The 2008-09 NHL season is now finished. The Detroit Red Wings stormed through the playoffs only to meet the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Final again. This time however, Pittsburgh returned the favour by ending Detroit’s defence of the Championship in their own city.
This six part series will consist of brief, but informal summaries of every team’s performance this season. Part 6, the final part of the series, will finalise coverage of the Western Conference with the Pacific Division.
Anaheim Ducks
Final standings: 42W, 33L, 7OTL, 91 points, 2nd Pacific, 8th Western Conference, 17th NHL
This year’s Anaheim Ducks were, not to put too fine a point on it, a complete mess. They began with an extremely slow start, which for a time saw them right at the bottom of the league standings. One of the contributions to this mess was general manager Brian Burke, who after much speculation inevitably stepped down and left for Toronto to be replaced by Bob Murray. Other factors that didn’t help were injuries to key players such as Teemu Selanne, Francois Beauchemin (who was then unable to play for most of the season), and Samuel Pahlsson (who was eventually traded to Chicago). The Ducks’ schedule consistently had them playing more games than the rest of the NHL, which made it difficult to compare them to other teams, and as a result Anaheim spent much of the season at risk of losing their playoff spot to other teams that would soon catch up to them. After a lacklustre January and February (12-13-1), the Ducks made one big, final push through March and April (11-5-1), and miraculously earned the eighth seed, making the postseason for the fourth consecutive season. In the first round, the Ducks met state rivals San Jose in the first all-California series since 1969, and upset them in 6 games. The Ducks then came across familiar playoff foes Detroit, and despite taking the series all the way to game 7, lost in the last three minutes of play.
Dallas Stars
Final standings: 36W, 35L, 11OTL, 83 points, 3rd Pacific, 12th Western Conference, 23rd NHL
A stroke of bad luck definitely hit the Stars this season, despite making it all the way to the Conference Finals last year. Early on, Captain Brendan Morrow was out for the year due to a torn ACL, which would be just one of a few injuries to the Stars this season. For some reason, Sean Avery was also signed, and later suspended by the NHL for making bad comments about his ex-girlfriend prior to a game against Calgary (He was also effectively kicked out of the Stars organisation). The Stars had a rough start to the season, going 8-11-4 over the first two months, but around December things started to look more promising as Dallas played well for the next three months… that is, right until the end of February: due to player injuries, as well as goaltender Marty Turco hitting a bad spell, and the Stars only having other, inexperienced rookie goalies to rely on as backups, the Stars went into a slump at the worst possible time, playing disappointingly for the rest of the season, and then missing the playoffs for the first time since 2002, and only the third time since they moved from Minnesota in 1993. Following this, the Stars hired a new general manager, former player and captain Joe Nieuwendyk, who fired head coach Dave Tippett and hired Marc Crawford to take his place.
Los Angeles Kings
Final standings: 34W, 37L, 11OTL, 79 points, 5th Pacific, 14th Western Conference, 26th NHL
The L.A. Kings looked to make improvements this season, as after many back to back seasons of missing the playoffs, head coach Marc Crawford was fired, and Terry Murray was hired to take his place. They also named Dustin Brown as the new team captain; making him the youngest named captain in franchise history, as well as their first ever US born captain. The Kings initially looked to have a more promising season, and this year they had the youngest roster in the NHL in terms of average age per player, and things started to look promising for this team as they played fairly well over the first three months… however, something went wrong at the end of December, and soon the Kings would be back to their usual ways, making fairly insignificant improvements over their previous season’s record, earning 8 more points, and missing the playoffs once again for the sixth consecutive season.
Phoenix Coyotes
Final standings: 36W, 39L, 7OTL, 79 points, 4th Pacific, 13th Western Conference, 25th NHL
During the preseason, the Phoenix Coyotes made a brief return to their old home in Winnipeg for the first time since they moved down from there in 1996. Sadly, that’s probably the only significant non-financial related thing that happened to this team, as despite playing fairly well during November (6-7-2), December (8-4-3) and January (6-7-0), the Coyotes played mostly mediocre hockey throughout the year, finishing with a worse record than last season, and like the Kings, missed the playoffs for the sixth straight season, finishing with only a marginally better record than their division rival. The Coyotes have also been involved with a load of financial related things such as bankruptcy filing, ownership disputes and the like, which gave the writer of this article a headache, so it has been left out. At the time of writing, the team’s future in Arizona remains unclear…
San Jose Sharks
Final standings: 53W, 18L, 11OTL, 117 points, 1st Pacific, 1st Western Conference, 1st NHL
The San Jose Sharks made a small amount of offseason moves, naming Todd McLellan the new head coach, acquiring defensemen Dan Boyle and Brad Lukowich from Tampa Bay, and signing Rob Blake. These few changes somehow gave the Sharks a big boost as they took the NHL by storm, eventually winning their second straight (and fourth ever) division title, their first Detroit Presidents’ Trophy, and they also finished with their best overall record in franchise history, beating the record previously set only last year by 9 points. As well as points, they also earned the most wins and fewest regulation losses in team history. Despite the achievements made this year, the Sharks once again fell early in the playoffs, as they were upset by state and division rivals the Anaheim Ducks, in the first all-California series since 1969, in six games, leaving a very bitter taste in the mouths of Sharks fans.
That’s it for the Aftermath 2009 Edition… and I managed to get it done three days earlier than last year. Go me.
