Vancouver Canucks

The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). They joined the NHL as an expansion team in 1970. The Canucks play their home games in General Motors Place. The Canucks have twice made it to the Stanley Cup Finals, but lost both series to each of the New York teams: the Islanders in 1982, and the Rangers in 1994.

Franchise history

Early years (1970-1982)
Vancouver has a rich hockey tradition. Professional hockey has been played in the city almost continuously since 1911. The city's first professional team, the Vancouver Millionaires, played for the Stanley Cup five times. It was also home to one of the first artificial ice arenas in North America. After the Millionaires disbanded in 1924, Vancouver was a top minor league city for many years, most notably by the Vancouver Canucks, who played from 1945 to 1970 in the Pacific Coast Hockey League and Western Hockey League.
With the NHL's westward expansion, it was a foregone conclusion that big-league hockey would return to Vancouver. In fact, the city was so certain of success that it broke ground for a modern arena, Pacific Coliseum, in 1967. However, when a Vancouver group led by WHL Canucks owner and former Vancouver mayor Fred Hume made a bid for one of the six teams due to join the league in 1967, it was so sloppily prepared that their application was turned down.
However, three years later, another Vancouver group made a much better presentation, and was awarded an expansion franchise for the price of $6 million ($4 million more than it would have cost in 1967). The new team assumed the Canucks name, and joined the league along with the Buffalo Sabres for the 1970-71 season.
First NHL Captain: Orland Kurtenbach
First NHL Game: October 9, 1970 vs. Los Angeles Kings
First NHL Victory: October 11, 1970; 5-3 vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
First NHL Goal Scored: Barry Wilkins vs. Kings
In defiance of all geographic reality, the Canucks were placed in the powerful East Division for their first four seasons, and although they had a few decent players such as ex-Ranger center Orland Kurtenbach, defencemen Dale Tallon and Jocelyn Guevremont and winger Dennis Ververgaert, the team failed to make the playoffs during those years. Realignment in the 1975 season placed the Canucks in the new Smythe Division, and they responded with their first winning record, finishing first in the division, though their first playoff series had them square off with the dynastic Montreal Canadiens, quickly losing. They would have a winning season and make the playoffs the season following, but slip back into losing ways the next two seasons thereafter. In that time, their best players were slick playmaker Andre Boudrias, who finished first in team scoring four out of the franchise's first five seasons (and finish second by a single point in the other), forward Don Lever, and Dennis Kearns, to this day the leading scoring defenceman in franchise history.
After the team's winning season in 1976, Vancouver would not have another winning team for another sixteen seasons, but in the notoriously weak Smythe Division would generally make the playoffs.

1982 Stanley Cup run
After a dozen years of unremarkable play, the Canucks finally made an impact in the post-season of 1982. After finishing three games under .500 over the course of the regular season, Vancouver blew through the Campbell Conference playoffs, going 11-2 in games against the Calgary Flames, Los Angeles Kings, and Chicago Blackhawks. It should be noted that despite having a losing record, Vancouver had home ice advantage in the first series, having finished second in the Smythe division that season, behind only the ultra-powerful Wayne Gretzky-led Edmonton Oilers. The Canucks also had home ice advantage during the second round series against the Los Angeles Kings after their unbelievable upset of those same Oilers during the first playoff round.
Still, the Campbell Conference champion Canucks became the Cinderella story of the 1982 playoffs as they made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in franchise history. In doing so, they became the first team from western Canada to play for the Stanley Cup in 56 years. However, they were promptly swept in four games by the heavily favoured defending champion New York Islanders, disappointingly losing the final game on home ice. That season would prove to be the last one in which Vancouver won a playoff series until 1992.

Decline and resurgence (1982-1994)
After their improbable Stanley Cup run, the Canucks slipped back into mediocrity for the rest of the 1980s. Their notable players in the 1980s included two-way forward Stan Smyl, who retired the franchise leader in most scoring categories; Swedish imports Thomas Gradin and Patrik Sundstrom; penalty minute king Tiger Williams, who led the NHL in penalty minutes during two of his Canuck seasons; hardrock defenceman Harold Snepsts, one of the most popular players in franchise history; and high-scoring right winger Tony Tanti.
Later on, under the guidance of new general manager Pat Quinn, the Canucks rose to prominence in the early 1990s. Led by players such as new captain Trevor Linden, goalie Kirk McLean, and high-scoring sensation Pavel Bure(the "Russian Rocket"), the Canucks won two consecutive regular season division titles in 1992 and 1993, though they would be eliminated by division rivals in the playoffs during both seasons.

1994 Stanley Cup run
In 1994 the Canucks made their second trip to the Finals, entering the playoffs as the seventh seed in the Western Conference. The club had what could be characterized as an off-year during the regular season, but resumed their form during the playoffs, beating the rival Calgary Flames in the first round in an incredible seven-game series. After trailing the series 3 games to 1, they won games five, six, and seven in overtime. During overtime of the seventh and deciding game, goaltender Kirk McLean made "The Save", a defining moment in Canucks history, stacking pads on the goal line to stop a near-perfect setup by Theoren Fleury and Robert Reichel, saving the Canucks from elimination. Pavel Bure scored the Game Seven winner on a breakaway in the second overtime, one of the franchise's greatest moments. They went on to defeat both the Dallas Stars and Toronto Maple Leafs in 5 games before meeting the New York Rangers in the Stanley Cup Finals. Vancouver won Game 1 by a score of 3-2 in OT, thanks to a 52-save performance by goaltender McLean. After losing three in a row, the Canucks won Games 5 and 6 to force a seventh game at Madison Square Garden. They lost Game Seven by a score of 3-2, a loss made more disappointing due to Nathan LaFayette hitting the Ranger goalpost in the dying minutes of the game. The Canucks' failure was followed by a riot in downtown Vancouver, many of whom had likely been drinking heavily. Following the riots, the Canucks returned to a crowd of 40,000 people at BC Place, who congratulated the team for their effort.

Return to mediocrity (1994-2001)
After the 1994 playoff run, Vancouver continued to be a force for the next two seasons. Head coach Quinn stepped down to focus on his duties as a general manager, and was replaced by assistant Rick Ley, then later on, Tom Renney. Russ Courtnall and Alexander Mogilny were acquired via trade from the Dallas Stars and Buffalo Sabres, respectively, in an effort to further improve offence; Russ was paired with his brother Geoff, and Alexander was reunited with his former CSKA Moscow linemate, Pavel Bure. However, the team was swept in the second round by the Chicago Blackhawks in 1995 and defeated in the first round by the Stanley Cup-winning Colorado Avalanche in 1996. During the 1996-97 season, star forward Bure suffered a season-ending injury, and despite strong performances by players such as Martin Gelinas and Mogilny, the Canucks missed the playoffs.
In the 1997 off-season, the Canucks made a big splash and signed Mark Messier from the Rangers to a lucrative three-year deal. Also during the off-season was a change upstairs; GM Pat Quinn was fired and replaced with a management committee. Renney was fired and Mike Keenan was hired as a replacement; when given the power to make trades, he split up the core of the 1994 team, even trading away fan-favorite and until then, career-Canuck, Trevor Linden.
Suffering their worst season of the decade in 1998-99, Keenan was fired and replaced with Marc Crawford (who had won the Stanley Cup with the 1996 Colorado Avalanche). Despite this, the Canucks missed the post-season again, but the payoff for the dreadful season was the chance to draft future stars Daniel and Henrik Sedin second and third overall in the Entry Draft that year.

"West Coast Express" years (2001-2005)
With a new general manager (Brian Burke) and coach Marc Crawford, the Canucks had become a much better club. The team held their training camp in Stockholm, and participated against Swedish and Finnish teams in the NHL Challenge. The rebuilt Canucks team returned to the playoffs in 2001 (capturing the eighth and final position on the last day of the season), appearing in the playoffs for the first time since the 1995-96 season. Led by the "West Coast Express" forward line of Markus Naslund, Brendan Morrison and Todd Bertuzzi, defenceman Ed Jovanovski and goaltender Dan Cloutier, the Canucks would achieve some success during these years, winning the Northwest Division title during the 2003-04 season. However, significant playoff success was not achieved; the team failed to advance past the second round, going as far as gaining a 3-1 series lead against the Minnesota Wild during the 2003 playoffs, but losing the advantage and the matchup in seven games.
It was Brian Burke who coined the phrase "Goalie Graveyard", when referring to the Canucks' long-standing history of having troubles between the pipes. As it turned out, Vancouver became Burke's own graveyard. Before the lockout of 2004-05, Burke did not have his contract renewed by the Canucks and was replaced by Dave Nonis, who had been assistant GM.

Post-Lockout (2005-Present)
The 2005-06 season began with much promise, with some hockey analysts picking the Canucks as Stanley Cup favourites. Under new general manager Nonis, free agent activity in the summer prior to the 2005-06 season saw players such as Anson Carter and Richard Park arrive in Vancouver. However, the team failed to meet expectations and completed the regular season in a disappointing 9th place in their Conference — narrowly missing a playoff position to the Edmonton Oilers, which caused some debate about the effect of the point awarded for an overtime or shootout loss, recently instituted by the NHL. The season was characterized by under-achieving play, most notably in the first line of Naslund, Bertuzzi, and Morrison, which was expected to produce higher point totals under the new league rules. Morrison had a career-high 84 penalty minutes. Meanwhile, his wingers, Bertuzzi and Naslund, had a combined -37 in Plus/Minus Rating. Vancouver's highest-scoring line was the second line of Carter and the Sedin twins.
On April 25, 2006, the Canucks fired Crawford; he was hired by the Los Angeles Kings. Alain Vigneault, who had just coached Vancouver's AHL affiliate, the Manitoba Moose, to a 102-point season, was hired as his replacement on June 20, 2006. Netminder Dan Cloutier also went to Los Angeles.
The re-building of the Canucks continued just three days after Vigneault's hiring, when Nonis completed a blockbuster trade with the Florida Panthers, trading Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan Allen and Alex Auld for Roberto Luongo, Lukas Krajicek and a sixth-round draft pick (Sergei Shirokov) in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. Florida fan-favourite Luongo initially claimed to be "surprised" with being traded. Luongo later signed a long-term 4-year, $27-million deal with the Canucks which includes a "no-trade clause" after the first year, tying the Chicago Blackhawks Nikolai Khabibulin as the highest paid goaltender in the National Hockey League and showing the Canucks' clear intention of making Luongo a franchise goalie.
On September 12, 2006, the Philadelphia Flyers offered restricted free agent Ryan Kesler a one-year, $1.9 million dollar contract, forcing the Canucks to either match the offer or lose his rights. Kesler, the Canucks' first-round draft pick in 2003, scored 10 goals and had 13 assists in 82 games for the Canucks in 2005-06. The offer was considered high for a young player with relatively low stats, and Bobby Clarke, the now ex-general manager of the Flyers, received criticism for the move. The Canucks matched the offer on September 14, 2006. The offer made by the Flyers was the first offer sheet extended to a restricted free agent in eight years, and the first following the 2004-05 NHL lockout.
On April 7, 2007, the Canucks won the Northwest Division title for the 2nd time in three seasons with an overtime win over the San Jose Sharks. The win also gave goalie Roberto Luongo his 47th of the season, tying him for the previous single-season win record with Bernie Parent, which had been eclipsed in the same season by New Jersey Devils netminder Martin Brodeur.
On April 11th, 2007, the Canucks set a franchise record with a quadruple-overtime win in the opening game of round one of the playoffs against the Dallas Stars. The game was the longest in Canucks history and the sixth longest in league history. Also in this game, the Canucks set a record for shots against, allowing 76. The Canucks won the series in seven games despite a lack of goal-scoring; Stars goalie Marty Turco recorded three shutouts in the series. Advancing to the second round, the team was defeated by the Stanley Cup-winning Anaheim Ducks in five games.

