What are your memories of the 2008-2009 season?

[Sticks and Pucks]

My thoughts are that little did we know at the time 2008-2009 was the peak of hockey since the 04-05 lockout. Scoring was high and Ovechkin and Malkin were both scoring at their peak levels (little did we know at the time). It was a time when the Ovechkin/Crosby/Malkin rivalries were at an all time high with their seven game series against each other. Ovechkin won the Hart, Malkin won the Conn Smythe. The Penguins had their first Cup, knocking off the defending champion Red Wings. At the time, I thought that the Washington-Pittsburgh rivalry would become greater in the years to come, it did not really.

Out west, San Jose had won the President's Trophy and everyone thought it was finally their year after a few years of playoff disappointments. It was thought that Thornton and Marleau could finally lead the team to a Cup. I'll never forget their hard fought first round playoff loss against the Ducks. It was the year where Ryan Getzlaf really broke out too. I remember Thornton and Getzlaf going head to head during that playoff series. It was that series where Thornton and Marleau really earned the choker label.

Chicago also finally made the playoffs for the first time in a while and their young core made it all the way to the WCF. Little did we know at the time, this was the beginning of a dynasty for the next decade. At the time, I'm sure everyone thought Pittsburgh or Washington would be the next dynasty.

What are your memories of the 2008-2009 season? Do you agree that this was the peak of hockey since the 04-05 lockout?

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[maroon 6]

As a Canucks fan, the 2008-2009 season was the start of our cup window and things were looking really good. The Sedins were ppg and no one could have predicted that a Sedin would win the Art Ross and Hart over Ovechkin and Crosby the very next season. Roberto Luongo was still in his prime. We actually had good defence. It was also the break out season for some of our young players that would become a part of our core in Ryan Kesler, Alex Edler and Alex Burrows.

It was actually a good time to be a Canucks fan lol.

 

[GordieHowsUrBreath]

My thoughts are that little did we know at the time 2008-2009 was the peak of hockey since the 04-05 lockout. Scoring was high and Ovechkin and Malkin were both scoring at their peak levels (little did we know at the time). It was a time when the Ovechkin/Crosby/Malkin rivalries were at an all time high with their seven game series against each other. Ovechkin won the Hart, Malkin won the Conn Smythe. The Penguins had their first Cup, knocking off the defending champion Red Wings. At the time, I thought that the Washington-Pittsburgh rivalry would become greater in the years to come, it did not really.

Out west, San Jose had won the President's Trophy and everyone thought it was finally their year after a few years of playoff disappointments. It was thought that Thornton and Marleau could finally lead the team to a Cup. I'll never forget their hard fought first round playoff loss against the Ducks. It was the year where Ryan Getzlaf really broke out too. I remember Thornton and Getzlaf going head to head during that playoff series. It was that series where Thornton and Marleau really earned the choker label.

Chicago also finally made the playoffs for the first time in a while and their young core made it all the way to the WCF. Little did we know at the time, this was the beginning of a dynasty for the next decade. At the time, I'm sure everyone thought Pittsburgh or Washington would be the next dynasty.

What are your memories of the 2008-2009 season? Do you agree that this was the peak of hockey since the 04-05 lockout?

the hawks dynasty lasted much less than a decade, the pens didn't become a dynasty then but they could be one with a win this or next year

i never imagined it would take 7 years to win another cup, i didn't think it would take 7 years to play the caps again in the playoffs, i think it's been a great rivalry both playoff series were highly competitive, i would've thought the caps would have a cup by now

2009 was arguably the best year imo being out of the playoffs, firing the coach, hiring bylsma and going on a big run to make the playoffs, best ending ever winning in game 7 and getting revenge from the previous year

 

[Terry Yake]

weird season for the ducks

team started off slow, picked up some D pieces like ryan whitney and jamies wisniewski at the deadline, and then got hot to finish 8th and sneak into the playoffs. then they beat #1 seed SJ before losing in 7 to DET. i still believe that would have defeated CHI and advanced to the SCF if they had beaten DET

trading kunitz for ryan whitney paid off that season but man was it an awful trade looking back now. easily one of the worst in ducks history

that year was also getzlaf's coming out party and put him among the league's top 10 C's

 

[NoMessi]

Malkin had more playoff points than anyone not named Gretzky, Lemieux and Coffey that year.

