people there. That&rsquo;s the first story in my new book. I don&rsquo;t know what the subtitle is going to be, but all that s--- is going to be in there.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ryan5/398983-1-eng-US/ryan52.jpg" title="ryan5" width="1024" height="654"><figcaption class="caption-body">CAMERA FRIENDLYRyan, seen here with his father and Ron MacLean, has forayed into TV and film.</figcaption></div>And we haven&rsquo;t even touched on Ryan&rsquo;s career as a ball hockey player yet. After his pro career ended, Ryan went back home to Newfoundland overweight, going through a divorce and looking for an outlet for his competitiveness. His ankle throbbed every time he tied up his skates, but he found that if he wore low-cut sneakers, he could move his ankle and run with hardly any pain. He called the manager for the Canadian ball hockey team and managed to get a spot on a squad that was playing in the World Championship in Switzerland in 2003. He started as a fourth-liner, getting two shifts in Canada&rsquo;s 3-1 win over the Czech Republic in the gold-medal game. He went on to win gold medals for Canada in 2005 in Pittsburgh and 2007 in Ratingen, Germany, along with a silver medal in 2011 in Bratislava, Slovakia, and a bronze in 2013 in St. John&rsquo;s. Most recently, he went to Bermuda with Canada&rsquo;s over-35 team and won the World Masters Championship, where he was named MVP. He still plays as the oldest player in the Newfoundland Ball Hockey League for the Newfoundland Black Horse team, which lost the gold-medal game in the national championship to Edmonton this summer. &ldquo;In Newfoundland, people pay to come and see our games,&rdquo; Ryan said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll always have 40 or 50 people who pay five bucks to get in. I played every sport growing up, and I went to the nationals in soccer, baseball and hockey. You&rsquo;d play the host team in the first game and they&rsquo;d win 10-0 and everybody gets a free hot dog, and that&rsquo;s how you see a national championship if you&rsquo;re in Newfoundland, P.E.I. or the Territories. But not for fast-pitch softball, and not for rugby or curling or ball hockey. We&rsquo;re really good at those things, so people come to watch us play them.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ryan6/398976-1-eng-US/ryan62.jpg" title="ryan6" width="474" height="706"><figcaption class="caption-body">Ryan, as an actor, on the set of Frontier.</figcaption></div>What has perhaps given Ryan the most satisfaction in life is his family, another blessing he received in a story that seems too far-fetched to be true. It goes back to his days in the WHL. In his last season of major junior, Ryan was dealt at the deadline from the Tri-City Americans to the Red Deer Rebels, where he was reunited with his rookie roommate and best friend, B.J. Young, who had been dealt to the Rebels two seasons before. Young was the team&rsquo;s leading scorer and a draft pick of Detroit. &ldquo;He would say, &lsquo;Hey Newf, I don&rsquo;t want to be in for curfew,&rsquo;&rdquo; Ryan said. &ldquo;&lsquo;Newf, I don&rsquo;t want to get up at nine, can you ask coach to have practice at 10?&rsquo; And I&rsquo;m like, &lsquo;No, I can&rsquo;t.&rsquo;&rdquo;The two stayed in touch over the years as both their careers meandered through the minors but never intersected. Ryan played eight NHL games over three seasons, Young played one. In 2005, Young was playing in his hometown for the ECHL Alaska Aces and Ryan was back in Newfoundland trying to figure out what to do with his life. He had just gone through a divorce and had ballooned to 240 pounds, putting on 15 pounds deliberately so he could be part of a reality show. He lost all the excess weight and in the final episode, he and three other contestants were standing behind cardboard cutouts of their &ldquo;before&rdquo; photographs, with the winner ripping his cardboard cutout and going to accept first prize. Seconds before his name was announced, Ryan noticed a TV monitor with a ticker that said, &ldquo;B.J. Young, 27, former Red Wing, dies in car accident.&rdquo;The next season, Ryan went to Bentley, Alta., to play senior hockey. The Bentley Generals got him a job delivering equipment to the oil rigs in exchange for him playing hockey. Bentley is not far from Red Deer, where Young&rsquo;s wife, Danielle, and her seven-year-old son, Tison, were living. A chance meeting in a restaurant one day with Danielle and Tison led to a relationship. Today, Danielle and Ryan live in the St. John&rsquo;s suburb of Mount Pearl with their daughter Penny-Laine. Ryan became a father figure to Tison and mentored him in hockey and life. Now 19, Tison is playing Jr. B hockey for the Kamloops Storm and attending Thompson Rivers University. &ldquo;I mean, unless I&rsquo;m a total childish fool, this transcends anything I would have done and any hockey accolades I would have (received),&rdquo; Ryan said. &ldquo;Tison&rsquo;s life would have sucked and Penny-Laine wouldn&rsquo;t be around. So there&rsquo;s no regret at all.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ryan7/398969-1-eng-US/ryan72.jpg" title="ryan7" width="1024" height="1001"><figcaption class="caption-body">MODERN FAMILYA tragic accident and chance meeting led to Ryan&rsquo;s life with wife Danielle and their daughter, Penny-Laine. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF TERRY RYAN)</figcaption></div>In his first year of pro hockey, Ryan scored 21 goals, had 34 fights and 256 penalty minutes and was named the rookie of the year for the Fredericton Canadiens in the AHL. That turned out to be the pinnacle of his career. His skating ended up betraying him, something that only got worse with the high-ankle sprain in camp with the Dallas Stars. With his combination of brute force and a soft touch around the net, he should have been a millionaire many times over. But there is no time to be bitter. He fought Tie Domi three times.All the fighting he did comes in handy when he has to do fight scenes in front of the camera. His ability to get his thoughts down on paper have resulted in one book with another on the way. He has been a champion in both senior hockey and ball hockey and nobody will ever be able to take away his NHL stat line, even if it starts with an eight and is followed by a bunch of zeroes. Only the very best players on the planet make it even that far.In the third episode of Season 3 of Frontier, he and Declan Harp, played by Momoa, are in a race to get to Lord Benton, a high-ranking officer for the Hudson&rsquo;s Bay Company who has a penchant for cruelty and violence. (Ryan&rsquo;s character obviously is not the same one who was killed in the first episode. That&rsquo;s how they roll in TV.) The scene was filmed last winter and required him to climb mountains and wade through frozen river waters. It certainly wasn&rsquo;t where Ryan would have pictured himself, but he has found inner peace and purpose. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t live up to expectations,&rdquo; Ryan said. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t even the fame. It was that with my talents, I should have had seasons in the NHL that I can look back and evaluate myself on, but I didn&rsquo;t get that. I spent a year or two feeling bad for myself, and I was in a bad place, but without that I wouldn&rsquo;t be doing what I&rsquo;m doing now, which is so interesting. I won a world championship a couple of months ago, and I&rsquo;m in a movie. Point being, I can&rsquo;t f----in&rsquo; complain.&rdquo; &#9632;

