And we even have video evidence to support the following claims about the reigning Hart Trophy winner from the Washington Capitals and the blonde-maned showman who sang such rock classics as “Unchained” and “Jump.”

1) Like Roth, Ovechkin isn’t afraid to have fun and risk making a fool of himself in public. Just witness his shootout competition goal scored while toting a floppy hat, shades, and two hockey sticks, with a little help from his newfound friend Evgeni Malkin.

Ovechkin in the shootout competition. Roth in “Dance The Night Away.”

2) Like Roth, Ovechkin wears an ear-to-ear smile on all occasions, even when he gets caught admiring the ladies in the crowd. (Now close your eyes and try to envision: who else in the NHL does that? Maybe Jarome Iginla?)

Ovechkin caught in the act. Roth in “California Girls.”

3) Like Roth, Ovechkin is capable of spectacular athletic feats, like this shootout-clinching goal he scored on Roberto Luongo in the All-Star Game.

Ovechkin scores the clincher. Roth in “Unchained.”

4) Like Roth, Ovechkin regularly comes up with some of the best quotes–despite his still-garbled English.

Try some of these gems from the weekend.

On meeting Gordie Howe and other retired NHL greats: “I ask [Howe] everything what I can ask him. Lots of legends were here and I shake hands with them. It’s history; they play before in us in the NHL. It’s funny how they are getting older and the same is going to be with us.”

On what it cost him to get #8 on his jersey from Habs D-man Mike Komisarek, who has more seniority in the NHL: “Just a bottle of wine. Maybe dinner.”

On his collision with Boston goalie Tim Thomas during an Eastern Conference All-Stars practice: “Russian machine never break!”

And the classic Roth quote that best parallels Ovechkin’s outlook? “I live and breathe and do four times as much four times as fast as anyone else.”

5) Like Roth, Ovechkin likes to rock. (Although in this respect, he has quite a ways to go to match Diamond Dave.)

Ovechkin performs “Rock the Red.” Roth rips through “Jump.”

By the way, none of this should be interpreted as saying Sidney Crosby is Sammy Hagar.

Here’s the big question: who’s going to win Canada’s Hockey Anthem Challenge? Back in June, CBC Sports launched the contest to find a replacement for the old Hockey Night in Canada theme song.

Well, I figured someone’s got to win, so it might as well be me. (Note: I like to think of this as positive thinking, not as a Mark Messier Game Seven-style guarantee. So far, more than 2,200 Canadian songwriters have uploaded their competing ditties. The judges’ ears will be screaming by the end.)

You can check out my entry, “The Will to Win,” here.

I remember August 9, 1988 very well, too. It was the pre-Internet age, so when I heard the shocking news, I turned on my radio and roamed around the AM dial until I found Dan Russell’s SportsTalk, a Vancouver show that had all-day coverage I could listen to in Victoria. Growing up as a Canucks fan, I’d always hated the way Gretzky’s Oilers laid waste to the Canucks, but I had enjoyed the stylish way they’d dispatched the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals two months earlier. Hearing Gretzky was gone was simply unbelievable.

When the trade came down, you realized implicitly the NHL would never be quite the same again. When Gretzky was dealt once more to St. Louis in 1996, it wasn’t nearly as big of a news event, showing how the landscape had shifted.

By Lucas Aykroyd

Let’s face it: you won’t find the “Flying Frenchmen” with the Montreal Canadiens anymore. Last year’s dynamic duo of Quebec-born snipers was Vincent Lecavalier (108 points) and Martin St. Louis (102 points) of the Tampa Bay Lightning. This year, Daniel Briere and Simon Gagne have started off at close to a two-points-per-game clip for the Philadelphia Flyers.

If the Flyers hope to divert attention from the bad press they’ve gotten for Steve Downie’s headshot on Ottawa’s Dean McAmmond and Jesse Boulerice’s crosscheck to the face of Vancouver’s Ryan Kesler, it’ll probably be through the brilliant offensive play of Briere and Gagne.