 

[67Leafs67]

The beginning of the Burke era in Toronto. We traded away Steen and Colaiacovo for Stempniak, which looked bad then, and worse now. There was optimism in Leafs Nation with Burke coming in, but he never delivered on the hype. We had a really bad season, ending up drafting Kadri at 7th overall that June. It was a fun season though. CuJo returned and had one really good game against Washington that was memorable. Grabovski and Kulemin both had pretty good rookie seasons, and were fun to watch on a line with Hagman. John Mitchell had a fun night in November against the Rangers in a 5-2 win. But our top nine was Blake - Moore - Stempniak, Ponikarovsky - Stajan - Antropov, Kulemin - Grabovski - Hagman. Defense and goaltending were awful. I remember we offloaded Moore and Antropov at the deadline, and picked up Gerber off of waivers. We ended up finishing the season at about .500 after that, and ended up picking lower than we could have. Luke Schenn was a big deal too. I never liked him, but a lot of Leafs fans loved the physicality he brought to the blueline. I was really glad when he got JvR for him, that was an amazing deal. Pretty mundane year for the Leafs though, near the beginning of their dry spell. That awkward year in between the Sundin teams and the Kessel teams.

 

[justafan22]

It was the first season where I became a true hockey fan.

The blackhawks rise and series vs Vancouver was great.

But the pens/caps series and the peak (or at least close to it) of ovi/sid was great theatre. Not to mention a stunning cup finals team.

 

[hitman9172]

Vividly remember the Penguins’ Stanley Cup run, especially the series against the Capitals and game 7 of the finals against Detroit (especially Fleury with that huge save in the dying seconds.

Also vividly remember the Canucks (unexpectedly, at least to me) bowing out to a young up-and-coming Blackhawks team in the playoffs.

Also remember going to watch a Canucks vs Blues game live at Rogers Arena in March, during my high school spring break.

 

[HisIceness]

-Getting off to a decent start to begin the season. Beat Florida at home to get a little revenge from the previous seasons finale in which the playoffs were on the line, and the come-from-behind win at Tampa.

-Firing Laviolette in December and re-hiring Maurice. Was furious about this although I could sense it was coming, unfortunately that Florida finale in April 2008 was the beginning of the end.

-Beating San Jose at their place in OT, I think at that time the Sharks had 1 or 2 home losses? This was before the All-Star break IIRC

-The 9 game winning streak late in the year that was capped off with Anton Babchuks OT winner against Pittsburgh securing a playoff bid.

-0.2 seconds game, and Jussi Jokinens run of brilliance.

-'Shock at the Rock'

-Scott Walkers game 7 OT winner

:

-Ovechkin and Crosbys budding rivalry

-Blue Jackets make the playoffs for the first time

-San Joses excellent regular season and playoff disappointment

-Blackhawks return from the dead

-Brodeur passes Roy in wins

-Tortorella hired by the Rangers, and the incident with the Captials fan behind the bench during the playoffs.

 

[LeafsNation75]

The beginning of the Burke era in Toronto. We traded away Steen and Colaiacovo for Stempniak, which looked bad then, and worse now. There was optimism in Leafs Nation with Burke coming in, but he never delivered on the hype. We had a really bad season, ending up drafting Kadri at 7th overall that June. It was a fun season though. CuJo returned and had one really good game against Washington that was memorable. Grabovski and Kulemin both had pretty good rookie seasons, and were fun to watch on a line with Hagman. John Mitchell had a fun night in November against the Rangers in a 5-2 win. But our top nine was Blake - Moore - Stempniak, Ponikarovsky - Stajan - Antropov, Kulemin - Grabovski - Hagman. Defense and goaltending were awful. I remember we offloaded Moore and Antropov at the deadline, and picked up Gerber off of waivers. We ended up finishing the season at about .500 after that, and ended up picking lower than we could have. Luke Schenn was a big deal too. I never liked him, but a lot of Leafs fans loved the physicality he brought to the blueline. I was really glad when he got JvR for him, that was an amazing deal. Pretty mundane year for the Leafs though, near the beginning of their dry spell. That awkward year in between the Sundin teams and the Kessel teams.

