The 2010-11 NHL season is now finished. After a 39 year drought, the Boston Bruins came out of nowhere and beat the Vancouver Canucks to win their sixth Stanley Cup.

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: 38W, 39L, 5OTL, 81 points, 4^th Atlantic, 11^th Eastern Conference, 23^rd NHL

After hiring him only last season, head coach Jacques Lemaire retired from coaching forcing the Devils to look for someone else: the team’s all-time leading scorer, John MacLean, was brought back into the fold to replace him. During the offseason New Jersey were notorious for signing a 17 year contract, the longest in NHL history, with former Thrashers star Ilya Kovalchuk – the deal was a controversial one, and the NHL initially rejected it; however, an agreement was eventually reached, with the length of the contract being shortened to 15 years. As the season got underway, the Devils were off to a hellish start posting a 9-23-2 record by December 23^rd. The organisation was clearly not happy with being stuck in last place, so MacLean was fired with Lemaire being brought in as an interim head coach for one more stint with the Devils. Following this change, New Jersey posted a much better record, earning mostly wins throughout the latter half of the season; but it wasn’t enough, as their abysmal start left them 12 points short of the eighth place spot, eliminating the Devils from the playoffs for the first time since 1996.

New York Islanders

Final standings: 30W, 39L, 13OTL, 73 points, 5^th Atlantic, 14^th EC, 27^th NHL

Sadly, not much can be said for the Islanders. Again. However with their fifth overall selection of Nino Niederreiter at the Draft, they made him the highest drafted Swiss born player in NHL history. Prior to the start of the season and during training camp, forward Kyle Okposo and defenseman Mark Streit suffered completely unrelated shoulder injuries which required surgery: this kept Okposo out for most of the season, while Streit was left unable to play this year. Having lost two key players to injury, the Islanders started what would eventually be yet another disappointing season which proved to be worse than last year, and their poor record along with owner Charles Wang’s continued mismanagement of the franchise led to the Isles once again finishing near the bottom of the NHL barrel.

New York Rangers

Final standings: 44W, 33L, 5OTL, 93 points, 3^rd Atlantic, 8^th EC, 18^th NHL

This was a special year for the Rangers, as it was their 85^th anniversary season. To celebrate, the team wore a patch on their jerseys and introduced a new “heritage” sweater as their alternate uniform. The Blueshirts’ first game on Octover 9^th at Buffalo proved to be even more special for rookie Derek Stepan, who scored his first career hat trick in his first career NHL game, becoming only the fourth player to ever accomplish the feat. As far as the Rangers regular season went, their performance was somewhat average, as they usually won two or three games in a row before losing one or more afterwards; however, they did have a nice stretch of mostly wins through March and April (11-6-1) including a seven game points streak, which ultimately helped them to clinch the 8^th place spot in only the final game of the regular season, a 5-2 win against the Devils. The Blueshirts didn’t get very far in the playoffs as the Capitals beat them in five games.

Philadelphia Flyers

Final standings: 47W, 23L, 12OTL, 106 points, 1^st Atlantic, 2^nd EC, 3^rd NHL

After coming off a heartbreaking loss to Chicago in the Stanley Cup Final, the Flyers were clearly hungry for more. They made a small number of cap-related moves during the offseason, including signing rookie goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky to an entry level contract: the young goalie proved to be a valuable asset for Philadelphia, as Bob – as the Flyers fans came to know him – made a .915 save percentage and posted a solid 28-12-8 record in his first year with the team. The Flyers were a solid team for most of the year, but after an injury to defenseman Chris Pronger that kept him out of the lineup for the rest of the regular season, the Flyers posted a lacklustre 7-7-6 record through March and April which prevented them from going anywhere near the President’s Trophy, however they did finish with a very high rank and earned their first Atlantic Division title since 2003-04, beating out Pennsylvania rivals the Penguins through the tiebreaking procedure. Come playoff time the Flyers were up against the Buffalo Sabres in the first round: their lacklustre play appeared to follow them into this postseason, but they were able to beat the Sabres in seven games. However, they were up against eventual Stanley Cup Champions the Boston Bruins, who made quick work of them in a sweep.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Final standings: 49W, 25L, 8OTL, 106 points, 2^nd Atlantic, 4^th EC, 4^th NHL

This season marked the beginning of a new era for the Penguins, who moved into the brand new Consol Energy Center this season, leaving the Igloo in which they played their first 43 seasons behind, and their first game in the new building was against none other than their Pennsylvania rivals Philadelphia. The Penguins appeared to be off to a rough start at the beginning of the season, going 6-5-1 in October, but things soon picked up for the Pens as they earned a 15-game points streak (14-0-1) that lasted from November 12^th to December 11^th. To start the new year, Pittsburgh hosted the Capitals as the two teams took part in the annual Winter Classic game on New Year’s Day, but during this game Pens star Sidney Crosby suffered a concussion as a result of an open ice hit, and in a game against Tampa Bay following this, he was on the receiving end of another hit, which further aggravated his concussion and kept him out for the rest of the season. With Evgeni Malkin having also suffered injuries of his own, this led to the Penguins not producing as well offensively and playing fairly average hockey throughout the rest of the year, however they did have at least four good but short streaks, and were eventually able to clinch a playoff berth, just short of the Division title behind the Flyers because of the tie breaking procedure. The Penguins did not get far as they embarrassed themselves in the first round, having a 3 games to 1 lead over Tampa Bay before losing three in a row and losing the series to the Lightning.

Stay tuned for Part 2 as the Northeast Division will be covered.