The Aftermath – 2008 Edition: Part 1
The 2007-08 NHL season is now finished. The Detroit Red Wings stormed through the playoffs and won this year’s Stanley Cup. The NHL draft is coming up soon, and as ever, we will probably also expect some blockbuster trades during the summer.
This six part series will consist of brief summaries of every team’s performance this season, starting with the Atlantic Division.
New Jersey Devils
Final standings: 46W, 29L, 7OTL, 99 points, 2nd Atlantic, 4th Eastern Conference, 6th NHL
This season saw the Devils move into a new arena, the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, and the team also had a new head coach, Brent Sutter, who signed with the team on July 13th, 2007. The Devils were notable for playing their first 9 games on the road, until finally playing their home opener on October 27th VS the Ottawa Senators. New Jersey also had a fairly bumpy start to the season, earning only 16 points in their first 19 games, though they quickly made up for this by winning the next 9 games in a row. The Devils were fairly consistent this year, despite the occasional losing streaks, and attendance also saw a 14% increase from last year. Unfortunately for the Devils, they didn’t last very long in the postseason despite having home-ice advantage over division rivals the New York Rangers, who easily beat them 4 games to 1 in the first round.
New York Islanders
Final standings: 35W, 38L, 9OTL, 79 points, 5th Atlantic, 13th Eastern Conference, 26th NHL
This year marked the 35th anniversary of the New York Islanders, although their ‘celebration’ probably wasn’t worth remembering. Firstly, the Isles introduced a new jersey to go with the league’s switch to the RBK EDGE uniform system, which didn’t go down quite as well with some fans of the team (even though it’s still a million times better than that fisherman jersey… don’t get me started on that again). The team also performed much worse than last season, suffering from a 6 game losing streak which killed all hopes of them making the playoffs, which instead made the Islanders the only team from the Atlantic Division to miss the playoffs this year. However, the Islanders saw an increase in attendance this year, although this didn’t stop them from having the worst attendance record in the league.
New York Rangers
Final standings: 42W, 27L, 13OTL, 97 points, 3rd Atlantic, 5th EC, 9th NHL
This year’s Blueshirts had a difficult start to their season in October, although their performance was far better in November. December then saw the Rangers putting on a slightly sloppy performance which carried on through January. However, after January they played with much more consistency, losing only 5 games in regulation during the last few months of the regular season. The first round of the playoffs saw the Rangers facing off against division rivals the New Jersey Devils, who had previously beat them 4 games to 1 in the 2006-07 playoffs. This time however, The Rangers returned the favour, beating the Devils in 5 games and advancing to the second round, which was as far as they would get as they were defeated by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 5.
Philadelphia Flyers
Final standings: 42W, 29L, 11OTL, 95 points, 4th Atlantic 6th EC, 11th NHL
Remember last year’s Philadelphia Flyers? The team that finished last place in league standings, and posted the worst season in franchise history? Thankfully, the Flyers were able to put all that behind them, as this time around they improved greatly, playing good hockey for the majority of the season, with their only bad times being a slight slump in December, and a 10 game winless streak in February. The Broad Street Bullies made the playoffs, and in the first round they beat the Washington Capitals in a nail-biting seven game series. They then surprised everyone by defeating the Eastern Conference best Montreal Canadiens in 5 games, and then they made it to the Conference Finals, the furthest they would get, as cross-state rivals the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Flyers in 5 games.
Pittsburgh Penguins
Final standings: 47W, 24L, 11OTL, 105 points, 1st Atlantic, 2nd EC, 4th NHL
The Pittsburgh Penguins had a brilliant season, after finishing near the very bottom in 2006, and announcing that they were not relocating anywhere in 2007. The perfect thing to top all of this off for them would have been a Stanley Cup championship: sadly for them, the Finals were as close as they got this year, so they’ll have to settle with the Prince of Wales trophy. During the regular season, the Penguins got off to a fairly good start in October, and then lost the majority of their games played in November. Afterwards, Pittsburgh pretty much played solid hockey for the rest of the season. During the playoffs, the Pens swept the Ottawa Senators, and then went on to win against the New York Rangers in 5, and the Philadelphia Flyers in 5 afterwards. In the Finals however, they lost to Detroit in 6 games. Another memorable moment for the Penguins this year was when they played against the Buffalo Sabres in the inaugural Winter Classic, an outdoor game played in Buffalo, in which the Penguins won 2-1 in a shootout.
Part 2 of this series will be coming up shortly, and the Northeast Division will be covered then.