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77-78WinJet

The 1977-78 WHA season was the sixth season of the World Hockey Association (WHA). Eight teams played 80 games each. The Winnipeg Jets defeated the New England Whalers 4 games to 0 in the Finals to win their 3rd Avco World Trophy.

Regular Season[]

With a reduction of 3 teams from the end of the previous season (the San Diego Mariners, Phoenix Roadrunners, and Calgary Cowboys folded), the WHA abandoned its divisional format and grouped the remaining 8 teams together. There had been a tentative merger agreement that would have had Cincinnati, Houston, New England, Winnipeg, Quebec, and Edmonton join the NHL but it could not be finalized.

In a unique move, two international All-Star teams, the Soviet All-Stars and Czechoslovakia All-Stars, played games that counted in the regular season standings. They played each WHA team once, on the WHA team's home ice. The Soviet team acquitted themselves well, winning three, tying one and losing the other four, plus winning two exhibition games. The Czech team only won once and tied once, losing six. This was the first time International teams competed in regular season competition in a major professional sports league in North America. Those two teams as well as a Finnish team would return to play the WHA teams the next year.

1977-Dec7-Gordie 1000-Garrett

Gordie Howe scores his 1000th professional career goal, December 7, 1977.

On December 7, 1977, Gordie Howe scored the 1000th goal of his professional career on goalie John Garrett of the Birmingham Bulls.

Playoff Format[]

The best six teams qualified for the playoffs. However, instead of the standard schedule for a six-team playoff (i.e., giving the 1st and 2nd place teams byes into the Semi-finals, with the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th place teams opening in the Quarter-finals), the WHA came up with a unique twist. There were three Quarter-final series instead of two, with the teams paired top to bottom (i.e., 1st vs. 6th, 2nd vs. 5th, 3rd vs. 4th). The highest-seeded Quarter-final winner then received a Semi-finals bye and advanced directly to the Finals, while the remaining two Quarter-finals series winners played off in a single Semi-final. All series were best four out of seven games.

Final Standings[]

WHA Team GP W L T Pts GF GA PIM
Winnipeg Jets 80 50 28 2 102 381 270 988
New England Whalers 80 44 31 5 93 335 269 1255
Houston Aeros 80 42 34 4 88 296 302 1543
Quebec Nordiques 80 40 37 3 83 349 347 1185
Edmonton Oilers 80 38 39 3 79 309 307 1296
Birmingham Bulls 80 36 41 3 75 287 314 2177
Cincinnati Stingers 80 35 42 3 73 298 332 1701
Indianapolis Racers 80 24 51 5 53 267 353 1189
Soviet All-Stars 8 3 4 1 7 27 36 120
Czechoslovakia All-Stars 8 1 6 1 3 21 40 87

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, PIM = Penalties in Minutes
Teams that qualified for the playoffs are highlighted in bold.


Scoring Leaders[]

Bolded numbers indicate season leaders

GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; PIM = Penalty minutes

Player Team GP G A Pts PIM
Marc Tardif Quebec Nordiques 78 65 89 154 50
Real Cloutier Quebec Nordiques 73 56 73 129 19
Ulf Nilsson Winnipeg Jets 73 37 89 126 89
Anders Hedberg Winnipeg Jets 77 63 59 122 60
Bobby Hull Winnipeg Jets 77 46 71 117 23
André Lacroix Houston Aeros 78 36 77 113 57
Robbie Ftorek Cincinnati Stingers 80 59 50 109 54
Kent Nilsson Winnipeg Jets 80 42 65 107 8
Gordie Howe New England Whalers 76 34 62 96 85
Mark Howe New England Whalers 70 30 61 91 32

Leading Goaltenders[]

Bolded numbers indicate season leaders

GP = Games played; Min = Minutes played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties, GA = Goals against; GA = Goals against; SO = Shutouts; SV% = Save percentage; GAA = Goals against average

Player Team GP Min W L T GA SO SV% GAA
Al Smith New England Whalers 55 3246 30 20 3 174 2 88.5 3.22
Joe Daley Winnipeg Jets 37 2075 21 11 1 114 1 88.3 3.30
Gary Bromley Winnipeg Jets 39 2252 25 12 1 124 1 88.6 3.30
Jean-Louis Levasseur New England Whalers 27 1655 14 11 2 91 3 88.6 3.30
Ernie Wakely CincinnatiHouston 57 3381 28 23 4 192 2 89.1 3.41

All-Star Game[]

The 1978 WHA All-Star game pitted the defending champion Quebec Nordiques against the stars from the remaining WHA teams. The game was played on 17 January 1978, in Quebec City, and attracted 6,413 spectators.

The Nordiques, coached by Marc Boileau, won the game 5–4. Marc Tardif and Mark Howe were named the players of the game.

