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The Aftermath – 2008 Edition: Part 4

July 12, 2008   wildwing64   No comments

For the final three parts of the Aftermath series, the Western Conference will be covered, starting with the Central Division.

Chicago Blackhawks

Final standings: 40W, 34L, 8OTL, 88 points, 3rd Central, 10th Western Conference, 20th NHL

The Chicago Blackhawks began the season mourning the loss of long-time owner Bill Wirtz, who died on September 26th, 2007; he was succeeded by his younger son, Rocky Wirtz, who has since sought to make big, positive changes to the team. His statement was reflected by the fact that the Hawks had their first winning season since 2001-02, winning nine more games than in 2006-07, and losing eight less. They also made a big improvement in the overall league standings, by jumping up from 26th last season to 20th this year. However, the Blackhawks once again were unable to make the playoffs for the fifth straight season, but the future is looking brighter for this franchise.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Final standings: 34W, 36L, 12OTL, 80 points, 4th Central, 13th Western Conference, 25th NHL

The 2007-08 campaign for the Columbus Blue Jackets saw them attempt to make the playoffs for the first time in team history (and fail). Columbus also made a change in management with a new General Manager, Scott Howson, replacing Doug MacLean. The Jackets had a fairly good start in October, going 7-3-1, but afterwards the team’s usual habit of suffering from a bad season began to kick in. What didn’t help was that the team’s number one goalie Pascal LeClaire was injured in March, and the team lost the majority of their final 16 games, going 4-9-3, and thus they missed the playoffs once again. A positive thing for the team to look back on is that their mostly better play resulted in them having the most successful season record in franchise history, earning at least 80 points for the first time.

Detroit Red Wings

Final standings: 54W, 21L, 7OTL, 115 points, 1st Central, 1st Western Conference, 1st NHL

After making it only as far as the Conference Finals last year, the Detroit Red Wings came right back and went all the way, defeating Nashville, Colorado and Dallas in the first three rounds and then winning in the Stanley Cup Final in six games against Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins, making it the second time the Wings have won the Cup this decade. The Red Wings also won the Presidents’ Trophy for the sixth time: their Cup championship made it the seventh time that a team has won the Stanley Cup after winning the Presidents’ Trophy, a rare occurrence considering that the trophy has been around for 22 years, and some hockey fans consider it to be cursed. Not much else can be said about Detroit for this year, although the only bad time of the year, which was particularly bad, happened in February, when the Wings went into an eleven game slump, in which they went 1-7-3.

Nashville Predators

Final standings: 41W, 32L, 9OTL, 91 points, 2nd Central, 8th Western Conference, 17th NHL

The 2007-08 Nashville Predators season began with a new owner. After Jim Balsillie failed in his attempt to buy the franchise from Craig Leipold, and instead the team was sold to a group led by local businessman David Freeman. The team had a bad start in October when after their first two games they went into a six game losing streak. They did better in November, and then went on another slump in December, when they lost 9 out of 15 games. They played fairly good hockey for the rest of the season, and beat out Edmonton, Chicago and Vancouver in clinching the number 8 spot in the West. Naturally, as the number 8 seed, they went into the first round as the underdogs, and lost to division rivals the Detroit Red Wings in six games.

St. Louis Blues

Final standings: 33W, 36L, 13OTL, 79 points, 5th Central, 14th Western Conference, 27th NHL

The St. Louis Blues started off by introducing their new mascot, Louie, a blue bear with sunglasses. He was named following a ‘name the mascot’ contest that the team held. The Blues performed fairly well early on in the season, but after November they suddenly went downhill as they lost the majority of their games for the rest of the season. They failed to qualify for the playoffs for the third straight season, and had a worse season than in 2006-07. Despite all this, the team saw a massive increase in attendance, filling approximately 92% of their capacity, whereas last year they only filled about 59%.

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

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The Aftermath – 2008 Edition: Part 1

June 10, 2008   wildwing64   No comments

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.

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Put your hands up… For Detroit.

June 05, 2008   kevkev   No comments

I hate that track by Freddie Le Grand, but it seems to be fitting for this article.

Epic Fail

I guess a congratulations are in order to Detroit, who once again have destroyed pretty much any team that dared step in their path on the road to victory.

For the last season, this team had ruled the division, striking fear into any rival teams fan base, who would always have to look on the brighter side, at statistics, data to make them feel confident in their team winning. For a team that lost just 21 games last season however, supporting the Red Wings was most likely just a usual, yup – we can do it.

The Penguins worked hard, but obviously their power was no match for the cannons of Detroit, losing epically in the first game of the final series and pulling themselves up from the rubble and conquering them in the third. An intense set of OT periods in the fifth game gave a final glimmer of hope to the Pens, but it was not to happen, and after a great attempt, they fell like the 10 other teams did before them.

All in all, its been an interesting series, with the previous champions, Anaheim falling early on, the underdogs of Dallas finally going beyond series one and the collapse of Colorado to Detroit. We will be writing a more detailed report on the ups, the downs and what went on this year in another article, so be sure to stay set for that.

And lastly, for the second time in this century, and millennium the cup will be headed to the crumbling Motor City – I suppose if its any solace for the people of Detroit, their city can defiantly be regarded as one of the great hockey cities of America.

Im KevKev, and if your a Detroit fan, and the hangover is finally lifting, thank you for joining us.

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