SPORTS illustrated
Vladimir Tarasenko, ranked 8th in the NHL standings, eyes the puck during the Blues’ meeting with the Chicago Blackhawks
The NHL’s Hall of Fame Class of 2014
Tarasenk-GOAL! What Makes this Russian One of the Best
The 2014 Sportsman of the Year Who’s Jonas Gray? We didn’t know either, Until Now
The Best is On the Rocks
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the
Lineup
On the Cover
NBA
1 Majic Johnson named
Sportsman of the Year 2014
Soccer 2
L.A. Galaxy wins 5th MLS Cup, Donovan Retires a Champion
7 Vladimir Tarasenko
NCAA Football
mixes his talents with humility
3 Complete 2014-15
Bowl Schedule and Matchups
NCAA Basketball 4 College Basketball
Power Rankings with UK on Top
NHL
11 Deck the Hall with Six New
Hockey Hall of Fame Members
NFL
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15 Jonas Gray, The Perfect Patriot
MLB
19 The Latest Big Name Trades Top Photo: Tarasenko celebrates a goal with his teammates. Photo taken by Louie Korac. Bottom Left Photo: Landon Donovan poses with the MLS Cup after the L.A. Galaxy won their 5th championship. Photo taken by Philip F. Anschutz Bottom right photo: Tyler Ullis (3) has been an excellent distributor on offense, but it’s his aggressive defense that has caught the attention of the Rankings. Photo taken by David E. Klutho/Si
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SPORTS illustrated
Deck the
HALL
Christmas has come early for the six new members of the Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2014. Meet the inductees and see where they rank among the best. 11
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Photo by Bruce Bennett/ Getty Images
The Hockey Hall of Fame welcomes six new members tonight in Toronto (8 p.m. EST; NHL Network). And it’s easy to make the case that the Class of 2014—Rob Blake, Peter Forsberg, Dominik Hasek and Mike Modano, along with coach Pat Burns and referee Bill McCreary—ranks as one of the greatest of all-time.
They make for a pretty salty group
Take a look at their resumes. They were all winners. Forsberg (1996, 2001) and Hasek (2002, 2008) both contributed to a pair of Stanley Cup champions. Modano (1999), Blake (2001) and Burns (2003) each won once. Incredibly, McCreary worked all of those Cup finals, except for 2008, emblematic of his excellence among his peers.
All tasted success internationally. Forsberg won Olympic gold in 1994 (scoring the legendary shootout goal that toppled Canada in the final) and 2006, along with a pair of World Championships (1992, 1998). Blake was part of the Canadian team that captured gold at Salt Lake City in 2002 and won two World Championships (1994, 1997). Hasek led the Czechs to a surprising gold medal at the 1998 Winter Games at Nagano, and Modano was part of the second greatest victory in American history, at the 1996 World Cup. McCreary officiated the Olympic gold medal games in 1998, 2002 and 2010.
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Peter Forsberg, a Swedish native, shown left, won two Stanley Cups with the Colorado Avalanche in his career. Dominik Hasek, a Czech goalie, known best for his unconventional style of goaltending, pictured center right. The Canadian defenseman, Rob Blake, shown bottom left, now is the assistant general manager of the L.A. Kings, where he won the Cup earlier this year.
They shone individually as well. Hasek took home six Vezina Trophies, two Harts as league MVP (1997, 1998), six First Team All-Star berths and retired with the NHL’s highest career save percentage (.922) to build a case for himself as the greatest goalie of all-time. Modano is arguably the greatest American-born player ever, the country’s all-time leader in goals (561) and points (1,374).
Forsberg was named rookie of the year in 1995 and later was honored as the NHL’s MVP in 2003 after leading the league in scoring. He averaged 1.25 points per game, by far the highest rate among Swedish players to skate in the NHL. Blake claimed the Norris Trophy in 1998. Burns won the Jack Adams Award three times, and is the only man to earn it with three different teams—Montreal (1989), Toronto (1993) and Boston (1998). They make for a pretty salty group. So how do they stack up against the best classes of all time?
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It’s unfair to compare these six men to the inaugural 1945 class that included Georges Vezina, Art Ross, Howie Morenz and Hobey Baker among its 14 inductees. The class of 1947 might have been even better, with Eddie Shore, Dit Clapper, Aurel Joliat, Lester Patrick and Cyclone Taylor among its 13 members. Another banner class, 1961, was led by Rocket Richard, Syl Apps, Charlie Conacher, Hap Day, Georges Hainsworth and Milt Schmidt. And then there was the mass induction of 1962 that saw the Hall admit 34 new members who, for the most part, made their names in leagues that existed before the NHL. It was 1967, fittingly in the wake of expansion, that the Hall slimmed down the classes to the smaller size we see today. We’ll start our comparisons there and choose our top five best of all time:
Pictured above, Pat Burns coached four teams within his 14 season career, winning the Stanley Cup with the New Jersy Devils in 2005. Mike Modano, pictured to the left, played mostly for the Minnesota North Stars/Dallas Stars, holds the record for career goals by a U.S. player. Bill McCreary, shown below, a NHL referee, officiated over 1,700 games, including a record 44 in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Our Top HHOF Classes 5. Mario Lemieux, Bryan Trottier, Glen Sather (1997) 4. Rob Blake, Peter Forsberg, Dominik Hasek, Mike Modano, Pat Burns, Bill McCreary (2014) 3. Brian Leetch, Luc Robitaille, Steve Yzerman, Lou Lamoriello (2009) 2. Ron Francis, Al MacInnis, Mark Messier, Scott Stevens, Jim Gregory (2007) 1. Ken Dryden, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Harry Sinden (1983) Photography credits: Brian Bahr/NHLI, Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post, Lou Capozzola/SI, Darren Carroll/SI, Getty Images, Gene J. Puskar, and Chris Trotman.
