World Junior Championship 2014: Preview and Ultimate Guide

ROSTERS, SCHEDULES, PREVIEWS, AND PREDICTIONS

 Oh, it's the most wonderful time of the year! With the holiday season almost over, we're about to unwrap Malmö, Sweden chasing gold medals and national pride.
one of the greatest gifts of all: World Junior hockey. Yes, it's the same present every year, like socks from grandma, but unlike those socks, the IIHF's annual tournament manages to maintain enough charm to keep us elated year after year. This year will likely be no different, as the best junior age hockey talent on Earth will be in
 Here we've compiled every team's roster, round robin schedule, and a preview of what to expect from them over the next two weeks in Sweden.
 There's two groups with five teams each, and it's worth mentioning that this is the first time that the top FOUR teams from both groups will advance to a single-elimination quarterfinal. Previously, only the top three countries would advance and the top team from the group would have a first round bye. Now, every squad will have to win three straight games with their championship dreams on the line if they want to go back home with gold around their necks.
 Unlike the NHL, overtime and shootout wins are scored differently than regulation wins. A victory in regulation is worth three points, an overtime/shootout victory worth two points, an OT/shootout loss only one point, and, of course, a loss in regulation gets you a big fat goose egg towards the group standings.
 Now that those technicalities are out of the way, we can finally take a look at the teams that will be competing against each other.

LIVE 2013 NHL Entry Draft Blog

 This blog will be updated live during the 2013 NHL Entry Draft in Newark, New Jersey. Every selection, trade, or transaction of any kind will be updated instantly as it is announced and posted to this page. Draft-day transactions will be written in italics and highlighted in yellow.) Every draft pick will also be accompanied by a brief description of each prospect, so you can have a better understanding of what your favorite team just added to its system.

Final 2013 Cumulative Draft Rankings

 With the 2013 NHL Entry Draft four days away, The Hart of Hockey is happy to release its final cumulative rankings for the season.

 As usual, TSN analysts Bob McKenzie and Craig Button's rankings are represented, as well as the International Scouting Services' (ISS). Just like last year, The Hockey News (THN) has joined the fold for the final rankings, too. For the first time, however, independent scouting publications Red Line Report (RLR) and McKeen's Hockey will be thrown in, as well. Those six entities will have their final rankings averaged for every player to get The Hart of Hockey's cumulative rank. In the event of a tie score, NHL Central Scouting (CS) will be used as the tiebreaker.

 Also, our rankings list 65 prospects for the first time.

 It's worth noting that this is not a mock draft, but more-or-less an indicator of who "the next best prospect" is according to several different scouting services. Since just about all NHL general managers draft under a "next best prospect available" policy, this list becomes an effective indicator of where a player will go on Sunday in Newark.

It Ain't Easy Bein' Bryzy

 Contrary to what Paul Holmgren had told the media for months, the Philadelphia Flyers GM released a statement Tuesday saying his team will buyout the remainder of goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov's contract after two seasons with the club.
 This is the second and final compliance buyout Holmgren will use (the other being Danny Briere,) which
means the Flyers will not be charged against the salary cap for the remainder of his contract, unlike a regular buyout would.

(Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

 Holmgren called the move "a difficult business decision" in the release on the Flyers' website, and no wonder. This move is the biggest contract buyout in NHL history according to the great CapGeek.com, and guarantees that Philly will pay Bryz a little over $1.6 million a year for the next 14 years.
 Bryzgalov, usually a very outspoken person despite an obvious language barrier, didn't have much to say about the team's decision, telling three Philadelphia beat writers on speaker phone, "Congratulations, you guys win," before hanging up and refusing to talk to them any further.
 Oh, Bryz.
 Bryzgalov will be an unrestricted free agent on July 5th now, making this summer's offseason much more interesting. Before we take a look into what the future holds for Mr. Universe, let's take a long, well-deserved look back on all the magical moments Bryzgalov gave us during his short tenure as the starting goalie in Philadelphia.

Remember Tim Thomas?

POTENTIAL LANDING SPOTS FOR POPPA BEAR

 One of the more bizarre stories of the offseason that predated lockout shenanigans was goalie Tim Thomas choosing to sit out the last season of his contract with the Boston Bruins. It's hard to blame Thomas, 39, for wanting to spend more time with his family, especially with looming uncertainty surrounding the status of the upcoming season, but it didn't make it any less peculiar of a decision. Now, with the Bruins in a best-of-three series for the Stanley Cup with stellar goaltending from Tuukka Rask, it is easy to forget that Thomas ditched the only franchise to really give him a legitimate chance as a starter in the NHL.