Briere was the hottest commodity on the free agent market this summer after racking up 95 points with Buffalo in 2006-07. The diminutive 30-year-old Gatineau native signed an eight-year, $52-million deal with Philadelphia on July 1. Although he won’t replace the departed Peter Forsberg’s grit at center, he’s a more threatening scorer at this stage of his NHL career.

“When you play with a guy like Mike Knuble for a couple of years and then add Daniel Briere in the middle, it’s not too hard to adjust,” said Gagne of his linemates. The speedy winger, a veteran of two Olympics, is gunning for his third season of 40-plus goals.

“Looking back to training camp, the first four games were not the way we wanted,” Briere said. “But after that, it started coming. Every game it feels like it’s getting better and better.”

In an 8-2 thrashing of Vancouver on October 10, Gagne and Briere combined for five points. Gagne made it 3-1 on a perfect Briere set-up, simply tapping the puck into the open side of the net on the power play. It perfectly illustrated their chemistry.

It’s been an amazing turnaround for Briere, who bottomed out when Phoenix put him on waivers in 2000. But now that he’s among the NHL’s elite pay-wise and points-wise, he hasn’t changed his off-season workout routine or fundamental approach toward successful hockey.

“I faced a lot of pressure last year when the judge awarded me a $5 million contract in arbitration, and I’m taking the same approach as I did last year,” Briere said. “I’m a competitor, and I want to prove to people that I deserve [the contract]. At the same time, you’ve just got to keep playing your game. You don’t want to change.”

By Lucas Aykroyd

When the San Jose Sharks traded Vesa Toskala to Toronto at June’s NHL Draft, it meant a chance for a new goalie to back up starter Evgeni Nabokov. Dimitri Patzöld won the job at this year’s training camp, beating out Thomas Greiss, a fellow former member of the Kölner Haie. Patzöld earned a 3.35 GAA and .888 save percentage last season in 24 games with the AHL’s Worcester Sharks. Eishockey News spoke with the 24-year-old from Kamenogorsk after Nabokov led San Jose to a 3-1 opening-night win over Vancouver at GM Place on October 5.

Eishockey News: What do you need to do to succeed in the NHL after four years in the minors?

Dimitri Patzöld: I’m pretty glad I made the team this year. My main goal is to meet the goals I set before the season, like reading the play better and working on my focus every day, every practice. The speed is different here than in the AHL, and I’ve got to match that. My ability to skate is good enough to play here. I’ve just got to anticipate a little better.

EH: What was it like to compete for the backup job at training camp with Thomas Greiss?

Patzöld: It was a good, healthy competition. We are pretty good friends. It’s always tough to compete for a job against somebody you really like. We meet up in the summer. I visit him and he visits me. Even during the training camp, off the ice we were always together. The main focus was just to do your best and see what happens.

EH: What’s enabling the Kölner Haie to produce top-quality goalies?

Patzöld: They have a pretty good facility with two rinks, and a strong youth program. They have a good goalie coach in Rupert Meister as well. He helps the young guys a lot with their techniques.

EH: What help did you get from San Jose’s legendary goalie coach Warren Strelow before he died earlier this year?

Patzöld: Warren was simply the best. We still use the same goals he set in our training now, just with Wayne Thomas and Cap Raeder. Last season, he was in Worcester a lot, and he helped me to get more patient and mentally prepared.

EH: With yourself and Nabokov, this is the first time ever an NHL team has used two goalies from Kamenogorsk. Have you gotten much attention from the Kazakh or Russian media?

Patzöld: Yesterday in Edmonton, I did an interview with a Russian sports paper. It’s pretty funny. It doesn’t happen too often like this in the NHL, with two goalies from the same hometown. We are really happy about it. I knew Nabokov already when I was a kid. I think it’s a plus for me because he can help me a lot on the ice.

EH: How many games do you hope to play this year?

Patzöld: I haven’t thought about that. My goal is just to provide good-quality goaltending in the games I get.

