In our 2023 Goalie Issue, we've got you covered post-to-post with features on the state of NHL goaltending and what records have become unreachable, plus player profiles on Adin Hill, Alexandar Georgiev, Joonas Korpisalo, Spencer Knight, Filip Gustavsson and many more. In our cover story, we build the perfect goalie using the top traits of today's best keepers. In addition, we rank the best crease duos across the NHL and name the top goalie of all-time for every franchise.

Goalie Issue 2023

The Hockey News Goalie Issue 2023

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0011-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0011-011989/10062756-1-eng-US/f0011-012.jpg"></div><h2> &#9632;</h2>

f0011-01

Buzz

BRUISE-O-METER

<div class="byline">BY DILLON COLLINS</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="joonaskorpi_028" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/joonaskorpi_028/10063674-1-eng-US/joonaskorpi_0282.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DAVID KIROUAC-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>THEY SAY THE LIFE of a goalie is one of isolation. You&rsquo;re an island unto yourself, dying on the whims of the masses, a rising and falling stock in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world.Goaltending is a game of mental gymnastics as much as physical exertion or sharpened reflexes. The mind must be as trained and sharpened as any muscle or tendon. Pressure, simply put, is part of the package.And no one knows the sink-or-swim realities of the life of a goalie in the big leagues better than Joonas Korpisalo, a second-generation pro now set to play for his third NHL club on the back signing of his most lucrative contract to date. All eyes are on the Finnish flash in Canada&rsquo;s capital city. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re able to train everything, including the mental side of it,&rdquo; Korpisalo said. &ldquo;And for a goalie, that&rsquo;s a big part of it.&ldquo;When I was younger, I was fierce. I was smacking my stick and stuff like that, and John Tortorella (Korpisalo&rsquo;s former coach in Columbus) didn&rsquo;t like it. I quit all that stuff. Looking at all the great goalies, they always keep level. It doesn&rsquo;t matter what happens. You make a great save, you bring yourself down from the high you get from it, and it works the other way, too. You let in a softie, and you get back to it. Looking at the great goalies, it doesn&rsquo;t matter how good or bad you play, you just keep the same level.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/joonaskorpi_026/10063667-1-eng-US/joonaskorpi_0262.jpg" title="joonaskorpi_026" width="2774" height="1827"><figcaption class="caption-body">STRONG FINNISHKorpisalo&rsquo;s boffo ending to last season showed the type of goalie he can be in the right situation. (PERRY NELSON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Keeping things on the level is a skill that comes with time and repetition. Off-nights are an expected by-product of playing against the best in the world, and career-defining 85-save performances &ndash; like his modern-day classic against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2020 playoffs &ndash; are few and far between.It&rsquo;s that recovery, which needs to happen in seconds, not hours, that separates amateurs from pros. Biting down hard, chewing on the pressure and learning to relish the taste are key to unlocking the puzzle. &ldquo;Sometimes, it&rsquo;s a rollercoaster, and you have to keep yourself in the middle of it,&rdquo; Korpisalo said. &ldquo;As a goalie, you love that. Everybody loves that, being the guy in every game, being a certain centerpiece, and knowing that if you do your job well, the team&rsquo;s going to have a good chance to win.&rdquo;Presenting the best chance at victory is precisely the reason Korpisalo now finds himself at the helm of the young and hungry Ottawa Senators. He welcomes the chance to join a team on the rise, bolstered by a core of young stars in waiting in Brady Tkachuk, Jake Sanderson and Tim Stutzle, and perennial league standouts Claude Giroux, Jakob Chychrun, Thomas Chabot and newly acquired sniper Vladimir Tarasenko. &ldquo;A lot of good things are happening, a lot of good vibes around the team,&rdquo; Korpisalo said. &ldquo;A big part for me, especially last year, playing against Ottawa as a goalie, you realize that&rsquo;s a really good team, and it&rsquo;s a young team, and it&rsquo;s only going to get better.&rdquo;Korpisalo inked a five-year, $20-million deal with the Sens at the start of free agency. And GM Pierre Dorion is banking on the tandem of Korpisalo and Anton Forsberg, who played together both in the AHL and for the Columbus Blue Jackets, as the secret sauce to take the club to the promised land. &ldquo;We clicked right away when we met in Lake Erie, so it&rsquo;s so nice to get back to it and having such a competitor as my tandem there,&rdquo; Korpisalo said. &ldquo;We just pushed ourselves to the limit, and I love that.&rdquo;Korpisalo&rsquo;s road to backstopping an NHL crease began in his native Finland. His father, Jari Korpisalo, was a legend of the Liiga, a dual threat of grit and skill who amassed 444 points and 891 penalty minutes across 575 games. Buoyed by his father&rsquo;s larger-than-life presence in his home country, Joonas began his immersion in the hockey world early in life.He and his siblings spent hours rinkside, rubbing shoulders with their father&rsquo;s teammates, slowly absorbing a love for the game that has come to define the family. &ldquo;Growing up at the rink really lit the love of ice hockey for me,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;As far as I can remember, I always wanted to be a hockey player.&rdquo;He described himself as an &ldquo;easy-going&rdquo; kid who &ndash; like his father &ndash; held a deep competitive fire, which still burns today. By eight, Korpisalo was drawn to the frenetic energy of the modern-day goalie. The vibrant gear, animalistic movements, the world-on-your-shoulders expectations. He was hooked. &ldquo;I remember I told my dad, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not going to practice unless I can be a goalie.&rsquo; And he was like, &lsquo;Really? Are you sure you don&rsquo;t want to be a forward? We can still go back. You know, you can be forward. You can score goals. It&rsquo;s way more fun.&rsquo; I&rsquo;m like, &lsquo;Nope, I want to be a goalie.&rsquo; &rdquo;Growing up in a hockey-crazed nation idolizing Finnish sensation Miikka Kiprusoff and fellow crease stars Pekka Rinne and Tuukka Rask, Korpisalo quickly became a student of the game, studying highlights and mimicking the movements of his heroes.While cutting his teeth with Jokerit&rsquo;s U-20 team and suiting up for Finland on the world stage, Korpisalo, with his imposing size and scout-friendly style, caught the eyes of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who drafted him in the third round (62nd overall) in 2012.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/joonaskorpi_027/10063660-1-eng-US/joonaskorpi_0272.jpg" title="joonaskorpi_027" width="769" height="769"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Dividing his time between the Blue Jackets and the AHL, Korpisalo developed chops, earning more big-league showcases and slowly morphing into a reliable backup. Before long, he was knocking on the door of starter status.As he steadily built his profile in Columbus, emerging as a consistent crease presence, the support of his family back home &ndash; through thick, thin and ungodly chasms of space and time &ndash; never wavered. &ldquo;My family and grandparents, everyone, they&rsquo;ve always been in my corner to support me and be there for me whenever I need it. And still, they&rsquo;re so excited to watch my games in Finland at 4 a.m.,&rdquo; he said with a laugh.After a decade in the Blue Jackets&rsquo; system, Korpisalo was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in March 2023, immediately making an impact in Hollywood. Going 7-3-1 across 11 regular-season appearances, Korpisalo posted sparkling numbers, with a 2.13 goals-against average and .921 save percentage. The stats were a clear indicator of his progression and hunger for a long-term home coming out of a contract year.The Senators &ndash; who have ridden a revolving carousel of would-be starters in recent years &ndash; rewarded him for his stellar campaign with money and, perhaps more importantly, term. The Korpisalo clan plans on embracing the best Ottawa has to offer, immersing themselves head-on in the community.Off the ice, Korpisalo enjoys time outdoors and the rare movie night when he can squeeze it in. He&rsquo;s acclimatizing himself to the ravenous Canadian hockey market, though he admits the hyper-focused fandom isn&rsquo;t entirely foreign to him. &ldquo;Knowing that there&rsquo;s going to be a lot of passionate people, that&rsquo;s why hockey is so great,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just like here in Finland, and playing in Canada, it&rsquo;s pretty freaking cool. A lot of people care about it; a lot of pressure, and, as athletes, you love the pressure, too.&rdquo;Older, wiser and ready for potential strain from the watchdog Canadian media and ravenous Senators fan base alike, Korpisalo now brings a decade of growth and maturation in the NHL.Perhaps his greatest challenge has galvanized his resolve and spirit. Playing for pride or championship glory is one thing. Providing for your family is the real motivation. And that&rsquo;s now the case after his wife, Anna, gave birth to their son in January. &ldquo;Getting your own son or daughter into this world is going to change your life for good, in a good way. It put things in perspective.&rdquo;Embracing his boyhood dream of succeeding at the highest level the sport has to offer &ndash; and relishing his duelling lives as a pro athlete and devoted father and husband &ndash; Korpisalo is making the most of what he acknowledges is a charmed life. When he takes the ice this season &ndash; sure in resolve and the support of both teammates and family &ndash; he&rsquo;ll be a dangerous opponent.Behind the mask, beneath the newfound cool facade and calm demeanor, rests a man with something to fight for, and everything to play for. &#9632;

Joonas Korpisalo

KORPISALO 2.0

<div class="byline">BY WILL MACLAREN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="qmjhl_mille_051" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/qmjhl_mille_051/10064792-1-eng-US/qmjhl_mille_0512.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JONATHAN ROY/QUEBEC REMPARTS)</figcaption></div>WHEN QUENTIN MILLER earned a spot on the Quebec Remparts last year, the perspective of what he was about to gain as both a player and a person didn&rsquo;t go unnoticed. &ldquo;I was pretty lucky to join a team with so much experience and talent,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;I had so much to learn and was grateful to be able to do that with the group I had around me. I had a pretty good season but was happy for the support I had.&rdquo;It was a &ldquo;pretty good&rdquo; season, all right. The Remparts captured the QMJHL regular-season title, then the inaugural Gilles-Courteau Trophy &ndash; the city&rsquo;s first &lsquo;Q&rsquo; playoff title in 47 years. To cap it all off, the star-studded squad flew out to Kamloops, B.C., and skated away with the 2023 Memorial Cup.For his part, Miller put together an impressive rookie year, posting a 14-4-0 record to go with a 2.11 goals-against average, .911 save percentage and two shutouts.Miller, 18, gives his 2022-23 creasemate much credit for both his and the team&rsquo;s collective successes. &ldquo;Will (Rousseau) is a great goalie,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;Being able to just watch him and analyze his game provided a great opportunity for me. I learned so much from him about preparation before games, what to do after games and how to manage both mental and physical health.&rdquo;That Miller was such a quick &ndash; and effective &ndash; study was not lost on NHL clubs. The Montreal Canadiens made the impenetrable Rempart a fourth-round selection at the 2023 draft. He was the only QMJHL goalie to have his name called in Nashville in June. For Miller, who grew up in the Montreal area attending Habs games and idolizing Carey Price, it still hasn&rsquo;t totally sunk in yet. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been my dream since I started in hockey to get drafted and have a shot at playing in the NHL,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s surreal. I didn&rsquo;t go to (the draft in) Nashville, unfortunately, but I had a chance to experience it with my friends and family at home. It&rsquo;s a great experience. The joy and pride you feel when it happens is indescribable.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/qmjhl_mille_053/10064778-1-eng-US/qmjhl_mille_0532.jpg" title="qmjhl_mille_053" width="701" height="728"><figcaption class="caption-body">QUENTIN MILLER (CANDICE WARD/CHL)</figcaption></div>Now comes the next challenge. The Remparts are on the other side of their two-year peak. Rousseau is now in Rouyn-Noranda, trying to capture another title with the Huskies. Several players have departed to other QMJHL teams or the pro ranks or have graduated. Patrick Roy has given way to a new GM (Simon Gagne) and coach (Eric Veilleux).But Miller is looking at nothing but the opportunities ahead. &ldquo;Honestly, watching our team right now, I feel we&rsquo;re going to compete,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;Our new coach is making us work hard and push ourselves, which is a good thing for us. We&rsquo;re going to have to keep doing that to compete when the season starts. I&rsquo;m excited to see what we&rsquo;re going to do. Whatever happens, we&rsquo;re going to do our best. It&rsquo;s going to be fun.&rdquo;Not one to lack in perspective, Miller understands his play will be vital to what this new-look squad can accomplish in the coming months. &ldquo;This year, I&rsquo;m going to prove that I can be, not just our No. 1 goalie but one of the best goalies in the league,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;For the young guys, I&rsquo;m trying to be a good leader and show them that you have to work hard to earn success. It&rsquo;s going to be a challenge, but I look forward to it. There&rsquo;s going to be a lot of ups and downs, but there&rsquo;s also going to be a lot of growth.&rdquo;Through it all, Miller enters his sophomore QMJHL campaign with an advantage over almost all his competition: the lessons he learned with the group he helped take all the way last year. That element is as vital as any other weapon at his disposal. &ldquo;Last year, I learned how to approach the games and the importance of consistency,&rdquo; Miller said. &ldquo;(It came) from guys like Will, (Justin) Robidas and (Nathan) Gaucher, among others. I think I&rsquo;ve gained a lot of experience on how to be a pro, and it&rsquo;s going to show this year.&rdquo;Talking to Miller for any length of time yields only one impression: the wall between the pipes in old Quebec will be as strong as ever this year. &#9632;

qmjhl_mille_051

QMJHL

HOLDING THE FORT

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="car_svechni_094" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/car_svechni_094/10063945-1-eng-US/car_svechni_0942.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALL-AROUND SCORERIt&rsquo;s no secret that Svechnikov has a lethal shot &ndash; but it&rsquo;s not the only weapon in his arsenal. (PERRY NELSON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>IT LOOKED LIKE NOTHING &ndash; like he caught an edge or toe-picked. And in an ideal world, especially for those who consider themselves fans of the Carolina Hurricanes, it would have been nothing. It would have been a stutter step that, at most, would have earned Andrei Svechnikov some light razzing. It was so subtle, so simple and so seemingly innocuous, yet that one little moment in March when Svechnikov&rsquo;s skate caught a rut in the PNC Arena ice was enough to derail his entire season.The diagnosis? A torn ACL. The result? For Svechnikov, surgery and months on the shelf. For the Hurricanes, a long but ultimately fruitless playoff run.It was, Svechnikov said, one of the hardest periods of his career &ndash; not just the injury but the timing of it. But to his credit, and with the benefit of hindsight, he can see the silver lining. That it happened in March means the majority of his recovery has happened during the off-season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been skating for the last two months and working out hard, so hopefully I will be ready before the season,&rdquo; he said in mid-September. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t tell you I&rsquo;m going to play for sure right now because it&rsquo;s all about the knee, and the start of the season is going to be seven months (since the injury). Hopefully, I&rsquo;ll be ready. All I&rsquo;m doing right now is just trying to get my knee stronger and doing all the rehab.&rdquo;It could be said that a player of Svechnikov&rsquo;s age wouldn&rsquo;t normally hedge his bets, instead setting a hard deadline of getting back by the beginning of the campaign. That&rsquo;s not Svechnikov, though. For one, he&rsquo;s been down this road before. As a 15-year-old, he was forced to sit out five months after meniscus injuries in both knees, and he missed months with a broken hand during his draft year. But more importantly, Svechnikov, now 23, knows nothing good can come from rushing back.That comes, in part, from having those around him who&rsquo;ve been through this process. His brother, Evgeny, tore his ACL in 2018, so Svechnikov knew what to expect. He&rsquo;s also been able to talk it through with former teammate Justin Williams, who went through two ACL tears. And Svechnikov has also been able to confide in Carolina coach and former Hurricanes captain Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour, who had his 2007-08 season end in near-identical fashion. &ldquo;We talked a lot about it when it happened, because when you first have an injury like that, it&rsquo;s sad,&rdquo; Brind&rsquo;Amour said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;Oh my God, this is the worst thing that could happen.&rsquo; When you talk to someone who has healed up and moved on, I think it just eases the mind that, OK, at that moment, this is the injury, but it&rsquo;s going to be OK.&rdquo;Of course, the hope &ndash; some would say expectation &ndash; for the Hurricanes is that Svechnikov, in keeping with his pre-injury career trajectory, is much better than just OK. While his time in the NHL has been brief, Svechnikov has, since his sophomore campaign in 2019-20, become one of the go-to guys in Carolina and among the rare group of players who look as though they&rsquo;re on the cusp of entering another stratosphere, moving from the realm of the elite to legitimate superstardom.Brind&rsquo;Amour, who took the Hurricanes coaching job ahead Svechnikov&rsquo;s rookie season of 2018-19, isn&rsquo;t surprised by the winger&rsquo;s rise. The 18-year-old who arrived back in 2018 may have been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but there was a maturity there unlike what was seen in the other youngsters on the roster. Whether it was the pressures he&rsquo;d faced as a top-tier player throughout his youth or the excitement surrounding him as the eventual No. 2 overall pick, the Svechnikov who arrived in Carolina didn&rsquo;t shy away from the spotlight.According to Brind&rsquo;Amour, that disposition has served Svechnikov well. Where others shrink under the pressure, Svechnikov grows. He wants the puck on his stick. He wants to be the one to produce the moment of magic. &ldquo;When he steps on the ice now, you&rsquo;re expecting something good to happen,&rdquo; Brind&rsquo;Amour said. &ldquo;All the top players in the league, when they get on the ice, you know they&rsquo;re out there. There&rsquo;s very rarely a shift that goes on that you don&rsquo;t notice he&rsquo;s on the ice. There&rsquo;s just that aura around those kinds of players, and he&rsquo;s got that.&rdquo;There&rsquo;s empirical evidence to back up Brind&rsquo;Amour&rsquo;s assessment of Svechnikov&rsquo;s outsized impact. Yes, there are the goals &ndash; Svechnikov has 112 in 347 games &ndash; but he&rsquo;s also a menace to opponents with his 6-foot-2, 195-pound frame. Since 2018-19, Svechnikov is one of only nine players with at least 100 goals and 600 hits. It&rsquo;s a combination that led Brind&rsquo;Amour to compare Svechnikov to archetypal power forward and Brind&rsquo;Amour&rsquo;s former Flyers teammate Eric Lindros. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the way I&rsquo;ve got to play. I mean, I love hitting, trust me,&rdquo; Svechnikov said, laughing. &ldquo;But I just feel like sometimes you can take the puck with your body or protect the puck with your body, and it&rsquo;s one of my traits, that I can use my body very well, and I am going to keep doing that.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/car_svechni_095/10063931-1-eng-US/car_svechni_0952.jpg" title="car_svechni_095" width="1018" height="1433"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>As much as he can make fans rise out of their seats by throwing his weight around, though, where Svechnikov sets himself apart from a player like Lindros, and really any other player of his ilk, is the ability to combine fearless physicality with a deftness of touch few players possess. Brind&rsquo;Amour put a finer point on it by suggesting Svechnikov is revolutionizing what it means to be a power forward &ndash; no minor plaudit &ndash; by melding smash-mouth moments with high-skill, highlight-reel fodder such as his &lsquo;Michigan&rsquo; goals (or &lsquo;Svech&rsquo; goals, as Brind&rsquo;Amour calls them). Said Brind&rsquo;Amour: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got this ability to go wide and has one of the best wrist shots that I&rsquo;ve ever seen. There&rsquo;s a lot of threats involved when you&rsquo;re talking about him as a player. He&rsquo;s not one-dimensional. He can make a great pass, too. He can beat you in a lot of different ways.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">WHEN HE STEPS ON THE ICE NOW, YOU&rsquo;RE EXPECTING SOMETHING GOOD TO HAPPEN &ndash; Rod Brind&rsquo;Amour</blockquote>Svechnikov is the first to admit some of that has come with time, with his five NHL seasons changing him as a player. His offensive game has only improved as he&rsquo;s learned to be more patient, find holes in coverage and arrive where the puck is heading before it gets there. His own-zone play has become better, too &ndash; if not a standout attribute then at least not at all what one would call a weakness.And Brind&rsquo;Amour added there are other areas, somewhat more imperceptible, where Svechnikov has become a more complete competitor. Where he would get caught chasing and take an undisciplined penalty before, Svechnikov knows now how to toe the line. Conversely, where he might previously have been sour about what he felt was a liberty taken against him, Svechnikov understands now he must earn those calls. But most importantly to Brind&rsquo;Amour, in the moments that come off the ice when the cameras are away, Svechnikov has matured into a vital part of the Hurricanes&rsquo; leadership, even if he&rsquo;s not wearing a letter.So, as he prepares for his comeback, one that will be imperative to Carolina&rsquo;s pursuit of a top spot in the Eastern Conference and an even deeper playoff run, the sum total of it all is a Svechnikov who hasn&rsquo;t just been figuratively and literally rebuilt but one who&rsquo;s transformed. This Svechnikov is a different one, a stronger and more resilient one, than the one who arrived several seasons ago. &ldquo;(When) I was 18 years old, I didn&rsquo;t know anything,&rdquo; Svechnikov said. &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t know the system, didn&rsquo;t know what the coaches want from you. But now I know, and I know I haven&rsquo;t given my best shot yet in this league. I know I can be better and be the best player out there. That&rsquo;s my goal." &#9632;

car_svechni_094

CANE AND ABLE

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/firstword_k_117/10062514-1-eng-US/firstword_k_1172.jpg" title="firstword_k_117" width="959" height="1001"><figcaption class="caption-body">NIC KERDILES (AARON DOSTER-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>AS WE WERE PUTTING this issue together, tragic news came over the wire as we learned about the passing of Nic Kerdiles, the former Anaheim Ducks prospect who died in a motorcycle accident.Kerdiles was 29 and had retired from the game in 2019, but he will always have a legacy in the hockey world. Raised in Irvine, Calif., Kerdiles became the first Orange County product to play for the Ducks when he suited up for his hometown squad in 2017.A second-round draft pick who came out of the vaunted U.S. National Team Development Program, Kerdiles was part of a growing wave of talent to emerge from California that also included the likes of Thatcher Demko and Emerson Etem. Nowadays, it&rsquo;s commonplace for top-end prospects to come out of the state, but these guys were the vanguard, the group who really got a foothold in the pro ranks and fulfilled the promise that came when Wayne Gretzky began to inspire future generations as a member of the Los Angeles Kings.Kerdiles and Etem in particular were interesting as skaters because both had grown up playing roller hockey. From a grassroots perspective, this was an important signal to kids that they too could reach the highest level of the sport even if they had some catching up to do when it came to doing it on ice. With more arenas in warm-weather states now, there are even more opportunities to learn &ndash; but getting kids used to the sport one way or another is still important.By all measures, Kerdiles had a ton of potential. He had the size and the skill to be an NHLer while hitting all the expected benchmarks of a player destined for the bigs. After the NTDP, he went to the University of Wisconsin and finished second in Badgers scoring during his sophomore season (which was his last with the team) while also playing for Team USA&rsquo;s World Junior Championship squad and leading that 2014 edition in scoring.But injuries and concussions conspired against Kerdiles, derailing his promising pro career. He spent most of his time in the AHL with Norfolk, San Diego and, finally, a cup of coffee with Manitoba, getting into seven total NHL games with the Ducks in-between. Upon retiring, he went into the real-estate business in Nashville.While Kerdiles&rsquo; hockey career had already wound down, his sudden passing makes it hard not to think about Luc Bourdon, who also died in a motorcycle accident years ago. Bourdon was a highly anticipated Vancouver Canucks defenseman when he passed away at 21 back in 2008. His pro career, which included 27 games with the Canucks the previous season, was just beginning.No matter when we lose a member of our community, however, it gives us time to reflect on how those people impacted the game. Henry Boucha, eulogized on pg. 19, had his own great legacy in both the NHL and his home state of Minnesota. From former coaches to teammates, those who knew Kerdiles were quick to express their grief in the wake of his passing, just as the same community did when the Bourdon news came out years prior.In the end, it will be those who knew Kerdiles the best &ndash; his family and friends &ndash; who will miss him the most. But there is something positive to remember during otherwise dark times, and that is that Kerdiles will forever be a part of the hockey community and the history of the game. He will be remembered as many things to many people, but he will always be one of a select number of players who ever got to don the Anaheim Ducks jersey in the NHL, and he will forever be the first who was also raised in Orange County.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ryankennedy_112/10062507-1-eng-US/ryankennedy_1122.jpg" title="ryankennedy_112" width="375" height="167"></div>Ryan Kennedy Editor in chief<img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0006-012532/10062500-1-eng-US/f0006-012.jpg" title="f0006-01" width="42" height="34"><a href="http://www.twitter.com/THNRYANKENNEDY">@THNRyanKennedy</a> &#9632;

firstword_k_117

The First Word

LASTING LEGACY

<div class="byline">BY W. GRAEME ROUSTAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="publishersn_122" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/publishersn_122/10062590-1-eng-US/publishersn_1222.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">NIKITA ZADOROV (SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>NIKITA ZADOROV, THE RUSSIAN native and 6-foot-6, 250-pound defenseman for the Calgary Flames, is the definition of a courageous leader because he is willing to stand up for what he believes in. For parents out there trying to teach their children positive character traits from an early age, I think encouraging them to always stand up for what they believe in is the right thing to do, a la Zadorov.Zadorov came out against his native country&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. The mere fact he took a public stand that was very unpopular in his home country, to the point where he could now be sentenced to serve 15 years in prison, is quite remarkable.If you have never travelled outside of Canada or the U.S. in your life, you haven&rsquo;t seen for yourself that there are other countries in the world where you can easily go to jail or get killed for standing up for what you believe in. It is quite possible that you can be poisoned, fall out of a window or have the plane you are in simply fall out of the sky if you simply stand up for what you believe in.In the U.S., you can stand up and call the current president anything you want, and the worst that will happen to you is that your opinion will be ignored. In Canada&rsquo;s parliamentary system, the opposition leader and members of his party can throw verbal bombs at the prime minister, and the worst that can happen to him or her is to have his or her questions in question period referred to as softballs. So, standing up for what you believe in, whether in Canada or the United States, has few, if any, consequences. Yet, surprisingly, some still refuse to stand up for what they believe in as they lack the character and courage to do so.In an interview posted on the Calgary Flames&rsquo; Twitter (sorry, Elon, I can&rsquo;t get used to the X) account on Sept. 22, Zadorov answered all of the questions posed to him about his recent statement against Russia&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine. It was refreshing to hear from a Russian NHL player that he had studied the issues and had decided to stand up for what he believed in no matter what side of the issue that he came down on. What really got my attention was when he described a group chat among Russian players where he said:&ldquo;We had a group chat. It went two different directions. Some guys were against, some guys for.&rdquo;For those Russian players who are against the war, they understand the potential consequences of standing up against their home country&rsquo;s invasion of a neighboring country. They all have relatives back in Russia who might fall victim to harm because of anything they say that goes against the party line.In fact, Russia has adopted laws that will send people to jail in Siberia for 15 years if they criticize the government&rsquo;s war effort. These laws are in place with the intention of dissuading any Russian from speaking out. This might explain why Russian NHL players who are against the war choose to stay silent.If that rationale explains why Russian NHL players who are against the war stay silent, it doesn&rsquo;t explain why Russian players who are for the war also stay silent. I think a clue to the answer to that comes from Zadorov when he said:&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to bring names, because we&rsquo;re playing in the same league, and I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a right way to do, but there&rsquo;s a lot of young kids thinking the way I think.&ldquo;They just don&rsquo;t have a voice to speak out like this, but now hopefully they can feel the support from me.&rdquo;It seems from Zadorov&rsquo;s statements that the older Russian NHLers are more in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I think if any Russian NHLer came out in support of Russia&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine, they would be celebrated back home as patriots.Since in Canada and the United States, free speech is pretty much protected unless you scream fire in a movie theater, they would face no government or legal backlash whatsoever. Their support of their homeland&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine would be a (big) win for them in Russia, and they would suffer no legal or government consequences for this support in Canada or the U.S. Why don&rsquo;t they just stand up and say: I am a Russian NHL hockey player, and I support the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Why not?It&rsquo;s commonplace for hockey players to be on different sides of important questions. Just look at the debate as to who the greatest player of all-time is. There are camps for the &lsquo;Great One&rsquo; as well as for &lsquo;Le Magnifique.&rsquo;I just don&rsquo;t get why any Russian NHL player who is in support of the invasion of Ukraine just doesn&rsquo;t say so, whether or not it would be as eloquent as when Zadorov spoke out against Russia&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine. Do any of them see a downside in standing up for what they believe in?As with all professional athletes, their fans want to know more about them, and what better way than to let them know what they support or don&rsquo;t support across a wide range of topics, including who was the best, No. 66 or No. 99, and if their government back home should be invading its neighboring country or not.Perhaps those older Russian NHL players who presumably support Russia&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine stay silent because they do not possess the most important character trait of leadership taught by parents around the world. Why not stand up for what you believe in and let the pucks fall where they may, as that is really&hellip;the definition of leadership.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/graemeroust_121/10062583-1-eng-US/graemeroust_1212.jpg" title="graemeroust_121" width="583" height="123"></div>W. Graeme Roustan Executive Chairman & Publisher, Roustan Media Ltd. <a href="http://roustan.com">roustan.com</a> &#9632;

publishersn_122

Publisher’s Note

THE DEFINITION OF LEADERSHIP

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_fleury_066" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_fleury_066/10062649-1-eng-US/buzz_fleury_0662.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Fleury is within reach of Roy&rsquo;s 551 career wins, but Brodeur&rsquo;s NHL record of 691 is unassailable. (SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>EIGHT VICTORIES, OR EXACTLY one-third of his total last season. That&rsquo;s all it is going to take. So, barring a catastrophic injury or team performance so dire the entire Minnesota Wild coaching staff lands on the unemployment line, there is every likelihood Marc-Andre Fleury will celebrate the holidays as the second-winningest goaltender in NHL history.However, when Fleury passes Patrick Roy by earning his 552nd regular-season victory, he&rsquo;ll do so knowing he&rsquo;s climbed as high as he can on the all-time wins list. With retirement on the horizon for the 38-year-old, there&rsquo;s simply not enough time remaining for Fleury to catch Martin Brodeur and his 691 career wins. But maybe Fleury can take some comfort in knowing that it will be years, even decades, before he loses his place on the NHL&rsquo;s wins list.Indeed, Fleury&rsquo;s pursuit of the wins record, like that of Roberto Luongo before him, makes him among the last of a dying breed of goaltender, ones who could legitimately dream about chasing the most grandiose marks. Because while no goaltender has held illusions of toppling Glenn Hall&rsquo;s run of 502 consecutive starts, there was a time when the wins record and other career goaltending milestones felt achievable. Heck, since Terry Sawchuk became the all-time wins leader in 1961-62 and ultimately set the then-high-water mark with his 445th victory in 1969-70, seven netminders have eclipsed him, including Curtis Joseph, Henrik Lundqvist and Ed Belfour.What allowed such an assault on the record books wasn&rsquo;t a multi-generational bumper crop of keepers, though such a case could be made. No, it was the result of a perfect storm: high-talent netminders, a low-scoring era and a climate conducive to masked men piling up starts. To wit, while Brodeur has the marks for wins, shutouts, playoff shutouts and saves, and Roy owns the record for playoff wins, the duo are two of only three netminders in NHL history &ndash; Luongo is the other &ndash; to play more than 1,000 games. Brodeur and Roy also happen to be the only stoppers in league history to appear in 60-plus games in a season 11 or more times.That Brodeur and Roy had such a workload isn&rsquo;t a testament to their otherworldly endurance, either, nor is it the case for Joseph, Hall, Lundqvist or Luongo, all of whom have at least nine seasons with 60-plus games played. Instead, it was a product of an era of workhorse No. 1 goaltenders. Case in point: Arturs Irbe and Marc Denis, hardly Hall of Famers, each played 75-plus games in a season in the decade preceding the 2004-05 lockout. Irbe even did it twice. And while that was de rigueur for the time, the 70-game goalie has since gone extinct. No goaltender whose big-league debut has come in the past decade has even five seasons of 60-plus games. (Granted, Winnipeg Jet Connor Hellebuyck is likely to have his fifth 60-game campaign this season.)All of this, of course, is not without reason. The analytics revolution made clear the importance of goalie rotation, particularly in back-to-back games. Improved sports science has made teams acutely aware of the risks inherent in overworking a keeper. And then there&rsquo;s the matter of talent. A chasm remains between the elite NHL goaltenders and their second-tier counterparts, but more creases than ever are being shared as teams trot out puck-stopping platoons. It&rsquo;s equal parts safeguard against injury and realization that the year-on-year volatility of the position makes it worthwhile to divide the eggs between two baskets, so to speak.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_brodeu_067/10062635-1-eng-US/buzz_brodeu_0672.jpg" title="buzz_brodeu_067" width="821" height="1060"><figcaption class="caption-body">MARTIN BRODEUR (TOM SZCZERBOWSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>None of this is to say that minor rewrites of the record book are impossible. Brian Boucher&rsquo;s third-best-ever shutout streak (332 minutes) came in 2003-04, 55 years after the last netminder eclipsed 300 minutes of shutout hockey. Likewise, Ilya Bryzgalov and Semyon Varlamov have both surpassed 240 minutes in the post-lockout era, while Sergei Bobrovsky and Jonas Hiller each tied the longest individual winning streaks with 14-gamers in the past decade. Long is the list of goalies who&rsquo;ve had magical runs, and individual-game records are ever ripe to fall at any moment.There are, too, greats whose positions on these lists can or will be threatened. Beyond his pursuit of Roy&rsquo;s 551 wins, Fleury will move past &lsquo;St. Patrick&rsquo; this season for third on the all-time saves list. One more playoff win would give Fleury 93 &ndash; the third-most ever and one more than Grant Fuhr. Speaking of which, Andrei Vasilevskiy has an outside shot at chasing down top spot on the playoff wins register. He has 65 already, 12th-most in history, and averaging nine more per season over the next decade would push Vasilevskiy beyond Roy&rsquo;s record of 151. Unfathomable as that sounds, it seems somehow more likely than Vasilevskiy catching Fleury, let alone Brodeur, on the regular-season list. The Lightning stopper would need to win 29 games per season for the next decade to catch Fleury, or average nearly 43 wins over the same span to match Brodeur. That&rsquo;s awfully hard to accomplish if Vasilevskiy is maxing out at 55 starts.When considering all of this, it sure appears the career records that many hold as measures of greatness will stand the test of time &ndash; or at very least the rigors of this current era. And if we are indeed in for decades of record-holder stagnation, it will be the evolution of big-league goaltending and the newfound rest-equals-reward mentality that make it so.<div class="sidebar"><h4>For up to the minute coverage, visit</h4><h3><a href="http://THEHOCKEYNEWS.COM">Thehockeynews.com</a> &#9632;</h3></div>

buzz_fleury_066

SETTLING FOR SECOND PLACE

<div class="byline">BY&#xA0;JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="mask_samson_020" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/mask_samson_020/10062694-1-eng-US/mask_samson_0202.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTOS BY DAVID GUNNARSSON/DAVEART.COM)</figcaption></div><h2>ILYA SAMSONOV</h2><h3>&gt;TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS</h3>HIS FIRST SEASON AS a Maple Leaf saw Ilya Samsonov assert himself as a legitimate No. 1 goalie and win the hearts of the Toronto faithful &ndash; and he&rsquo;s only going to further endear himself to Leafs Nation by paying homage to a franchise great. Samsonov&rsquo;s new mask is a nod to the iconic bucket worn by Curtis Joseph. The classic &lsquo;CuJo&rsquo; design featured a snarling dog, marrying Joseph&rsquo;s nickname with the spine-chilling St. Bernard of Stephen King&rsquo;s creation, but the updated design gives the lid some new-school flair. The fangs are a little more frightening, the mane a bit more mangy, and the entire design comes together to give Samsonov one of the league&rsquo;s most menacing masks.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/mask_samson_021/10062687-1-eng-US/mask_samson_0212.jpg" title="mask_samson_021" width="643" height="850"></div> &#9632;

