The Hockey News Greatest Games of All-Time 2019-20

IT’S MEDIA DAY AT the 2004 All-Star Game in Saint Paul, and one of the hot topics is no-shows. The NHL is in a period of All-Star Game-itis, one in which an irritating number of players who are selected to participate find an escape hatch. It’s a trend that eventually prompts the league to suspend players for one game if they pull a Houdini. Martin Brodeur is not one of those players. The Devils superstar is making his eighth appearance in a nine-year stretch and tells reporters he relishes the weekend. He says he knows his time in the spotlight is finite, and he wants to absorb the rays as long as possible. It’s a moment of self-awareness as resonant as the Arctic winds howling outside the Xcel Energy Center. Typically, that…

Dear readers, Gold Membership in The Hockey News gets you everything we do at Roustan Media, which will soon include The Curling News (TheCurlingNews.com). Growing up in Montreal, I saw firsthand in the winter that you either played hockey or curled, and in many families you did both. And once curling became an Olympic sport in 1998, it didn’t matter if you knew more about kidney stones than curling stones, you’d still find yourself glued to the television, pulling for your country’s rock stars. The Curling News has been in continuous publication since 1957, almost as long as The Hockey News, and has as a devout following, which is exactly why I acquired the publication. Whenever you come across the opportunity to purchase a business where the employees and customers love the product,…

Any game in Vancouver from the Bruins-Canucks final in 2011 works. That one had crushing hits, fighting, outstanding goaltending (for Tim Thomas in all games, for Roberto Luongo in Vancouver), blowouts and low-scoring games all in a single series.– @chrisrusso98 Game 3 of the 1987 Canada Cup final, Canada vs. USSR. Lemieux, Gretzky, Hawerchuk, Goulet against some of the best Soviet talent ever, including Larionov, Krutov, Makarov. Just incredible to see so much talent on one rink!– Douglas C. Diskin Because of the magnitude of Game 8 of the 1972 Summit Series and the incredible comeback of Team Canada, there is no doubt this was the greatest game of all-time.– Paul Skinner Miracle on Manchester. Playoffs between the L.A. Kings and Edmonton Oilers on April 10, 1982. Unbelievable game. No one expected it.…

INDELIBLE MOMENTS, OR games, in the history of hockey often stick with you like a cherished memory that lasts forever. You know exactly where you were when they happened. Let’s start with the one virtually every hockey fan is familiar with – Sidney Crosby’s golden goal at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Chances are, you can remember the venue you were in, the people you were with and the fallout afterwards, depending upon if you’re Canadian or American. Go back a generation or two and you might have first-hand stories about the vigil you kept while watching the Easter Epic. Or remember watching with a parent when Gretzky passed to Lemieux in 1987. Still further, do you recall Al Michaels’ famous call from the Miracle on Ice in 1980? Or Foster Hewitt’s…

NEVER LEAVE A HOCKEY game early. That was the advice Daryl Evans had given his OHL billet parents when he was in major junior after they missed a great comeback by the Niagara Falls Flyers. The lesson would prove to be fortuitous years later when the billet dad happened to be in California when a rookie Evans and his Los Angeles Kings were hosting the mighty Edmonton Oilers in Game 3 of a first-round best-of-five series that wasn’t supposed to last very long. Even though the Kings had the vaunted ‘Triple Crown Line’ of Marcel Dionne, Dave Taylor and Charlie Simmer, the 1981-82 campaign had been a slog. Simmer was hurt for a spell, and the team couldn’t get in gear, prompting the mid-season firing of coach Parker MacDonald. While replacement…

PRELUDE TO OVERTIME PAT LAFONTAINE: (New York Islanders center) The year 1987 was a special one for me. It was the year I got married, and against the Capitals in the playoffs, we had come back from a 3-1 deficit in the series to force a seventh game. LOU FRANCESCHETTI: (Washington right winger) We had such a good rivalry with the Isles at that point. We could never get away from them in the first round of the playoffs, and in 1986 we finally eliminated them. For me, Game 7 started as just another game, but we had a long history with the Isles, and even though they didn’t have Mike Bossy or Denis Potvin in the lineup that night, we knew we had to be at our best to beat them. The…