ryan1

ROCK STAR

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="womens_olym_068" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/womens_olym_068/399075-1-eng-US/womens_olym_0682.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">SHATTUCK GOLDEN GIRLSFour members of the powerhouse Shattuck-St. Mary&rsquo;s program captured gold in 2018. It was no coincidence. (COURTESY OF GORDIE STAFFORD)</figcaption></div>THE PHOTO IS ALL the evidence one needs. Standing in a row are Monique and Jocelyne Lamoureux, Brianna Decker and Amanda Kessel. Proudly wearing their Team USA jerseys side-by-side with arms draped over one another, the four women have 2018 Olympic gold medals slung around their necks, holding their prizes forward for the camera and beaming with seemingly permanent smiles.The caption, put there by Gordie Stafford only shortly after USA stood atop the podium in Pyeongchang, reads simply, &ldquo;The Shattuck Golden girls.&rdquo;The moniker, of course, is in reference to their alma mater. Not from the college ranks, mind you. The Lamoureuxs are products of North Dakota, Decker a Wisconsin alum, and Kessel played her post-secondary puck in Minnesota. Rather, at one point in time, and for one season as a fearsome, near-unstoppable unit, the women skated at Shattuck-St. Mary&rsquo;s Prep School, where Stafford has overseen the women&rsquo;s team for nearly 15 years. You can add a fifth to the Shattuck crew playing in the gold-medal game, too, as Canadian silver medallist Blayre Turnbull is also a grad.How is it that the four Olympic champions and five of the best women&rsquo;s players anywhere in the world came from one school in Faribault, Minn., about an hour outside of Minneapolis? It&rsquo;s because in the world of girls hockey, Shattuck and its counterparts are the primary path to the college game, the road that needs to be travelled for those who have more than a passing passion for the game. &ldquo;I can use specific examples of girls that have come to play at Shattuck that have gone on to the Olympics, for example, they would have run out of runway on the girls side because many of them had played with boys right up until they came to Shattuck,&rdquo; Stafford said. &ldquo;Then, physically, socially, emotionally, there&rsquo;s a point in which a majority of girls will not be able to play boys anymore.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/womens_staf_069/399068-1-eng-US/womens_staf_0692.jpg" title="womens_staf_069" width="1025" height="646"><figcaption class="caption-body">OFFERING EXPOSUREGetting seen by NCAA programs is one of the main benefits of programs like Stafford&rsquo;s at Shattuck&rsquo;s. (SHATTUCK-ST. MARY&rsquo;S SCHOOL)</figcaption></div>It&rsquo;s with prep schools such as Shattuck or the more traditional teams in the northeastern United States, as well as with elite club teams &ndash; such as Chicago Mission, Minnesota Jr. Whitecaps, Stoney Creek Sabres and Toronto Aeros &ndash; throughout the U.S. and Canada, that girls are afforded the opportunity to play with peers who see the game as more than an activity, with those who view it as a pathway to the college game and possibly a national team or the professional women&rsquo;s circuits. It&rsquo;s where the veritable iron sharpens iron for these young girls, their answer to the boys&rsquo; top-tier bantam programs that inevitably produce the next generation of NHL talent.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/womens_staf_073/399061-1-eng-US/womens_staf_0732.jpg" title="womens_staf_073" width="474" height="479"><figcaption class="caption-body">GORDIE STAFFORD (SHATTUCK-ST. MARY'S SCHOOL)</figcaption></div>But what elite programs provide as much as anything is exposure. That&rsquo;s an invaluable commodity for those with their sights set on the college ranks. In fact, it&rsquo;s so important that Shattuck specifically tailors the team&rsquo;s yearly travel schedule around tournaments that will get the most eyes on the girls. &ldquo;Colleges don&rsquo;t have infinite resources,&rdquo; Stafford said. &ldquo;So the colleges are going to recruit from the tournaments and showcases that are offered.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s a similar pitch, an offer of exposure and a path to the women&rsquo;s collegiate game, that enticed Sarah Zacharias to join the once-burgeoning and now-flourishing prep program at Balmoral Hall in Winnipeg in 2006. Before joining Balmoral in its second season, Zacharias believed her two options were becoming the first female NHL player or making the Olympic team. &ldquo;It opened up a whole new world for me,&rdquo; Zacharias said. &ldquo;I hadn&rsquo;t even imagined (the NCAA) as a possibility.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/womens_zach_070/399054-1-eng-US/womens_zach_0702.jpg" title="womens_zach_070" width="1024" height="1024"><figcaption class="caption-body">EDUCATION FIRSTZacharias stresses school as grades can be the differences between getting a scholarship or not. (COURTESY OF BALMORAL HALL)</figcaption></div>Zacharias returned to coach at Balmoral after three years at Niagara University (N.Y.). She echoed Stafford&rsquo;s sentiments that getting in front of scouts at major competitions like the NAHA Labor Day Tournament, Stoney Creek university showcase and Challenge Cup is of paramount importance for girls desperate to continue their careers into college.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/womens_zach_072/399047-1-eng-US/womens_zach_0722.jpg" title="womens_zach_072" width="1025" height="708"><figcaption class="caption-body">(COURTESY OF BALMORAL HALL)</figcaption></div><blockquote class="pullQuote">TECHNOLOGY HAS ADVANCED, AND, YES, THERE ARE LIVE STREAMS THAT SCOUTS CAN USE TO WATCH KIDS FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, BUT THAT DOESN&rsquo;T COMPARE TO BEING ABLE TO SIT DOWN IN THE RINK</blockquote>&ndash; Sarah ZachariasIt&rsquo;s why Balmoral rarely, if ever, plays in Winnipeg. Every other weekend the team travels to ensure scouts are seeing the team on a regular basis. At some tournaments, Zacharias said, upwards of 100 recruiters can be present, searching for the next generation of college commits. Tiered tournaments allow the best U-12, U-14, U-16 and college-ready athletes to pique the interest of scouts. &ldquo;I try not to use &lsquo;never&rsquo; and &lsquo;always,&rsquo; because they&rsquo;re limiting terms, but it is true that your likelihood and chances of getting seen at these big hotbeds are just much greater in comparison to a kid that&rsquo;s coming out of a small town,&rdquo; Zacharias said. &ldquo;Technology has advanced, and, yes, there are live streams that scouts can use to watch kids from anywhere in the world, but that doesn&rsquo;t compare to being able to sit down in the rink and see kids&rsquo; tendencies on the bench or see the mannerisms when they interact with the coach.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/womens_zach_071/399040-1-eng-US/womens_zach_0712.jpg" title="womens_zach_071" width="1025" height="688"><figcaption class="caption-body">(COURTESY OF ZACHARY PETERS)</figcaption></div>Nor does it take into account the one thing that prep schools can provide, which is an all-in-one package that ties athletics and academics together. Zacharias couldn&rsquo;t overstate how important the academic aspects were for young women looking to take the next step. Conversations with scouts, recruiters and college coaches about on-ice aspects of the game are short and sweet. Most want to know how the girls are as students. And in most instances, Zacharias explained, if a decision has to be made between two players, the tiebreaker likely won&rsquo;t be goals, assists or time on ice. Instead, it will be SAT scores, ACT scores and grade-point average. &ldquo;You have to be a good student,&rdquo; Zacharias said. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s going to come of your hockey career. I used to say that my college career was a means to an end. I was able to get a full-ride scholarship and play four great years of college hockey, and that&rsquo;s what led me to where I am in life today, and it wasn&rsquo;t just the hockey side of things. For girls, the academic piece is just as important as the athletic piece in my mind.&rdquo; &#9632;