Originally published in Rinkside in 2007

After losing Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals to the Carolina Hurricanes in June 2006, Shawn Horcoff and his Edmonton teammates couldn’t have known that times would soon get even tougher.

Superstar defenseman Chris Pronger surprisingly requested a trade a few days later, and other players who’d earned double-digit point totals in the Cup run–like Mike Peca, Sergei Samsonov, and Jaroslav Spacek–weren’t re-signed. The crowning loss was heart-and-soul winger Ryan Smyth, who was shipped off to the New York Islanders at the February 27 trade deadline after not coming to terms with GM Kevin Lowe on a new contract. In 2007, the Oilers missed the playoffs with a 12th-place finish in the Western Conference, dropping 12 straight games during the stretch drive to seal their fate.

That was a totally unacceptable result for Horcoff. However, the 29-year-old alternate captain believes this year’s off-season roster turnover will make it easier for the current team to forget about yesterday’s troubles and focus on success in 2008.

“It’s a whole new team this year,” said Horcoff. “Half the guys on the team weren’t even part of what happened last year. Once the off-season set in, we put what happened behind us. It’s early, and there’s still lots of reason to be optimistic about this year’s team.”

Notable new acquisitions include defensemen like Sheldon Souray, Joni Pitkanen, and Dick Tarnstrom, all of whom could boost the power play, and forwards like Dustin Penner, a big-ticket free-agent signing who won a Cup with Anaheim last year, and Geoff Sanderson, a veteran with more than 350 NHL goals.

But many of the new faces in the lineup are also new to the NHL, and the Oilers hope their young prospects will deliver on the offensive potential they’ve previously shown.

In October alone, 2007 Canada-Russia Super Series scoring leader Sam Gagner (18), two-time World Junior gold medalist Andrew Cogliano (20), former OHL scoring champ Rob Schremp (21), and Alberta-born talent Kyle Brodziak (23) were among the Calder Trophy-eligible rookies aiming to make an impact. Overall, Edmonton started this season tied with Phoenix for the league’s youngest roster, averaging 26.6 years of age.

“The future’s bright for the organization, that’s for sure,” Horcoff said. “But at the same time, you give up some experience. As a young guy, I remember thinking at times: ‘Why am I not playing as much as I’m used to?’ It’s hard to understand. But I think as you get older, and especially after the run we made to the Stanley Cup Finals, you realize just how important experience is. It’s reflected in the little plays, and often those little plays are what result in games being won. Nonetheless, all these young guys have come in and played great. They’ve brought a lot of energy to our locker room. They’re good kids and they work hard.”

Horcoff realizes everyone will have to contribute meaningfully this year, not just veterans like himself: “Sure, you want to lead by example and say the right things. But you also have to count on your teammates to go out there and do the right things. In this locker room, we’re going to live and die by four lines.”

Getting his personal production back up to speed will be a priority. Since breaking into the League in 2001, Horcoff had managed to increase his scoring totals every year, peaking at 73 points in 2006-07. But last year, he slumped to 51.

Horcoff, who currently ranks 15th among all-time Oilers scorers (ahead of Kelly Buchberger’s 240 points and behind Dave Hunter’s 290 points), feels good about his chances of rebounding. As usual, the 6-1, 204-pounder trained in the off-season at Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach with fitness guru T.R. Goodman, who claims Horcoff’s workout is second in intensity among NHLers only to that of Detroit’s Chris Chelios.

“I’m happy with where I’m at right now,” Horcoff said. “I worked hard in the summer, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.”

Although head coach Craig MacTavish will undoubtedly juggle lines in search of the best attacking combinations, it’s a pretty safe bet that Horcoff will suit up alongside Ales Hemsky in five-on-five and power play situations. During the 2006 playoff run, Horcoff ranked second in team scoring with 19 points and Hemsky third with 17 as his linemate. Afterwards, Horcoff signed a three-year, $10.8-million contract, and his gifted Czech center landed a six-year, $24.6-million deal less than two weeks later. The Oilers need both players to cash in offensively.

