The Hockey News Prospects Unlimited 2018

IF YOU DIDN’T ALREADY know this, I’m going to let you in on a secret. The Hockey News’ editorial team is teeming with nerds. Our headshots give it away. We’ve also got a new show on our website – The Hockey News Live, it’s really super, in my opinion, you should check it out – that tells the same story in video form. In particular, we’re word nerds. We actually have meetings to argue about commas, hyphens and semicolons. Those dastardly semicolons. At the top of my whit list is apostrophe abuse. I’m a little possessive about it. That’s followed closely by overwrought clichés, dead horses we continue to beat after they didn’t drink the water we led them to. One of my whipping boys is “He’s not getting any younger.”…

Dear readers, When I acquired The Hockey News, I was immediately welcomed as part of the family. As a longtime reader, I always felt a kinship with the gang at The Hockey News, (as I hope you do), but the reception I received when my acquisition became official was right out of a team dressing room. I was affectionately, and effectively, ribbed and trash-talked. I was instantly made to feel like I belong, not just as the new boss but as part of a household. Since then, the relationships have only grown better and stronger. The team of people who work every day to bring you the independent viewpoint on all things hockey is a tightly knit brood. Like many families, The Hockey News team has spirited conversations around the table, and…

Sounds crazy now, but Buffalo. Dahlin, Eichel, Reinhart and Mittelstadt will form a potent core and they have a high-end legit goaltending prospect in Ukko Pekka-Luukkonen. – @CKNX_Drury Vegas. They are loaded with draft picks and prospects. They don’t have to rush any of them because they already have lots of young talent on the team. – Jon E. Dakota Tampa. Already a contending roster. Add some more experience to rising stars: Sergachev, Point, Cirelli, Vasilevskiy. Not to mention Cal Foote and Boris Katchouk. – @aveRunstedz Philadelphia. Put their top 10 prospects next to any other team’s and it’s not even close no matter who you measure them against. Imagine most (if not all) of them joining the fantastic young players Philly already has there like Provorov, Patrick, Konecny, Gostisbehere, Hagg and Sanheim.…

ON DEC. 21, UNDERDOGS everywhere will celebrate National Underdog Day, which falls on the third Friday of every December. It’s a fitting date for the NHL. After all, only 6.6 percent of players in league history have been born in December, tied with November for lowest among all months, compared to 10.4 percent for those born in January, which is tops. Yet new research may give hope to December underdogs across the hockey world. That’s the upshot of what professors Ben Gibbs and Jonathan Jarvis of Brigham Young University found in their study, “The relative age effect reversal among the National Hockey League elite.” Gibbs and Jarvis employed 20 students to crunch data for North American-born NHLers (excluding goalies and undrafted players) from 2008-09 to 2015-16. They divided players into four quarters…

JOHNNY BOWER | LP VINYL RECORD Hall of Fame goalie Johnny Bower was such a nice man, he didn’t know how to say no. That’s what led to the series of events that ended up with his mug on the cover of a Christmas vinyl record back in 1965. Bower was the NHL’s reigning Vezina Trophy winner and into his 21st season of pro hockey when he looked up to see a CBC producer named Chip Young enter the dressing room after a practice early in the 1965-66 season, when Bower was 41. Young asked the players on the Toronto Maple Leafs if anyone would be interested in singing some Christmas-themed songs for an album he was producing. While his teammates hustled to disrobe and exit to the showers, Bower chuckled and…

CAROLINA HURRICANES | 2018-19 Oh, the glorious whale has returned! Sure, it might chafe some hardcore Hartford fans, but the Carolina Hurricanes have finally given the rest of the hockey world what it wanted – a throwback Hartford Whalers jersey that the team will wear twice this season. On both occasions, the opponent will be the Boston Bruins, Hartford’s old Adams Division rival. What needs to be said about this throwback, other than the fact it’s perfect? The colors are iconic, the logo has held up as a favorite thanks to the whale tail and negative-space ‘H’ in the crest, and 1980s nostalgia is always fun. Queue up Brass Bonanza.…