[lawrence97]

78/79 Season, Gretzky improves the Red Wings from bottom club in NHL to second in division and up to 8th in the league.. Gretzky gets 147(52-95) points in his first season, all the most impressive as he only got his 100th in the 69th game. He puts up 3 pts per game in the last 15! We trade Salming to Stl for 2 nd rnd picks, but accidently turn them into a contendor. They have Mark Howe(23), Salming(27) and Randy Carlyle(22) on the blue line, with Sittler(28), Chouinard (22), Boudrais(35), Tonelli(22) Stoughton(26), Goldsworthy(35. Stl finish 3rd on 101 points. Buffalo are second, with Middleton Simmer Paiement and Rogers doing the damage. they get 110. Minnesota, went on a charge but had a shocking 2nd half of the year to finish 5th with 97 points. They and Stl have a strong team. As for us, we start off relatively slowly, and end up on 153 pts and 550 odd goals, thats a big drop of 100 goals to last year and 10 pts less. Hartsburg replaced Salming, and the kid line of Cloutier Gardner and Lukowich go to 2nd line. We end up with only 4 100 point players, compared to the 8/9 we are used to.

In the playoffs Gretzky points spree leads Det to a shock over Buffalo in 7, where they meet us in the Conference Finals, Gretzky scores 5 goals in the first two games, but its not enough, as we over power their defence, and score 31 goals to their 16 in a sweep. Gretzky ends up with 24 playoff points in 13 games, with 8 in 4 agaisnt us. Stl meet us in the final(with the north stars out in the divisional round suprinsgly) but can only take one game as we win in 5. Now time for us ot make some moves with the 4 teams joining from what would hAve been the WHA. I will have to make some moves to get draft picks so i don't get too shafted by the expansion draft.

in the season 26 players get 100 points, with Cournoyer at 35 still a beast with 194 pts, 15 50 goal scorers! with Bossy, and Maruk of the Islanders combing for 122 goals and 284 points