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Patriot THE
erfect
On Sunday night, America tuned in to see Tom Brady and Andrew Luck battle for AFC supremacy. Instead an undrafted journeyman running back stole the show.
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Gray’s rushing scores were the most for someone with no previous NFL rushing touchdowns since 1921. Photo By New England Patriots- AP
On Sunday morning, none of the eight divisions were tied at the top. On Sunday evening, four were. Three hours after the Browns were alone in first place in the AFC North, they were tied for last in the AFC North. Drew Stanton’s Cardinals ended the day with a three-game lead over the mighty Seahawks and 49ers. The Falcons, who went 50 days without winning a game earlier in the season, ended the day two games under .500—and tied for first in the NFC South. The Packers did something a Green Bay team had never done in the 94-year history of the franchise. But the story of Week 11 happened in Indianapolis, and it involved a player who was on the Patriots’ practice squad for the first six weeks of the season, a player any team in the NFL could have claimed and signed, for free, until the middle of October. “Obviously we didn’t want to expose him like that, but we did what we felt was best,” said coach Bill Belichick as the clock struck 12 Sunday night in Indianapolis.
Gray, undrafted, unloved, and – at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday – unknown
The story was named Jonas Gray. The Patriots are doing what they always do—owning October and November—only this time looking like an old-fashionedpowerrunning team. Using a sixth offensive lineman regularly, and at times using both a fullback and a blocking tight end on the same play, New England had the kind of dominant running day Woody Hayes used to put together, demolishing Indianapolis with a 244-19 edge in rushing yards.
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The Notre Dame product had no negative carries among his 38 attempts. Photo By New England Patriots- AP
Gray, undrafted, unloved and—at 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday—unknown, had the best running day of any NFL back in the last 11 months: 38 carries, 199 yards, four touchdowns (one in each quarter). First half: 100 yards. Second half: 99 yards. Postgame: dazed. Two things I found amazing: Gray never seemed to be winded, or tired, or showing the strain of what in today’s football is an amazing workload, especially for someone who in college or pro football had never carried this many times. And in 38 rushes, he had zero negative carries. It’s a pretty big difference in a game when it’s second-and-four or second-and-six consistently— and never second-and-12.
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Photo By New England Patriots- AP
“When we get home,” Gray said in the New England locker room, “I’ll probably just lay in bed and look up at the ceiling and be just astonished at what’s going on. I’m just writing a great story, man.” In 2011, at Notre Dame, the 5-10, 228-pound power back, a polite kid, was in a jobshare with Cierre Wood at running back, but starting more than not. “I figure he’d go to a Senior Bowl, get drafted and have a nice career,” said Mike Mayock, the NBC Notre Dame analyst. “He really broke out that year. Then he got hurt. Tore up his knee against Boston College. I had such profound sorrow for the kid.”
The Patriots are looking like an old-fashioned power-running team
No Senior Bowl. No scouting combine. No draft. Gray got signed by Miami in May 2012 and spent the year rehabbing the knee. In August 2013, Miami cut him. Baltimore signed him to the practice squad on Labor Day weekend 2013, and there he spent all season before being cut loose at the end of the year. New England signed him to a futures contract last January. Mayock and Belichick are close, but Mayock said he doesn’t think they talked about Gray. “I just lost track of him,” Mayock said. “Then I went to see the Patriots practice this summer at Washington, and saw a few Notre Dame kids there. He was just a guy I kept hoping for. He was a guy who was just desperate for someone to believe in him.”
The Patriots kept him on the practice squad early but didn’t have a need for another running back until Stevan Ridley was lost for the season in October with a knee injury. Up came Gray. Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels obviously felt the Colts were susceptible to the power-running game Sunday night. The Patriots started early. On the first series they put 6-6, 322-pound rookie tackle Cameron Fleming as the sixth offensive lineman, at left tackle. Gray’s first carry, behind Fleming, was for seven yards. Then, with a fullback and blocking tight end paving the way, Gray went for seven up the middle. Three snaps later, with a seven-man line in front of him, Gray burst behind Fleming again for 16. From the four-yard line, behind another seven-man line, Gray scored his first touchdown as a pro midway through the quarter.
“He was a guy who was just desperate for someone to believe in him”
That’s how New England played the whole game. Belichick and McDaniels are chameleons in designing game strategy. Some weeks it’s going to be bombs away; some weeks Belichick channels his inner Marion Motley and plays power. Obviously he saw a deficiency in the front seven of the Colts that told him Indianapolis could be overpowered. New England did that, for four quarters, with a back no one ever heard of. They have now. Jonas Gray now owns the biggest rushing day of the season—and the most carries in any game.
Again: It’s amazing that Gray never tired. You don’t want to make too much of one game. But this game showed New England can be more than Brady-to-Gronk or Bradt-to-Edelman. One more note about Gray, from Alex Flanagan, who covered Notre Dame as the sideline reporter for NBC for several years. It’s a humorous one—I think. Gray’s an amateur comedian. He once opened for Dustin Diamond—Screech, on Saved By The Bell—at a comedy club. If I were Gray, I’d probably keep that to myself around Bill Belichick.
Tom Brady showed some hops after Gronk’s TD that closed out the scoring.
Photo By David E. Klutho
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SPORTS illustrated Issue #50 | December 16, 2014