The 29-year-old, still playing professional hockey at the highest level, highlights Canada Post's "Great Canadian Forwards" stamps series, which was unveiled Friday at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
Crosby, Phil Esposito, Guy Lafleur, Mark Messier, Darryl Sittler, and Steve Yzerman comprise the collection.
Their career accomplishments are staggering. From the NHL:
The six legends hail from five provinces. As a group, they played in more than 8,300 NHL games and scored more than 3,800 goals and more than 5,700 assists - more than a point per game (regular season and playoffs). Between them, they have won 18 Stanley Cup® Championships.
That'll do.
Crosby wasn't in attendance Friday, as he was practicing with Team Canada ahead of its Saturday matchup with Russia in the World Cup semifinal. The captain's parents accepted the honor on his behalf.
Jones turned 32 on Aug. 10 and had 11 goals and seven assists in 75 games last season. He was acquired by the Minnesota Wild before the trade deadline, and had two goals and an assist in 16 post-trade contests. He added one assist in the Wild's first-round playoff loss to Dallas.
A veteran of 462 regular-season games, Jones has 104 goals and 87 assists in his career.
The Philadelphia Flyers are largely the same team they were in 2015-16, when they snuck into the playoffs as the second wild-card team in the Eastern Conference before being dispatched by the Washington Capitals in six games.
Weise gives the team some flexibility on the wing, and he's proven he can play a top-six role if necessary.
Defense
LD
RD
Nick Schultz
Mark Streit
Michael Del Zotto
Shayne Gostisbehere
Andrew MacDonald
Radko Gudas
Gostisbehere went on an incredible run of offensive production toward the end of last season and looks more than comfortable in the top four.
Ivan Provorov, the Flyers' seventh overall pick in 2015, could also work his way into the picture on the Philadelphia blue line.
Goalies
G
Steve Mason
Michal Neuvirth
Mason is still the starter, but Neuvirth outplayed him (albeit in a smaller sample size) last season. He's proven to be a reliable replacement when Mason falters.
NHL Depth Charts
ANA| ARI | BOS | BUF | CGY CAR | CHI | COL | CBJ | DAL DET | EDM | FLA | LA | MIN MTL | NSH | NJD | NYI | NYR PHI | PIT | OTT | STL | SJ TB | TOR | VAN | WSH | WPG
After Ho-Sang's tardiness last September, Islanders GM Garth Snow told Newsday's Arthur Staple, "Enough with the bullshit. It's time (for him) to grow up."
One would think showing up on time for the first day of training camp bodes well.
The seminal moment of the World Cup might have occurred in the round robin, when Nathan MacKinnon scored a sublime overtime goal against Sweden to keep North America alive for another day.
The 83-year-old broadcaster was among 46 distinguished Canadians honored Friday, including women's hockey pioneer Fran Rider and author Lawrence Hill.
Cole was the lead play-by-play announcer on CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada" from 1980 until 2008, and still calls select games for Sportsnet. He revealed to NHL.com's Dave Stubbs on Thursday that he'll be back this season.
The native of St. John's, Newfoundland joined the iconic Canadian TV broadcast in 1973.
This was the simple rationale behind much of the internal processing among executives and players at the World Cup of Hockey. It's why the Americans misguidedly designed their roster with one opponent in mind. It's why a six-minute stretch of hockey is the reason we'll probably never see Connor McDavid on a line with Auston Matthews again.
And it's why Finland failed to ever recover from its embarrassing loss to North America.
"The first game was like ‘Game Off’ right from the start. North America played great. They won every battle, everything. They scored four goals, but I think they should have scored eight."
That was Aleksander Barkov's response when asked what contributed to the Finns being limited to one goal in three World Cup games. One lousy goal, and one hardly worth celebrating, as all it accomplished was cutting down the largest deficit they built for themselves.
Barkov didn't have an answer as to why 81 of the team's 82 shots were stopped by opposing goalies, or why moments after Mikael Granlund hit the post behind Sergei Bobrovsky, Vladimir Tarasenko and Ivan Telegin scored 79 seconds apart for Russia to zap what was left of Finland's fight.
But the incoming face of the Suomi knew where it all went wrong, harkening back to the nation's loss to North America when asked to assess why the offense never arrived.
More often than not, Finland's the wild card in these tournaments. It's a nation that doesn't produce high-end players in limitless quantities like Canada, but one that, without fail, provides fits for teams that look stronger on paper.
A quick glance at Finland's roster, and it was natural to reason the same, but it was different this time. The nation has been riding a wave of international success of late, not frustrating teams with tactical organization, but with a juggernaut attack.
Patrik Laine and Sebastian Aho, two players who were, in fact, in Toronto this week, led an offense that produced 35 goals in seven games, and scored on better than 37 percent of its power-play opportunities en route to gold at the 2016 World Junior Championship.
Then several months later, Finland's World Championship roster, which paled in comparison to its World Cup entry, produced more than four goals per contest before being shut out by Canada in the final game of a tournament in which Laine was named MVP.
