The 2014-15 NHL Regular Season Was Weird as Hell

The 2014-15 NHL regular season, which ended Saturday, defied logic. No player exemplified this better than Ottawa Senators goaltender Andrew Hammond. Hammond, nicknamed the Hamburglar, sported a downright atrocious .898 save percentage in 25 games early this season with the AHL's Binghamton Senators. Then he played so well after getting called up to Ottawa that McDonald's gave him free burgers for life.

In February the Senators were 14 points out of a playoff spot. They'd fired head coach Paul MacLean in December and replaced him with Dave Cameron, who had never coached in the NHL. A series of injuries had left the team with no better option than Hammond, a mild-mannered 27-year-old who had played just one (one!) NHL game. But Hammond propelled the Senators to a once improbable playoff birth with an astonishing 20-1-2 record.

"I've never had a stretch of hockey like this in my life," said Hammond. "It's something I don't think anyone can really explain."

He could have been speaking about the entire NHL season.

Under Commissioner Gary Bettman, the NHL is a league constantly in flux. Every year, more rules are tinkered with. Playoff formats change. So do playing styles. The NHL is hardly recognizable one decade to the next, as it searches desperately for more eyeballs, more revenue.

Which is why, while Andrew Hammond is a fine story, it is only one of many strange turns that occurred this year.

Consider the defending Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings: based on strong possession play, they had won two cups in three years and with their core still in tact, many analysts (Including the really, really smart ones) picked the Kings to repeat. The smell of a destiny was in the air, but somehow the Kings were unable to clinch a playoff spot.

Long thought of as a team that stayed under the radar and got hot at just the right time (sort of like the Spurs), the Kings tempted fate too long. They lost too many overtime and shootout games, and their league-best Corsi For of 55.1% didn't translate into the usual late-season run. But don't mistake the Kings' stumbles for a referendum on advanced stats. Exciting cup contenders like the Lightning and Blackhawks scored well in puck possession.

Joining the Kings on the outside of the Cup run are the 2011 champion Boston Bruins, the very definition of a tough, physical team. They limped to the finish line and ended in 9th place in the Eastern Conference. You could make the case that the core of both the Bruins and the Kings, who've battled through an incredible batch of playoff series in recent years, were suffering from fatigue this season. And you'd have a pretty compelling case.

But a changing of the guard is never a bad thing, especially when young teams like the Winnipeg Jets, the Calgary Flames and the New York Islanders, led by the crafty John Tavares, get their shot.

Tavares, it should be noted, finished second in league scoring this year with 86 points. Dallas's Jamie Benn won the scoring title on the last day of the regular season with 87 points, the lowest points-per-game total for a scoring champion in almost 70 years. But regular season NHL scoring titles are quickly forgotten when the playoffs get under way.

Many believe that, given the importance and interest in the playoffs, the NHL's 82-game regular season is much too long. By the time the Stanley Cup champion is crowned in June, fans are walking out of the chilled arenas in shorts and flip-flops.

Then again, the season was just long enough for the Ottawa Senators, who could find themselves lifting the cup in a few months if the breaks keep going their way.

Sound strange? Sure it does. Which means it could very well happen.