2007-08 Best Team Feud

[Merlin401]

Divisional rivalries started to mount a comeback with several long-time rivals seemingly fighting every time they met. Here are some of the best rivalries of the year:

Nominees

Pittsburgh Penguins -- Philadelphia Flyers
13 fights in 8 games. Its only too bad these two teams didn't meet in the playoffs because there was genuine dislike here. Only one of their eight games did not feature a fight, and that was the season-ending throw-away game. Season highlights include a 5-fight game with two brawls, Georges Laraque doing a slide tackle on the goalie, and a nasty exchange between Eager and Laraque. Eager's trade is the only thing that prevented a war the following meetings. Yet we still managed to have two Laraque-Cote battles, Laraque getting kicked out for a nasty hit on Steve Downie, and a number of other fun scraps. Great rivalry reborn.

Edmonton Oilers -- Vancouver Canucks
11 fights in 8 games, including the crazy old-NHL style brawl game which featured a season-high 193 PIMS, 7 fights, and an old-fashioned stick swing from super-pest Alex Burrows. Several other games had fights including Byron Ritchie vs. Sheldon Souray, significant for Souray suffering a serious shoulder injury which may have cost Edmonton the playoffs.

Montreal Canadiens -- Boston Bruins
11 fights in 8 games. Although Montreal dominated the season series, they were slightly less victorious in the fights between these old-school rivals. A four-fight November game saw Mark Stuart pummel Andrei Kostitsyn followed by a Zdeno Chara beatdown on Guillaume Latendresse. On the positive side, Francis Bouillon and Steve Begin both held their own in spirited scraps with middle-weight Jeremy Reich. Hopefully the festivities continue as the teams meet in the first-round of the playoffs.

Calgary Flames -- Edmonton Oilers
The famed Battle of Alberta lived up to the hype, giving us 13 fights in 8 games include 9 fights in a single week of April. The two games featured near continues mini-brawls, scrums and fights. Zack Stortini proved to be a huge instigator in the season series fighting four different flames (Sarich, Regehr, Nolan and Vandermeer) and causing a general commotion. Resident Flames tough guy Eric Godard found 2 unlikely fight partners in Matt Greene and the Oiler's goalie whom he started a brawl by attacking. Basically you know its a good rivalry when Ladislav Smid and Matthew Lombardi square off!

Minnesota Wild -- Calgary Flames
With 9 fights in 8 games, these two seemed to both want to be crowned the toughest team in the division. Calgary brought in Iron Mike Keenan and he lit a fire on the Flames ass, while Minnesota amassed a stock-pile of heavyweights in Fedoruk, Simon and Boogaard. Phaneuf fought a pair of times while Boogaard squared off with perennial arch-enemy Godard twice. The fight of the series belonged to Chris Simon dropped Jim Vandermeer with a beautiful punch.

My Pick

Philly-Pittsburgh was a war every time and you really could sense that the teams just didn't like each other.

Previous Winners

2003-04: New York Rangers – New York Islanders
2005-06: Calgary Flames – Vancouver Canucks
2006-07: Buffalo Sabres -- Ottawa Senators

[mikethompson]

gotta be edmonton-vancouver what a series of games and then to top it off edmonton eliminates vancouver from the playoffs.

[skacore]

Edmonton/Vancouver had one hell of a game, but if my TV scheduled showed these games listed... gotta admit I'd be tuning into Pittsburgh and Philly, no doubt.

[bupz91]

Philly Pittsburgh mostly because of the Biron challenging Crosby thing. haha

[Isles4life]

I don't get to watch the West as often so I don't know how some of those teams behaved on a game to game basis, but Penguins-Flyers was always an entertaining matchup.

[The Don]

I'll go for the homer pick with the Philly - Pittsburgh series. If Eager wasn't traded it would have been even worse, Laraque may have killed him.

[R.Middleton]

Edmonton-Vancouver

[Killah_punk]

Penguins and Flyers had some great games this season, maybe we will get a treat and they meet in the Eastern finals?

[Snipes19]

Pittsburgh-Philadelphia.

This feud had the most fights, and this became a huge rivalry this season. Same division, same state, so these games were fun to watch.

The others were fun to watch too, but I can't vote for a feud with Montreal this season. Nothing against them, but they just aren't a fighting team, so that's all. I don't think that one can be considered the best.

[IceDog44]

I'd say the most intense rivalry this year had to be the Battle for Alberta. The Flames and Oilers have always had great hatred for one another and I think it came out once again this year. That rivalry gets the nod from me.

[BStreetBullies]

Philly/Pittsburgh games were constant ticking time bombs.

[jkidd]

Alberta hasn't seen blood like this in a long time.

Edmonton, Alberta vs. Calgary, Alberta...

Gotta love it.

[Phila26Flyers]

Philly vs Pittsburgh games were something to look forward too, and worth requesting off work for.

[Gtrain15]

No Jersey-Philly?

[canuckfan]

The Battle of Alberta is BACK, baby! When I watched these two teams play each other, I could FEEL the hatred out there - these two teams do not like each other, and the Oilers are playing the Flames a heck of a lot tougher than they have in the past. After snoring and sleeping through most of their games in the first few years since the lockout, the passion and hate came back big time. And even the fans are hating each other again after years of indifference and even tolerance! Crazy!

The Edmonton/Canuck rivalry was a good one, but sometimes I felt that was a one shot deal because of the brawl-filled game. The 3 games after that were pretty mild, but it was nice to see that brief surge of energy and hatred. Matt Cooke being traded didn't help either, but Burrows has quickly risen to take his place.

Minnesota and Calgary had a pretty healthy one too, but not as fierce as the Battle of Alberta. I know most people back east are voting for th Pittsburgh/Philly feud, but for my money, its here out West. Love those NW Division wars!