NEW JERSEY VS. TORONTO BUFFALO VS. PITTSBURGH COLORADO VS. LOS ANGELES DALLAS VS. ST. LOUIS

Wednesday, April 25 Updated: April 27, 4:47 PM ET Stevens a master of the lost art of hitting By Adrian Wojnarowski Special to ESPN.com EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The Toronto Maple Leafs changed the face of its franchise over the last year, exchanging finesse for muscle, for a single, solitary reason: Scott Stevens leveled Shane Willis with a clean check in Game 2. Critics didn't like the timing -- 11 seconds left in the game with a 2-0 lead. Scott Stevens had hit them out of the Stanley Cup playoffs. In the Eastern Conference semifinals, Stevens destroyed Cory Cross, Tie Domi and Tomas Kaberle, delivering crushing checks to send them straight into summer. Nobody's forgotten. Nobody can stop talking about him. For over a week, Stevens has been the obsession of sports talk radio in Toronto, the obsession of the Leafs themselves. This is his time of year, a time when the ambulances screech out of the arena with his concussion victims beneath the flashing red lights. Scott Stevens wants to be the Teddy Ballgame of hockey, the greatest hitter to ever live. "I'm glad people notice me and don't like me," Stevens said the other day. "It means I'm doing something right. I'm not a finesse player. I'm a physical player. When (the booing) stops, that's when I'll hang it up." He goes back and forth on this idea, Stevens does, loving and loathing his image as the hardest hitting man in hockey. Understand, he's no thug. He's a complete player, a Hall of Famer in such supreme condition that it's clear he can go into his 20th season next year as one of the dominant players in the sport. He has a chance to be the Stanley Cup playoffs MVP for a second straight year. Who else has done that at 37 years old? Across the league, Stevens' legend and lore grows with every unsuspecting skater on the move with a deathwish: head down, mind forgetful Stevens' is on the ice. A year ago, it was Philadelphia's Eric Lindros. This year, it was Carolina's Shane Willis and Ron Francis who Stevens pounded out of the playoffs in Games 2 and 3. Stevens insists his hardest hit of the series was on a tough kid, Sami Kapanen, who has earned Stevens' eternal respect for rising to his feet, skating on, and setting up the winning goal in overtime of Game 4. “ There are guys in this league that are big hitters, big tough guys and know what, they're cheap-shot artists -- elbows, hitting from behind. Come on, wake up everybody. Where's everyone been here? It's freaking discouraging. It's embarrassing. ” — Scott Stevens Still, Stevens is the Devils player nobody can stop discussing in the NHL. It's strange: The gifted scoring line of Patrik Elias, Jason Arnott and Petr Sykora is responsible for lighting the sirens over the net this time of year. Stevens is responsible for lighting the sirens over the ambulances. What makes the nightly news and the morning papers are his hits laying out opponents. "There are guys in this league that are big hitters, big tough guys and know what, they're cheap-shot artists -- elbows, hitting from behind," Stevens said. "Come on, wake up everybody. Where's everyone been here? It's freaking discouraging. It's embarrassing." "It's discouraging that I play the way I play and I'm questioned … Hitting is hard work. Hitting is getting your nose dirty. There's a lot of guys who don't want to do that. Know what? I thrive on it." He's a throwback, out of a different time, a different era and sometimes it seems Stevens would've been the perfect partner alongside his coach, Larry Robinson, on those great Montreal Canadiens defenses of the 1970s. These days, they don't the teach the hard-hitting to the young players, the crushing body blows that change the face of a game. This is the lost art of hockey. "He'd fit right in our era," Robinson said. "A lot of guys don't know how to hit. They hit with their with hands. They hit with their arms. Everyone says the sticks are up. Well, the sticks are up because (players) don't know how to deliver a body check. "Now, they're trying to take hitting right out of the game. To me, that's an art the same as stick handling. It's even a tougher thing to do. Open ice-hits are more difficult. Don't knock a guy who has a tremendous ability to find a man with his head down." Everything started for Stevens, it seems, six years ago in the Stanley Cup finals, when he made a devastating hit on Detroit's Slava Kozlov. The Red Wings went wild on the bench, screaming, cursing and shaking sticks in the direction of Stevens. Kozlov was down and the walls were crumbling down around the Red Wings. Stevens skated slowly past the Detroit bench and mouthed the words the Maple Leafs fear will be directed at them in this Eastern Conference semifinals series: "You're next." Adrian Wojnarowski is a sports columnist for the Bergen (N.J.) Record and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories

ALSO SEE Johnson: Old timers back Stevens' style