Calgary Herald

GREYING GREATS KNOW HOW TO WIN

Recent trend has veterans like Ovechkin, Crosby and Malkin lifting Lord Stanley’s mug

- STEVE SIMMONS ssimmons@postmedia.com twitter.com/simmonsste­ve

In his 13th NHL season,

Alex Ovechkin was presented with both the Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy.

The wait for the Washington Capitals scoring superstar was worthwhile.

That surprising championsh­ip came in the 11th season for Nicklas Backstrom and Matt Niskanen, in the 14th season for Brooks Orpik, in John Carlson’s ninth NHL year and 10 years after the Capitals drafted goaltender Braden Holtby.

The two years before that, in 2016 and 2017, commission­er Gary Bettman called on Sidney Crosby to come get the Stanley Cup. Those titles were won in Crosby’s 11th and 12th NHL seasons. Those two championsh­ips coincided with the 10th and 11th seasons of the great Evgeni Malkin with the Penguins.

The Cup won in 2017 by the Penguins featured Matt Cullen, in his 18th season, Ron Hainsey and Chris Kunitz, in their 13th years, Marc-Andre Fleury in Season 12, and Phil Kessel in Year 11.

In 2015, the Chicago Blackhawks won their third Stanley Cup with Joel Quennevill­e coaching.

That came in Marian Hossa’s 17th season, in the 14th year of Brad Richards’ career, and with Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook having been Blackhawks for 10 seasons together on defence. It also came in the eighth year of play by Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.

Four of the top six scorers for that Chicago mini-dynasty in their last playoff championsh­ip were over the age of 30.

Which brings us to today with wonder.

The NHL is stacked with stars 25 or younger. At 25, there is Mark Scheifele of Winnipeg and Nikita Kucherov of Tampa Bay. At 23, there is Florida’s Aleksander Barkov, Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Seth Jones of Columbus.

At 22, there is Boston’s David Pastrnak.

At 21, there is Connor McDavid of Edmonton, Auston Matthews of Toronto, Jack Eichel of Buffalo and at age 20 there is Patrik Laine of the Jets.

How long before one of them will be holding the Stanley Cup?

How long before youth is again served in the NHL?

Like all leagues, the NHL is all about trends and copy-catting.

And the three-year trend heading into this season indicates that older, more experience­d teams win championsh­ips.

The kids may be all right but winning seems to come more often for those who wait.

Maybe this is the year for the San Jose Sharks, having just fleeced Ottawa for the great Erik Karlsson, who is still young but entering his 10th NHL season. He’s on a team with Joe Thornton who is not young and playing in Year 21, and Brent Burns, the former Norris Trophy winner, in his 15th season. The Sharks have two significan­t 13-year veterans in Joe Pavelski and Marc Edouard Vlasic and a 10-year centreman in Logan Couture.

“You need your veteran guys, but you also need a blend,” said Doug Wilson, general manager of the Sharks.

Ovechkin won the Conn Smythe last June but it easily could have gone to Evgeny Kuznetsov, the 26-year-old who led the playoffs in scoring. Crosby won the Conn Smythe before that but then-21-year-old Jake Guentzel scored 13 playoff goals.

Crosby and Malkin won their first Cups at the ages of 21 and 22. Then they waited seven seasons impatientl­y to win a second time.

Toews and Kane won in Chicago in their third NHL seasons. That was nine years ago. Drew Doughty won his first Cup in Los Angeles in his fourth season. Youth seemed better served in the Chicago-Los Angeles years when Kane and Toews and Doughty and Anze Kopitar were leading teams to Stanley Cups.

But one large addition to the Blackhawks’ run of championsh­ip seasons came when Chicago signed Hossa as a free agent.

“That was a game-changer for them,” Wilson said. “When you get a player like that, that makes everybody better.”

The Hossa history should excite Maple Leafs fans. Kane and Toews were heading into Year 3 when Chicago signed Hossa and that team went on to win the first of three Stanley Cups. General manager Stan Bowman is clear on the significan­ce Hossa played for those teams.

He doesn’t believe they would have won without him.

And here are Matthews and Mitch Marner, young stars of the Leafs, heading into Year 3, while this is the 10th NHL season for expensive free agent John Tavares. This coming a year after hockey old-timers Hainsey and Patrick Marleau signed with the Leafs, who understand the need for veteran leadership.

The question now is, can Tavares be the Hossa of the Leafs, leading the team while showing the young stars how to be profession­al, how to win?

The Cup could be won in Tavares’ 10th and first year in Toronto or in Thornton’s 21st season in San Jose or Pekka Rinne’s 11th year in Nashville. Could Ovechkin repeat? Do Crosby and Malkin have another Cup in them?

The NHL has never been so stacked with young stars, yet so embraced by older champions.

 ?? THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILES ?? San Jose Sharks veteran Joe Thornton is still waiting to win his first Stanley Cup as he enters his 21st NHL season.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILES San Jose Sharks veteran Joe Thornton is still waiting to win his first Stanley Cup as he enters his 21st NHL season.
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