Hunter Drew locked both hands to the steering wheel of his white Kia Forte -one at 10 o'clock, the other at 2 o'clock as if he were taking a driving test. He cranked the windshield wipers to maximum speed and directed his focus straight ahead, his eyes wide and heart racing.

He was terrified. A few moments earlier, the San Diego Gulls' rookie defenseman had lost control of his vehicle in the middle of a Colorado blizzard. His car, purchased in California without winter tires, had been moving gingerly on a winding road through the Rocky Mountains. No issues - until he hit one particular hill.

"I spun out twice on both sides," Drew said in a recent interview. "If I would have gone over to the right side 5 feet, I was going off and into the mountains. On the left, I was about three inches from T-boning a car."

"I just caught myself. Luck of the draw," the 21-year-old continued, reliving the close call from March 19. "It was the scariest thing I've ever been a part of."

Now isolating at his family home in Kingston, Ontario, Drew laughs off the incident over the phone. It took him three long days to arrive in Canada. The AHL, like the NHL and the rest of the sports world, has been paused to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. Gulls players were forced to travel home - more than 2,700 miles in Drew's case - on short notice.

It's fitting, really, that a simple Point A-to-Point B road trip turned into an unpredictable journey that produced a memorable story. Drew's career could be characterized similarly. Four years ago, he was a hockey nobody. "I was done," he said. On Monday, the Anaheim Ducks announced Drew, a quintessential late bloomer, had signed a three-year, entry-level NHL contract.

It was spring of 2016 and Drew had come to terms with his apparent ceiling as a hockey player. He'd spent the previous two seasons with the Junior B/C team in nearby Gananoque, earning the odd call-up to the Junior A Kingston Voyageurs. His options that fall were limited. He'd almost certainly have to pay to play, which is not the most attractive proposition for an 18-year-old looking to make something of himself.

Drew turned his attention to education, enrolling in a business program at hometown college St. Lawrence, with mom and dad footing the tuition bill. That payment sealed it: His lifelong pursuit of hockey was effectively over.

Well, kind of. The family had already paid for a summer trainer. Drew figured it wouldn't hurt to stay in shape - why waste the money? - so he hit the gym.

One day, Drew's training partner rang up his Junior A coach on the sly to tell him about this kid who had recently quit hockey. The coach pitched Drew on his program in Nova Scotia soon after. He would have to pay to play, but some expenses would be reimbursed at season's end. Attracted by a new adventure, and with nothing to lose, Drew agreed to a tryout in the fall.

Before he could leave for Nova Scotia, though, Drew was offered a second out-of-province tryout, this time for a major junior club. Charlottetown Islanders GM/head coach Jim Hulton and scout Rob Ridgley - both Kingston guys - had watched Drew compete in a three-on-three scrimmage with and against local pros at a preseason tuneup event. Impressed, the Islanders extended the raw blue-liner an invite to QMJHL camp.

Drew, who was never drafted to the OHL, had slipped through the cracks of Ontario's elite hockey system. A potentially big opportunity awaited on tiny Prince Edward Island. "He saw something in me that a lot of people didn't see," Drew said of Hulton.

Drew showed up to his first camp with mediocre puck skills, decent but unspectacular skating, and a soft shot. His above-average size, willingness to play a physical game, and organizational fit - right-handed defensemen are in short supply at all levels - landed Drew a spot on the Islanders' blue line.

"He just had a lot of things where it made you go, 'Man, we've got to keep this kid around. There's something about him,'" said Charlottetown assistant coach Guy Girouard, who works closely with the team's defensemen. "You can't quite put your finger on it, but you know he can probably help us."

As a rookie, Drew appeared in 42 of 68 regular-season games, registering three assists in a dual role as a D-man and occasional winger. The Islanders, whose stacked roster featured NHL picks Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Daniel Sprong, and Filip Chlapik, made it deep in the 2017 postseason. Drew wasn't quite ready for prime time, dressing only once in the squad's 13 playoff contests.

The downtime allowed him to get a head start on an important offseason of weight training and skill development. Once Drew had settled in Kingston for the summer, he hit the ice 8-to-10 times a week in an effort to improve all facets of his game. His dad, Brian - who had already convinced Drew to drop junior-level lacrosse to focus on hockey - insisted on a slower pace. Brian worried Drew might burn out or sustain an injury in July.

Drew heeded Brian's advice - and it paid off. He opened the 2017-18 campaign looking "like a different player," Hulton said. "Assertive with the puck. Comfortable. Confident. Making skilled plays. Jumping up into the play." Suddenly, Hulton's spare defenseman was capable of shouldering top-four duties.

Post-practice sessions with Girouard helped inch Drew away from the "raw" label. Over time, he began to master basic footwork and hand-eye coordination drills, such as accepting passes in his skates and knocking pucks out of the air while skating backward. He was flashing pro potential.

"His game grew so much in a short period of time that it caught us all by surprise. You had to keep raising the bar and he always wanted more," Hulton said. "Part of the reason why he's had that success is because he's been able to keep that chip on his shoulder as the underdog. It's served him really well."

Drew, who finished with eight goals and 31 assists across 64 games in his sophomore season, would actually surprise himself on occasion by pulling off a fancy deke. An in-game toe drag amused the Islanders bench and put a smile on his face. "It's almost like it all fell in place for me," Drew said.

The Ducks selected the 6-foot-2 Drew in the sixth round, 178th overall, in 2018. Though he knew getting drafted as a 19-year-old was a possibility, Drew wasn't holding his breath. One of his agents, Darrell Young, broke the news via phone after waking him up from an afternoon nap. The Drew family was understandably elated. The QMJHL walk-on was now an NHL draft pick.

"Walking on is not that rare. Walking on and being drafted pro a couple of years later is very rare," Hulton, a longtime junior coach and manager, said.

"It's a great story," Gulls head coach Kevin Dineen said. "Any time you hear that - that somebody's at a crossroads and decides to stick with it and finds success - it's a pretty neat deal."

Dating back to the Brian Burke era, the Ducks organization has put a premium on toughness. They're a little old school, drafting and developing players with, in Dineen's words, "plenty of testosterone and a level of abrasiveness."

Nicknamed "Bam Bam" as a toddler, Drew fits in nicely. He takes pride in sticking up for teammates and has the receipts. In 2017-18, his breakout season in the QMJHL, Drew led the league with 159 penalty minutes and nine fights, for better or worse. The next year, in three fewer games, he finished with 141 penalty minutes and six fights.

"He's almost like the boy you'd want your daughter to marry, but not the guy you'd want your son to play in a hockey game," said Andrew Maloney, Young's colleague at Maloney & Thompson Sports Management.

This past season, his first exclusively against grown men, was a transition year. Jumping from junior to pro can be arduous on the sport's most talented players. It was especially difficult for Drew - who split his time between AHL San Diego (29 games) and ECHL Tulsa (five games) - because he had to relearn where the line between productive and unproductive toughness lies.

