Xbox360 » A capacity Hornqvist and the rest of his brethren

CALGARY Chris Kreider Jersey , Alberta (AP) Kevin Connauton believes he’s playing the best hockey of his career.Connauton had a goal and an assist in continue his superb second half, and the Arizona Coyotes beat the Calgary Flames 4-1 on Tuesday night.Connauton has 10 goals in 30 games since the All-Star break, tying him with Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman for most among defenseman since Jan. 28. The 28-year-old had just one goal in the first 42 games this year.”I’m playing a lot more confident. Using my skating, using my shot,” the 28-year-old said. ”Had a rough year last year with injuries and then sitting out. So the beginning of the year, I was still trying to get back to my game, but I think I’m back there now.”Richard Panik, Christian Fischer and Dylan Strome also scored for Arizona, which has won three in a row.Nick Shore got his first goal as a Flame. Injury-riddled Calgary has lost eight of nine.”I don’t think the guys are not putting the effort in, it’s just not coming easy for us right now,” veteran forward Tanner Glass said.Arizona struck first at 3:48 of the first period when Panik deflected Connauton’s point shot past rookie goaltender Jon Gillies.Panik has also been on a tear with six goals in his last 10 games.Connauton made it 2-0 at 16:39 on a nifty play at the blue line. After a fake shot that sent Curtis Lazar spinning to the ice Henrik Lundqvist Jersey Kids , he wristed a shot inside the goal post on a screened Gillies.Connauton is in the final season of his two-year deal and is set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.”I’ve had some ups and downs, but you grow from those things. When you get pushed back a little bit, it motivates you and you keep driving forward and I’m excited to see what happens this summer,” he said.The teams exchanged goals early in the second period. Fischer was credited with a goal at 2:18 when a rebound off Gillies’ pad caromed in off the skate of rookie Flames defenseman Rasmus Andersson.Shore put Calgary on the scoreboard at 4:32, snapping Lazar’s rebound past Antti Raanta for his first goal since being acquired by the Flames in a trade with the Ottawa Senators.It was the only puck to elude Raanta, who had 42 saves in picking up his sixth consecutive victory. He improves to 21-16-6 on the season.Gillies had 17 stops and fell to 2-4-1.Calgary’s power play woes continued. The Flames are 0 for 30 in the last 12 games and 1 for 48 over the last 17 games.NOTES: Arizona D Jeff Chychrun (lower body) left the game late in the first period and did not return. … In a new-look first line for Calgary, Sam Bennett moved to center between Johnny Gaudreau and rookie Spencer Foo. … Arizona improves to 18-1-1 when giving up two or fewer goals.UP NEXTCoyotes: Play at Vancouver on Thursday night.Flames: Play at Winnipeg on Thursday night.— PITTSBURGH (AP) There’s a bit of masochist in Patric Hornqvist. Has to be.How else to explain the thrill the Pittsburgh Penguins forward gets by planting himself in front of an opposing net and daring someone – be it a goaltender or defender typically within a stick’s reach of him – to move him out of the way by any means necessary?Over the course of three periods on a given night, Hornqvist will be punched, pushed, slashed (both legally and illegally) and generally treated as a pi锟絘ta on skates. And here’s the thing. He likes it. A lot. The smile on his face even as he’s being chopped to the ice is a dead giveaway.”I think he finds comfort in being a pain in the neck,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said.Sure Jimmy Vesey Jersey , it’s not quite the career path the 31-year-old envisioned while growing up in Sweden, where the larger international ice sheets provided Hornqvist plenty of room to do as he pleased. That space has disappeared in the NHL, where the ice surface is smaller, the players bigger and faster, and the goals far harder to come by.So Hornqvist has carved out a niche by volunteering to get to the places on the ice that aren’t for the meek – a 5-foot-11, 189-pound stockpile of kinetic energy. In the process, he’s become arguably the best of the net-front masters that will play a pivotal role in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Hornqvist scored 29 times this season for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, most of them coming from in tight. Some on deflections. Others on rebounds. Others still when he managed to thrust his stick in the