Tim Thomas wrastles in front with the Great Eight.
(AP Photo/Nick Wass)

 At the time of his departure, though, Thomas pointed out that this was not a retirement, and he had every intention of returning to hockey in 2013-14. Whether or not he sticks to that or not has yet to be seen, but if he does, he will be an unrestricted free agent. So with Poppa Bear Thomas potentially on the market this summer, what teams would be interested in his adding his services?

The Incomparable HARTY Awards

 The players and owners of the NHL fought an ugly battle during the most recent lockout. There were times when it seemed neither side would budge an inch on certain issues. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman worked to ensure the owners would make all the money in world, while Donald Fehr headed up the NHLPA working to ensure as many player rights (and cash) as possible. In the end, compromises were made to salvage what remained of a 2012-13 season, but they came at a price...
 As a result of the lockout, the players lost their trip to Las Vegas for the NHL Awards Show. Instead the NHL is presenting their annual awards on the Internet and on NHL Network between Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Final. Respected veterans like Jean-Sebastian Giguere understand how much players value their Vegas vacation, but this year, the league couldn't give it to them. What a disgrace.
 That's why this year, The Hart of Hockey will try to make it up to the athletes of the NHL with this year's HARTY Awards. I would like to extend a formal invitation to all of the winners of the 2013 HARTYs to come to lovely Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and meet at the Primanti Brothers location on Route 60 to receive your award in person! Of course, you'll have to pay for your plane ticket... and hotel... and anything else you decide to do for entertainment. But The Hart of Hockey would be more than happy to cover the expense of Primanti's sandwich upon the presentation of your award!
 With that generous offer on the table, this year's winners are...

NHL Prospects Playing in the 2013 Memorial Cup

 In the midst of a rollicking first round of the NHL playoffs, the CHL's Memorial Cup Tournament has arrived. The competition for the crown jewel of major junior hockey may have snuck up on you since the NHL's playoffs started a bit later than usual due to the lockout, but don't fret, because The Hart of Hockey has you covered. The field of four has been determined, so we already know what faces NHL fans and scouts will want to keep an eye on.

 The following is a list of all the NHL prospects and 2013 draft hopefuls participating in this year's Mem Cup. So see if your favorite team has any promising players in the pipeline, or get an idea of what will be available in Newark this upcoming summer at the draft when you tune into Memorial Cup coverage.

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs Preview

BECAUSE IT'S THE CUP...

 Oh, it's the most wonderful time of the year. The Stanley Cup Playoffs are set to begin, and yet again, the NHL has delivered some delicious first round match-ups right to your front door. Possibly as a result of the shortened, 48-game season, some teams that seemed to be locks for the playoffs a few months ago are left to the cold, cold, embrace of beach vacations and country clubs while some new faces get to participate in the postseason.
 So say goodbye to any chance at productive nights over the next few weeks, because the quest for Lord Stanley's Cup is beginning, and there's no way you should miss it. Eight different series, eight winners, and eight rosters full of broken dreams, that's the first round of the playoffs. Here's a closer look at this year's combatants:

Standings for Monday's NHL Draft Lottery

 The playoff picture has finally taken shape, with all eight available spots in each conference clinched. This also means the 14 teams on the outside looking in have been determined as well. Yes, their seasons all ended in disappointment, one way or another, but a new quirk introduced to the Draft Lottery process this year gives one team a chance to end on an unexpected high note.
 The 2013 Scotiabank NHL Draft Lottery, to be held on Monday at 8 p.m., will be the first in league history in which all 14 teams that missed the postseason have a chance to win the No. 1 overall pick based on a fixed percentage chance. In years past, lottery winners could only move up four spots in the draft, and the likelihood of winning was weighted heavier based on how poorly a team did.
 The Florida Panthers finished dead last in the NHL in the lockout-shortened season, but the new lottery format creates new story lines. Could Colorado win the first overall pick and thus Seth Jones end up playing for the team that introduced him to hockey as a child? Does one of the teams who barely missed out on the playoffs suddenly leap to first overall? Or if the "leader" does win the top pick, do the Florida Panthers, who have a history of trading down from No. 1, give it up to a hungry suitor? After all, in a stacked draft like this, the yield for the first pick could be higher than it was for Florida in 2002 and 2003.