Drew's confidence sagged at times. Instead of establishing himself physically during play, he was taking penalties after whistles. His unpolished skill set made him a target, too. Opponents used their pro speed to force him into vulnerable defensive positions. "There's a different learning curve for every player," Dineen said, "and I think it goes doubly so for defensemen."

Make no mistake, there's optimism in Dineen's voice. The veteran bench boss is well aware of the quantum leaps that Drew made in Charlottetown. An inquisitive learner, Drew's leaned on Sylvain Lefebvre, San Diego's defense coach, in the same way that he leaned on Girouard. He's moldable, and that alone is a huge asset.

Dineen has been pleasantly surprised by Drew's offensive upside. His shot, previously a negative on his scouting report, is now feared. He can make a clean first pass out of the defensive zone under pressure or exit the zone himself. There's always going to be more simplicity than complexity in Drew's game, but he's trending in the right direction. He's by no means just a fighter.

Drew wasn't a special talent in minor hockey - heck, he got cut from his Bantam AAA team - so he will need to continue to hone his fundamentals. He'll also need to refine his strength and conditioning to catch up to his peers within the Ducks organization and beyond. "This year he's really going to be able to dedicate himself to being a professional hockey player," Dineen noted, later adding that Drew is "just scratching the surface."

The Ducks have invested in the Kingston kid's future. The three-year contract gives Drew stability and validation that his journey - the one on the ice with his teammates, not on the road in his Forte - is far from over.

"It doesn't have to work out for you when you're 10 or 12 years old," Drew said, when asked if he takes pride in being a late bloomer.

"I want to be a testament to that."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Takes, thoughts, and trends is theScore's monthly spin around the NHL.

Crosby still the players' champ

Last Thursday, we learned equipment giant Bauer would be producing face shields for medical professionals who are fighting the coronavirus pandemic. A day later, Ryan Getzlaf hilariously showed off his chicken coop during a video call with fellow players and reporters. This week, Zdeno Chara revealed Tuukka Rask has "awful" farts, while former goalie and social media star Eddie Lack was showered with praise after announcing his retirement from hockey.

Amid all the anxiety and tragedy surrounding COVID-19, there's been some good coming out of the hockey world. As trivial and silly as some of this stuff is, don't be afraid to soak it all in. Smile, shake your head, tweet a joke. Sports are supposed to be a vice in trying times. Just like binge-watching "Tiger King," they offer us periods of harmless diversion. They're designed to distract us from real-life problems.

The NHL Players' Association is doing its part. On Tuesday, the union released results from its players poll, an annual exercise that features a wide-ranging survey filled out by hundreds of NHLers. This year's edition included nearly 600 participants.

In my opinion, the biggest takeaway from the 2020 poll is that Sidney Crosby, at age 32, remains the players' champ. Despite Connor McDavid seemingly overtaking Crosby as the best in the world among fans and media, it appears NHLers aren't ready to go there quite yet. Reading between the lines of the poll results, it's clear Crosby continues to be the gold standard in the eyes of his peers.

Crosby won "Most Complete Player" honors over Patrice Bergeron with 45.54% of the vote, while McDavid didn't even crack the top four. Crosby, a three-time Stanley Cup champion, also won the vaunted "If you need to win one game, who is the one player you would want on your team?" category. McDavid finished second, with 30.53% to Crosby's 44.03%.

Now, McDavid did pick up "Best Forward" - and that great distinction shouldn't be dismissed. Nor should the margin of victory, as McDavid earned 68.35% of the vote to second-place Crosby's 14.93%. Clearly, the players weren't ragging on McDavid in any way. However, in their collective view, Crosby remains The Guy. The one who can do it all. And win.

Like mentor, like mentee

Speaking of Crosby, it's well-known that he hails from the same hometown as Nathan MacKinnon - who finished third in "Best Forward" voting - and that the pals took similar paths to the NHL by mixing prep school with major junior.

But are there other parallels we're missing? Earlier this season, I found myself wondering just that while chatting with Avalanche defenseman Ian Cole, a rare NHLer who's played alongside Crosby and MacKinnon.

"Both are hypercompetitive, and really dialed-in, and just really searching for that next little 1%, 2% advantage," Cole said. "Whatever that is, they're willing to try it and see if it works with their life. You've got to appreciate that and I think, as a teammate, you need to look at that and, while it may be a little different, you need to let them do their thing."

Are there particular examples?

"Nutrition, eating habits," Cole replied. "You can go right down the list of all the things. (MacKinnon's) so obsessive, but in a good way. He's a fantastic player, and he's going to be one for a long time with how well he takes care of himself."

That description of MacKinnon sounds just like his mentor. Despite dealing with a handful of injuries throughout his career, Crosby was in the middle of his 15th season before the pause.

Forgetful year for Sharks

Aside from the woeful Red Wings, no team endured more misery than the Sharks this season. Virtually everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.

General manager Doug Wilson fired longtime coach Pete DeBoer just 33 games in, yet San Jose's record under new bench boss Bob Boughner didn't improve. Goalies Martin Jones and Aaron Dell were both awful, finishing with save percentages of .896 and .907, respectively. Stars Tomas Hertl, Logan Couture, and Erik Karlsson missed a combined 54 games, while players who appeared in all 70 contests, such as Timo Meier, Brent Burns, and Kevin Labanc, had down years offensively. Generally, the club's trademark - a potent attack - disappeared.

All of this is to say that whenever the offseason officially begins, the Sharks sorely need a reset. The roster's old, the coach still has an interim tag, and their 2020 first-round pick is in the late 20s instead of the single digits thanks to the Karlsson trade in 2018 and the recent Barclay Goodrow deal with Tampa.

Facing a crossroads, does Wilson change directions and bail on this core group? Or does he simply chalk this season up as The Year Everything Went Sideways for a team that nearly made the Stanley Cup Final last spring?

In appreciation of Yandle

A gap in on-ice action allows for some goofing around on Hockey Reference and the NHL's official records website. A takeaway from my recent trip down the rabbit hole: We need to do a better job of appreciating Keith Yandle.

Yes, Yandle is far from a perfect player. The Panthers blue-liner has always prioritized offense over defense, which can be an issue given that a large chunk of a defenseman's duties involves playing defense. His near-historic durability and underrated production, on the other hand, deserve serious props.

You occasionally hear about Yandle's iron-man streak, which is stuck at 866 straight games, but probably not often enough. He hasn't missed a contest since March 2009 (!) and is a year and a half away from surpassing Doug Jarvis' all-time record of 964. Still just 33 years old and under contract for at least three more full seasons, Yandle has plenty of runway to hit 1,000 games in a row.