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Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs are a professional ice hockey team based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The organization, one of the "Original Six" members of the NHL, is officially known as the Toronto Maple Leaf Hockey Club and is owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. (MLSE). They play at the Air Canada Centre (ACC). The Leafs are well known for their long and bitter rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens, and more recent rivalry with the Ottawa Senators. The franchise has won thirteen Stanley Cups, eleven as the Leafs, one as the Toronto St. Patricks, and one as the Toronto Arenas.
Valued at $413 million (2007), the Leafs are the most valuable team in the NHL, followed by the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings.

Team history

Early years (1917-27)
The National Hockey League was formed in 1917 in Montreal by teams formerly belonging to the National Hockey Association (NHA) that had a dispute with Eddie Livingstone, owner of the Toronto Blueshirts. The owners of the other four clubs – the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Quebec Bulldogs, and Ottawa Senators – had enough votes between them to expel Livingstone from the NHA. Instead, they opted to create a new league, the NHL, and effectively left Livingstone in the NHA by himself.
However, the other clubs felt it would be unthinkable not to have a team from Toronto (Canada's second largest city at the time) in the new league. They also needed another team to balance the schedule after the Bulldogs suspended operations (and as it turned out, would not ice a team until 1920). Accordingly, the NHL granted a "temporary" Toronto franchise to the Arena Company, owners of the Arena Gardens. The Arena Company agreed to lease the Blueshirts' players for the season until the dispute was resolved. This temporary franchise did not have an official name, but was informally called "the Blueshirts" by area writers and sometimes called "the Torontos" by fans. Under manager Charlie Querrie and coach Dick Carroll, the Toronto team won the Stanley Cup in the NHL's inaugural season.
For the next season, rather than return the Blueshirts' players to Livingstone as originally promised, the Arena Company formed its own team, the Toronto Arena Hockey Club, which was readily granted full-fledged membership in the NHL. Also that year, it was decided that only NHL teams would be allowed to play at the Arena Gardens.[2] Livingstone sued to get his players back. Mounting legal bills from the dispute forced the Arenas to sell most of their stars, resulting in a horrendous five-win season in 1918-19. When it was obvious that the Arenas would not be able to finish out the season, the NHL agreed to let the Arenas halt operations in February 1919 and proceed directly to the playoffs. The Arenas' .278 winning percentage that season is still the worst in franchise history.
The legal dispute nearly ruined the Arena Company, and it was forced to put the Arenas up for sale. Querrie put together a group that mainly consisted of the people who had run the senior amateur St. Patricks team in the Ontario Hockey Association. The new owners renamed the team the Toronto St. Patricks (or St. Pats for short) and would operate it until 1927. This period saw the team's jersey colours change from blue to green, as well as a second Stanley Cup championship in 1922.
During this time, the St. Patricks also allowed other teams to play in the Arena Gardens whenever their home rinks didn't have proper ice in the warmer months. At the time, the Arena was the only facility east of Manitoba with artificial ice.

The Conn Smythe era
Querrie lost a lawsuit to Livingstone and decided to put the St. Pats up for sale. He gave serious consideration to a $200,000 bid from a Philadelphia group. However, Toronto Varsity Graduates coach Conn Smythe put together an ownership group of his own and made a $160,000 offer for the franchise. With the support of St. Pats shareholder J. P. Bickell, Smythe persuaded Querrie to reject the Philadelphia bid, arguing that civic pride was more important than money.
After taking control on Valentine's Day 1927, Smythe immediately renamed the team the Maple Leafs. (The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team had won the International League championship a few months earlier and had been using that name for 30 years.) The Maple Leafs say that the name was chosen in honour of the Maple Leaf Regiment from World War I. Another story says that Smythe named the team after a team he'd once scouted, called the East Toronto Maple Leafs. Initial reports were that the team's colours would be changed to red and white, but the Leafs were wearing white sweaters with a green maple leaf for their first game on February 17, 1927 The next season, the Leafs appeared for the first time in the blue and white sweaters they have worn ever since. The Maple Leafs say that blue represents the Canadian skies and white represents snow, but in truth blue has been Toronto's principal sporting colour since the Toronto Argonauts adopted blue as their primary colour in 1873.

1930s: Opening of Maple Leaf Gardens and first Maple Leaf dynasty
After four more lacklustre seasons (including three with Smythe as coach), Smythe and the Leafs debuted their new arena, Maple Leaf Gardens, with a 2-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on November 12, 1931.
Led by the "Kid Line" (Busher Jackson, Joe Primeau and Charlie Conacher) and coach Dick Irvin, the Leafs would capture their third Stanley Cup victory during the first season in their new digs, vanquishing the Montreal Maroons in the first round, the Boston Bruins in the semis and, in the Stanley Cup Finals the hated New York Rangers. Smythe took particular pleasure in defeating the Rangers that year; he had been tapped as the Rangers' first general manager and coach in the Rangers' inaugural season (1926-27), but had been fired in a dispute with Madison Square Garden management before the season.
The Leafs' star forward, Ace Bailey, was nearly killed in 1933 when Boston Bruins defenseman Eddie Shore checked him from behind into the boards at full speed. Maple Leafs defenseman Red Horner was able to knock Shore out with a punch, but it was too late for Bailey, who was by now writhing on the ice, had his career ended. The Leafs would hold the NHL's first All-Star game to benefit Bailey.
The Leafs would reach the finals five more times in the next seven years, but would not win, bowing out to the now-defunct Maroons, the Detroit Red Wings in 1936, the Chicago Black Hawks in 1938, Boston in 1939, and the hated Rangers in 1940. At this time, Smythe allowed Irvin to go to Montreal to help revive the then-moribund Canadiens, replacing him as coach with former Leafs captain Hap Day.

1940s: A second decade of success
Toronto looked sure to suffer a similar fate in 1942, down three games to none in a best-of-seven final in 1942 against Detroit. However, fourth-line forward Don Metz would galvanize the team, coming from nowhere to score a hat trick in game four and the game-winning goal in game five, with the Leafs winning both times. Captain Syl Apps had won the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy that season, not taking one penalty and finishing his ten-season career with an average of 5 minutes, 36 seconds in penalties a season. Goalie Turk Broda would shut out the Wings in game six, and Sweeney Schriner would score two goals in the third period to win the seventh game 3-1.
Apps told writer Trent Frayne in 1949, "If you want me to be pinned down to my [biggest night in hockey but also my] biggest second, I'd say it was the last tick of the clock that sounded the final bell. It's something I shall never forget at all." It was the first time a major pro sports team came back from behind 3-0 to win a best-of-seven championship series.
Three years later, with their heroes from 1942 dwindling (due to either age, health, or the war), the Leafs turned to lesser-known players like rookie goalie Frank McCool and defenseman Babe Pratt. They would upset the Red Wings in the 1945 finals.
The powerful defending champion Montreal Canadiens and their "Punch Line" (Maurice "Rocket" Richard, Toe Blake and Elmer Lach), would be the Leafs' nemesis two years later when the two teams clashed in the 1947 finals. Ted "Teeder" Kennedy would score the game-winning goal late in game six to win the Leafs their first of three straight Cups — the first time any NHL team had accomplished that feat. With their Cup victory in 1948, the Leafs moved ahead of Montreal for the most Stanley Cups in league history. It would take the Canadiens 10 years to reclaim the record.

The 1950s: The Barilko Curse
The Leafs and Habs would meet once again in the finals in 1951, with all five games going to overtime. Tod Sloan scored with 42 seconds left in the third period of game five to send it to an extra period, and defenceman Bill Barilko, who had scored only six goals in the regular season, scored the game-winner to win Toronto their fourth Cup in five years. Barilko's glory, however, was short-lived: he disappeared in a plane crash near Timmins, Ontario barely four months after that historic moment. The Leafs would not win the Cup again that decade.

New owners, new dynasty in the 1960s
Before the 1961-62 season, Smythe sold nearly all of his shares in Maple Leaf Gardens to a partnership of his son Stafford Smythe, newspaper baron John Bassett and Toronto Marlboros president Harold Ballard. The sale price was $2.3 million--a handsome return on Conn Smythe's original investment 34 years earlier. Conn Smythe later claimed that he knew nothing about his son's partners, but it is very unlikely that he could have believed Stafford could have raised the money on his own.
And then, Toronto was able to reel off another three straight Stanley Cup victories from 1962 to 1964, with the help of Hall of Famers Frank Mahovlich, Red Kelly, Johnny Bower, Dave Keon, Andy Bathgate and Tim Horton, and under the leadership of coach and general manager Punch Imlach.
In 1967, the Leafs and Canadiens met in the Cup finals for the last time. Montreal was considered to be a heavy favourite as analysts said that the Leafs were just a bunch of has-beens. But Bob Pulford scored the double-overtime winner in game three, Jim Pappin got the series winner in game six, and Keon won the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the playoffs as the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in six games. The Leafs have not won the Stanley Cup since.
In 1968, Mahovlich was traded to Detroit in a blockbuster trade. Then in 1969, following a first-round playoff loss to Boston, Smythe fired Imlach. Horton declared, "If this team doesn't want Imlach, I guess it doesn't want me." He was traded to the New York Rangers the next year.

1970s and 1980s: The Ballard years
Following Stafford Smythe's death, Harold Ballard bought his shares to take control of the team. Ballard's term as owner was marked by several disputes with prominent players, including Dave Keon, Lanny McDonald, and Darryl Sittler, poor win/loss records, and not a single Stanley Cup.
During the 1970s, with the overall level of talent in the league diluted by the addition of 12 new franchises and the birth of the rival World Hockey Association (WHA), the Leafs, led by a group of stars such as Sittler, McDonald, enforcer Dave "Tiger" Williams, Ian Turnbull, and Borje Salming (the first European to make a name for himself in the NHL) were able to ice competitive teams for several seasons. But they only once made it past the second round of the playoffs, besting the New York Islanders, a soon-to-be dynasty, in the 1978 quarter-finals, only to be swept by arch-rival Montreal in the semi-finals.
One of the few highlights from this era occurred on February 7, 1976, when Sittler scored six goals and four assists against the Bruins to establish a NHL single-game record that still stands more than 30 years later.
The serious decline started in July 1979, when Ballard brought back Imlach, a longtime friend, as general manager. Imlach traded McDonald to undermine his friend Sittler's influence on the team. Sittler himself was gone two years later, when the Leafs traded him to the Philadelphia Flyers. He left as the franchise's all-time leading scorer.
The McDonald trade sent the Leafs into a downward spiral. They finished five games under .500 and only made the playoffs due to the presence of the Quebec Nordiques, a refugee from the WHA, in the Adams Division. For the next 12 years, the Leafs were barely competitive, not posting another winning record until 1992-93. They missed the playoffs six times and only finished above fourth in their division once (in 1990, the only season where they even posted a .500 record). They made it beyond the first round of the playoffs twice (in 1986 and 1987, advancing to the division finals). The low point came in 1984-85, when they finished 32 games under .500, the second-worst record in franchise history (their .300 winning percentage was only 22 percentage points higher than the 1918-19 Arenas).
The Leafs' poor record did result in several high draft picks. Wendel Clark, the first overall pick in the 1985 draft, was the lone success from the entry drafts of this period and went on to captain the team.