Forbes Makes Sense of Jones/Jay-Z Rumors

 One of the more interesting, yet seemingly underreported, rumors from this past week was that the consensus first overall pick in this year's upcoming draft, Seth Jones, could end up with hip-hop legend and entrepreneurial genius Jay-Z as his agent. This seemed too good to be true at first, and although Jones and his current agent, Pat Brisson, have come out and said that isn't quite the case, it could be close to reality.
 Forbes' Chris Smith, a business of sports writer, makes a lot of sense out of rumors, and hints that a relationship between Jay-Z and Jones could be a very real thing in the near future. See Smith's great article here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrissmith/2013/04/25/could-jay-z-make-seth-jones...
 Not only would it be smart for both sides, it would be completely and totally awesome, too.

HOV!

Stefan Matteau No Longer on the Armada

 The New Jersey Devils' first round pick in 2012 got up and quit- no, he was released by manage- wait, we really have no idea what happened. The bottom line is Stefan Matteau is no longer a member of the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada amid their QMJHL Semifinal series with Baie-Comeau.

 Stephane Leroux of RDS has been all over the abrupt conclusion of Matteau's career with the Armada, originally reporting that Matteau had quit the team and refused to take the team bus back to Boisbriand with his (ex)teammates after the team's Game 2 loss to the Drakkar. As the news spread, Armada management was swift to put forth an official statement regarding the matter, saying that the Devs prospects had been "released" by the team due to behavior considered "unacceptable to our organization."

 Now this story has become the classic he-said she-said. The good ol', "No, she didn't break up with me, I broke up with her!" The proverbial, "You can't fire me! I QUIT!" We may never actually know who quit on who or who released who, but what we do know is that Matteau was not too happy with being benched in Game 2 after taking a reckless slashing penalty. After that came the end of his season.

Evaluating the Play of Filip Forsberg

John Russell / Getty Images

 There are only a few certainties in life: Death, taxes, and prospects move on trade deadline day. Every year, transactions at the NHL trade deadline include players who have never suited up for a game in the show. Some players make you scratch your head and go, "Who?" Others are high profile draft picks.
 When it comes to prospects, the biggest name moved at this season's deadline was Swedish forward Filip Forsberg, who was dealt from the Washington Capitals to the Nashville Predators in exchange for Martin Erat and Michael Latta. Considering Latta is, with all due respect, a nobody, and Erat had only four goals with the Preds this season, the Caps' willingness to move one of their top prospects was a bit of a head-scratcher. People theorized that the Capitals felt Forsberg's NHL ceiling wasn't as high as we once thought, and others took to Twitter to criticize Forsberg's foot speed and cite that as the reason Washington didn't mind ditching Sweden's captain at the most recent World Juniors.
 Surprisingly, Forsberg, who is 18 years old and never even suited up for Washington's AHL team, found himself injected into the Predators line-up on Sunday and he already has two NHL games under his belt. Now his detractors and his supporters alike have a small sample size of what Forsberg is capable of at the highest level of competition in the world. This is what they've seen.

2013 Frozen Four Preview

 The NCAA is always proud to declare how more European and Canadian prospects are choosing the
college route for their development, and this influx of international talent into the collegiate ranks has created more parity than ever over the past few years. This competitive balance was on display two weekends ago, as thrilling regional match-ups had college hockey fans on the edge of their seat and scribbling on their brackets. Now that only four teams remain after working their way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to battle for glory, the team that wins it all will have earned their school their first NCAA National Championship in program history.
 Yes, your Frozen Four finalists, Quinnipiac, UMass-Lowell, St. Cloud State, and Yale, are all competing for their school's first ever national title. In fact, Yale is the only school to reach the final four remaining teams of the national tournament before, albeit it was in 1952. With that in mind, this is sure to be an exciting conclusion to the tournament.
 Here's a chance for you to get to know each team in the Frozen Four a little better before the puck drops at the beautiful CONSOL Energy Center on Thursday. There's profiles on each team, list of their NHL prospects, and the Hart of Hockey's predictions for the final.

What Giguere's Comments Mean For Gabe Landeskog...