As for his offensive output, Yandle ranks behind only Burns, Karlsson, and Duncan Keith in points by an NHL defenseman since 2006-07, a season when he appeared in his first seven games. Just eight rearguards have amassed 500 points over that 14-season span, while Yandle's 573 points in 976 games place him fourth in points per contest. The three defenders ahead of him? Perennial Norris Trophy candidates Karlsson, Burns, and Kris Letang.

By no means am I suggesting Yandle belongs in the conversation for best defenseman of the last 15 years. But maybe we should give him a little more credit.

Keep an eye on Dubois

Pierre-Luc Dubois - with a 6-foot-3, 218-pound frame, a high-end skill set, and two-way smarts - possesses the tools necessary to become a legitimate star.

Dubois' development was under the microscope this season, his first without former running mate Artemi Panarin. He didn't disappoint, but he also didn't break out the way many had expected. Despite leading the Blue Jackets in scoring with 49 points in 70 games, Dubois found himself in coach John Tortorella's doghouse on multiple occasions. A few days before the pause, Tortorella said he wanted his No. 1 center to ramp up his intensity down the stretch.

Truthfully, it's difficult to judge the body of work from any Columbus player in 2019-20. The team was crushed by injuries all season while adjusting to life without Panarin, who handles the puck a ton at five-on-five, and other key departures. But for what it's worth, Dubois has blue-liner Zach Werenski's seal of approval.

"He's done awesome," Werenski said last month when asked to assess his teammate's performance this season. "He's a full 200-foot player. Big body, he can skate, he's so hard to knock off the puck. I think this year, he's really taken a step forward for us in terms of driving play. There's so many shifts where I'll see him get the puck in our zone and next thing I know I see him behind the net with the puck, shielding guys off, making plays, getting to the net. He's been huge for us."

The upcoming negotiation between Dubois and the Jackets will be fascinating to monitor. He's part of an RFA class headlined by the Islanders' Mat Barzal.

Blue-line breakdown

A friend recently asked which defense corps I'd like to inherit if I was an NHL general manager. If you could pick one, just one, of the 31 groups to resume play with, he asked, which would it be?

It's a surprisingly tough question, especially when you consider all of this downtime for injured players. By the time hockey resumes, virtually every NHLer will be healthy and ready to jump back into the action.

There are six elite groups: those in Boston, Carolina, Dallas, Nashville, St. Louis, and Tampa Bay. Each has a different makeup, from the Blues somehow icing three All-Star-caliber D-men on the right side to the Stars' very top-heavy contingent led by John Klingberg, Miro Heiskanen, and Esa Lindell.

With a gun to my head, I would take the Hurricanes' blue line - a versatile group that's unmatched in the depth department. The Predators, anchored by Roman Josi, would be a close second. The Blues would round out the top three.

Overall, the drop-off from Carolina's stars (Dougie Hamilton, Jaccob Slavin, and Brett Pesce) to its up-and-comer (Haydn Fleury) to its role players (Sami Vatanen, Brady Skjei, Jake Gardiner, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Joel Edmundson) is minuscule compared to that of the average NHL blue-line corps. That's the Canes' edge.

Long live Blake's Kings

When the Kings hired Rob Blake as GM three years ago, it was difficult to see his master plan working out in relatively short order. You want to contend once again with aging stars Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty? Good luck! Blake had an old and slow lineup, a number of dead-weight contracts on the books, and a prospect pipeline that was decent but unspectacular. It didn't add up.

Well, Blake's vision really began to materialize this season. For starters, the Kings, who at the pause ranked 28th in points percentage, did everything you could ask for from a poor team by putting up an honest fight on most nights. They also produced strong underlying numbers for a bottom feeder, continued to ship out veteran pieces deemed not part of the rebuild (such as Tyler Toffoli and Alec Martinez) in exchange for future assets, and learned that 25-year-old Cal Petersen will most likely be the heir to Jonathan Quick's long-held goaltending throne.

By the way, that prospect pipeline is now brimming with potential. Alex Turcotte. Tobias Bjornfot. Arthur Kaliyev. Samuel Fagemo. Rasmus Kupari. Akil Thomas. Gabe Vilardi. Tyler Madden. And on and on and on.

Plus, L.A. owns 11 picks in the upcoming draft, including four selections in the opening two rounds. Currently, the team's lottery odds sit at 9.5% for the first overall pick and at 28.8% for a selection in the top three.

Give this franchise another two or three years, and it'll be back in the playoffs with a full head of steam. By then, Doughty will be 32 or 33, and Kopitar will be 34 or 35. Will they be washed up? Maybe. Maybe not. But that's out of Blake's control. What he's done elsewhere must be applauded.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

While major professional sports are on hiatus, theScore's writers are exploring what they'd do if this pause allowed for changes to the rules and structures of various leagues. After tackling Major League Baseball in Part 1, the National Hockey League is up next.

Reimagine the draft

The current draft lottery system is flawed. Since lottery odds are determined by inverse order of regular-season standings, teams eliminated from playoff contention early (Detroit this year and Ottawa last year) have no incentive to win games down the stretch. This produces an influx of AHL and junior call-ups, too much crease time for backup goalies, and other measures designed to curtail on-ice success. Realistically, can you blame these clubs? Finishing dead last in the NHL gives a team an 18.5% chance of obtaining the first overall pick. Finishing 25th earns a 6.5% chance. The wrong crowd is being rewarded.

But what if the draft order was determined by points collected after elimination from playoff contention, as it would be under the so-called "Gold Plan" first introduced in 2012 at the Sloan Analytics Conference? Teams would have to keep trying to win after being eliminated from the playoff race in order to claim the No. 1 pick. Under those terms, all 82 games for all 31 teams matter. Now, a potential obstacle for this proposal is education. The lottery is already a convoluted exercise, an event that can be hard for casual fans to wrap their heads around. Effective communication would be paramount here.

As for the draft itself, I have a solution to the periodic debate around first-year eligibility rules. What if the NHL introduced a hybrid draft, in which the opening five rounds are reserved for 18-year-old players and the final two rounds are reserved for players aged 19 or 20? The current rules - players must be 18 years old by Sept. 15 of the draft year and under 20 years old by Dec. 31 in order to be eligible - seem perfectly fine, but over the years, many within the hockey world, including NHL general managers, have suggested that raising the entry age to 19 would be better for the sport.

Advocates of the higher draft age argue most players could use more time for mental, physical, and emotional development, while teams could benefit from an extra season of evaluation. In this hybrid iteration, early and late bloomers get their respective dues and, over time, scouts would probably strike out less frequently at the draft table.

Clean up officiating

The NHL routinely touts its referees and linesmen as the best in the world. I'm not here to make a case against that claim; officials' jobs are incredibly difficult and, on aggregate, I believe they get far more calls correct than incorrect. But one area in which the league could improve is transparency. Aside from occasional reports about certain officials losing out on playoff assignments because of poor performance, there's no external accountability for refs and linesmen. Mistakes are made, fans and media go nuts, and there are no explanations or repercussions.

