Yesterday, I compared the final standings to my pre-season predictions. I also predict the winners of the individual awards. I will not reveal those picks until after the hardware has been given out. However, now that the season is over, allow me to award the trophies to who I feel deserves them.
Hart Memorial Trophy
WINNER: Alexander Ovechkin, Washington (65-47-112)
This is a no-brainer in my mind. Alexander the Great almost single-handedly pulled his team into the playoffs.
RUNNERS UP: Jarome Iginla, Calgary (50-48-98) and Joe Thornton, San Jose (29-67-96)
With Pavel Datsyuk, these two players led the West in scoring, a more impressive feat than leading the East. Both players were easily the most important contributor to their team’s success this season.
James Norris Trophy
WINNER: Niklas Lidstrom, Detroit (10-60-70, +40)
No other defenceman in hockey creates more goals for or prevents more goals against than Lidstrom. Also a no-brainer. This may not be his last Norris either.
RUNNERS UP: Brian Campbell, Buffalo (8-54-62, +8) and Zdeno Chara, Boston (17-34-51, +14)
Campbell is one of the game’s slickest puck carrying defencemen today. And Chara did just about everything on the blueline for the Bruins this season. An honourable mention goes to Sergei Zubov who was challenging Lidstrom until his season-ending injury.
Vezina Trophy
WINNER: Martin Brodeur, New Jersey (2.17, .919, 44 W, 4 SO)
It doesn’t matter that New Jersey keeps losing its best skaters to retirement and free agency; Brodeur continues to carry the team to the playoffs each year. He’ll add another Vezina to his trophy case this June to show for it.
RUNNERS UP: Evgeni Nabokov, San Jose (2.14, .910, 46W, 6 SO) and Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers (2.24, .912, 37 W, 10 SO)
Both of these goaltenders kept their teams in contention while those who were supposed to be goal scorers tried to remember how to put the puck in the net.
Calder Memorial
WINNER: Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks (21-51-72)
Despite a mid-season slump, Kane scored at almost a point-a-game pace. It wasn’t a perfect season, but it was the best rookie season.
RUNNER’S UP: Jonathon Toews, Chicago Blackhawks (24-30-54) and Tobias Enstrom, Atlanta (5-33-38)
Toews is the best player of this class of rookies. Injuries prevented him from claiming the Calder. A lone bright spot in Atlanta this year was the play of Enstrom, who became the de facto number one defenceman by playing four minutes a game more than any other blueliner.
Jack Adams
WINNER: Guy Carbonneau, Montreal (104 pts, 1st in East)
Many commentators expected the Canadiens to finish out of the playoffs. By extracting honest efforts from his entire roster, Carbonneau took this team to the top of the East.
RUNNERS UP: Mike Babcock, Detroit (115 pts, 1st in West) and Joel Quenneville, Colorado (95 pts, 6th in West)
The Red Wings, hockey’s best run club, turned in another dominating season. Their long time rivals, the Avalanch, gave a surprisingly solid effort all season despite lengthy injuries to Sakic, Stastny, and Smyth.
I will ignore the Selke and Lady Byng trophy because the voting rationale for those awards often escapes me.
And now my picks for the first round:
Montreal over Boston in 5 games
Pittsburgh over Ottawa in 5 games
Washington over Philadelphia in 6 games
New York Rangers over New Jersey in 6 games
Detroit over Nashville in 4 games
San Jose over Calgary in 6 games
Minnesota over Colorado in 5 games
Dallas over Anaheim in 7 games
2 comments:
Welly welly welly... I see another clone has given up on the Flames.
That's okay, it's actually better if we have low expectations.
The best comparison to the 2008 Stanley Cup playoff Flames that I can think of, is the 2004 Stanley Cup playoff Flames that went to the finals and WON in game 6 against Tampa.
The Flames in 04 were in 6th spot in the Western Conference with 94 points and played the 3rd place Vancouver Canucks who racked up 101 points.
This year the Flames are up against the 104 point Sharks and they're in 7th place with 94 points. Everyone saw a rollover by the Nucks and they were wrong. The only thing different about this year and 04 is the fact that the monkey predicted the Flames to win and this year the monkey picked San Jose.
I think that Calgary is the picture perfect sleeper team. After the 04-05 lockout the Flames have been targeted as the next Stanley Cup winning team. In the 06 playoffs they were 1st in the NW and 3rd in the Conference and knocked out in round one by the Ducks.
Last year they placed eighth (with more points than in 04 and now) and they were destroyed by Detroit thanks to their awful road record and a serious lack of firepower which was a big no-thanks to Tanguay. This year, their scoring problem is solved and they have the season series on San Jose (3-1) where the Flames scored 12 points on the Sharks' Nabokov who has the best save percentage in the league. That's 4 goals a game.
The Sharks have had problems scoring and I think that if our defense tightens up and Kipper plays well, I think we have a shot at taking it in 6 (if we win game 1 or 2 in San Jose).
Our home record isn't what it was last year, but neither is our road record. If we can manage to split the games in San Jose, I think we'll be sitting pretty. If the series is 2-2 with both wins for each team coming from home ice, and the Flames are heading back to the Shark Tank, I think the Flames run will end in round one.
The first team to win on visitor ice will win it. Thorton shmorton - the guy has nothing on Iginla and I have a good feeling about us coming off of a loose game against Vancouver where pretty goals came from two third-line players and key first-liners.
Go Flames Go!
And BTW, I thought you might want to increase your traffic by adding your site to some aggregators (it's always nice to know that others are reading your work).
MLB blog aggregator (I think):
http://mlb.mlb.com/blogs/index.jsp
Ontario blogs (and other provincial blogs):
http://ontarioblogs.myblahg.com/
Hockey Blogs (and other sports):
http://hockeyblogs.org/about.php
And, of course, Progressive Bloggers (my fave):
http://progressivebloggers.ca
Just a thought if you wanted to add a little more traffic.
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