“Hemmer is a really creative guy,” said Horcoff. “We’ve played together predominantly for the last two years, and we’re pretty comfortable with each other. If you get him the puck, you just get open and he’s going to find you.”

Competing with and against the NHL’s most talented players is a tribute to how far Horcoff’s come since originally getting into hockey as a boy in British Columbia’s industrial heartland.

He was born in Trail, best-known as the home of the Smoke Eaters team that won the 1961 World Championships, but he grew up in nearby Castlegar. With an annual snowfall of close to 90 inches, the mining-based community was a winter wonderland.

“I got started at age two or three,” Horcoff recalled. “I remember going out there with my dad, and he wouldn’t give me a stick for the first couple of years. He just wanted me to learn how to skate, because he knew that was the most important part of the game. Those are pretty fun memories.”

Since Horcoff’s dad played at the University of Alberta from 1973 to 1975 under Clare Drake, the winningest coach in Canadian university hockey, the youngster had a pretty good mentor. But skating was hardly the only area in which Horcoff received parental guidance. His parents, John and Bruna, are both schoolteachers, and they motivated him to keep his grades up while simultaneously starring as an athlete.

“Shawn Horcoff was in my class and I always thought he was such a well-behaved boy,” said Twin Rivers Elementary School teacher Nick Verigin. “He excelled in all sports, but he never flaunted his superiority, nor did he ridicule the less able athletes.”

Horcoff went on to make the honor roll in each of his five years at Stanley Humphries Secondary School, and just kept rolling. In 1994, playing for Trail, he was named the MVP of the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League. He totaled 154 points in 96 career RMJHL games. Horcoff then jumped to the Chilliwack Chiefs of the British Columbia Junior Hockey League, and had an outstanding 1995-96 campaign on the Junior A circuit. With 145 points in 58 games, he won the scoring title, was named to the First All-Star Team, and captured MVP honors.

As a 17-year-old, why didn’t he opt to play major junior and suit up for a Western Hockey League team instead? “Every kid growing up in Canada wants to make the NHL, and their first thoughts, in Western Canada at least, are toward playing in the WHL, because it’s the quickest route. But my parents had the foresight to tell me that being patient and going the educational route would pay dividends.”

Horcoff set his sights on going to college, and it didn’t take long for him to figure out that Michigan State would be the ideal option. Head coach Ron Mason was the winningest bench boss in NCAA history, and in 2001, the CCHA championship trophy would be re-named after Mason.

“Those were the four best years of my life. I really credit becoming an all-around player to going to Michigan State and playing for Coach Mason. He put the most college players into the NHL. That had a big influence on my choice of Michigan State. He always used to tell us he knew what it took to put players into the NHL, and we just had to listen to him. At the end of the day, he was probably right.”

When Horcoff wore the green-and-white uniform of the Spartans, his teammates included future big-leaguers like Ryan Miller, Mike York, John-Michael Liles, Adam Hall, and Andrew Hutchinson. Being surrounded by that talent level helped him improve consistently. The Oilers drafted him 99th overall in the fourth round in 1998. By 1999-2000, he was the team captain and a Hobey Baker finalist, in addition to other honors, after tallying a CCHA-best 65 points in 42 games.

Was he ever tempted to leave college early and jump to the pros before completing his finance degree? “A little bit, I guess, in my junior year. But not too much. I realized that I was in no rush to turn pro and then go straight to the minors! I knew that the college game was a good game. There was still a lot for me to learn. Going back for my senior year was definitely the right decision.”

With all those great memories, it’s no wonder Horcoff has maintained his Michigan ties. Nowadays, he and his family have an off-season home in Birmingham.

“My wife Cindy is from Northville, there at Michigan State,” said Horcoff. “We have tons of friends and family in the area. Now that we’ve got a couple of young kids, we needed a home base, and it was pretty much a no-brainer for us to go back there.”