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BEHIND THE MASK

<div class="byline">BY&#xA0;RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="jersey_purp_018" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/jersey_purp_018/10062725-1-eng-US/jersey_purp_0182.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(KYLE BARKER/NIAGARA ATHLETICS)</figcaption></div><h2>NIAGARA UNIVERSITY</h2><h3>&gt;2023-24</h3>NIAGARA UNIVERSITY HAS BLESSED us with an incredible new home jersey for the 2023-24 season. Featuring the &lsquo;Vintage Monte&rsquo; mascot that was used by the school in the 1970s and &rsquo;80s, the Purple Eagles are now soaring in the sartorial department. Vintage Monte has all the hallmarks of a classic NCAA mascot: the strut, the sweater, the snarl &ndash; it&rsquo;s all just perfect. The stripe across the middle (and on the arms) also carries significance, as the team brings grey back onto its sweater, something that was common back in the day but hasn&rsquo;t been featured since 2008. &#9632;

jersey_purp_018

JERSEY HOUND

<div class="byline">BY&#xA0;SAL BARRY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cards_knick_017/10062801-1-eng-US/cards_knick_0172.jpg" title="cards_knick_017" width="571" height="824"></div>RICK KNICKLE MAY HOLD the unofficial record among goaltenders for the longest gap between getting drafted and getting a rookie card. After being selected by the Buffalo Sabres in the sixth round of the 1979 NHL entry draft, Knickle toiled in three different minor leagues for 12 teams over the next 13-plus years. He finally made his NHL debut with the Los Angeles Kings on Feb. 18, 1993, and he played in 10 games that season. That was good enough to earn Knickle a rookie card in the 1993-94 Score Hockey set &ndash; more than 5,000 days after he was drafted. While he previously appeared on a few minor-league cards, this was the first and only card picturing him as an NHLer. Knickle&rsquo;s 10-game stint with Los Angeles was also worthy enough to include him as one of the three goalies for the Kings in the NHL &rsquo;94 video game.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/cards_knick_019/10062794-1-eng-US/cards_knick_0192.jpg" title="cards_knick_019" width="530" height="789"></div> &#9632;

cards_knick_017

IN THE CARDS

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_chugge_048" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_chugge_048/10062832-1-eng-US/buzz_chugge_0482.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">BAUBLE HEADSTo the winner goes the spoils: Larry Bruyere, left, receives The Puck trophy from Lane, the league commissioner.</figcaption></div>THE WAY GARY LANE recounts the history of the Chuggers International Hockey Pool borders on Forrest Gump-ian. Not in the slow-drawled, Southern-charm way, but in the sense that pulling even the slightest thread of history allows Lane to unspool several yarns. Get him going and the Chuggers&rsquo; charismatic commissioner will note not only how the league has spanned generations and the continent but its run-ins with some famous figures.One story Lane loves to tell is about holding the draft-day conference call at a Los Angeles-area arena only for Igor Larionov &ndash; yes, he of Hall of Fame status &ndash; to waltz in to hear himself heralded as the NHL&rsquo;s greatest Russian player. Another includes the brief sister (or splinter, depending who you ask) league run by former Chuggers competitor Scott Abbott, who just so happens to be the inventor of Trivial Pursuit. Lane also notes connections, though mostly personal and sometimes tenuous, to Luc Robitaille, Pat Brisson and world-renowned Canadian architect Frank Gehry.It makes it hard to believe that all of this &ndash; some 51 years of hockey-pool history and what will soon be a 50th league season &ndash; started because of a baseball game. As the story goes, it was 1972 when Lane and a group of friends cooked up the idea for a Sunday afternoon baseball game at Toronto&rsquo;s Smythe Park. One week turned into two, two into four, and it eventually begat an entire league: the Chuggers International Baseball League. But it was around the time the baseball season was winding down that Lane concocted an idea to keep the crew together through the winter. &ldquo;From that core group of baseballers, it was an open invitation, &lsquo;Does anyone want to get into a hockey pool?&rsquo; &rdquo;said Lane, 19 at the time.In those early years, the rules were simple enough. Building off of the NHL player-based bets that he had watched his brother make with a friend, Lane cooked up a straightforward set of rules that saw each participant &ndash; of which there were more than a dozen &ndash; select 10 skaters and accumulate points based on those players&rsquo; individual performances. In our current age of ubiquitous gambling and fantasy sports, this all seems obvious. At the time, though, it was somewhat novel, and Lane believes the early scoring system was built on nothing more than his own intuition. &ldquo;I ended up in the board-game industry, where I was writing rules for how to play the game,&rdquo; Lane said. &ldquo;What I enjoyed doing was creating a vehicle for fun, and that&rsquo;s what I think motivated me the most. It got tweaked over the years, but there was a simplicity to it that appealed to me.&rdquo;Among the alterations were changes in scoring and the expansion of drafted rosters to introduce goaltenders. Other amendments were met with positivity, some with reluctance, and the rare few &ndash; such as the incorporation of drafting an NHL team and getting credit for its in-season performance &ndash; were decried as &ldquo;gimmicks.&rdquo;What has remained steadfast throughout the league&rsquo;s history, however, is the holiness of draft day. While other longstanding leagues have modernized, Chuggers &ndash; under Lane&rsquo;s stewardship &ndash; has required the presence of all league GMs for the pick-&rsquo;em process. Put another way: you weigh in or you don&rsquo;t rassle. In the early years, Lane said, &ldquo;people lived their lives&rdquo; around the in-person draft day. That included Lane himself, who, into the early 1990s, used to fly from his now-home in Los Angeles back to Toronto just to be present. Conference calls were eventually introduced, which allowed both the early-years locals and far-flung members to continue their participation.And continue they have, as Lane and five others have been part of a consistent cast of Chuggers who have vied for The Stick and The Puck, the league&rsquo;s regular-season and playoff trophies. That&rsquo;s not to say there haven&rsquo;t been lean years, like the 1990 season, in which only Lane and one other competed, but the natural ebbs and flows of life continue to bring the group back together on a nearly yearly basis. And on the final Sunday before the start of the regular season each year, the chase for a taste of Chuggers glory begins anew.&ldquo;Sometimes, I&rsquo;ll reflect and think, &lsquo;Man, this is pretty darn neat to keep this tradition going,&rsquo; &rdquo; said Lane, now 70. &ldquo;And we&rsquo;ve got these mementos, The Stick and The Puck, to herald the winners and that sort of thing. It puts a smile on my face, and I&rsquo;m happy to see that it&rsquo;s still alive and thriving.&rdquo; &#9632;

buzz_chugge_048

KEEP ON CHUGGING

<div class="byline">BY SAL BARRY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_mcfarl_049" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_mcfarl_049/10062870-1-eng-US/buzz_mcfarl_0492.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTOS COURESY OF MCFARLANE TOYS)</figcaption></div>YOU MAY NEED TO make some room on the shelf in your fan cave, because after a nine-year hiatus, SportsPicks hockey action figures by McFarlane Toys have made a comeback. The Arizona-based toy company made its first wave of new hockey figures available for preorder on Sept. 21. It previously produced its line of SportsPicks hockey figures from 2000 to 2014.&ldquo;Since it has been some time since McFarlane Toys did NHL figures, there has been a big turnover in the players,&rdquo; said company CEO Todd McFarlane via email. &ldquo;So, although we&rsquo;re jumping back into the NHL pool, so to speak, it feels quite refreshing to be able to present a vast array of newer faces to our action-figure lineups. I&rsquo;m hoping our fans will be as excited as I am to have these new superstars.&rdquo;The players in the first wave of the new NHL SportsPicks line are Matty Beniers, Cole Caufield, Sidney Crosby, Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, David Pastrnak and Tage Thompson. Each figure will also have a harder-to-find &lsquo;chase&rsquo; variant of that player in a different uniform, such as in a home jersey or a third jersey. Figures retail for $29.99 (U.S.) or can be purchased in sealed cases that guarantee a chase figure.McFarlane Toys first issued SportsPicks figures of hockey players in 2000 &ndash; without an NHL license &ndash; so players were in team-colored uniforms but without team logos. In 2001, the company gained a license from the league and made figures of both current players and retired legends in NHL-accurate uniforms. McFarlane Toys&rsquo; last series of NHL SportsPicks was released in 2013, though the company did issue two Canadian Olympic hockey figures in 2014.After that, the NHL and NHLPA licenses for action figures were picked up by Quebec-based toy company Imports Dragon, who produced hockey figures from 2015 to 2022, with mixed success. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t like when Imports Dragon started making hockey figures,&rdquo; said Randy Pruyn, moderator of the NHL Figures Talk group on Facebook and a diehard hockey-figure collector. &ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t have the detail that McFarlane SportsPicks did.&rdquo;Imports Dragon figures tended to omit certain details that made McFarlane SportsPicks popular with collectors, such as brand logos on equipment or replicating a player&rsquo;s preferences, such as how he taped stick. Action figures of Wayne Gretzky made by McFarlane Toys even had his signature &ldquo;jersey tuck.&rdquo;&ldquo;Imports Dragon would take the same figure, paint a different jersey on it and call it a different player,&rdquo; Pruyn said. &ldquo;And they&rsquo;d release the same players over and over. How many Crosby figures do you need? It got ridiculous.&rdquo;Many of the figures in the new wave of NHL SportsPicks do use the same pose, but the attention to detail should make most collectors happy. Team uniforms are replicated down to the smallest detail, including seamlines on jerseys, while brand logos on the players&rsquo; equipment are accurate. Figures come on a removable display base with a photo backdrop.&ldquo;These new figures will, for the most part, carry on with what worked before for so many years,&rdquo; McFarlane said. &ldquo;We will try and add some extra value with a few surprises we are cooking up, but none of that will impact the look of how the figures will display on a shelf.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_mcfarl_050/10062863-1-eng-US/buzz_mcfarl_0502.jpg" title="buzz_mcfarl_050" width="1191" height="1389"></div> &#9632;

buzz_mcfarl_049

PLASTIC PUCKSTERS

<div class="byline">BY BRIAN COSTELLO</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="buzz_ullmar_118" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_ullmar_118/10063097-1-eng-US/buzz_ullmar_1182.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">JEREMY SWAYMAN & LINUS ULLMARK (ANNE-MARIE SORVIN-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>FIRST, LET&rsquo;S COME CLEAN. In this space one year ago, we ranked the Boston duo of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman 16th out of 32 NHL tandems. What happened in the next six months was sheer brilliance on the part of the Bruins&rsquo; duo and, by extension, pure doofus on our part.In our defense, however, we offered this proviso last year: &ldquo;It wouldn&rsquo;t surprise many if one of them (or both) takes an enormous step forward. But for now, middle of the pack.&rdquo; Ullmark&rsquo;s march to the Vezina Trophy and Swayman&rsquo;s rise up the goaltending chart were huge reasons why Boston had such a dominant regular season. The Bruins easily won the Jennings Trophy with a goals-against average of 2.12, well ahead of runner-up Carolina (2.56). In fact, the distance between first and second (0.44) was about the same as the gap between second and 13th (Calgary, 3.01).So, it&rsquo;s no surprise the Bruins&rsquo; tandem has jumped to first in this year&rsquo;s Countdown of the NHL&rsquo;s best goalie duos. Swayman, 24, was rewarded with a one-year, $3.5-million pact. Anything close to a repeat season and Boston will surely have to trade either him or 30-year-old Ullmark, who has two seasons left at $5 million per year.With that as the backdrop, here are the best tandems in the NHL today, based both on their play last season and a glimpse ahead to this season.<h2>1. BOSTON&nbsp;BRUINS</h2>L. ULLMARK & J. SWAYMANThe Bruins&rsquo; lineup isn&rsquo;t nearly as deep as last season. Some doubters are wondering if these guys can do it again.<h2>2. NEW YORK&nbsp;ISLANDERS</h2>I. SOROKIN & S. VARLAMOVSorokin, 28, is clearly one of the league&rsquo;s best. Varlamov, 35, is a solid backup but overpriced and redundant.<h2>3. NASHVILLE&nbsp;PREDATORS</h2>J. SAROS & K. LANKINENNo issues here. Saros is a durable workhorse, and Lankinen has found a groove playing just two/three games a month.<h2>4. DALLAS&nbsp;STARS</h2>J. OETTINGER & S. WEDGEWOODOettinger came undone late in the playoffs last season, but it&rsquo;s a good bet he&rsquo;ll have multiple Vezinas in his future.<h2>5. WINNIPEG&nbsp;JETS</h2>C. HELLEBUYCK & L. BROSSOITIs Hellebuyck, 30, the next $10-million goalie? We&rsquo;ll find out next summer. But it surely won&rsquo;t be with the Jets.<h2>6. NEW YORK&nbsp;RANGERS</h2>I. SHESTERKIN & J. QUICKShesterkin is always in the Vezina conversation. The lack of a durable backup drags this duo out of the top three.<h2>7. TAMPA BAY&nbsp;LIGHTNING</h2>A. VASILEVSKIY & J. JOHANSSONSee Rangers. We&rsquo;re even less enthused about Johansson playing 15-20 games. The Bolts might go shopping soon.<h2>8. FLORIDA&nbsp;PANTHERS</h2>S. BOBROVSKY & S. KNIGHTWhich &lsquo;Bob&rsquo; are the Panthers getting this regular season? A wild card is Knight flourishing in his return.<h2>9. CAROLINA&nbsp;HURRICANES</h2>F. ANDERSEN & A. RAANTAWhen they&rsquo;re healthy, they&rsquo;re both very good. But they&rsquo;re made of glass. Good thing Kochetkov is at the ready.<h2>10. VEGAS&nbsp;GOLDEN KNIGHTS</h2>A. HILL & L. THOMPSONThere has to be a magic elixir in the home crease in Vegas. Every stopper the Knights have had posts career-best stats.<h2>11. MINNESOTA&nbsp;WILD</h2>F. GUSTAVSSON & M-A FLEURYGustavsson&rsquo;s numbers were off-the-charts good in his first full season. Can he do it again? Fleury turns 39 soon.<h2>12. CALGARY&nbsp;FLAMES</h2>J. MARKSTROM & D. VLADARFrom Vezina runner-up to couldn&rsquo;t stop rubber, Markstrom cratered last season. Somewhere in the middle this time?<h2>13. COLORADO&nbsp;AVALANCHE</h2>A. GEORGIEV & P. FRANCOUZSeventh in Vezina voting, Georgiev delivered on the promise the Avs saw in him. Francouz injury creates headache.<h2>14. PITTSBURGH&nbsp;PENGUINS</h2>T. JARRY & A. NEDELJKOVICJarry has been steady and reliable for four years. But he&rsquo;s not a top-10 goalie. Nedeljkovic runs hot and cold.<h2>15. WASHINGTON&nbsp;CAPITALS</h2>D. KUEMPER & C. LINDGRENThe Caps are one Kuemper injury away from dire straits. Good thing he has been more durable the past two years.<h2>16. TORONTO&nbsp;MAPLE LEAFS</h2>I. SAMSONOV & M. JONESSamsonov proved his mettle. He&rsquo;s one strong year away from being worth $5-million plus. Woll ready if Jones isn&rsquo;t.<h2>17. ANAHEIM&nbsp;DUCKS</h2>J. GIBSON & A. STALOCKGibson&rsquo;s numbers have sagged in recent seasons with flailing Ducks, but he&rsquo;s a bona fide top-10 stopper and still just 30.<h2>18. VANCOUVER&nbsp;CANUCKS</h2>T. DEMKO & C. DESMITHA stronger defense would make life a whole lot easier for Demko. He was seventh in Vezina voting in 2021-22.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_demko2_119/10063048-1-eng-US/buzz_demko2_1192.jpg" title="buzz_demko2_119" width="1021" height="1122"><figcaption class="caption-body">THATCHER DEMKO (BOB FRID-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div><h2>19. EDMONTON&nbsp;OILERS</h2>S. SKINNER & J. CAMPBELLCampbell has the big ticket, but it&rsquo;s Skinner who is delivering the mail. A reversion to the mean is in order.<h2>20. SEATTLE&nbsp;KRAKEN</h2>P. GRUBAUER & C. DRIEDGEROnly the Panthers spend more on goaltending than Seattle. Third-stringer Daccord is probably the true gem here.<h2>21. OTTAWA&nbsp;SENATORS</h2>J. KORPISALO & A. FORSBERGKorpisalo signed a mid-level, $4-million AAV contract. Makes sense the Sens will now get mid-tier NHL goaltending.<h2>22. NEW JERSEY&nbsp;DEVILS</h2>V. VANECEK & A. SCHMIDSchmid stole the show late in the season and playoffs last year. This duo could pull off an Ullmark-Swayman feat.<h2>23. ST. LOUIS&nbsp;BLUES</h2>J. BINNINGTON & J. HOFERSince winning the Cup in 2019, Binnington&rsquo;s stats trajectory has been a black diamond ski slope. He needs a reset.<h2>24. DETROIT&nbsp;RED WINGS</h2>V. HUSSO & J. REIMERThe Red Wings will need a more reliable defense to give these guys a chance. Reimer is used to last-man syndrome.<h2>25. ARIZONA&nbsp;COYOTES</h2>K. VEJMELKA & C. INGRAMWould be interesting to see Vejmelka&rsquo;s stats behind a first-rate defense. The Coyotes are trending up, though.<h2>26. PHILADELPHIA&nbsp;FLYERS</h2>C. HART & C. PETERSENHart isn&rsquo;t necessarily a falling star; he&rsquo;s just not on a steep upswing. Sandstrom the backup over cap-dump Petersen.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_hart2/10062950-1-eng-US/buzz_hart2.jpg" title="buzz_hart" width="1020" height="1173"><figcaption class="caption-body">CARTER HART (DAVID KIROUAC-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div><h2>27. MONTREAL&nbsp;CANADIENS</h2>S. MONTEMBEAULT & J. ALLENLast season, it was a 50-50 timeshare. Expect Montembeault to firmly put two hands on the torch this season.<h2>28. LOS ANGELES&nbsp;KINGS</h2>C. TALBOT & P. COPLEYNo team has a cheaper crease than the Kings ($2.5 million). If either falters, Rittich will be nearby on the farm.<h2>29. BUFFALO&nbsp;SABRES</h2>E. COMRIE & U-P LUUKKONENWe&rsquo;re convinced Levi is the Sabres&rsquo; stopper of the future, perhaps as soon as now. The bar to make it is very low.<h2>30. COLUMBUS&nbsp;BLUE JACKETS</h2>E. MERZLIKINS & D. TARASOVThere&rsquo;s an expectation Merzlikins will bounce back from his .876 SP. If not, Tarasov has credentials to take over.<h2>31. SAN JOSE&nbsp;SHARKS</h2>K. KAHKONEN & M. BLACKWOODTwo career backups and a sketchy blueline brigade will lead to some ugly scores. Sharks fans should be cautioned.<h2>32. CHICAGO&nbsp;BLACKHAWKS</h2>P. MRAZEK & A. SODERBLOMMrazek has had a lot of practice fishing pucks out of his own net. That&rsquo;s not going to change any time soon. &#9632;

buzz_ullmar_118

THE COUNTDOWN

<div class="byline">BY SAL BARRY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_lemieu_0762/10063233-1-eng-US/buzz_lemieu_0762.jpg" title="buzz_lemieu_076" width="632" height="906"></div><h3>1 &gt; MARIO LEMIEUX</h3>1983 Canadian National Jr. Team PostcardsLemieux is one of the game&rsquo;s all-time greatest players, so it isn&rsquo;t surprising he was also a phenom in the junior ranks. He played for Canada in the 1983 World Junior Championship, along with fellow future Hall of Famers Steve Yzerman, Mike Vernon and Dave Andreychuk. A team postcard set was released, which included a card of a 17-year-old Lemieux. This is Super Mario&rsquo;s first hockey card, predating his Topps and O-Pee-Chee rookie cards by three years.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_fleury_083/10063226-1-eng-US/buzz_fleury_0832.jpg" title="buzz_fleury_083" width="576" height="816"></div><h3>2 &gt; THEO FLEURY</h3>1988-89 Salt Lake Golden Eagles #8Fleury spent the first half of the 1988-89 season in the minors with the IHL&rsquo;s Salt Lake Golden Eagles, where he scored an impressive 37 goals and 74 points in just 40 games. After that, he was promoted to the NHL. Though his minor-league career was short, it was long enough to be included in the Golden Eagles&rsquo; team set that year. The set was sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service and pictures Smokey Bear in the lower right corner.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_hull3/10063219-1-eng-US/buzz_hull2.jpg" title="buzz_hull" width="761" height="1046"></div><h3>3 &gt; BRETT HULL</h3>1985-86 University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs #28The &lsquo;Golden Brett&rsquo; played two seasons of college hockey before he turned pro. He didn&rsquo;t get an NHL rookie card until 1988-89, but he did appear on a few minor-league and collegiate cards before then, including this one given away by the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 1985-86.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_fedoro_077/10063212-1-eng-US/buzz_fedoro_0772.jpg" title="buzz_fedoro_077" width="615" height="876"></div><h3>4 &gt; SERGEI FEDOROV</h3>1989 USSR National Team PostcardsThe Soviet national team issued postcard sets of its players intermittently from the late 1960s through to the end of the 1980s. Unfortunately, Fedorov&rsquo;s first card, found in the 1989 USSR national-team set, looks more like a graduation photo than a hockey card. He&rsquo;s in a suit and tie, and the back of the card only has text &ndash; and it&rsquo;s in Russian &ndash; so visually, it&rsquo;s not very appealing. The front does have a snazzy gold-foil-stamped facsimile autograph, though. Fedorov got several rookie cards after he joined the Red Wings in 1990, but this predates those cards by a year.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_macinn_078/10063205-1-eng-US/buzz_macinn_0782.jpg" title="buzz_macinn_078" width="689" height="885"></div><h3>5 &gt; AL MACINNIS</h3>1982-83 Kitchener Rangers #17The future Hall of Fame defenseman is referred to as &ldquo;Allan&rdquo; on the back of his OHL Kitchener Rangers card, while the front pictures him sporting some sweet blue Cooperalls. This card was released three years before his O-Pee-Chee rookie card.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_belfou_079/10063198-1-eng-US/buzz_belfou_0792.jpg" title="buzz_belfou_079" width="718" height="1003"></div><h3>6 &gt; ED BELFOUR</h3>1988-89 ProCards AHL/IHLBelfour split 1988-89 between the Blackhawks and their minor-league affiliate, the IHL&rsquo;s Saginaw Hawks, and he was included in the Saginaw team set that year. Perhaps he missed the team&rsquo;s photo day, though, as most of the cards for his Saginaw teammates used on-ice posed photos, while Belfour&rsquo;s card uses a head shot from the Blackhawks&rsquo; training camp.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_richte_080/10063191-1-eng-US/buzz_richte_0802.jpg" title="buzz_richte_080" width="625" height="868"></div><h3>7 &gt; MIKE RICHTER</h3>1989-90 ProCards IHL #48If Richter wasn&rsquo;t awkwardly half-smiling in this photo, it might be mistaken for a mugshot. Richter started 1989-90 with the IHL&rsquo;s Flint Spirits and had a card in the team set. He was soon recalled by the Rangers for good midway through the season and never looked back.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_hasek/10063184-1-eng-US/buzz_hasek2.jpg" title="buzz_hasek" width="605" height="847"></div><h3>8 &gt; DOMINIK HASEK</h3>1990-91 ProCards AHL/IHL #409Other than five games with the Blackhawks, Hasek&rsquo;s first season on this side of the Atlantic was spent exclusively in the minors so he could adapt to the North American style of game and work on his English. His first trading card issued in North America was in the 1990-91 ProCards AHL/IHL set and pictures him with the IHL&rsquo;s Indianapolis Ice. This predates Hasek&rsquo;s NHL rookie card by a year.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_lindro_081/10063177-1-eng-US/buzz_lindro_0812.jpg" title="buzz_lindro_081" width="717" height="1131"></div><h3>9 &gt; ERIC LINDROS</h3>1989-90 Oshawa Generals #31Every hockey-card collector in 1990 wanted Lindros&rsquo; 1990-91 Score rookie card, which boasted &ldquo;Future Superstar&rdquo; across the top. However, &lsquo;The Big E&rsquo; did have a few prior cards, including this one found in the 1989-90 OHL Oshawa Generals team set.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/buzz_shanah_082/10063170-1-eng-US/buzz_shanah_0822.jpg" title="buzz_shanah_082" width="636" height="816"></div><h3>10 &gt; BRENDAN SHANAHAN</h3>1985-86 London Knights #9Before the New Jersey Devils drafted him second overall in 1987, Brendan Shanahan was lighting it up in the OHL with the London Knights. This team-issued card from 1985-86 is Shanahan&rsquo;s earliest hockey card. &#9632;

buzz_lemieu_076

10 ‘PRE-ROOKIE’ CARDS OF ’90s LEGENDS

<div class="byline">BY DAVID LA VAQUE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="inmemoriam__110" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/inmemoriam__110/10063271-1-eng-US/inmemoriam__1102.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">Boucha won a silver medal with Team USA at the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF USA HOCKEY)</figcaption></div>LARRY OLIMB RETURNED home to Warroad, Minn., in the summer of 1992, just months after setting the career record for assists (159) among University of Minnesota hockey players.Back in the Northland, the freshly minted local hero bumped into one of Warroad&rsquo;s greatest hockey legends &ndash; Henry Boucha. &ldquo;A teammate of mine was up visiting, and we went golfing at the Warroad Estates Golf Course,&rdquo; Olimb said. &ldquo;Henry was there and let us join him. He paid for our round, and when we tried to pay, he said, &lsquo;No, it&rsquo;s my pleasure. You&rsquo;ll pay it forward to some young guys when you&rsquo;re older.&rsquo; I&rsquo;ve never forgotten that. It was a life lesson from probably the Warroad Warrior, a treasured moment.&rdquo;Boucha, who became an historic fixture of high-school hockey after leading Warroad to the championship game of the 1969 Minnesota state tournament, died Sept. 18 at 72. He passed away in the Twin Cities, where he was being treated for heart issues at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/inmemoriam__1113/10063264-1-eng-US/inmemoriam__1112.jpg" title="inmemoriam__111" width="663" height="644"></div>Boucha, an Ojibwe who championed causes on behalf of Native Americans, also played in the NHL, WHA and on the U.S. Olympic team, winning a silver medal in 1972. In the book Tourney Time: Stories From the Minnesota Boys&rsquo; State Hockey&nbsp;Tournament, co-author L.R. Nelson wrote of Boucha, &ldquo;Opposing players and fans spoke about Boucha in hushed tones of reverence. Born to George and Alice Boucha, great-grandson of medicine woman Maymushagubiek, a healer known as Laughing Mary, Boucha was the Ojibwe kid with superhuman abilities. His shot was so powerful it bent goalposts and shattered pucks. Why, did you hear the story about how he once shot a puck through the side of an arena and into the frigid night air?&rdquo;Hailing from a tiny town just seven miles south of the Canadian border, Boucha broke through with his teammates to reach the 1969 state tournament. From 1945 to &rsquo;68, the St. Paul Auditorium hosted the event before it moved to the Met Center, home of the NHL&rsquo;s North Stars. A David vs. Goliath matchup in the final was irresistible, with fans embracing Warroad as sentimental favorites against Edina, a wealthy Twin Cities suburb.With 15,066 in attendance at the Met Center, it was the largest crowd at the time to watch a high-school hockey game in Minnesota. And Boucha was the marquee name. Nelson wrote of the team introductions, &ldquo;Henry, who launched fans to their feet every time he touched the puck, got a deafening ovation.&rdquo;Warroad lost 5-4 to Edina in overtime after Boucha sustained a punctured eardrum when he was checked into the boards, forcing him to leave the game in the second period.Following high school, Boucha briefly played junior hockey in Canada before a stint in the U.S. Army, during which he played for the U.S. national team. He was taken in the second round of the 1971 NHL draft by Detroit. He made his debut for the Red Wings after the 1972 Olympics and had a strong 1972-73 season.As a pro player, Boucha wore a trademark headband that made him easily recognizable on the ice. But his career took a dramatic turn after he was traded to the North Stars: during a game at the Met Center on Jan. 4, 1975, he sustained a serious eye injury that plagued him for the rest of his career.While living in Warroad, Boucha served as Indian education director at Warroad Public Schools, coached youth hockey and worked in real estate. He also staunchly defended Warroad&rsquo;s Warrior nickname. &ldquo;Warroad has got an amazing history of the Ojibwe coming into the area through migration, like many other tribes,&rdquo; Boucha told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in June. &ldquo;The blood of our ancestors is there. We are proud of our name and logo.&rdquo;Boucha was inducted into both the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame (1995) and North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame (2022).&ldquo;He was truly a legend in the state of Minnesota,&rdquo; said Warroad boys hockey coach Jay Hardwick. &ldquo;When people talk of Warroad hockey and the state tournament, Henry will always be a part of that.&rdquo; &#9632;