Resurgence in the 1990s
Ballard died in 1990, and a year later his longtime friend, supermarket tycoon Steve Stavro, bought a majority stake in the Leafs from his estate. Unlike Ballard, Stavro hated the limelight and rarely interfered in the Leafs' hockey operations. Stavro's first act was to lure Calgary Flames GM Cliff Fletcher to Toronto after the 1991-92 season. Fletcher immediately set about building a club that would be competitive once again.
Fletcher made a series of trades and free agent acquisitions which turned the Leafs from an also-ran to a contender almost overnight, starting in 1992-93. Outstanding play from Doug Gilmour, Dave Andreychuk and Felix Potvin would lead the team to a franchise-record 99 points, third in the Norris Division and the eighth-best overall. The Leafs dispatched the Detroit Red Wings in the first round, then defeated the St. Louis Blues in the Division finals.
Hoping to meet long-time rival Montreal in the Cup Finals, the Leafs faced the Los Angeles Kings, led by the great Wayne Gretzky, in the Campbell Conference Finals. Since the Canadiens were playing for the Wales Conference title, this spurred hopes of a Leafs-Canadiens matchup in the Finals. The Leafs led the series 3-2, but dropped Game 6 in Los Angeles. Gretzky's hat trick in Game 7 finished the Leafs' run, and it was the Kings that moved on to the Cup Finals against the Canadiens.
The Leafs had another strong season in 1993-94, finishing with 98 points, good enough for fifth overall in the league--their highest finish in 16 years. However, despite finishing one point above Calgary, the Leafs were seeded third in the Western Conference (formerly the Campbell Conference) by virtue of the Flames' Pacific Division title. The Leafs would defeat the Chicago Blackhawks in six games and the San Jose Sharks in seven before losing to the Vancouver Canucks in five games in the Western Conference Finals. At that year's subsequent draft, the Leafs would package Clark in a trade with the Quebec Nordiques that netted them current captain Mats Sundin.

A new home
In 1996, Stavro took on Larry Tanenbaum, the co-founder of Toronto's new National Basketball Association (NBA) team, the Toronto Raptors, as a partner. Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. was accordingly renamed Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), and it remains the parent company of the Leafs, the Raptors, and Toronto FC of Major League Soccer (MLS), to the present day.
After two years out of the playoffs in the late 1990s, the Leafs acquired goaltender Curtis Joseph as a free agent from the Edmonton Oilers and made another charge during the 1999 playoffs after moving from Maple Leaf Gardens to the new Air Canada Centre, shared with the new Toronto Raptors. The Leafs eliminated the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins in the first two rounds of the playoffs, but lost in five games to the Buffalo Sabres in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The Maple Leafs would reach the second round in both 2000 and 2001, losing both times to the New Jersey Devils, who would make the Stanley Cup Finals both seasons. The 2000 season was particularly notable because it marked the Leafs' first division title in 37 years, as well as the franchise's first-ever 100-point season. The season ended on a particular low, however, with the Leafs being held to just 6 shots in the final contest (game six) against the Devils.
In 2002, the Leafs dispatched the Islanders and their Ontario rivals, the Ottawa Senators, in the first two rounds, only to lose to the Cinderella-story Carolina Hurricanes in the Conference Finals. The 2002 season was particularly impressive in that the Leafs had many of their better players sidelined by injuries, but managed to make it to the conference finals due to the efforts of lesser-known players who were led mainly by Gary Roberts.
Joseph left to go to the defending champion Red Wings in the 2002 off-season; the team almost immediately found a replacement in veteran Ed Belfour, who came over from the Dallas Stars and had been a crucial part of their 1999 Stanley Cup run. Belfour could not help their playoff woes in the 2003 playoffs, however, as the team lost to Philadelphia in seven games in the first round. 2003 also witnessed a change in the ownership ranks, as Stavro sold his controlling interest in MLSE to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and resigned his position as Chairman of the Board in favour of Tanenbaum. Stavro died in 2006.
The 2003-04 season started in an uncommon way for the team, as they held their training camp in Sweden, and playing in the NHL Challenge against teams from Sweden and Finland. That year, the Leafs posted a franchise-record 103 points. They also finished with the fourth-best record in the league – their best overall finish in 41 years. They also managed a .628 win percentage, their best in 43 years (and the third-best in franchise history). They defeated the Senators in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth time in five years, but lost to the Flyers in the second round in six games.

2006 to present
The Leafs struggled in 2005-06, and despite a late-season surge, led by third-string goaltender Jean-Sebastien Aubin, the Leafs were eliminated from playoff contention for the first time since 1998. This marked the first time that the team missed the playoffs under coach Pat Quinn, and as a result he was fired shortly after the season. Paul Maurice, an experienced NHL coach who had just coached the Leafs' American Hockey League affiliate, the Toronto Marlies, in their inaugural season, was announced as Pat Quinn's replacement. On June 30, 2006, the Maple Leafs bought out the contract of long-time fan favourite, Tie Domi. The team's current marketing slogan is "The Passion That Unites Us All." In addition to Domi, the Maple Leafs also decided against picking up the option year on the contract of goaltender Ed Belfour. Both players became free agents on July 1, 2006, effectively ending their tenures with the Toronto Maple Leafs. However, despite the coaching change and addition of new players such as Pavel Kubina and Michael Peca, the Leafs again did not make the playoffs in 2006-07.
On January 22, 2008, general manager John Ferguson Jr. was replaced by Cliff Fletcher on an interim basis.


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Tampa Bay Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida, USA. They are members of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL).

Franchise history

Early years
In the late 1980s, the NHL announced that it would expand. Two rival groups from the Tampa/St. Petersburg area decided to bid for a franchise--a St. Petersburg-based group fronted by future Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes owners Peter Karmanos and Jim Rutherford and a Tampa-based group fronted by two Hall of Famers-- Phil Esposito and his brother Tony.
On paper, it looked like the Karmanos/Rutherford group was the frontrunner. Not only was the Karmanos/Rutherford group better financed, but one of Esposito's key backers, the Pritzker family, had backed out a few months before the bid. Esposito eventually recruited a consortium of Japanese businesses headed by Kokusai Green, a Japanese golf course and resort operator. The prospect of Japanese backing tipped the scales in the Esposito group's favor, and the Lightning were awarded an expansion franchise for the 1992-93 season, along with the Ottawa Senators. One of the limited partners was New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (who lives in Tampa during the year).
According to former NHL president Gil Stein, another factor was that the Karmanos/Rutherford group wanted to pay only $29 million before starting play, while the Esposito group was one of the few willing to pay the $50 million expansion fee without reservations.
After being awarded the franchise, the team's management brought in star power before they had any players. Phil Esposito installed himself as president and general manager, while Tony became chief scout. Terry Crisp, who played for the Philadelphia Flyers when they won two Stanley Cups in the mid-1970s, and coached the Calgary Flames to a Cup in 1989, was tapped as the first head coach.
Phil Esposito initially attempted to recreate the mystique from the powerhouse Bruins of the 70s; he hired former linemate Wayne Cashman as an assistant coach, former Bruin trainer John "Frosty" Forristal as the team's trainer, and the inaugural team photo has him flanked by Cashman and player Ken Hodge, Jr., son of his other Bruins' linemate. The team turned heads in the preseason when Manon Rhéaume became the first woman to play in an NHL game, making her first of two NHL appearances in an exhibition game against the St. Louis Blues.
The Lightning first took the ice on October 7, 1992, playing in Tampa's tiny 11,000-seat Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds. They shocked the visiting Chicago Blackhawks 7-3 with four goals by little-known Chris Kontos — a scoring mark unmatched by any Lightning player. The Lightning shot to the top of the Norris Division within a month, behind Kontos' initial torrid scoring pace and a breakout season by forward Brian Bradley. However, they buckled under the strain of some of the longest road trips in the league (their nearest division rival was Detroit, over 1,000 miles from Tampa) and finished in last place. Their 53 points in 1992-93, however, was one of the best showings ever by an NHL expansion team. Bradley's 42 goals gave Tampa Bay fans optimism for the next season; it would be a team record until the 2006-07 season when Vincent Lecavalier passed it with a career high 52 goals.
The following season saw the Lightning move to the Florida Suncoast Dome (a building originally designed for baseball) in St. Petersburg, which was reconfigured for hockey and renamed "the Thunderdome." The team picked up goaltender Daren Puppa, left-wing goal scorer Peter Klima and aging sniper Denis Savard. While Puppa's play resulted in a significant improvement in goals allowed (from 332 to 251), Savard was long past his prime and Klima's scoring was offset by his defensive lapses. The Lightning finished last in the Atlantic Division. Another disappointing season followed in the lockout-shortened 1995 season. Still, the Lightning appeared to be far ahead of their expansion brethren, the Ottawa Senators. In marked contrast to the Lightning, the Senators showed almost no sign of respectability in their first four seasons.