womens_olym_068

Women

WHICH WAY TO THE TOP?

<div class="byline">BY NATHAN KANTER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="next_rossi" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_rossi/399111-1-eng-US/next_rossi2.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Rossi can score, no doubt, but it&rsquo;s his all-around game, including taking defensive draws, that&rsquo;s opening eyes. (VALERIE WUTTI)</figcaption></div>SOME TEAMMATES CALL HIM &lsquo;Goose Goose,&rsquo; others call him &lsquo;Ross the Boss.&rsquo; His coach Andre Tourigny simply calls him Marco. Most importantly for fans of the OHL&rsquo;s Ottawa 67&rsquo;s, rookie center Marco Rossi&rsquo;s name has been showing up on plenty of scoresheets.Rossi, selected 18th overall in the 2018 CHL import draft, has taken the OHL by storm in his first season in North America, with 13 goals and 27 points through 23 games before sustaining an elbow injury that figured to keep him out of the lineup until the new year. He&rsquo;s not eligible for the NHL draft until 2020 because his Sept. 23 birthday is eight days past the cutoff for the 2019 draft. But he&rsquo;s already creating significant buzz thanks to his hockey IQ, lethal shot and willingness to battle down low, despite his 5-foot-9 frame. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;s been knocked down once this season, and he&rsquo;s always in the corners,&rdquo; said 67&rsquo;s linemate Austen Keating. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s really strong on his feet. He works hard in the gym, and that&rsquo;s kind of a guy you look up to, even though he&rsquo;s much younger than a lot of us.&rdquo;Rossi was born in Feldkirch, Austria, a city of 30,000 near the border with Switzerland and Liechtenstein. His father, Michael, played pro in Austria for more than a decade and put Marco on skates at age three.Last season, at 16, Rossi played mostly with the GCK Lions Elite Jr. A club in Zurich, Switzerland, where many teammates were 18, 19 and 20. He also played 18 games with the second-tier pro Lions team. That experience in a professional league helped Rossi realize he was ready for North America. &ldquo;I wanted to learn Canadian hockey,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was always a dream to play here. I thought I was ready, and I am. You have less time compared to European ice, but it wasn&rsquo;t a real big adjustment. Just different hockey.&rdquo;Rossi didn&rsquo;t find the back of the net right off the hop. In his first six games, he registered just two assists. But his coach wasn&rsquo;t worried. &ldquo;If you look at every European player who comes over,&rdquo; Tourigny said, &ldquo;Nico Hischier didn&rsquo;t score in his first four or five games, (Nikolaj) Ehlers scored three goals in eight weeks or something like that&hellip;It took a bit of time to adjust. After, when they get used to it, they take off.&rdquo;Though he just turned 17 in September, Rossi often takes defensive-zone faceoffs and frequently kills penalties. &ldquo;Everyone knows him as the goal-scorer, the playmaker, the point-getter, but I think what makes him so successful is his two-way game,&rdquo; Keating said. &ldquo;He blocks shots, he&rsquo;s in the corners, he finishes checks. He does all the little things right.&rdquo;With the 2020 NHL draft more than a year away, there is still room for Rossi&rsquo;s game to grow. By then, the hockey world could be calling him &ldquo;first-round draft pick.&rdquo;For daily prospect coverage, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://TheHockeyNews.com">THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM</a> &#9632;