middle of chaos and find the order in it. Oh, and the puck, too.They call the corners and the front of the net the ”dirty area.” Maybe, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Especially in the postseason.”Usually it’s not the pretty goal that wins the game Kevin Hayes Jersey ,” said Predators forward Scott Hartnell, no stranger to the mosh pit that doubles as the area just outside the goal crease. ”It’s the one-two-three-four whacks on it and it goes in.”The goal that propelled the Penguins to a second title last June came not from Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin or Kris Letang but by Hornqvist doing what he does as well as anyone in the NHL – collecting Justin Schultz’s shot off the end boards then banking it off Nashville’s Pekka Rinne and into the net late in Game 6 of the 2017 Stanley Cup finals.”I love to be where it’s hot, especially in those areas in front of the net,” Hornqvist said. ”It’s probably the best place to be.”And, in a weird way, it’s a pretty effective path to career longevity. Hornqvist just signed a five-year contract extension over the winter. Hartnell will turn 36 later this month. Tampa Bay’s Chris Kunitz – who filled a role similar to Hornqvist’s while helping the Penguins to three Cups before joining the Lightning – played in all 82 games this year for the Eastern Conference’s top seed at age 38.Pain, it turns out, has its perks. Washington’s Tom Wilson, just 24, points to players like Hornqvist and Philadelphia’s Wayne Simmonds as a role model of sorts.”(Simmonds) will tip the puck, he’ll turn and he’ll find it Kevin Shattenkirk Jersey ,” Wilson said. ”He’s strong enough to be able to get two or three chances. And you’ve got to be strong enough in order to be able to do something with it after you find it.”Hornqvist brushes off the notion that he’s special, saying only ”I take pride in what I do out there.” He points out he scored 15 power-play goals this season – third most in the league – not so much because of any particular talent he may have but because he happens to play on the same unit as Crosby and Malkin.Defenses can become so intent on trying to keep Pittsburgh’s two stars in check that Hornqvist has a knack of finding the open spot. And if the puck happens to show up there, too, even better.Crosby isn’t so sure. Asked if there’s an art to Hornqvist’s approach to his job, the two-time MVP nods.”I think it’s a skill,” Crosby said. ”It takes a lot of determination, a lot of courage but there’s also some thought that goes into it, too. I think you can’t have one without the other and I think he’s able to find ways to create space and find pucks and battle all through that stuff in order to create goals there.”It goes beyond putting the puck in the net. Hornqvist, Hartnell and the rest can be just as effective doing things that never show up on a goal sheet, be it creating a screen or occupying a pair of defenders or simply refusing to get out of the way.”There’s obviously the guys that work well with the shooter, moving screens http://www.officialhockeyrangersshop.com/authentic-adidas-marc-staal-jersey , on the same page,” Washington goaltender Braden Holtby said. ”And then there’s just the guys that they just get in there and kind of frustrate you and run interference and stuff like that. It’s more those tiny little jabs that throw you off balance that the ref or no one else sees.”Hornqvist does it all. Rookie forward Zach Aston-Reese marvels at Hornqvist’s ability to both use his stick ”like an axe” while absorbing all manner of abuse without letting his frustration get the best of him.”We played Washington and he had three guys punching him in the head and for him to be like cool, calm and collected and not retaliate, not drop his gloves,” Aston-Reese said. ”There’s a huge mental capacity to it.”A capacity Hornqvist and the rest of his brethren will have to rely on in the postseason, when goals of any variety are at a premium and where the traffic jams in front of the net are not for the claustrophobic. Some players will have to find a way to adapt. Not so for guys like Hornqvist.”He plays every game like it’s a playoff game,” Crosby said. ”What he has to deal with is exactly what you face every night in the playoffs with how hard you have to compete in front of the net to find those loose pucks, yeah I think he finds a way to elevate his game.”—AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno in Washington, D.C. and AP Sports Writer Teresa M. Walker in Nashville contributed to this report.—