Why can't a member of the crew speak to a pool reporter postgame to provide the officials' side of the story? Maybe fans would learn something new about the rulebook, or about how hard it is for a human being to be mistake-free on the job. Maybe we'd start accepting the fact that officials are people too, and collectively give them a break every once in a while. The current protocol - virtually no transparency for missed or blown calls except after extreme circumstances in the postseason - creates a barrier between officials and many of the game's other stakeholders, most notably fans.

While we're on the topic of officials, why is it that only members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association vote on the recipient of the Lady Byng Trophy? Don't those at ice level, such as refs and linesmen, have infinitely better intel on players' gentlemanly conduct? Including them in the voting block for that award would also help bridge the gap between officials and fans. Just a thought from a PHWA member.

Another officiating issue can be traced to the rafters of every NHL arena. It's been proven time and again that off-ice record-keepers - part-time officials who track shots, faceoffs, takeaways, giveaways, hits, etc. from the press box - don't log game events in a uniform manner. On the surface, this may seem an inconsequential issue, but standings points, award cases, and career legacies are all ultimately determined by these results.

Consider the Vezina Trophy. How much of that award's narrative revolves around a statistic like save percentage? If an off-ice worker in one particular arena is a generous shot-counter, the resident team's goalies will have save percentages that look much better than they should over the course of a full season. It's possible the long-awaited arrival of player and puck tracking will solve this recording glitch. That would be fantastic. Accurate stats are important. Until then, though, these snafus should be addressed in some way. Maybe the NHL could hire a team of auditors to fact-check and correct inconsistencies?

Widen the ice surface

Admittedly, this proposal is both unoriginal (see: Mark Messier's plea way back in 1987) and a hard sell - hence its position further down this list of ideas. It's true that players are bigger, faster, and stronger than when the game was first conceived. Advances in equipment have helped raise the speed of play to a previously unimaginable caliber, while the introduction of the four-official system in the late 1990s added an extra body to an already-crowded playing surface. Yet the NHL's ice surfaces have remained roughly 200 feet long and 85 feet wide.

I truly believe widening the rink by 10 feet would decrease the number of unintended collisions - which would hopefully limit concussions - and increase the level of creativity - which would hopefully promote scoring. You might say, "Well, scoring is already up and the game is in great shape, thank you very much. Leave it be." To that, I'd say, "You're totally right, but short-term pain could make the game even better in the long run." It's time to modernize ice surfaces around the league.

Of course, one gigantic obstacle for this proposal is money. The cost of such rink renovations would be tough to swallow, while the revenue lost in removing a row or two of premium seating makes for a difficult pitch to owners.

Low-hanging fruit

Now for some quick hits:

• Switch to a 3-2-1 point system, wherein a regulation win is worth three points, an overtime/shootout win is worth two, and an OT/shootout loss is worth one. As any hockey fan knows, the current point-allocation system creates false parity within the standings.

• Extend 3-on-3 overtime beyond five minutes. Whether a seven-minute extra session or a 10-minute one, a move to minimize the number of shootouts per season would be better for everyone. The NHL hit a home run with the 3-on-3 format in 2015. Five years later, it simply needs a minor tweak.

• Shorthanded teams shouldn't be allowed to ice the puck without consequence. It's never made much sense that a team killing a penalty - i.e. a team in the wrong - should get a free pass on icings. To keep the game moving at a reasonable pace, a shorthanded team should be assessed a minor penalty if it ices the puck three times during a single penalty kill.

• Give us more injury information, please. With fantasy leagues and betting taking on larger roles in society and sports, eliminating the "upper-body" and "lower-body" classifications could help better engage both casual and hardcore fans.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The NHL season is suspended indefinitely due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and while the league hopes it will eventually be able to resume and conclude the 2019-20 campaign, that's far from a foregone conclusion. This week and next, we're breaking down some of the major storylines that hang in the balance.

Andrei Vasilevskiy entered the 2019-20 season hiding from nothing and no one. Fresh off a five-month summer, he had begrudgingly come to terms with the fact that his club, the 62-win Tampa Bay Lightning, had lost four straight games to the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round of the playoffs.

"I think we just got too comfortable in the regular season," Vasilevskiy said in September at the NHL's annual player media tour in Chicago.

"In our heads, it was like, 'Oh, we'll be alright in the playoffs because we're doing great in the regular season,'" he continued. "But the reality is that in the playoffs it's way different hockey. We just weren't ready for that."

Those words, and the words from his teammates and head coach Jon Cooper at training camp later that month, set the tone for the year. Tampa had found out the hard way that one bad week in April can completely undo 82 games of outright dominance. But the Lightning weren't about to make any excuses. Redemption, they said, would come only in the form of playoff success.

Yet here we are, two-and-a-half weeks out from the traditional start of the NHL postseason, and the entire sporting calendar is frozen. As you know, a significantly more important matter - stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus - has consumed the globe, rightly pausing all competition-based narratives, including Tampa's quest for redemption, for the foreseeable future.

It all leaves two questions flailing in the wind. Exactly how well was the 2019-20 squad playing before action halted? Did management do enough to prepare for spring's "way different hockey"?

On the surface, this season's team couldn't hold a candle to last year's juggernaut. On pace for 50 wins, 12 shy of 2018-19's outrageous benchmark, the 2019-20 Bolts were probably going to finish second in the Atlantic Division rather than first in the league. Their offensive output had dipped from 3.89 goals per game to 3.47, while their defensive work had led to more goals against (2.77 per game up from 2.69). Even their special teams had sunk, with the power play ranking fifth and the penalty kill 14th after both led the NHL last year.

But the numbers lurking below the surface paint a rosier picture. Before the pause, the 2019-20 squad was rocking even-strength differentials nearly identical to those of last year's team across five key categories: shot attempts, shots on goal, scoring chances, goals scored, and expected goals.

Team goaltending had improved as well, with Vasilevskiy and Curtis McElhinney uniting for an impressive .918 even-strength save percentage - a notable upgrade over 2018-19's mark of .904. McElhinney, one of the league's best No. 2s, was a smart offseason pickup by GM Julien BriseBois. Former backup Louis Domingue filled in admirably for an injured Vasilevskiy last year, but McElhinney's willingness to sign a two-year deal on the cheap pushed Domingue down the depth chart and eventually out of the organization.

Tampa made only one major roster move over the summer, trading forward J.T. Miller to the Canucks for salary-cap relief. Given the club's underwhelming postseason, it would have been mighty tempting to steer the ship in an entirely new direction. Fire Cooper? Unload a star or two? But BriseBois instead opted to tinker around the margins. He brought in Pat Maroon, a bruising winger who had just won the Stanley Cup with St. Louis, to help fill Miller's skates, while veteran defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk took unrestricted free agent Anton Stralman's spot on the blue line.