next_rossi

A MAN OF MANY NAMES

<div class="byline">BY DOUG WARD</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_rempal_076/399161-1-eng-US/next_rempal_0762.jpg" title="next_rempal_076" width="860" height="944"><figcaption class="caption-body">PHOTO BY ONTARIO REIGN</figcaption></div>SHELDON REMPAL DOES NOT mind dealing with traffic. Not on the ice, nor on the freeways in and around Los Angeles.He&rsquo;s handling those obstacles just fine. The 23-year-old rookie pro has already made the 40-mile commute from Ontario, where he plays for the AHL Reign, to Staples Center, where he suited up in three games for L.A. earlier this season on a line with Jeff Carter and Ilya Kovalchuk.It wasn&rsquo;t the Ontario he thought he&rsquo;d be playing in someday. &ldquo;Growing up in Calgary,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;when I thought of Ontario, it was the one with Toronto. Now that I&rsquo;m in Ontario, California, I don&rsquo;t think there could be a better setup. It&rsquo;s really close to L.A., which makes it easy to go back and forth.&rdquo;Rempal doesn&rsquo;t need much time or space to operate, which makes him an ideal fit for Southern California. An undrafted free agent, the right winger had multiple offers before signing a two-year deal with the Kings last spring following two seasons at Clarkson University. &ldquo;When I took my visit to L.A., everyone was nice,&rdquo; Rempal said. &ldquo;They made me feel like I was a player they needed and explained how I would fit in.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_rempal_075/399147-1-eng-US/next_rempal_0752.jpg" title="next_rempal_075" width="1573" height="896"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALL THE RIGHT MOVESRempal had more than a point per game as a Clarkson sophomore last year and is doing the same in the AHL. (PHOTO BY ONTARIO REIGN

)</figcaption></div>A good skater with a proven scoring touch (he had 59 goals for Nanaimo of the BCHL in 2015-16, and netted 23 goals at Clarkson last year), Rempal says he was also influenced by the Kings&rsquo; recent success. &ldquo;I watched both of their Cup runs, in &rsquo;12 and in &rsquo;14,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Those teams made an impression on me with their strong,&nbsp;physical play. They were always very hard to play against.&rdquo;The 5-foot-10 Rempal grew up a Flames fan, but it was Tampa Bay&rsquo;s 5-foot-8 Martin St-Louis that became his favorite during the 2004 Cup final. He also likes Philadelphia&rsquo;s Travis Konecny and L.A.&rsquo;s Trevor Lewis. &ldquo;(Konecny) is a right-handed shot and plays really fast,&rdquo; Rempal said. &ldquo;When I watch Lewis with the Kings, he&rsquo;s responsible in the defensive zone and gets every puck out on the wall. He always makes the smart play.&rdquo;Rempal&rsquo;s smartest play was exhibiting perseverance when his career appeared stuck. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a late-bloomer, but that&rsquo;s not a bad thing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s awesome to be where I am now.&rdquo;<h2>WELL SCHOOLED</h2>Rempal isn&rsquo;t the only 2018 NCAA free agent signee off to a good start<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/next_sherwo_078/399140-1-eng-US/next_sherwo_0782.jpg" title="next_sherwo_078" width="474" height="654"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div><h3>KIEFER SHERWOOD</h3>ANAHEIM DUCKS, RWHis pluck and Anaheim&rsquo;s injuries helped Sherwood nab a surprise roster spot this year. The Miami University alum has brought grit and a shooter&rsquo;s mentality to the Ducks, who have used him on the third line.<h3>JOEL L&rsquo;ESPERANCE</h3>DALLAS STARS, RWOnce his senior season at Michigan Tech concluded, L&rsquo;Esperance signed on with Dallas and he ended up playing every playoff game in AHL Texas&rsquo; run to the Calder Cup final. This year, he&rsquo;s putting up nearly a point-per-game in the minors.<h3>ERIC ROBINSON</h3>COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS, LWA big dude who can score, Robinson was Princeton&rsquo;s captain last year and made his NHL debut last season with the Jackets. This year, the power forward has been one of AHL Cleveland&rsquo;s top scorers.<h3>ZACH WHITECLOUD</h3>VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS, DThere had been rumors Whitecloud would get a shot at the Olympics with Canada, but in the end the big, well-rounded D-man simply started a frenzy for his NHL rights. Vegas won, and now the Bemidji State alum is with AHL Chicago.<h3>LOGAN O&rsquo;CONNOR</h3>COLORADO AVALANCHE, RWLeaving the University of Denver after his junior season, O&rsquo;Connor didn&rsquo;t move far: the 2017 NCAA champion signed with the Avalanche and now plays for the AHL&rsquo;s Colorado Eagles one hour north in Loveland, where he&rsquo;s producing well. &#9632;