After graduation, though, Horcoff was at a different point in his life and career. Despite his hopes of securing full-time NHL employment immediately, he split time between the Oilers and the AHL Hamilton Bulldogs in 2000-01, tallying 16 points in 49 NHL games. The following year, he became an NHL regular.

“I think my ability to adapt is what kept me in the NHL early on,” Horcoff said. “You know, I played wing for a full year. I look back now and if I wasn’t able to do that, it would have been a lot harder on me. I would have had to stick it out in the minors. You realize eventually that not too many players come in and step into an offensive role right away. You’ve got to pay your dues, and that’s what I did. I’ve played pretty much every line and every position you can, from fourth-line wing to first-line center. Because of it, I feel like I’m a pretty well-rounded player that can play in any situation.”

The one area in which he was lacking early on was significant NHL playoff experience. The Oilers missed the playoffs altogether in 2002 and 2004 and made first-round exits in 2001 and 2003.

However, Horcoff was able to extract something positive from his situation. When invited to join Team Canada at the 2003 and 2004 IIHF World Championships, he accepted. There, he proved he could be more than just a well-conditioned role player versus elite talent, scoring an identical seven points (3-4-7) at both tournaments en route to gold medals. Horcoff was a particularly prominent two-way threat in 2004, potting the winner against Slovakia in the semi-finals and then helping to shut down Swedish stars Peter Forsberg and Daniel Alfredsson in the championship finale.

“I gained a lot of experience and confidence,” said Horcoff. “You’re going up against some of the best players in the world. When you play well on a stage like that, you can’t help but start to believe in yourself and your abilities. It was a turning point in my career. I wanted to step up and become more of an offensive player, and it gave me a chance to do that.”

During the 2004-05 NHL lockout, Horcoff demonstrated how much he’d improved when he signed with Mora IK of the Swedish Elitserien and finished third in league scoring with 46 points, trailing only Timra’s Henrik Zetterberg (50) and Linkoping’s Kristian Huselius (49).

The ‘06 Stanley Cup quest, of course, cemented Horcoff’s status as a top-six NHL forward. But his savvy demeanor has also continued to earn him respect away from the rink. His Michigan connection with two veteran NHLers partly led to his selection as one of five members of the NHLPA committee seeking a new executive director to lead the association.

“I know Chris Chelios and Mathieu Schneider pretty well,” said Horcoff. “After last season, I was heading back through Detroit. Those guys know I live around there in the off-season. Well, we were obviously out of the playoffs and the Wings were just starting their playoff run. They both gave me a call and asked if I could take over their PA jobs a little bit during the playoffs. Obviously I said I’d oblige. I had no problem with that. From there, it just went further and further. It’s been a great experience.”

Now, Horcoff and the Oilers hope that under new captain Ethan Moreau, they’ll also get quality leadership and start building toward Edmonton’s first Stanley Cup since 1990.

“I don’t think there were any questions in our locker room about who was going to be the captain,” said Horcoff of Moreau’s selection. “The guy’s been here the longest out of all of us, now that Jason Smith has left. Him being named captain, it was deservedly so. He’s a guy who’s got great leadership skills, and his work ethic’s impeccable. He’s a force out there in the game. I think he’s the best choice by far for us.”

And on a team level, what will be the key to a successful Oilers season?

“It’s going to be about staying positive. We know we have a relatively inexperienced team, and there’ll be lots of ups and downs. We learned last year that it can be a roller-coaster. The more even-keeled you can stay, the better chance you’ll have to be successful.”

By Lucas Aykroyd

Life would be so much simpler for NHL coaches if every team won all its home games in overtime. In fact, it’s hard to imagine any other scenario where all coaches could succeed in keeping their jobs. However, the fans would probably start to get suspicious soon.

Since teams do end up with losing records, coaches end up getting fired, and it doesn’t take long in this league. After Atlanta suffered six straight losses to open the season, GM Don Waddell decided enough was enough. On October 17, he fired Bob Hartley, who won a Stanley Cup with Colorado in 2001 and had stood behind Atlanta’s bench since 2003.