From there, BriseBois used draft and prospect capital to acquire two pieces ahead of February's trade deadline: Blake Coleman, a speedy two-way goal-scorer, and Barclay Goodrow, a tenacious pest of a penalty killer. They appeared in a combined 17 games for Tampa. That's obviously suboptimal. Both wingers, however, are signed to team-friendly deals through the 2020-21 season, so the assets shipped out to acquire their services and a third-round pick - two first-rounders, high-end forward prospect Nolan Foote, and 26-year-old AHL forward Anthony Greco - weren't sacrificed for nothing. BriseBois, it turns out, played his cards right by reeling in guys with term.

Though Miller exploded in Vancouver, recording 72 points in 69 games prior to the pause, it's hard to make the case that last year's Lightning roster was more talented, more balanced, or better equipped for the rigors of playoff hockey. This season's third and fourth lines are spunkier, the backup is steadier, and the defense corps is improved, if only slightly. The team's veteran leaders - Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, and Vasilevskiy - remain in fine form, while the stocks of 24-and-under studs Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, and Mikhail Sergachev continue to rise.

All of this is to say that even though the win total might not show it, this latest iteration of the Lightning could definitely hang with last year's powerhouse. They hit rough patches in 2019-20, starting the season a middling 17-13-4 and then winning only three of their final 10 games, but in between and under the surface, they were brilliant. You certainly can't claim they "got too comfortable" during the truncated campaign. The adversity they first encountered in the Columbus series hit them early and often.

If the NHL resumes play and manages to string together a postseason of some kind, the Lightning should be healthier; Stamkos, for one, is sidelined until at least late April. They shouldn't have a target on their backs this time around, either - that's reserved for the 100-point Bruins and defending champion Blues. Most notably, they're built to last. The margin of error is thinner in the playoffs - fewer goals, fewer power-play opportunities, more physicality - and that might suit this recalibrated Tampa team perfectly.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The NHL season is suspended indefinitely due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and while the league hopes it will eventually be able to resume and conclude the 2019-20 campaign, that's far from a foregone conclusion. This week and next, we're breaking down some of the major storylines that hang in the balance.

We're a week into the NHL's pause to combat the coronavirus. So far we've bypassed 54 games in the 2019-20 schedule. Of those 54, few would have commanded our attention quite like the Colorado Avalanche-Vancouver Canucks meeting in Denver, slated for March 13, a day after the hiatus kicked in.

Colorado, led by MVP candidate Nathan MacKinnon, sat two points out of first in the Central Division. Vancouver, led by the ever-entertaining Elias Pettersson, was about to engage in a fight for one of three playoff spots in the Pacific or one of two wild cards. The heat was on. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that both teams employ a fantastic young defenseman; one of them, Cale Makar or Quinn Hughes, was likely to capture the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year.

The Calder's been awarded 87 times. Only 11 defensemen have won it and on only two occasions (1962-63 and 1966-67) have defensemen finished first and second in voting.

Though sports award debates are low on society's priority list right now, Makar versus Hughes stands as one of the biggest what-ifs of the paused season in part because their Calder cases were remarkably similar.

The stretch drive may have moved the needle in one direction, or, in an unlikely scenario, towards Chicago Blackhawks sniper Dominik Kubalik. Who knows. Instead, we have 68 games of Hughes, 20, the two-way wizard with ice in his veins, and 57 games of Makar, 21, the offensive dynamo who's an equally cool customer. Both displayed composure well beyond their years in 2019-20, as well as enough skill to earn semi-permanent spots on the highlight reel.

Hughes recorded 53 points, Makar 50. When you adjust for games played, though, there's little separating the two in a few high-level categories:

So, Hughes played 52 extra seconds a night; Makar was a more efficient point producer; Hughes had the slightly better even-strength shot differential; and Makar had the superior even-strength expected goals differential. In terms of zone starts, Hughes started more of his shifts in the offensive zone, but not by a wide margin (65.8% versus Makar's 63.8%). Back and forth. Up and down. No jarring differences between the two profiles.

There was also no major gap in teammate talent. Sure, the Avalanche are a Stanley Cup contender offering a strong support system, and the Canucks aren't there yet. But the three most common forwards to play with Makar (MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, and Mikko Rantanen) aren't head and shoulders above Hughes' trio (J.T. Miller, Pettersson, and Bo Horvat). Meanwhile, the blue-liners were, on aggregate, paired with comparable partners:

(If you really want a winner, Makar held the slight advantage in the teammate department thanks to MacKinnon and Girard. But, again, a very small win.)

If you peel the advanced-stat discussion back further, it gets even murkier.

Based on Natural Stat Trick's Corsi For Relative percentage metric, the Canucks tipped the shot-attempt counter in their favor far more often when Hughes was on the ice than when he was on the bench. Hughes graded out with an impressive plus-7.4% rating, which ranked him third among all Vancouver players. Makar had a plus-2.9% rating, suggesting Hughes had a more significant effect on his team's ability to attack and defend than Makar.

As for special-teams deployment, both rookies averaged almost four minutes per game on the power play and didn't kill penalties. Hughes put up six more points on the PP (25 to 19), but that comparison is a bit misleading because of the aforementioned 11-game gap. Plus, Makar ended up with more even-strength points (31-28), which are generally harder earned.

All things considered - including the eye test - the Calder race is airtight. Based on his all-around ability, Hughes probably has the tiniest edge on Makar, though award voting (and the debate process as a whole) is a completely subjective exercise. A vote for Makar is wholly justifiable.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the combined 125 games of Hughes and Makar (135 if you count Makar's marvellous 10-game debut in the 2018-19 playoffs) is that we've seen more than enough to label these kids special.

Fellow rookies like Kubalik, Victor Olofsson, Ilya Samsonov, Mackenzie Blackwood, Elvis Merzlikins, John Marino, Adam Fox, Ethan Bear, Nick Suzuki, and Martin Necas - to name 10 - all announced their arrival on the NHL scene. Hughes and Makar broke down the door and sprinted through it.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

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The New York Rangers signed forward Austin Rueschhoff to a two-year entry-level contract, theScore has learned. The deal starts in 2020-21.

Rueschhoff, a 22-year-old right winger out of Western Michigan University, scored 12 goals and added 14 assists in 36 games this past season. The 6-foot-7, 230-pound junior had a plus-9 rating and 24 penalty minutes.

An undrafted free agent, Rueschhoff attended an NHL development camp each of the past three summers - the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2017, St. Louis Blues in 2018, and Columbus Blue Jackets in 2019.

Rueschhoff, a native of Wentzville, Missouri, scored a goal in his final college game, an 8-4 win over the University of Miami (Ohio) on March 7.

Five days later, on March 12, the NCAA canceled all remaining winter and spring competition in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

WMU had been scheduled to face off against St. Cloud State University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, during the NCHC quarterfinal round last weekend.

