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. Part 6, the final part of the series, will finalise coverage of the Western Conference with the Pacific Division.
Anaheim Ducks
Final standings: 47W, 30L, 5OTL, 99 points, 2nd Pacific, 4th Western Conference, 9th NHL
With Captain Scott Niedermayer retiring after the Ducks’ disappointing 2009-10 campaign, the team needed to rebuild its defence: they managed to snag Cam Fowler 12th overall at the Draft, and then immediately signed him to an entry level contract for the upcoming season. As usual, Anaheim had a rough flight path ahead of them as the start of their 2010-11 season was once again lacklustre: but they finally took off in November, playing more consistently until a six game winless streak. At times the Ducks were plagued by a number of lengthy injuries to key players including Teemu Selanne, Ryan Getzlaf, even rookie Cam Fowler; and most notably goaltender Jonas Hiller who suffered from a severe case of Vertigo following the NHL All Star game, which forced him to sit out for pretty much the rest of the season trying to recover. Backup Curtis McElhinney just wasn’t a good enough replacement, so Anaheim traded him and acquired Dan Ellis from the Tampa Bay Lightning before the trade deadline. The Ducks also signed Ray Emery, who would soon play his first NHL game in a whole year, after recovering from hip surgery. Emery and Ellis made up for Hiller’s absence as they both helped the Ducks on their way to clinching a playoff berth in game 81, before bumping up to 4th in the Western Standings. The Ducks were matched up against the Nashville Predators, but their goalie situation along with a top-heavy lineup and a lacklustre third line was taken advantage of by Nashville, ultimately leading to Anaheim’s defeat in six games.
Dallas Stars
Final standings: 42W, 29L, 11OTL, 95 points, 5th Pacific, 9th Western Conference, 16th NHL
The 2010 offseason marked the end of an era for the Dallas Stars as their 20-year franchise face Mike Modano, after pondering retirement, was not re-signed and he joined the Red Wings. Veteran goalie Marty Turco was also not re-signed, and he instead went to play for Chicago. After signing Adam Burish and goalie Andrew Raycroft to serve as a backup to Kari Lehtonen, the Stars got off to a strong start compared to other teams in the West and by the end of December had a comfortable 22-13-4 record, which was made even better by their last game of January as they improved to 30-15-5, and from 48 points to 65 over the eleven game span. Following the All Star game, Dallas suddenly became worse and went into a nasty ten game skid; not much was done to resolve this issue as the Stars were one of the least active teams before the trade deadline, sending forward James Neal and defenseman Matt Niskanen to Pittsburgh in exchange for d-man Alex Goligoski. After a horrendous February the Stars improved and much like other Western Conference teams were now making their final playoff push. Over March and February they earned a 9-5-5 record before their final game of the season, in which they were eliminated after a loss to Minnesota. Their record of 95 points however tied the record set by Colorado in 2006-07 for the team with the highest point total that failed to qualify for the playoffs.
Los Angeles Kings
Final standings: 46W, 30L, 6OTL, 98 points, 4th Pacific, 7th Western Conference, 12th NHL
After making the playoffs for the first time since 2002 last season, the Kings aimed to do so again and in the offseason hoped to bolster their lineup, and were in talks with Ilya Kovalchuk until he ultimately chose to sign with the Devils. Los Angeles then signed veteran Willie Mitchell – who would be paired up with Drew Doughty on defence – and forward Alexei Ponikarovsky. At the start of the season the Kings ruled the standings as they got off to a strong start with a 12-3-0 record over their first fifteen games, however this early success wouldn’t last long as they then went into an eight game skid (1-7-0). This was shortly followed by a reasonably strong twelve game stretch of 9-2-1 in December which was again followed by a twelve game skid in which the Kings only won two games. At this point the Kings had an uncomfortably inconsistent record which saw them earn just more than a point-per-game record, yet despite this they didn’t do a whole lot to their roster to rectify this issue – however, LA did continue onwards with a stronger, more consistently winning record for the rest of the season, and before the trade deadline acquired Dustin Penner from the Oilers in hopes of making the team stronger down the stretch and in the postseason. The Kings hoped to finish with a higher position in the standings but their efforts were thwarted by both the Sharks and Ducks in the final games this season, and thus LA had to settle for 7th instead. In the quarterfinals the Kings were matched up against state rivals San Jose in only the third ever all-California playoff series, but their postseason run came to an early end as the Sharks finished them off in six.
Phoenix Coyotes
Final standings: 43W, 26L, 13OTL, 99 points, 3rd Pacific, 6th Western Conference, 11th NHL
After a disappointing yet hardly surprising loss to Detroit in last year’s quarterfinals, the Coyotes, happy with the roster as it was, made no apparent changes and this season were one of the teams that headed over to Europe for the NHL Premiere event, where they first played in an exhibition game against Dinamo Riga in Latvia, and then opened their season against the Boston Bruins in Prague, winning 5-2 in the first game and then losing 3-0 in the second game, taking home just the two points. Their return home wasn’t great as they entered a twelve game slump, having only 13 points after their first 14 games, but this was followed by a seven game win streak in November. The Coyotes had a number of these rough patches throughout their season along with some strong performances to make up for that, and eventually managed to overtake division rivals Los Angeles in the final playoff standings. However for the second year in a row in the first round they were faced against the Red Wings, who trampled over the Coyotes and swept them in four. As the Coyotes have been the favourite subject of much relocation discussion, this was presumed to be their final time on the ice before they moved back to their original city of Winnipeg: however, that was not to be as it was instead the Atlanta Thrashers who were purchased and relocated to become the new Winnipeg Jets.
San Jose Sharks
Final standings: 48W, 25L, 9OTL, 105 points, 1st Pacific, 2nd Western Conference, 5th NHL
After a disappointing defeat to the eventual champion Blackhawks in last year’s Conference Final, the San Jose Sharks then saw a number of changes as team captain Rob Blake retired, and goalie Evgeni Nabokov was not signed to a new contract. Familiar faces such as Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski were signed to new deals, and the Sharks would see a new face as their starting goaltender in Antti Niemi, who won the Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks last year. San Jose were one of the few teams to take part in this year’s NHL Premiere event, with an exhibition game in Germany against Adler Mannheim, and then a pair of games against the Columbus Blue Jackets in Stockholm (the latter of these two being the first NHL game of two of our three writers, yay!): San Jose won the first game 3-2 and lost the second 3-2 in OT, taking three out of a possible four points home with them. They got off to a rocky start, but soon the Sharks picked up and would yet again be one of the best teams in the West, and after November had a consistently strong record save for a six game losing streak in January. The Sharks had no trouble getting to the playoffs, and earned both their fourth consecutive Division title and their seventh consecutive playoff appearance. The quarterfinals saw them participate in only the third ever all-California series against Los Angeles, and the Sharks beat the Kings in six games. In the next round they played against the Red Wings: San Jose managed to lose three in a row after taking the first three games in the series, but luckily won in game seven. The Sharks were then in their second consecutive – and third ever- Conference Finals appearance against the Vancouver Canucks, but the Wings had clearly worn the Sharks out as the Canucks made short work of them in five.
That’s it for the Aftermath 2011 Edition, hope you enjoyed reading it.
