The 10 Greatest Video Games Named After NHL Teams

Hey, readers. How’s life? Enjoying the stretch run in the NHL? Lots of playoff intrigue this year! Isn’t it the greatest time of the NHL season? Before you say anything, please note that I don’t care about your answer. I’m just making small talk to distract you from the fact I’m playing Breath of the Wild right now. The NHL playoffs are an April-June deal. The Nintendo Switch is what’s hot today, so it’s been getting all of my coveted, coveted attention.

It also got me thinking: How can I tie this into a hockey-themed article? So I pulled myself away my Switch long enough to do just that. In our latest installment of “The Greatest,” here are the 10 greatest video games featuring NHL team nicknames.

It’s worth noting that I allowed singular names instead of the exact plural ones. Otherwise this list would be nothing but Japanese imports and Power Rangers variants. Enjoy!

Honorable Mentions

I’d have thrown Yoshi’s Island or Monkey Island on here, but the stretch between “island” and Islanders was just too much for me. Also, some would probably opt for Starcraft or Starcraft 2 somewhere on this list. Not my cup of tea, but I recognize how beloved they are.

10) Duck Hunt

Brilliance and simplicity often go hand-in-hand. It’s hard to find a better example than Nintendo’s infamous Duck Hunt, an NES staple that most are sure to recognize. The premise: You’re a duck hunter, and there are ducks to be hunted. You’re given a gun — in this case, the infamous Zapper — and a hunting dog. The ducks have … well, the power of flight, of course, and some really defensive attitudes about your attempts to murder them. Classic good-versus-evil conflict!

9) Run Saber

OK, Saber isn’t technically spelled “Sabre” here, but we’ll make do. If you haven’t heard of this one, no worries: I hadn’t either until I watched the Game Grumps play it. But that led me to play the game myself, and let me tell you: this is surprisingly wonderful. It’s fine to play alone, but it’s even better with a friend. The beat-’em-up genre has largely gone away these days, but to see one as polished — and deeply functional — as Run Saber is a great thing.

8) Jet Grind Radio

My heart would put this much, much higher, but fortunately I can close my heart off at will — just ask any of my ex-girlfriends. (Heyo!) Jet Grind Radio (or Jet Set Radio, depending on your locality) was a Dreamcast game about skaters with magnetic rollerblades covering a city in graffiti, although it goes much, much deeper than that. You’re also treated to:

• A dope cel-shaded art style
• An incredible soundtrack
• Some hilarious characters and a crazy-but-engaging plot

It’s hard to convey just how fun this game is, but I’m willing to admit this may be my childhood bias showing. That said, if YOU want to tell me that a skating dog who does graffiti isn’t fun, I’m not sure what else there is to say.

7) Starfox 64

When Google does a special search result based on you, you’ve made it. I only know two examples of this sort of thing. The first is Googling the word “anagram” — you get the suggestion “Did you mean: nag a ram?” Pretty clever. The second is Googling the phrase “do a barrel roll.” You get this:

The reference is, of course, to Nintendo’s excellent Starfox 64. You’re constantly told to do a barrel roll in your spaceship in order to deflect enemy attacks.

And you’re told to do this approximately 3.7 trillion times. But you don’t mind, because Starfox 64 is a timeless and tireless gem of a game. I can (and do!) find myself going back to this game every so often just because it’s so damn fun to play. The dialogue is memorable, the controls are tight and the universe lets you pick your own path through it — as long as you’re willing to do barrel rolls, that is.

6) Devil May Cry

I’m not much for the whole “brooding protagonist” phase that games went through for a while, but it’s hard to find fault with a 94 percent Metacritic score. That’s exactly what this PlayStation standout earned, and it’s easy to see why. Devil May Cry is incredibly gratifying to play. Every time you pull off a sick attack combo, you feel like you were truly in control of it. Plus, I mean, you get guns AND swords. What possible weakness do you have at that point?!

5) Kirby’s Avalanche

Here’s a helpful analogy: This game is as good as this year’s Colorado Avalanche team is bad — in both contemporary and historical terms. Though not the first (or last) game to directly clone Japan’s Puyo Pop, it’s a great format to clone. Puzzle games, particularly competitive ones, have largely gone by the wayside of late, but when they were in their prime they made for some of the most fun and competitive games around. The premise? Connect strings of four identically-colored beans to remove them from the board — and the more you clear at once, the more you can hinder your opponent. The first person whose board fills up completely loses.

And for my money, it doesn’t get much more satisfying than pulling off a long combo.

4) King’s Quest V

Sierra, you are truly one of our national treasures. Led by married couple Ken and Roberta Williams, Sierra produced several outstanding point-and-click adventure games through the late-1980s and beyond. Your mileage may vary, but King’s Quest was always my favorite, and King’s Quest V was perhaps the best of them all. The game itself is pretty simple: Meet characters, collect items, use items to solve puzzles, repeat. But the mechanics take a backseat to the writing. The characters are funny, quirky and occasionally terrifying, and the world is deep and rich. Added bonus: each game builds on the lore of the last one!

3) Kirby Super Star

Is there a more complete game on the SNES? Is there a more perfect representation of the Kirby franchise? While its core is pretty true to the Kirby style, Kirby Super Star is essentially seven mini-games in one, making it both deep and diverse. The signature mechanic of swallowing enemies to gain their powers is still in place, but the true joy comes when you play with a friend — because you can bring your friend to life and make them your sidekick.

Also, just as easily as you give your friend life, you can take it away without mercy. That, my friends, is power.

2) Pokemon Blue

If this were baseball, we could go with Pokemon Red, which most people seemed to prefer. Blue ain’t bad, though. And by “ain’t bad” I of course mean a generational phenomenon that you could easily sink hundreds of hours into. Last year’s fervor around the release of Pokemon GO wasn’t an accident — it rekindled the spirit of a generation that grew up with the original Game Boy games. You’re given a starter Pokemon, told that there are 150 more, and sent off in the world to find them. It tapped into the adventuring spirit that exists within us all, and for that it’ll always remain special.

1) Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I wonder how many collective hours we, as a planet, have sunk into Breath of the Wild since it was released earlier this month. If there was a record for such a thing, BotW might set it. The crown jewel of the Nintendo Switch launch, there’s really only one term for what Nintendo accomplished: masterpiece. This is the 1950s Canadiens of video games. This is 50 goals in 39 games. Breath of the Wild is, almost without question, the boldest and most successful re-imagination of a classic franchise ever made.

Breath of the Wild starts you out in one small part of Hyrule, teaches you the basics of how to navigate it, and then throws you out into the rest of it with only minimal guidance. Yes, there’s a main quest, but you’re barely nudged toward it. You’re free to do literally whatever you like. Go explore a cave! Fight monsters! Find hidden treasures! Hell, hard as it is, you can head straight for the final boss if you’re daring enough.

But man, why would you want to? There’s so, so much to see and do across the land, and it’s realized in a spectacular fashion. Climbing a mountain gives you a chance to scan the horizon and see the rest of the world in the distance: hills, valleys, volcanoes, lightning storms, forests, lakes, rivers and more. Whereas most classic Zelda games are about dungeons, Breath of the Wild makes minimal use of them, opting instead to give you the keys and trust you to make your own path through an expansive world. It’s the inspiration for this list, and it’s essentially the perfect game.