From Great Success to Utter Failure
In their fourth season, 1995-96, with Bradley still leading the team in scoring, second-year Alexander Selivanov scoring 31 goals, and Roman Hamrlik (the team's first-ever draft choice in 1992) having an all-star year on defense, the Bolts finally qualified for the playoffs, nosing out the defending Stanley Cup Champion New Jersey Devils for the 8th spot in the East by a single game. Although they lost their first-round series in six games to the Philadelphia Flyers, it still remains a magical season for Lightning fans. The Thunderdome crowd of 28,183 at the April 23 playoff game against the Flyers was the most for any NHL game, a record that stood until the 2003 Heritage Classic in Edmonton.
The Lightning picked up sniper Dino Ciccarelli from the Detroit Red Wings during the 1996 off-season, and he did not disappoint, scoring 35 goals in the 1996-97 season, with Chris Gratton notching another 30. The team debuted a glittering new arena, the Ice Palace (now the St. Pete Times Forum) and appeared destined for another playoff spot. However, the Lightning suffered a devastating rash of injuries early in the season. Puppa developed back trouble that would limit him to a total of 50 games from 1996 until his retirement in 2000. Bradley also lost time to a series of injuries that would limit him to a total of 49 games from 1996 until his retirement in December 1999. Center John Cullen developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and missed the last 12 games of the 1996-97 season; he would eventually be forced to retire in 1999. Decimated by these injuries and illnesses, the Lightning narrowly missed the playoffs. It would be seven years before the Lightning would even come close to the playoffs again.
Most of the Lightning's early stars would be gone by 1998 due to free agency and trades by Phil Esposito which ended up backfiring. Crisp was fired eleven games into the 1997-98 season and replaced by Jacques Demers. Though Demers had presided over the resurgence of the Detroit Red Wings in the 1980s and helmed a Stanley Cup run in Montreal in 1993, he was unable to change the team's fortunes. The Lightning lost 55 games in 1997-98, 54 in 1998-99 (more than the expansion Nashville Predators), 58 in 1999-2000 and 53 in 2000-01, becoming the first NHL team to post four straight 50-loss seasons.
By all accounts, the Lightning's plunge to the bottom of the NHL was due to the way Kokusai Green ran the team. Rumors abounded as early as the team's second season that the Lightning were on the brink of bankruptcy and that the team was part of a money laundering scheme for the yakuza (Japanese crime families). Its scouting operation consisted of Tony Esposito and several satellite dishes. The Internal Revenue Service investigated the team in 1994 and 1995, and nearly slapped a lien on the team for $750,000 in back taxes. The situation led longtime NHL broadcaster and writer Stan Fischler to call the Lightning a "skating vaudeville show."[4]
Even in their first playoff season, the team was awash in red ink and Kokusai Green wanted to sell. However, the sale was hampered by the team's murky ownership structure. Even some team officials (including Crisp) didn't know who owned the team, and one person listed as a major shareholder reportedly didn't even exist. Another problem was that Kokusai Green initially demanded $230 million for the team, including the lease with the Ice Palace.
It later emerged that Kokusai Green's owner, Takashi Okubo, had never met with Esposito or with NHL officials in person prior to being awarded the Lightning. During his seven years as owner, Okubo never set foot in Tampa or saw his team play. Esposito never met him personally in his hunt for investors, for instance. Nearly all of Kokusai Green's investment in the team and the Ice Palace came in the form of loans, leaving the team constantly short of cash.In fact, the first time anyone connected with the Lightning or the NHL even saw him was in the spring of 1998. Many of Esposito's trades came simply to keep the team above water. The team's financial situation was a considerable concern to NHL officials; rumors surfaced that the league was seriously considering taking control of the team if Okubo didn't find a buyer by the summer of 1998.
Forbes wrote an article in late 1997 calling the Lightning a financial nightmare, with a debt equal to a staggering 236% of its value--the highest of any major North American sports franchise. Even though the Ice Palace was built for hockey and the Lightning were the only major tenant, Forbes called the team's deal with the arena a lemon since it wouldn't result in much revenue for 30 years. It was also behind on paying state sales taxes and federal payroll taxes.
Finally, in 1998, Kokusai Green found a buyer. Although Detroit Pistons owner William Davidson was thought to be the frontrunner, the buyer turned out to be insurance tycoon and motivational speaker Art Williams. Williams walked into a difficult financial situation; the team was $102 million in debt at the time the sale closed. Like the Japanese, Williams knew very little about hockey. However, he was very visible and outspoken, and immediately pumped an additional $6 million into the team's payroll to turn it around. He also cleared most of the massive debt left over from the Kokusai Green era. After taking control, Williams publicly assured the Espositos that they were safe--only to fire them two games into the 1998-99 season. Demers became general manager as well as coach.
Williams was widely seen as being in over his head and was an easy target for his NHL colleagues, who called him "Jed Clampett" behind his back because of his thick Southern accent and fundamentalist Christian views. Early in the 1998-99 season, the Lightning lost 10 games in a row, all but ending any chance of making the playoffs. Some blame Williams for the slide. He named sophomore Vincent Lecavalier (whom he called hockey's Michael Jordan) as captain, an unprecedented promotion for a player in only his second NHL season.

Back to Respectability
By the spring of 1999, Williams had seen enough. He hadn't attended a game in some time because "this team broke my heart." He lost $20 million in the 1998-99 season alone — as much money in one year as he'd estimated he could have reasonably lost in five years.
Williams sold the team for $115 million — $2 million less than he'd paid for the team a year earlier — to Davidson, who had almost bought the team a year earlier. Along with the sale, the Lightning picked up a new top minor league affiliate; Davidson also owned the Detroit Vipers of the now-defunct International Hockey League.
Davidson remained in Detroit, but appointed Tom Wilson as team president to handle day-to-day management of the team. Wilson immediately fired Demers, who despite his best efforts (and fatherly attitude toward Lecavalier) was unable to overcome the damage from the Kokusai Green ownership. Wilson persuaded Ottawa Senators general manager Rick Dudley to take over as the Lightning's new general manager. Dudley brought Vipers coach Steve Ludzik in as the Lightning's new coach. Wilson, Dudley and Ludzik had helped make the Vipers one of the premier minor league hockey franchises, and they'd won a Turner Cup in only their third season in Detroit (the team had originally been in Salt Lake City).
However, as had been the case with Demers, the damage from the last few seasons under Kokusai Green was too much for Ludzik to overcome, even with a wholesale transfer of talent from Detroit to Tampa (a move that eventually doomed the Vipers, who folded along with the IHL in 2001). He was replaced in early 2001 by career NHL assistant John Tortorella. The 2001-02 season, Tortorella's first full year, saw some improvement. While finishing far out of playoff contention, the Lightning at least showed some signs of life, earning more than 60 points for the first time since 1997. Tortorella stripped Lecavalier of the captaincy due to contract negotiations that had made the young center miss the start of the season.

Two Dream Seasons — and Lord Stanley's Cup
With the 2002-03 season, the Lightning's youthful roster exceeded expectations. The young team was led by the goaltending of Nikolai Khabibulin and the scoring efforts of Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, Ruslan Fedotenko, Vaclav Prospal, Fredrik Modin and Brad Richards, and boasted a new captain, NHL journeyman Dave Andreychuk. Throughout the season, the Lightning battled the Washington Capitals for first place in the Southeast Division. They finished with 93 points, breaking the 90-point barrier for the first time in team history. They won the division by just one point, giving them home-ice advantage in their first round matchup with Washington.
The Lightning's defeat of the Capitals in a six-game series advanced them to the conference semifinals for the first time in team history. In the quarterfinals the Lightning won only one game, losing the series to the New Jersey Devils. The Devils went on to win the Stanley Cup, but the team's return to the post-season pleased the long-suffering hockey fans of the Tampa Bay area.
The Lightning roared through the 2003-04 regular season, finishing with 106 points, second-best in the league after the West's Detroit Red Wings--the first 100-point season in franchise history. Few NHL teams have come so far so fast. Remarkably, the Lightning went through the season with only 20 man-games lost to injury. In the first round of the playoffs, the Lightning ousted the Alexei Yashin-led New York Islanders in 5 games, with solid play from goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin.
In the second round, the Lightning faced the Montreal Canadiens, captained by Saku Koivu. Lecavalier, Richards, and Khabibulin led the team to a 4 game sweep of Montreal. They next faced Keith Primeau and his Philadelphia Flyers in the conference finals. After a tightly-fought seven-game series in which neither team was able to win consecutive games, Fredrik Modin notched the winning goal of the seventh and deciding game, earning the Eastern Conference Championship for the Lightning and their first-ever berth in the Stanley Cup finals.
Tampa Bay's opponent in the final round was the Calgary Flames, captained by Jarome Iginla. The final round also went the full seven games, with the deciding game played in the Forum on June 7, 2004. Ruslan Fedotenko was the Game 7 hero this time, scoring both Lightning goals in the 2-1 victory. Brad Richards, who had 26 points, won the Conn Smythe Trophy; in all 31 contests in which he had scored a goal since the opening of the season, the Lightning did not lose a single game. Tortorella won the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year. Only three years after losing 50 games, the Lightning became the southernmost team ever to win the Stanley Cup, as well as the third-fastest to win the trophy (in only their 12th year of existence). Martin St. Louis led the team and the NHL with 94 points (and his 38 goals were fourth-most after the 41 of tied trio Iginla, Rick Nash and Ilya Kovalchuk), and won the Hart Trophy as the league's most valuable player. St. Louis also won the Lester B. Pearson Award for league's most outstanding player as voted by the NHL Players' Association, and tied the Vancouver Canucks' Marek Malik for the NHL Plus/Minus Award.
The Lightning had to wait a year to defend their title due to the 2004-05 NHL lockout, but in 2005-06 they barely made the playoffs with 93 points in a conference where six teams notched 100 or more points. They lost to the Ottawa Senators 4 games to 1 in the first round.

2006-07 season
During the offseason, the Lightning traded Fredrik Modin and Fredrik Norrena, to the Columbus Blue Jackets for goaltender Marc Denis, to replace John Grahame, who had served as the Lightning's goaltender throughout most of the 2005-06 season, as he left the team, and signed with the Carolina Hurricanes. Free agent Johan Holmqvist would eventually get the majority of playing time, and most of the club's wins. The first half of the 2006-07 NHL Season was rocky for the Lightning, maintaining an 18-19-2 record throughout the first few months. January and February were far better months for the team, going 9-4-0 in January, and 9-2-2 in February, getting them back into the thick of things in the playoff race. 14 games in March were split even, and on March 16, 2007, Vincent Lecavalier broke the franchise record for most points in a season, with 95 (finishing with 108). The record was previously held by Martin St. Louis, who had set the record in the 2003-04 Stanley Cup Championship year. Lecavalier also broke the franchise's goal scoring record, finishing with a league-leading 52 goals.
The Lightning were busy during the final weeks before the NHL Trade Deadline, acquiring wingers Kyle Wanvig, Stephen Baby, and defensemen Shane O'Brien. Former first round pick Nikita Alexeev was traded on the day of the deadline to the Chicago Blackhawks. Other new additions for the team during the season were Filip Kuba, Luke Richardson, and Doug Janik. Veteran Andre Roy, who had won the Stanley Cup with the Lightning in 2004, was claimed off waivers from the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Throughout March, the Lightning had been switching places with the Atlanta Thrashers for first place in the Southeast Division. With a chance to overtake the Thrashers one final time and once again become division champions for the third time in team history, on April 6, 2007, in the final week of the regular season, the Lighting suffered a loss to the Florida Panthers, the night before the season finale in Atlanta. That same night, the Thrashers defeated the Carolina Hurricanes, and clinched the division. For the Lightning, this meant having to settle for the 7th seed in the Eastern Conference, with a final record of 43-33-5 (93 points).
The Lightning were eliminated from playoff competition on April 22, (4 games to 2), after a 3-2 home loss to the New Jersey Devils in game six of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals.

2007 offseason
On August 7, 2007, Absolute Hockey Enterprises, a group led by Doug MacLean, announced it had signed a purchase agreement for the team and the leasehold on the St. Pete Times Forum. MacLean is the former president and general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets and former head coach for both the Blue Jackets and the Florida Panthers. The purchase must still be approved by the NHL, but such approval hadn't been given by the start of the 2007-08 season. The group has announced that they plan to keep the team in Tampa.

