Entering the 2010-11 regular season, Mark McNeill wasn’t even on the radar as a potential first-round draft pick for the 2011 NHL Entry Draft. In fact, the Prince Albert Raiders center wasn’t even listed on Central Scouting’s preliminary rankings of the top 25 North American skaters last November. He was absent from International Scouting Services’ October, 2010 top […]

For the second straight year Team Canada arrived home from the IIHF World Hockey Championships with the bitter taste of a quarter-finals exit in their mouth. Historically, Canada has not dominated the spring championship, as they have captured just five gold medals since professionals began playing in 1976. Conversely, it is rare for Canada to be shut-out of the […]

Growing up just north of Pittsburgh in Gibsonia, PA., Brandon Saad idolized the Penguins’ multitude of offensive dynamos — the likes of Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and more recently Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. It’s ironic then that Saad, the 19th ranked North American skater and top-rated U.S. prospect on Central Scouting’s final rankings for the 2011 NHL […]

Under a minute remained in the Detroit Red Wings’ season. The San Jose Sharks, up 3-2 in the third period of Game 7, were resisting another possible comeback. Having already overturned a 3-0 deficit, the Red Wings were ready to claw back into one last game. Pavel Datsyuk scored minutes earlier to bring the Red Wings to within […]

With Canadian Hockey League drafts wrapped up and the 2011 NHL Entry Draft on the horizon, The Good Point had a chance to sit down with three influential figures within the hockey community. Former general manager and head coach of the OHL’s Guelph Storm, Jason Brooks, along with former Detroit Red Wings scout and current head scout and director of player personnel for the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye, Ed Burkholder, […]

Teenagers growing up in the greater-Edmonton area often fantasize about what it would feel like to follow in the footsteps of past NHL greats. This is particularly the case for many aspiring prospects born in the early-to-mid 1990s, who arrived to the world just after several Stanley Cup runs by the Gretzky-led Edmonton Oilers less than a decade earlier. However, there […]

Concussions and head shots have taken over hockey at all levels. It’s something that the hockey masses think the NHL needs to deal with before someone dies. It has already ended careers (ask Eric Lindros) and is now the reason why hockey fanatics watched the Penguins in the playoffs without the game’s greatest player, Sidney Crosby. Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins have […]

If the San Jose Sharks have ever had the potential to knock the playoff monkey off its back and take a legitimate shot at the Stanley Cup, Game 7 Thursday night is the time to do it. With an impressive first-round series victory over the Los Angeles Kings, the Sharks seemed to have emerged as one of […]

With his name engraved on the Memorial Cup two times over the last four years, Ryan Ellis is certainly familiar with playing top-calibre hockey in the month of May. To date, the Nashville Predators prospect has tackled virtually every on-ice challenge thrown his way, whether it has been internationally with Team Canada or with his home squad, theWindsor Spitfires. Just recently, […]

Before reaching the Eastern Conference Finals with the Montreal Canadiens last year,Dominic Moore had about as much playoff experience as a rookie. He played four games with the New York Rangers in the 2006 postseason, when they got swept by the New Jersey Devils in the first round. He had about the same impact on the score sheet as a […]