2025/26 Season, second half
The second season came to an end with no drama, no brave chase for the playoffs, no fight to get to .500. The Huskies were not very close at the All Star break, and that was as near to a playoff spot as they got. The second half of the season was a slight disappointment and they finished with a 35-40-7 record for 77 points. That's 15 points more than the previous season, if they were to improve by 15 points again next year they'd be right in the chase for a wildcard place. Not to be this year though, 77 points was only good enough for 7th in the 9 team Pacific division, 7th worst record in the league. One sign of the improvement was that last year if a half decent player turned up on waivers, Anchorage would claim and get them. This year they'd claim and somebody else with a worse record would get them. Normally Hartford Whalers.
One high point for the Huskies was that they were the only one of the four expansion franchises to not finish bottom of their division. They also had the best record of the expansion teams so I'm officially better than the AI. And they also crawled off the bottom of the Goals For list. So that's three good things.
For the Huskies rookie stars Henry Mews (27 goals, 21 assists) and Jordan Gavin (14 goals, 35 assists) looked good for a pair of teenagers although neither got anywhere near the Rookie award, that went to New Jersey's Luke Hughes, younger brother of current Devils star Jack Hughes.
Other Huskies players who deserve a mention for having a good year:
RW Vasili Podkolzin (22 goals, 32 assists, 54 points is a new Huskies record)
LW Carl Grundstrom (22 goals, 22 assists)
C Philipp Kurashev (5 goals, 26 assists)
D Brady Skjei (8 goals, 12 assists)
G Linus Ullmark (20-19-2, 2.90GAA,.909Sv%).
I really meant to put up end of season stats but I forwarded into the new year before remembering so the stats screen is all zeroes for 2026/27. Maybe next year if I remember
In the playoffs Western Conference wild card Dallas Stars won the Stanley Cup beating the Eastern Conference wild card Philadelphia Flyers 4-1. A year for upset. Toronto's Auston Matthews won both the Art Ross (most points) and Hart (MVP). Connor McDavid spent half the season injured so he lost out on his two annual awards and Matthews got them. One thing I have noticed is that star players dont appear to move often in FHM9, they all seem to be where they started the game. Unlike real life, Dmitry Orlov is where he should be playing for the Caps
Alex Ovechkin got the goals he needed to overtake Wayne Gretzky, a 30 goal season to take him to 911 career goals, 17 ahead of Gretzky. That's where the record will stay though, he retired at the end of the season.
Next up will be the 2025/26 Close Season thread when the dynasty will take a swerve from "we're getting good!" to "I've messed this up!". I've made a couple of mistakes that have f-ed up the Huskies for a while. A cautionary tale of how not to play FHM9.