Technically Steen and Colaiacovo were traded by Cliff Fletcher a few days before they hired Burke.

Now with the benefit of hindsight Kadri turned out to be a great 1st round pick for them, however I remember everyone wanted them to be in position to select Brayden Schenn. Maybe having Luke had a lot to do with that, however you got to think without getting Gerber they finish in the bottom 5 of the standings and end up with the 5th pick in 2009 and select Schenn instead over Kadri.

 

[Sadekuuro]

Osgood off his angle... twice

 

[CharlestownChiefsESC]

As a RANGER fan it wasn't a good season compared to the previous one. In 07-08 we had a team full of stars and were 1 of the best teams in the east, in the summer of 08 we rebuilt the team sort of. We let Jagr walk due to money disputes as well as the fact that he finally slowed down the previous year, we let Shanahan walk as he was finally showing his age as well, Sean Avery was let go as well to Dallas. Before July 1 we made a trade with Columbus that sent Fedor Tyutin and Christain Backman fir Nikolai Zherdev and Dan Fritsche. I remember Zherdev being heralded as a young explosive scorer who would replace Jagr and Shanahan. When free agency started we brought in Markus Naslund to add more scoring and we finally got who we thought was a number 1 dman in Wade Redden. On top of all of these acquisitions Marian Hossa and Mats Sundin's names were thrown around however neither came to fruition. Despite all of these massive changes a new team first philosophy was sold to the fans as these acquisitions along with Scott Gomez and Chris Drury , and young players ready to take the next step such as Brandon Dubinsky,Ryan Callahan,Marc Staal, and Dan Girardi would make this team harder to play against instead of relying on 2 players such as Jagr and Shanahan. There was even rumbling that Shanahan would come back in a reduced role before the season too, also never happened.

The team started the season off in Europe winning a preseason trophy and swept through the first 2 regular season games over there vs Tampa. The team first concept was starting to show as scoring came from all over Markus Naslund was showing how good his experience was and Brandon Dubinsky was even showing he was ready to take the next step. When the team returned to North America they kept rolling and were playing first place hockey throughout November. The only sour spot being highly touted prospect Alexei Cherepanov passing away in Russia. In early November there apparently was a botched deal for struggling rookie Steven Stamkos, a deal that at the time looked bad but now I would have done in a heartbeat. AS November turned into December and then January the team kept playing above .500 hockey and the team first concept still rang true. Despite all of this in late December the cracks started to show. There were 2 rumored deals on the table that would have seen the team sign ufa Mats Sundin and then trade Scott Gomez to Atlanta for Iliya Kovalchuk. Neither deal ever happened and by late January the team was sinking badly. While all of this was happening the Devils and Penguins (both teams I hate lol) were turning their seasons around and passed us. The free fall continued through February which culminated in Tom Renney being fired and replaced with John Tortorella.

When Torts took over the team slowly started to turn around. At the deadline the team added some more pieces in Nik Antropov and Derek Morris, to top this off Sean Avery was brought back from Dallas as well. With this revamped lineup the team looked better and finished as the 7th seed with 95 points. (1 more than the 06-07 team however hat team would destroy the 08-09 version). They wound up as the 7th seed in the playoffs winning the first 2 games vs Washington and even having a 3-1 lead at one point. However the wheels fell off after this and they fell in 7 games on a late Sergei Fedorov goal. Quite honestly the RANGERS season and the season itself weren't as enjoyable as the previous one in which they were contenders and other games were more enjoyable. The seasons to follow would go even worse for the RANGERS until 11-12 but I enjoyed watching the playoffs in 08,10, and 11 much more than 09.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I had more of a split loyalty at the time, between Boston and Carolina.

Bruins were on their ascendance, a colorful team with some charismatic figures -- young/scary Lucic, Kessel, Wheeler, Bergeron in his comeback, Marc Savard at his creative best, Chara in Norris form, some interesting vets in Yelle/Axelsson/AWard, and Tim Thomas coming out of nowhere to sweep the goalie awards. Far and away the best team in the conference and so, so young and talented. That could easily have been a dynasty in the making.