2007-08 Season
The Lightning have struggled to maintain success during the 2007-2008 campaign. Although the "Big 3," (Lecavlier, St. Louis, and Richards) along with Vaclav Prospal, have performed up to expectations, they have little consistent play from support players. The Lightning are suffering from what is believed to be poor personnel decisions made to acquire these supporting players and poor individual performance from supporting players. For example, Marc Denis, a mult-million dollar free agent goaltender signed a few years ago, was waived on December 28th, 2007.
At the start of the All-Star Break on January 25, the Lightning had a 20-25-5 record, and with 45 points, were in last place in both the Southeast Division, and the Eastern Conference. Only the Los Angeles Kings had a lower point total at this time of the season, with 40 points.

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St. Louis Blues

The St. Louis Blues are a professional men's ice hockey team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The team is named after the famous W. C. Handy song "St. Louis Blues". The team plays in the 19,150 capacity Scottrade Center arena in downtown St. Louis.

Franchise history

Early history (1967-70)
The Blues were one of the six teams added to the NHL in the 1967 expansion, along with the Minnesota North Stars, Los Angeles Kings, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and California Seals when the league doubled in size from its Original Six. They are, along with the Los Angeles Kings and California Seals, one of the three teams from the 1967 Expansion not to have won a Stanley Cup.
St. Louis was the last of the expansion teams to officially get into the league, chosen over Baltimore at the insistence of the Chicago Blackhawks. The Blackhawks were owned at that time by the influential Wirtz family of Chicago, who also owned, and sought to unload, the then-decrepit St. Louis Arena, which hadn't been well-maintained since the 1940s. The team's first owners were insurance tycoon Sid Salomon Jr., his son, Sid Salomon III, and Robert L. Wolfson, who were granted the franchise in 1966. Sid Salomon III convinced his initially wary father to make a bid for the team. Salomon then spent several million dollars on massive renovations for the 38-year-old Arena, which increased the number of seats from 12,000 to 15,000.
The Blues were originally coached by Lynn Patrick who, after a quick resignation, was replaced by Scotty Bowman. Although the league's rules effectively kept star players with the Original Six teams, the Blues managed to stand out in the inferior Western Division. Capitalizing on a playoff format that required an expansion team to make it to the Stanley Cup finals, the Blues made it to the final round in each of their first three seasons, though they were swept first by the Montreal Canadiens in 1968 and 1969 and then the Boston Bruins in 1970.
While the first Blues' teams included aging and faded veterans like Doug Harvey, Don McKenney and Dickie Moore, the veteran goaltending tandem of Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante proved more durable, winning a Vezina Trophy in 1969 behind a sterling defense that featured players like skilled defensive forward Jim Roberts and hardrock defensemen, brothers Bob and Barclay Plager. Phil Goyette won the Lady Byng Trophy for the Blues in 1970 and New York Rangers castoff Red Berenson became the expansion team's first major star at center. The Arena quickly became one of the loudest buildings in the NHL, a reputation it maintained throughout its tenure as the Blues' home.
During that time, Salomon gained a reputation throughout the league as the ultimate players' owner. He gave his players cars, signed them to deferred contracts, and treated them to vacations in Florida. The players, used to being treated like mere commodities, felt the only way they could pay him back was to give their best on the ice every night.

The Blues' Struggles (1970-77)
The Blues' successes in the late 1960s, however, did not continue into the 1970s as the playoff format changed and the Chicago Blackhawks were moved into the Western Division to bring strength to the still-inferior division. Further, the Blues lost Bowman, who went to Montreal following a power-sharing dispute with Sid Salomon III (who was taking an increasing role in team affairs), as well as Hall, Plante, Goyette, and ultimately Berenson, who were lost to retirement or trade. The Berenson trade, however, did bring then-Red Wings star center Garry Unger, who ultimately scored 30 goals in eight consecutive seasons while breaking the NHL's consecutive games played record.
Defensively, however, the Blues were less than stellar and saw Chicago and the Philadelphia Flyers overtake the division. After missing the playoffs for the first time in 1973-74, the Blues ended up in the Smythe Division after a realignment. This division, too, was particularly weak, and in 1976-77 the Blues won it while finishing five games below .500, though this would be their last playoff appearance in the decade.
In the meantime, the franchise was on the brink of financial collapse. This was partly due to the pressures of the World Hockey Association, but mostly the result of financial decisions made when the Salomons first got the franchise. For instance, the deferred contracts came due just as the Blues' performance began to slip. At one point, the Salomons and cut the team's staff down to three employees. One of them was Emile Francis, who served as team president, general manager and coach.

Purina Era (1977-83)
The Salomons finally found a buyer in St. Louis-based pet food giant Ralston Purina in 1977, who renamed the Arena "the Checkerdome." Francis and Minority owner Wolfson helped put together the deal with Ralston Purina, which ensured that the Blues would stay in St. Louis. Only a year after finishing with only 18 wins (still the worst season in franchise history), the Blues made the playoffs in 1980, the first of 25 consecutive playoff appearances. The team's improvement continued into 1981, when the Berenson-coached team, led by Wayne Babych (54 goals), future Hall of Famer Bernie Federko (104 points), Brian Sutter (35 goals) and goaltender Mike Liut (second to Wayne Gretzky for the Hart Trophy), finished with 45 wins and 107 points, the second best record in the league. Their regular season success, however, did not translate into the playoffs as they were eliminated by the New York Rangers in the second round. The Blues followed their generally successful 1980-81 campaign with two consecutive sub-.500 seasons, though they still managed to make playoffs each year.
Purina lost an estimated $1.8 million a year during its ownership of the Blues, but took the losses philosophically, having taken over out of a sense of civic responsibility. In 1983, Purina's longtime chairman, R. Hal Dean, retired. His successor wanted to refocus on the core pet food business, and had no interest in hockey. He only saw a division that was bleeding money, and put the Blues on the market. The Blues didn't pick anyone in the 1983 NHL Entry Draft because Purina didn't send a representative; the company basically abandoned the team. It finally found a buyer in a group of investors led by WHA and Edmonton Oilers founder Bill Hunter. Hunter then made plans to move the team to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. However, the NHL was unwilling to lose a market as big as St. Louis and vetoed the deal. Hunter then padlocked the Checkerdome and turned the team over to the league. The team appeared destined for contraction when, on July 27, Harry Ornest, a Los Angeles-based businessman, came in at the 11th hour to save the franchise. Ornest immediately renamed the Checkerdome back to the St. Louis Arena.

Road to a new arena (1983-96)
Ornest ran the Blues on a shoestring budget. However, the players didn't mind, because (according to Sutter) they badly wanted to stay in St. Louis. For instance, he asked many players to defer their salaries to help meet operating costs, but they always got paid in the end. During most of his tenure, the Blues had only 26 players under contract--23 in St. Louis, plus three on their farm team in Montana. Most NHL teams during the mid-1980s had over 60 players under contract.
Despite being run on the cheap, the Blues remained competitive even though they never finished more than six games over .500 in Ornest's three years as owner. During this time, Doug Gilmour, drafted by St. Louis in 1982, emerged as a star.
However, while the Blues remained competitive, they were unable to keep many of their young players. More often than not, several of the Blues' young guns ended up as Calgary Flames, and the sight of Flames executive Al MacNeil was always greeted with dread. In fact, several of the Blues' young stars, such as Rob Ramage and Gilmour, were main cogs in the Flames' 1989 Stanley Cup win. Sutter and Federko were probably the only untouchables.
By 1986, they reached the league semi-finals against the Flames. Doug Wickenheiser's overtime goal in game six to cap a furious comeback remains one of the greatest moments in team history, known locally as the "Monday Night Miracle", but they lost game seven 2-1. After that season, Ornest sold the team to a group led by St. Louis businessman Michael Shanahan.
The Blues kept chugging along through the late 1980s and early 90s. General Manager Ron Caron made astute moves, landing Brett Hull, Adam Oates, Curtis Joseph, Brendan Shanahan and Al MacInnis, among others. While they contended during this time period, they never passed the second round of the playoffs. Still, the Blues' on-ice success was enough for a consortium of 19 companies to buy the team. They also provided the capital to build the Kiel Center (now the Scottrade Center), which opened in 1994.
Brett Hull, "The Golden Brett" became one of the league's top superstars and a scoring sensation, netting 86 goals in 1990-91 — third only to Wayne Gretzky (who played in St. Louis briefly in 1996) in NHL history — (Gretzky had a 92-goal 1981-82 season and an 87-goal 1982-83 NHL season). Only "The Great One" has found the net more often than Hull over any given three seasons. The Blues were the second-best team in the regular season in 90-91, but a second-round defeat to the Minnesota North Stars was indicative of their playoff woes.

From President's Trophy to the League Basement (1997-2006)
Mike Keenan was hired as both general manager and coach prior to the abbreviated 1995 season. It was hoped that he could cure the post-season turmoil Blues fans had endured for years. He instituted major changes, among them trades that sent away fan favorites Brendan Shanahan and Curtis Joseph, as well as the acquisition of the legendary but aging Gretzky and goalie Grant Fuhr, both from the falling-apart Los Angeles Kings (Gretzky left for the New York Rangers as an unrestricted free agent following the season). In spite of all he was prophesied to accomplish, Keenan's playoff resume with St. Louis included a first-round exit in 1995 and a second-round exit in 1996. He was fired on December 19, 1996. Caron was reinstated as interim general manager for the rest of season, and current GM Larry Pleau was hired on June 9, 1997. But that did not stop Hull, who had nevertheless endured a lengthy feud with Keenan, from leaving for the Dallas Stars in 1998, who went on to win the Stanley Cup the next year.
Defensemen Chris Pronger (acquired from the Hartford Whalers in 1995 for Shanahan), Pavol Demitra, Pierre Turgeon, Al MacInnis, and goalie Roman Turek kept the Blues a contender. In 1999-2000, they notched a franchise-record 114 points during the regular season, earning the Presidents' Trophy for the league's best record. However, they were stunned by the San Jose Sharks in the first round in seven games. In 2001, the Blues advanced to the Western Conference Finals before bowing out in five games to eventual Champions Colorado Avalanche. They remained competitive for the next three years, but never got past the second round.
Despite years of mediocrity and the stigma of never being able to "take the next step", the Blues were a playoff presence every year from 1980 to 2004 — the second longest active streak in North American professional sports at the time. Amid several questionable personnel moves and an unstable ownership situation, the Blues finished the 2005-06 season with their worst record in 27 years. They missed the playoffs for only the fourth time in franchise history. Also, for the first time in club history, the normally excellent support seen by St. Louisans began to fade away, with crowds normally numbering around 12,000, a far cry from the team's normal high (about 18,000 in a 19,500 seat arena).
Wal-Mart heir Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband Bill purchased the Blues in 1999, but on June 17, 2005 announced that they would sell the team. Bill Laurie had long desired to buy an NBA team, and it was thought that this desire caused him to neglect the Blues. On September 29, 2005 it was announced that the Lauries had signed an agreement to sell the Blues to SCP Worldwide, a consulting and investment group headed by former Madison Square Garden president Dave Checketts. On November 14, 2005 the Blues announced that SCP Worldwide had officially withdrawn from negotiations to buy the team. On December 27, 2005 it was announced that the Blues had signed a letter of intent to exclusively negotiate with General Sports and Entertainment, LLC. However, after the period of exclusivity, SCP entered the picture again. On March 24, 2006, the Lauries completed the sale of the Blues and the lease to the Savvis Center to SCP and TowerBrook Capital Partners, L.P.
Under new management, the Blues promptly installed John Davidson as president of hockey operations, moving Pleau to a mostly advisory role. The former Rangers goalie promptly made some big deals, picking up Jay McKee, Bill Guerin and Manny Legace from free agency, and bringing Doug Weight back to St. Louis after a brief (and productive) stopover in Carolina. Weight was again traded in December 2007 to Anaheim along with a minor league player in exchange for Andy McDonald. Davidson is currently attempting to build a strong American base of players for the Blues.