"We just couldn’t find the net," forward Teuvo Teravainen told theScore about Finland's performance at the World Cup. "I think we created a lot of good chances, but it just didn’t bounce (our way) in the tournament for us. We just needed to get that ugly one, maybe, and then we could get more goals.
"But it's a short tournament, and sometimes you just can't find the net."
There it is again.
True to form, though, Finland would indeed frustrate in the end.
At the end of a game that ended appropriately with Sami Vatanen reluctant to emerge from behind his own net, instead delicately stick-handling the puck until the horn sounded, Finland had earned a small measure of revenge with its impotent effort against the Russians.
The loss meant that the North American team that spoiled Finland's bid was now out of contention, too.
With the round robin complete and the semifinals on tap for the weekend, here's what we learned:
1. North America forever
A World Cup featuring two select teams - North America and Europe - was a smashing success. So much that everyone's disappointed about a Canada-Russia semifinal. Yeah.
At least Europe's through to the semis, and is rallying together as "The Team the World Ignored," while North America put on a show, playing fast, incredible hockey that crowds at Air Canada Centre rarely see. The kids delighted - plain and simple - and the Europeans impressed. What's not to like?
The format worked. Europe and North America will be back when the World Cup returns in 2020. Can't wait.
The Canadians picked up where they left off in Sochi. In fact, they're even better.
They won three round-robin games back in 2014, beating Austria, Norway, and Finland (in overtime) by a combined 11-2 margin. They're also 3-0 at the World Cup, having beaten the Czech Republic, the U.S., and Europe 14-3.
Better competition and a better goal differential. And it isn't even bloody close.
Team
Goal Differential
Canada
+11
North America
+3
Russia
+3
Sweden
+2
Europe
+1
Czech Republic
-6
USA
-6
Finland
-8
One more note: Canada's won 22 straight when some guy named Sidney Crosby's in the lineup.
The North Americans - with the second-best goal differential, what a shame - were so exciting because they were so good. The Canadians are a little boring because they're even better.
3. Make USA Hockey great again!
Twenty years after the United States shocked Canada - and the planet - by winning the World Cup, it fell flatter on its face than it's ever fallen.
It's safe to say John Tortorella's probably done as head coach. General manager Dean Lombardi may have to go, too. Nothing should be off the table, because this was an embarrassing showing by the Americans - winless, with only five goals in three games.
Ryan McDonagh led the way with two goals. Joe Pavelski, T.J. Oshie, and Justin Abdelkader scored the other three. Ironic, since Abdelkader had little business being on the team.
There's an easy lesson to be learned here: Take your best players. Don't overthink it.
And don't fixate on Canada. That's pointless. It'll always take a miracle against the guys in red and white. Focus on getting to the place where you'll need it.
4. No Finnish
What the hell happened to Finland?
Finnish hockey was on the rise in 2004 - at the last World Cup - when Suomi finished second to Canada. Finland followed up with a silver at the 2006 Olympics and bronze-medal finishes at Vancouver and Sochi. A hockey power, no doubt.
Until this past week, when it all fell apart. There's luck involved, for sure, as Finland took 82 shots on goal - a team-high 10 by Patrik Laine - in the tournament and yet scored just one goal. But Finland's best players, well, weren't.
Corsi For% 5v5
Player
Vs. NA
Vs. SWE
Vs. RUS
Barkov
25%
42.86%
45%
Donskoi
37.5%
47.62%
50%
Granlund
37.14%
45.16%
46.15%
Jokinen
40%
56.52%
47.37%
Koivu
35.29%
38.71%
50%
Komarov
28.57%
60%
45.45%
Laine
27.27%
44%
53.85%
Maatta
30.95%
37.14%
61.11%
Ristolainen
26.32%
47.5%
42.31%
Vatanen
31.58%
38.89%
60.61%
For the most part, Finland never had the puck, especially when its best players were on the ice.
While it was a winless, disappointing tournament, Finland's still in a better place than the U.S., but its got stuff to talk about, that's for sure.
5. Goaltending above all
Much like the NHL, where the best players face off, it's the goaltenders who influence the game the most.
The goalies from the four playoff teams were the best in the round robin:
Goalie
GP
SV%
Carey Price (CAN)
2
.968
Jacob Markstrom (SWE)
1
.964
Henrik Lundqvist (SWE)
2
.953
Corey Crawford (CAN)
1
.950
Sergei Bobrovsky (RUS)
3
.948
Jaroslav Halak (EUR)
3
.946
Goalies have this whole goaltending thing figured out. Especially the best ones on earth.
The beauty of a short tournament is that a goaltender can win it. If Matt Murray finishes with better than an .886 save percentage in two starts, it's North America versus Canada in the semifinal Saturday - not Russia.
The United States bowed meekly out of the World Cup of Hockey on Thursday night, losing its final - and meaningless - game 4-3 to the Czech Republic.
Adding insult to injury were fans in Toronto, who sent the U.S. on its way to chants of "Let's go Kessel!" (You have to listen closely, but those are "Let's go Kessel!" chants, yeah.)
For a guy who wasn't on the team, Phil Kessel got a lot of press during the World Cup. A lot of that was his own doing, but his return to USA Hockey, should it happen, will be a very interesting one.