inmemoriam__110

In Memoriam

FOREVER A WARRIOR

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="warriorfoli_035" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/warriorfoli_035/10063337-1-eng-US/warriorfoli_0352.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">LEN LEE, LAURIE WOOD & DEAN NEWCOMB (PHOTOS COURTESY OF JAYME PASTORIC/WARRIORFORLIFEFUND.ORG)</figcaption></div>BEING A FORMER PLAYER and coach and current hockey historian, Steve Hardy knows the importance of a clean draw. And given that he has mobility and balance issues, he knew it would be a challenge to perform what he called &ldquo;a Kevin Collins-worthy puck drop.&rdquo; So even though it was only a ceremonial opening faceoff, Hardy practised for weeks in his garage, working diligently to get the puck to slap down flat.On the day of the Nate Hardy Memorial Game last December, he was ready. But just as Hardy was about to drop the puck, somebody asked for more pictures. That threw him off, and he subsequently lost his balance, resulting in &ldquo;the worst drop in the history of hockey.&rdquo; Luckily, Ray Bourque feathered the puck on his stick, picked it up and handed it to Hardy. &ldquo;And I say to him, &lsquo;Ray, if I were a linesman, I&rsquo;d be fired,&rsquo; &rdquo; Hardy said. &ldquo;And he looks at me and says, &lsquo;Yes, you would.&rsquo; &rdquo;Steve Hardy is a Gold Star Father. It&rsquo;s a designation you accept with dignity, grace and respect, but it&rsquo;s also one nobody wants. Gold Star Families are made up of immediate family members who&rsquo;ve lost a loved one in the line of military duty. Hardy and his wife had three sons. Their oldest, Josh, died of a brain tumor at 18, and, on Feb. 4, 2008, U.S. Navy SEAL and chief petty officer Nate Hardy was part of a raid on a terrorist compound in Baghdad. The first SEAL to enter the building, chief petty officer Michael Koch, was killed with a precision shot to the head. Nate Hardy was close behind, and he died instantly after being shot twice. He and Koch are buried side by side at Arlington National Cemetery. Nate Hardy, whose grandfather fought with John F. Kennedy in the Second World War, left behind a wife and a one-year-old son. After dealing with so much loss, Steve and his wife are understandably protective of middle son Ben, who now has a son of his own. &ldquo;We keep him in a bubble.&rdquo; Steve said. &ldquo;We wrap him up as much as we can.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/warriorfoli_036/10063330-1-eng-US/warriorfoli_0362.jpg" title="warriorfoli_036" width="1806" height="560"></div>Steve Hardy will drop the puck again this year when the Nate Hardy Memorial Game between the Boston Bruins alumni team and the Warrior For Life Fund All-Stars takes place Dec. 2 at Warrior Arena &ndash; the Bruins&rsquo; practice facility. One of the unfortunate realities of life post-9/11 is that these kinds of games, and in fact the Warrior For Life Fund itself, are necessary and vital. Because there are thousands of Gold Star Families without fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. And the ones who survived both the Global War on Terrorism and the Iraq War are hurting. Some of their wounds are constant visual reminders, while others are endured in silence and isolation. Even though the Iraq War ended in 2011 and the War on Terror effectively ended when the U.S. pulled its troops out of Afghanistan in 2021, the death toll continues rising. In fact, the number of suicides among those who served in those wars is dramatically higher than the number of those killed in action. Many of those who carry on do so with debilitating brain injuries, serious cognitive issues and PTSD.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/warriorfoli_039/10063316-1-eng-US/warriorfoli_0392.jpg" title="warriorfoli_039" width="1184" height="853"><figcaption class="caption-body">RYAN CROLEY</figcaption></div>&ldquo;There is a warrior ethos that exists out there,&rdquo; said Ryan Croley, the founder and president of the Warrior For Life Fund and himself a veteran of six tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan as a captain with the Navy SEALs. &ldquo;Suicide for a warrior is an option, and people don&rsquo;t want to talk about that. They often feel that when you&rsquo;re no longer valuable to your society or to your tribe, historically that has been part of the warrior ethos. Twenty-two veterans a day kill themselves. That&rsquo;s a real big number. How much of it is guys who are at the end of their lives living their ethos, and how much of it is a guy who is 40 or 50 who has isolated himself, is using drugs and alcohol, not able to sleep and unable to maintain a job and then kills himself because of those factors?&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;WHEN I STEP ONTO THE ICE, I DIDN&rsquo;T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE&hellip; ALL THE WORRIES I HAD WERE GONE &ndash; RYAN CROLEY</blockquote>Croley speaks from personal experience on this. He found himself hugely out of sorts when he returned from his last tour of duty in 2006. He had been diagnosed with 11 traumatic brain injuries over time. And like some of those broken warriors, he had lost his tribe, so he found another one. Despite the fact he had no experience with the game, Croley taught himself to play hockey, &ldquo;to keep me out of the bar,&rdquo; when he was at the Naval War College in Rhode Island. Croley found hockey to be therapeutic for him and noticed an improvement in his cognitive ability. He figured if it could work for him, it could also help others. So when he returned to his home in Virginia Beach, Va., which has the highest concentration of active service and retired military members in the world, he started the Virginia Beach Hockey Club, which ultimately morphed into Warrior For Life. Croley calls it &ldquo;peer-to-peer&rdquo; recovery, but he also said it helps with neuroplasticity, which is the process of the brain rewiring itself after a traumatic injury.&ldquo;Hockey is the ideal sport for someone who has a traumatic brain injury, especially if you&rsquo;re learning it from zero, because your brain is firing the whole time,&rdquo; Croley said. &ldquo;But the cognitive stuff aside, it just cleared my mind. When I step onto the ice, I didn&rsquo;t have to think about anything else. For the one hour I was out there, all the worries I had were gone. It was wonderful. There are too many things going on with your brain for you to think of anything else.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/warriorfoli_038/10063323-1-eng-US/warriorfoli_0382.jpg" title="warriorfoli_038" width="865" height="894"><figcaption class="caption-body">DECLAN FARMER</figcaption></div>Croley now skates as the captain of the Warrior For Life Fund All-Stars, a group of active-duty and retired Navy SEALs who run programs in Virginia Beach five days a week. There is another all-star team at the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, Calif. In fact, the Western team defeated a group of Bruins alumni and members of the Virginia Beach team handily in a game over the summer. And these guys can play. For the Nate Hardy game last year, the Bruins stacked a team with alumni &ldquo;rookies&rdquo; Zdeno Chara and Adam McQuaid for their 6-4 victory. &ldquo;And why did we stack the team?&rdquo; asked former Bruin Frank Simonetti, president of the team&rsquo;s alumni association. &ldquo;They beat us the year before. They&rsquo;re that good. They&rsquo;re smart, they&rsquo;re fast, and they&rsquo;re in much better shape than we are. Youth and speed, at some point, beats age and skill.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/warriorfoli_040/10063309-1-eng-US/warriorfoli_0402.jpg" title="warriorfoli_040" width="1490" height="1039"><figcaption class="caption-body">A BOND BEYONDThe Warrior For Life Fund players and the Bruins alumni have formed lasting relationships.</figcaption></div>With the Bruins firmly on board, along with Operation Hat Trick, an organization that funds programs for veterans through the sale of caps, the Warrior For Life movement has taken on a life of its own. There are now programs for both able-bodied and adaptive hockey in Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Chicago, North Carolina and Colorado. In fact, a new Human Performance Center is currently being constructed in Virginia Beach. It will feature a 15-by-40 synthetic rink where veterans can learn the game and measure their cognitive abilities using Sense Arena, a virtual-reality training tool for hockey. &ldquo;You can play crossword puzzles to overcome concussion, but these guys that I have are not going to go do a crossword puzzle,&rdquo; Croley said. &ldquo;But you put them in the Sense Arena and they&rsquo;re making decisions just like they would have in a kill house.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;TWENTY-TWO VETERANS A DAY KILL THEMSELVES. THAT&rsquo;S A REAL BIG NUMBER &ndash; RYAN CROLEY, FOUNDER OF THE WARRIOR FOR LIFE FUND</blockquote>The former Bruins players and the military guys form fast and lasting relationships because of what they have in common. Both are fit, gritty and competitive. And because warfare is so different now than it was in the World Wars or Vietnam or Korea, deployment is almost diametrically opposed to what it once was. It used to be that hundreds of thousands of troops would be on the ground to make up for a lack of intelligence and surveillance. Now, there are fewer people on the ground, but they are the best in their field, so they&rsquo;re being deployed dozens of times, which is bound to have a profound effect on them. &ldquo;If you can imagine going into a house and doing close-quarter battle,&rdquo; Croley said, &ldquo;hockey is a very similar thing.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/warriorfoli_041/10063302-1-eng-US/warriorfoli_0412.jpg" title="warriorfoli_041" width="864" height="1150"><figcaption class="caption-body">The Warrior For Life Fund runs programs in several U.S. locales.</figcaption></div>When the Bruins alumni faced the Warrior For Life Fund All-Stars last year, more than 1,100 people packed into the 700-seat Warrior Arena for the event. This year&rsquo;s event will be just as popular. Croley said he&rsquo;s hearing that recently retired future Hall of Famer Patrice Bergeron will suit up for the Bruins, which will make his team&rsquo;s challenge that much more daunting. But most of all, it will raise money for a cause that is literally saving lives. And hockey is at the center of it. &ldquo;It has kept me alive, absolutely,&rdquo; Croley said. &ldquo;And I probably have stories of 10 or more guys who have come to me and said, &lsquo;This program saved my life.&rsquo; &rdquo; &#9632;

Warrior For Life

‘THIS PROGRAM SAVED MY LIFE’

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="ultimategoa_074" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ultimategoa_074/10063424-1-eng-US/ultimategoa_0742.jpg"></div>AT THE 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Canadian coach Marc Crawford had to make an unenviable choice &ndash; and no, we&rsquo;re not talking about whether or not to use Wayne Gretzky in the shootout against the Czechs. What Crawford had to decide was which of his two all-world goaltenders to put between the pipes: Patrick Roy or Martin Brodeur.It was, leading up to the tournament, a heated debate. Roy was two years removed from winning the Stanley Cup for the Crawford-coached Colorado Avalanche, while Brodeur had finished as Vezina Trophy runner-up the season prior and was, at the time, turning in an equally impressive 1997-98 campaign. Ultimately, the gig went to Roy, and there was little to criticize about the decision &ndash; his .935 save percentage and 1.46 goals-against average were, with the exception of Czech gold medal-winning netminder Dominik Hasek&rsquo;s stats, the best numbers of any goalie to start all his team&rsquo;s games at the Olympics.But what if Crawford didn&rsquo;t have to choose? What if he could have combined Roy&rsquo;s best traits with Brodeur&rsquo;s elite attributes to create one super goaltender? Alas, without a time machine and the handiwork of the same doctors who turned Steve Austin into The Six Million Dollar Man, we&rsquo;ll never know what such a super-stopper would or could look like. However, that doesn&rsquo;t mean we can&rsquo;t dream up a scenario in which we bust out the scalpel and do our own impression of Dr. Frankenstein, combining the best elements of today&rsquo;s top masked men to create the ultimate goaltender.For our little experiment, we&rsquo;ll choose one quality from a selection of big-league starters &ndash; with no duplication &ndash; to piece together a perennial Vezina Trophy winner who would strike fear into the heart of every NHL shooter. Please note that no NHL goalies were harmed in the creation of this keeper.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ultimategoa_068/10063417-1-eng-US/ultimategoa_0682.jpg" title="ultimategoa_068" width="2059" height="1704"><figcaption class="caption-body">JOHN GIBSON (BRETT HOLMES-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div><h2>&gt; MENTAL TOUGHNESS</h2>Even before he was an NHL netminder, John Gibson was lauded for his mental toughness. And he&rsquo;s needed that fortitude over the past few seasons with the Anaheim Ducks. Since the start of 2018-19, no goaltender has been as regularly inundated with shots as Gibson, who has faced nearly 34 shots per 60 minutes of play across 253 games over that span. Gibson has really had to gut it out, too, as there is no active goaltender who has had less goal support from his teammates over the past five seasons. The Ducks are averaging just 2.39 goals when Gibson is between the pipes, nearly one-third of a goal less than the next-least-supported goalie with 200 appearances since 2018-19.As Gibson has matured, he&rsquo;s only become better at pushing past a bad goal against or shrugging off a subpar start. And though the losses have piled up in recent years &ndash; he&rsquo;s the clubhouse leader since 2018-19 &ndash; his mental game is among the reasons why Gibson is still considered one of the league&rsquo;s best.<h2>&gt; CONSISTENCY</h2>Oxymoronic as it may be to consider consistency at the one position most marred by the lack of it, there are those to whom a bad spell or an off night aren&rsquo;t exactly alien but are at least kept to an absolute minimum. And if that&rsquo;s the criteria, there&rsquo;s no current keeper more consistent than New York Islanders stalwart Ilya Sorokin.Last season&rsquo;s Vezina runner-up has been eerily steady since the start of 2021-22: he followed up his .925 save-percentage, 2.40 goals-against-average, seven-shutout stat line that campaign by posting a .924 SP, 2.34 GAA and six shutouts last season. More importantly, Sorokin has mustered a single-game .908 SP or better in 67 percent of his outings and has finished all but four of his 133 starts (or 97 percent of all starts). Those marks are both second-best among active goaltenders who have appeared in at least 100 games since 2020-21. Given the Islanders have been the 10th-lowest scoring team since Sorokin&rsquo;s arrival, the importance of his consistency can&rsquo;t be understated.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ultimategoa_069/10063410-1-eng-US/ultimategoa_0692.jpg" title="ultimategoa_069" width="595" height="955"><figcaption class="caption-body">ILYA SOROKIN (NICK TURCHIARO-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div><h2>&gt; ONE-ON-ONE</h2>If you&rsquo;re of the mind that any outstanding stopper is automatically a good 1-on-1 netminder, let us disabuse you of that notion: Dominik Hasek finished his career with a .614 SP in the shootout, the 17th-lowest mark among the 123 goaltenders to face at least 40 attempts. Of course, the shootout is a different beast than an in-game breakaway, but the numbers speak to how well goalies shut down solo attempts. Same goes for penalty shots. And if that&rsquo;s the measure, we want Vancouver Canucks goaltender Thatcher Demko.Since his arrival, Demko has been the equivalent of a dud firework in the shootout, taking what could be a big-bang moment and fizzling it out. In fact, since his first season as a full-time starter in 2019-20, Demko has stopped 36 of 43 shootout attempts and all four penalty shots he&rsquo;s faced, good for an .851 SP. That&rsquo;s even more outstanding when considering the league-wide SP average on combined shootout and penalty shots over that same span is just .688.<h2>&gt; ENDURANCE</h2>Long gone are the days of Glenn Hall, and the last goalie to start each of his team&rsquo;s games was Roger Crozier in 1964-65, but there&rsquo;s no greater example of the modern-day workhorse than the Winnipeg Jets&rsquo; Connor Hellebuyck. In fact, Hellebuyck&rsquo;s numbers border on shocking for a present-day keeper. At a shade less than 17,257 minutes played since 2018-19, Hellebuyck has skated 1,000 more minutes in the crease than any other NHLer in that time. And while that alone paints a fine picture of Hellebuyck&rsquo;s endurance, it&rsquo;s not as though he&rsquo;s done so while playing for the Dead Puck Era&rsquo;s New Jersey Devils. Rather, among goalies with 100 games played since 2018-19, the 2020 Vezina winner (who was a finalist two additional times) has faced the eighth-most shots per 60 minutes and made the seventh-most saves per hour.What makes Hellebuyck so effective despite his workload are his mechanics. He&rsquo;s efficient in his movement and has remarkable positional awareness. Those traits are perfect for someone who perennially starts 60-plus games and make Hellebuyck a rarity in today&rsquo;s NHL.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ultimategoa_070/10063403-1-eng-US/ultimategoa_0702.jpg" title="ultimategoa_070" width="1267" height="955"><figcaption class="caption-body">CONNOR HELLEBUYCK (JAMES CAREY LAUDER-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div><h2>&gt; FRAME</h2>Bigger isn&rsquo;t necessarily better, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean scouts haven&rsquo;t leant toward towering &rsquo;tenders over the past decade-plus. The NHL has, of course, had its smaller standouts along the way, but the average height among regular big-league goalies last season &ndash; those with at least 15 games played &ndash; was a hair higher than 6-foot-2, with only three netminders below the six-foot mark.When it comes to matching size with mobility, few can compare to the Calgary Flames&rsquo; Jacob Markstrom. True, his 2022-23 season left much to be desired, but Markstrom has finished in the top five in Vezina voting twice in the past four seasons, was a second-team all-star once and checks in at a whopping 6-foot-6 and 207 pounds. When he&rsquo;s on his game and using his size well, he&rsquo;s a human eclipse in the crease.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ultimategoa_071/10063396-1-eng-US/ultimategoa_0712.jpg" title="ultimategoa_071" width="1267" height="1372"><figcaption class="caption-body">LINUS ULLMARK (JAMES CAREY LAUDER-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div><h2>&gt; GLOVE</h2>If good fundamentals are the steak, being able to flash a bit of leather is the sizzle. There was a time, not long ago, that the nod for best glove in the game was a no-brainer, with the honor bestowed on former Predator Pekka Rinne. But the throne opened up when the Nashville netminder sailed into the sunset a few seasons back, and Boston Bruins keeper and reigning Vezina winner Linus Ullmark has assumed it for the time being.While others can make a good case for their mighty mitts &ndash; on his day, the St. Louis Blues&rsquo; Jordan Binnington can commit some serious glove-hand larceny &ndash; Ullmark has a unique combination of speed and flashiness with his left paw, plus the 6-foot-5 netminder&rsquo;s superlative reach allows him to get his trapper on shots at which others would be left lunging. Though not a perfect science, either, pucks die when they reach Ullmark. Analytics repository <a href="http://moneypuck.com">moneypuck.com</a> has a freeze-rate statistic, a measure of how often goaltenders stop play in its tracks, and Ullmark managed 13.3 more than expected last season, the third-best mark among the 26 goaltenders with at least 40 appearances.<h2>&gt; PUCKHANDLING</h2>It&rsquo;s not a matter of if so much as it is when Igor Shesterkin manages to score his first goal. And once he does it once, you might as well start placing bets on how long it is until he pots his second. In his four seasons with the New York Rangers, and during his brief stint with the AHL&rsquo;s Hartford Wolf Pack, Shesterkin has made empty-net attempts on a handful of occasions, not least of which was an attempt during Game 6 of the Rangers-Devils opening-round playoff series last season.His impending goalie goal aside, though, Shesterkin&rsquo;s ability to wrangle and distribute dumped-in pucks is second to none. Some will argue his two assists since entering the league suggest otherwise, particularly when Andrei Vasilevskiy (11) and Tristan Jarry (eight) are first and second in goalie helpers, but Shesterkin places inch-perfect passes with regularity and often acts as a third defender against opponents seeking to chip and chase. His toolbox is overflowing, but his stick skill is among his top talents.<h2>&gt; SKATING</h2>There&rsquo;s a video of Juuse Saros &ndash; from Nashville Predators training camp a few years ago &ndash; showcasing his edgework, and the speed, fluidity and explosiveness with which he moves borders on majestic. And it&rsquo;s this 15-second clip that highlights just how it is one of the league&rsquo;s most diminutive goaltenders has also risen to become one of its best.Indeed, Saros&rsquo; skating is among the major factors in the Nashville No. 1 overcoming his relative lack of size, which some believed would be his greatest obstacle. The power he generates with his pushes and the way he can dart from post to post combine with his agility to put him in position to set himself with plenty of time to make a stop. So, sure, by the NHL&rsquo;s literal measure, he tied for being the shortest keeper last season and is tied for the 10th-shortest the league has seen in the post-lockout era. But given the way Saros skates, he&rsquo;s the equivalent of a goaltender who&rsquo;s a whole head taller.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ultimategoa_072/10063389-1-eng-US/ultimategoa_0722.jpg" title="ultimategoa_072" width="1387" height="768"><figcaption class="caption-body">JUUSE SAROS (CHRISTOPHER HANEWINCKEL-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div><h2>&gt; REBOUND CONTROL</h2>Second-chance opportunities are the bane of a coach&rsquo;s existence and the undoing of many a netminder. But present-day goaltenders are so controlled in their movement and so adept at controlling rebounds that the best can direct play away from the crease with a well-angled pad, blocker or stick.Take the Dallas Stars&rsquo; Jake Oettinger, whose ability to put pucks where he, not the opposition, wants them has made him one of the NHL&rsquo;s best young netminders. His defenders play their part in the matter, but Oettinger&rsquo;s ability to snuff out successive shots is remarkable. Among goaltenders to play at least 60 games last season, there was no one who had to make a lower percentage of their saves on second (or third or fourth) attempts. Furthermore, <a href="http://moneypuck.com">moneypuck.com</a> listed Oettinger as producing the third-fewest rebounds above expected among the 40-game cohort, only narrowly behind second-place Tristan Jarry. At 24, &lsquo;Otter&rsquo; is only going to continue to improve, and his rebound control alone could keep him in the Vezina conversation for years to come.<h2>&gt; ATHLETICISM</h2>The NHL is still waiting for its next Dominik Hasek- or Tim Thomas-esque goaltender, which is to say one willing to fling himself around the crease like a rag doll in pursuit of stopping pucks. Some will argue Jonathan Quick fits that bill &ndash; and, for a time, that was true, but his best days are behind him.One veteran netminder for whom that is not quite the case, however, is Marc-Andre Fleury. Even at 38, &lsquo;Flower&rsquo; continues to be among the NHL&rsquo;s best contortionists and so freakishly flexible that he&rsquo;s good for a handful of awe-inspiring saves every season. Fleury&rsquo;s personal reel contains myriad paddle stops and how-did-he-get-that highlights, and in his pursuit of second spot on the all-time wins list (he&rsquo;s seven back of Patrick Roy), Fleury is sure to pull out a few more miraculous saves.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ultimategoa_073/10063382-1-eng-US/ultimategoa_0732.jpg" title="ultimategoa_073" width="2059" height="1441"><figcaption class="caption-body">JAKE OETTINGER (SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div><h2>&gt; BIG-GAME ABILITY</h2>Often, the debate about the world&rsquo;s best netminder comes down to one question: who would you want in the blue paint with everything on the line? And while there&rsquo;s no definitive answer, the modern era might be the closest hockey fans have come to one collective answer, because what Andrei Vasilevskiy has accomplished over the past several seasons borders on incomprehensible. But, hey, why listen to us when you could listen to those who&rsquo;ve had sleepless nights thanks to Vasilevskiy? In each of the past three seasons, players voting in the NHLPA&rsquo;s Player Poll have picked Vasilevskiy as the goaltender they would most want on the ice in a one-game, winner-take-all contest.We get it, we get it. It&rsquo;s easy for this to read like recency bias &ndash; myth-making aided by Vasilevskiy backstopping some stacked Lightning clubs to two Stanley Cups and three consecutive finals. But the numbers really do tell the story. To wit, Vasilevskiy&rsquo;s .942 SP in potential series-clinching games is currently the fifth-highest in NHL history, his .926 SP in elimination games is the 29th-best all-time, and he has posted six series-winning shutouts, including back-to-back blankings in the 2020 and 2021 Cup-winning games. His brilliance when the chips are down is unrivalled today and arguably in league history. &#9632;

The Ultimate Goalie

BUILDING THE ULTIMATE GOALIE

<div class="byline">BY CAROL SCHRAM</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="filipgustav_088" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/filipgustav_088/10063476-1-eng-US/filipgustav_0882.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BOB FRID-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>FOR FILIP Gustavsson, life is good in the State of Hockey.The 25-year-old is armed with a new three-year contract after narrowly avoiding a summer arbitration hearing. He&rsquo;s adjusting his daily routines around his first child, Vollrad, who is named after his great-grandfather and was born back home in Sweden on June 16.And he&rsquo;s feeling calm and comfortable in Minnesota, where he has flourished since his trade from the Ottawa Senators in July 2022.During five seasons in the Ottawa organization, Gustavsson got into just 27 NHL games, putting up a record of 10-13-3, with a 3.12 goals-against average and .905 save percentage.With the Wild last year, he gained momentum as the season wore on. After the all-star break, he started 19 of Minnesota&rsquo;s final 34 games, posting a 1.95 GAA and .938 SP. That earned him the starting job in the playoffs, where he prevailed in double overtime in Game 1 against the Dallas Stars, making 51 saves on 53 shots. All told, Gustavsson started five of the Wild&rsquo;s six games in their first-round loss while giving up just 12 goals.It was valuable high-stakes experience after a regular season where he finished with a 2.10 GAA and .931 SP to support his record of 22-9-7. Among goalies with at least 25 starts, those numbers were second only to fellow Swede and Vezina winner Linus Ullmark of the Boston Bruins &ndash; who put together a breakout campaign of his own.In the wake of Jacob Markstrom&rsquo;s second-place finish in Vezina voting in 2021-22 and third-place honors for Robin Lehner in 2018-19, is Swedish goaltending making a comeback? &ldquo;For a long time, it felt like everyone was talking about Finnish goaltenders being so good,&rdquo; Gustavsson said. &ldquo;Now, it&rsquo;s the Russian goalies, with (Igor) Shesterkin and (Andrei) Vasilevskiy.&ldquo;And then Ullmark stepping up last year, it feels like the Swedish guys kind of got away a little bit after (Henrik) Lundqvist. We need to evolve and be more recognized as a good-goalie nation again.&rdquo;Lundqvist, &ldquo;of course,&rdquo; was an idol for Gustavsson, who was seven when the NHL rookie backstopped Sweden to Olympic gold in Turin in 2006, and he was 14 when &lsquo;The King&rsquo; won his Vezina in 2012. Other favorites were Semyon Varlamov, Carey Price and Braden Holtby. Also, some guy named Marc-Andre Fleury, &ldquo;a pretty flashy goalie&rdquo; who earned plenty of bandwidth in the highlight packages that Gustavsson devoured in his hometown of Skelleftea, an industrial city of 74,000.Fleury played his first NHL game when Gustavsson was just five. Now 38, Fleury is living up to his reputation as a first-class teammate. &ldquo;Every time you see him on TV or videos or in person, he&rsquo;s very nice and a little goofy,&rdquo; Gustavsson said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s how he is to every guy he sees or talks to. Those people are very nice to have around and see on a daily basis, because they make you happy. They make you more relaxed and calm, in a way, instead of being on your toes all the time.&rdquo;Fleury does keep his teammates on alert with his penchant for pranks. While he declined to go into detail, Gustavsson said the frequency of the practical jokes picked up during the second half of last season, with &ldquo;everyone kind of expecting it to be him,&rdquo; and &ldquo;some good laughs around the locker room.&rdquo;Both listed at 6-foot-2, Gustavsson and Fleury literally see eye to eye. But their playing styles are polar opposites. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t make those flashy saves,&rdquo; Gustavsson said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m more, I would say, conservative and calm. I try and be more in the right position to either get to the next rebound or be in the right position to take the first shot. One of my strengths is to play around the post, when the puck comes really close around the net and wraparounds and stuff like that.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/filipgustav_089/10063469-1-eng-US/filipgustav_0892.jpg" title="filipgustav_089" width="2777" height="1874"><figcaption class="caption-body">TWIN CITY CERTAINTYAfter two years of bouncing between the NHL and AHL, Gustavsson has found full-time work in Minnesota. (DAN HAMILTON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Goalies are always hungry for action, and Fleury is starting the season needing just eight wins to pass Patrick Roy for second place on the all-time list. But rather than competing for starts, the Wild tandem aims to bring out the best in each other. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re both good sports,&rdquo; Gustavsson said. &ldquo;When he didn&rsquo;t play as good as he wanted to, I played, and I played good. He got time to find his game again, and then, when I didn&rsquo;t play good, he jumped in. It didn&rsquo;t feel like it was a bad mood between us, not getting the starts when we&rsquo;re sitting on the sidelines. It felt like we&rsquo;re helping each other to play our best when we got the chance to play.&rdquo;If things had been a little different, the pair could have made each other&rsquo;s acquaintance years earlier. Just weeks after Fleury hoisted the Stanley Cup in 2016, the Penguins drafted Gustavsson in the second round (55th overall). Before he was dealt to the Senators as part of a package that brought Derick Brassard to Pittsburgh at the 2017-18 trade deadline, Gustavsson went through two summer development camps at the Penguins&rsquo; training facility. Both years, the team had mostly dispersed after its Cup celebrations. &ldquo;The only two guys we saw, (Sidney) Crosby was still there doing some stuff, and (Evgeni) Malkin was there one day,&rdquo; Gustavsson said.The trade to Ottawa came less than two months after Gustavsson earned best-goalie honors at the 2018 World Junior Championship, backstopping Sweden to a silver medal. When his Swedish League obligations with Lulea were completed that spring, he joined the AHL&rsquo;s Belleville Senators for his first seven games in North America.A month later, he was back in Europe as Sweden&rsquo;s third goaltender at the World Championship in Denmark. Slotting in behind Anders Nilsson and Magnus Hellberg, he didn&rsquo;t get to play. But he did gain valuable experience from being part of a stacked team headlined by veterans such as Mika Zibanejad, Rickard Rakell, Adrian Kempe, Hampus Lindholm, Adam Larsson and Mattias Ekholm, with Nilsson holding down the fort in net. &ldquo;Just hanging around all those established NHL guys and seeing how professional they were and wanting to win was incredible,&rdquo; Gustavsson said.Played in Copenhagen, barely 15 miles from the Swedish border, the boisterous championship contest against Switzerland felt like a home game for the Swedes. When Nilsson stopped Nino Niederreiter in the fifth round of the shootout to clinch gold, the celebration was on.Asked to pinpoint what brought him success last season, Gustavsson pointed to the sense of comfort he and his wife Rebecka felt as soon as they arrived in the Twin Cities. After bouncing back and forth between Ottawa and AHL Belleville for two years, he was relieved to be pencilled immediately into Minnesota&rsquo;s opening-night lineup. Fellow Scandinavians Jonas Brodin, Joel Eriksson Ek and Mats Zuccarello helped him learn the ropes with advice in his native language. It&rsquo;s not exactly South Beach, but the Minnesota weather is a non-issue for someone hailing from Skelleftea, located nearly 500 miles north of Stockholm, not far below the Arctic Circle.During the summer, Gustavsson trains through nearly endless daylight with a crew that has now been together for five years. The group is comprised mainly of Skelleftea locals and includes Larsson and Rakell along with Viktor Arvidsson, Marcus Pettersson and Islanders defenseman Sebastian Aho.In November, Gustavsson will experience Sweden&rsquo;s shorter, darker late-autumn days when he and the Wild join the Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings for a four-game set as part of the NHL Global Series.For the players, it&rsquo;s a special opportunity to play in front of loved ones who might not be able to make it to North America to see NHL hockey. Gustavsson says most of his friends have tickets already. His grandparents and Rebecka&rsquo;s family will also be in attendance.When Fleury moves on from Minnesota, another Swede is coming to the blue paint. The Wild drafted Jesper Wallstedt in the first round (20th overall) in 2021. In his first season in North America last year, Wallstedt split duties with Zane McIntyre on the AHL&rsquo;s Iowa Wild, finishing with a 2.68 GAA and .908 SP. He was ranked eighth among all prospects in THN&rsquo;s Future Watch 2023.But Gustavsson isn&rsquo;t looking ahead, neither to the near nor distant future. He&rsquo;s focused on the now, settled at last with a multi-year contract and some financial security. Is there a risk he sets his expectations too high or tries to do too much this year? &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a lot more pressure, but I don&rsquo;t really try and look at that &ndash; that I&rsquo;m making more money,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It feels like that&rsquo;s for after my hockey career. It&rsquo;s still a team sport. Everyone has the same responsibility for the team to play good.&rdquo;Before the trade, Gustavsson had visited Minnesota just once, when he played the second of back-to-back games in November 2021. But it hasn&rsquo;t taken long for it to start to feel like home. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think I really understood how big the State of Hockey is and how much hockey meant to people here in this area,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The &lsquo;Minnesota Nice&rsquo; saying that the people are very welcoming and very easy to talk to? It&rsquo;s true. We&rsquo;ve really enjoyed coming here.&rdquo; &#9632;

