2015 World Junior Championship Ultimate Guide

ROSTERS, SCHEDULES, PREVIEWS, AND PREDICTIONS

 Montréal and Toronto are the two cities with the greatest amount of hockey history. Countless legends have played for the people of those fine cities, and a pantheon of storied contests were played on their ice. This year, the hockey world will converge on both of these puck-head havens for the annual gut-wrenching, heart-racing, awe-inspiring tournament that is the IIHF World Junior Championship.
 With games split between Montréal's Bell Centre and Toronro's Air Canada Centre, 10 countries' finest young men will compete for national pride, glory, and hockey immortality. Every team will have its fair share of obstacles if it wants to reach its ultimate goal, but no matter how much they all want it, no matter how hard they work, only one team will have gold draped around their necks after the final game.
 In this, your Ultimate Guide to the 2015 World Juniors, fans can find complete rosters of every team and its corresponding group stage schedule, a preview of all 10 teams, and predictions as to who will end up with individual honors and what country will be the one singing its anthem at center ice with new hardware.
 The tournament runs from Dec. 26 through Jan. 5. Games will air on TSN and its affiliates for Canadian audiences and on NHL Network for those watching in the United States.

LIVE 2014 NHL Entry Draft Blog

 This blog will be updated live during the 2014 NHL Entry Draft in Philadelphia, Pa. Every selection, trade, or transaction of any kind will be updated instantly as it is announced and posted to this page.
 Any transactions that take place during the draft will be written in italics and highlighted in yellow.
 Every draft pick will also be accompanied by a brief description of each prospect for a better understanding of what any team has added to its system.

The Inimitable HARTY Awards

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2014 Annual HARTY Awards, where the NHL's finest are honored with prestigious accolades that every young child with a hockey stick in his hands has dreamed of winning since two years ago.
 Now, this is the internet's premier red carpet awards event, and while there is no invitation necessary to attend, this is still a black tie event. The Hart of Hockey would appreciate it if you dressed appropriately for such an occasion, and show some respect to the players we all tore apart on Twitter the past season and look your finest. If you have to alter your attire for the event, now's your chance.

Final 2014 Cumulative Draft Rankings

 The draft is upon us, and 210 young men's lives will be changed forever on Friday and Saturday in Philadelphia.
 As always, The Hart of Hockey will be live blogging the event, but no draft coverage would be complete without a final edition of the blog's signature cumulative draft rankings.
 If you are unfamiliar with The Hart of Hockey's rankings, I'll be happy to give you a quick rundown of the system. If you are already familiar, just skip to the table below, but I'm sure you've already done that.
 The cumulative rankings take an individual player's rankings in various pundits/scouting services publications and then finds the average score from combining all the rankings. In this addition, the outside ranking lists used were TSN's Bob MacKenzie and Craig Button, NHL Central Scouting (CS,) The Hockey News (THN,) International Scouting Services (ISS,) Red Line Report (RLR,) McKeen's Hockey, and HockeyProspect.com (HP). Since Central Scouting separates its rankings by European/North American and Skaters/Goalies, its numbers are only used as a tiebreaker if the values of two players' or more average score is the same.
 Lastly, this is the time where I remind you that these rankings are not to be interpreted as a mock draft, but rather a different way to value the prospects heading into the draft and potentially project when their names will be called on draft day.
 Things get progressively crazier outside of the top five, but The Hart of Hockey is very proud to have collected enough data to present you with 60 players ranked with the cumulative system, starting with Kootenay's Sam Reinhart.

NHL Prospects in the 2014 Memorial Cup

 The Memorial Cup tournament always boasts some of the best talent in junior hockey. Naturally, the annual competition has plenty of NHL prospects, whether they be drafted, signed as undrafted free agents, or even big names in an upcoming draft.
 The 2014 MasterCard Memorial Cup begins tonight with the QMJHL Champion Val-d'Or Foreurs taking on the host team, the London Knights at 7:00 p.m. Here you can find all of the NHL prospects participating in this year's tournament for all four teams.

EDMONTON OIL KINGS

No.	Position	Player	NHL Club
2	D	Cody Corbett	Colorado Avalanche*
8	D	Griffin Reinhart	New York Islanders
10	F	Henrik Samuelsson	Phoenix Coyotes
24	D	Aaron Irving	2014 Draft
25	F	Lane Bauer	2014 Draft
27	F	Curtis Lazar	Ottawa Senators
29	F	Mitch Moroz	Edmonton Oilers
30	G	Tristan Jarry	Pittsburgh Penguins
36	D	Dysin Mayo	2014 Draft
39	F	Brett Pollock	2014 Draft

GUELPH STORM

No.	Position	Player	NHL Club
4	D	Matt Finn	Toronto Maple Leafs
6	D	Phil Baltisberger	2014 Draft
7	D	Ben Harpur	Ottawa Senators
8	D	Zac Leslie	Los Angeles Kings
9	F	Robby Fabbri	2014 Draft
10	D	Nick Ebert	Los Angeles Kings
11	F	Jason Dickinson	Dallas Stars
16	F	Kerby Rychel	Columbus Blue Jackets
17	F	Tyler Bertuzzi	Detroit Red Wings
20	F	Justin Auger	Los Angeles Kings
21	F	Brock McGinn	Carolina Hurricanes
22	F	Pius Suter	2014 Draft
23	F	Zack Mitchell	Minnesota Wild*
24	F	Scott Kosmachuk	Winnipeg Jets