The Rebuilding: Present (2006-)
Following the disappointing 2005-06 season, which saw the Blues with the worst record in the NHL, the new management focused on rebuilding the franchise. At the beginning of the 2007 season, the Blues looked to be competitive in the Central Division. However, injuries plagued the team all season, and the lack of a sniper hampered them as well. Fan support was sluggish during the first half of the campaign, and the end of the calendar year was capped by an 11-game losing streak. On December 11, 2006, the Blues fired coach Mike Kitchen and replaced him with former Los Angeles Kings coach Andy Murray. On January 4, 2007, the Blues had a record of 6-1-3 in their previous 10 games, which was the best in the NHL during that stretch. Despite a healthy 24-point jump from the previous season, the strain of playing in a conference where seven teams finished with more than 100 points kept them out of the playoffs for the second year in a row.
Immediately prior to the 2007 Trade Deadline, the Blues traded several key players, such as Bill Guerin, Keith Tkachuk, and Dennis Wideman to gain draft picks and to make a final push for the playoffs. (They later re-signed Tkachuk during the offseason.) Brad Boyes, picked up from the Bruins in exchange for Wideman, is the fastest Blues player to reach 20 goals since Brett Hull.
During the offseason, the Blues signed free agent Paul Kariya to a 3-year contract worth $18 million, re-signed defenseman Barret Jackman to a one-year contract, lost their captain Dallas Drake to the Detroit Red Wings, and traded prospect Carl Soderberg to the Boston Bruins in exchange for yet more depth in the goalie crease, Hannu Toivonen.
On October 2, 2007 the Blues finalized the season starting roster, which included rookies David Perron, Steven Wagner, and Erik Johnson. On October 10, 2007, the Blues introduced a new mascot: Louie.
On December 14, 2007 the Blues traded Doug Weight, a 38 year old four time All Star Center, to the Anaheim Ducks as part of a package to acquire 30 year old Center Andy McDonald.
As of December 22nd 2007, the Blues telecast on FSN Midwest was estimated to be reaching 30,000 households per game. This is up 125% compared to the same time last year.

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San Jose Sharks

The San Jose Sharks are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California, United States. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL).

Franchise History

Bringing hockey back to the Bay Area
Although Northern California was not considered a particularly fertile hockey market, the NHL's 1967-68 expansion included a Bay Area team, primarily because the terms of a new television agreement with CBS called for two of the new teams to be located in California. Thus, the Oakland Seals were one of the six expansion teams added, but were a failure both on the ice and at the gate. After nine money-losing seasons and continued low attendance, in 1976 the Seals were sold to Cleveland businessmen George and Gordon Gund and moved to Cleveland, where they became the Barons. After two more years of losses, the Gunds were permitted to merge the Barons with the financially struggling Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars). The Gunds emerged as the owners of the North Stars as part of the deal.
The Gunds had long wanted to bring hockey back to the Bay Area, and asked the NHL for permission to move the North Stars there in the late 1980s, but were vetoed by the league. Meanwhile, a group led by former Hartford Whalers owner Howard Baldwin was pushing the NHL to bring a team to San Jose, where a new arena was being built. Eventually a compromise was struck by the league, where the Gunds would sell their share of the North Stars to Baldwin's group, with the Gunds receiving an expansion team in the Bay Area to begin play in the 1991-92 NHL season.in return, the North Stars would be allowed to participate as an equal partner in an expansion draft with the new Bay Area team.
On May 5, 1990, the Gunds officially sold their share of the North Stars to Baldwin and were awarded a new team in the Bay Area, based in San Jose. Over 5000 potential names were submitted by mail for the new team. While the first-place finisher was "Blades," the Gunds were concerned about the name's negative connotations (weapons, etc.) and went with the runner-up, "Sharks." The name was said to have been inspired by the large number of sharks living in the Pacific Ocean. Seven different varieties live there, and one area of water near the Bay Area is known as the "red triangle" because of its shark population. The team's first marketing head, Matt Levine, said of the new name, "Sharks are relentless, determined, swift, agile, bright and fearless. We plan to build an organization that has all those qualities."

George Kingston years (1991-93)
For their first two seasons, the Sharks played at the Cow Palace in Daly City, just outside San Francisco. During this time, under coach George Kingston, they were one of the worst teams in the NHL, as often happens to expansion teams — 71 losses and a 17-game losing streak, while earning a mere 24 points in the standings. Unsurprisingly, Kingston was fired following the end of the 1992-93 season.

Kevin Constantine years (1993-97)
For their third season, 1993-94, the Sharks moved to their current home, the San Jose Arena (now the HP Pavilion at San Jose). Under head coach Kevin Constantine, the Sharks pulled off one of the biggest turnarounds in NHL history, finishing with a 33-35-16 record, making the playoffs with 82 points — a 58-point jump from the previous season. They were seeded 8th in the Western Conference playoffs and faced the Detroit Red Wings, the near-unanimous pick to win the Stanley Cup. However, in one of the biggest upsets in Stanley Cup Playoff history, the underdog Sharks shocked the Red Wings in seven games. In the second round, the Sharks had a 3-2 lead over the Toronto Maple Leafs, but lost the final two games in Toronto; including an overtime loss in Game 6 where, moments before Toronto's decisive goal, Johan Garpenlov's shot rang off the Toronto crossbar.
In 1994-95, the Sharks returned to the playoffs and again made it to the second round. Ray Whitney scored a goal in double overtime of Game 7 of the conference quarterfinals against the Calgary Flames, adding to Calgary's streak of not winning a playoff series after they won the 1989 Stanley Cup (a streak they wouldn't break until 2004). Key Sharks players were goalie Arturs Irbe, defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh and forwards Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov. The 1995 season also saw the only rainout in the history of the NHL, when the Guadalupe River flooded its banks in March 1995, making it impossible for anyone to get into the San Jose Arena for a game between the Sharks and the Red Wings.
In 1995-96, the Sharks finished last in the Pacific Division and failed to make the playoffs. The team also underwent major changes: during the season they traded Ozolinsh and Larionov; Irbe, who had suffered an off-ice injury, was released at the end of the season. The team began rebuilding, acquiring forward Owen Nolan from the Colorado Avalanche, as well as several other players. Constantine was fired midway through the season and replaced by interim coach Jim Wiley. The next season was no better under Al Sims, with the Sharks again finishing last and winning only 27 games.

Darryl Sutter years (1997-2002)
The Sharks returned to the playoffs in 1997-98, with goalie Mike Vernon, whom they acquired from the Red Wings (the season after Vernon won the Conn Smythe Trophy), and new head coach Darryl Sutter. For the next two years, the Sharks made the playoffs, yet never advanced past the first round. This changed in the 1999-2000 season, when the Sharks finished with their first-ever winning record, but earned a match-up against the Presidents' Trophy champion St. Louis Blues in the first round. However, in an upset on par with the one they had pulled on Detroit six years earlier, the Sharks managed to eliminate the Blues in the full seven games. San Jose, however, managed to last only five more games before being eliminated by the Dallas Stars that year.
In 2000-01, Kazakh goalie Evgeni Nabokov won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the league's best rookie. The team also acquired Finnish star forward Teemu Selanne from the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for Jeff Friesen and Steve Shields. In the 2001 playoffs, the Blues downed the Sharks in six games in the first round, avenging the 2000 defeat to San Jose. The team's breakout year was 2001-02. Veteran Adam Graves was acquired for Mikael Samuelsson. The Sharks won their first Pacific Division title, and defeated the Phoenix Coyotes in the first round, but fell to the Colorado Avalanche in second.
Following the 2001-02 season, the Gunds sold the Sharks to a group of local investors headed by team president Greg Jamison. Kyle McLaren was acquired in a three-way trade with the Montreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins for checking-line winger Niklas Sundstrom and promising prospect Jeff Jillson, and Dan McGillis was acquired for Marcus Ragnarsson, but the team could not turn itself around. Sutter was fired and replaced by Ron Wilson midway through that season.

Ron Wilson years (2003-present)
In 2003, Owen Nolan was traded to Toronto, and the newly-acquired McGillis, Bryan Marchment, AHL star Shawn Heins, and forward Matt Bradley were moved. Selanne left to sign with the Colorado Avalanche. Centers Alyn McCauley (from the Maple Leafs) and Wayne Primeau (from the Pittsburgh Penguins) were brought in to stabilize the locker room. Jim Fahey, who led all rookie defensemen in points despite playing in only 43 games.
2003-04 saw another turnaround for the team, resulting in the team's best season ever. An injection of youth, with players like Christian Ehrhoff and Tom Preissing, and the influx of energy with Alexander Korolyuk jump-started San Jose. They posted the third-best record in the league with a team-record 104 points (31 more than the previous season, and the first time the team had earned 100 points), won the Pacific Division championship, and were seeded second in the Western Conference. They charged through the playoffs, taking down the St. Louis Blues 4 games to 1 in the conference quarterfinals and stopping the Colorado Avalanche 4-2 in the conference semis—before falling to the Calgary Flames 4-2 in the conference finals.
The Sharks started the 2005-06 season slowly, with inconsistent goaltending and an inability to score goals dropping the team to last place in the Pacific Division. In response, the Sharks traded Brad Stuart, Wayne Primeau and Marco Sturm to the Boston Bruins for Joe Thornton. The trade re-energised the team, and with excellent play by backup goaltender Vesa Toskala, the Sharks rallied back from their early season slump to clinch the 5th seeding in the Western Conference for the playoffs. The Sharks defeated the Nashville Predators 4-1 in the conference quarterfinals before falling to the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 in the conference semifinals. Joe Thornton was awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's MVP, as well as the Art Ross Trophy for leading the league in points, with a total of 125. Jonathan Cheechoo was awarded the Maurice 'Rocket' Richard Trophy for scoring the most goals during the regular season, with a total of 56.
The Sharks entered the 2006-07 season as the youngest team in average age, as well as the biggest team in average weight, and they raced out to a 20-7-0 start, the best in franchise history. Ron Wilson chose the uncommon strategy of alternating both Vesa Toskala and Evgeni Nabokov every other game. However, injuries, inexperience, and inconsistency dogged the team until making two significant trades at the trade deadline for defenseman Craig Rivet and winger Bill Guerin. The trades coincided with Nabokov, playing full time while Toskala recovered from an injury, putting together a string of outstanding performances and earning the number one job. The Sharks finished the regular season with the best record in franchise history at 51-26-5, and defeated the Nashville Predators in a 1st round rematch of last year's playoffs with the same 4-1 result. In the Western Conference semifinals, the Sharks faced the Detroit Red Wings. After taking a 2-1 series lead, they lost a pivotal game 4 when the Red Wings scored the tying goal with 33 seconds left and went on to win in overtime. The Sharks never recovered from the disappointment of this loss, losing the next two games in a row giving the series to Detroit 4-2.
See also 2006-07 San Jose Sharks season.
The Sharks goal horn is a fog horn that reflects on the many fog horns heard in the Bay Area.


