2009 Season Recap

As we all know the 2009 NHL regular season has come to an end today. Although there were a few surprises, the better teams are still on top of the standings, and the familiar faces of the playoffs are all there.

The biggest surprise of the season in my eyes has to be the emergence of the Central Division in the Western Conference as major contenders. Cha-town went from 10th in the western conference in 08 to 4th in 09. (They are the 3rd best team in the west, but a technicality forces them into the 4th seed) St. Louis went from 14th out of 15 teams to the 6 seed, and Colombus made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history as the 7 seed, moving up from 13th the year before.

The biggest disappointment is a tie for me between the Ottawa Senators (7 seed in east to 11th) and the Montreal Canadiens (1 seed to 8 seed). Montreal was a favorite for the cup early on and has only been on a downslide since.




The 2008-2009 season has had its ups and downs for Red Wings fans, but as we all know, our best hockey is up ahead in the playoffs. The Wings are the 2 seed in the west with 112 points and are pitted against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 1st round. The big addition in the offseason was obviously Marian Hossa, and he lived up to all the expectations us fans had for him. A big physical forward on the 1st line with Datsyuk and Holmstrom, Hossa netted 40 goals to lead the team and also had 31 assist, making his point total at 71 points (3rd on the team). The Individual Stats look something like this

	Player	Team	Pos	GP	G	A	P	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW		OT	S	S%	TOI/G	Sft/G	FO%
1	Pavel Datsyuk	DET	C	81	32	65	97	34	22	11	1	3		0	248	12.9	19:12	25.0	56.0
2	Henrik Zetterberg	DET	L	77	31	42	73	13	36	12	2	5		0	309	10.0	19:52	25.5	53.3
3	Marian Hossa	DET	R	74	40	31	71	27	63	10	0	8		1	307	13.0	17:47	23.4	21.0
4	Johan Franzen	DET	C	71	34	25	59	21	44	11	1	8		1	246	13.8	18:06	23.4	56.0
5	Nicklas Lidstrom	DET	D	78	16	43	59	31	30	10	0	4		1	180	8.9	24:49	28.8	0.0
6	Brian Rafalski	DET	D	78	10	49	59	17	20	5	0	1		0	141	7.1	23:10	27.7	0.0
7	Jiri Hudler	DET	C	82	23	34	57	7	16	6	0	2		0	155	14.8	13:39	18.2	44.8
8	Niklas Kronwall	DET	D	80	6	45	51	2	50	4	0	1		0	121	5.0	22:53	29.3	100.0
9	Mikael Samuelsson	DET	R	81	19	21	40	0	50	7	0	1		0	257	7.4	15:22	20.6	25.0
10	Daniel Cleary	DET	R	74	14	26	40	0	46	3	0	3		0	163	8.6	16:56	23.9	55.4
11	Valtteri Filppula	DET	C	80	12	28	40	9	42	1	0	1		0	129	9.3	16:06	22.9	52.1
12	Tomas Holmstrom	DET	L	53	14	23	37	18	38	8	0	1		0	75	18.7	15:15	20.5	37.5
13	Tomas Kopecky	DET	R	79	6	13	19	-7	46	1	1	2		0	110	5.5	10:24	15.3	45.6
14	Kris Draper	DET	C	79	7	10	17	-13	40	0	1	2		0	93	7.5	11:58	19.4	60.3
15	Brett Lebda	DET	D	65	6	10	16	9	48	0	0	1		0	69	8.7	13:38	18.2	100.0

As you can see, the Red Wings are still the most talented team in the NHL.

So this is the first post on BLSPORTS NHL BLOG. Keep reading because soon i will post my playoff outlook.