Avco World Trophy Playoffs[]

Quarter-finals[]

New England Whalers 4, Edmonton Oilers 1[]

Game Date Visitor Score Home Series
1 April 14 Edmonton Oilers 4–6 New England Whalers 0–1
2 April 16 Edmonton Oilers 1–4 New England Whalers 0–2
3 April 19 New England Whalers 0–2 Edmonton Oilers 2–1
4 April 21 New England Whalers 9–1 Edmonton Oilers 3–1
5 April 23 Edmonton Oilers 1–4 New England Whalers 1–4

Quebec Nordiques 4, Houston Aeros 2[]

# Date Visitor Score Home Record
1 April 16 Quebec Nordiques 3–4 Houston Aeros 0-1
2 April 18 Quebec Nordiques 5–4 Houston Aeros 1-1
3 April 20 Houston Aeros 1–5 Quebec Nordiques 1-2
4 April 21 Houston Aeros 0–3 Quebec Nordiques 1-3
5 April 23 Quebec Nordiques 2–5 Houston Aeros 3-2
6 April 25 Houston Aeros 2–11 Quebec Nordiques 2-4

Winnipeg Jets 4, Birmingham Bulls 1[]

# Date Visitor Score Home Record
1 April 14 Birmingham Bulls 3–9 Winnipeg Jets 0–1
2 April 16 Birmingham Bulls 3–8 Winnipeg Jets 0–2
3 April 19 Winnipeg Jets 2–3 Birmingham Bulls 2–1
4 April 21 Winnipeg Jets 5–1 Birmingham Bulls 3–1
5 April 23 Birmingham Bulls 2–5 Winnipeg Jets 1–4

Semi-finals[]

The top ranked Quarter-finals winner (Winnipeg) received a bye into the Finals.

New England Whalers 4, Quebec Nordiques 1[]

Game Date Visitor Score Home Series
1 April 28 Quebec Nordiques 1–5 New England Whalers 0–1
2 April 30 Quebec Nordiques 3–2 New England Whalers 1–1
3 May 3 New England Whalers 5–4 Quebec Nordiques 2–1
4 May 5 New England Whalers 7–3 Quebec Nordiques 3–1
5 May 7 Quebec Nordiques 3–6 New England Whalers 1–4

Avco World Cup Finals[]

Winnipeg Jets 4, New England Whalers 0[]

1978-May22-Hull goal-Game4

Bobby Hull scores the series winner, Game 4 of the 1978 AVCO World Trophy Finals, May 22, 1978.

The Finals matched the Winnipeg Jets and New England Whalers, who had both won the AVCO World Trophy once. Al Smith played Games 1, 3 and 4 in net for the Whalers while Gary Bromley and Joe Daley alternated games for the Jets with Bromley starting Game 1. Game 1 was scoreless until the third period when the Jets depth scoring paid off with Bob Guindon marking twice and Peter Sullivan netting the winner. The Jets depth scoring was again the story of Game 2 as Dan Labraaten, Lyle Moffat and Bob Guindon staked the Jets to a 3-0 lead. The Jets first line finally scored as Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson piled on Whalers goalie Jean-Louis Levasseur as the Jets won 5-2. The Jets dominated Game 3 as Willy Lindström had a Hat trick and Kent Nilsson scored twice and added 2 assists in a 10-2 romp. Game 4 saw the Whalers take their only lead of the series as Mike Antonovich and Rick Ley scored, taking a 2-0 lead into the second period. Anders Hedberg took over, scoring twice and setting up 2 goals, including the series winner by Bobby Hull as the Jets swept the series four straight. Game 4 was the last game for the Hull-Nilsson-Hedberg line as the Swedes jumped to the New York Rangers. Bob Guindon was named the WHA Playoff MVP.

# Date Visitor Score Home Record
1 May 12 New England Whalers 1–4 Winnipeg Jets 0–1
2 May 14 New England Whalers 2–5 Winnipeg Jets 0–2
3 May 19 Winnipeg Jets 10–2 New England Whalers 3–0
4 May 22 Winnipeg Jets 5–3 New England Whalers 4–0

WHA Awards[]

Avco World Trophy: Winnipeg Jets
Gordie Howe Trophy (MVP): Marc Tardif, Quebec Nordiques
Bill Hunter Trophy (Scoring Leader): Marc Tardif, Quebec Nordiques
Lou Kaplan Trophy (Rookie of the Year): Kent Nilsson, Winnipeg Jets
Ben Hatskin Trophy (Best Goaltender): Al Smith, New England Whalers
Dennis A. Murphy Trophy (Best Defenseman): Lars Sjoberg, Winnipeg Jets
Paul Deneau Trophy (Most Gentlemenly): Dave Keon, New England Whalers
Robert Schmertz Memorial Trophy (Coach of the Year): Bill Dineen, Houston Aeros
WHA Playoff MVP: Robert Guindon, Winnipeg Jets

All-Star Teams[]

Position First Team Second Team
Centre Ulf Nilsson, Winnipeg Robbie Ftorek, Cincinnati
Right Wing Anders Hedberg, Winnipeg Real Cloutier, Quebec
Left Wing Marc Tardif, Quebec Bobby Hull, Winnipeg
Defence Lars-Erik Sjöberg, Winnipeg Rick Ley, New England
Defence Al Hamilton, Edmonton Barry Long, Winnipeg
Goaltender Al Smith, New England Ernie Wakely, Houston

Gallery[]

Video[]

Whalers-Aeros game from March 9, 1978.

Jets-Aeros game from April 4, 1978.

Nordiques-Aeros Quarter-finals Game 5, April 23, 1978.

References[]

Preceded by
1976-77 WHA season
WHA seasons Succeeded by
1978-79 WHA season


This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at 1977-78 WHA Season. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Ice Hockey Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA).


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