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Pittsburgh Penguins

The Pittsburgh Penguins are a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey Leagu (NHL).

Franchise history

Expansion years: 1967-69
The home of the early NHL incarnation of the Pirates during the 1920s and the successful Hornets American Hockey League franchise from the 1930s through the 1960s, Pittsburgh was one of six cities awarded an expansion team when the NHL doubled in size for the start of 1967-68.
After deciding on the "Penguin" nickname (which was inspired by the fact that the team was going to play in an "Igloo", the nickname of the Pittsburgh Civic Center), a logo was chosen, that had a penguin in front of a triangle, symbolizing the "Golden Triangle" of downtown Pittsburgh."
The Penguins' first general manager was Jack Riley. His team (along with the other expansion teams) was hampered by restrictive rules that kept most major talent with the "Original Six." Beyond aging sniper Andy Bathgate and tough defenseman Leo Boivin, the first Penguins team was manned by a cast of former minor-leaguers. The club missed the playoffs, but were a mere six points out of 1st place in the close-fought West Division.
Though Bathgate led the team in scoring, both he and Boivin were soon gone. Former player George Sullivan was the head coach for the club's first two seasons, until being replaced by Hockey Hall of Famer Leo Kelly. Despite a handful of decent players such as Ken Schinkel, Keith McCreary, agitator Bryan Watson, and goaltender Les Binkley, talent was otherwise thin. The Penguins' missed the playoffs in five of their first seven seasons.

1970s
Tragedy struck the Penguins in 1970 when promising rookie center Michel Briere, who finished third in scoring on the team, was injured in a car crash. Briere died after spending a year in the hospital, and his jersey, number 21, was the first to be retired by the franchise. The Penguins would reach the playoffs for the first time in 1970, advancing to the Western Conference Finals where they lost to the St. Louis Blues. Pittsburgh managed a playoff berth in 1972 but not much beyond that. With the Penguins battling the California Golden Seals near the division cellar in 1973-74, Jack Riley was fired as general manager and replaced with Jack Button. Button traded for Steve Durbano, Ab Demarco Jr., Bob "Battleship" Kelly, and Bob Paradise. The personnel moves proved successful, as the team's play improved. The Penguins just barely missed the playoffs in 1974.
Beginning in the mid-Seventies, Pittsburgh iced some powerful offensive clubs, led by the likes of the "Century Line" of forwards Syl Apps, Jr., Lowell MacDonald, and Jean Pronovost. They came tantalizingly close to reaching the Stanley Cup semifinals in 1975, but were ousted from the playoffs by the New York Islanders in one of only three best-of-seven game series in professional sports history where a team came back from being down three games to none. As the 70s wore on, they brought in other offensive weapons such as Rick Kehoe, Pierre Larouche, and Ron Schock, along with a couple solid blue-liners such as Ron Stackhouse and Dave Burrows. But the Pens' success beyond the regular season was always neutralized by mediocre team defense and poor goaltending.
In 1975, the Penguins' creditors demanded payment of back debts, forcing the team into bankruptcy. The doors to the team's offices were padlocked, and it looked like the Penguins were headed for contraction. Through the intervention of a group that included Wren Blair, the team was prevented from folding.
A decline started when Baz Bastien, a former coach and general manager of the AHL Hornets, became general manager. The Penguins missed the playoffs in 1977-78 when their offense lagged, and Larouche was traded for Pete Mahovlich and Peter Lee. Bastien traded prime draft choices for several players whose best years were already behind them, such as Orest Kindrachuk, Tom Bladon, and Rick MacLeish, and the team would suffer in the early 1980s as a result. The decade closed with a playoff appearance in 1979 and a rousing opening series win over Buffalo before a second round sweep at the hands of the Boston Bruins.

1980s
The Penguins began the decade by changing their team colors.In January 1980, the team went from blue & white to their present-day black & gold to honor Pittsburgh's other sports teams, the Pirates and the Steelers, as well as the Flag of Pittsburgh. Both the Pirates and Steelers had worn black and gold for decades, and both were fresh off world championship seasons at that time. The Boston Bruins protested this color change, claiming a monopoly on black and gold. The Penguins defended their choice stating that an early hockey club in Pittsburgh also used black and gold as their team colors. They also argued that black and gold were Pittsburgh's traditional sporting colors. The NHL agreed, and Pittsburgh was allowed to use black and gold, a color scheme since adopted as well by the Anaheim Ducks when that team changed their uniforms in 2006.
On the ice, the Penguins began the 1980s with defenseman Randy Carlyle, and prolific scorers Paul Gardner and Mike Bullard, but little else.
During the early part of the decade, the Penguins made a habit of being a tough draw for higher seeded opponents in the playoffs. In 1980, the 13th seeded Penguins took the Bruins to the limit in their first round playoff series. The following season, as the 15th seed, they lost the decisive game of their first round series in overtime to the heavily favored St. Louis Blues. Then, in the 1982 playoffs, the Penguins held a 3-1 lead late in the fifth and final game of their playoff series against the reigning champions, the New York Islanders. However, the Islanders rallied to force overtime and won the series on a goal by John Tonelli. It would be the Pens' final playoff appearance until 1989.
The team had the league's worst record in both the 1983 and 1984 seasons, and with the team suffering financial problems, it again looked as though the Penguins would fold. But the reward for the dismal 83-84 season was the right to draft French Canadian phenomenon Mario Lemieux. Other teams offered substantial trade packages for the draft choice, but the Penguins kept the pick.

The Mario Lemieux era: 1984-2005
With the first overall pick in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft Pittsburgh selected Quebec Major Junior Hockey League superstar Mario Lemieux. He paid dividends right away, scoring on the first shot of his first shift in his first NHL game. Some criticized Lemieux for neglecting his defensive responsibilities, but Pittsburgh was looking for offense.
Pittsburgh spent four more years out of the playoffs. In the late 80s, the Penguins finally gave Lemieux a strong supporting cast, trading for superstar defenseman Paul Coffey from the Edmonton Oilers (after the Oilers' 1987 Stanley Cup win), and bringing in young talent such as scorers Kevin Stevens, Rob Brown, and John Cullen from the minors. And they finally acquired a top-flight goaltender with the acquisition of Tom Barrasso from the Buffalo Sabres. The Pens made the playoffs, but lost in the second round to their trans-Pennsylvania rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers. Though amassing 123 points, Lemieux missed 21 games in 1989-90 due to a herniated disk in his back, and the Pens slipped out of the playoff picture.
But in 1990-91, the Penguins reached the top of the standings. They drafted Czech right-winger Jaromir Jagr in the 1990 NHL Entry Draft, the first player from his country to attend an NHL draft without having to defect, and then paired with Mario Lemieux as the league's biggest one-two scoring threat since Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri on the Edmonton Oilers in the 1980s. Mark Recchi arrived from the minors, and Bryan Trottier signed as a free agent. Joe Mullen in a minor trade all set up these major trades that brought Larry Murphy, Ron Francis, and Ulf Samuelsson to Pittsburgh. The Penguins finally became the league's best team, defeating the currently defunct Minnesota North Stars in the Stanley Cup finals in six games. The following season, the team lost coach Bob Johnson to cancer, and Scotty Bowman took over as coach. Under the legendary Bowman, they swept the Chicago Blackhawks to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions.
Cancer nearly dealt the Penguins a double whammy in 1993. Not only were they reeling from Johnson's death, but Lemieux was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. Only two months after the diagnosis, his comeback was one of the league's great "feel-good" stories of all time, missing 24 out of 84 games, but winning his fourth Art Ross Trophy as scoring champion with 160 points scored, edging out Pat LaFontaine and Adam Oates for the award. Despite the off-ice difficulties, Pittsburgh finished with a 56-21-7 record, winning the franchise's first (and still only) Presidents' Trophy as the team with the most points in the regular season; the 119 points earned that year is still a franchise record. After Lemieux's return, the team played better than it ever had before, winning an NHL-record 17 consecutive games before tying the New Jersey Devils in the final game of the season. Despite all of this success, they were still eliminated in the second round by the New York Islanders in overtime of Game 7.
The Penguins continued to be a formidable team throughout the 1990s. The stars of the Stanley Cup years were followed by the likes of forwards Alexei Kovalev, Martin Straka, Alekse Morozv, Robert Lang, and Petr Nedved, and defensemen Sergei Zubov, Darius Kasparaitis, and Kevin Hatcher,. Lemieux retired in 1997 and formally passed the torch to Jagr as the league's leading scorer. For the next 4 seasons, Jagr, as the captain, won 4 consecutive Art Ross Trophies. Jagr was clearly the NHL's most dominant player with the absence of Lemieux. Because of his legendary status, the Hockey Hall of Fame waived its three-year waiting period and inducted him as an Honored Member in the same year he retired.
Despite a strong on-ice product, the Penguins were in the midst of a battle for their survival. Their free-spending ways earlier in the decade came with a price — owners Howard Baldwin and Morris Belzberg (who bought the Penguins after their first Cup win) had asked the players to defer their salaries. When they finally came due, combined with other financial pressures, the Penguins were forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 1998--the second such filing in franchise history. Just when it appeared that the Pens were about to either move or fold, Lemieux stepped forward with an unprecedented proposal. He had become one of the team's principal creditors due to years of deferred salary adding up to millions of dollars. He proposed to recover his deferred salary by converting it into equity and buying the team. The court agreed, and Lemieux assumed control on September 3, 1999. Just as he'd saved the Penguins 15 years earlier, he'd done it again.
He later shocked the hockey world by deciding to come back as a player. He returned to the ice on December 27, 2000, becoming the first player-owner in NHL history. Lemieux helped lead the Penguins deep into the 2001 playoffs, highlighted by an overtime victory against the Buffalo Sabres in Game 7 of the second round. Kasparaitis scored the series-clinching goal to advance the Penguins to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost in 5 games to the New Jersey Devils.
Still, the Penguins needed to cut costs. They dealt Jagr and Frantisek Kucera to the Washington Capitals for prospects Kris Beech, Michal Sivek, and Ross Lupaschuk, and $4.9 million in the summer of 2001. The absence of Jagr proved devastating to the Penguins, and in 2002 they missed the playoffs for the first time in 12 years. Further financial difficulties saw them trade fan favorite Kovalev to the New York Rangers the next season, quickly followed by the departure of Lang in free agency. Unfortunately for the franchise, none of the prospects acquired for the stars' salary dumps materialized into NHL stars. Thus, the Penguins spent the next several seasons in the NHL's basement.
2003 was expected to be a rebuilding year for the Penguins, with first overall pick Marc-Andre Fleury in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft and new head coach (and former Penguin and commentator) Eddie Olczyk. Cost restrictions made the signing of Fleury rather tense, but he later showed his resolve with excellent goaltending for a last-place club. Lemieux suffered a hip injury early in the season, and he sat out the rest of the season to recover. The Pens then traded Straka away to the Los Angeles Kings and sent Fleury back to his junior team due to further money problems. The Penguins finished with the worst NHL record, but lost the lottery for the 2004 NHL Entry Draft to the Washington Capitals.
The Penguins have suffered small-market syndrome for most of their existence, and cost-cutting prevented another collapse into insolvency. Financially, the team was one of the better-managed NHL franchises between its 1998 bankruptcy and the 2004-05 NHL lockout. Thanks to significant post-season runs, the Penguins broke even in 2000 and turned a small profit in 2001. Failure to make the playoffs in the next three seasons hurt the team's bottom line, but the shedding of contracts kept the team afloat as other franchises, like the Ottawa Senators, faced significant losses or declared bankruptcy.
However, by 2005, the Penguins had paid off all of their creditors, both secured and unsecured. In fact, the court approved Lemieux' plan largely because it was intended to pay everyone the team owed.