Seriously though, Jiggy's "Vegas trip"
comment is among the best quotes ever.
(Doug Pensinger, Getty Images)

 At the conclusion of another lackluster performance by the Colorado Avalanche last night, goaltender Jean-Sebastian Giguere had a ton of rich, long-winded quotes for reporters after the team's 3-1 loss to the Calgary Flames. Calling Giguere frustrated would be an understatement. "Fuming with anger" or "handing back genuine rage" is probably a more appropriate way to describe his comments.
 Jiggy has always been known as a team-first guy, and stats and salary aside, he's a well respected person throughout the hockey community. So if he is this upset and not afraid to voice it with such colorful quotes, his feelings are probably shared with at least some of his teammates, putting a rift in the Avalanche locker room. What does this all mean for Colorado's 20 year-old captain, Gabriel Landeskog?
 Originally reported by Denver Post beat writer Adrian Dater, Giguere had the following to say about the team he backstops:

Cumulative 2013 Draft Rankings (February)

 Here we are, back again with the February edition of The Hart of Hockey's signature cumulative draft rankings. The sources which are used to compile this list had expanded their rankings greatly since the last time we had a cumulative draft rankings post in November, so the math is a little less fuzzy and our list has expanded to 40 players.
 For those of you who don't know the drill, we take the rankings of TSN's Bob McKenzie, Craig Button, and the International Scouting Services, and take an individual's average score based on those three sources. Whatever number pops out is the score used to rank them here in the cumulative rankings. NHL Central Scouting is used as a tiebreaker between prospects, since they separate players into North American skaters, European skaters, North American goalies, etc.
 In addition to expanding to 40 prospects, there was a ton of movement from the November rankings. Here's what we've got as of February, 7th:

	Player	Pos.	Team	McKenzie	Button	ISS	Avg Score	CS
1	Seth Jones	D	Portland Winterhawks	1	1	1	1	1
2	Nathan MacKinnon	C	Halifax Mooseheads	2	2	2	2	2
3	Jonathan Drouin	LW	Halifax Mooseheads	3	4	3	3.33	3
4	Aleksander Barkov	C	Tappara	4	3	4	3.66	1
5	Sean Monahan	C	Ottawa 67’s	6	6	5	5.66	4
6	Elias Lindholm	C	Brynäs	5	7	6	6	2
7	Valeri Nichushkin	LW	Chelyabinsk	10	5	7	7.33	4
8	Nikita Zadorov	D	London Knights	9	8	9	8.66	30
9	Darnell Nurse	D	Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds	12	9	10	10.33	9
10	Hunter Shinkaruk	LW	Medicine Hat Tigers	8	12	14	11.33	5
11	Rasmus Ristolainen	D	TPS	7	20	8	11.66	3
12	Ryan Pulock	D	Brandon Wheat Kings	15	13	17	15	6
13	Adam Erne	LW	Québec Remparts	16	15	15	15.33	13
14	Zach Fucale	G	Halifax Mooseheads	22	10	n/a	16	1
15	Alexander Wennberg	C	Djurgårdens	11	18	21	16.66	8
16	Frédérik Gauthier	C	Rimouski Océanic	13	19	19	17	7
17	Josh Morrissey	D	Prince Albert Raiders	20	11	20	17	11
18	Max Domi	C	London Knights	18	14	28	20	23
19	Curtis Lazar	C	Edmonton Oil Kings	25	24	11	20	26
20	Jason Dickinson	LW	Guelph Storm	24	25	13	20.66	16
21	Bo Horvat	LW	London Knights	19	22	22	21	15
22	Anthony Mantha	LW	Val-d’Or Foreurs	17	17	>30	21.66	10
23	Robert Hägg	D	MODO J20	29	28	12	23	7
24	Valentin Zykov	RW	Baie-Comeau Drakkar	27	30	16	24.33	8
25	Kerby Rychel	LW	Windsor Spitfires	23	23	27	24.33	18
26	André Burakowsky	RW	Malmö J20	14	44	18	25.33	5
27	Artturi Lehkonen	LW	KalPa	40	16	24	26.66	9
28	Ryan Hartman	RW	Plymouth Whalers	28	29	25	27.33	25
29	J.T. Compher	C	USNTDP	30	27	26	27.66	20
30	Morgan Klimchuk	C	Regina Pats	33	21	>30	28.33	24
31	Anthony Duclair	LW	Québec Remparts	35	26	30	30.33	35
32	Mirco Müller	D	Everett Silvertips	21	42	>30	31.33	12
33	Madison Bowey	D	Kelowna Rockets	34	33	>30	32.66	22
34	Jacob De la Rose	C	Leksands	26	47	>30	34.33	6
35	Steve Santini	D	USNTDP	41	39	23	34.33	47
36	Chris Bigras	D	Owen Sound Attack	31	45	>30	35.66	19
37	Keaton Thompson	D	USNTDP	43	36	>30	36	51
38	Ian McCoshen	D	Waterloo Black Hawks	32	46	>30	36.33	21
39	Nicolas Petan	C	Portland Winterhawks	48	31	>30	36.66	34
40	Laurent Dauphin	C	Chicoutimi Saguenéens	45	34	>30	36.66	41