This past offseason was an exciting one for a lot of teams in the NHL, but now it’s team to put those rookies, veterans and traded players alike on the ice again!

Last night, eight NHL teams started off the season with a bang and a lot of surprises in the final score. The Toronto Maple Leafs, one of the least favored teams in the league, managed to beat last year’s Stanley Cup finalists, the Detroit Red Wings, in an unexpected 3-2 victory. Two unassisted goals by Pavel Kubina and Nikolai Kulemin created a couple of doubts about Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood, while Vesa Toskala was stunning in the net, stopping 35 of 37 shots for a .946 save percentage. Tomas Holmstrom was also a valuable asset to his team, scoring both goals for Detroit, the last one during a powerplay and assisted by one of the Red Wing’s new dangerous players, Marian Hossa.

The Boston Bruins and Colorado Avalanche had an even tighter face-off last night, ending the game with a 5-4 victory for the Bruins. Patrice Bergeron picked up two assists on his NHL season comeback, having been injured for most of the season last year. Newly acquired Micheal Ryder also scored his first of the season on the Avalanche’s new goaltender Peter Budaj, who unfortunately was not even nearly as impressive as Boston’s five-year veteran Tim Thomas. 

Two tight victories for two Eastern conference teams last night, but two not-so-close victories for our four other Western conference season openers. The Calgary Flames took a real pounding last night, losing the game 6-0 versus the newly-appointed unofficial captain of the Vancouver Canucks, Roberto Luongo, who got a shutout on 25 saves. The shots were just about even for both teams, but Miika Kiprusoff of the Flames was far from his regular puck-stopping self, having displayed a measly .654 save percentage: the Canucks even scored with a short-handed unit. Three assists went to the spectacular Daniel Sedin, famous for his playmaking abilities, and Alex Burrows continued to improve his career performance with two goals in his first game.

Another big defeat went to the Anaheim Ducks in their game versus the San Jose Sharks, who tore the former team up like you would expect sharks to tear up ducks, ending the game 4-1. It was another goaltending extravaganza, both Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Evgeni Malkin piling on the saves with a .902 and a .966 save percentage (respectively). In the end though, the game was still won by the team with the most shots, both the first and game-winning goal having gone to right-winger Jonathan Cheechoo of the Sharks. Center Rob Niedermayer scored the only goal for the Ducks, having barely tipped in a slapshot taken by defenseman Steve Montador.

That’s my recap of last night’s game, and I am definitely looking forward to these next two days: 14 teams will be playing tonight, and nearly the entire league will be playing tomorrow night as 26 teams face off, many for their season openers! Expect a fourty-game summary on Sunday…

-45 ACP

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.