Filip Gustavsson

MINNESOTA NICE

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="spencerknig_104" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/spencerknig_104/10063556-1-eng-US/spencerknig_1042.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PAUL RUTHERFORD-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>EVERY MONDAY night through the spring and summer, Spencer Knight would leave his parents&rsquo; home in the sleepy beach town of Darien, Conn., and jump on the I-90 East for the 173.2-mile drive to Boston. The three-hour trip would take him past Bridgeport, New Haven and Hartford, then through Springfield and Worcester before he&rsquo;d arrive at Gasson Hall on the campus of Boston College, where he&rsquo;d join 20 other students for a weekly lecture in a course called Business Planning for New Ventures. That allowed him to graduate on time with BC&rsquo;s Class of 2023, with a Bachelor of Arts in corporate systems tucked under his arm. &ldquo;It was really cool,&rdquo; Knight said. &ldquo;I wasn&rsquo;t sitting under a rock the whole time. I forced myself to not hide. I wanted to make progress.&rdquo;New ventures. As Knight embarks on his (sort of) third full season in the NHL as the No. 2 man on the Florida Panthers&rsquo; goaltending depth chart, he&rsquo;s on something of a new venture himself. It all started innocently enough during his freshman year at Boston College. For reasons he couldn&rsquo;t explain, he began repeatedly washing his hands. He&rsquo;d go to a campus party and make 20 visits to the bathroom to run his hands under the water. He would leave the house and drive back several times to ensure he locked the door. But it never seemed to bother him or get in the way of his life. Even though he was obsessive about washing his hands and avoiding germs, he made it through the hell that was the COVID-19 pandemic without incident. He even felt the compulsion to shower before the gold-medal game at the 2021 World Junior Championship, and then he went out and pitched a 34-save shutout to lead Team USA to glory. But over time, it developed into a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder so debilitating that it prompted him to enter the NHL/NHL Players&rsquo; Association player assistance program.We know what you&rsquo;re thinking, and so does Knight. The league and union come out with a joint announcement of a player entering the program, and the first thing you think is it&rsquo;s because of either drugs or alcohol. We should really stop doing that. Knight left the NHL for one reason only: his OCD was wearing him down to the point where he could no longer function, either as a human being or an NHL goaltender.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/spencerknig_105/10063549-1-eng-US/spencerknig_1052.jpg" title="spencerknig_105" width="1266" height="1454"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JASEN VINLOVE-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Despite entering the night of Dec. 6, 2022, with a 3-0-3 record in his six previous games and playing some of his best hockey as an NHLer, Knight knew something was off. The Panthers were in Winnipeg to take on the Jets. He didn&rsquo;t feel well, and he gave up three goals on 15 shots before being pulled in the second period. By the time he got off the charter that night, he had the chills and was running a fever. It turned out to be nothing more than a garden-variety flu, but it sent Knight&rsquo;s mind racing. He spent much of the next two months unable to sleep because he was so worried about catching a disease.By February, he could no longer endure it and removed himself from the team. Alcohol and drugs had nothing to do with it, but in the absence of facts, many observers drew lines from A to B. &ldquo;People are pretty quick to make assumptions,&rdquo; Knight said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve read comments online with people saying they saw me doing cocaine. I&rsquo;ve even had people come up to me and tell me they heard I was addicted to painkillers. I don&rsquo;t know where that came from, because that was never a part of it.&rdquo;We should be celebrating the fact Knight summoned the courage to seek help. In April 2021, Jonathan Drouin, then of the Montreal Canadiens, temporarily left the team to deal with debilitating insomnia stemming from years of anxiety. Both the NHL and the sport itself have made enormous strides in the area of mental health, to be sure, but it&rsquo;s still difficult for some people to get their heads around something as complex &ndash; and as foreign &ndash; as OCD or anxiety.It&rsquo;s hard to conceal when a player has a substance-use disorder. But mental-health issues are more nuanced, and this is still hockey, after all. But Panthers GM Bill Zito and the entire organization acted with understanding and compassion, with Knight&rsquo;s well-being the primary focus for all involved. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a great person,&rdquo; Zito said. &ldquo;A great human being. He needed some help, and we got it for him.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;YOU WIN THAT GAME, AND THE THING GOES AWAY, AND YOU REALIZE THAT ANOTHER PROBLEM POPS UP. THAT&rsquo;S JUST LIFE, RIGHT? &ndash; Spencer Knight</blockquote>Knight spent much of his time away from the game talking with others who live with OCD about their experiences and working 1-on-1 with an expert in the field. When you go through a journey the way Knight has, one thing you learn about dealing with mental-health issues is that it&rsquo;s paramount to continuously manage the disorder. In much the same way a meal you ate last week won&rsquo;t keep you full this week, it&rsquo;s not as though you can get a little therapy and declare yourself cured. It&rsquo;s constant work.But Knight now has the tools to better deal with things. Though he&rsquo;s not even certain himself how things will turn out, that&rsquo;s OK. &ldquo;What I&rsquo;ve come to realize is that regardless of what happens, problems don&rsquo;t really go away,&rdquo; Knight said. &ldquo;They just evolve. Before, I would always think that if I could just win this game or get to this point or have this thing go away, my life would be good. But you win that game, and the thing goes away, and you realize that another problem pops up. That&rsquo;s just life, right?&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/spencerknig_106/10063542-1-eng-US/spencerknig_1062.jpg" title="spencerknig_106" width="1800" height="1184"><figcaption class="caption-body">SOMETHING FEELS OFFThings changed for Knight after a December game in Winnipeg when he came down with the flu. (TERRENCE LEE-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>But what do you do when you know something is wrong, but you&rsquo;re still functioning at a level that puts you in the top one percent in the entire world at what you do? Even when Knight couldn&rsquo;t sleep or when he felt terrible beyond belief, his worries would melt away when he stepped on the ice. He surprised even himself with how well he could play in the crease after a night of tossing and turning.When you&rsquo;re winning hockey games and excelling in the NHL, and when you&rsquo;ve signed a contract extension that will pay you $4.5 million each of the next three years, it&rsquo;s difficult to realize that you have to change things. But after the illness in December, Knight&rsquo;s OCD manifested in ways that affected different areas of his life. And that showed in his play. After that Winnipeg game, Knight won only once in five starts and posted a save percentage of just .853 in those games. Before shutting things down for good, he also stopped 12 of 14 shots in a relief appearance against Nashville on Feb. 18.By the time Knight left the team, the Panthers were fighting for their playoff lives in a race where they ultimately earned the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference, then went on a run to the Stanley Cup final. Knight joked to people he&rsquo;d talk to that the Panthers were on such a tear &ldquo;because they got rid of a lot of the dead weight.&rdquo; But the reality was he needed to take care of himself. And if that meant he was missing one of the most stirring and inspirational runs to the Cup final in years, that was just how it was going to have to be. It pained him not to play. It pains every hockey player not to play the sport they love. &ldquo;One of the feelings you get when something like this happens is that you just let everyone down,&rdquo; Knight said. &ldquo;I never wanted to feel like a burden.&rdquo;But the rewards of taking the time off were boundless. And it&rsquo;s important to remember that this is a young man who came to this realization less than two months before his 22nd birthday. Some people suffer in silence with these things for years. &ldquo;I now know how quickly things can change, for both the better and the worse,&rdquo; Knight said. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;m not fighting it anymore. It&rsquo;s cool. The best thing about this is that now, I have a good system and approach that will let me live life at a highly, highly functional level. I don&rsquo;t know what this season is going to bring. You can look at the past few months of my life as adversity, but when I look into the future, this is something that I think will benefit me tremendously as a player and a person.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/spencerknig_107/10063535-1-eng-US/spencerknig_1072.jpg" title="spencerknig_107" width="2022" height="1746"><figcaption class="caption-body">(BOB FRID-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>And when Knight peers into that future, he sees the Panthers signed veteran journeyman Anthony Stolarz to a one-way contract worth $1.1 million as an insurance policy. Sergei Bobrovsky, who experienced an enormous renaissance in the playoffs and was an essential part of the Panthers getting to the final, is the undisputed No. 1 in town. He has three years left on a deal that counts $10 million against the cap each year. Knight&rsquo;s three-year extension, which he signed Sept. 27, 2022, kicks in this season, so he will have plenty of time to find his game.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;I THINK I&rsquo;M BETTER EQUIPPED TO HANDLE THE ADVERSE EVENTS AND KIND OF EMBRACE THE GRIND AND THE &lsquo;SUCK.&rsquo; MY MENTALITY NOW IS, &lsquo;BRING IT ON&rsquo; &ndash; Spencer Knight</blockquote>That might take a while, and it might not. Not even Knight himself can predict what is going to happen. But regardless of how it unfolds, he feels much better prepared to deal with it because of what he has learned in the past few months. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m better equipped to handle the adverse events and kind of embrace the grind and the &lsquo;suck,&rsquo; &rdquo; he said. &ldquo;My mentality now is, &lsquo;Bring it on.&rsquo; &rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/spencerknig_109/10063528-1-eng-US/spencerknig_1092.jpg" title="spencerknig_109" width="1268" height="936"><figcaption class="caption-body">(JASEN VINLOVE-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>The talent has always been there with Knight. In his sophomore year at Boston College, which would be his final NCAA campaign, Knight earned goalie- and player-of-the-year honors in Hockey East and was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as the best player in all of U.S. college hockey. Former Eagles coach Jerry York &ndash; who has won more games than any other coach in NCAA hockey history and is a Hockey Hall of Famer as a builder &ndash; once compared Knight to Ken Dryden, against whom York played when he was in college.In 2021, Knight was the No. 6 prospect overall and the top-rated goalie in THN&rsquo;s Future Watch edition. And he&rsquo;s just 22, which is downright embryonic when it comes to goaltenders. Most don&rsquo;t find their stride until they&rsquo;re at least 25, and many have to play a couple hundred games in the minors before becoming NHL-ready. Knight already has 57 NHL games (and 49 starts) under his belt, and you&rsquo;d have to think if he can enter the crease unencumbered by the thoughts that have kept him up at night, it will bring out the best in him as a player.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/spencerknig_108/10063521-1-eng-US/spencerknig_1082.jpg" title="spencerknig_108" width="1445" height="1351"><figcaption class="caption-body">BEST DAYS AHEADKnight believes he can still become the NHL&rsquo;s best between the pipes. That&rsquo;s never changed. (BOB FRID-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>And that is indeed the plan for both Knight and the Panthers. Knight would not be surprised if it takes him a little while to find his game this season. &ldquo;Maybe I don&rsquo;t feel great off the start,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But maybe I do. Maybe I come in and feel great right from the start. Who knows?&rdquo;Despite not being at the rink, Knight never missed an off-ice workout while he was out of the lineup. And it&rsquo;s not as though he&rsquo;s the first player to be shut down in February. Oftentimes, players who get physical injuries miss that much time &ndash; or even more.Knight doesn&rsquo;t see this as being any different. Injuries have to be managed, and so do things like obsessive-compulsive disorder. Knight is confident that, armed with perspective and the tools to deal with his condition, there is no reason he can&rsquo;t be the goalie the Panthers envisioned when they drafted him 13th overall in 2019. &ldquo;I can still be the player I want to be, and I still believe I can be one of the best goalies in this league,&rdquo; Knight said. &ldquo;Maybe it&rsquo;s this year. Maybe it&rsquo;s next year. Maybe it&rsquo;s in three years or four years or five years. I don&rsquo;t know. I know what I&rsquo;m capable of accomplishing. It was there before, and it has been there the whole time.&rdquo; &#9632;

Spencer Knight

BRING IT ON

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="alexandarge_002" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/alexandarge_002/10063615-1-eng-US/alexandarge_0022.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>AGENT GERRY Johansson likes to joke that he represents 100 percent of the Bulgarian players in the NHL, and technically, he&rsquo;s not wrong. He reps the one and only: Colorado Avalanche netminder Alexandar Georgiev.And while Georgiev didn&rsquo;t start playing hockey until he was living in Moscow (his dad is Bulgarian and his mom is Russian) at five, there&rsquo;s another country that plays a big part in the ascent of the goaltender &ndash; Finland.Georgiev started going to a summer hockey camp in Turku when he was 10, returning for a week every year until, eventually, he made it his off-season home &ndash; even getting a place there. Turku is the home of TPS, the legendary Finnish hockey club where Georgiev also played some of his most important developmental hockey. &ldquo;When I was 18, I started playing for TPS and saw their off-season program,&rdquo; said Georgiev, now 27. &ldquo;When I signed in the NHL, I decided to continue working out there. I knew the coaches, they had good shooters, and I had friends there. I&rsquo;ve been doing that since I was 18, and I decided just not to change anything. It works.&rdquo;The proof is in the mammi (that&rsquo;s a Finnish pudding, of course). Georgiev went from an undrafted free agent in Finland to an NHL backup in New York, and now he&rsquo;s coming off his best season yet as the starter in Colorado. &ldquo;He proved himself to be a really good goalie last year,&rdquo; said Avs defenseman Bowen Byram. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s very athletic and makes a lot of saves you don&rsquo;t think he&rsquo;s going to make. He was a great pickup for us, and hopefully he can keep growing his game this season.&rdquo;Coincidentally, the Avalanche have a Finnish goalie coach in Jussi Parkkila, who has been with the team for six seasons already. Even more coincidentally (and some might say completely tangential), Georgiev&rsquo;s birthplace of Ruse, Bulgaria, may even have a Finnish influence. There is a debate among scholars as to where the city, which borders Romania on the Danube river, got its name. Several theories center around the name coming from the Finnish root word ruskea, including one involving a female founder of the city named Rusa. Since the city&rsquo;s origins date back to neolithic times, it may be hard to land on a definitive answer, so let&rsquo;s just get back to the hockey for now, shall we?<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/alexandarge_003/10063608-1-eng-US/alexandarge_0032.jpg" title="alexandarge_003" width="2058" height="1392"><figcaption class="caption-body">ELITE COMPANYGeorgiev set a career best with 40 wins last year, which tied for tops in the NHL with Boston&rsquo;s Ullmark. (BOB FRID-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>For years now, Finland has been a hotbed for goaltending talent. Whether it&rsquo;s homegrown stars, such as Pekka Rinne, Niklas Backstrom or Tuukka Rask, or foreign talents, such as Georgiev or Tim Thomas, developing their gifts in the sauna-mad nation, Finland has been a goalie gold mine for the NHL.In Turku, TPS has found a lot of success over the years. The team has won 10 titles, putting them second only to Tappara. And in terms of legacy, TPS boasts one of the greatest Finnish netminders ever in former Calgary Flames legend Miikka Kiprusoff.Georgiev split his first season in Finland between TPS&rsquo;s junior team and Liiga squad, getting into 14 games with the men&rsquo;s edition and putting up an impressive .917 save percentage in those appearances &ndash; and doing so as a teenager in that 2014-15 campaign. &ldquo;It was a dream come true playing professional hockey,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The team started in 1922, so you feel that history. And it&rsquo;s a really good league with great coaches. I had teammates that played in the NHL and won the Stanley Cup. It was a big step forward for me and a really good time.&rdquo;One of those teammates was Mikko Rantanen, now reunited with Georgiev in Colorado. But it&rsquo;s another Finn in Parkkila who works the closest with Georgiev in Denver. Like Georgiev, Parkkila took his talents through a couple different countries on his hockey journey, coaching in his native Finland with Ilves and Tappara but also with teams in the KHL and Austria. He even had a brief sojourn in Canada with the WHL&rsquo;s Lethbridge Hurricanes. With Ilves, he coached a young Rask, and now Parkkila is a Stanley Cup winner with Colorado, lending his talents to Georgiev. &ldquo;As a goalie coach, he&rsquo;s really good,&rdquo; Georgiev said. &ldquo;We work hard every day, come out a half-hour early on the ice. He&rsquo;s very detailed about the little things. You could make a save, but he might feel you could have done it better, and he&rsquo;ll tell you that. He pushes you forward, and that&rsquo;s what you want, high expectations.&rdquo;But Georgiev&rsquo;s entry to the NHL came before Colorado, of course. Though he always had decent numbers with TPS, the 6-foot-1 stopper went undrafted. It wasn&rsquo;t until he got a chance to show off his stuff at the Rangers&rsquo; development camp in 2017 that his NHL story began to be told. New York signed him on the strength of his performance, and by the next season, he had made his NHL debut, getting into 10 NHL games while playing the rest of the 2017-18 campaign in the AHL with the Hartford Wolf Pack.Georgiev flipped things around the next season, playing 33 games with the Rangers and 11 with Hartford, before becoming a full-time NHLer in 2019-20. In fact, that season, he ended up playing more games than the other two netminders on the roster, a couple of guys named Henrik Lundqvist and Igor Shesterkin.Lundqvist, of course, had been the starter for Georgiev&rsquo;s first two seasons in New York, and the impact the Rangers legend had on his backup was immeasurable. &ldquo;It was really cool,&rdquo; Georgiev said. &ldquo;I like to think I didn&rsquo;t come in as a little fan, but obviously, I watched him a lot when I was growing up. It was really cool having him as a partner, but at the same time, you try to compete and learn from him, what he does in practice, what he does in games, and how he approaches things. I picked up a lot from him, and he&rsquo;s been really nice to me. We have a great relationship, and it was fun to learn from him.&rdquo;While Lundqvist&rsquo;s Hall of Fame career was winding down, however, Shesterkin&rsquo;s star was rising. It wasn&rsquo;t long before Shesterkin became a Vezina Trophy winner and yearly contender for the award. It was obvious Georgiev wasn&rsquo;t going to get a lot of reps, plus he needed a new contract, and the Rangers didn&rsquo;t have a lot of cap room. So, in the summer of 2022, Georgiev was traded to the Avalanche for third- and fifth-round picks in 2022 and a 2023 third-rounder. &ldquo;It was just the perfect opportunity,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I had been waiting for a new chance for a while and knew I would have a new team in the off-season. When I got the call from Joe Sakic and the management, I was super-excited. It couldn&rsquo;t have been a better opportunity, a team that was competing for the Stanley Cup and a goalie coach in Jussi who was excited to work with me and what he could bring to my game.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;WE HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR EACH OTHER, AND OUR GROUP PUSHES EACH OTHER EVERY DAY &ndash; Alexandar Georgiev</blockquote>The Avalanche were indeed the reigning Cup champions that summer, so the bar was incredibly high, but it&rsquo;s also worth noting that Colorado won the title with a devastating offensive attack fortified by some bend-don&rsquo;t-break goaltending from the since-departed Darcy Kuemper and, when he got hurt, Pavel Francouz. Georgiev came into town hoping to make a positive contribution. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a bit of a quieter guy, but he fit in well,&rdquo; Byram said. &ldquo;He goes about his business and doesn&rsquo;t have any distractions. He comes to the rink and does his job, and we all respect that.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/alexandarge_004/10063601-1-eng-US/alexandarge_0042.jpg" title="alexandarge_004" width="1069" height="1099"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>In his first season with the Avs, Georgiev established career highs in basically every important category. He rocked a .919 SP, posted five shutouts and obliterated his previous best in wins by tying Boston&rsquo;s Linus Ullmark atop the NHL leaderboard with 40.Georgiev&rsquo;s 62 appearances were also nearly double his total in any previous season. Ultimately, however, Colorado was upset in the first round of the playoffs by the Seattle Kraken. The seven-game series featured a rare Cale Makar suspension and the continued absence of captain Gabriel Landeskog, but it&rsquo;s clear the Avs are looking forward, not backward, right now. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m feeling really excited,&rdquo; Georgiev said. &ldquo;It was a little too long of an off-season for us, and we&rsquo;ve got so many key players back, plus a couple new guys who should fit in well with what we needed.&ldquo;We got better. We have high expectations for each other, and our group pushes each other every day. We&rsquo;re going to compete to win every night and hopefully be in a good position by the end of the regular season. Then, the main thing for us begins.&rdquo;Georgiev is in the process of laying down some Denver roots. He bought a house in the city and was doing some renovations as training camp began (&ldquo;I&rsquo;m a little bit handy, but nothing too crazy.&rdquo;). It&rsquo;s his first property in the U.S. after renting for years, and he&rsquo;s looking forward to having a home he can call his own. After the journey he&rsquo;s taken to get here, he has certainly earned it. &#9632;

Alexandar Georgiev

ROCKIES ROAD

<div class="byline">BY KEN CAMPBELL</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="adinhill_op_075" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/adinhill_op_075/10063761-1-eng-US/adinhill_op_0752.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(PHOTOS BY USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>OF THE 232 players who were selected in the 2011 WHL bantam draft &ndash; yes, the under-15 division was once named for a small, aggressive male chicken &ndash; 21 of them were goalies. Thirteen of them are out of hockey completely, five played in the ECHL or lower professional leagues last season, and two of them mucked around in senior hockey. One is a dentist, another a coach at a Canadian university, one is a mechanic and another a car salesman who coaches minor hockey. One of them played for something called the Macon Mayhem. Two others finished their careers with the Quesnel Kangaroos. Not one of them played a single game in the NHL.And of those 21 goalies, seven of them played in the Alberta Major Bantam League. None of them was named Adin Hill, who, at the time, was all of 5-foot-5 and a buck-40 soaking wet and stopping pucks for the Calgary Bisons. Funny how things change, because 12 years later, while those guys were doing root canals and selling cars and grinding it out in hockey&rsquo;s backwaters, Hill was lifting the Stanley Cup over his 6-foot-4, 215-pound body. And thanks to the two-year, $9.8-million contract extension he signed with the Vegas Golden Knights in the off-season, he&rsquo;s probably taking home more money than all of them combined. Although the dentist guy is probably doing pretty well.Of the past four goalies who have guided their teams to Stanley Cups, three of them are Hill, Darcy Kuemper and Jordan Binnington. So the late-blooming underdog finding success might not be as rare as you think. But it still makes for a great yarn. And Adin Hill is no exception. How can you not cheer for a guy who was a walk-on with his junior team, then struggled with bad teams and bad luck with injuries for the better part of seven years before coming off the bench to lead his team to the promised land?Granted, it&rsquo;s not winning the fan vote for the best mask in the AHL in 2016 &ndash; which is something Hill actually did &ndash; but it&rsquo;s a pretty big deal. In fact, if Hill were a little more active on the social media, after he won the Stanley Cup he might have posted a tweet such as this, like all the kids are doing these days.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/adinhill2/10063747-1-eng-US/adinhill22.jpg" title="adinhill2" width="1270" height="1021"></div>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty cool to have all those parties and celebrate with my team and my friends and family and have my Cup day,&rdquo; Hill said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all pretty surreal still. The coolest moment to me was when I first got to hold the Stanley Cup and lift it over my head. It doesn&rsquo;t feel real in a way. The best way to put it is you&rsquo;re living in a dream, right?&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/adinhill12/10063754-1-eng-US/adinhill122.jpg" title="adinhill12" width="1387" height="1247"><figcaption class="caption-body">THE SAVEHill announced his championship intentions with a stunning stop in Game 1 of the Cup final. (LUCAS PELTIER-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Sure seems that way. Particularly when you take the scenic route. Guys like Connor McDavid and Connor Bedard, they have pretty linear paths to the NHL. Guys such as Adin Hill &ndash; and this seems to be the case with goalies more than skaters &ndash; not so much. A lot of it has to do with circumstances, and for the first seven years of Hill&rsquo;s pro career, the circumstances weren&rsquo;t ideal. He was drafted in the third round of the 2015 draft by the Arizona Coyotes, an organization that bled goalies and seemed to be intent on giving everyone but Hill a chance (Hunter Miska, we hardly knew ye). And Hill&rsquo;s penchant for getting injured at the most inopportune times &ndash; which, truth be told, actually happened last season &ndash; did not help his cause in finding full-time NHL employment. That is why Hill&rsquo;s 25 starts and 27 appearances last season represented career highs for him. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve kind of always maintained a belief in myself,&rdquo; Hill said. &ldquo;But there were times when I was with the Coyotes going up and down between the minors, and they&rsquo;d bring in another goalie. They brought in (Scott) Wedgewood, they brought in (Eric) Comrie, and I was kind of like, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m right here.&rsquo; I felt like I was doing great in the AHL, and I&rsquo;d get sent down and they&rsquo;d bring in another goalie, and you&rsquo;re like, &lsquo;Am I ever going to get my chance?&rsquo; &rdquo;Such is the life of the beleaguered wannabe NHL goaltender. But all of that changed in August of 2022, when Hill was traded to Vegas from San Jose for a 2024 fourth-round draft pick. The Golden Knights&rsquo; new director of goaltending, Sean Burke, was bullish on Hill and pushed for management to make the deal to get him, even though things could have been a little, well, awkward. &ldquo;I saw Adin play a lot in junior,&rdquo; Burke said, &ldquo;because he took my son&rsquo;s job.&rdquo;It turned out Hill did catch on with a WHL team, the Portland Winterhawks, who offered him a spot after seeing him at a couple of summer camps. Eventually, Hill supplanted Burke&rsquo;s son, Brendan, who was dealt away to the Calgary Hitmen after Hill took over the crease from the veteran. &ldquo;Brendan was a very good junior goalie himself,&rdquo; Sean Burke said, &ldquo;but even as a dad, I had to recognize that the guy he was playing with was pretty darn good, too.&rdquo; (It worked out pretty well for everybody, though. The elder Burke tweaked some of Hill&rsquo;s fundamentals and helped him with his patience and confidence, and it resulted in them winning a Stanley Cup together. Brendan, meanwhile, got a degree and won a national championship at the University of Alberta and is now the goaltending coach for the same Winterhawks franchise that traded him away as a junior. (He&rsquo;s also the director of goaltending for the Arizona Jr. Coyotes.)<blockquote class="pullQuote">IT DOESN&rsquo;T FEEL REAL IN AWAY. THE BEST WAY TO PUT IT IS YOU&rsquo;RE LIVING IN A DREAM &ndash; Adin Hill</blockquote>So Hill arrived in Vegas last summer as a goalie who was in the mix for a team that had missed the playoffs the season before but had made a habit of putting together long playoff runs prior to that. For the first time in his career, Hill was joining a team that had legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations, and he noticed the difference in attitude immediately. &ldquo;This team&rsquo;s goal was to win the Stanley Cup, and if we didn&rsquo;t make the playoffs, it would have been viewed as a failure,&rdquo; Hill said. &ldquo;I had never played on a team where not making the playoffs was viewed as a failure.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/adinhill6/10063740-1-eng-US/adinhill62.jpg" title="adinhill6" width="1268" height="977"><figcaption class="caption-body">(SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>But things in the Vegas crease have been a little, let&rsquo;s say, unsettled over the past couple of seasons. In fact, you probably would have had better luck dropping the nest egg on a game of craps at The Bellagio than wagering on who would be the Golden Knights&rsquo; goaltending tandem. Vegas already had Logan Thompson and Laurent Brossoit under contract heading into the 2022 off-season. But Thompson and Hill won out, and for the first 53 games of the season, everything looked like it was going to work out just fine. Hill had primarily been backing up his childhood friend Thompson, who was in the midst of putting together a Cinderella story that would have made Carl Spackler proud. He was the NHL rookie of the month for November and played in the All-Star Game. But then he was injured in what would ultimately be a 5-1 win over the Minnesota Wild in early February.The Golden Knights called up Brossoit, and Hill took over the crease. But he suffered a minor injury, which led to the guy every NHL team in history has turned to when it has been desperate &ndash; Michael Hutchinson &ndash; backing up Brossoit. Then things got a little goofy when Hutchinson was dealt to the Columbus Blue Jackets for two-time Stanley Cup winner Jonathan Quick, who had been flipped to Columbus from the Los Angeles Kings. Hill came back after a couple of games and was putting together a nice little run before being injured again in Game No. 64. Quick took over from there, with Thompson playing one more time before shutting it down for the season. That left the Golden Knights with a Brossoit-Quick tandem going into the playoffs. That lasted all of one game, with a now-healthy Hill coming in as the backup for Game 2 of the first-round series. Then, in Game 3 of the second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers, Brossoit went down, which made Hill the No. 1 and Quick the backup. And you pretty much know the rest of the story.Vegas is starting this season with a solid and healthy tandem of Hill and Thompson, who have a combined 158 NHL regular-season appearances to their credit. Even Hill&rsquo;s body of work in the playoffs &ndash; 16 games &ndash; was a small sample and represented the first time in his NHL career that he had played in the post-season. So now you have Hill and Thompson under contract for the next two years, with Robin Lehner on long-term injured reserve. So, everything has been sorted out, right? (Insert record scratch here on account of we plan and God laughs.) &ldquo;I&rsquo;m always going to be hesitant because of what I saw last year,&rdquo; Burke said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re just going to put our heads down and work again.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/adinhill9/10063733-1-eng-US/adinhill92.jpg" title="adinhill9" width="594" height="1059"><figcaption class="caption-body">(LUCAS PELTIER-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>But do you ever get the impression that much of the NHL is just guessing on goalies these days? For that matter, so is Canada&rsquo;s national program. Good luck naming a starting goalie for Canada for the 2026 Olympics if the stars align and NHL players return to the Winter Games. So a whole bunch of guys have two years to sort it all out, and the ones who put together the best body of work in that time will get a shot. Hill is ready, just as he is prepared to prove wrong those who have sold him short. &ldquo;I hear things like, &lsquo;Oh, he got lucky for a month or two and had a good run,&rsquo; &rdquo; Hill said. &ldquo;To me, it&rsquo;s not disrespect, but I didn&rsquo;t get lucky. So there&rsquo;s a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. &lsquo;OK, let&rsquo;s do it again.&rsquo; What are you going to say if I do it again, and we have a great season and win another Cup?&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/adinhill7/10063726-1-eng-US/adinhill72.jpg" title="adinhill7" width="2774" height="1851"><figcaption class="caption-body">NET GAINEDHill took over the crease midway through the second round of the playoffs and never looked back. (PERRY NELSON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Everyone remembers the save from Game 1 of the final. But let&rsquo;s recap just in case. With the score tied 1-1 and the Florida Panthers outshooting the Golden Knights 9-7 early in the second period, Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour lays a saucer pass to Matthew Tkachuk at the right circle. Anticipating a shot, Hill pivots, only to have Tkachuk go back-door to Nick Cousins for an easy tap-in. But Hill dives back and somehow gets the paddle out to make the stop. The Golden Knights score later in the period and win the game 5-2, but what if Cousins scores there? The Panthers were already turning the whole playoff bracket goofy, and you give a team like that a shot of momentum at your own peril. Even though Burke thought Hill was fighting the puck to that point and the save only looked spectacular because Hill was out of position in the first place, he acknowledged it was worthy of a stick tap.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY IF I DO IT AGAIN, AND WE HAVE A GREAT SEASON AND WIN ANOTHER CUP? &ndash; Adin Hill</blockquote>You might think that was where Hill put his stamp on the 2023 NHL playoffs and solidified his credentials as the third-highest vote-getter for the Conn Smythe Trophy. In reality, Hill believes it was actually in Game 6 of the second-round series against the Oilers, when he gave up goals on the first two shots of the game, including a 29-foot snapshot off McDavid&rsquo;s stick that he&rsquo;ll probably want back for the rest of his career. That put the Golden Knights down 2-1 in the game, but Hill got back on the rails and stopped the next 38 shots to help Vegas win the contest, one in which they were outshot 40-22, and move on to the Western Conference final. &ldquo; &lsquo;Just make the next save and give us a chance to win,&rsquo; &rdquo; Hill thought to himself. &ldquo;That game gave me so much confidence.&rdquo;In early August, Team Black took out Team Red 7-2 in the final of the ball-hockey tournament that Hill held in Calgary during his day with the Stanley Cup. Hill played center (because all goalies think they&rsquo;re great players out) and approached the proceedings as though he was really playing for the Stanley Cup, which he kind of was because that was the prize for winning the tournament. His team did not do itself any favors by losing the first two games of the tournament in shootouts before sneaking in the back door with a victory in Game 3 of the round-robin portion. Hill reckons he scored about 10 goals in the four games, but those in attendance would attest to his all-round game being a definitive key to victory.&ldquo;First couple of shifts I was center, and I look up and we have nobody back on &lsquo;D,&rsquo; &rdquo; Hill said. &ldquo;We had five forwards deep in the zone, and I was like, &lsquo;Oh boy,&rsquo; and I started sprinting, and that bagged me after the first game because I was playing forward and &lsquo;D.&rsquo; I was like, &lsquo;OK, I&rsquo;ve got to stop this.&rsquo; &rdquo;Aside from winning the tournament, it was a wonderful day for Hill and his family. Hill grew up and played spring hockey with Brayden Point, whose father, Grant, coached the team. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m pretty sure Grant Point was the Lou Lamoriello of nine-year-old hockey in Calgary back in the day,&rdquo; said agent Gerry Johannson, who represents both players. Even though he was not in town for Point&rsquo;s Stanley Cup party in 2021, nor was Point available for his, the parents of both players celebrated at both parties.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/adinhill8/10063719-1-eng-US/adinhill82.jpg" title="adinhill8" width="1938" height="1558"><figcaption class="caption-body">ENCORE OPPORTUNITYHill knows there&rsquo;s one sure way to show the hockey world he&rsquo;s no flash in the pan: win another Cup. (ERIC BOLTE-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Regardless of where Hill&rsquo;s hockey career takes him, Calgary will always be home. He&rsquo;s having a house built in nearby Okotoks, close to his parents, his mother, Sarah-Lena, and his father, Kyle Peck. Even though Peck is not Hill&rsquo;s biological father, he has been Hill&rsquo;s father and mentor in every meaningful way and is the biological father of Hill&rsquo;s younger half-brother and half-sister. Hill doesn&rsquo;t look at Peck as his stepfather in any way, because Peck is the only father he has ever known. Peck and Sarah-Lena started dating when Hill was four years old. &ldquo;My mom was 17 when she had me,&rdquo; Hill said. &ldquo;My due date was actually her 17th birthday, and I was a few days late. I don&rsquo;t know what happened when I was young. When I became a teenager and started to play in Portland, (my biological father) started wanting to be part of my life, but I already had my family, and that was what was important to me.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;YOU TRY NOT TO LOOK TOO FAR INTO THE FUTURE, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO GOALTENDING &ndash; Adin Hill</blockquote>Hill turned 27 in May, about a month before the Golden Knights captured the Stanley Cup. For the first time in his career, he&rsquo;s about as settled and ensconced as almost any 20-something goalie can expect to be these days. It seems like things are just getting started. &ldquo;Logan and I are both under contract, and I think we can both stay healthy, play well and just kind of ride with it,&rdquo; Hill said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the goal, and after those two years, we&rsquo;ll see what happens after that. You try not to look too far into the future, especially when it comes to goaltending.&rdquo; &#9632;

