For the second straight season the Avs miss the playoffs. Though the team played a bit better down the stretch we fall a bit short and only finish with a slightly better record than the prior season.
There were signs of maturation among some of our young players (as well as decline for some of our former stars like
Brian Hughes and
Sherwood Sharp) but now things need to start to come together on the ice and relationships need to solidify, line chemistry needs to build, and we probably need one of our talented but under-performing Goalies to step up and seize the primary starters role (hopefully the 20-year old Loren
Sweeney).
A basic look at the Avs season:
And the final standings:
Award winners:
In the playoffs, the two-time reigning champs, the Calgary Flames, were bounced by the upstart Arizona Coyotes in the first round. The St. Louis Blues, who won the President's Cup, advanced to the Western Conference Finals before losing to the Chicago Black Hawks, as always led by superstar LW Fletcher Patton and 2-time Vezina winning Goalie Mads Christensen. Chicago barely got by the team with the second best record in the NHL, the Vancouver Canucks, in a 7-game 1st round series, needed another 7 games to defeat Arizona, and then finally won in 7 against Vancouver to go on to the Stanley Cup Championship Series. Where, sure enough, they won in 7 games over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Chicago becomes the first non-Canadian team to win the Cup in this save thus far.
