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Both teams won their opening-round series in five games. While the Blues erased their 10-year series-winning playoff drought in impressive fashion by dispatching the San Jose Sharks, the 8th-seeded Kings pulled off the Stanley Cup playoff’s biggest upset by eliminating the top-seeded and President’s Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks.
I continue my analysis of the 1st round Stanley Cup playoff series by analyzing the playoff series between the St. Louis Blues and the San Jose Sharks.
The St. Louis Blues became the surprise team of the regular season, particularly after they hired Ken Hitchcock after a 6-7-0 start and catapulted themselves to the one of the top records in the National Hockey League (NHL). Hitchcock’s coaching efforts transformed the Blues from a disappointing team to one that shut down opponents with a gritty, defense-first, two-way style of play and stellar goaltending with the league-leading goalie tandem of Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliot.
The St. Louis Blues have ascended to the top of both the Western Conference and NHL rankings, a feat more remarkable considering their struggles at the beginning of the season and during the prior two disappointing seasons. While the Blues possess a solid mix of gritty veterans and young players, their success has directly been related to a sole personnel move: the hiring of head coach Ken Hitchcock.
The Blues started the 2011-2012 season with a quite unremarkable 6-7-0 record and were mired in a funk of sub-mediocrity, having missed the playoffs for the prior two seasons after finally returning to the playoffs in 2009. In the process, the Blues fired Andy Murray in the middle of the 2009-2010 season then had Davis Payne coach the team for the remainder of the season and throughout the season that followed.
Everyone is talking about the era of the super-conferences in college football, but it has now officially happened in hockey first.
The Atlanta Thrashers becoming the Winnipeg Jets 2.0 prompted the NHL to make some realignment changes. And instead of just tweaking the Southeast Division, cuz you can’t have Winnipeg, especially with their lovely nighttime midseason temperatures in the Southeast, Gary Bettman wen complete overhaul.
Here’s what we had in our plan back in May
On November 6, 2011, Ken Hitchcock was announced as the new head coach of the St. Louis Blues. Hitchcock replaced Davis Payne as head coach, a very curious move on many fronts. While the Blues struggled a bit out of the gate, this season with a 6-7-0 record, Payne had an overall record of 67-55-15, a record Hitchcock’s former employer and division rival Columbus Blue Jackets would have cooed over, they of the 5-13-2 record and no imminent changes to speak of.
However, these were the St. Louis Blues, a team who had a legacy of being a regular Stanley Cup playoff participant – in fact, possessors of a 24-year streak of consecutive playoff appearances (1980-2004) – the Blues made the playoffs only once in the following six seasons and urgency was at a premium.
Enter Ken Hitchcock. Hitchcock was plucked by Blues’ General Manager (GM) Doug Armstrong, who was the Assistant GM when Hitchcock coached the Stars to a Stanley Cup title in 1999. As Hitchcock struggled to find a head coaching position since being fired by the Blue Jackets in February, 2010, many wondered if perhaps the window was closing for the future Hall-of-Fame head coach, a coach who could transform teams to greater heights only to, over time, wear out his welcome with his players.
While the NHL season is still young, the NHL Central Division is starting to show some separation between the playoff-contending teams and those slated for next June’s NHL Entry Draft lottery.
With that, here is a summary of the NHL Central Division for the first four weeks of the season (in order of the current Central Division standings):
As the Columbus Blue Jackets are positioning themselves in 242 days for either top amateur prospects Nail Kabulov or Filip Forsberg in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, and as I primarily cover the Blue Jackets, I am left with little to write about in a positive manner.
Therefore, as part of a continuing series, here is a summary of the NHL Central Division for the first two weeks of the season (in order of the current Central Division standings):
The 2011-12 NHL season is already under way, and the action on the ice is already heating up. After a summer filled with lots of on and off ice movement, but also much tragedy, the hockey world looks towards a new quest toward Lord Stanley’s Cup. How do the teams in each division compare to one another? Who will be the big fantasy players this season? We take a division by division look at the 2011-12 NHL season. Let’s take a look at the Northwest Division after the jump.
This is the third year Ed Cmar has offered predictions as to how the Western Conference will sort out. But unlike how he assessed the predicted outcomes in prior seasons by determining who would be in (the playoffs), who would be out of playoff consideration and who would be on the fringe, he’s modified my predictions by where I believe each team will place, overall.
While this changed method is subject to more error, when it comes to the NHL and its playoffs, your seeding/position doesn’t matter.
With that, here are my predictions (in ascending order, from 1st to 15th):
Sad news from Russia, where reports say a plane carrying KHL team HC Lokomotiv Yaroslavl crashed shortly after takeoff, killing dozens. At this moment, it’s believe that 36 of the 37 players on the plane were killed, 43 people killed in total, and two people surviving with what is described as “grave” injuries. The plane went down shortly after takeoff from Yaroslavl, but weather is not believed to be a factor. For more information on the tragedy, continue after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
The Winnipeg Jets ended months of speculation of Tuesday morning, and officially unveiled their new home and away jerseys to be worn this season. At a Canadian Air Force base in Winnipeg, the team used military personnel, actual jets, and a few Jets players to debut their new sweaters to the world. Just like the logo, the new Winnipeg Jets will look a lot different than the original Jets did back in the day. To see what the new jerseys look like, continue after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
NEW JERSEYS TO BE UNVEILED SEPTEMBER 6
The Winnipeg Jets have announced that they will unveil their new jerseys at a news conference on Tuesday, September 6. The unveiling will be at 11:00 am in Winnipeg at the Department of National Defense 17 Wing base. The jerseys will make their unveiling just days before the Jets hold their prospect camp, and will see their first game action during the Jets’ preseason schedule. For more about the jersey unveiling, including different designs floating around the internet, as well as the fake Winnipeg Jets jerseys seized recently, click after the jump.
Bryan Vickroy
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