Adin Hill

TOP OF THE HILL

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="adinhill10" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/adinhill10/10063806-1-eng-US/adinhill102.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(MARC DESROSIERS-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>YOU&rsquo;D BE hard-pressed to come up with another NHLer who has gone through as many dramatic highs and lows as Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Logan Thompson. But the highs have been pretty incredible, especially when you consider the unconventional route Thompson took to get where he is today &ndash; that is, a Stanley Cup champion who played more regular-season games last season than any other Knights netminder and flirted with the Calder Trophy at one point.Unfortunately, that award was put out of reach when a lower-body injury felled Thompson in early February &ndash; it also paved the way for Adin Hill to eventually be the goalie to lead Vegas to the championship &ndash; but it was quite the rookie season for Thompson nonetheless. He even got to play in the NHL All-Star Game in Florida. It was there in Sunrise, Fla., where the then-25-year-old could really sit back and appreciate his journey to date. &ldquo;Being around all these NHL greats and legends has been exciting for me,&rdquo; Thompson said. &ldquo;Just being able to talk to these guys and be on the ice with them, it definitely does give you a sense of confidence and a belief in yourself that you do belong here. You use it for motivation to push yourself.&rdquo;Thompson&rsquo;s origin story was one of the most compelling of the 2022-23 NHL campaign. Undrafted and unsigned after a junior career with the WHL&rsquo;s Brandon Wheat Kings, Thompson headed to Brock University in Southern Ontario, assuming his pro-hockey aspirations were done for as a player. Perhaps a degree in sports management at the school would at least keep him in the same universe? He still played, though, and after a standout season with the Brock Badgers in USports that saw him earn regional goalie-of-the-year and rookie-of-the-year honors, he caught on with the ECHL&rsquo;s Adirondack Thunder. That led to a stellar 2019-20 with the ECHL&rsquo;s South Carolina Stingrays, followed by two excellent seasons in Henderson with Vegas&rsquo; AHL affiliate, the Silver Knights. He played 19 games in the NHL for Vegas in 2021-22 and put up a solid .914 save percentage, setting the stage for last year&rsquo;s crucial role on the Golden Knights when starter Robin Lehner was ruled out for the season before it even began due to a hip surgery. &ldquo;He came into camp and the competition would be him and Adin Hill (for backup),&rdquo; said coach Bruce Cassidy. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t know Lehner would be out until the end of August, so then you say, &lsquo;OK, here it is, can he handle it?&rsquo; Hill had been in the league a bit, and we had Laurent Brossoit, who was a backup before, but he just had surgery, so it was an open-ended competition for who was the best goalie through training camp.&rdquo;Thompson won eight of his first 10 starts last season, so he was in a great place. But keeping a still-green NHLer in that headspace was important. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve got be careful with young guys; they get highs and lows, especially at that position,&rdquo; Cassidy said. &ldquo;But it is a position of leadership, and that&rsquo;s what goes with it. I can&rsquo;t say enough of the person. Great kid, works hard, and he has deserved everything he&rsquo;s got.&rdquo;Even being at the All-Star Game &ndash; a pretty good affirmation that you&rsquo;ve done something right in the NHL &ndash; Thompson wasn&rsquo;t about to claim that his plan all along was to go from Canadian university hockey to the NHL. &ldquo;Uh, no,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve said this before, I kind of gave up on the NHL dream, and that&rsquo;s the point of Canadian university: you get a degree and the dream is kind of slowly dying. At the time, it was never really on the radar. I was just playing hockey, having fun being a kid, and I decided to take a chance on an ECHL contract. That&rsquo;s when I said, &lsquo;OK, I can play in this league.&rsquo; And I took that same mindset to the AHL, &lsquo;I belong here, I can play here.&rsquo; Then I had that hunger for more.&rdquo;That hunger proved to be beneficial for both Thompson and the Knights, who now find themselves as defending champs and strong on options in net. Hill and Thompson both proved their worth en route to the Cup &ndash; and for a franchise that seems to have terrible injury luck in the crease, that&rsquo;s important.It&rsquo;s also important for Thompson&rsquo;s teammates, who appreciate his path to the big-time. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s like what you expect in a young guy, always a smile on his face, every day going through it like, &lsquo;Wow, is this my everyday life?&rsquo; &rdquo; said center Chandler Stephenson. &ldquo;Watching him and what he means for our team is really special. Just a little kid, always happy, always excited to be at the rink.&rdquo; &#9632;

adinhill10

BACK TO SCHOOL

<div class="byline">BY TAYLOR PRESTIDGE</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="goalieevolu_101" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/goalieevolu_101/10063886-1-eng-US/goalieevolu_1012.jpg"></div>IF YOU DIDN&rsquo;T know better, you&rsquo;d think Jonathan Quick believed the goaltending position &ndash; whether that be at the professional level or any other &ndash; has never been in a better spot. &ldquo;When I came into the league, it was during a transition of how goalies were playing the game,&rdquo; Quick said. &ldquo;Guys like Roberto Luongo played significantly different than someone like Martin Brodeur. But one thing they both had in common was an elite ability to read the play. And once the puck came off the stick, they would do what came natural to them.&rdquo;Quick himself is considered one of the pioneers of the modern style that&rsquo;s now common to most NHL stoppers. But the newest member of the New York Rangers&rsquo; crease believes it&rsquo;s time for goalies to rethink their approach &ndash; especially when it comes to the amount of time they&rsquo;re spending on the ice.And perhaps it shouldn&rsquo;t be surprising that a mold-breaking goalie like Quick feels a one-size-fits-all approach just isn&rsquo;t the right way to do things. He believes goaltenders &ndash; particularly young ones &ndash; should diversify their training. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think (playing hockey year-round) is healthy for their bodies, especially while they&rsquo;re still growing,&rdquo; Quick said. &ldquo;Skating alone is not a natural motion for your body. I&rsquo;m a big believer of playing other sports and hanging up the skates for a couple months. It&rsquo;ll help your body to move more naturally, and help with the longevity of your knee, hip and ankle health.&rdquo;That&rsquo;s a sentiment echoed by Bill Ranford, who was the L.A. Kings&rsquo; goalie coach throughout Quick&rsquo;s entire tenure with the club. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always been of the belief that hockey being a 12-month sport is probably a mistake,&rdquo; Ranford said. &ldquo;If you see the evolution of the Russian goalkeeper, these goalies are playing other sports in the summer and getting heavily involved in gymnastics. They get looked upon as athletes first and goaltenders second. And that was my upbringing, too. As soon the hockey season ended, the skates went away and out came the baseball glove, soccer ball, tennis racquets &ndash; sports that forced you to be an athlete &ndash; and I think we&rsquo;ve gotten away from that.&rdquo;Considering Ranford backstopped the Edmonton Oilers to the 1990 Stanley Cup &ndash; and won the Conn Smythe Trophy in the process &ndash; perhaps the all-sports approach has some merit (though it&rsquo;d probably be a pickleball racquet rather than a tennis racquet these days).For fans of the sport, it&rsquo;s hard not to be amazed by modern NHL goalies. The sheer size (at least of those not named Juuse Saros), coupled with the incredible athleticism, is a sight to behold. These behemoths come from all over the world to tend the blue paint, and they navigate their domain from their knees, pushing themselves along with the edges of their razor-thin skateblades. And they do so while implementing standardized techniques into their game &ndash; such as the RVH (reverse vertical horizontal), the overlap or the butterfly slide &ndash; with machine-like precision. But much like the plastic cowling formerly seen on the interior of goalie skates, it seems the days of goalies who measure under six-foot and stand up to make saves are a thing of the past.Should they be?Last season, there was an average of 6.36 goals scored per game across 1,312 regular-season NHL contests. It was the second consecutive season that figure was above 6.00, and the 2022-23 total was the highest average per-game goal total since the league averaged 6.48 goals across 1,092 contests in 1993-94. The NHL&rsquo;s league-wide save percentage also hit its lowest point (.904) since the first post-lockout season (.901 in 2005-06). In fact, the season before the lockout may just be when the goaltending position reached its most recent apex. In 2003-04, just 5.14 goals were scored per game &ndash; that&rsquo;s the lowest mark this millennium. The Art Ross Trophy winner, Martin St-Louis, had 94 points that season, and the dynamic styles of Luongo, Brodeur, Miikka Kiprusoff and the 5-foot-11 Marty Turco reigned supreme.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/goalieevolu_102/10063879-1-eng-US/goalieevolu_1022.jpg" title="goalieevolu_102" width="1349" height="1392"><figcaption class="caption-body">JONATHAN QUICK (ERIC CANHA-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Is this an indictment of the way goalies are playing now or praise for the development of the modern shooter? Longtime goalie coach Steve Davies believes it&rsquo;s the former, and he blames current stoppers&rsquo; tendency to be predictable in the crease &ndash; and the corresponding blunting of instinctual play. &ldquo;Goalies are not being taught to watch the release of the puck, and they are going to have to learn to be deceptive in the way that players are shooting the puck now,&rdquo; said Davies, who&rsquo;s based in Ontario. &ldquo;In particular, being more selective about when to go down.&rdquo;Davies is also a vocal critic of the now-near-ubiquitous RVH &ndash; coincidentally a gameplay style brought to the fore thanks in large part to Quick. &ldquo;I was speaking at the OHL goaltending symposium a few years back,&rdquo; Davies said, &ldquo;and I took the position that not only is the RVH the worst move ever developed for goalies, but the inventor of it should be arrested for crimes against goaltending.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/goalieevolu_097/10063872-1-eng-US/goalieevolu_0972.jpg" title="goalieevolu_097" width="1939" height="1538"><figcaption class="caption-body">VULNERABLE POSITION?The RVH technique is widely used by goaltenders throughout the NHL, but it has its detractors, too. (PERRY NELSON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>So, what is the evidence against the accused? The RVH is a technique that goalies employ when the puck is either behind the net, in the corner or below the faceoff circle. The leg on the short side is in a half-butterfly, with the toe of the skateblade anchored to the post, and the top of the pad on the back leg is stacked in a nearly vertical position. &ldquo;There are all kinds of terrible goals that are being given up because of the RVH, at all levels,&rdquo; Davies said. &ldquo;If you looked at any one of these goals given up, you&rsquo;d fire the goalie coach for teaching a goalie a pre-programmed position that would allow a goal to be scored from behind the goal line in the corner of the rink.&rdquo;Ranford isn&rsquo;t quite so eager to slam shut the cell door, but he does warn the technique takes its toll on its disciples and should be practised with care. &ldquo;RVH is going to stick around, but as goalie coaches, we have to be very conscious with the amount it&rsquo;s being used,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a natural position for the body to go into. From my perspective, it&rsquo;s very effective when it&rsquo;s used in the right manner. It also might be getting used too much, putting a lot of wear on these young goalies&rsquo; bodies.&rdquo;<h2>&gt; BREAKING THE MOLD</h2>Quick and Davies may not exactly have universal support for their defiance of convention, but they don&rsquo;t need to convince goalie coach Steve Briere, who was with the Toronto Maple Leafs from 2015 until he moved to the Seattle Kraken last season. &ldquo;The guys who are the innovators in life are usually the ones with success, and goaltending is the same,&rdquo; Briere said. &ldquo;Goalies who are willing to do something different and new, when others think they&rsquo;re crazy, end up being the greatest.&rdquo;Dominik Hasek may as well have had the word &ldquo;innovator&rdquo; tattooed on his forehead. And with a career .922 save percentage and 2.20 goals-against average (both post-expansion era records among those with at least 250 games played), breaking the mold bore fruit for the Czech stopper. Hasek&rsquo;s dominance was never in sharper relief than in 1993-94, when he had a stingy 1.95 GAA and .930 SP. The league averages that year? A gargantuan 3.14 GAA and a .895 SP. Neither league-average mark has been as porous since. That performance secured Hasek his first Vezina Trophy at 29. He&rsquo;d go on to another five in the next seven seasons.And to Briere&rsquo;s point, Hasek was considered the master of deception. Shooters had no idea where to put the puck while he was flopping around the crease. But Hasek struggled to earn the respect of NHL scouts and GMs because he employed a never-before-seen style &ndash; and one that hasn&rsquo;t been emulated since. &ldquo;Hasek didn&rsquo;t make it until he was (almost) 30 because everyone thought he was crazy and a terrible goalie,&rdquo; Briere said. &ldquo;Then he starts stopping every puck, and all of a sudden, everyone&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;This guy is a genius.&rsquo; The guys who are the most successful are the guys who do it first.&ldquo;Look at Jacques Plante. He was the first guy to challenge and the first one to play the puck. Patrick Roy? He was the first to use the butterfly full-time, and then everyone started to copy him. But you know who didn&rsquo;t start to copy him? Marty Brodeur. Then Marty became a superstar because no one knew where to shoot. Even in the modern era, (Henrik) Lundqvist sat deeper in the net, which was something that shooters hadn&rsquo;t seen. Or perhaps one of the most interesting careers is Tim Thomas, a guy who won the national championship in college but had to start in the ECHL and Europe because he was so unorthodox.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/goalieevolu_096/10063865-1-eng-US/goalieevolu_0962.jpg" title="goalieevolu_096" width="1666" height="1168"><figcaption class="caption-body">Unorthodox goalies such as Hasek and Thomas had to prove critics wrong before getting an NHL shot. (GARY A. VASQUEZ-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>When asked about Quick &ndash; who, incidentally, was part of maybe the biggest &ldquo;old school versus new school&rdquo; showdown in recent memory on his way to the Conn Smythe Trophy in the 2012 Stanley Cup final against Brodeur and the Devils &ndash; Briere stood by his innovation-based mindset. &ldquo;Jonathan Quick was essentially the godfather of the RVH in using it as a stance and staying down in it. Which, again, was unpredictable to the shooters.&rdquo;<h2>&gt; DOES SIZE MATTER?</h2>The average netminder in the NHL now stands above 6-foot-2, and the goaltending community is beginning to wonder if players are learning how to find the holes in bigger netminders.The most prominent example of a smaller stopper in the league today is Saros. The Predators netminder is generously listed at 5-foot-11. But while he&rsquo;s one of the shortest goalies employed in the NHL, he&rsquo;s also been arguably right among the league&rsquo;s best since he arrived on the scene, sporting a career .919 SP. He&rsquo;s well-known for his mobility, but he often stays on his feet to make saves in an era in which most of his crease brethren are dropping to their knees.Davies sees all sizes among the goalies he trains in the Greater Toronto League and the Ontario Minor Hockey Association. &ldquo;The problem,&rdquo; Davies said, &ldquo;is that the NHL scouts are only looking at goalies who are a minimum of 6-foot-2 but more often 6-foot-3, which is virtually eliminating 80 percent of the goalies.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/goalieevolu_098/10063858-1-eng-US/goalieevolu_0982.jpg" title="goalieevolu_098" width="1268" height="685"><figcaption class="caption-body">TIM THOMAS (MICHAEL IVINS-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Where a willingness to look beyond the typical goalie mold breeds innovation, Briere agrees with the sentiment, and he sees great potential. &ldquo;The goalie who can learn to play by standing on his feet more, by using his body essentially, may be the next goalie to have that innovative style that could dominate.&rdquo;<h2>&gt; A BROKEN SYSTEM</h2>Kim St-Pierre &ndash; a three-time gold medallist with Team Canada and the only woman inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a goaltender &ndash; believes the pressures of minor hockey are the root cause of a lack of athleticism among goalies. Much like Quick and Ranford, she feels netminders should be exposed to different sports throughout their development. &ldquo;All hockey players, not just goalies, should be playing two to three sports a year to develop other aspects of their abilities,&rdquo; St-Pierre said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not creating athletes, we&rsquo;re creating hockey players in Quebec and across Canada. But I think what parents and coaches have created is that if you&rsquo;re elite at eight or nine years old, it&rsquo;s expected to play (hockey) for all 12 months.&rdquo;Her concern comes not only as a former player turned analyst but as a hockey parent with apprehension about the state of the game and the politics that play into it. &ldquo;As a mother to hockey boys, we ask, &lsquo;Are my kids going to be behind if they don&rsquo;t play in the summer? Are they going to catch up?&rsquo; In my opinion, they need the mental break, but it&rsquo;s scary sometimes for them.&rdquo;Briere, who has observed hockey development on both sides of the Canada-United States border, believes the whole system needs a revamp. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s broken in North America is that tryouts are often in April and May,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Their season ends, but then they&rsquo;ve got to keep playing because the tryouts are coming up for AAA. In the U.S., the juniors tryouts are in June. So, the kids have no choice but to play hockey year-round.&rdquo;Briere, too, says both his professional and parental sides inform his opinion when he says this systemic break pervades outsiders&rsquo; attitudes in the hockey world. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not the parents&rsquo; fault,&rdquo; Briere said. &ldquo;People often say &lsquo;Hockey parents are crazy,&rsquo; but it&rsquo;s not true. I have two kids and a son that plays hockey. What are you going to do, though? If tryouts are in the summer, you&rsquo;ve got to keep skating to prepare.&rdquo;<h2>&gt; LOOKING AHEAD</h2>It may sound a trifle obvious, but you&rsquo;d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the goaltending community who disagrees with the idea that goalies who can deceive the shooter by putting their body and equipment in the way of the shot are going to be the most effective.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/goalieevolu_099/10063844-1-eng-US/goalieevolu_0992.jpg" title="goalieevolu_099" width="1267" height="1033"><figcaption class="caption-body">TAKE A BREAKBriere, left, says the hockey season for kids is too long, but that&rsquo;s the way the system is set up. (JOHN E. SOKOLOWSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>The community agrees that size, technique and positioning are beneficial &ndash; and sometimes essential &ndash; components of good play. Both goalies and those who teach them also agree on the following: the biggest netminders are often matched by some of the smallest; the most-coached goalies are often matched by those who take time to focus on other forms of athletics; and, most of all, &ldquo;predictability&rdquo; is a goaltender&rsquo;s worst enemy.They also tout the ability to read the puck off the stick &ndash; and, most vitally, read the play as a whole &ndash; as paramount and something often lacking in the education of young goalies.So, one wonders, is the position evolving or devolving? &#9632;

State of Goaltending

EVOLUTION OR DEVOLUTION

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="wsh_wilson1_133" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wsh_wilson1_133/10063997-1-eng-US/wsh_wilson1_1332.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">JUST-ICE DEPARTMENTWilson wants to remain on the right side of the rulebook from now on so he can stay out of the press box. (DAN HAMILTON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>LAST SEASON, THE Washington Capitals missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014. Not coincidentally, power forward Tom Wilson played only 33 games, the fewest in a season in his NHL career. Fellow stalwarts Nicklas Backstrom and John Carlson both also played less than half the schedule. &ldquo;The injuries had a big impact on our team,&rdquo; said Caps GM Brian MacLellan. &ldquo;Even when guys came back, they weren&rsquo;t fully healthy. So, we struggled with that all year.&rdquo;Wilson, who dealt with several lower-body injuries last season, is expecting his team to get back into the hunt this time around. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve built something in Washington where we hold ourselves to a high standard, a winning mentality, a winning culture,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;And that hasn&rsquo;t changed. When teams come into D.C., you want it to be a hard night, and we created that for a while. We need to get back to that, and we have the group to do it with everyone healthy.&rdquo;A goal-scoring savant such as Alex Ovechkin has always made Washington a hard team to beat on any given night, but it&rsquo;s Wilson who makes life miserable for opponents with his bone-jarring physical play. The extent to which teams have tried to safeguard themselves against him in the past (a.k.a. &lsquo;Tom Wilson Insurance&rsquo;) is well-known by now, but Wilson isn&rsquo;t unique just because he&rsquo;ll still punch a guy in the face or bowl over an opponent in open ice. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got size, and he&rsquo;s got an edge to him, and the skating is an important part of that,&rdquo; MacLellan said. &ldquo;Because he can get there to be physical, he can get there on the forecheck. The skating at that size is unique. He finds ways to impact the game, whether it&rsquo;s physically or energetically, that a lot of players can&rsquo;t do.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">FROM MY FIRST PRACTICE WHERE I LEARNED HOW TO HIT WHEN I WAS SEVEN, I ALWAYS LOVED THAT PART OF THE GAME &ndash; Tom Wilson</blockquote>For Wilson, that physical game has always been a draw, going right back to the start of his playing days. &ldquo;From my first practice where I learned how to hit when I was seven, I always loved that part of the game,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I grew up watching power forwards in the late &rsquo;90s and early 2000s, and that&rsquo;s what I liked to do. I wanted to score goals. I wanted to play hard. I wanted to play the right way.&rdquo;For a while, that sometimes led to suspensions, and Wilson was notorious for getting caught on the wrong side of the line. &ldquo;When you play that way, stuff happens, but I&rsquo;ve tried to adapt to the league, and change is non-stop,&rdquo; Wilson said. &ldquo;In the middle of my career, it got a bit rocky, and I tried to fall back on my foundation to help my team.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wsh_wilson2_134/10063983-1-eng-US/wsh_wilson2_1342.jpg" title="wsh_wilson2_134" width="1022" height="855"><figcaption class="caption-body">KYLE CLIFFORD & TOM WILSON (DAN HAMILTON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;I genuinely want to learn. I love the game of hockey, and I can&rsquo;t play it if I&rsquo;m sitting in the stands. I&rsquo;ve had to find the confidence and trust in myself where the game is so fast, we&rsquo;re talking about tenths of a second. If you&rsquo;re thinking about things when you&rsquo;re out there, you can hurt yourself or put yourself in a bad position. So trust your reads. Trust your game. You&rsquo;re a smart player, pick your spots.&rdquo;What some outside of Washington may not know is how crucial Wilson is off the ice as well. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an important leader for us,&rdquo; MacLellan said. &ldquo;He does everything right. He&rsquo;s a character guy, and he handles himself well when representing the team. His work ethic and diet, all of that sets a tremendous example for young guys and everybody on our team.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">I GENUINELY WANT TO LEARN. I LOVE THE GAME OF HOCKEY, AND I CAN&rsquo;T PLAY IT IF I&rsquo;M SITTING IN THE STANDS &ndash; Tom Wilson</blockquote>When it comes to young guys, MacLellan pointed out the organization is hoping some of its kids can crack the NHL lineup this year, which would put the youngsters in Wilson&rsquo;s orbit. The Hershey Bears, the Caps&rsquo; AHL affiliate, are coming off a Calder Cup championship, so there&rsquo;s obviously some talent to be mined from that roster. And while Washington added Max Pacioretty and Joel Edmundson to the roster over the summer, Pacioretty isn&rsquo;t expected to open the season healthy as he recovers from a torn Achilles. New coach Spencer Carbery will bring a fresh voice behind the bench, but otherwise, it&rsquo;s hard not to look at the roster and see the old guard &ndash; Wilson, Ovechkin, Backstrom, Carlson and T.J. Oshie &ndash; as being just as crucial as ever to the team&rsquo;s overall success.All of those players hoisted the Stanley Cup with Washington back in 2018, and while that was five years ago, Wilson still remembers the grind. And he still has the fire to get another title. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an extremely hard trophy to win,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And there is a bit of a letdown after. You&rsquo;re like, &lsquo;That was amazing,&rsquo; and you&rsquo;re sore and tired. Then, the next season starts pretty quick. You have to be ready for it. When you have a strong foundation to fall back on, it can carry you. The feeling you get&hellip;everyone is hungry.&rdquo;&ndash;&nbsp;With files from Paul Delos Santos &#9632;

wsh_wilson1_133

FIGHTING FIT AND FOCUSED

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0064-01194/10064084-1-eng-US/f0064-012.jpg" title="f0064-01" width="173" height="173"></div>The all-time Hurricanes leader in games played, wins and shutouts, CAM WARD would already be synonymous with Carolina before you even got to his crowning achievement: the 2006 playoffs. Ward came into the Carolina crease as a rookie with the Canes down 2-0 in their first-round series with Montreal, only to help them reverse course and win four straight to move on. The Canes pushed all the way to the championship over Edmonton, with Ward earning the Conn Smythe Trophy in the process.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0276/10064077-1-eng-US/f0067-022.jpg" title="f0067-02" width="173" height="173"></div>He wowed the hockey world with his run to the final in Florida last year, but SERGEI BOBROVSKY has been a money goalie before &ndash; and he&rsquo;s the most successful stopper Columbus has ever had. In his first season with the Blue Jackets (2012-13), &lsquo;Bob&rsquo; won the Vezina Trophy, and he won a second four years later. He also presided over the team&rsquo;s best playoff run, when the Jackets got to the second round in 2019, sweeping heavily favored Tampa Bay in the first round before falling to Boston in six games.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0358/10064070-1-eng-US/f0067-032.jpg" title="f0067-03" width="174" height="174"></div>What can be said about the legacy Hall of Famer MARTIN BRODEUR left in New Jersey? He&rsquo;s the best and most important player in club history, steering the Devils to three Stanley Cup titles while earning himself four Vezina Trophies and winning two Olympic gold medals with Canada. He played four times more games than any other goalie in franchise history (1,259 to Cory Schneider&rsquo;s 311), and he is the NHL&rsquo;s all-time shutout king with 125, all but one of which came in a Devils jersey.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0435/10064063-1-eng-US/f0067-042.jpg" title="f0067-04" width="174" height="174"></div>They called him Battlin&rsquo; BILLY SMITH, but it wasn&rsquo;t because he had trouble stopping pucks. Smith was the backbone of the Isles&rsquo; Stanley Cup dynasty in the early 1980s, which marked the high-water mark of his Hall of Fame career. He won the Vezina, Jennings and Conn Smythe Trophies during his time on Long Island and was notorious for hacking away at any opponent who dared come near his crease. To this day, his 304 wins are an all-time franchise record, nearly twice as many as second-place Glenn Resch (157).<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0523/10064056-1-eng-US/f0067-052.jpg" title="f0067-05" width="173" height="173"></div>HENRIK LUNDQVIST, the most handsome man in hockey, also happened to be darned good at playing net. &lsquo;The King&rsquo; was the backbone of some outstanding Rangers teams and was the only reason they won a game in the 2014 final against the L.A. Kings. Lundqvist played 15 seasons with New York, winning a Vezina, earning first- and second-team all-star honors and earning Olympic gold with Sweden. New York retired his iconic No. 30 in 2022, and he was a first-ballot Hockey Hall of Fame inductee.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0617/10064049-1-eng-US/f0067-062.jpg" title="f0067-06" width="173" height="173"></div>Talk all you want about the brawn and skill of the Broad Street Bullies, but someone had to stop the puck, too. BERNIE PARENT was that guy in the 1970s, and the Flyers have two Stanley Cups thanks in large part to him. He won back-to-back Conn Smythes during those championship seasons. Parent was a shutout machine with Philadelphia, posting 50 in his career &ndash; more than twice as many as his nearest peer, Roman Cechmanek (20). He also owns two Vezinas and was enshrined in the Hall of Fame in 1984.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0714/10064042-1-eng-US/f0067-072.jpg" title="f0067-07" width="173" height="173"></div>While his Calder and Vezina Trophies came as a Buffalo Sabre, TOM BARRASSO won his Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh, and he also earned one of his second-team all-star nods there. He was the man during those back-to-back title runs, and his .919 save percentage in the 1991 playoffs was one of the best marks of his entire career. His prickly personality probably prevented him from being enshrined earlier, but he was finally elected to the HHOF in 2023, and he deserved the accolade. He now coaches in Italy.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0067-0811/10064035-1-eng-US/f0067-082.jpg" title="f0067-08" width="175" height="175"></div>It was a tight toss-up between BRADEN HOLTBY and Olie Kolzig, but as Caps icon Alex Ovechkin once told THN, &ldquo;Cups is Cups.&rdquo; So Holtby, who helped Washington to its first and only Stanley Cup title in 2018, gets the nod here. Championship aside, Holtby ranks second to Kolzig (who got to the 1998 final with the Caps) in games played and wins but tied him in shutouts (35). Holtby also tied for the NHL lead in wins and led the league in shutouts in 2017, narrowly missing out on winning a second consecutive Vezina Trophy. &#9632;

METRO DIVISION

<div class="byline">BY BOB DUFF</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="det_debrinc_033" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/det_debrinc_033/10064129-1-eng-US/det_debrinc_0332.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(DAVID REGINEK-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>EVERY SO OFTEN, ALEX DeBrincat has to stop and pinch himself. Just to be certain this isn&rsquo;t all just some elaborate dreamscape. Reality, after all, is rarely so pleasantly accommodating.Once DeBrincat was certain there was no future for him with the Ottawa Senators, there was only one place he wanted to land. He was seeking a homecoming, and he got just that. On July 9, a year and two days after DeBrincat arrived in Ottawa, the Senators dealt the native of Farmington Hills, Mich., to the Detroit Red Wings for Dominik Kubalik, Donovan Sebrango and two draft picks. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s super exciting, obviously,&rdquo; DeBrincat said. &ldquo;Growing up here and rooting for the Red Wings when I was younger, it&rsquo;s definitely a dream come true. I do have to say I don&rsquo;t think anyone is happier than my parents. It&rsquo;s the whole family. Everyone&rsquo;s happy. It&rsquo;s a good spot for me.&rdquo;DeBrincat&rsquo;s wife, Lyndsey, is also a Michigander. The couple has made their summer residence in Michigan for years. Now, it will be their full-time home. Make no mistake, though, Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman didn&rsquo;t go after DeBrincat just to provide a homecoming. What will make Yzerman most happy about bringing DeBrincat home will be if the 5-foot-7, 180-pound right winger begins lighting red lamps regularly for the Red Wings. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s just a limited number of actual, what we call, I don&rsquo;t know what the true definition of a goal-scorer is, but there just aren&rsquo;t a lot of them around the league,&rdquo; Yzerman said. &ldquo;Guys that can get it on their stick and anytime they shoot it, it looks like it has a chance of going in. I think we categorize Alex in that mold as a sniper. Just one shot can change the game.&rdquo;Detroit coach Derek Lalonde also views DeBrincat as a difference-maker. Last season, the Red Wings were 12-8-10 in one-goal games. Lalonde believes a finisher of DeBrincat&rsquo;s caliber could be integral to improving those numbers. &ldquo;We had a lot of really good team games last year where we did a lot of things right and a lot of things that were asked of us, and we just couldn&rsquo;t put it in the net,&rdquo; Lalonde said. &ldquo;We would find ways to lose some of those tight games. We need goals, and that&rsquo;s something he can do, so it&rsquo;s a necessity for us as an addition.&rdquo;DeBrincat twice potted 41 goals in a single season during his time with the Chicago Blackhawks &ndash; in 2018-19 and &rsquo;21-22. Last season, his one and only in Canada&rsquo;s capital city, he managed just 27. While it was a disappointment for both DeBrincat and the Sens, had he been with Detroit last season, DeBrincat would&rsquo;ve finished second on the team in goals.But Yzerman isn&rsquo;t about to suggest he&rsquo;s expecting another 40-goal season out of his new charge. He won&rsquo;t put any number on what he wants from DeBrincat. In fact, the Detroit GM was just as excited about the other elements in DeBrincat&rsquo;s game and how those talents will help the club all over the ice. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s more than a goal-scorer, though,&rdquo; Yzerman said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s a very smart hockey player. Passes the puck. Manages the puck extremely well. He&rsquo;s a good linemate to play with. He&rsquo;s not just a shooter. He can make plays. He&rsquo;s valuable on the power play and does a good job 5-on-5.&rdquo;Though he was reluctant to sign with Ottawa, DeBrincat put his name on a four-year, $31.5-million pact with Detroit within hours of becoming a Red Wing. &ldquo;Looks like a lot of U.S. kids have a desire to come and play in the U.S. markets,&rdquo; Yzerman said.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/det_debrinc_034/10064122-1-eng-US/det_debrinc_0342.jpg" title="det_debrinc_034" width="1020" height="1395"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALEX DEBRINCAT (CHARLES LECLAIRE-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Added DeBrincat: &ldquo;This contract just worked out best for both parties. I think it was a good fit in that aspect. Just excited to be here and happy to be here for the next four years.&rdquo;Happy to be home.The memories of a childhood spent cheering for the Red Wings and becoming a hockey player due to that very attachment flow quickly from DeBrincat. Among other cherished memories, DeBrincat cited watching the Wings&rsquo; 2007-08 Stanley Cup season as the reason he picked up the sport. &ldquo;I started playing in Farmington Hills, where I&rsquo;m from,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I played for the Farmington Hills Fire for quite a few years at Farmington Hills Ice Arena, so that rink is pretty special. Then I moved on to play for Victory Honda, which I&rsquo;ve trained at for the past couple of years, too. Going to that gym and skating there. I&rsquo;ve had a lot of good memories there.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">I DON&rsquo;T THINK ANYONE IS HAPPIER THAN MY PARENTS. IT&rsquo;S THE WHOLE FAMILY. EVERYONE&rsquo;S HAPPY. IT&rsquo;S A GOOD SPOT FOR ME &ndash; Alex DeBrincat</blockquote>He wants to be a key element in helping the franchise, absent from the playoffs the past seven seasons, to again reach the heights he once watched the club achieve. In Detroit, he&rsquo;ll don No. 93, the same number he wore for Victory Honda. &ldquo;You see a team that&rsquo;s frustrated maybe with being in a rebuild and wants to get out,&rdquo; DeBrincat said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited to be here and join in that and hopefully be part of the solution to get out of that.&rdquo;Yzerman believes DeBrincat&rsquo;s arrival moves Detroit&rsquo;s needle closer to that objective. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a better team today with Alex DeBrincat in the lineup,&rdquo; Yzerman said. &#9632;

det_debrinc_033

‘DREAM COME TRUE’