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The NHL season is suspended indefinitely due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and while the league hopes it will eventually be able to resume and conclude the 2019-20 campaign, that's far from a foregone conclusion. This week and next, we're breaking down some of the major storylines that hang in the balance.

Believe it or not, this coming Sunday marks one month since the Toronto Maple Leafs failed to score more than two goals on a Zamboni driver - the Zamboni driver for their AHL team - during an embarrassing 6-3 home loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. For a hockey world currently consumed by the horrors of a pandemic, the images from that wacky Saturday night seem so distant, as if Sunday is instead the one-year anniversary.

Prior to the NHL's decision to press pause on its regular season, that forehead-slapping loss at the hands of David Ayres was arguably the defining moment of the Leafs' puzzling 2019-20 campaign. Now, as we wait for either an abbreviated final stretch or a full cancelation, it's definitely the defining moment for such a turbulent team.

With all due respect to Ayres - the emergency backup goaltender who milked his 15 minutes of fame before returning to normal life - that's an unfortunate tag for the Leafs. This squad, as flawed as it is dangerous, had significant moments ahead. Even if you hate them (hello, 30 other fan bases), there's no denying Toronto's highs and lows provided tantalizing theater. With a three-point lead on the Florida Panthers (who had a game in hand) at the 70-game mark, the Leafs were on track to clinch the third Atlantic Division playoff spot and meet the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round. It's quite possible the best, or the worst, was still to come.

Barring injury, it was a foregone conclusion that Auston Matthews, the club's best forward, would reach the 50-goal plateau for the first time in his career. Thanks to his versatility as a sniper, which included adding a lethal one-timer, he had been fooling goalies with ease, bagging 47 goals in 70 games. That gaudy total put him one behind David Pastrnak and Alex Ovechkin for the NHL lead, leaving the door open for a thrilling Rocket Richard Trophy race.

Meanwhile, Morgan Rielly, the club's best defenseman, had just returned from two months of injury rehab. Would Rielly's presence down the stretch have helped Toronto clean up its porous defensive play? Would he have given overworked and struggling goalie Frederik Andersen a little relief in the lead-up to the postseason grind?

The Leafs' season can be sliced neatly into two parts: the end of the Mike Babcock era (9-10-4 record) and the start of the Sheldon Keefe era (27-15-5). If you were to judge them solely on those splits, they are clearly better off with the new guy. However, it's not that simple within the context of the paused season.

Toronto displayed an unpredictability from night to night; general manager Kyle Dubas used the words "Jekyll and Hyde" following the trade deadline. The Leafs flashed their supreme skill and puck possession capabilities in wins, yet were a complete tire fire defensively in losses. The highest highs, like 11 wins in 13 games from Dec. 7 to Jan. 4, were often preceded and followed by inconsistency and indifference.

What made this year unique was that it was the first official season of Dubas' great all-in-on-skill experiment. With Babcock out and Keefe in, this was finally Dubas' team. Since last offseason, the young GM has doubled down on skill and an offense-first mentality by surrounding his stars - Matthews, Rielly, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander - with Dubas-style players such as Jason Spezza, Alex Kerfoot, Tyson Barrie, Ilya Mikheyev, and Denis Malgin. The only player recently acquired who fits the bill of "rough and tumble" is Kyle Clifford, with whom Dubas had familiarity through a previous working relationship.

Tightening the focus on Dubas' grand plan was the state of the team's blue line. Up until late December, Rielly had been the only defenseman with a contract for next year. Justin Holl, Jake Muzzin, and call-up Rasmus Sandin have since been added to the 2020-21 roster, but the rest remains in flux because of an impending salary-cap crunch.

If the season is indeed toast, what happens to Barrie, Cody Ceci, and Travis Dermott? Dermott, a restricted free agent, is almost certainly returning, but the others are likely gone via unrestricted free agency. A chunk of Toronto's fan base will be OK with those subtractions, given the poor seasons from both players, yet their departures would leave the back end in a state of greater disrepair than it is now. Up front, the bottom six, which for the most part was underwhelming in 2019-20, is filled with uncertainty, too. The final dozen games of the season might have answered some questions about the future of Toronto's role players and the direction of the team, in general, heading into the playoffs and/or offseason.

Unlike the tidy ending to Ayres' moment in the limelight, though, there is no tidy ending to the story that was being authored by the 2019-20 Leafs. For now, anyway. Unfortunately, a 2-1 win over the Lightning - of all teams - on a random Tuesday in March may turn out to be it. How unsatisfying.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

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A woman recently came to Kristian Hufsky's door speaking little English.

Normally, that's OK. Hufsky, a 20-year-old Canadian goalie playing professional hockey in northern Germany, often gets by understanding only parts of what he's told. This time, however, he felt slightly self-conscious.

The woman, a health official laying out quarantine guidelines to Hufsky amid the coronavirus pandemic, had issued him a surreal warning: Leaving his apartment in the near future could result in a substantial fine or even jail time.

"That scared me a little bit," Hufsky said over the phone Saturday, his sixth straight day in isolation.

The Vaughan, Ontario, native impressed in his first year as a pro, posting a .917 save percentage and 1.99 goals-against average in 18 Oberliga Nord games for the Hannover Indians. His efforts helped Hannover to the fourth-best record in Germany's third-tier league before play abruptly ended.

Like virtually every sports league on the planet, Oberliga Nord canceled its entire playoffs last week in an effort to help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Hannover announced three players were tested for the virus after recently showing symptoms, with one test coming back positive. Members of the organization are now in the middle of a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

"If I get the symptoms I just have to call the doctor and they'll come here," said Hufsky, who's filling his waking hours chatting with family and friends, lounging on his balcony, browsing YouTube, and mashing buttons on his PS4 controller. "Sometimes I get a little paranoid about it, but I'm trying to keep positive and not really think about it too much. I think I'll be fine."

Hufsky is among dozens of North Americans who make a living playing hockey in Europe, a hotbed for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Each player's particular circumstances - team location, season timeline, travel capability - have presented unique challenges. Most have avoided quarantine, yet life's become complicated for everyone involved, especially given the distance between their professional and personal homes.

Eric Faille, a former AHL forward now playing for EHC Kloten in Switzerland's second-tier league, returned to Moncton, New Brunswick, late Friday following a "pretty hectic" two weeks. Early in the process, somebody in Kloten's players-only phone group chat shared an interactive map detailing the virus' presence in Switzerland. And, over a quick few days, Faille watched as the number of positive cases ballooned.

"When it started in China, everybody thought, 'Ah, it's never going to come over to us.' We all kept going. Then it went to Italy and kept growing and growing. And then the northern part of Italy was getting pretty bad, and that's close to us," Faille recalled during a layover in Toronto. "So everybody started washing their hands more often. We got hand sanitizers everywhere in the (team locker) room. No more shaking hands, only fist bumps. Little changes like that. Minor stuff, but it was now in the back of your mind."

