Search for your favorite player or team
© The Hockey News. All rights reserved. Any and all material on this website cannot be used, reproduced, or distributed without prior written permission from Roustan Media Ltd. For more information, please see our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Meet The New Guys 2020
It's double the fun with our WJC Preview/Meet The New Guy Issue! Get all the info you need on the World Junior Championship while learning about the new faces in new places for the 2020-21 NHL season. In the WJC section, we have previews on each team, plus profiles on key players to watch. In Meet The New Guy, you'll find stories on Matt Murray, Alex Pietrangelo, Taylor Hall and many more. Published December 2020
HOW TO SHAKE THE ‘RINK RUST’
IT IS THE STRANGEST off-season of all-time for NHLers’ training schedules. Or it’s right up there with the 1945 off-season following the end of the Second World War, as the COVID-19 pandemic has been the single most disruptive global event in more than 70 years. For many players who competed in the 24-team bubble tournament, simply starting off-season training has been a mountain to climb. Their bodies endured a rigorous, condensed league schedule that regularly included three games in four nights and back-to-backs. In some cases, that meant back-to-back overtime games. The gruelling experience left players’ bodies battered, but that’s true after any deep playoff run in a non-COVID year as well. According to multiple high-performance trainers with clients who played in the bubble, the mental toll of the bubble was much…
YAROSLAV ASKAROV
SIMPLY MAKING THE TEAM and starting games for the Russian world-junior team at 17 was an impressive feat for goalie Yaroslav Askarov. But helping Russia make it to the gold-medal game, where they eventually lost to Canada, made the run extra special. But that silver wasn’t good enough for Askarov, who yielded the crease to the older Amir Miftakhov for the final. “I felt as though we didn’t achieve what we had planned to,” Askarov said. “I learned that it’s key to try even harder in order to progress and become a better player.” Thanks to his youth, Askarov, the highly touted goaltending prospect from the SKA St. Petersburg system, gets another crack at gold this year in Edmonton, and he’s already a lot more experienced than he was a year ago.…
DAWSON MERCER
THE 2021 WORLD JUNIORS will be a tournament like no other. Taking place in Edmonton in a Stanley Cup-style bubble, the stakes will be just as high as always, but with the added pressure of being the only major hockey going at the time – and the knowledge that an empty arena masks a nation hoping Canada can repeat as gold medallists. The Canadians will have a great dollop of experience in their lineup, from Bowen Byram and Jamie Drysdale on the blueline to Dylan Cozens, Connor McMichael and Quinton Byfield up front. Also in the mix of returning forwards is Dawson Mercer of the QMJHL’s Chicoutimi Sagueneens, who made last year’s team as an 18-year-old and is ready to defend that gold on home soil. “I want to be a…
TAKING A KNEE, TAKING A STAND
IT’S JUST AFTER 7 o’clock on a November morning and Matt Dumba is out walking in Scottsdale, Ariz., with Winona-Rae, a rescue he picked up at Coco’s Heart Dog Rescue in Wisconsin just after the NHL shut down in March. He’s hoping she can get some exercise and do her business before he goes to work out with Tommy Powers, a former college hockey player who is now the conditioning consultant for the Arizona Coyotes and a guy who is doing wonders with him. What started as a one-week stint turned into a long-term rental through October, November and December. And when Dumba hits the ice, he receives a steady diet of Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews, who also train there in the off-season, which is enough to help anyone’s…
Made possible with the support of
