Before we start the new NHL Season, and yes I am excited for
it, let us recap what has happened in the last year:
To start with we have the retirement of Marek Malik, which
many of you are saying, who? Malik is
someone I have watched as he was with the Carolina Hurricanes and then bounced
from team to team. But why I bring up
his name in all of this is because he famously ended the longest shoot out in
an NHL game. And he did it so amazingly,
you also have to watch his reaction after the goal, that you have to watch,
here is the video again:
Insert video
Keep in mind this was years before anyone else was doing it
in games or getting much press over it.
Other notes in this game, a very young Henrik Lundqvist is in net for
the NYR. So we have to say farewell to
Mr. Malik. I hope retirement treats you
well and you enjoy it as much or more as you did the game itself.
As of this writing Martin Brodeur has not signed with any
team, and I hope he doesn't either. Not
that I don’t want him to play again, I just would like him to end with the team
that not only drafted him, but he played his entire career. It is so rare for that to happen, let alone
the stats he was able to put up. In my
mind he is the best goaltender of all time.
For Brodeur to put up the numbers that he did consistently throughout
his career is one factor, but he was a guy who was always calm, tough to raddle
while in the net. His goaltending style
was what could be considered a little unorthodox, but it was more of a standup
style that did have some butterfly with it.
Any way you look at it, it made him and the Devils very successful. I know some will say his records are a little
screwed because the NHL got rid of ties, but if you also consider he lost
almost 2 full seasons of play over his career because of lockouts (94, 2004-5,
2012), so if you look at his stats, his stats would be very simlar. For the Shutouts people can say, well the
Devils played a defensive style and that is why he got all of those
shutouts. Well, other teams have tried
to do that, and the goalies there didn’t put up his numbers or were that
successful. You have to be good to do what
he did. If I ever had to pick a team, he
would be my goaltender, hands down. Yes
a first time Hall of Fame ballot, no questions asked.
The 2013-14 season was a great season and it didn't seem to
have any stretches where teams were going through the motions. It was great to see and really kept me
engaged all year long. The stadium
series, at first I thought was wrong, but after all is said and done, was
really great. I do think long term this
is something good. It is a way to engage
more fans to the game who normally wouldn't go.
I don’t think 6 per year is good, but more than one is a must and allow
markets that won’t get the Winter Classic a chance to reward their fans, keep
the Winter Classic something that is special where you can get the snow and the
feeling of playing on a pond. I could
go on and on about the regular season, but I really want to discuss the
playoffs, but I could go without mentioning the above.
Now on to the playoffs.
I have to say I love the new format of the playoffs. The first thing you
can stop hearing people complain about is that there is a bad team in the
playoffs and several good ones not in it (i.e. Southleast division). This time all you heard is man, X and Y
teams didn’t make it, but which team do you take out. That is what the playoffs should be. I like that you can have some real rivalries
within divisions continue in the playoffs.
This takes me back to the 80’s where you would have literally everyone
making the playoffs and the 1 vs 4 was almost always 1 winning, but 4 would
sometime have the number and make it extremely tough on 1. Montreal vs. Quebec as a classic one to see,
or the Whalers making it hard for someone.
You had teams with a true hatred for one another, the game hasn’t seen
that since the 80’s, so it is going to be some great stuff to see in the
future.
As for the matchups in round one, I was really pulling for
the Blue Jackets over the Pens, but it just didn’t happen. It was a great series with the Blue Jackets
getting their first win in the playoffs and first overtime win in the
playoffs. To see them win their first
game like that I kind of think of the 1980 US Olympic team winning over Russia,
it kind of had that feeling for me. Too
bad they didn’t win the series. The
Flyers and Rangers series was like the old days, they just hated each other and
played tough, I was just surprised the Rangers went as far as they did, I
thought the winner of that series would be too beat-up to move on, but they
proved me wrong. Montreal over Tampa was
a real surprise for me, I did not expect a sweep, but if Tampa had Bishop, it
would have been a different series. Not
to say Lindback was the problem, teams play differently in front of different
goaltenders, and the team didn’t play with confidence with Lindback in there. Boston and Detroit series was as I expected,
I wasn’t expecting Detroit to do much in this series, they struggled to make
the playoffs and I think were just too spent once you had to turn up their
game. In the west, Chicago and St. Louis
was a tough, physical series. I just
think St. Louis is missing that X factor to get them over the hump. Ducks and Dallas was a wild series. Dallas played well, but way over their head,
but good on them for making sure the Ducks actually show up and play. The Avalanche and Minnesota series was one I
did not expect. I though The Ave’s were
going to really go far in the playoffs, but they fell short. Good on the Wild to play hard and win that
series. San Jose and LA was a great
series. You had so many things happen in
this thing, that you just don’t see.
Each team winning 3 in a row, a starting goaltender who was on the bench
being the best cheerleader for the team after being pulled, but in the end the
better team came out on top. Sadly, I
was wanting SJ to make it to the finals.
I think a few of those guys just get beat up every year, but it might be
true. I think last year was the year for
the Sharks, I don’t see them being as strong going forward.
The second round was just as good if not better than the
first. The Pitt-NYR series was good, but
I think the Rangers were the better team and more complete team. The Minn-Chi series was more of a challenge
for the Hawks then they expected, but the Hawks were able to get the job done
and make sure they didn’t allow Minn life or they could have ended up like
Colorado. The Bruins-Habs series was by
far the best series in the East for the playoffs. You had everything in there, hatred, ugliness
and amazing goals. I still get goose
bumps just thinking about that series.
The last series of the second round was Ducks and Kings. This was a very good series to watch, you had
a Ducks team that was trying to give the Kings a run for the money, but LA just
was the better team. In the end it was a
bit sad to see Teemu Selanne play his last game. Cudo’s to the Kings for the class they showed
in recognizing Selanne in that last game and saluting him. One of the many things that makes me love the
game. Selanne was a great player and
amazing to watch, he will be missed in the game.
Conf finals….in the East you have NYR and Montreal. An original 6 series matchup. This was going to be an unreal series and one
that could be epic, but early on Carey Price went down with an injury and
Montreal could not hold on. They did
well, but Price was the reason why they were there, so the loss of him, was
just too much. I don’t know if Montreal
would have won the series with him in, but I would have loved to have seen that
series played. In the west you had the
Hawks and Kings, basically the 2 best teams in the game right now going at
it. In my opinion (and I said this to my
wife at the time) this was for the cup (in the end I was right). I did everything I could to watch every one
of these games, sometimes it was harder than others, but it was so worth
it.
The Stanley Cup Finals….LA vs. NYR. The NHL brass was so in love with this final,
the 2 largest TV markets in the US. How
could anyone not love it. From the business
of the game, it was a huge success. For
the game itself, the series seemed closer than it was. The Kings were just far better than the
Rangers were. The Rangers didn’t have
the defensive depth to match LA.
Lundqvist really played well and kept the Rangers in games they should
not have been in. But he and the Rangers
just couldn’t handle the Kings….no one could, which is why they won the
cup. Congrats to the Kings!
So that is my opinion/recap of the last season, I didn’t
touch on the off season, that might be another article, might not. So now on to the this season, lets drop the
puck and get going!!
Who do you think will win the Cup this year and why?