Even though the Thrashers responded the next day with their first win of 2007-08, beating the New York Rangers 5-3, questions still surround the club.

Waddell, serving as Atlanta’s interim coach, could soon find his job in jeopardy if his players don’t engineer a rapid rise in the standings. He’s been criticized for dealing first-round picks at last year’s trade deadline to get Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhitnik and then getting swept in the opening round. Atlanta has also provided fodder for European-bashers like Hockey Night in Canada commentator Don Cherry, as the struggling Thrashers are the only NHL team with a European captain (Bobby Holik) and four European assistants (Ilya Kovalchuk, Slava Kozlov, Marian Hossa, and Niclas Havelid). More importantly, starting goalie Kari Lehtonen injured his groin versus the Rangers and will remain out indefinitely, which seems unpleasantly similar to the nagging groin injury that kept the Finn to 38 games in 2005-06.

Other Eastern Conference teams also have goaltending issues. Most observers expected ex-San Jose Shark Vesa Toskala to take over the starting duties in Toronto from Andrew Raycroft, who won a club record 37 games last year but posted a mediocre 2.99 GAA and .894 save percentage. However, both goalies have been shelled on several occasions.

While Toskala has shown signs of improvement, there are still no easy answers for coach Paul Maurice, who wants an improved overall defensive effort from his group. (Or at least no more own goals like the one Bryan McCabe accidentally scored in overtime versus the Buffalo Sabres on October 15.) The Toronto media is also virtually placing bets on when heavily criticized GM John Ferguson Jr. will lose his job.

After goalie Marc-Andre Fleury started the season shakily, the Pittsburgh Penguins are questioning whether the 22-year-old Quebecker needs a more reliable backup than Dany Sabourin, who won just two games in nine appearances as Roberto Luongo’s 2006-07 understudy in Vancouver. Could bringing in a currently unemployed veteran like Curtis Joseph be the answer?

New Jersey normally has no worries in goal, but this season, three-time Stanley Cup and Vezina Trophy winner Martin Brodeur has looked poor so far. After years of benefiting from the Devils’ patented neutral zone trap and tight coverage in their own end, Brodeur is still adjusting to New Jersey’s more aggressive puck pursuit system under new head coach Brent Sutter, which allows more opposition scoring chances.

In the Western Conference, the biggest “hot spot” so far has been Los Angeles. The Kings, mired near the bottom of the standings, haven’t solidified their netminding. Dan Cloutier is earning $3.1 million in the minors, and the club decided to return promising youngster Jonathan Bernier to the QMJHL’s Lewiston MAINEiacs after four NHL games rather than ruin his confidence.

Coach Marc Crawford hopes Jason LaBarbera, who recorded the AHL’s lowest GAA last season, will be the answer, but the 27-year-old still hasn’t established himself at the top level since playing his first NHL game in 2001. “The opportunity was there all training camp,” said LaBarbera. “I know it’s an opportunity and I’ve been working to take advantage of it.”

By Lucas Aykroyd

It’s no wonder Ryan Smyth feels so comfortable with the Colorado Avalanche. After all, during his 11 seasons with the Edmonton Oilers, the gritty left winger scored more points against Colorado than any other NHL club (41).

Make no mistake, Smyth still has strong ties to the Alberta capital. The Banff native wept when he was traded to the New York Islanders last season at the trade deadline after a contract dispute turned nasty. Facing the Oilers as a member of the visiting team for the first time on October 23 (a 4-2 Colorado win) was another emotional experience.

But now, Smyth is focused on winning his first-ever Cup with a new organization, and he’s happy with how he’s fitting in. “Obviously there’s always room for improvement,” the 31-year-old told Eishockey News. “You want to get respect when you come into a new locker room. You’ve just got to play hard and hopefully you get the end results.”

So far, the Avalanche has competed effectively against the Minnesota Wild for top spot in the Northwest Division under the leadership of Joe Sakic. Last season, the legendary Colorado captain became the only player in NHL history besides Gordie Howe to score 100 points at the age of 37 or older.