LONDON KNIGHTS

No.	Position	Player	NHL Club
10	F	Christian Dvorak	2014 Draft
11	F	Owen MacDonald	2014 Draft
14	F	Gemel Smith	Dallas Stars
16	F	Max Domi	Phoenix Coyotes
21	F	Chandler Yakimowicz	2014 Draft
24	F	Michael McCarron	Montréal Canadiens
43	G	Anthony Stolarz	Philadelphia Flyers
53	F	Bo Horvat	Vancouver Canucks
64	F	Ryan Rupert	Toronto Maple Leafs
65	D	Nikita Zadorov	Buffalo Sabres
71	F	Chris Tierney	San Jose Sharks
74	D	Aiden Jamieson	2014 Draft
77	F	Josh Anderson	Columbus Blue Jackets

VAL-d'OR FOREURS

No.	Position	Player	NHL Club
8	F	Anthony Mantha	Detroit Red Wings
14	F	Samuel Henley	Colorado Avalanche*
16	F	Nicolas Aubé-Kubel	2014 Draft
18	D	Keven Larouche	2014 Draft
20	D	Ryan Graves	New York Rangers
21	F	Anthony Beauregard	2014 Draft
30	G	Antoine Bibeau	Toronto Maple Leafs

2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs Preview

 16 wins is all it takes. After 82 games spanning from October to April, the teams that were good enough to qualify for the playoffs only need 16 wins to achieve their childhood dreams and lift the most iconic trophy in the world over their heads as champions. Easy enough, right?
 Well once you consider there are 15 other teams determined on reaching those 16 wins before your team does, a task that seems menial to a playoff contender suddenly becomes a grind like none other.
 In pursuit of 16 wins, players are ready to skate through brick walls and hell fire to defeat their opponent. They know blood will be shed, their legs will quiver from fatigue but find a way to push off another stride, and broken bones will be ignored like paper cuts.
 All of this madness will be done for one shining, three-foot, 34 lbs trophy. It's the Stanley Cup.

 The race for 16 wins starts tonight, and all eight first round match-ups have their own unique quirks and storylines ready to play out on the ice. The Hart of Hockey has a breakdown of every series in preparation of the Stanley Cup Playoffs dropping the puck tonight with a little prediction for the outcome of these match-ups.

Cumulative 2014 Draft Rankings (January)

 This is the latest I've ever put out a year's first cumulative draft rankings since The Hart of Hockey started its signature draft coverage. That might have actually been for the best actually, since the longer this season has gone on, it looks like the 2014 NHL Entry Draft in Philadelphia, Pa. will be one of the most volatile drafts in a long while, and the various rankings collected here reflect that.
 The table below shows the most recent prospect rankings of five different scouts/publications, The Hockey News (THN,) International Scouting Services (ISS,) NHL Central Scouting (CS,) and TSN analysts Craig Button and Bob McKenzie. An individual player's rankings from THN, ISS, Button, and McKenzie's lists is averaged into a cumulative score, and then the top scores are ranked and become The Hart of Hockey's prospect rankings. Since CS separates players by North American and European, as well as dividing skaters and goalies, its rankings are used as a tiebreaker in the event of two or more players tying their average score.

The Sochi Olympics All-Snub Team

With almost every international competition, comes one of the hockey community's favorite past times: the
"HOW THE HECK DID THIS GUY NOT MAKE THE TEAM" game. It's invigorating, frustrating, it makes us laugh and cry, but it's ultimately useless. Hockey Canada does not care who you think should be on their team. USA Hockey could care less if you think the team they picked sucks. What matters is results, and the pursuit of those results inevitably leaves behind many players worthy of a position on their home country's teams.

 All of those players left empty by the rejection of their homelands can rest easy knowing that the Hart of Hockey has created a last chance for them to be recognized, by naming the 2014 Winter Olympics ALL-SNUB TEAM. Every and all players left off of an Olympic roster were considered to create the best possible team that could compete in Sochi, Russia.

 It is my honor to announce the line-up for this team, with a quick few sentences about why they were chosen to be on this squad and represent the All-Snubs in 2014. The team is as follows:

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
James Neal (CAN)	Logan Couture (CAN)	Bobby Ryan (USA)
Martin St. Louis (CAN)	Joe Thornton (CAN)	Tyler Seguin (CAN)
Jiří Hudler (CZE)	Claude Giroux (CAN)	Radim Vrbata (CZE)
Tomáš Fleischmann (CZE)	Marcus Johansson (SWE)	Kyle Okposo (USA)
Gašper Kopitar (SLO)	-	Patric Hörnqvist (SWE)

L                          Defen	semen                       R
Victor Hedman (SWE)	Dan Boyle (CAN)
Keith Yandle (USA)	Brent Seabrook (CAN)
Jack Johnson (USA)	Erik Johnson (USA)
Darnell Nurse (CAN)	Roman Polák (CZE)

Goaltenders

Ben Bishop (USA)

Marc-André Fleury (CAN)

Marek Mazanec (CZE)