<div class="byline">BY NICK EMANUELLI</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-01124/10064223-1-eng-US/f0069-012.jpg" title="f0069-01" width="174" height="174"></div>When a team has 99 seasons of history to draw from, the competition for the title of best goalie in franchise history is stiff. Tiny Thompson, Tim Thomas, Gerry Cheevers and Tuukka Rask were all elite stoppers, but FRANK BRIMSEK takes the honor. Brimsek pitched shutouts in six of his first 10 NHL starts, earning the moniker &lsquo;Mr. Zero.&rsquo; That season, in 1938-39, he led Boston to the first of two Cups in three years and won the Calder and Vezina. He added another Vezina in 1942 and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1966.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-0282/10064216-1-eng-US/f0069-022.jpg" title="f0069-02" width="174" height="174"></div>Another goalie with a superb nickname, DOMINIK HASEK is not only the top stopper in club history, he&rsquo;s the best Sabre of all-time, period. In his nine years in Buffalo, &lsquo;The Dominator&rsquo; won the Vezina six times and the Jennings twice. And both the media (Hart Trophy) and players (Pearson) tabbed him as the NHL MVP two years running, with Hasek taking the honors in 1996-97 and &rsquo;97-98. He was a Hart finalist three additional times in Buffalo and came within two wins of a Cup in 1999. He earned his Hall call in 2014.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-0351/10064209-1-eng-US/f0069-032.jpg" title="f0069-03" width="174" height="174"></div>THN has TERRY SAWCHUK ranked as the greatest goalie ever, and while there&rsquo;s debate around hockey&rsquo;s all-time best, Sawchuk was peerless in Detroit. The Hall of Famer dominated from the get-go, being feted as the NHL&rsquo;s best stopper (first-team all-star) as a rookie and earning the Calder in 1950-51. The next season, he won the first of three Cups he&rsquo;d celebrate in Detroit, and he did so while blanking foes four times in eight playoff games. In Detroit, he won three Vezinas and earned Hart votes in four seasons.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-0520/10064202-1-eng-US/f0069-052.jpg" title="f0069-05" width="175" height="175"></div>The Panthers got two team legends when they acquired Olli Jokinen and ROBERTO LUONGO from the New York Islanders in June 2000. For Luongo, who ranks fourth all-time among NHL stoppers in wins (489) and ninth in shutouts (77), 230 of those wins and 38 of those goose eggs came in Panthers silks. Both are easily franchise records. In Florida, Luongo earned a second-team all-star nod, was a Vezina finalist once and garnered Vezina votes in three other seasons. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2022.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-0615/10064195-1-eng-US/f0069-062.jpg" title="f0069-06" width="175" height="175"></div>He wasn&rsquo;t the first to don a mask in hockey history, but no stopper is better known for popularizing the practice than JACQUES PLANTE. He also earns credit for the puck-playing revolution in net. Plante, among the most decorated players in NHL history, earned most of his accolades in his 11 seasons with Montreal. He led the Habs to five Cups in a row from 1955-56 to 1959-60 and won the Vezina in each of those seasons. He was also on Montreal&rsquo;s 1953 Cup-winning team and was NHL MVP as a Hab in 1962.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-0714/10064188-1-eng-US/f0069-072.jpg" title="f0069-07" width="175" height="175"></div>All-time greats Hasek and Tom Barrasso both briefly called Ottawa home, but Barrasso played just 13 total games for the Senators, while Hasek introduced an entire generation of Ottawans to the presence of the adductor muscle. CRAIG ANDERSON, however, had his best years in the city. He is the Sens&rsquo; all-time leader in games (435) and wins (202) and ranks second in shutouts behind Patrick Lalime. He also sported a .928 SP in 40 playoff games for the Sens and got them within a goal of the Cup final in 2017.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-0811/10064181-1-eng-US/f0069-082.jpg" title="f0069-08" width="174" height="174"></div>It&rsquo;s a bit of a shame the &lsquo;Bulin Wall&rsquo; can&rsquo;t join fellow nickname greats Brimsek and Hasek, but ANDREI VASILEVSKIY can&rsquo;t be denied. Vasilevskiy is the Bolts&rsquo; all-time leader in games in net (425), and he has more than twice as many wins (263) as his nearest competitor (Ben Bishop, 131). When &lsquo;Vasy&rsquo; picks up his second shutout of the year, he&rsquo;ll also double up on Bishop&rsquo;s next-best total of 17 clean sheets. He has two Stanley Cups, was a Vezina finalist four straight years (winning once) and won the 2021 Conn Smythe.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0069-098/10064174-1-eng-US/f0069-092.jpg" title="f0069-09" width="173" height="173"></div>Even among all-time great stoppers, playing one&rsquo;s entire career with the same team is rare. But TURK BRODA played each and every one of his 730 career regular-season and playoff games for Toronto. No Leafs stopper has played more games, won more or has even come close to besting Broda&rsquo;s 61 shutouts. Broda, elected to the Hall of Fame in 1967, won five Stanley Cups &ndash; including three in a row &ndash; with the Buds, earned first-team all-star honors twice, and he was a second-team all-star once and won two Vezina Trophies. &#9632;

ATLANTIC DIVISION

<div class="byline">BY DOUG WARD</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="la_fiala1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/la_fiala1/10064275-1-eng-US/la_fiala12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">LET ME HELP YOU WITH THATFiala had a team-high 49 assists with the Kings last year. But he&rsquo;s not just a pass-first player: he also had 23 goals. (ERIC BOLTE-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>KEVIN FIALA IS MONEY in the bank. And not just any bank. When the Los Angeles Kings agreed to a seven-year, $55-million contract with Fiala, the money couldn&rsquo;t have been more secure if they had placed it in a Swiss bank account. In a way, they did.Last year, Fiala became just the sixth Swiss-born player to appear in an NHL All-Star Game. &ldquo;Exciting for the L.A. Kings,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and for Switzerland.&rdquo;In June 2022, with the Kings in need of a dynamic scorer with playmaking ability, they invested heavily in the Swiss import market. Prospect Brock Faber and a 2022 first-round pick were shipped to Minnesota for Fiala. The same day, the Kings locked up the left winger with a long-term deal. &ldquo;Kevin has game-breaking ability,&rdquo; said Kings GM Rob Blake. &ldquo;He is competitive by nature.&rdquo;Fiala, now 27, delivered in L.A., producing at a point-per-game pace in his first season as a King, with 23 goals and a team-high 49 assists for 72 points in 69 games.Maybe it comes with being from a country as famous for its neutrality as its banking, but Fiala can fit in almost anywhere, be it on an ice rink or a globe. Compatibility with different countries, teams or linemates has always been part of Fiala&rsquo;s appeal. At various times, Fiala played on the Kings&rsquo; first, second and third lines, logging more than 100 minutes with eight different linemates &ndash; and always producing. &ldquo;It was pretty easy,&rdquo; said Fiala of fitting in. &ldquo;The guys were awesome.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">KEVIN HAS GAME-BREAKING ABILITY. HE IS COMPETITIVE BY NATURE &ndash; Kings GM Rob Blake</blockquote>It took a late-season knee injury that cost Fiala 13 games to curtail his production. While Fiala enjoyed his early NHL days in Nashville and St. Paul, he adapted to Los Angeles quickly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been in Nashville and Minnesota longer than Los Angeles, but I feel like I&rsquo;ve been (in L.A.) longer,&rdquo; he said.Last season, Fiala was one of just 12 Swiss players in the NHL, which makes him an outlier every time his name appears on a roster. Still, as a hardworking, efficient player, Fiala embodies Switzerland&rsquo;s ethos every time he steps on the ice. There are many facets to Fiala, but that bright-red Swiss passport emblazoned with the white cross opens doors, borders and conversations.Fiala was born in the northeastern Alpine town of St. Gallen, population 75,481, located about an hour from the financial capital of Zurich. St. Gallen is the kind of picturesque medieval village you would never want to leave if you were lucky enough to find yourself there in the first place. Unless, of course, you have hockey in your blood. Kevin&rsquo;s father, Jan, played professionally in Switzerland and passed along his passion for the game to his son.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/la_fiala2/10064261-1-eng-US/la_fiala22.jpg" title="la_fiala2" width="1021" height="1104"><figcaption class="caption-body">KEVIN FIALA (SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>A polyglot who speaks Czech, English, Swedish, French and German, Fiala sees the world as an open door. He left Switzerland at 16 to play junior in Sweden, first in Malmo followed by two years in Jonkoping. His crafty play caught the attention of the Nashville Predators, who made him their first-round pick (11th overall) in 2014. After the draft, Fiala spent time in Southern California with his Los Angeles-based agent at the time and took a liking to the area. &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t want to leave,&rdquo; he said.Fiala would eventually be in a position to make Los Angeles his home, but there were more cities to conquer, places that didn&rsquo;t always involve a stamp in his passport. In North America, Fiala was shuttled between Milwaukee of the AHL and Nashville for three seasons, highlighted by being a part of the Predators&rsquo; run to the Stanley Cup final in 2017. During that memorable run, Fiala appeared in five games, scoring two goals. It also whetted his appetite and made him crave a title like Swiss chocolate. Fiala has been chasing that taste ever since. &ldquo;It was very fun (to go to the Stanley Cup final) with Nashville.&rdquo; Fiala said. &ldquo;Every year, you want to go to the final and win the Stanley Cup. That&rsquo;s why you play.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">WE REALLY THOUGHT WE WERE GOING TO WIN IT. WE NEVER GAVE UP THAT POSITIVE MINDSET &ndash; Kevin Fiala</blockquote>The knee injury hampered Fiala in last year&rsquo;s playoffs, but he picked up six points in just three games. Despite a six-game series loss to Edmonton, Fiala liked the Kings&rsquo; resolve. &ldquo;We lost, but we did not panic,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We went down 3-2, and I&rsquo;ve been on teams before that would think it was over. I don&rsquo;t think we did. We really thought we were going to win it. There was no doubt in the room. We never gave up that positive mindset.&rdquo;The stakes are higher this year as Fiala and the Kings look to advance beyond the first round and make a serious Cup run. &ldquo;We have belief we can make it happen,&rdquo; Fiala said.If they do, L.A.&rsquo;s investment in Switzerland will have been low risk and high reward. &#9632;

la_fiala1

SWISS BANK ACCOUNT

<div class="byline">BY BRIAN COSTELLO</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-01122/10064362-1-eng-US/f0071-012.jpg" title="f0071-01" width="174" height="174"></div>There&rsquo;s a chance John Gibson becomes the all-time wins leader among Anaheim goalies this season, but it would take several strong years for him to usurp JEAN-SEBASTIEN GIGUERE as the franchise&rsquo;s all-time best. &lsquo;Giggy&rsquo; won a Stanley Cup with the Ducks in 2007 and also became just the fifth NHL player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy in a Cup-final losing effort four years earlier. In Vezina Trophy voting, Giguere finished fourth, eighth and twice finished ninth as a Duck, while Gibson has finished seventh and 10th.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-0265/10064355-1-eng-US/f0071-022.jpg" title="f0071-02" width="174" height="174"></div>Mike Vernon will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in November, but it&rsquo;s MIIKKA KIPRUSOFF who wins the clear distinction as the Flames&rsquo; best-ever stopper. Kiprusoff was 27 and a San Jose third-stringer when Calgary acquired him for a measly second-round pick in 2003. He went on to guide the Flames to the Cup final in 2004, then won the Vezina Trophy and was third in Hart Trophy voting in 2006. His 305 Flames wins outnumber Vernon&rsquo;s 262. Vernon had several stellar seasons in Detroit and San Jose.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-0342/10064348-1-eng-US/f0071-032.jpg" title="f0071-03" width="174" height="174"></div>One of the most deceiving stats of all-time is the career save percentage of Hall of Famer GRANT FUHR. His .883 SP as an Oiler is porous by today&rsquo;s standards, but he excelled in the 1980s, and that&rsquo;s why The Hockey News recognized him as the 13th-best goalie in NHL history. Fuhr was the last line of defense on a juggernaut Oilers team at the height of hockey&rsquo;s firewagon era. On his way to five Stanley Cups, Fuhr only won the Vezina once, but he was a finalist three other times while earning 403 career wins.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-0424/10064341-1-eng-US/f0071-042.jpg" title="f0071-04" width="174" height="174"></div>JONATHAN QUICK stands alone at the head of the class in the history of L.A. goaltenders. His 370 career wins greatly outnumber the combined total of the No. 2 (Rogie Vachon, 171) and No. 3 (Kelly Hrudey, 145) Kings stoppers. Yet it was in the playoffs where Quick was most dominant. He backstopped the Kings to two Stanley Cups, won a Conn Smythe Trophy in 2012 and bumped his career .911 regular-season save percentage to .921 in the post-season. He&rsquo;s a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-0517/10064334-1-eng-US/f0071-052.jpg" title="f0071-05" width="173" height="173"></div>After earning the Calder Trophy with 32 wins in 2000-01, EVGENI NABOKOV only got better through the first decade of the new millennium. He topped 30 wins five more times, and his 293 victories by the close of 2009-10 &ndash; and the end of his time in San Jose &ndash; ranked second in the NHL behind Martin Brodeur post-Y2K. The knock on &lsquo;Nabby&rsquo; was he couldn&rsquo;t win in the playoffs, but perhaps that&rsquo;s a reflection of the team. Nabokov had a .912 regular-season SP with the Sharks and boosted it to .913 in the playoffs.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-0611/10064327-1-eng-US/f0071-062.jpg" title="f0071-06" width="173" height="173"></div>PHILIPP GRUBAUER struggled in his first season with the expansion Kraken in 2021-22, following up a remarkable 30-win, Vezina-finalist year in Colorado with just 18 wins in 55 games and a humbling .889 save percentage for Seattle. The 31-year-old rebounded last season, winning 17 times in 36 starts while battling groin and lower-body injuries. Grubauer was strong in a pair of seven-game playoff series for the Kraken (2.99 GAA, .903 SP). He has four years left on his contract, with a $5.9-million AAV.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-0710/10064320-1-eng-US/f0071-072.jpg" title="f0071-07" width="173" height="173"></div>Three goalies have guided the Canucks to the Stanley Cup final only to come up a little short. Richard Brodeur and Kirk McLean were the first two in 1982 and 1994, respectively, and then it was ROBERTO LUONGO in 2011. What&rsquo;s surprising is that during a 19-year NHL career &ndash; with eight seasons in Vancouver &ndash; Luongo never won the Vezina. He did finish in the top four in voting five times, including a third-place finish the year his Canucks won the Western Conference title. He&rsquo;s fourth in all-time NHL goalie wins at 489.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0071-089/10064313-1-eng-US/f0071-082.jpg" title="f0071-08" width="173" height="173"></div>MARC-ANDRE FLEURY is the franchise leader in wins for both Pittsburgh and Vegas. Heck, if he has a good season in Minnesota, he&rsquo;ll move up to fourth on the Wild&rsquo;s all-time list. At 38, Fleury is on the cusp of passing Patrick Roy for second place in career wins behind Martin Brodeur. He trails Roy 551-544 entering the season. With the Golden Knights in 2017-18, Fleury was pure gold, leading the expansion franchise to the Cup final. The future Hall of Famer won his only Vezina with Vegas three years later. &#9632;

PACIFIC DIVISION

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="nsh_forsber_024" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nsh_forsber_024/10064414-1-eng-US/nsh_forsber_0242.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">&lsquo;FORS&rsquo; OF NATURESince Forsberg became a full-time NHLer in 2014-15, he has scored nearly 12 percent of the Preds&rsquo; goals. (DAN HAMILTON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>WHEN FILIP FORSBERG put pen to paper on a big-money extension with the Nashville Predators in July 2022 &ndash; doing so days before he would&rsquo;ve hit the free-agent market and, therefore, had the chance to not only pick his destination but essentially name his price &ndash; he told reporters his decision to re-sign was in part because he could see the team &ldquo;trending definitely in the right direction.&rdquo;Fast forward a little over a year later, and those very same Predators are in a position Forsberg never would&rsquo;ve expected.Nashville held a fire sale before the March trade deadline, sending away Nino Niederreiter, Tanner Jeannot, Mikael Granlund and Mattias Ekholm. In the following weeks, and despite a late playoff push powered almost singlehandedly by goalie Juuse Saros, Nashville missed the post-season for the first time since 2013-14, the season before Forsberg became a full-time NHLer.In the wake of that disappointment, new GM Barry Trotz continued the roster overhaul. Trotz signalled the beginning of a new era by trading center Ryan Johansen to the division-rival Colorado Avalanche and buying out fellow pivot Matt Duchene. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a difficult time to deal with because you lose friends, lose guys you played with for a long time,&rdquo; Forsberg said. &ldquo;Ekholm had been here my whole time. Johansen came right away. You get really close with guys over time. It&rsquo;s tough. But you almost get a little bit numb to it, whether that&rsquo;s a good thing or not. It is a business, and you try to just move on as quick as you can.&rdquo;But don&rsquo;t get the idea that any of this has Forsberg heading into 2023-24 anything less than excited about the future. Especially because the departures are only one small piece of what has been a transformative summer in the Music City.An essential aspect of that transformation came behind the bench. Despite piecing together a winning record and keeping Nashville within points of a wild-card spot in the Western Conference last season, John Hynes was replaced by Andrew Brunette as coach. Brunette, who skated 77 games for the Preds in their inaugural season and scored the first goal in franchise history, arrives after a year spent as associate coach of the resurgent New Jersey Devils and two seasons removed from guiding the Florida Panthers to a Presidents&rsquo; Trophy and the best record in club history. And while Forsberg hasn&rsquo;t had much time to sit and chat with Brunette aside from a brief introduction and a few pleasantries, Brunette&rsquo;s arrival is quite possibly what has the 29-year-old sniper most eager for the season to get going.The style Brunette imparts &ndash; up-tempo and built around offense &ndash; is one of the main driving forces behind that excitement. &ldquo;Just from hearing guys talk about him and watching some of the stuff he&rsquo;s done with other teams, I think that&rsquo;s the offensive push we need for our team,&rdquo; Forsberg said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve always been a very disciplined, solid defensive team. Really going back all the way back to Barry Trotz&rsquo;s coaching time, that&rsquo;s been the staple of Nashville.&rdquo;That such a change in mentality would appeal to Forsberg should be of no surprise.Despite the Predators&rsquo; proclivity for staunch defense throughout his time in Nashville, Forsberg has always managed to be the team&rsquo;s offensive spark. He has hit the 30-goal plateau three times, and in 2021-22, Forsberg notched a career-best 42 goals. Forsberg&rsquo;s goal-scoring excellence is all the more impressive when considering the backdrop. Though Nashville hasn&rsquo;t necessarily been bereft of offense since Forsberg&rsquo;s first full season &ndash; the Preds&rsquo; 2,033 goals since 2014-15 put them 14th in the NHL in that period &ndash; Forsberg accounts for nearly 12 percent of that offense. The next-closest lamplighter is D-man Roman Josi, at 6.6 percent. It stands to reason, then, that Forsberg will flourish further and add to his franchise-leading 239-goal career total in a more free-wheeling, possession-based and attack-minded system.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/nsh_forsber_025/10064400-1-eng-US/nsh_forsber_0252.jpg" title="nsh_forsber_025" width="1021" height="1104"><figcaption class="caption-body">FILIP FORSBERG (DAN HAMILTON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>None of this is to say the commitment to defense has gone out the window. In fact, as Trotz sought to reshape the Predators in his vision, he lured free-agent center Ryan O&rsquo;Reilly, winger Gustav Nyquist and defenseman Luke Schenn to town. All three bring valuable veteran qualities, but O&rsquo;Reilly and Schenn, in particular, were brought aboard because of their defensive acumen. Forsberg heralded all three moves as excellent additions that bring a healthy dash of veteran experience. It&rsquo;s his belief, too, that the leadership of the tried-and-true NHLers and a new bench boss are just what the club needed.That&rsquo;s especially true as the Predators seek to inject a bit of youthful exuberance into their roster. Nashville&rsquo;s prospect pool ranked 14th in The Hockey News&rsquo; Future Watch 2023, and with Cody Glass, Juuso Parssinen, Luke Evangelista and Philip Tomasino among the crop of up-and-comers, Forsberg believes last season&rsquo;s disappointment will be a blip rather than a harbinger of what&rsquo;s to come. &ldquo;We have great goaltending, great defensemen, and we have a lot of young, exciting forwards that I think, with the right guidance, can take the next step really quick,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and that&rsquo;s the next step I&rsquo;m personally looking forward to as well.&rdquo;&ndash;&nbsp;With files from Paul Delos Santos &#9632;

nsh_forsber_024

MUSIC TO HIS EARS

<div class="byline">BY JARED CLINTON</div><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-01119/10064501-1-eng-US/f0073-012.jpg" title="f0073-01" width="174" height="174"></div>On wins, the nod goes to Ilya Bryzgalov, but no netminder has done more for the franchise than MIKE SMITH. Across his six seasons in Arizona, Smith was among the most steady No. 1s in the league, and his 2011-12 season alone puts him atop the heap of Arizona Coyotes/Winnipeg Jets keepers. Smith almost singlehandedly dragged the Desert Dogs to the Western Conference final, and he even turned in a .936 save percentage in that series despite falling in five games to the eventual-champion L.A. Kings.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-0276/10064494-1-eng-US/f0073-022.jpg" title="f0073-02" width="173" height="173"></div>Tony Esposito may have the games-played, wins and shutout records in Chicago, but no netminder in Blackhawks history &ndash; or league history, for that matter &ndash; can match the reliability and consistency of GLENN HALL. &lsquo;Mr. Goalie&rsquo; played 502 consecutive games, 363 of those in Chicago, and won a pair of Vezinas while finishing top-five in Hart Trophy voting five times in his 10-season stay in the Windy City. His crowning achievement was backstopping the Hawks to the 1961 Cup, the last the franchise would win until 2010.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-0349/10064487-1-eng-US/f0073-032.jpg" title="f0073-03" width="172" height="172"></div>Any debate about the best stopper in team history is brief when a club legend is also in the conversation for the greatest goaltender period. Not only does PATRICK ROY have a laundry list of accomplishments &ndash; including the second-most wins in NHL history, three Vezina Trophies and more playoff victories than any other netminder &ndash; but he was arguably the most clutch keeper the league has ever seen. His four Cup rings are one indication, but his three Conn Smythes underscore his performance under pressure.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-0425/10064480-1-eng-US/f0073-042.jpg" title="f0073-04" width="174" height="174"></div>Ed Belfour won a Stanley Cup, and Don Beaupre, Gilles Meloche and Jon Casey helped send the North Stars to Cup finals, but a combination of performance and longevity makes MARTY TURCO Dallas&rsquo; greatest goaltender. His 262 wins and 40 shutouts are franchise bests, but more important is his play in the pre- and post-lockout years. Though he didn&rsquo;t win, Turco finished top-five in Vezina voting and garnered Hart support in three consecutive seasons. He allowed the Stars to compete with conference powerhouses.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-0516/10064473-1-eng-US/f0073-052.jpg" title="f0073-05" width="174" height="174"></div>The rise of NIKLAS BACKSTROM from undrafted keeper to standout NHL No. 1 helped legitimize a still-nascent franchise. In 2006, then-Wild GM Doug Risebrough took a flyer on a 28-year-old largely unknown Finnish League star, and it turned out to be an outstanding gambit. Backstrom shared the Jennings Trophy in his rookie year, finished sixth in Vezina voting and helped the Wild to their second playoff berth. Backstrom&rsquo;s was a brief but brilliant peak and one Wild faithful remember fondly.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-0612/10064466-1-eng-US/f0073-062.jpg" title="f0073-06" width="174" height="174"></div>PEKKA RINNE isn&rsquo;t just the best Predators goaltender of all-time but truly one of the most consistent and outstanding netminders of the post-lockout era. Among goalies to play at least 200 games since 2005-06, Rinne has a top-10 win percentage and GAA and a top-15 save percentage. His 2017-18 Vezina victory marked his first win but fourth nomination, and Nashville fans will surely argue until they&rsquo;re blue in the face that Rinne was robbed when he finished anywhere but the top of the podium.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-079/10064459-1-eng-US/f0073-072.jpg" title="f0073-07" width="174" height="174"></div>Drafted by the Blues in 1976, MIKE LIUT began his career in the WHA before the league&rsquo;s folding allowed St. Louis to reclaim the keeper&rsquo;s rights. In his very first NHL campaign, Liut stunned the masses by posting a league-best 32 wins, but his encore performance was even better: in 1980-81, his 33 wins made him a first-team all-star, the winner of the Lester B. Pearson Award as the players&rsquo; pick for MVP, and Liut came within six votes of earning the Hart Trophy, ultimately losing out to Wayne Gretzky.<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0073-088/10064452-1-eng-US/f0073-082.jpg" title="f0073-08" width="174" height="174"></div>The best goaltender in Jets history is now and will for decades remain CONNOR HELLEBUYCK. Though he hasn&rsquo;t achieved it singlehandedly, few have had as much influence as Hellebuyck in the franchise&rsquo;s metamorphosis from the league basement in its Atlanta days to a perennial playoff contender. In the time since becoming the starter in 2016-17, no goalie has seen or stopped more rubber than Hellebuyck, and while his days in Winnipeg may be waning, he&rsquo;ll forever be an essential fixture in the franchise&rsquo;s story. &#9632;

CENTRAL DIVISION

<div class="byline">BY IAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="pwhl_heise2_126" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pwhl_heise2_126/10064546-1-eng-US/pwhl_heise2_1262.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">FIRST AND GOALSNo. 1 overall pick Heise says the PWHL is &ldquo;a proud step forward&rdquo; for women&rsquo;s hockey. (LORI BOLLIGER/PWHL)</figcaption></div>STEPPING TO THE microphone to make the first selection at the inaugural PWHL draft in Toronto Sept. 18, tennis legend Billie Jean King had a message for women everywhere. A member of the PWHL&rsquo;s board, King has been fighting for women&rsquo;s rights and representation for decades, and when she announced Team USA and University of Minnesota star Taylor Heise as the first pick, it was yet another moment in her trailblazing career.&ldquo;A trailblazer is one that blazes a trail to lead and include others, the first person to do something or go somewhere, who shows that it is also possible for other people,&rdquo; King said. &ldquo;Trailblazing is bold, it&rsquo;s brave, and it can be very scary and lonely, but it&rsquo;s worth it. It&rsquo;s really worth it. The best part, we are just getting started. The PWHL is just getting started.&rdquo;The selection of Heise &ndash; the 2022 World Championship MVP and Patty Kazmaier Award winner, as well as the WCHA forward of the year in 2022 and 2023 &ndash; was huge for women&rsquo;s hockey. Despite the accolades Heise, 23, has collected in her career, the moment of being selected first overall in the PWHL draft is one she plans to hold close. But she also realizes the draft is only a stepping stone to the bigger things to come for pro women&rsquo;s hockey.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pwhl_muller_127/10064539-1-eng-US/pwhl_muller_1272.jpg" title="pwhl_muller_127" width="1021" height="1355"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALINA MULLER (LORI BOLLIGER/PWHL)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a piece of history that I&rsquo;m going to want to hold on to,&rdquo; Heise said. &ldquo;All of these things are stepping stones for women&rsquo;s hockey. We&rsquo;ve been looking for more media coverage. We&rsquo;ve been looking for building-foundation sources for younger girls and having those community aspects involved. We&rsquo;re making our way, and we&rsquo;re making it with a proud step forward right now. I think this league is going to be one to be reckoned with.&rdquo;When Minnesota won the first-overall pick in the PWHL draft lottery Sept. 1, Heise was immediately considered the frontrunner. When asked how long it took for Heise&rsquo;s name to pop into Minnesota GM Natalie Darwitz&rsquo;s mind after winning the lottery, she said it was instantaneous. &ldquo;It didn&rsquo;t even take a nanosecond,&rdquo; Darwitz said. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s a special player. Her game has just taken off, and the best part is I don&rsquo;t think she&rsquo;s reached her potential at all, and we&rsquo;re excited to get it out of her.&rdquo;Following Heise, 89 additional players were selected in the first-ever PWHL draft. That list includes NCAA standouts such as Alina Muller, Sophie Jaques and Emma Maltais; PHF award winners such as Loren Gabel, Corinne Schroeder and Kali Flanagan; and national-team stars such as Jocelyne Larocque, Savannah Harmon, Dominika Laskova, Natalie Spooner and Lina Ljungblom.While Heise was first, Sweden&rsquo;s Ljungblom was last, but her selection may ultimately have as much impact as any other &ndash; if not more. Montreal called Ljungblom&rsquo;s name 90th overall, closing out the event.At 21, Ljungblom was the youngest player selected, and she was the only European who is currently under contract in Europe &ndash; she plays for Swedish club Modo &ndash; to be picked. &ldquo;Lina plays with a lot of power,&rdquo; said Modo coach Jared Cipparone. &ldquo;She has a quick release and heavy shot. She has a scoring mentality. A threat when given space in the offensive zone. She can also beat a defender with her power. She has gotten better at finding open space as well as creating chances on her own. Like most young players, she is still improving her game without the puck, as well as her playmaking skills.&rdquo;It&rsquo;s this skill set that made Ljungblom a prospect many teams considered drafting. Last season with Modo, Ljungblom had 17 goals and 30 points in 32 games, which she followed up by leading Sweden in goals at the 2023 worlds, scoring seven times and totalling 10 points in seven games.It&rsquo;s uncertain whether Ljungblom, who is signed to play with Modo in the SDHL again this season, will be able to play in the PWHL this time around, or if she&rsquo;ll need to wait until her SDHL contract expires following the 2023-24 campaign or a transfer agreement is formed with the PWHL.Either way, Ljungblom&rsquo;s selection opened a door for future European players to join the league. When the 2024 PWHL draft rolls around, that&rsquo;s exactly what many expect to happen as the PWHL continues to attract, as it did in the league&rsquo;s inaugural draft, the most talented players from across the globe.<h2>&gt;BOSTON</h2>HILARY KNIGHT, 34, RW(Free Agent, signed September 7)AERIN FRANKEL, 24, G(Free Agent, signed September 7)MEGAN KELLER, 27, D(Free Agent, signed September 7)ALINA MULLER, 25, C(Draft, Round 1, 3rd overall)SOPHIE JAQUES, 22, D(Draft, Round 2, 10th overall)JAMIE LEE RATTRAY, 31, LW(Draft, Round 3, 15th overall)LOREN GABEL, 26, LW(Draft, Round 4, 22nd overall)HANNAH BRANDT, 29, RW(Draft, Round 5, 27th overall)JESSICA DIGIROLAMO, 24, D(Draft, Round 6, 34th overall)THERESA SCHAFZAHL, 23, C(Draft, Round 7, 39th overall)EMILY BROWN, 24, D(Draft, Round 8, 46th overall)TAYLOR GIRARD, 25, LW(Draft, Round 9, 51st overall)EMMA SODERBERG, 25, G(Draft, Round 10, 58th overall)SOPHIE SHIRLEY, 24, RW(Draft, Round 11, 63rd overall)SHIANN DARKANGELO, 29, C(Draft, Round 12, 70th overall)EMMA BUCKLES, 24, D(Draft, Round 13, 75th overall)TATUM SKAGGS, 24, RW(Draft, Round 14, 82nd overall)JESS HEALEY, 26, D(Draft, Round 15, 87th overall)<h2>&gt;MINNESOTA</h2>KENDALL COYNE SCHOFIELD, 31, LW(Free Agent, signed September 6)LEE STECKLEIN, 29, D(Free Agent, signed September 6)KELLY PANNEK, 27, C(Free Agent, signed September 6)TAYLOR HEISE, 23, C(Draft, Round 1, 1st overall)NICOLE HENSLEY, 29, G(Draft, Round 2, 12th overall)GRACE ZUMWINKLE, 24, RW(Draft, Round 3, 13th overall)MAGGIE FLAHERTY, 23, D(Draft, Round 4, 24th overall)SUSANNA TAPANI, 30, LW(Draft, Round 5, 25th overall)CLAIR DEGEORGE, 24, LW(Draft, Round 6, 36th overall)NATALIE BUCHBINDER, 24, D(Draft, Round 7, 37th overall)DENISA KRIZOVA, 28, C(Draft, Round 8, 48th overall)SIDNEY MORIN, 28, D(Draft, Round 9, 49th overall)SOPHIA KUNIN, 26, RWDraft, Round 10, 60th overall)AMANDA LEVEILLE, 29, G(Draft, Round 11, 61st overall)MICHELA CAVA, 29, RW(Draft, Round 12, 72nd overall)LIZ SCHEPERS, 24, LW(Draft, Round 13, 73rd overall)MINTTU TUOMINEN, 33, D(Draft, Round 14, 84th overall)SYDNEY BRODT, 25, RW(Draft, Round 15, 85th overall)<h2>&gt;MONTREAL</h2>MARIE-PHILIP POULIN, 32, C(Free Agent, signed September 7)ANN-RENEE DESBIENS, 29, G(Free Agent, signed September 7)LAURA STACEY, 29, RW(Free Agent, signed September 7)ERIN AMBROSE, 29, D(Draft, Round 1, 6th overall)KRISTIN O&rsquo;NEILL, 25, C(Draft, Round 2, 7th overall)MAUREEN MURPHY, 23, RW(Draft, Round 3, 18th overall)DOMINIKA LASKOVA, 26, D(Draft, Round 4, 19th overall)KATI TABIN, 26, D(Draft, Round 5, 30th overall)KENNEDY MARCHMENT, 26, LW(Draft, Round 6, 31st overall)TEREZA VANISOVA, 27, LW(Draft, Round 7, 42nd overall)MADISON BIZAL, 23, D(Draft, Round 8, 43rd overall)GABRIELLE DAVID, 24, RW(Draft, Round 9, 54th overall)MAUDE POULIN-LABELLE, 23, D(Draft, Round 10, 55th overall)JILLIAN DEMPSEY, 32, C(Draft, Round 11, 66th overall)CLAIRE DALTON, 23, RW(Draft, Round 12, 67th overall)ELAINE CHULI, 29, G(Draft, Round 13, 78th overall)ANN-SOPHIE BETTEZ, 35, LW(Draft, Round 14, 79th overall)LINA LJUNGBLOM, 21, C(Draft, Round 15, 90th overall)<h2>&gt;NEW YORK</h2>ALEX CARPENTER, 29, C(Free Agent, signed September 8)ABBY ROQUE, 26, C(Free Agent, signed September 8)MICAH ZANDEE-HART, 26, D(Free Agent, signed September 8)ELLA SHELTON, 25, D(Draft, Round 1, 4th overall)JAIME BOURBONNAIS, 25, D(Draft, Round 2, 9th overall)JESSIE ELDRIDGE, 25, RW(Draft, Round 3, 16th overall)CHLOE AURARD, 24, LW(Draft, Round 4, 21st overall)ELIZABETH GIGUERE, 26, LW(Draft, Round 5, 28th overall)CORINNE SCHROEDER, 24, G(Draft, Round 6, 33rd overall)JILL SAULNIER, 31, LW(Draft, Round 7, 40th overall)BROOKE HOBSON, 24, D(Draft, Round 8, 45th overall)JADE DOWNIE-LANDRY, 27, C(Draft, Round 9, 52nd overall)PAETYN LEVIS, 23, RW(Draft, Round 10, 57th overall)ABIGAIL LEVY, 23, G(Draft, Round 11, 64th overall)OLIVIA ZAFUTO, 26, D(Draft, Round 12, 69th overall)KAYLA VESPA, 26, LW(Draft, Round 13, 76th overall)EMMA WOODS, 27, RW(Draft, Round 14, 81st overall)ALEXANDRA LABELLE, 27, C(Draft, Round 15, 88th overall)<h2>&gt;OTTAWA</h2>EMERANCE MASCHMEYER, 28, G(Free Agent, signed September 5)BRIANNE JENNER, 32, RW(Free Agent, signed September 5)EMILY CLARK, 27, LW(Free Agent, signed September 5)SAVANNAH HARMON, 27, D(Draft, Round 1, 5th overall)ASHTON BELL, 23, DDraft, Round 2, 8th overall)JINCY DUNNE-ROESE, 26, D(Draft, Round 3, 17th overall)GABRIELLE HUGHES, 23, LW(Draft, Round 4, 20th overall)HAYLEY SCAMURRA, 28, C(Draft, Round 5, 29th overall)DARYL WATTS, 24, LW(Draft, Round 6, 32nd overall)ANETA TEJRALOVA, 27, D(Draft, Round 7, 41st overall)KATERINA MRAZOVA, 30, C(Draft, Round 8, 44th overall)ZOE BOYD, 23, D(Draft, Round 9, 53rd overall)KRISTIN DELLA ROVERE, 22, RW(Draft, Round 10, 56th overall)LEXIE ADZIJA, 23, C(Draft, Round 11, 65th overall)SANDRA ABSTREITER, 25, G(Draft, Round 12, 68th overall)AMANDA BOULIER, 30, D(Draft, Round 13, 77th overall)CAITRIN LONERGAN, 26, RW(Draft, Round 14, 80th overall)AUDREY-ANNE VEILLETTE, 22, RW(Draft, Round 15, 89th overall)<h2>&gt;TORONTO</h2>SARAH NURSE, 28, C(Free Agent, signed September 6)BLAYRE TURNBULL, 30, C(Free Agent, signed September 6)RENATA FAST, 28, D(Free Agent, signed September 6)JOCELYNE LAROCQUE, 35, D(Draft, Round 1, 2nd overall)EMMA MALTAIS, 23, LW(Draft, Round 2, 11th overall)KRISTEN CAMPBELL, 25, G(Draft, Round 3, 14th overall)NATALIE SPOONER, 32, RW(Draft, Round 4, 23rd overall)JESSE COMPHER, 24, RW(Draft, Round 5, 26th overall)KALI FLANAGAN, 28, D(Draft, Round 6, 35th overall)VICTORIA BACH, 27, LW(Draft, Round 7, 38th overall)BRITTANY HOWARD, 27, RW(Draft, Round 8, 47th overall)ALLIE MUNROE, 26, D(Draft, Round 9, 50th overall)MELLISSA CHANNELL, 28, D(Draft, Round 10, 59th overall)MAGGIE CONNORS, 22, LW(Draft, Round 11, 62nd overall)REBECCA LESLIE, 27, RW(Draft, Round 12, 71st overall)HANNAH MILLER, 27, C(Draft, Round 13, 74th overall)ALEXA VASKO, 24, LW(Draft, Round 14, 83rd overall)OLIVIA KNOWLES, 24, D(Draft, Round 15, 86th overall) &#9632;

pwhl_heise2_126

PWHL

‘THE PWHL IS JUST GETTING STARTED’