Hurricanes were in a weird place, in a sort of bounceback to contention after their post-Cup slump. I didn't agree with firing Laviolette, and Maurice was a really bizarre choice of replacement. They were full of players who ended up being cult favorites in the lore of the fanbase - Chad LaRose, Anton Babchuk, Scott Walker, Jussi Jokinen, Nic Wallin, Joe Corvo, Frank Kaberle. They only had a few real horses in Staal, Whitney, Brind'Amour, Ward.

When those two teams collided in the playoffs, the result seemed like it would be super obvious. Bruins seemed like a team of the future, Canes seemed like a total pretender. Paul Maurice coached the ever-living hell out of that series and doesn't get nearly enough credit for the scale of upset that he pulled off. He got the absolute most out of his line matches, took advantage of the young Bruins' lack of discipline and focus, and gave Carolina a chance to win a series they had no business winning. He basically did what Vancouver wanted to do in 2011, and I wonder how much influence this series had on the Bruins when they had to play that Canucks team.

I had no expectation that the Canes would compete with the Pens after they won that series. They left it all on the table in the first two rounds, and Pittsburgh was in full Cup-run mode by that time.

It's a damn shame that this was the last hurrah for that core group of Hurricanes, that those Bruins didn't stick together a little better (my god can you imagine that group of players now, with Seguin and Hamilton instead of Kessel?), and that PNC Arena hasn't seen a playoff run since that year. That series promised a lot of things that never quite materialized, but it was crazy fun at the time.

 

[MXD]

DARKEST DAY IN HABS HISTORY.

 

[MXD]

Seriously, the Canadiens should've easily made it to the playoffs, and not snuck in at the last hour. The loss of Robert Lang hurt. Tremendously. It was already not going well, but all went down the drain at this point.

That was also the "Let lots of key players walk, get nothing for them, and sign a boatload of UFA's instead" season. The team should've been much better, but wasn't, and trading the ones that got away when we weren't contenders by any stretch would've... pretty much avoided the current mess. That's Koivu, Kovalev, Tanguay, Komisarek and Bouillon lost for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

DARKEST DAY IN HABS HISTORY is still a meme up to this day, though.

 

[c9777666]

Seriously, the Canadiens should've easily made it to the playoffs, and not snuck in at the last hour. The loss of Robert Lang hurt. Tremendously. It was already not going well, but all went down the drain at this point.

That was also the "Let lots of key players walk, get nothing for them, and sign a boatload of UFA's instead" season. The team should've been much better, but wasn't, and trading the ones that got away when we weren't contenders by any stretch would've... pretty much avoided the current mess. That's Koivu, Kovalev, Tanguay, Komisarek and Bouillon lost for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

DARKEST DAY IN HABS HISTORY is still a meme up to this day, though.

They had to fight off Florida for the last playoff spot IIRC

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

an eventful year for the canucks, some very good, some very bad.

it was mike gillis' first season as GM and it began with big changes. linden retired, naslund (a former mike gillis client) and morrison were not re-signed. luongo was named captain, demitra (also a former gillis client) was brought in to replace naslund's secondary scoring. gillis famously chased sundin, who finally signed just before christmas and filled linden's vacant wise-old-man-still-outscoring-naslund-in-the-playoffs role.

after four straight seasons of playing 70+ games, the fifth most games ever played in a consecutive four season stretch, luongo missed almost two months in the middle of the season with a groin injury. partially due to never being quite the same and partially as a precaution, he would never play 70 games in a single season again. luongo had what was for him an average peak season, still finishing top ten in wins (2nd in winning percentage), top five in GAA and SV%, 4th in vezina voting, 3rd in AST. however, 7uongo was born in the playoffs.

sedins had another solid regular season and a breakthrough playoffs. lost to history is the great elimination game the sedins had to rally against the hawks, with daniel immediately answering with a goal after luongo let in his third in a row in the second period, and getting his second goal to put the canucks ahead more than halfway through the third period, before luongo let in another three straight in the last seven minutes.

