Since we've now passed the 41 game mark - the end of the first half of the season -  I thought it would be fun to take a look at the Avs through 41 this year vs the Avs through 41 last year. "Fun" is probably the wrong word to use there, but you catch my drift, right? I'm including the team's rankings for this year (sorry, don't have them for the midway point last season).

Record:
07-08: 22-16-3
08-09: 21-19-1

Points:
07-08: 47
08-09: 43 (-4), ranked 19th in the league, 9th in the West.

Goals Scored (excludes shootout):
07-08: 117
08-09: 101 (-16), ranked 26th

Shots For:
07-08: 1,204
08-09: 1,181 (-23), ranked 20th

PP:
07-08: 24-177, 13.5%
08-09: 28-174, 16.1%, ranked 21st [man, I had forgotten just how awful we were on the PP at this point last year...not that it ever got all that much better]

Goals Against (excludes shootout):
07-08: 117
08-09: 116 (-1), ranked 17th

Shots Against:
07-08: 1,088
08-09: 1,173 (+85), ranked 7th

PK:
07-08: 29-151, 80.8%
08-09: 34-164, 79.3%, ranked 25th

Faceoff Percentage:
07-08: 1,121 / 2,278, 49.2%
08-09: 1,120 / 2,295, 49.0%, ranked 22nd

Hits:
07-08: 504
08-09: 719, (+215), ranked 24th

Blocked Shots:
07-08: 498
08-09: 649 (+151), ranked 4th

Penalty Minutes:
07-08: 433
08-09: 540 (+107), ranked 7th

So, we're even better this year at blocking shots (thanks to the acquisitions of Salei and Foote). And although we're still anemic compared to the rest of the league at hitting, the addition of guys like McLeod and Jones (remember, they played just 10 games combined in the first half last year) as well as Salei and, yes, even Darcy Tucker has helped improve this area for the club. Now if we could just start scoring some goals...