<div class="byline">BY CAROL SCHRAM</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="pwhl_maschm_063" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pwhl_maschm_063/10064598-1-eng-US/pwhl_maschm_0632.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(KIYOSHI MIO-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>YOU&rsquo;VE HEARD THE STORIES &ndash; goaltenders are a notoriously quirky bunch.But Brianne Jenner has known Emerance Maschmeyer for nearly a decade and says that the starting stopper for the PWHL&rsquo;s new Ottawa franchise is the exception to the rule. &ldquo;Most goalies are weird, and she&rsquo;s so normal,&rdquo; said Jenner with a smile. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s like a normal teammate.&rdquo;Since 2015, Jenner and Maschmeyer have worn the maple leaf together on Canada&rsquo;s national team through seven world championships and an Olympics. The spoils from their efforts: three gold medals, four silvers and a bronze.The MVP in Beijing in 2022, Jenner was serving as captain of the Calgary Inferno when Maschmeyer made her CWHL debut after graduating from Harvard. In eight games as a 22-year-old in 2016-17, she posted a .946 save percentage and 1.49 goals-against average.From there, the Alberta farm girl moved on to the Montreal Canadiennes, where she spent two years as a starter before the CWHL turned off its lights in 2019. &ldquo;When we were with the Inferno, I liked it a lot more than when I played against her,&rdquo; Jenner said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s for sure.&rdquo;The second-youngest of five hockey-playing siblings, Maschmeyer began her hockey journey on the family&rsquo;s outdoor rink in Bruderheim, a town of just over 1,000 an hour&rsquo;s drive northeast of Edmonton.Playing 20 games with the U-15 Fort Saskatchewan Rangers AAA boys team, a 14-year-old Maschmeyer put up a .919 SP. Three more years of boys hockey followed. In her Grade 12 year in 2011-12, she made seven appearances with the Jr. A Lloydminster Bobcats. That January, she also won her first gold medal with Team Canada at the 2012 World Women&rsquo;s Under-18 Championship.That tournament turned out to be a precursor to what now lies ahead in Ottawa. It was the first time Maschmeyer played with Ottawa&rsquo;s third free-agent signing, left winger Emily Clark, who became her roommate with Team Canada. And behind the bench, Carla MacLeod was making her coaching debut as an assistant to Pierre Alain.After amassing head-coaching experience at the University of Calgary and with the Czech women&rsquo;s team, which has captured back-to-back World Championship bronze medals, MacLeod was named PWHL Ottawa&rsquo;s first coach Sept. 15. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great starting point for us with those women,&rdquo; said MacLeod of her core three. &ldquo;All of them are highly professional, incredible hockey players.&rdquo;With Team Canada, Maschmeyer has shared the net with standout stoppers including childhood idol and fellow Albertan Shannon Szabados, PWHL Montreal&rsquo;s Ann-Renee Desbiens and her former CWHL Montreal teammate Genevieve Lacasse, whom she married in summer 2023. At 34, Lacasse has elected not to pursue a PWHL position.At Harvard, Maschmeyer was a starter in all four of her seasons. Over 99 games, she put up a 1.65 GAA and .923 SP with 17 shutouts, and as a sophomore in 2013-14, she was named a finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award as the NCAA&rsquo;s top player.But with Canada, she has primarily played a backup role. And between the demise of the CWHL in 2019 and the diminished opportunities for competition over the past few years due to the pandemic, Maschmeyer&rsquo;s body hasn&rsquo;t necessarily endured the same wear and tear and repetitive strain as a typical 29-year-old goalkeeper.For PWHL Ottawa GM Michael Hirshfeld, that&rsquo;s a glass-half-full scenario. He sees Maschmeyer as an elite stopper who will be in her prime for the duration of her contract, and he expects her best is yet to come.Because the women&rsquo;s hockey world is rich with high-quality netminding, there was some speculation GMs would elect to wait until the draft to fill their goaltending slots. But three of the PWHL&rsquo;s six GMs used one of their three initial free-agent openings to lock down their crease coverage. &ldquo;We really believe it&rsquo;s important to have a goalie the team feels confidence in and believes in,&rdquo; Hirshfeld said. &ldquo;We think she&rsquo;s got great years ahead of her. She&rsquo;s had a great career. We think she&rsquo;s one of the best goalies in the world, and we&rsquo;re excited to have her lead our team.&rdquo;Goalies can&rsquo;t be captains. But as Hirshfeld points out, they can be leaders. And Maschmeyer has every intention of playing that role in Ottawa. &ldquo;I pride myself on being consistent in the net and also off the ice in my demeanor,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bring that to this team and hopefully lead by example.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pwhl_maschm_064/10064591-1-eng-US/pwhl_maschm_0642.jpg" title="pwhl_maschm_064" width="1571" height="949"><figcaption class="caption-body">EMERANCE EXCELLENCEMaschmeyer, right, is no stranger to success: she&rsquo;s won gold at the Olympics and twice at the worlds. (GEORGE WALKER IV-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>Just four days after he was introduced as the GM in Ottawa, Hirshfeld came out of the gate swinging in PWHL free agency with his signings of Maschmeyer, Jenner and Clark. &ldquo;We had these three players right at the top of the list as our targets,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We felt like we really put our due diligence in on the players we wanted and the type of leaders we were looking for.&rdquo;Hirshfeld explained that his team-building strategy was focused on identifying players who could provide leadership and help build a strong culture that he hopes will be embedded in the DNA of his organization for years to come.The players echoed those sentiments, emphasizing the strong bond that already exists between them and their common outlooks on life and hockey. &ldquo;I think all three of us think super-highly of each other,&rdquo; Clark said. &ldquo;I think we have very similar values.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pwhl_maschm_065/10064584-1-eng-US/pwhl_maschm_0652.jpg" title="pwhl_maschm_065" width="1020" height="1413"><figcaption class="caption-body">(HEATHER POLLOCK/PWHL)</figcaption></div>For all the talk of normalcy, Maschmeyer acknowledges it&rsquo;s &ldquo;a little weird&rdquo; she has been singing to herself on the ice since back in her college days. On the surface, it sounds lighthearted. But the reasoning behind her habit offers a glimpse of her steely competitive spirit. &ldquo;As a goalie, there&rsquo;s a lot going on, and we&rsquo;re on the ice for 60 minutes,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;For whatever reason, that kind of keeps me in the moment and not thinking about distractions outside.&rdquo; &#9632;

pwhl_maschm_063

SINGING A NEW TUNE

<div class="byline">BY IAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="pwhl_pannek_029" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pwhl_pannek_029/10064650-1-eng-US/pwhl_pannek_0292.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">WINNING PEDIGREEPannek has an Olympic gold, is a three-time world champion and is a two-time NCAA champ. (DAN HAMILTON-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>IN THE HISTORY OF women&rsquo;s hockey, there are many firsts. For the new Professional Women&rsquo;s Hockey League, that history belongs to Kelly Pannek, who was the first player to sign a contract in the new league.Born in Plymouth, Minn., Pannek grew up living and playing in Minnesota, which is known as the &lsquo;State of Hockey.&rsquo; Pannek moved from high-school hockey, to the University of Minnesota, through the PWHPA and now to the PWHL&rsquo;s Minnesota franchise, where she signed alongside Kendall Coyne Schofield and fellow Minnesotan Lee Stecklein. According to U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame member and Minnesota hockey legend Natalie Darwitz, the franchise&rsquo;s inaugural GM, the decision to sign local products like Pannek and Stecklein was simple.&ldquo;For me, it was a no-brainer as far as Kelly and Lee being from the State of Hockey,&rdquo; Darwitz said. &ldquo;It was important for us as a franchise that we have local players here to build the game. Kelly was a no-brainer for us. She pulled the trigger pretty fast, which I love&hellip;she knew right away.&rdquo;While Coyne Schofield, who has captained the U.S. national team for multiple seasons, and Stecklein, who is the reigning PWHPA defender of the year and was named best defender at the 2021 World Championship, may be more of the household names, Pannek&rsquo;s role as a cornerstone of Minnesota&rsquo;s PWHL franchise is evident. Signing in Minnesota was a homecoming of sorts for the 27-year-old &ndash; and a reunion with Darwitz. When Pannek first pulled on a University of Minnesota Golden Gophers uniform in 2014, it was for an alumni game. Lining up against her for the alumni team was Darwitz, a superstar in her era who scored 114 points in 40 games as a senior. It was a story Pannek, who tied for the NCAA lead in points in 2016-17 with the Gophers, told back to Darwitz when they first talked about the PWHL.&ldquo;When I spoke to Natalie on the phone, it was kind of a full-circle moment,&rdquo; Pannek said. &ldquo;To have this opportunity to join her team, stay at home, play in front of family and friends and a bunch of people that have been a part of my hockey career all the way up to this point, it means the world to me. I&rsquo;ve always been a very proud Minnesotan, a proud representative of the State of Hockey, and I&rsquo;m excited to keep it going.According to Darwitz, things happened quickly from there, as Pannek was a person who took &ldquo;great pride and excitement from being here&rdquo; and &ldquo;was ready to go from the get go.&rdquo;&ldquo;We have history here,&rdquo; Darwitz said, &ldquo;and it was a comfort level that we all had with each other, and so Kelly kind of pulled the trigger pretty quickly.&rdquo;The 2023-24 season will be Pannek&rsquo;s first in an official professional league, as she joined the PWHPA&rsquo;s Dream Gap Tour immediately following her NCAA career. While Pannek may hold the title of the PWHL&rsquo;s first player, the more important first is the championship the team hopes to win at the end of Year 1. It&rsquo;s a collaborative goal Pannek will be crucial to achieving after signing her three-year contract. She&rsquo;s no stranger to winning, owning three World Championship gold medals and an Olympic gold medal as a member of Team USA plus two NCAA national titles while playing for the University of Minnesota. Pannek is the type of player teams covet in the search of championships, a point not lost on her new GM and teammates.&ldquo;She is truly one of the smartest hockey players I think I&rsquo;ve ever played with,&rdquo; Stecklein said. The duo played NCAA hockey together at Minnesota, with Pannek inheriting Stecklein&rsquo;s captain&rsquo;s &lsquo;C,&rsquo; and together, they&rsquo;ve been staples on the U.S. senior national team. &ldquo;Her hockey IQ is out of this world,&rdquo; Stecklein said, &ldquo;and her ability to play really any role is quite special. To have her on the ice with her hockey IQ and off the ice helping everyone make sure we&rsquo;re on the same page working things out, she&rsquo;s just a really special person, a special hockey player.&rdquo;<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;SHE PULLED THE TRIGGER PRETTY FAST, WHICH I LOVE&hellip;SHE KNEW RIGHT AWAY &ndash; Minnesota GM Natalie Darwitz</blockquote>Pannek&rsquo;s rock-solid two-way game down the middle is one her team values. &ldquo;The consistency and reliability&hellip;I think Kelly is someone you know what you&rsquo;re getting every night when she steps on the ice, and I think that&rsquo;s one of the greatest assets you can have as a player,&rdquo; Coyne Schofield said.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/pwhl_pannek_031/10064643-1-eng-US/pwhl_pannek_0312.jpg" title="pwhl_pannek_031" width="1020" height="1676"><figcaption class="caption-body">ALEX CARPENTER, LEE STECKLEIN, & KELLY PANNEK (LORI BOLLIGER/PWHL)</figcaption></div>These traits were the selling point for Darwitz, who told media she is building an &ldquo;organization of excellence&rdquo; in Minnesota. That excellence will include Pannek&rsquo;s heralded, and unheralded, contributions. &ldquo;Kelly is a strong two-way center with elite vision and playmaking abilities,&rdquo; Darwitz said. &ldquo;She is one of the best on faceoffs as well. She is an important sign for Minnesota for us to get a consistent and reliable center up the middle who also has the ability to score timely goals. Off the ice, Kelly is impactful in the community of Minnesota in being a great role model and growing the game.&rdquo;Growing up in Minnesota, Pannek watched players like Darwitz skate for the Golden Gophers. She watched the professional Minnesota Whitecaps and the NHL&rsquo;s Minnesota Wild, and she was bathed in Minnesota&rsquo;s rich hockey culture.She takes pride in her origins. The pull of her roots was too strong for her to look anywhere else, which is why when the chance to sign in Minnesota was presented, it was a quick decision. &ldquo;Minnesota is the State of Hockey,&rdquo; Pannek said. &ldquo;We like to brag about it as Minnesotans. We grew up in the ideal hockey scenario in so many ways. Being in this place, where in the U.S. hockey isn&rsquo;t the biggest sport for every state, and here it is&hellip;It was no secret this is where I wanted to be, and when that opportunity came along, I was ready.&rdquo; &#9632;

pwhl_pannek_029

STAY-AT-HOME CENTER

<div class="byline">BY JACOB STOLLER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="ahl_scheel1_091" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ahl_scheel1_091/10064695-1-eng-US/ahl_scheel1_0912.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">STEEL-HEADED STEELHEADA mental reset in the ECHL put Scheel&rsquo;s game back on track. His play helped Idaho set a record for wins. (PHOTO BY IDAHO STEELHEADS)</figcaption></div>WITH THE CHICAGO Wolves operating without an NHL parent club this season, GM Wendell Young was tasked with building an AHL roster from scratch this summer. On top of signing marquee AHL talent, Young sought players who had slipped through the cracks and were not fielding NHL offers. In net, he wanted a young goaltender, one who hadn&rsquo;t yet reached his full potential, to share the crease.Atop his list of targets was one name: Adam Scheel. &ldquo;I really think there&rsquo;s something there,&rdquo; Young said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got all the attributes to be not just a really good goalie in the American Hockey League but to move up even higher.&rdquo;Scheel is fresh off helping the ECHL&rsquo;s Idaho Steelheads to a Kelly Cup final after posting a .932 save percentage and 1.97 goals-against average, both league bests, in the regular season. And he has pedigree, too. Scheel was a top-tier goalie at the University of North Dakota and was named the NCHC goaltender of the year for 2020-21.The 24-year-old Scheel, a graduate of USA Hockey&rsquo;s National Team Development Program, signed a two-year entry-level deal with the Dallas Stars after his junior NCAA season. He finished off 2020-21 on an amateur tryout with the AHL&rsquo;s Texas Stars, posting a .912 SP in 12 contests. Scheel went on to record a .902 SP in 31 AHL games during 2021-22.&ldquo;It&rsquo;s almost easy to lose sight of the fact that last year was his true rookie season,&rdquo; said Texas Stars coach Neil Graham. &ldquo;Playing 31 games as a rookie AHL goaltender is quite an accomplishment. Especially considering we had a lot of goalies &ndash; such as Jake Oettinger, Anton Khudobin and even Ben Bishop for one game &ndash; that year. It speaks to where he was at that point in time.&rdquo;But once 2022-23 got underway, Scheel was leapfrogged on the depth chart by Matt Murray, Dallas&rsquo; newest shiny NCAA signing. Veteran Anton Khudobin was re-assigned to the minors for a second straight year, which made Scheel the odd man out in Texas and led to him being sent to Idaho. &ldquo;I kind of flipped a switch and figured, &lsquo;This is my team,&rsquo; &rdquo; Scheel said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to do everything I can to help this team win. I just looked around, saw the guys in the locker room and figured, why sulk? This is still a very, very good opportunity.&rdquo;The Steelheads &ndash; who posted a 58-11-3 record and recorded the best single-season win and point totals in ECHL history &ndash; were a strong team from top to bottom. But Scheel&rsquo;s impact was undeniable. He led the league in shutouts (five) and recorded the best goals saved above average per game (0.785) of any under-24 ECHL goaltender since Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Logan Thompson (0.845).The ECHL was a reset for Scheel. He says he was hyper-focused on the wrong things while growing up &ndash; such as how other netminders in his age group were progressing or, at the pro level, depth-chart ramifications he couldn&rsquo;t control. But in Idaho, he focused on what he could control. And he gained a sense of gratitude along the way. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re in &lsquo;The Coast,&rsquo; you see guys there that are working second jobs and struggling to stay afloat just for the love of the game,&rdquo; Scheel said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s very humbling to see guys go through that grind.&rdquo;But above all else, Idaho gave him the chance to channel his energy toward his biggest motivator. Winning. &ldquo;I want to be part of a winning team and a winning culture,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;To me, the biggest driver for individual success is team success. If you look at a lot of the great teams that I&rsquo;ve been a part of, a lot of guys have been able to create opportunities for themselves from it and push their careers further.&rdquo;That ought to be music to Young&rsquo;s ears. With no NHL parent club instructing the Wolves on which prospects to play, nobody is standing in Chicago&rsquo;s way of going full throttle for a Calder Cup. &ldquo;There won&rsquo;t be any of what I like to call &lsquo;draft-pick entitlement,&rsquo; &rdquo; Young said. &ldquo;The best players are going to play.&rdquo;But that&rsquo;s only half the reason that Scheel saw joining the Wolves as a &ldquo;no-brainer.&rdquo;&ldquo;For the first 11 years of my life, I lived in Chicago and grew up going to Wolves games,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a huge honor to be able to be a part of that great organization.&rdquo; &#9632;

ahl_scheel1_091

GOTTA GO DOWN TO GET UP

<div class="byline">BY JACOB STOLLER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="echl_moe1" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/echl_moe1/10064740-1-eng-US/echl_moe12.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">BOBBING BADGERMoe started well after transferring to Wisconsin, but his final 12 games with the program were a struggle. (MARK STEWART/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL)</figcaption></div>WHILE JARED MOE WAS disappointed to not receive an entry-level contract from the Winnipeg Jets, the 24-year-old goaltender wasn&rsquo;t shocked.&ldquo;I had a down year last season, so I understand where they were coming from,&rdquo; Moe said.Moe, whom the Jets drafted in the sixth round (184th overall) in 2018, was coming off a 2022-23 campaign in which he posted a save percentage of .898 in 30 NCAA games with Wisconsin. Since hearing the news, he has shifted his focus to turning pro. Part of his off-season training included partaking in Da Beauty League &ndash; a 3-on-3 league in Minnesota that features NHL and NCAA players. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a hard league to play in as a goalie, but it&rsquo;s good to see that many shots from NHL goal-scorers,&rdquo; Moe said. &ldquo;You make a lot of connections there.&rdquo;Connections are imperative for a player in Moe&rsquo;s position. As it turns out, a strong relationship between his agent, Chris McAlpine, and ECHL Idaho coach Everett Sheen kickstarted the Steelheads&rsquo; pursuit of Moe. When McAlpine informed Sheen of Moe&rsquo;s impressive showing in Da Beauty League, it carried weight. After going back and watching game tape of the 6-foot-3, 205-pound netminder in his NCAA days, Sheen was sold and signed Moe to a contract in September. &ldquo;The way he competed stood out to me,&rdquo; Sheen said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m hoping he can push for a starting job.&rdquo;Tony Granato, Moe&rsquo;s coach at Wisconsin the past two years, said he wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if Moe quickly climbs the ladder. &ldquo;With his size and ability to challenge shooters, he&rsquo;s really got a chance to be a good pro,&rdquo; Granato said.To understand what motivated the seasoned NCAA coach to give such an endorsement, you&rsquo;ve got to dig deeper into Moe&rsquo;s college career. His four years of collegiate hockey were up and down, to say the least. Before joining the Badgers, he played for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. His first year with Minnesota was promising, with Moe recording a .915 SP in 16 games and being named to the Big Ten&rsquo;s all-rookie team. But then things went sideways in his sophomore year, with Moe being relegated to the backup role as Jack LaFontaine established himself as the NCAA&rsquo;s best goalie. &ldquo;Career-wise and game-wise, I was trending in the wrong direction,&rdquo; Moe said.So he transferred to Wisconsin. And for the most part, Moe performed quite well for an inexperienced Badgers squad that&rsquo;s been reeling since star players Cole Caufield and Dylan Holloway departed the program after 2020-21. All in all, Moe posted a .917 SP in his first 48 games as a Badger, 31 of which came during his junior year, his first as a starter at the NCAA level. &ldquo;There were moments where I thought this kid could be an all-American goalie,&rdquo; Granato said. &ldquo;There were other times where he struggled, though. But he was playing behind an inexperienced team.&rdquo;Moe&rsquo;s college career ended on a sour note, as a 12-game slump to close out the season &ndash; where he posted a 2-10-0 record and a shoddy .865 SP &ndash; overshadowed what had been a relatively successful tenure at Wisconsin. &ldquo;What caused that drop?&rdquo; Moe said. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. At the end of the day, I could have been better.&rdquo;Mind you, if you subtract those final dozen games, Moe had a .915 SP through his first 68 NCAA games. &ldquo;What he&rsquo;s going to have to do now is find a way to take the net over and be a No. 1 at the pro level,&rdquo; Granato said. &ldquo;If you can gain a net in pro hockey and play well, there&rsquo;s always a chance to move up. I&rsquo;ve seen lots of guys start in the ECHL and end up in the NHL.&rdquo;Indeed, many notable goalies in today&rsquo;s NHL started out in the ECHL, such as recent Stanley Cup champions Jonathan Quick, Jordan Binnington and Logan Thompson. Same goes for Philipp Grubauer, Vitek Vanecek and James Reimer. &ldquo;Sometimes, goalies don&rsquo;t always pan out at 20 or 21, and they&rsquo;re late-bloomers,&rdquo; Sheen said. &ldquo;Then, all of a sudden, you&rsquo;re 25, and you figure out the position from playing games, being in big moments and becoming confident from it.&rdquo; &#9632;

echl_moe1

ECHL

MOE SLUMP? NO PROBLEM

<div class="byline">BY CAROL SCHRAM</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="whl_coward1_054" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/whl_coward1_054/10064844-1-eng-US/whl_coward1_0542.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(ROB WALLATOR/RED DEER REBELS)</figcaption></div>WHAT A DIFFERENCE A year makes.When congenital hip issues forced goaltender Chase Coward to the sidelines after his 2022 playoff run with the WHL&rsquo;s Red Deer Rebels, he kept busy by helping out the under-16 team at Moose Jaw&rsquo;s Prairie Hockey Academy. &ldquo;I ended up being an assistant coach with Lorne Molleken, which was definitely an interesting experience, because I played for him at the Academy when I was 15,&rdquo; Coward said. &ldquo;I learned how to pick apart the game more slowly.&rdquo;This fall, after a trade to the Prince Albert Raiders brought the Swift Current native back to his home province of Saskatchewan, Coward applied that experience in his new team&rsquo;s first pre-season game while backing up Cooper Anderson in a 2-1 win over Saskatoon. &ldquo;It was a younger group of guys, so you&rsquo;ve got to help them out,&rdquo; Coward said. &ldquo;I was on the bench giving them pointers and helping them in the intermission. They were nervous. I was trying to help calm those nerves.&rdquo;Prince Albert offers a fresh start for Coward, 20, who lost almost all of last season after surgeries to repair both his hips. When he was able to walk out of the hospital in Edmonton without crutches after his first procedure last October, the second side was then booked for December.Aided by physiotherapist Erin Baker in Edmonton, Coward was already working with Rebels goaltending coach Ian Gordon on the ice when the team&rsquo;s goalie-of-the-year finalist, Rhett Stoesser, went down with a season-ending knee injury in February. Suddenly, a planned return for the fall of 2023 was accelerated when GM Brent Sutter asked if Coward might be able to support Kyle Kelsey through the stretch run.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/whl_coward3_056/10064830-1-eng-US/whl_coward3_0562.jpg" title="whl_coward3_056" width="1022" height="769"><figcaption class="caption-body">CHASE COWARD (ROB WALLATOR/RED DEER REBELS)</figcaption></div>On March 8, the 6-foot-2 stopper was back in uniform, making 20 saves in a 2-1 win over the Lethbridge Hurricanes. He suited up five more times before the end of the playoffs, and now, after a full summer of training and more work with Baker to &ldquo;build those little muscles,&rdquo; Coward says he&rsquo;s going into the new season pain-free.Hip issues are an occupational hazard for goalies, and surgery is often required. For Coward, the turning point came during the 2022 playoffs, following a season where he&rsquo;d gone 22-10-2 in a career-high 35 games. A first-round win over the Brandon Wheat Kings ended with a triple-overtime marathon in Game 6, where Coward faced 50 shots. Ten days later, his season was over after the Rebels were swept by the Edmonton Oil Kings.The summer of 2022 had been shaping up well, but at the Buffalo Sabres&rsquo; development camp, Coward was only allowed to participate in off-ice activities. Then, before he could get a chance to show his stuff at Canada&rsquo;s world-junior summer camp, testing revealed he&rsquo;d need to go under the knife.Fast-forward 12 months, and the summer of 2023 was a success. Coward was a full participant at the Minnesota Wild&rsquo;s development camp, and with Stoesser, Kelsey and Chase Wutzke all in the mix for starts in Red Deer this year, a trade made sense. &ldquo;It was something we were expecting,&rdquo; Coward said. &ldquo;It ended up being before camp, so that was nice. I got to settle in with my billets and everything early. It worked out very well in the end.&rdquo;This season, the Raiders&rsquo; offense will be led by reigning rookie of the year Ryder Ritchie. And after Tikhon Chaika elected to return to his native Belarus, Coward expects to compete with incumbent Max Hildebrand for starts in net. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s going to be a fight for the crease,&rdquo; Coward said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s exciting when you have a partner that pushes you.&rdquo;As Coward enters his final season of junior, he has two objectives in mind: &ldquo;The big goal is to end up with a contract by the end of the year. That&rsquo;s the personal one, and then I want to take this team on a deep playoff run. Give the guys some playoff experience that they can hand down. Just create that winning program for the Raiders.&rdquo; &#9632;

whl_coward1_054

BACK IN THE CHASE

<div class="byline">BY TONY FERRARI</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="ohl_leender_086" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ohl_leender_086/10064889-1-eng-US/ohl_leender_0862.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">RYERSON LEENDERS (NATALIE SHAVER/OHL IMAGES)</figcaption></div>IT&rsquo;S NOT OFTEN A 16-year-old goaltender walks onto his OHL team and takes over the starting job, but that&rsquo;s precisely what Ryerson Leenders did in Mississauga by the end of last season.Coming into the year, the Steelheads were relying on import netminder Alessio Beglieri to be their starter while slowly bringing along Leenders, with eyes on the latter eventually taking over the crease as the goaltender of the future. Everything was going as planned to start the year, with Leenders playing in just three games before heading off to the World Under-17 Challenge in November.Leenders returned from the 10-day event and began to play more in the lead-up to the holidays, starting four of five games before Beglieri departed to represent Switzerland at the world juniors. Leenders took the reins for a few weeks, and he ran with the opportunity. Although Mississauga continued to struggle on the scoreboard, Leenders asserted himself as a legitimate option in the crease.Despite Beglieri starting the final few games of the regular season, it was Leenders who wound up taking the crease in the playoffs. His ability to play a calm, cool, collected game gave Mississauga confidence despite its underdog status against the North Bay Battalion, one of the OHL&rsquo;s most dominant teams. &ldquo;If he did make a mistake or gave up a bad goal, which sometimes goaltenders do, Ryerson was so good at shaking it off and would make four spectacular saves in a row, especially in the playoffs,&rdquo; said Mike Karafilidis, the Steelheads&rsquo; radio commentator. &ldquo;You could totally tell the team fed off his confidence.&rdquo;Despite being more than two years younger than Beglieri, it was Leenders who gave the team the best chance to win on a night-in, night-out basis, and that was readily apparent by season&rsquo;s end. That&rsquo;s why Leenders wound up playing 35 games in the regular season &ndash; the third-most by a 16-year-old netminder in OHL history &ndash; and another six in the playoffs.&ldquo;It was a crazy year,&rdquo; Leenders said. &ldquo;I feel like adjusting to the speed and the pace of the OHL was a lot for me last year, but it was also where I grew the most last year. By the time the playoffs came around, I was able to read the game and keep up with the pace, making one save and then getting back into position to make the next.&rdquo;The battle was evident in his game throughout the season. His movements were purposeful in his crease, and the young netminder consistently put in solid efforts despite the unrefined youthful energy that the Steelheads played with, especially late in the year heading into the playoffs.It was a year of growth for the Steelheads as a whole, though. They traded established impact OHLers &ndash; such as Owen Beck, Ethan Del Mastro and Luca Del Bel Belluz &ndash; in return for futures and young players like Porter Martone, Jack Van Volsen and several draft picks over the next few years. It was no secret Mississauga was leaning into its young talent, and Leenders was front and center.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ohl_leender_084/10064882-1-eng-US/ohl_leender_0842.jpg" title="ohl_leender_084" width="1020" height="1421"><figcaption class="caption-body">(NATALIE SHAVER/OHL IMAGES)</figcaption></div>The crease dynamic will again be interesting this year, as the Steelheads used the seventh-overall pick in the OHL draft to select promising young netminder Jack Ivankovic. Leenders has liked what he has seen from Ivankovic, who could share the crease with him this upcoming season. &ldquo;From the moment I got on the ice with him, I knew he was going to be a very good goalie,&rdquo; Leenders said. &ldquo;He does so many things well, and when I see things I can add to my game, I try to.&rdquo;Even though Leenders was the new kid on the block who came in and stole the starting job last year, don&rsquo;t expect him to afford Ivankovic the same opportunity. Whether or not he comes with a high pedigree, Leenders plans on keeping the starting role. &ldquo;I think we can push each other, and we will compete together,&rdquo; Leenders said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a friendly competition, but it&rsquo;s still a competition. He&rsquo;s going to provide us with some excellent depth in net.&rdquo; &#9632;