vigneault adds kesler to sundin and demitra's line and kesler breaks out, hitting the 25 goal, 50 point plateau for the first time while also being a selke finalist for the first time. after the line is put together, kesler puts up 15 goals and 32 points in his final 32 games.

a couple weeks later, after rotating basically every other player on the team on the sedin line's RW, and finally giving up on the summer's marquee "third sedin" acquisition steve bernier ever working there, alain vigneault randomly tries burrows with the sedins in february and magic happens. after the line is put together, burrows scores 15 goals and 26 points in his next 25 games.

that was a deep team and at the time i honestly believed they had a shot at winning the cup if they'd managed to survive the chicago series. really really surprisingly, wellwood was a quality third line center, and his revolving door of wingers bernier, pyatt, and young mason raymond, added some decent jam and tertiary scoring. the fourth line of ryan johnson between some combination of the energetic rick rypien (RIP), goon darcy hordichuk, rookie jannik hansen (who didn't play much in the playoffs but almost certainly would have eventually slotted back in for hordi at some point if we'd advanced), and whichever winger was leftover from the third line was an infinitely better fourth line than the one we went to the finals with in 2011.

the defense was peak mitchell babysitting bieksa back from sopel-dom, a still very solid ohlund nursing along a rapidly developing edler (we seriously thought he had fringe norris potential at the time, i'd compare our projections of him to present day john carlson... and i don't know that we were wrong), and salo was saddled with the regrettable shane o'brien. at times, including the playoffs, the super shutdown pair of mitchell-salo would be put together, but that unfortunately resulted in the trainwreck that was SOB-casual kev.

on a tragic note, taylor pyatt's fiancé died in a car crash at the end of the regular season. pyatt understandably took some time off before heroically coming back to play in the last three games of the chicago series.

on a painful note, salo famously ruptured his testicle in game two of the chicago series and somehow managed to come back for games five and six, though it hurt to watch him hobble around out there.

postscript: after the season, ohlund is let go, which was sad but probably the right move. sundin retires for good but his impact on the whole team continues to be felt: the sedins break out as bona fide superstars, with henrik winning the hart and art ross, followed by daniel winning the lindsay and art ross the following year. kesler continues his steep upward trajectory, improving to 75 points while narrowly losing the selke to datsyuk by a handful of third place votes. burrows achieves the unfathomable, going from still being in the ECHL as a 23 year old (and playing competitive ball hockey every summer) to 35 goals on the best line in the NHL in five years. they add ehrhoff and samuelsson and finish second in the league in goals, boasting six 25 goal scorers. on the other hand, luongo gets into his own head.

 

[GMR]

That season never happened.

 

[Big Phil]

Yes, I loved the 2009 season. Look, I was a Leaf fan then too, I just wanted them to tank to get Tavares, which they didn't. I was just so sick of them missing the playoffs but having just enough points to not get a building block in the draft. Kadri was a decent pick up in 2009, but I think most of us Leafs fans mailed it in that year. Which is why you should always loved hockey first, and teams second. There is always lots of other things to focus on.

I liked the Crosby/Ovechkin rivalry that actually didn't seem like it needed to be forced for once. Heck, Malkin/Ovechkin was a story that year too. There was lots of promise too. The Pens were on their way to a Cup at some point whether it was 2009 or later. I honestly thought there'd be another collision course for Detroit and Pittsburgh, even though the Pens were struggling at times in the year. They got scalding hot in the last 3rd of the season - similar to what they are doing in 2018 - and they became that team you didn't want to play.

I also think Mike Green created some excitement. It had been 16 years since a defenseman scored 30. Can anyone else believe that guy was Kevin Hatcher in 1993 and no one else until 2009? Wow.

Ovechkin was exciting that year too. Really he was at his best between 2007-'10 at a level that I'll never forget. Plus that Pens/Caps series was epic. Fleury's last second save on Lidstrom, stuff like Staal's last minute goal against New Jersey to knock them out. The Canes went from looking like they were going to lose Game 7 to whipping two goals in 45 seconds and reversing it. An underrated turn of events.