“Joe’s a great leader,” said Smyth, who signed a five-year, $31.25-million deal with Colorado as a free agent on July 1. “He made a couple of calls to me and was very interested in having me come here. The organization was first-class in terms of how they dealt with everything.”

Another player who’s impressed Smyth is center Paul Stastny, the 21-year-old son of former Quebec Nordiques superstar Peter Stastny. Coming off a 78-point rookie campaign, Stastny has already contended for a place in the league’s Top Ten scorers early this season.

“He’s excellent,” said Smyth. “He’s a guy that sees the ice well, and he’s very talented and composed for a young kid.”

As long as the goaltending tandem of Peter Budaj and Jose Theodore holds up, it looks like Colorado has a real chance to rebound from last year’s failure to make the playoffs. There’s firepower aplenty, especially with Smyth screening goalies and tipping home shots, and the defense has been stabilized with the addition of physical veteran Scott Hannan from San Jose.

Smyth is getting his second chance to play under coach Joel Quenneville. In 2004, Quenneville was supposed to head up Team Canada at the IIHF World Championship in the Czech Republic, but became ill just before the tournament started, and had to return home. Mike Babcock took over the reins and coached Canada to gold.

“I only spent two or three days with Joel at that time,” recalled Smyth, who’s known as “Captain Canada” for representing his country at seven straight World Championships and two Olympics. “They were playing the exhibition schedule, but I didn’t come over until later. Today, he’s very well-respected around the league. He demands a lot. He’s from the old school, and he’s a good coach.”

If Smyth continues to thrive in Denver, he’s on pace to hit the 300-goal and 600-point milestones in his NHL career this year. But he’s more concerned with rebuilding the club’s fearsome reputation. As recently as 2003, Colorado’s roster still included superstars like Peter Forsberg, Rob Blake, and Patrick Roy, all of whom made the team a perennial Stanley Cup contender. Now it’s time to serve notice that the Avalanche can still get it done with a raft of new, young stars.

“Playing against the Avalanche for many years, I was well-aware of the respect they earned around the league. The history that they’ve made with their Stanley Cup victories really speaks for itself.”

By Lucas Aykroyd

It’s fortunate for the Anaheim Ducks that they won’t be competing in the Stanley Cup finals at the start of December. If that was the case, their chances of repeating as champions would be much slimmer.

This hasn’t been a disastrous season so far. The Ducks are in the middle of the Western Conference pack, and although they started poorly with just four wins in October, November went significantly better points-wise. But they haven’t put together a streak that resembles going 16 games undefeated in regulation, as they did to kick off 2006-07.

“We haven’t played 60 minutes in a long time,” captain Chris Pronger said. “And until we do, we’re not going to get out of this win-one, lose-one scenario. We need to make sure that when teams play us, they know what they’re in for. Right now, even we don’t know with the inconsistent play we’re coming out with. We’ve talked about it in meeting after meeting, amongst ourselves, before games, between periods, and so on. We’ve got to take a look in the mirror and make sure we’re prepared to go to battle every single night.”

It’s always tough to muster up the willpower to repeat as a Cup winner. The last team to accomplish that feat was the Detroit Red Wings of 1997 and 1998.

Roster turnover is a constant in the NHL, and without Teemu Selanne, last year’s team scoring leader, and superstar defenseman Scott Niedermayer, this team can’t play as offensively as it did last year.

Two gifted 22-year-olds, center Ryan Getzlaf and right wing Corey Perry, have emerged as the new offensive leaders. However, Andy McDonald is nowhere near the 30-goal plateau he twice approached on Selanne’s line, and of course, there are serious questions about whether Todd Bertuzzi (back from a concussion as of November 20) will ever regain the form he showed before his notorious March 2004 attack on Steve Moore. Unless Selanne and Niedermayer both decide to end their pseudo-retirement, the Ducks will need to focus more on defense.