Kloten, the league's best regular-season team and a threat to earn a promotion to Switzerland's top tier, played the first four playoff games in front of regular-sized crowds. The fifth game, which they won over the GCK Lions to advance to the second round, featured only immediate family in the stands. Local health officials had begun banning large gatherings. The party atmosphere, a trademark of European hockey, was suddenly gone.

A few days later, as Kloten awaited the announcement from the Swiss hockey federation whether competition would be suspended or canceled, they hooked up with HC Lugano, a top-tier squad based three hours away, for a spirited scrimmage. "They knew and we knew that the seasons were over. At the faceoff circle, when I was taking draws, I was like, 'C'mon, at least let me win one here. These are the last faceoffs of the year!'" Faille joked.

Former NHL forward Daniel Winnik is grappling with this strange new world, too.

Winnik has been starring in Switzerland's top circuit, National League A, for the past two years. An alternate captain for Geneve-Servette HC, he led the club in scoring in 2019-20 with 44 points in 49 regular-season matches. Sitting just two points shy of first place in the final standings, he felt they had a legitimate shot at giving the city of Geneva its first-ever NLA title.

After acknowledging the importance of shuttering sports in the name of public health, Winnik noted in an interview Saturday that, at 35 years old, he doesn't know how many other opportunities he'll have to win it all. "I never got the chance to win one in the NHL - win a Stanley Cup - so winning a championship here would have meant a lot," he said.

Winnik, who played 798 NHL games split between the Coyotes, Avalanche, Sharks, Ducks, Maple Leafs, Penguins, Capitals, and Wild, has another year on his NLA contract. He'll be back in Geneva for training camp alongside most of his teammates for another chance at that title.

In the short term, Winnik's in a holding pattern. He's been trying to get back to Canada with his English bulldog but is experiencing issues booking a flight with a dog in tow. Josh Jooris, another ex-NHLer and dog owner playing in the NLA, is in the same boat. "We're both shit out of luck," Winnik said dryly.

Meanwhile, some 1,600 kilometers northeast of Geneva, in the Swedish city of Vaxjo, Lucas Edmonds ponders his next move. He doesn't have an abundance of options; the Vaxjo Lakers' season is over, but Sweden's prime minister has urged against nonessential travel amid the virus outbreak.

"Hopefully the Canadian border doesn't close before I want to go back," Edmonds, 19, said with a nervous laugh Friday.

Edmonds is a dual citizen from North Bay, Ontario, but spends only his summers in Canada. He's plied his trade in the Swedish hockey system for the past four seasons. Still a junior, he won't be missing out on playoff bonuses like Faille and Winnik. Regardless, the news isn't easy to process.

"If I'm being honest, it hasn't really hit me yet that the entire season is over," he said. "It feels right now like we just have an off weekend and the playoffs start next week. It's definitely a strange feeling."

Edmonds is under contract with Vaxjo through the 2020-21 season. He'll turn pro next year, but some of his teammates' futures aren't so concrete. A long playoff run could have become a showcase to managers and scouts from Sweden and beyond. That opportunity, of course, is now nonexistent.

In response, the Lakers' Under-20 team is doing this weekend what teenagers do best: They're hanging out - one last hoorah before everyone goes their separate ways. "We've been going hard for this whole (season). Time to take it easy," Edmonds said of the unofficial send-off.

At the other end of the spectrum are members of the KHL's Kunlun Red Star, the only high-profile pro hockey team based in China. Months ago, they wrapped their heads around the scope of the virus and its potential impact on not only their own lives but the lives of loved ones and strangers.

"They tested us and everyone came back negative. That was a blessing. We were lucky," goalie Jeremy Smith said from his Birmingham, Michigan, home.

Kunlun failed to make the KHL playoffs - one of the rare sporting events still in progress, albeit in empty rinks - which in late February ended Smith's first season overseas after 10 years of NHL, AHL, and ECHL duty. Red Star had spent roughly 30 nights straight on the road in Russia due to the virus outbreak. Smith and his fiancee flew back to the U.S. separately, leaving some of their belongings in the Beijing hotel they occupied during their Asian adventure. He has one campaign remaining on a two-year deal, though the team's home base next season remains up in the air due to the uncertainty in China.

Smith eloquently contextualized what's happening around the globe in a few sharp sentences.

"People use sports as an escape of some sort," the 2007 Nashville Predators second-rounder said. "I hope that sports can get back to its norm and do what it does best, which is providing a platform for people to be entertained."

Then again, Smith continued, "Life is bigger than just sports. People are looking at the big picture (with the cancellations), which is a good thing. Hopefully, as a human race, we're able to come together and beat this virus."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

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Quick-hit analysis of big-league trades completed Monday, Feb. 24, updating live as each deal's made ahead of the 3 p.m. ET NHL trade deadline.

Carolina lands Trocheck

Hurricanes acquire: Vincent Trocheck
Panthers acquire: Erik Haula, Lucas Wallmark, and prospects Chase Priskie and Eetu Luostarinen

This is a significant and smart move by the Hurricanes, as Trocheck is a perfect fit for GM Don Waddell's squad. Carolina has plenty of playmakers and puck retrievers up front but lacks true finishers beyond Andrei Svechnikov. Trocheck, who scored a career-high 31 goals in 2017-18 but has run into some poor luck this season, helps address that need. He's also right-handed (Carolina has only two everyday forwards who shoot right) and can play both center and wing. The kicker: Trocheck isn't a rental. The 26-year-old is on a team-friendly deal through 2021-22, earning $4.75 million annually. The package headed to Florida, meanwhile, is fine - two depth pieces in Haula and Wallmark and two decent prospects in Priskie and Luostarinen. GM Dale Tallon certainly didn't hit a home run, although the Panthers were desperate for capable bodies for their third and fourth lines.

Pageau off to Long Island

Islanders acquire: Jean-Gabriel Pageau
Senators acquire: 1st-rounder in 2020 or 2021, 2nd-rounder in 2020, conditional 3rd-rounder in 2022

Love this trade for both teams. Pageau, a two-way center who's having a career year offensively, should have no problem transitioning into the Islanders' stingy system under Barry Trotz. And with only draft capital going the other way, GM Lou Lamoriello isn't subtracting anybody from his NHL roster as the team fights for a Metropolitan Division playoff spot. As for the Senators, this is a huge haul for pending UFA Pageau, whom they were negotiating an extension with until very recently. Putting conditions on two of the three picks shows GM Pierre Dorion has learned from the Matt Duchene debacle of 2017, in which he gift-wrapped a high first-rounder for the Avalanche. Ottawa now potentially has three first-rounders in 2020.

