from Alex Prewitt of Sports Illustrated,

Ksssh-ksssh-ksssh

Vladimir Tarasenko loves this sound the most. It brings him back home to Russia, where each winter morning he would climb down the school bus stairs and feel the frozen ground crunch beneath his boots, “because it was like minus-35 Celsius outside.” It also makes the St. Louis Blues sharpshooter think about skating onto a fresh sheet of ice, that moment when his blades first slice into the smoothed surface. He glides. He turns. He stops. The noise bounces into the rafters, echoes throughout the seats. “Alone, there’s no one else, and the building is empty too, so you can really hear it,” Tarasenko says....

For skaters, at least, there is something particularly sweet about nailing iron. “Growing up, you always try to do that, go bar-down,” Anaheim center Ryan Getzlaf says. “It hits and the puck seems like it’s moving a lot faster when you go off the crossbar.” Nashville defenseman Roman Josi will explicitly aim for the posts in practice because of how it sounds, like the chime of a cash register. “I think if the puck’s going out, it’s a little bit higher-pitched,” Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele says. Ponnnng! “Then if it goes post-and-in,” says Carolina’s Jeff Skinner, “the pinnng feels pretty loud, and then the crowd goes nuts.”

Indeed, Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon likes when an entire arena gasps. Ahhh!Detroit’s Dylan Larkin gets satisfaction from a crisp pass striking his stick tape. Craccck! Tanev prefers “when guys stop and the ice sprays.” Swoosh! “I love hearing that twine,” says Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau. “Especially when you’re the one shooting it.”

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