next_rempal_076

THRIVING IN CONGESTION

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0062-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0062-0151/399190-1-eng-US/f0062-012.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTO BY TERRY NORTON)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

f0062-01

SCOUTING REPORT

<div class="byline">BY RISTO PAKARINEN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="europe_tapp_079" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/europe_tapp_079/399233-1-eng-US/europe_tapp_0792.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">BIG BROTHER WATCHINGExact movement and speed, tracked every 50 milliseconds, will reveal everything about a player&rsquo;s shift. (TAPPARA TAMPERE/CHAMPIONS HOCKEY LEAGUE VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>SINCE OCTOBER 2017, teams playing at the Hakametsa arena in Tampere, the oldest indoor rink in Finland, have had a chip on their shoulders. Literally.The chip, hidden in a little pouch inside their sweaters, tracks players&rsquo; movements on the ice. Similarly, the puck has a small chip inside it, transmitting data on the movements of that piece of vulcanized rubber.Based on Quuppa position-tracking technology, each player&rsquo;s Bluetooth sender and the puck transmit data that is picked up by 20 locators in the rink. The data is stored in the cloud and then distributed back to users via a web portal.The smart puck system, or Wisehockey, as its developers call it, is the product of Finnish Bitwise. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been working with (Finnish league team Tampere) Tappara for years, and they approached us about developing a new mobile app, which was only moderately interesting to us,&rdquo; said Bitwise&rsquo;s Mika Hulkki. &ldquo;When we heard that the arena still had the locators installed by a previous partner, we got interested.&rdquo;Transmitting information about the players wasn&rsquo;t a big challenge &ndash; but getting the chip inside the puck was. Hulkki and Bitwise&rsquo;s CEO Tomi Mikkonen spent months working on the pucks, looking for the ideal solution. &ldquo;We had to make sure adding the chip wouldn&rsquo;t change how the puck behaves on the ice or add weight,&rdquo; Hulkki said. &ldquo;At the same time, we had to find a way to get the chip inside the puck in a way the signal would reach the locators and that would protect the chip.&rdquo;Months of work with power drills and different kinds of isolation materials led to the current solution. &ldquo;It was trial and error,&rdquo; Hulkki said. &ldquo;Tomi and I hand-made several prototypes and tested them until we found this one. The biggest challenge was to make sure the puck would feel exactly the same as before. Now we have something that is almost as hard as the vulcanized rubber used to make pucks, but it also acts as isolation and protects the chip.&rdquo;The system sends data every 50 milliseconds on the players and every 10 milliseconds on the puck, while tracking their positions with an accuracy of about four inches. Wisehockey locators have been installed in three more arenas, covering five Finnish League teams, and the plan is to have every single Finnish League arena fitted with the locators by 2019-20. According to Hulkki, it only takes a few days to install the system.While the system has been in place in just one arena for a full season, visiting teams have also had access to the data regarding their players. Wisehockey can track an individual player&rsquo;s total distance, shift lengths, faceoffs, maximum speed and average speed. And for teams, Wisehockey tracks zone entries, whether shots have been blocked, shot speeds and puck possession. &ldquo;You can also watch the events unfold in (two-dimensional) animation in real time,&rdquo; Hulkki said.Wisehockey&rsquo;s team of 20 programmers have written &ldquo;over a million lines of code,&rdquo; and it&rsquo;s that code that makes the system unique, says Hulkki. &ldquo;Since Wisehockey is an automated system, we can provide the data report in real time,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Also, if a team or a league would later want to pull up data on something that we haven&rsquo;t tracked before, we can do that fairly quickly. We can crunch 500 games&rsquo; worth of numbers easily, something a camera-based system can&rsquo;t do because the analysis is done manually.&rdquo;The data can be used to enhance the arena experience, by creating entertainment for fans, as well as the TV product. And of course, once coaches see what can be done with the system, they&rsquo;re interested. &ldquo;Currently, though, our customer is the Finnish League, and we&rsquo;ll work together with them to see which elements should be prioritized,&rdquo; Hulkki said.In addition to the Finnish league, teams in two other leagues were also set to use Wisehockey later this season. &ldquo;The NHL wants to have proprietary technology, and we haven&rsquo;t talked to them, but we&rsquo;ve seen a lot of traffic on our site from the league office,&rdquo; Hulkki said.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/europe_wise_080/399226-1-eng-US/europe_wise_0802.jpg" title="europe_wise_080" width="1024" height="479"></div><div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/europe_wise_081/399219-1-eng-US/europe_wise_0812.jpg" title="europe_wise_081" width="1024" height="479"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SCREENCAPS: COURTESY OF WISEHOCKEY.COM)</figcaption></div> &#9632;

