The 2006-07 NHL season is now finished. After dropping an adjective from their name, the mighty Anaheim Ducks took the NHL by storm and went on to win their first ever Stanley Cup.

This inaugural edition of The Aftermath is a six-part series which will consist of brief summaries of every team’s performance this season. Part 4 will begin coverage of the Western Conference with the Central Division.

Chicago Blackhawks

Final standings: 31W, 42L, 9OTL, 71 points, 5^th Central, 13^th Western Conference, 26^th NHL

To be honest, there’s not really much that can be said about the Chicago Blackhawks. They got off to a slow start, have had too many long losing streaks, and attendance was incredibly low for most games, sometimes even going below 10,000: the United Center’s capacity for Hockey games is 20,500, and the lowest number of fans that went to a game was just 8,008, and it was lucky for the Hawks that they were able to attract at least 15,000 whenever Original Six rivals the Detroit Red Wings visited Chicago. Coach Trent Yawney was fired and succeeded by Denis Savard partway through the season, unfortunately that didn’t help much as the Blackhawks finished near the bottom of the Western Conference.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Final standings: 33W, 42L, 7OTL, 73 points, 4^th Central, 11^th Western Conference, 24^th NHL

Like for pretty much most of their 6 year existence, the Columbus Blue Jackets were unsuccessful again, still hanging around near the bottom of the Western Conference, taking even more severe beatings from other teams. The Jackets had at least 3 long losing streaks, as well as a bumpy series of win-lose-win-lose games entering the year 2007. At the end of the season, the Blue Jackets failed to make the playoffs once again, and as the Atlanta Thrashers qualified, Columbus is now the only team in the NHL to have never made the playoffs. On an upside, they finished with their, umm… best record in franchise history.

Detroit Red Wings

Final standings: 58W, 16L, 8OTL, 113 points, 1^st Central, 1^st Western Conference, 2^nd NHL

This season was the Detroit Red Wing’s 80^th NHL season. Despite losing long time captain Steve Yzerman to retirement, as well as another long time Red Wing Brendan Shanahan to the New York Rangers, Detroit were still able to climb to the top of the Western Conference, and make the playoffs for the 16^th straight season, the most by any North American pro sports team. After Yzerman’s retirement, captaincy was passed on to veteran defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom, who would lead the Red Wings all the way to the Western Conference Finals, where they would end up losing in 6 games to the Anaheim Ducks. Another reason for the Wings’ success this season was the return of Dominik Hasek, who at the age of 42 is currently the oldest goaltender in the NHL: he averaged a 0.923 save percentage this season. At the end of the regular season, Detroit looked like they were set to win yet another Presidents’ Trophy; however they lost it to the Buffalo Sabres, who had won more games. As for attendance figures, the Detroit Red Wings were one of the only teams to sell out every home game this year.

Nashville Predators

Final standings: 51W, 23L, 8OTL, 110 points, 2^nd Central, 4^th Western Conference, 3^rd NHL

This season looked to be very promising for the Nashville Predators, who ended up finishing with the best record in their franchise history. For most of the year they led the Central Division, as they were able to consistently win games, and they held this lead until Detroit took the Division Championship once again. Back in February, the Preds were able to acquire Peter Forsberg from the Philadelphia Flyers, and he was able to aid them in making the playoffs for the third straight season. Sadly, they lost to the San Jose Sharks in the Western quarterfinals, 4 games to 1, for the second year in a row.

St. Louis Blues

Final standings: 34W, 35L, 13OTL, 81 points, 3^rd Central, 10^th Western Conference, 22^nd NHL

This season, despite missing the playoffs for the second straight year, the St. Louis Blues were able to improve upon an embarrassing performance in 2005-06. The first half of this season seemed very reminiscent of the previous one, however halfway through December; the Blues began playing better hockey again, and they were even able to overtake the falling Edmonton Oilers. Despite a strong rebound season from the Blues, they were unable to make the playoffs. Despite being third place overall in the Central Division, which for the past two seasons has been ruled by the Detroit Red Wings and Nashville Predators, St. Louis were not even close to playoff contention anyway, as they were 14 points behind 9^th place Colorado Avalanche, who didn’t make the playoffs either.

Coming up next in Part 5 will be the Northwest Division.