1977–78 WHA season

1977–78 WHA season
League World Hockey Association
Sport Ice hockey
Regular season
Top scorer Marc Tardif (Quebec)
Avco World Trophy
Finals champions Winnipeg Jets
  Runners-up New England Whalers
WHA seasons
← 1976–77

1978–79 →

The 1977–78 WHA season was the sixth season of the World Hockey Association (WHA). Eight teams played 80 games each. The Avco World Trophy winner was the Winnipeg Jets.

Contents

League business

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 plus two additional games against WHA teams outside the regular standings, tying one and losing the other four; while the Czechoslovakian team only won once and tied once, losing six. This is 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 come back to play the WHA teams the next year.

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 semifinals, with the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th place teams opening in the quarterfinals), the WHA came up with a unique twist. There were three quarterfinal 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 quarterfinal winner then received a semifinal bye and advanced directly to the finals, while the remaining two quarterfinal series winners played off in a single semifinal. All series were best four-out-of-seven games.

Regular season

The Howe family of Gordie and his sons Mark and Marty moved to the New England Whalers from the Houston Aeros. The trio helped the Whalers to the Avco Cup final.

Final standings

Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF= Goals For, GA = Goals Against, Pts = Points

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

Scoring leaders

All-Star Game

Avco World Trophy playoffs

Quarterfinals

Semifinals

Championship

WHA awards

Avco World Trophy: Winnipeg Jets
Gordie Howe Trophy: Marc Tardif, Quebec Nordiques
Bill Hunter Trophy: Marc Tardif, Quebec Nordiques
Lou Kaplan Trophy: Kent Nilsson, Winnipeg Jets
Ben Hatskin Trophy: Al Smith, New England Whalers
Dennis A. Murphy Trophy: Lars Sjoberg, Winnipeg Jets
Paul Deneau Trophy: Dave Keon, New England Whalers
Robert Schmertz Memorial Trophy: Bill Dineen, Houston Aeros
WHA Playoff MVP: Robert Guindon, Winnipeg Jets

See also

References