europe_tapp_079

Eye On Europe

SMART CHIP ON FINNS’ SHOULDERS

<div class="byline">BY MATT LARKIN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="malarkey_ha_082" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/malarkey_ha_082/399262-1-eng-US/malarkey_ha_0822.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">CAP CRUNCHEDKeith, Kane and Seabrook all earned their big money, but it left little space for support when the team started to decline. (GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THAT&rsquo;S IT? TANNER PEARSON for Carl Hagelin?It&rsquo;s difficult to find two prouder NHL franchises this decade than the Los Angeles Kings and Pittsburgh Penguins. Yet here they were in mid-November swapping a one-goal scorer for a zero-goal scorer. Both players were key wingers on crucial lines during Stanley Cup runs within the past five years. Now, both were afterthoughts in a desperate, shrug-inducing trade.The Kings, dead last in the NHL, had already fired coach John Stevens. Their refusal to shed the big, slow identity that won them Cups in 2012 and 2014 had finally dragged them underwater. Acquiring Hagelin, one of the sport&rsquo;s fastest skaters, wouldn&rsquo;t change that. Meanwhile, the Pens, tumbling down the Eastern Conference stairs, tried plugging a lunchpail digger into their lineup by adding Pearson. Again, not a needle mover.During their championship-chasing heydays a few years back, we would&rsquo;ve seen the Kings and Penguins shake the NHL&rsquo;s power balance with major moves. The Kings went out and got Jeff Carter and Mike Richards and Marian Gaborik. The Penguins made their Phil Kessel trade. But both teams have run out of tradable capital as a result of contending for so long. In a six-draft stretch from 2011 to 2016, the Kings never picked higher than 29th and only had two first-rounders. The Penguins have selected one first-rounder in the past six drafts: Kasperi Kapanen, whom they traded to acquire Kessel. Another team belongs in this category: the Chicago Blackhawks. They weren&rsquo;t as cavalier with their picks but did go without a first-rounder in 2015 and 2016 as a result of late playoff-push trades.Together, those three squads captured eight of nine Cups between 2009 and 2017. The Hawks bottomed out at seventh in the Central by 2017-18, the Kings appear destined for the same fate, and even the Pens were tied for second-last in their conference as of press time. Contending in the cap era eventually pillages a team of assets, whether it&rsquo;s because the GM deals the picks and prospects away or because the draft picks a championship team keeps are late first-rounders, which aren&rsquo;t slam-dunk stars.The other reason these three empires have crumbled: top-heavy salary-cap structures. When interviewed for a 2017 article in The Hockey News, Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman summarized the blessing-turned-curse perfectly. &ldquo;We realized who makes our team go, and it&rsquo;s been those same six, seven, eight guys, and they make a lot of money, and rightfully so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;So when they accomplish a lot&hellip;good things happen when your team plays well and you win Cups and your players play great. Then they&rsquo;re going to make a lot of money. And they should.&rdquo;Bowman added that keeping a pricy core meant relying on a &ldquo;revolving door&rdquo; of cheap depth players to support the stars. That structure can temporarily work beautifully. The Blackhawks could win with their Marcus Krugers and Michal Rozsivals when Jonathan Toews was a Selke Trophy winner and Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook were the league&rsquo;s top defensive pair, playing half of every playoff game. Now Keith and Seabrook are 35 and 33. When the top guys eating the majority of the salary-cap pie age out of their primes, the thrift-store depth can&rsquo;t support them. It was thus no surprise to see the Penguins lose all three games when Sidney Crosby sat in mid-November with an upper-body injury.The takeaway, however, isn&rsquo;t that these teams&rsquo; GMs failed. It&rsquo;s that they paid a fair &ndash; and heavy &ndash; price for mini-dynasties. Will Anze Kopitar&rsquo;s $10-million AAV look good in Years 7 and 8? Probably not. Did the Kings pay him for past performance instead of future performance? Sure. But that&rsquo;s what you do when you win titles. You reward your stars. And if you choose to walk away from them instead, your fan base would turn on you for disloyalty. Revisionists can slam Dustin Brown&rsquo;s contract now, but he signed it in 2013, between L.A.&rsquo;s two championships, and he was captain at the time.There&rsquo;s a decent chance the Blackhawks, Kings and Penguins slide further into obscurity in the years to come. After all, Patrick Kane, Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Crosby and Evgeni Malkin haven&rsquo;t yet finished playing elite hockey. When they do, things could get really ugly. If you&rsquo;re fans of these franchises, however, don&rsquo;t fret. Understand that your management teams knew what it cost to win championships and were willing to shove every last chip into the middle of the table.And hey&hellip;maybe one of these teams gets Jack Hughes this June anyway. &#9632;