Lockout season: 2004-05
With the 2004-05 NHL season cancelled due to the NHL lockout, several Penguins signed with the club's American Hockey League affiliate Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, while experienced players like Aleksey Morozov and Milan Kraft honed their talents in the elite European leagues.

The Sidney Crosby era: 2005-present
The Penguins won an unprecedented draft lottery in the summer of 2005, in which all thirty teams had weighted chances to win the first overall pick of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. The Penguins chose junior league superstar Sidney Crosby from the Rimouski Oceanic of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. With a new Collective Bargaining Agreement signed by the owners and players to end the 2004-05 NHL lockout, the Penguins began rebuilding the team under a salary cap. They signed big-name free agents Sergei Gonchar, John LeClair, and Zigmund Palffy, and traded for goaltender Jocelyn Thibault. The team began the season with a long winless skid that resulted in a coaching change from Olczyk to Michel Therrien. Palffy announced his retirement due to a lingering shoulder injury while the team's second-leading scorer. Then on January 24, 2006, Lemieux announced his second retirement, this time for good, after developing an irregular heart beat. He finished as the NHL's seventh all-time scorer (1,723), eighth in goals (690) and tenth in assists (1,033).
It was now, for all intents and purposes, Crosby's team, and on April 17, Crosby became the youngest rookie in history to score 100 points. And on the Penguins' final game of the season, Crosby scored a goal and an assist to break Lemieux's record and became the top scoring rookie in team history with 102 points, despite losing the rookie scoring race to Alexander Ovechkin. Despite a decent finish, the Penguins posted the worst record of the Eastern Conference and the highest goals-against in the league.
The team announced on April 20 that the contract for General Manager Craig Patrick would not be renewed. Patrick had been GM since December 1989, and the Penguins won five division titles and back-to-back Stanley Cups during his tenure. On May 25, Ray Shero signed a five-year contract as General Manager.
On October 18, 2006, young Russian superstar Evgeni Malkin scored a goal in his first NHL game, and went on to set the modern NHL record with a goal in each of his first six games. Also contributing early to the 2006-07 season was Jordan Staal, the third of four Staal brothers in hockey, who was the Penguins' first pick (second overall) in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. On February 27, 2007, the Penguins acquired Gary Roberts from Florida and Georges Laraque from Phoenix.
The Penguins earned points in sixteen straight games of 14 wins and only 2 overtime losses in early 2007. The streak ended on February 19 with a last-minute loss to the New York Islanders. It was the second longest point streak in club history.
The Penguins finished the 2006-07 season in fifth place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 47-24-11, totaling 105 points, only two points behind the division winner, New Jersey Devils. Sidney Crosby won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL's top scorer with 120 points, amassing 36 goals and 84 assists, beating San Jose Sharks' Joe Thornton by six points (Crosby's victory in the scoring race marked the twelfth time in the past nineteen seasons that a Penguin has won the Art Ross Trophy). In the first round of the 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Penguins were defeated four games to one, by the eventual Stanley Cup finalists, the Ottawa Senators.
After the conclusion of the Penguins' season, the team announced that Sidney Crosby would become the team's captain. This honor made him the youngest full team captain in NHL history at only 19 years old (In January 1984, Brian Bellows of the Minnesota North Stars was made captain at 5 months younger than Crosby, but he only served the latter half of the 1983-84 season replacing injured captain Craig Hartsburg). He had been offered the position during the course of the season, but Crosby deferred stating that he did not want to mess with the chemistry of the team while they were in the playoff hunt.

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Phoenix Coyotes

The Phoenix Coyotes are a professional men's ice hockey team based in Glendale, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). They play at the Jobing.com Arena.
The Coyotes were founded in 1972 as the Winnipeg Jets of the World Hockey Association, joining the NHL in 1979 and moving to Phoenix in 1996. Their home ice was at the US Airways Center (then known as America West Arena) for seven years, until 2003 when the Jobing.com Arena opened.

Franchise history

Winnipeg Years — WHA and NHL
The team began play as the Winnipeg Jets, one of the founding franchises in the World Hockey Association (WHA). The Jets were the most successful team in the short-lived WHA, winning three Avco World Trophies, the league's championship trophy, and making the finals five out of the WHA's seven seasons. It then became one of the four teams admitted to the NHL when the rival leagues merged in 1979.
However, the club was never able to translate that success into the NHL after the merger, in part because they played in the same division as the powerful Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames. While they made the playoffs 11 times in 17 seasons, they only won two playoff series. Due to the way the playoffs were structured for much of their Winnipeg run, the Jets were all but assured of having to defeat either the Oilers or the Flames to make it to the conference finals.
Despite strong fan support, the Jets ran into financial trouble when player salaries began spiraling up in the 1990s. This hit the Canadian teams particularly hard. Several attempts to keep the team in Winnipeg ultimately fell through. In the spring of 1996, Phoenix businessmen Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke bought the team with plans to move it to Phoenix for the 1996-97 season. A name-the-team contest yielded the nickname "Coyotes."

The early Phoenix years (1996-2005)
In the summer that the move took place, the franchise saw the exit of Jets stars like Teemu Selanne and Alexei Zhamnov, while the team added established superstar Jeremy Roenick from the Chicago Blackhawks. Roenick teamed up with power wingers Keith Tkachuk and Rick Tocchet to form a dynamic 1-2-3 offensive punch that led the Coyotes through their first years in Arizona. Also impressive were young players like Shane Doan (as of the current season the last remaining Coyote dating to the team's days in Winnipeg), Oleg Tverdovsky, and goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, whom the fans nicknamed the "Bulin Wall."
Another key addition to the squad was fleet sniper Mike Gartner, who had come over from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite his speed, and scoring his 700th career goal on December 15, 1997, Gartner battled injuries as 1997 became 1998, and the Coyotes did not renew his contract. He retired at the end of the season.
After arriving in Phoenix, the team posted six consecutive .500 or better seasons, making the playoffs in every year but one. They were tremendously popular, in part due to the large number of Northern expatriates in the Phoenix area. The one year they missed the playoffs, the Coyotes became the first team in NHL history to post 90 points — long the standard of excellence in the NHL — and yet still miss the playoffs.
However, their home during their first eight years in Phoenix, America West Arena, was completely inadequate for hockey. Although it was considered a state-of-the-art facility (it was built in 1992), the arena's floor was just barely large enough to fit a hockey rink. In several locations, the nets couldn't be seen. As a result, listed capacity had to be cut down to just over 16,000 — the second-smallest in the league at the time — after the first season. Even then, a stretch of the upper deck actually hung over the boards, obstructing the views of around 3,000 spectators. Some fans even claimed that they saw places where the original concrete had been sheared off to create retractable seats for hockey.
Burke bought out Gluckstern in 1998, but was unable to attract more investors to alleviate the team's financial woes (see below). Finally, in 2001, Burke sold the team to Phoenix-area developer Steve Ellman, with Wayne Gretzky as a part-owner and head of hockey operations. Ellman has since sold controlling interest to trucking company executive Jerry Moyes, who is also a part-owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
To this day, however, the Coyotes have never made it out of the first round of the playoffs. The franchise has not won a playoff series since 1987, when it was still in Winnipeg. The closest that they came to advancing past the first round was during the 1999 playoffs, when they lost a heartbreaking Game 7 to the St. Louis Blues. In 2002, the Coyotes posted 95 points, one point behind their best total as an NHL team, but made a rather meek first-round exit from the playoffs, being eliminated in five games by the San Jose Sharks.
However, since then the Coyotes have been barely competitive. Aside from the 2005-06 season, the team hasn't broken the 80-point barrier. Attendance levels dropped considerably, worrying many league executives. In addition, an unfavorable lease with the city of Phoenix (owner of America West Arena) had the team bleeding red ink; the Coyotes have never really recovered from the resulting financial problems.
In 2003, the team opened Glendale Arena (now known as Jobing.com Arena), and moved there in 2003. Ellman had committed to building the new arena after numerous proposals to improve the hockey sight lines in America West Arena came to nothing. Simultaneously, the team changed its logo and uniforms, moving from the previous multi-colored kit to a more streamlined look.

Gretzky Era (2005 - present)
On 6 August 2005, Brett Hull, son of former Jet Bobby Hull, was signed and assigned the elder Hull's retired # 9. Two days later, Gretzky named himself head coach, replacing Rick Bowness, despite the fact that he had never coached at any level of hockey. The Coyotes Ring of Honor was unveiled on 8 October, inducting Gretzky and Bobby Hull. One week later, Brett Hull announced his retirement. On 21 January 2006, Jets great Thomas Steen was the third inductee to the Ring of Honor. On 13 April, Steve Ellman announced an agreement for Jerry Moyes to assume majority ownership control of the Coyotes, Glendale Arena and the National Lacrosse League's Arizona Sting. Also in the 2005-06 season, the Coyotes were planning to host the NHL All-Star Game, which was canceled due to the 2006 Winter Olympics.
The team returned to Winnipeg on 17 September, 2006 to play a pre-season game against the Edmonton Oilers, but were shut-out 5-0 before a sellout crowd of 15,015.
On 11 April 2007, CEO Jeff Shumway announced that general manager Michael Barnett (Gretzky's agent for over 20 years), senior executive vice president of hockey operations Cliff Fletcher, and San Antonio Rampage's general manager and Coyotes' assistant general manager Laurence Gilman "have been relieved of their duties." The Coyotes finished the 2006-2007 season 31-46-5, its worst record since relocating to Phoenix.
On May 29, 2007, Jeff Shumway announced that Don Maloney had agreed to a multi-year contract to become General Manager of the Coyotes. As per club policy, terms of the contract were not disclosed. However, as has been the case with all general managers since 2001, Maloney serves in an advisory role to Gretzky.

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