“If you’ve got to win a game 1-0, then that’s what you do,” Pronger said. “We don’t have the same scoring prowess we had last year. We’ve got to grind to wear other teams down, impose our will on them and score goals, playing physical and creating turnovers and all those little things we do well when we’re playing our style of hockey.”

Pronger is getting help on defense from Francois Beauchemin, whose ice time has increased since Niedermayer left to a league-high average of nearly 29 minutes per night. Getting Mathieu Schneider back from a fractured ankle on November 1 has also been a plus. But still, Anaheim’s hyper-physical and sometimes undisciplined style is creating problems. The Ducks are the NHL’s most-penalized team, but their penalty kill is only operating at around 80% efficiency.

“When we kill penalties right now, we’re not getting the breaks,” Pronger said. “When the puck’s hitting somebody or hitting a stick, it seems to go right to an opposing player. Anyway, we’ve obviously got to work a lot harder at killing penalties if we’re going to take that many.”

“We need everybody to raise the level of their game by 10 or 15 percent, and that’s what we’re asking,” said coach Randy Carlyle.

Even with the loss of Ilya Bryzgalov to Phoenix on waivers, Anaheim should still have one of the NHL’s best netminding tandems with 2003 Conn Smythe Trophy winner J-S Giguere and Swiss newcomer Jonas Hiller. But without more consistency from Ducks forwards and defensemen, odds are good that in the new NHL where parity rules, some other team will be drinking champagne in June.

Originally published in Eishockey News in 2007

By Lucas Aykroyd

After the Pittsburgh Penguins won three straight games in Western Canada, there was little doubt about two things. First, the club has rediscovered the winning chemistry that earned it 105 points last year. Second, Sidney Crosby is a god in this part of the world.

The 4-2 win over Edmonton on December 5, the 3-2 shootout victory over Calgary on December 6, and the 2-1 shootout victory over Vancouver on December 9 all attracted sell-out crowds, as Crosby paid his first-ever visits to those cities. The reigning Hart and Art Ross Trophy winner collected three assists versus the Oilers, although he was held pointless the next two games, including being stopped on both a penalty shot and shootout attempt by Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo.

“I think all three games were pretty much a playoff atmosphere,” Crosby said.

Finnish agitator Jarkko Ruutu has nothing but admiration for his superstar captain: “Obviously Sidney’s a world-class player, probably the best player in the world. He’s 20 years old. Imagine the pressure and the tight checking on him, and he still manages to be good every night.”

The Nova Scotia-born center had separate press conferences arranged for him at each Western Canadian stop. In Vancouver, tickets were scalped for C$175 in GM Place’s upper bowl and C$450-800 in the lower bowl. A young woman was spotted holding a sign that said: “I’d Give a Kidney to Make Out With Sidney.”

While Crosby chases Vincent Lecavalier for the NHL scoring lead, other young Penguins are stepping up too. Evgeni Malkin’s point totals aren’t far behind Crosby’s. Rookie defenseman Kris Letang has scored two straight shootout winners. If 19-year-old forward Jordan Staal can rediscover his offensive game, the club will be even more dangerous.

Penguins coach Michel Therrien said: “This is a young group. These are big games, tough games to play. They’re learning quickly with all the attention they’re getting. When we went to Edmonton and Calgary, they were waiting for us. Both teams were ready to take us on, and the same with the Canucks. We have to perform game after game.”

Even though Crosby put together a 19-game point streak between October 6 and November 17, his team’s record was mediocre. The turnaround began in mid-November. The Penguins ended a four-game losing streak with a 3-2 win over the New York Islanders on November 15, and have only lost twice in regulation since then.

Now that Pittsburgh’s back in the Eastern Conference playoff race and only playing one more game in Canada in 2007 (December 13 at Ottawa), Crosby can hope the focus will shift just a little bit more toward his team’s success instead of his individual celebrity.

“I’m a very passionate player,” Crosby said. “I don’t think I’ve really changed a whole lot with the way I play. I probably try to control my emotions a little bit more. I don’t think I’m going to change too much. Competing is a big part of what allows you to have success and I don’t think I’m going to stop competing.”