malarkey_ha_082

THE STEEP PRICE OF SUCCESS

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-0242/399312-1-eng-US/f0065-022.jpg" title="f0065-02" width="938" height="917"><figcaption class="caption-body">(GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>TRIVIA By Larry Humber1. Division topped by the Preds in 2017-182. He hoisted three Cups while with the Blackhawks3. A ___ rat spends too much time at the arena4. Ovation5. He won his first Cup with Carolina, two more with Pittsburgh6. ___ Yawney briefly coached the Hawks7. Dennis Hextall is Ron Hextall&rsquo;s ___8. Strategists9. &lsquo;The Flower&rsquo;s&rsquo; junior team10. He centered Howe and Lindsay in Detroit11. Your ___ may be made of graphite12. Dawson City team that got whipped 23-2 in a 1905 Cup game13. Rebound14. Joe Sakic&rsquo;s old number15. Joffrey ___ hasn&rsquo;t played since early 201616. Pictured, he&rsquo;s between pipes in Winnipeg17. Blank, ___ out18. The second &lsquo;A&rsquo; in GAA19. The ACC became ___ Arena last July20. Dominik Hasek introduced the &lsquo;___ style&rsquo; of goaltending21. He scored his first OHL goal at just 1522. Acadie-Bathurst&rsquo;s team goes by this nickname23. Is all out of tickets, ___ out24. Nikolaj Ehlers is ___dextrous, as was Howe<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_g_084/399326-1-eng-US/separated_g_0842.jpg" title="separated_g_084" width="217" height="333"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BRUCE KLUCKHOHN/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>GERARD&nbsp;GALLANTPlayed tough, no nonsense hockey for Detroit. Won Jack Adams Award as coach of the year. Will his Cinderella story with Vegas end after one season?<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/separated_c_085/399319-1-eng-US/separated_c_0852.jpg" title="separated_c_085" width="217" height="333"><figcaption class="caption-body">(KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>MICHAEL&nbsp;CHIKLISPlayed tough, no nonsense cop in L.A. on The Shield. Won Golden Globe Award as dramatic actor of the year. His show Vegas ended after one season.<h2>PUCK PUZZLE</h2>Can your hockey brain bring its A-game? The challenge is on!Listed here are seven of the storied Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; all-time leading scorers. Once you&rsquo;ve filled in the blanks, the name of the first Hab to put the &lsquo;biscuit in the basket&rsquo; will appear in the red boxes (clue: he was captain, too).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0065-0336/399305-1-eng-US/f0065-032.jpg" title="f0065-03" width="817" height="779"></div>TRIVIA SOLUTION:&nbsp;1. CENTRAL, 2. HOSSA, 3. RINK, 4. APPLAUSE, 5. MATT CULLEN, 6. TRENT, 7. UNCLE, 8. TACTICIANS, 9. REMPARTS, 10. ABEL, 11. STICK, 12. NUGGETS&nbsp;13. CAROM, 14. NINETEEN, 15. LUPUL, 16. HELLEBUYCK, 17. SHUT, 18. AVERAGE, 19. SCOTIABANK, 20. SCRAMBLE, 21. TAVARES, 22. TITAN, 23. SELLS, 24. AMBINAME GAME SOLUTION: DENIS POTVIN PUCK PUZZLE SOLUTION: LAFLEUR, LEMAIRE, BELIVEAU, COURNOYER, ROBINSON, RICHARD, GEOFFRION (FINAL ANSWER: LALONDE) &#9632;

TIME OUT

NAME GAME

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/lastword_le_086/399362-1-eng-US/lastword_le_0862.jpg" title="lastword_le_086" width="982" height="958"><figcaption class="caption-body">CHECKING MEANS CHASINGConstantly trying to crush opponents often means you don&rsquo;t have the puck. Hitting doesn&rsquo;t always equal winning. (RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR VIA GETTY IMAGES)</figcaption></div>THESE ARE STRANGE TIMES indeed. John Tortorella, a 5-foot-8, 175-pound water bug who once scored 96 points for something called the Virginia Lancers in something called the Atlantic Coast League, has his shorts in a knot over the fact there&rsquo;s not enough hate and that every NHL game has turned into a &ldquo;hug fest.&rdquo; Meanwhile, Eric Lindros, a 6-foot-4, 230-pound behemoth who bulldozed his way into the Hockey Hall of Fame, is suggesting we all might want to dial it down a little when it comes to body contact.It has some old-time hockey lovers wondering where all the hitting has gone. It also has many of them wondering whether the NHL is turning into the Ice Capades because, you know, it always has to be one extreme or another with these guys. The organic removal of fighting, combined with more of an emphasis on speed and skill rather than physicality, has some people in the hockey world concerned that the game is going soft. Tell that to a scoring winger who gets cross-checked in the back a dozen times a game or a defenseman who regularly pays the price of kissing the glass in order to retrieve a dump-in, but whatever.As we examine this, we have to start with the premise that hits might be the least reliable statistic in hockey. The application can vary wildly from arena to arena. Florida&rsquo;s Robert Svehla led the NHL hits in 2000-01 and &rsquo;01-02 &ndash; which included a mind-boggling 386 hits in the latter year &ndash; largely because he would regularly be credited with double-digit hits at home games. None of the hit statistics prior to 2005-06 can be taken seriously, but the stats that the league provides are all we have.And by that metric, yes, hits are down in the NHL. In fact, there hasn&rsquo;t been this little body contact in the NHL in 10 years. Through the first quarter of the season, there were 14,122 hits in 331 games, which averages out to 42.7 hits per game. That&rsquo;s down from 43.2 last season, which is barely a blip (just over one percent), but down noticeably from 2014-15, when there were 50 hits per game. That&rsquo;s a dip of almost 15 percent. So, generally speaking, hitting is down significantly from four years ago.But is that necessarily a bad thing? Well, if you get your kicks seeing your team crush and punish its opponents, not so great. But if you actually like seeing your team win games, that&rsquo;s another story. You see, with the advent of analytics in the game, more and more NHL teams are slowly coming to the conclusion that being more physical doesn&rsquo;t correlate to winning games.Teams that are out-hit in games are just as likely to win as those who register more bodychecks. They&rsquo;re beginning to grasp the reality that if their team is spending the entire game chasing their opponent and trying to knock them off the puck, that means they don&rsquo;t have the puck on their sticks. And, news flash, it&rsquo;s difficult to score when you don&rsquo;t have the puck. It&rsquo;s also generally accepted that when a team is busy carrying the puck, it doesn&rsquo;t feel the need to dish out bodychecks. The next step in hockey&rsquo;s evolution should be the same realization when it comes to blocked shots, which is the second-most useless statistic in the game.The Nashville Predators were in first place overall in the NHL at the quarter point of the season and dead last in hits. Care to guess who led the league in hits in the playoffs last spring? That would be the Los Angeles Kings, who recorded a mind-boggling 58.5 hits per game, which was 20 more per game than the next highest team. And what exactly did it get them? Well, they did score three goals in their four-game sweep setback at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights, plus the dead-fish-slap-to-the-face realization that the rest of the NHL has left them in the rear-view mirror.Much of this, of course, has to do with the league&rsquo;s crackdown on blindside hits on defenseless players, which comes in an era of enlightenment concerning the profound dangers associated with brain injuries and the education players are receiving about it.The best young players in the NHL began playing and watching the game once it opened up after the 2004-05 lockout, and the only game they know is based on speed and skill. That&rsquo;s evolution. According to unofficial stats, the league registered 48.8 hits per game in 1999-2000, which happened to coincide with the flaccid Dead Puck Era&trade; when the product the NHL was putting on display bordered on unwatchable. (&ldquo;You want to be entertained?&rdquo; one NHL executive opined during that era. &ldquo;Go to the movies.&rdquo;) Hockey is faster, more competitive, more exciting and played by more talented athletes than the game has ever produced. Why complain about that?Not sure about anyone else, but I would gladly exchange six fewer hits per game for the product we&rsquo;re seeing on the ice today as opposed to the drudgery we were force-fed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And those who lament the fact the NHL has become the Ice Capades are, as usual, not the ones who have to absorb the bone-crushing hits themselves. Hitting is, and should always be, an integral part of the game. Just because teams are beginning to realize that the purpose of a hit is to separate an opponent from the puck, and not his senses, is not a bad thing. Not at all. &#9632;