Namestnikov joins Avs

Avalanche acquire: Vladislav Namestnikov
Senators acquire: 4th-rounder in 2021

Namestnikov supplements the Avalanche's top-nine forward group in a meaningful way. The 27-year-old rental recorded 13 goals in 56 games for the Senators and could immediately slide into Colorado's third-line center role. He's solid defensively, he's a threat to score on the penalty kill, and he only cost a mid-round pick. From Ottawa's perspective, the fourth is a bit underwhelming. A second- or third-rounder would have been better aligned with the market in the leadup to deadline day, so let's call this a minor whiff by the Sens.

Oilers nab Green

Oilers acquire: Mike Green
Red Wings acquire: Kyle Brodziak, conditional 4th-rounder

Analysis: Oilers GM Ken Holland said in the leadup to the deadline that while he probably wouldn't make a huge splash, he'd still be active, and this move aligns with that mentality. At 34, Green is years past his prime and a little slow. However, he's a nice depth addition to a defense corps missing Oscar Klefbom and Kris Russell. The pending UFA should find a home on the power play, too. Also of note: Detroit is retaining 50% of Green's $5.4 million salary.

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When David Ayres rolled out of bed on Sunday, he probably wondered if any of Saturday night's events actually happened.

Did he really stop eight of 10 shots on Hockey Night in Canada in relief of two injured Carolina Hurricanes goalies? Did he, the freaking Zamboni driver for the Toronto Marlies, really beat the Toronto Maple Leafs to become the first emergency backup goalie to record an NHL win? Did his performance really inspire, among other tomfoolery, countless tweets and a customized T-shirt, and one helluva motivational postgame speech?

Yes, all of those things happened, and Ayres' evening led to a fantastic story. But the NHL isn't a day-to-day grind for the 42-year-old. He'll ride out his 15 minutes of fame and then transition back to normal life. It's all gravy from here on out.

As for the players and staffs of the Maple Leafs and Hurricanes, well, Saturday night came with actual consequences.

There were two important points up for grabs, and Carolina snatched both partly due to Ayres' efforts, but the Hurricanes also played well. The Maple Leafs, on the other hand, can't claim to have put forth much of a fight in the 6-3 loss while embarrassing themselves in the process. Incredibly, Ayres even finished with a shot on goal, which was more than the shot total of seven Toronto skaters.

After rewatching the game's second half (Ayres played 28:41) to identify what went so horribly wrong for the Leafs and wonderfully for the Canes, here's what we learned and what it says about each team.

Zone exits and entries

John Tavares is a world-class player who often makes the difficult parts of his job look easy. On Saturday, though, he made just about everything seem hard.

The Leafs captain may have scored on the first shot Ayres faced, making it 4-2 with 6:24 left in the second period, but he otherwise struggled to contribute. Tavares turned the puck over at the offensive blue line at least three times when Ayres was between the pipes, including here:

What's going through Tavares' head during this sequence? That tip from William Nylander gives him the entire neutral zone. However, instead of going wide and using his speed to beat Joel Edmundson - who's not the fleetest of foot - Tavares stickhandles right into the Hurricanes defenseman's orbit. Edmundson uses his long twig and cleanly gains possession. Carolina, at this point comfortably up 6-3, then dumps the puck out of harm's way.

The Leafs experienced serious trouble both exiting their zone and entering Carolina's zone, while the Hurricanes served up a master class on how to exit their own territory. Check out how quickly this prime scoring opportunity for Zach Hyman dissolves into nothing:

It takes Carolina eight seconds to turn a key chance against into a line change. First, Hyman is harassed, then Auston Matthews is too before Jaccob Slavin responsibly skates the puck to a safe area, flips it out of the zone, and heads for the bench.

Those two highlights display Toronto at its worst and Carolina at its best. Under head coach Sheldon Keefe, the Leafs put themselves in a position to win when they're able to turn a two-on-two into a three-on-two or two-on-one and avoid turning the puck over at the blue line. Under head coach Rod Brind'Amour, the Canes win games when they pounce on loose pucks and direct as much of the action as possible toward the opposing goalie.

Puck management

In terms of precision, the night also belonged to the Canes. The Leafs were awful with the puck on their sticks. Passers outright missed their intended targets, had their passes intercepted, or they tried a pass when everybody watching knew an extra pass was one too many.

Toronto finished with 18 giveaways, the team's third-most in 63 games this season. Losing virtually every puck battle - even on the power play, like in the second-period clip below - sure is one way to accumulate so many giveaways:

Tavares' pass there is right in Mitch Marner's skates, but the crafty winger can usually pop the puck up to his stick with ease. There's one turnover, and then Tavares kills more power-play time by bobbling the puck. And once it's finally transported to Matthews in the neutral zone, the Canes swarm again.

It was a comedy of errors for a Leafs group already in the doghouse with Keefe following back-to-back 5-2 losses earlier in the week. Marner, one of the club's most reliable forwards, was particularly sloppy Saturday. Postgame, he called his effort "dogshit."

Meanwhile, Carolina suffocated Toronto on numerous occasions, as the Hurricanes tend to do when they're humming. Below, all five white sweaters are in the picture, with each player locked in on the puck and in position to support a breakout:

Warren Foegele (No. 13 in white) then scoops up the loose puck, evades a check from Matthews, and finds an open teammate. That teammate finds another teammate, and suddenly Carolina is attacking.

It's all very clean and precise, and it's classic Brind'Amour hockey.

Shot selection

The Leafs' shot decision-making completed the trifecta of issues plaguing them Saturday, and in a handful of other losses this season.

Toronto is built to hold onto the puck longer than typical teams. The Leafs are incredibly skilled and play with a philosophy of maintaining possession until an opportunity to advance up the ice presents itself. That means they regroup often and don't tend to force shots. It's a fine approach nine times out of 10.

However, given the bizarre circumstances, Saturday's game should have been the one out of 10. Throwing everything at Ayres - slap shots from center ice, wrist shots from the point, backhands from the corner - should have been the team-wide mentality. No questions asked. Just do it.

Rookie Rasmus Sandin has been tremendous for the Leafs since joining the big club full time in January. He's gone through the odd hiccup along the way, though, including not shooting directly on net three-plus minutes into the third period when his team was down 5-3 and facing an amateur goalie:

Sandin tries a little too hard here. Simply wristing the puck on net, as rudimentary and uncreative as it sounds, was the right play. Trying to set up teammate Alex Kerfoot for a nice deflection was not.

There was also a great encapsulation of Toronto's shot-selection problem and Carolina's good gap control at four-on-four in the dying seconds of the game:

Trevor van Riemsdyk plays Nylander perfectly, blocking shooting lanes and keeping the Leafs winger to the outside. Nearby, Slavin is boxing out Tavares, and two Canes are keeping a close eye on Travis Dermott.

Heck, when you watch the clip a third time, it dawns on you that the sequence doesn't just sum up the Leafs' shot-selection problem. It sums up the entire game - and the best and worst versions of these teams - quite well.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

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