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Hockey Canada has announced a pair of press conferences for Thursday in Montreal and Toronto, during which it will be announced the cities will serve as hosts for the IIHF World Junior Championships in 2015 and 2017, according to multiple media outlets.
Montreal and Toronto will serve as host cities each year, with Montreal home to the preliminary round and Toronto site of the medal round in 2015, and the reverse in 2017.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first NHL Draft, NHL.com assembled a 13-member panel to select the best first-round picks of all time, based on selection number. NHL.com will feature one of the top first-round picks each day, beginning with the best No. 30 pick on June 1 and culminating with the all-time No. 1 pick on June 30, the day of the 2013 NHL Draft.
Today: The best No. 12 pick: Marian Hossa, Ottawa Senators, 1997
During the 1996-97 season, 17-year-old Marian Hossa made his debut in the top professional league in his native Slovakia, scoring at a point-per-game clip while playing against older, more physically developed men.
The Nashville Predators on Wednesday announced the signing of defenseman Victor Bartley to a three-year, $2 million contract.
The 25-year-old will earn $600,000 in 2013-14 and 2014-15, and $800,000 in 2015-16.
Bartley appeared in his first 24 career NHL games down the stretch for Nashville in 2012-13, recording seven assists.If the Colorado Avalanche hang on to the top pick at the 2013 NHL Draft on June 30, it appears unlikely they will use it on Seth Jones.
Joe Sakic, executive vice president of hockey operations for the Avalanche, told The Denver Post on Tuesday night they will pass on the top-rated defenseman and instead choose between forwards Nathan MacKinnon, Jonathan Drouin or Alexander Barkov.
"If we do pick first, we're leaning more toward one of those three forwards," Sakic told the newspaper. "We feel those three forwards are just too good to pass up."
The Grand Rapids Griffins have won their first Calder Cup.
Brennan Evans broke a 2-2 tie 9:54 into the third period and Petr Mrazek made 24 saves as the Griffins claimed the American Hockey League championship with a 5-2 victory against the Syracuse Crunch in Game 6 of the Calder Cup Final at Onondaga County War Memorial Arena on Tuesday night.
Grand Rapids raced out to a 3-0 lead in this best-of-7 series before Syracuse responded with back-to-back victories to get the series back to Syracuse. The road team won five of the six games in the series.
BOSTON -- As one Western Conference coach was saying during a telephone conversation Tuesday afternoon, power plays are an interesting science because there are times when you feel confident and the puck just goes in, but there are other times when the harder you try the worse it looks.
"To me, that's where the Chicago Blackhawks are at right now," the Western Conference coach told NHL.com. "They've gone from probably talking about it to death to trying different things. Now they look flustered on it and it shows in the poise with which they play."
The Blackhawks are 0-for-11 on the power play in the Stanley Cup Final and they trail the best-of-7 series to the Boston Bruins, 2-1. They are 0-for-20 on the power play dating back to Bryan Bickell's goal in the second period of Game 2 of the Western Conference Final.
Chicago Blackhawks forward Bryan Bickell has become a prominent figure during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, taking on a key offensive role for a team seeking to win its second championship in four seasons.
Bickell, 27, scored eight goals over the first three rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs -- one fewer than he had in 48 regular season games. In the Western Conference Final, Bickell scored goals in three consecutive games, then added a pair of assists in the clinching Game 5 win against the Los Angeles Kings.
Bickell has been shut out through three games in the Stanley Cup Final.
He has been gracious enough to agree to keep a player blog that will appear on NHL.com throughout the series against the Boston Bruins.
In his fifth entry, Bickell writes about the Blackhawks tradition of playing Mario Kart on the road. He goes over the history and even ranks some of the players:
BOSTON -- I'm sure a lot of you have heard about how some of us on the team like to unwind when we're on the road by playing Mario Kart. I figured we'd lighten the mood today -- an off day between Games 3 and 4 of the Stanley Cup Final -- and I'd let you in on how it all started, what it's like for us and why we do it.
BOSTON -- It is a simple plan, but not the easiest to execute: Teams in most sports want to be strong in the middle of the playing surface.
For baseball teams, it is about defense up the middle -- catcher, shortstop, center field. In soccer, successful clubs look for strength in central defense and central midfield, and build out from there. A basketball team with an elite center is almost by default a playoff contender.
This idea works in hockey as well, and the past two Stanley Cup champions have adhered to a similar blueprint. Find a goalie. Find an elite defenseman (or two). Find an elite center (or two). Figure the rest out.
The 2013 Boston Bruins look a lot like the 2011 edition that won the Cup. They have replaced Tim Thomas with Tuukka Rask, but otherwise the key components to the backbone of their stifling defense -- center Patrice Bergeron and defensemen Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg -- remain the same.
Smith, who had last suited up for Chicago on April 27 and hadn't played in a Stanley Cup Playoff game since April 26, 2011, skated with the team's extras Monday morning. Not expecting to play, he didn't dress for team warm-ups and was preparing to ride a stationary bike during the opening period.
That's when the announcement came that star forward Marian Hossa would be scratched due to an upper-body injury. And just like that, Smith got the call for Game 3, enjoying a return to TD Garden that was almost as glorious as it was unexpected.
Los Angeles Kings defenseman Slava Voynov emerged as a potential star during this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Now he has the contract to match.
On Tuesday, the Kings agreed to terms with Voynov on a six-year contract extension worth a reported $25 million.
Check out all of the Stanley Cup Final Game 4 action from between the pipes. WATCH NOW ›
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