ohl_leender_086

STEELING THE CREASE

<div class="byline">BY RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="ncaa_august_131" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ncaa_august_131/10064948-1-eng-US/ncaa_august_1312.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">(RENA LAVERTY/USA HOCKEY)</figcaption></div>IF YOU ARE A Michigan-based team in need of a cornerstone goaltender, Trey Augustine is probably your guy. The kid from the Detroit suburbs played his minor hockey locally before joining USA Hockey&rsquo;s National Team Development Program in nearby Plymouth, and now he&rsquo;s a freshman at Michigan State down the road in East Lansing. This summer, he was drafted in the second round by the Detroit Red Wings, and when he needs pro seasoning after his time at MSU, he&rsquo;ll do so on the west side of the state in Grand Rapids with the AHL&rsquo;s Griffins.This is all a roundabout way of saying that Augustine, who was initially slated to attend the University of Michigan, knew exactly what he was getting into when he reopened his decision and chose the blood-rival Michigan State Spartans instead. &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll be good,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The state of Michigan is at its best when those two teams are good.&rdquo;The Spartans are delighted to have him on their roster. &ldquo;His calming presence, you recognize that right away,&rdquo; said coach Adam Nightingale. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s really competitive, moves really well in the net, and he&rsquo;s an A-plus person and teammate.&rdquo;Nightingale is actually one of the reasons Augustine decided to flip to Michigan State. The bench boss joined the Spartans from the NTDP, and while Augustine was on the under-17 squad when Nightingale coached the under-18s, the young netminder was a call-up who made an impact, helping them earn a silver medal at the 2022 world under-18s. Last season, Nightingale took over at Michigan State &ndash; and NTDP kids have followed. &ldquo;When he transferred over there, I realized it might be a possibility,&rdquo; Augustine said. &ldquo;Then, I went to see the facilities and the school and really loved it.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/ncaa_august_130/10064941-1-eng-US/ncaa_august_1302.jpg" title="ncaa_august_130" width="1022" height="727"><figcaption class="caption-body">(RENA LAVERTY/USA HOCKEY)</figcaption></div>Along with Augustine, the Spartans landed a couple of high-profile transfers over the summer in Miami University&rsquo;s Red Savage (DET) and Minnesota-Duluth&rsquo;s Isaac Howard (TB), both of whom also played at the NTDP. Nightingale loves how Augustine is suited for East Lansing. &ldquo;He really fits the whole of our university,&rdquo; Nightingale said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a humble, hardworking, blue-collar school. And there&rsquo;s a comfort level having played for me before. But there&rsquo;s also a comfort level for me, too. When you get an opportunity like this, you want to do it with great people, and Trey is certainly that.&rdquo;The Spartans finished fifth out of seven teams in the Big Ten conference last year, but that was an improvement over the previous couple campaigns, when they were dead last. Bringing in an elite netminder such as Augustine is just one of many important moves that forecast brighter days ahead. And though he&rsquo;s still a teenager, he has proven time and again that he can hang with older competition. Last year, for example, he made Team USA&rsquo;s World Junior Championship squad as essentially the third goalie (and certainly the youngest). But, in the end, it was Augustine who played the crucial games, going 4-1-0 and leading Team USA to a bronze medal in Halifax.When it comes to influences, Augustine likes to watch NHLers such as Frederik Andersen, Sergei Bobrovsky and Juuse Saros. The 6-foot-1 Augustine has a particular appreciation for Saros, who gets the job done without mammoth size. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s really relatable for the young goalies, especially,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Just the way he moves and his efficiency in the crease.&rdquo;Of course, as a freshman, Augustine will still have to prove himself &ndash; but we&rsquo;re going to go ahead and make the assumption he will. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s got the pedigree to do it and the demeanor to do it, too,&rdquo; Nightingale said. &ldquo;We see it every day at practice, and I saw it with the national team, how professional he is. We have confidence in our (goalies), and the best guy is going to play, but he&rsquo;s done a really good job on campus showing us what kind of goalie he is.&rdquo;So far in his career, Augustine has been the best kind of goalie: one who shows up, gets the win and moves on to the next one. If he continues that with the Spartans, the rivalry with the high-flying Wolverines is going to be on fire once again. &#9632;

ncaa_august_131

NCAA

MICHIGAN FOREVER

<div class="byline">BY IAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="rewind_stca_125" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_stca_125/10065000-1-eng-US/rewind_stca_1252.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">A ROCK AT BROCKMike Nicholson became the first Black captain in Canadian university hockey when he earned the &lsquo;C&rsquo; in 1968. (PHOTO COURTESY OF BROCK UNIVERSITY)</figcaption></div>NEARLY THIRTY YEARS apart in St. Catharines, Ont., Hope and Mike Nicholson paved the way for Black hockey players.In the 1930s, Hope Nicholson captained what newspapers called &ldquo;the only all-colored puck brigade&rdquo; in Ontario, the St. Catharines Orioles. Three decades later, his son, Mike, captained Brock University, becoming the first Black captain in Canadian university hockey history, continuing the family&rsquo;s pioneering path.Founded in 1932, the St. Catharines Orioles were all parishioners at the British Methodist Episcopal Church, an integral site on the Underground Railroad. Many on the Orioles&rsquo; roster were descendants of Adam Nicholson, who arrived in St. Catharines in 1854 via the Underground Railroad, at a time when Harriet Tubman was attending the BME Church and leading enslaved people to freedom in St. Catharines.In 1937, the Orioles joined a formal league, the Niagara District League, for the first time. At times, teams refused to play against the Orioles, and when the team did take to the ice, as historian George Fosty stated, the Orioles were mocked by journalists &ldquo;as a novelty, as entertainment, like a circus act&hellip;as not being real hockey,&rdquo; or, as Brock University researcher Lauren Wilks wrote, &ldquo;as a source of comedic entertainment&rdquo; similar to &ldquo;popular blackface minstrel shows.&rdquo;According to Stephen Hardy and Andrew Holman, authors of Hockey: A Global History, however, it was this challenge to hockey&rsquo;s status quo that made the Orioles &ldquo;an important cultural statement about the color of &lsquo;real&rsquo; hockey.&rdquo; Newspapers of the day were filled with articles about the Orioles with racist references calling the team &ldquo;Duskies,&rdquo; &ldquo;boys&rdquo; and &ldquo;Black Birds.&rdquo; One paper claimed star player Amos Dorsey would have a hard time not halting play to tap dance and stated no one on the team was employed.The 1937 season saw the team finish with an 0-4-1 record. The following year, the Orioles went 0-8-0 but played many close games. The Orioles&rsquo; inability to win was presented by the media as indicative of inability. According to Hardy and Holman, &ldquo;That the Orioles could not win against all-white teams must have been interpreted by readers as a convenient confirmation of the popular &lsquo;truth,&rsquo; that real hockey was the brand of hockey fashioned by the all-white NHL.&rdquo;Despite their cultural significance, the Orioles&rsquo; history has been largely overlooked in Canada. Outside of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes, few all-Black teams have been studied &ndash; or even remembered. This includes all-Black teams from Niagara Falls, who faced the Orioles in 1937 (Falls Swallows) and 1938 (Falls Ambassadors). In all likelihood, a March 1937 series between the Orioles and Swallows, billed as &ldquo;the colored hockey championship of the territory far and yon&rdquo; by newspapers, were the first games between two all-Black teams in Ontario. The Swallows won the first game 4-3 before the teams tied the second 1-1. The lack of attention garnered by these all-Black teams, according to Wilks, is &ldquo;indicative of broader sociological issues of race and racism.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_stca_123/10064993-1-eng-US/rewind_stca_1232.jpg" title="rewind_stca_123" width="1551" height="891"><figcaption class="caption-body">FACING BIGOTRYThe St. Catharines Orioles were mocked by the media, and some teams refused to play against them. (PHOTO COURTESY OF DONNA FORD)</figcaption></div>&ldquo;By neglecting to include athletes of color in the mainstream history of sport and instead segregating them to the margins, sports historians are contributing to the whitewashing of Canadian history of sport,&rdquo; Wilks said. &ldquo;It is evident that by glossing over the history of the Orioles, sports scholars have maintained a dominant white narrative that contributes to the preservation of white privilege. If Canada is touted as a &lsquo;cultural mosaic&rsquo; and if hockey is considered to be Canada&rsquo;s game, shouldn&rsquo;t a team like the Orioles be celebrated as a part of our history?&rdquo;When Herb Carnegie was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2022, it marked a shift in this narrative. Carnegie, a teenager at the time, began his competitive hockey career only a short drive from St. Catharines during the Orioles&rsquo; second season in 1938, playing for an otherwise all-white team, the Toronto Young Rangers.While Carnegie has found his place in history, little record remains of Ontario&rsquo;s all-Black teams, including the Orioles. Following their first two seasons in the NDHL, the Orioles were pushed back to the sidelines when the league moved from outdoor rinks to the newly constructed Garden City Arena, St. Catharines&rsquo; first indoor arena. While all-Black teams were welcome to compete on outdoor rinks, many indoor spaces were still heavily segregated.Almost forgotten for decades, it was the success of Hope Nicholson&rsquo;s son, Mike, that helped keep the Orioles&rsquo; story alive. Stepping on the ice in the fall of 1966, Mike Nicholson was one of the founding members of Brock University&rsquo;s men&rsquo;s hockey program. &ldquo;He came out on the ice, and I thought he was one of the most captivating players I&rsquo;d ever seen,&rdquo; said Ed Davis, Brock&rsquo;s first coach, in an interview with The Brock News. &ldquo;He was this smooth-skating forward that moved around the ice with ease. I knew right then and there he was going to be on my first line.&rdquo;<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/rewind_stca_124/10064986-1-eng-US/rewind_stca_1242.jpg" title="rewind_stca_124" width="792" height="769"><figcaption class="caption-body">MIKE NICHOLSON (STEPHEN LEITHWOOD/BROCK UNIVERSITY)</figcaption></div>After being named team MVP in the school&rsquo;s inaugural campaign, Nicholson was named captain, the first Black player to wear a &lsquo;C&rsquo; in Canadian university hockey history, in 1968. Nicholson&rsquo;s captaincy of the Brock team came at a period of time when the civil-rights movement was taking on racism across North America. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Muhammad Ali risked everything to protest the Vietnam War, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar boycotted the Olympics.Black athletes and activists were making headlines while Nicholson silently took his place as a hockey pioneer. &ldquo;Making Mike captain was especially meaningful considering what was happening during those times,&rdquo; Davis said. &ldquo;A Black hockey player with a captain&rsquo;s &lsquo;C&rsquo; on his chest was unheard of, but it was a natural decision to make him captain because of the quality of man he was.&rdquo;After graduating, Nicholson spent three seasons in Pennsylvania playing for the independent Erie Lions, where he scored 37 goals and 78 points in 41 games as a rookie in 1970-71 before embarking on a 40-year teaching career in Toronto. Perhaps Nicholson&rsquo;s most important lesson is the one he kept alive, that of an unheralded and often overlooked all-Black hockey team, the St. Catharines Orioles, and his own, as Canada&rsquo;s first Black university captain. &#9632;

rewind_stca_125

Rewind

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

<div class="byline">BY W. GRAEME ROUSTAN</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="business_mi_057" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/business_mi_057/10065045-1-eng-US/business_mi_0572.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">SPECIAL TRIPCanada&rsquo;s ambassador to Ukraine, Natalka Cmoc, left, and first deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, Oleksandr Korniyenko, center, pose with Miller in Ukraine in September. (PHOTOS COURTESY OF GORD MILLER)</figcaption></div>W. GRAEME ROUSTAN: I&rsquo;d like to talk about the Ukraine U-25 Hockey Can&rsquo;t Stop Tour that took place this year. How did it all come about?GORD MILLER: (laughs) By accident. The World Junior Championship was postponed to August of 2022. And while I was there, I met with some members of the Ukrainian Ice Hockey Federation, who would come for meetings. They had mentioned that their under-25 team had been invited to play in the World University Winter Games in Lake Placid the next January, but they didn&rsquo;t think they could go. They couldn&rsquo;t get a team together, and a lot of the players were in the military, and they didn&rsquo;t have the funds to get them over. And so, I actually ended up talking to Jay Woodcroft, the coach of the Oilers, who happened to be in the hotel at the time. And we contacted Ian Herbers, the coach of the University of Alberta. He put me on their Canada West conference call the week later. The coaches agreed to play &ndash; we hadn&rsquo;t talked to the athletic directors yet &ndash; and then we put together a schedule. And the Ukrainians said, &ldquo;That&rsquo;s great, but we still don&rsquo;t have the money to get over.&rdquo; So, I contacted some friends in the corporate community, and they jumped on board right away. And then, it just snowballed from there. Mark Chipman, from the Jets, gave us the Jets&rsquo; arena. The Oilers, Flames and Jets did 50/50 nights for us. So, we wound up raising quite a bit of money. The team played in four sold-out arenas and ended up going to Lake Placid for the World University Winter Games. So, all in all, it worked out great, considering I&rsquo;d never organized anything like that before, and it was sort of by the seat of our pants. But so many people stepped up to make it happen. It was really something.WGR: Can you name a couple of corporate sponsors that stepped up that people who read The Hockey News would be aware of?GM: Certainly, Tim Hortons and Sobeys were front and center. Not just contributing money up front to get the team over, but they also gave us gift cards to give out to fans at the games and to give to the players. So, the players loved their Tim Hortons gift cards. They were stopping at Tim Hortons all along the way. And really neat, too, that the team went from Edmonton to Winnipeg by bus, and it&rsquo;s about an 18-hour drive, and it was really neat that the Tim Hortons franchise owner off the highway in Saskatoon had a whole meal set out for them when they pulled up. And then, when they got to Winnipeg, the local Ukrainian community, it was Ukrainian Orthodox Christmas that day, and they put together Christmas dinners for each of the players and staff in boxes they could take to the rooms. It was incredible. The local Ukrainian communities in each city, the corporate sponsors, the universities, it was really something.WGR: Along the way, you obviously ran into some sponsors that didn&rsquo;t want to participate because of the concern of offending some Russian players. Without naming any particular brands or anything, did you experience some pushback?GM: Yeah, one sponsor agreed to it, and we had partnered with the Canada-Ukraine Foundation as our charitable partner, they do a lot of humanitarian work with Ukraine, and this particular corporate sponsor wasn&rsquo;t comfortable with some of the statements they made about Russia and pulled out right before we were announcing the start of the tour. And that&rsquo;s where my guardian angel, the honourable Lois Mitchell, stepped up, former lieutenant governor of Alberta. And Lois called me and said, &ldquo;I understand you&rsquo;re doing a tour of Western Canada, and you haven&rsquo;t called me? How can I help?&rdquo; And I said, &ldquo;Well, funny you should ask.&rdquo; And she stepped up and bridged us, and that was key because getting the team over here was one of the most difficult elements of the whole thing.WGR: And how was the NHL&rsquo;s reaction to what you were doing?GM: The teams were great. The Flames, right away, said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll host the team in a box.&rdquo; They gave them each jerseys. The Oilers followed suit on the Thursday, and we adjusted the schedule so they could go to the Oiler game. And the Jets were incredible. And Mark Chipman was funny. He said, &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you try using our arena?&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;Well, we can&rsquo;t afford to rent your arena.&rdquo; And he said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll work out a deal. You just pay for our cost.&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;Mark, I don&rsquo;t know if we can sell enough tickets to fill the lower bowl in your arena.&rdquo; And he kind of laughs and says, &ldquo;I thought you knew Manitoba better than that.&rdquo; And sure enough, 9,500 fans in the lower bowl. Fanatics did the merchandise for us and paid the up-front cost, and that stuff flew off the shelves. It was really a group effort, and it really says a lot about the hockey community.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/business_mi_058/10065038-1-eng-US/business_mi_0582.jpg" title="business_mi_058" width="1022" height="728"><figcaption class="caption-body">GORD MILLER</figcaption></div>WGR: So, from the initial idea that you experienced to the final result, overall, how would you rate the success of the whole project?GM: It was beyond my wildest dreams. Saskatoon had the first game, the University of Saskatchewan. They organized it over the Christmas holidays, and they were incredible. I was really nervous about how it would go and what it would look like. I was working that night at the world juniors, and I was texting them, and they sent me a whole bunch of pictures. It took your breath away, just the full building, the Ukrainian anthem before the game, Ukrainian food in the concessions, the players. It was really, really something. And then, you kind of exhale. Saskatoon was kind of the canary in the coal mine, they had to do the thing cold and sell the merchandise and do everything. And they were amazing. And then Calgary and the University of Alberta. And then, we had a little bit of lead time going into Winnipeg. That was the only game I could go to, the one in Winnipeg. And just standing on the ice, listening to the Ukrainian anthem, seeing the looks on the players&rsquo; faces. The Ukrainians won the game that night. It was just amazing.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/business_mi_059/10065031-1-eng-US/business_mi_0592.jpg" title="business_mi_059" width="1022" height="728"><figcaption class="caption-body">A GROUP EFFORTMiller says his recognition by the Ukrainian government couldn&rsquo;t have happened without lots of help.</figcaption></div>WGR: And how much did they raise for this tour?GM: All in, just over a million dollars. Split between the Canada-Ukraine Foundation and Ukrainian Hockey Dream, which is helping fund kids playing hockey. Now, there were some costs, obviously, there was travel and hotels and everything else. But, yeah, over a million dollars.WGR: You were recognized recently by the government of Ukraine and went over there to accept an award. Can you tell us a little bit about that?GM: Yeah, the Ukrainian parliament voted to give me, I think they call it a commendation of merit. And it was very kind of them. They asked me to come to accept it in person, and I did. I do feel like I share this with a whole lot of people. Certainly, the universities involved, the corporate partners, the NHL teams, everyone, even the company that does the buses for NHL teams and NBA teams. They even pitched in and helped us out. So, I can&rsquo;t say enough about everyone else. I feel like I&rsquo;m accepting it on their behalf. But yeah, I went over to Kyiv and Kremenchuk in mid-September and accepted the award and went to a Ukrainian League hockey tournament and had a chance to visit with their foreign minister, the minister of youth and sport, some parliamentarians, and just talk about what we can do to help.WGR: Speaking of what people can do to help, where would they go to assist the efforts going forward?GM: For Canadians, the Canada-Ukraine Foundation does excellent humanitarian work in Ukraine. They&rsquo;re exceptional. In terms of sport, Ukrainian Hockey Dream is registered in Canada and the United States to help kids. I had a chance to go and see how some of the money is being spent, and just to be in an arena and see Ukrainian boys and girls able to practise was incredible. Just hearing them laugh. I mean, the trauma for those kids is pretty severe. There&rsquo;s air raid sirens most nights. Everyone in Ukraine knows someone or several people who have been impacted by the war. And so, I think that just a chance for kids to play is a really big thing.WGR: Gord Miller, TSN and hero of the Ukrainian Hockey Federation.GM: I wouldn&rsquo;t say that. I really need to emphasize that this was a team effort. There&rsquo;s a lot of people who deserve credit for this.WGR: How about we call you Gord Miller, leader of a team of people who are doing a great job helping out the kids in Ukraine?GM: I appreciate that. And just being at those practices and seeing that was really something. There&rsquo;s a lot of work to be done short-term and long-term in Ukraine. And that is kind of a sobering thought and a reminder of the immediacy of where they&rsquo;re at. So, short term, we want to get kids on the ice and playing and get them some equipment. We&rsquo;re working on that. And then, longer term, there&rsquo;s going to be the rebuilding of Ukrainian recreational facilities. It&rsquo;s going to take some time, and obviously, there&rsquo;s other priorities in the country to rebuild. But sport plays a role as well. &#9632;

business_mi_057

Business

Q&A WITH GORD MILLER

<div class="byline">BY CHRIS ZELKOVICH</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="fromthearch_007" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/fromthearch_007/10065083-1-eng-US/fromthearch_0072.jpg"></div>A TELEPHONE RANG AT SAM Pollock&rsquo;s hotel room in New York September 13. The Montreal Canadiens&rsquo; general manager is now wishing he hadn&rsquo;t answered it.The man at the other end of the line was Vezina Trophy winner Ken Dryden, and he wasn&rsquo;t calling Pollock to ask him about the weather. Dryden had called Sam to tell him that he was retiring from hockey for one year to article in law in Toronto.The reason? Money.&ldquo;This is the most difficult decision I&rsquo;ve ever made,&rdquo; the 26-year-old netminder told newsmen at a press conference the following day. &ldquo;But I feel it is a decision I have to make. But feeling that it is the right decision doesn&rsquo;t make it any easier.&rdquo;Dryden&rsquo;s resolution to take a sabbatical from hockey in favor of articling with a Toronto law firm came after the Canadiens could not come to a satisfactory salary agreement with him.Working on the second year of an $80,000 two-year contract, Dryden became dissatisfied when he saw others making more money. He asked for a raise, but the Canadiens could not match his price, rumored to be $200,000.&ldquo;You look around the league and you see somebody else who you feel is making no more, no less a contribution to his team than you are,&rdquo; the articulate law graduate explained, &ldquo;and when you see what salary he&rsquo;s making, it&rsquo;s very difficult to accept.&ldquo;Last year there were six goaltenders making more than I. There really is no reason for that. The Canadiens are not an impoverished organization, so there&rsquo;s no reason why they can&rsquo;t pay me the going rate.&rdquo;Dryden signed his contract prior to the emergence of the World Hockey Association and missed out on the inflated salaries. The New York Rangers re-wrote the contracts of several top players, and Dryden felt he should get the same treatment. He didn&rsquo;t and decided to retire.It wasn&rsquo;t a teary-eyed &ldquo;retirement&rdquo; like Joe Namath&rsquo;s nor a jocular one like Vida Blue&rsquo;s. Dryden&rsquo;s retirement was a serious one.What makes it even more serious for the Canadiens is that Ken admits he&rsquo;s been talking to the WHA Toronto Toros, and that &ldquo;they have offered me the going rate.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s been rumored that he has already signed with the WHA club, but Dryden denies that.The Hab management may have considered Dryden&rsquo;s retirement a bluff, but three days after the press conference he started work with the law firm of Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt at $134 a week.With the man who led them to two Stanley Cups in his three-year career apparently serious about retirement, the Habs are faced with filling a gaping hole in the nets.The three candidates for his job, Michel Plasse, Wayne Thomas and Michel Larocque, have an aggregate of two years NHL experience. Plasse and Thomas shared the Habs&rsquo; back-up chores last year while rookies, with Larocque spending his first pro season at Nova Scotia in the American Hockey League.<blockquote class="pullQuote">&ldquo;THE CANADIENS ARE NOT AN IMPOVERISHED ORGANIZATION, SO THERE&rsquo;S NO REASON WHY THEY CAN&rsquo;T PAY ME THE GOING RATE &ndash; KEN DRYDEN</blockquote>All are confident of winning the number one job, and Hab coach Scotty Bowman also expressed confidence in their collective abilities.&ldquo;Thomas and Plasse did a great job with us last year,&rdquo; Bowman said. &ldquo;I was expecting to start with three goaltenders this year, so it puts Larocque in the picture. All three are promising goaltenders.&rdquo;Plasse, 25, fashioned a 2.58 average in 17 games last year and appears to be the heir apparent to Dryden.<div class="figure-block image-bleed"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/fromthearch_006/10065076-1-eng-US/fromthearch_0062.jpg" title="fromthearch_006" width="1150" height="1538"></div>Thomas, 26, actually has a lower goals-against average than Plasse (2.37 in 10 games) and could challenge him for the starting job. But Larocque, only 21, can&rsquo;t be counted out after his first season in pro hockey.Larocque registered a 2.50 average at Nova Scotia, made the second All Star team, and feels he has a good chance of sticking with the Habs this year.&ldquo;You always come to camp trying to be number one,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t think you&rsquo;re not good enough to make it. It&rsquo;s a break for me with Dryden retiring, but even if it wasn&rsquo;t Dryden, it&rsquo;s just one less guy fighting for the job.&rdquo;All three candidates for Dryden&rsquo;s job are young, confident and promising, but they have a big pair of skates to fill.The loss of Dryden puts a slight dent in the Canadiens&rsquo; depth chart, the key to repeating as Stanley Cup champions according to Bowman.&ldquo;The big question is whether or not we can count on the bench the way we did last year,&rdquo; Bowman said prior to training camp. &ldquo;Last year we had 13 or 14 forwards we could count on. The year before, we didn&rsquo;t.&ldquo;If your rookies, guys like (Yvon) Lambert, (Dave) Gardner, (Glenn) Goldup and (Bob) Gainey come through we&rsquo;ll do all right. When the injuries start to come, you&rsquo;ve got to have the replacements.&rdquo; &#9632;

fromthearch_007

From the Archives

GOODBYE, KENNY

<div class="byline">BY LARRY HUMBER</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="f0097-01" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0097-0186/10065135-1-eng-US/f0097-012.jpg"></div><h2>CROSSWORD</h2><h3>ACROSS</h3>1 &lsquo;Chelly,&rsquo; who played 26 NHL seasons4 Talented Czech forward who broke out with Canes last season, pictured7 Rendez-___ &rsquo;87 pitted NHL stars against the Soviet Union squad8 Hard shots10 Lorne Worsley&rsquo;s book, They ___ ___ ___12 Wayne Gretzky&rsquo;s wife13 One of the Stastnys. He&rsquo;s Paul&rsquo;s uncle14 The NHL&rsquo;s top all-time Norwegian scorer18 To be draft ___, a player must be turning 18 by Sept. 15 of that year19 Jets&rsquo; first-rounder in 2020 draft (first name)20 Well-travelled goalie who saw both sides of Battle of Alberta, spent all of 2022-23 on LTIR21 The fourth pick in the 2014 NHL draft, who moved from Calgary to Florida in 2021<h3>DOWN</h3>1 The Pens once called ___ Arena home2 Matching3 OHL team of Steven Stamkos, Nail Yakupov4 Current Calgary Flame who became the first Muslim NHLer to lift the Cup5 O-Pee-___ hockey cards6 Period9 Unskillful or inept, hardly professional11 Rocky star considered for the film Sudden Death (Jean-Claude Van Damme eventually took the part instead)12 They play at Nationwide Arena15 Seth Jones&rsquo; brother16 &lsquo;Little O.&rsquo; He centered &lsquo;The Hammer&rsquo; and &lsquo;Big Bird&rsquo;17 Marvin, who won gold at the 2018 Olympics and starred for the then-NWHL Boston Pride<h2>Hockey TRIVIA</h2><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/trivia_fleu_044/10065128-1-eng-US/trivia_fleu_0442.jpg" title="trivia_fleu_044" width="471" height="507"></div><h3>&gt; BEGINNER:</h3>When the goalie pictured above plays his 15th game this season, he&rsquo;ll become the fourth crease guardian in NHL history to appear in 1,000 games. Name him.<h3>&gt; INTERMEDIATE:</h3>A three-time Olympic gold medallist and five-time women&rsquo;s world champ, this legendary stopper earned election to the HHOF in 2020. Who is she?<h3>&gt; EXPERT:</h3>This goalie, who called eight NHL cities home over 16 years, made a single-game-record 70 saves in a March 21, 1991 contest versus Boston. Who is he?<h2>Word&nbsp;SEARCH</h2>These 10 men &ndash; all Hall of Famers &ndash; have posted the most clean sheets in NHL history<h3>All-Time Shutout Leaders</h3><div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/wordsearch__045/10065121-1-eng-US/wordsearch__0452.jpg" title="wordsearch__045" width="711" height="833"></div>BRODEURSAWCHUKHAINSWORTHHALLPLANTETHOMPSONCONNELLHASEKLUONGOESPOSITO<h2>PUCK PUZZLE</h2>Can your hockey brain bring its A-game?The challenge is on!The long-defunct WHA featured many former and future NHLers. Listed here are nine of them. Once you&rsquo;ve identified them, the name of a recently departed star who was a Jet from 1972 to 1979 will appear in the red squares<div class="figure-block image-block"><img src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/f0097-0251/10065114-1-eng-US/f0097-022.jpg" title="f0097-02" width="837" height="913"><figcaption class="caption-body">(CROSSWORD+TRIVIA: SERGEI BELSKI-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>CROSSWORD SOLUTION: ACROSS 1. CHELIOS, 4. NECAS, 7. VOUS, 8. SIZZLERS, 10. CALL ME GUMP, 12. JANET, 13. ANTON, 14. ZUCCARELLO, 18. ELIGIBLE, 19. COLE, 20. SMITH, 21. BENNETTDOWN 1. CIVIC, 2. EQUALING, 3. STING, 4. NAZEM KADRI, 5. CHEE, 6. SESSION, 9. AMATEURISH, 11. STALLONE, 12. JACKETS, 15. CALEB, 16. OREST, 17. GIGI TRIVIA ANSWERS: MARC-ANDRE FLEURY, KIM ST-PIERRE, RON TUGNUTTPUCK PUZZLE SOLUTION: HEDBERG, GOULET, ROBERTS, BATHGATE, LANGWAY, CHEEVERS, HARTSBURG, PLANTE AND MAHOVLICH (FINAL ANSWER: BOBBY HULL) &#9632;

f0097-01

TimeOut

Crossword

<div class="byline">WITH RYAN KENNEDY</div><div class="image-hero"><img title="lastword_pr_047" src="/var/site_2854/storage/images/media2/images/lastword_pr_047/10065173-1-eng-US/lastword_pr_0472.jpg"><figcaption class="caption-body">NO ONE CAN CARRY LIKE CAREYThere&rsquo;s a solid argument to be made that the NHL hasn&rsquo;t had a true superstar goalie since Price last played in early 2022. (ERIC BOLTE-USA TODAY SPORTS)</figcaption></div>NOT LONG AGO, IT was easy to come up with a cover model when we needed a goalie for this annual crease-focused issue: Carey Price. Sure, he had the added bonus of playing for one of the most popular teams &ndash; the Montreal Canadiens &ndash; but he was also an elite netminder, the guy you didn&rsquo;t have to worry about as long as he was healthy.But that, unfortunately, is the rub and where we find ourselves now. Price acknowledged in the summer his knee is in no shape to allow him back on NHL ice. While he remains under contract until 2026, his career is effectively over. A future Hall of Famer who won the Vezina and Hart in 2015, as well as Olympic and world-junior gold with Canada and a Calder Cup with AHL Hamilton, Price was the gold standard of his generation. He took Montreal to the Stanley Cup final in 2021 almost single-handedly, cementing his status as one of the most intimidating goalies of all-time.Of course, that was on the ice if you were trying to score on him. Off the ice, Price was fun to talk to. Early one season in Toronto, I asked Price if he had done anything over the summer to help him train. &ldquo;Rodeo,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;For flexibility.&rdquo;&ldquo;Really?&rdquo; I responded, fascinated by the concept (and knowing he was a big rodeo fan).&ldquo;No,&rdquo; he replied with a smile, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m just kidding.&rdquo;&ldquo;Dang,&rdquo; I thought to myself, &ldquo;the goalie put one past me.&rdquo;Price has been a classy individual for so long that only now in his absence does it really come to the fore. And when you look at the way goaltending has gone in the NHL, he might have been the last of an era where superstar netminders could tip the balance of the league. Along with Price, you had peers such as Jonathan Quick, Pekka Rinne, Roberto Luongo and Henrik Lundqvist, all of whom either won Cups or came really close. Quick is now in Lundqvist&rsquo;s old dressing room in New York, but as a backup to Rangers starter Igor Shesterkin &ndash; one of only a handful of current netminders who can be considered a sure thing year over year. Andrei Vasilevskiy, Connor Hellebuyck and Ilya Sorokin also qualify, and I&rsquo;ll toss in Dallas&rsquo; Jake Oettinger, too. I&rsquo;d love to see what Juuse Saros could do in the playoffs for more than one round, but Nashville might not be in a spot to do that in the near future.<blockquote class="pullQuote">PRICE MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE LAST OF AN ERA WHERE SUPERSTAR NETMINDERS COULD TIP THE BALANCE OF THE LEAGUE</blockquote>And keep in mind, of all the current names I&rsquo;ve mentioned, only Vasilevskiy has won a Cup. Post-season success has been elusive for many other top names, replaced with surprising heroes such as Vegas&rsquo; Adin Hill (pg. 50) last season and Darcy Kuemper in Colorado the year prior. As a perfect illustration of how volatile the position has become, Florida&rsquo;s Sergei Bobrovsky was undoubtedly a superstar for the Panthers when they cut through the Eastern Conference playoff bracket last spring, but he was also not long removed from having what was considered the worst, most untradeable contract in the NHL. Who knows what this year will bring?It will be interesting to see what value teams put on starting goaltenders in the next few years. Sorokin just signed an extension with the Islanders, one that will pay him $8.25 million per season until 2032. That&rsquo;s less than the $10-million AAV Bobrovsky signed for in 2019 or the $10.5-million AAV that Price landed in 2017. Plus, we&rsquo;re expecting the salary cap to rise next year (when Sorokin&rsquo;s new pact takes effect) and continue to rise beyond that.It&rsquo;s a tricky dance for today&rsquo;s GMs: you always need good goaltending, but how much should you spend on the position? Shesterkin is making $5.6 million on an absolute steal of a deal for the Rangers, but that will increase dramatically on his next contract: not only does he deserve a raise, but he&rsquo;s also a pending UFA in 2025.Do the Rangers double his pay then, or do they decide to gamble on the next Adin Hill for much cheaper? Are NHL goalies destined to become NFL running backs &ndash; once considered a marquee position, now seen as interchangeable and not to be overspent on &ndash; or does the playoff success of Bobrovsky keep the salaries high in the future? It&rsquo;s all very unsettled right now.I miss Carey Price already. &#9632;

Search for your favorite player or team

Goalie Issue 2023

BRUISE-O-METER

KORPISALO 2.0

HOLDING THE FORT

CANE AND ABLE