Lot of fun teams to watch. Detroit with Dats and Z, the Ducks and their last season with Pronger and Niedermayer, Getzlaf really coming into his own. Not to mention a nice return to elite play by the up and coming Hawks. Yeah, I liked 2009.

 

[The Panther]

My main memories of 2008-09 is losing my girlfriend, my new job (thanks to economy crash), and my home all in the space of a few weeks. So, I had other things on my mind than hockey.

However, I did see some of the Finals and enjoyed it. In retrospect, 2005 to 2009 was like a mini-good period after the horrors of the 1999-2004 era and the coming horrors of the 2009-2017 era.

(I actually think the NHL is trending back to some good things this season, and I'm mildly optimistic for the future.)

 

[67Leafs67]

Technically Steen and Colaiacovo were traded by Cliff Fletcher a few days before they hired Burke.

Now with the benefit of hindsight Kadri turned out to be a great 1st round pick for them, however I remember everyone wanted them to be in position to select Brayden Schenn. Maybe having Luke had a lot to do with that, however you got to think without getting Gerber they finish in the bottom 5 of the standings and end up with the 5th pick in 2009 and select Schenn instead over Kadri.

Sorry, didn't mean to insinuate that Burke made that trade, or that Schenn had anything to do with our late season success. It was more a jumbled, out of order collection of random thoughts

 

[LeafsNation75]

Sorry, didn't mean to insinuate that Burke made that trade, or that Schenn had anything to do with our late season success. It was more a jumbled, out of order collection of random thoughts

Don't worry about it. I just remember at the time when Burke claimed Gerber off waivers everyone said what was the point and if that never happened chances are the Leafs finish bottom 5 and select 5th overall in 2009 and not 7th overall.

I also think some of the Schenn hype was that Luke was on the Leafs and it would have been great having Brayden on the team at the same time.

 

[66871]

Umm, that was the Pens third cup win, not their first.

 

[Kyle McMahon]

I remember it as a rise from the ashes for a couple of classic franchises who had long been also-rans, Boston and Chicago. I was hoping, rather optimistically, that they could manage to meet in the Final.

Boston cruised past their nemesis Montreal with little resistance. They jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead on Carolina, and were winning Game 2 as I recall. Then all of a sudden Carolina popped a few goals, and for some reason it was like the biggest momentum shift. Next thing you know Boston is down 3-1. But still, this one wasn't over. Sure enough it ends up in Game 7, and now you're thinking Boston has it for sure. Then poof, Scott Walker strikes scores his first career playoff goal and it's over.

Chicago wasn't quite ready for prime time, but the potential was certainly evident. Martin Havlat scored a goal that has understandably been long forgotten, but does hold interesting significance in the subsequent unfolding of events. Vancouver was about 3 minutes away from taking a 3-1 lead on the Blackhawks in the second round, and looking pretty good in the process, when Havlat scored on a somewhat lucky shot to send the game to OT. Andrew Ladd quickly won it, and all of a sudden Chicago was back from the dead and went on to shell Luongo for a bushel of goals in the next two games. Of course, that was just the start of Luongo's issues with the Blackhawks in the playoffs. But if Havlat never scores that goal and Vancouver ends up winning the series, who knows how history plays out.

 

[silkyjohnson50]

Detroit just won the Cup and then signed Hossa. It was a Cup or bust year just as much as 2002 was.

Despite the same roster plus Hossa, Detroit played a lot looser defensively and the regular season goaltending sucked compared to the previous season. Osgood in particular, although he probably would have end up winning the Conn Smythe had Detroit won Game 7.

Detroit played like they knew they were better than everyone else, and for the most part they were. They had another gear and could take over games offensively when they were down.

I really wish Babcock would have handled the addition of Hossa differently though. Despite what they did the prior season, Babcock split up Datsyuk and Zetterberg. I get the concept of having two elite 2-way centers down the middle, but those two were so magic together and literally just won you a Cup. He was beyond stubborn with it. I didn't like Hossa on either of their wings. Datsyuk would sit back too often with Hossa, and Zetterberg and Hossa just sucked together. Hossa should have been manning the 2nd line with Filppula/Franzen/Samuelson/Cleary.

Despite all of that, it didn't end up matter. Injuries ended up being the difference.