lastword_le_086

THIS EVOLUTION IS NO ILLUSION

<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/asset-2018-thn-logo14/400455-1-eng-US/asset-2018-thn-logo.jpg" title="Asset-2018-THN-Logo" width="637" height="156"></div>Executive Chairman &&nbsp; Publisher,&nbsp;Roustan Media Ltd. W. Graeme RoustanEditor in Chief&nbsp; Jason KaySenior Editor &nbsp;Brian Costello&nbsp;Managing Editor &nbsp;Edward Fraser&nbsp;Senior Writer &nbsp;Ken CampbellAssociate&nbsp;Senior Writer Ryan KennedySenior Content Producer Matt LarkinArt Director &nbsp;Shea BerencsiFeatures Editor &nbsp;Sam McCaigWeb Editor &nbsp;Jared ClintonEditor At Large Ronnie Shuker&nbsp;Contributing Writers Shelly Anderson, Sal Barry, David Boclair, Matt Carlson, Luke Decock, Bob Duff, Wayne Fish, Stu Hackel, James Jackson, Nathan Kanter, Risto Pakarinen, George Richards, Colin Stephenson, Tom Thompson, Doug WardInterns Ben ShelleyDirector Of Technology Erika VanderveerBrand Manager Carlie McGheeSpecial Advisor To The Publisher Wayne Roustan, Ivy DraperAdvertising BY TOTEM: Contact Nicole Mullin, Commercial Director&nbsp; 416-847-8187 <a datastyle href="mailto:nicole.mullin@totemcontent.com">nicole.mullin@totemcontent.com</a>Subscriptions: 1-888-361-9768 <a href="https://secure.thehockeynews.com%E2%80%9D%20customattributes=">www.thehockeynews.com/mag</a>One-year Subscription Price $39.95 + tax for print and digital $29.95 + tax for digitalThe Hockey News (ISSN 0018-3016) publishes 17 issues per year, including the Yearbook and Collector&rsquo;s EditionMail In Canada The Hockey News, PO Box 5300, STN Industrial Park, Markham, ON L3R 9Z9Mail In the US The Hockey News, PO Box 904, Buffalo, NY 14240-9554Global <a href="http://secure.thehockeynews.com">www.thehockeynews.com/mag</a>THN Offices Canada: 1137 Centre Street, Suite 210, Thornhill, ON L4J 3M6 U.S.: 420 East Third Street, Suite 806, Los Angeles, CA, USA 90013 (c/o David La Salle)Our Privacy Policy On occasion, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened organizations whose product or service might interest you. If you prefer that we not share your name and postal address, you can easily remove your name from our mailing list by reaching us at any of the listed contact points. Review our complete Privacy Policy at <a datastyle href="http://www.thn.com">THN.com</a>.The Hockey News was co-founded by Ken McKenzie and W.V. Cote in 1947.Contents copyright 2018 for Roustan Media Ltd. &copy; All rights reserved articles and photos 2018<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/asset-roustanmedia-logo16/400448-1-eng-US/asset-roustanmedia-logo.jpg" title="Asset-RoustanMedia-Logo" width="637" height="156"></div> &#9632;

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World Juniors 2019

THE INSTIGATOR

BEHIND THE MASK

LOOK OUT FOR LITTLE GUYS

THN POLL