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Chicago, honestly. I want an Original 6 match-up in the SCF. Also, my dad is a die-hard Hawks fan and he hasn't seen his team in the SCF since 1992. My team was there in 1995, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008 and 2009. It would make him so deliriously happy, and after everything he's been through the last year, he deserves it. So yeah, go Hawks.

Thank you for acknowledging this, they are not Canadians! France didn't want them, Niether does Canada. Who riots to celebrate getting out of the 2nd round of the playoffs anyway? They barely won the first 2 rounds and haven't won a thing yet! Quebecois continuously find new ways to make them selves look like assholes! Detroit is not known to be the safest city in America and I was there in 96 when we won the cup and millions of fans spilled into the streets... it was the happiest, friendliest mob of fans ever! No riots, no looting, no fighting, no burning just happy fun celebration by all.... and we won THE CUP! I lived there until recently and its not dying nealry as fast as you think... They are a very prejudiced and racist breed and they instill it into their children. I saw it first hand! Being an anglo I was told to "go back to Ontario where I belong" and that they "don't know why they let my kind into Quebec"

Kovalchuk would indeed make this team worse. If you can't see that, then I don't know what to tell you. Holland would have to refuse to re-sign Lidstrom along with letting go one of Holmstrom or Bertuzzi. Or, like you suggest, give up one of the best 2-way forwards on this team along with giving up Hudler and possibly more and replacing them with scrubs. Personally, I don't want to see a half line-up of scrubs to sign one 40 goal scorer. In addition to that, Wings would be losing more than 40 goals to obtain him. Not worth it. Kovalchuk (his salary) would make this team worse. And honestly, a lot less fun to watch. Top defense pairs only need to shut down DRWs 1.5 lines instead of having the burden of 3 rolling lines with offensive prowess to fear. I honestly cannot believe you don't understand that. You appear so stuck on the idea that it's causing you to fail to see reality. Even Ken Holland agrees with my assessments, per his quotes in his latest Mlive article. He stated the top 6 is fine. If Lids re-signs, the defense is good to go. The only area that he sees the need to improve is the bottom 6. This thread is useless. There is no way Kovalchuk is coming here and there is no way he signs for less than $7 or $8 million (long term). I honestly think he's going to the KHL for the money.

Crosby didn't exactly adapt either, as his numbers show. Ovechkin adapted well enough to put up good numbers in the series. I think the fact that Ovechkin is a foreign born superstar had something to do with it also. The hockey media seems afraid to say anything bad about Crosby. I hope that changes eventually.

we'll just be called for jealousy, but this 100% true. this just in..... lidstromboli and tomatoetownwingsfan phoned in by bettman and mario for emergency fluffing of crosby

Oh, everyone with common sense knew his great performance in the 1st round was because they played an AHL level team. Now he's back "among" the best, not "the greatest human being ever born." And I for one am glad the Pens are out.

Ovechkin got a lot of crap from the media for losing to Montreal, despite scoring 10 points in that series. It clearly wasn't his fault that the rest of his teammates choked in that series but everyone pointed the finger at him. The media kept talking about how Crosby has surpassed Ovechkin as a player because of the Caps loss and that Crosby is a better leader and all that s***. Well, if I'm not mistaken, Crosby scored 5 points in this series and only 1 goal. He choked big time in this series, and didn't play nearly as well as Ovechkin did against this same team, scoring around half as many points. I want to hear the hockey media blame Crosby for this loss the same way they did Ovechkin. I know that probably won't happen, but it should. He was completely invisible here just like against us in the Finals the last two years.

Is it sad that the whole time I'm reading that article, I can't help but impose Keating's weird cadence? Words... pause..... woooooooooords, pause..... word.

Atleast their fans care about the team, showing interest and emotion... which can't be said about 90% of the american nhl teams

Don't mind Carman, he likes to wrap his lips around Crosby's stick whenever he gets a chance.

Thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart for all the well wishes. I AM home from the hospital now recovering from a bout of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever -- yeah, I had the same reaction, too -- that left me laid up in Beaumont Hospital Royal Oak for over a week. Plenty of times I felt like a patient on House -- apparently cases of this illness are extremely rare (only 800 Americans get diagnosed with it a year) -- as I had at least a dozen different doctors and infectious disease specialists looking at me during my stay. It appears as though I fell victim to a tick bite sometime two weeks ago as I ventured back home and helped plant around 175 saplings in my parents' wooded area behind the house. About a week after that I started to get an intense fever and ultimately broke out in red spots everywhere (palms, arms, legs, feet -- everywhere). That and a fever hitting 102.9F freaked me out sufficienly enough to get me into the ER. There it seemed the primary worry was meningitis, so I went through the battery of tests for that (CT scan, xrays, standard blood/urine tests) -- even the dreaded lumbar puncture. Yes, they are horrible. I didn't have the stiffness in the neck or other classic meningitis symptoms, which left a lot of people stumped. After I was admitted my fever continued to rise, spiking at around 104.5F sometime mid-last week. I was on a cooling blanket for a large portion of that time while I was fed a steady supply of antibiotics. Basically, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever had come into focus because all of the tests I'd undergone basically ruled everything out. I started turning the corner over the weekend (the biggest hurdle was managing my own temperature without the assistance of the cooling blanket) and after a few days of that (and some improving lab results) I was discharged around noon on Tuesday. Naturally this whole thing has left me embarassingly weak. For the first four days of the illness I was unable to sleep and had to be put on pain and sleep meds just so my body could get some semblence of rest. I'm going to spend the next few days trying to ramp my strength back up and hopefully things will return to normal. I do have to say that I'm thankful I didn't decide to Wikipedia this illness while I was still admitted. I really didn't have any idea how serious this whole thing was (or could've been), but the bevvy of "Jesus, Matt, you really scared the crap out of us" comments I've heard now that I've been home have really shed some light on this whole thing. Of course, it was painful watcing the the Wings' ultimate playoff demise while laid up in a hospital, but I did give some of the nurses a good laugh with my constaint pained "yyyesssss!" and totally weak fistpumps during the first period of Game 4. They all thought I was in pain but I had to grimace out a "nooo... I'm happ-pppy!" Again -- thank you to ALL OF YOU -- for your patience and well wishes. I'll be back to 100% shortly!

Excuse me, Where does it mention anything about the thread being started because the 8th place team beat them????? Both players are so f***in full of themselves it's shameful and they should both do some serious soul searching about their failures in these playoffs. Ovechkin is the biggest f***in puck hog I've ever seen and Crybaby is the biggest ***** whiner the NHL has ever seen. Neither one has any class or decent leadership.

That has nothing at all to do with it people of all stripes were on moron mode. It happens there quite easily because hockey is really the only big time game left in town . And the media whip it into a frenzy cuz its their only bread and butter . Baseball is gone there's no baketball, and the Als and soccer Impact support is not core . The Habs are the most finacially successful franchise year after year despite their mediocre showing during the season; so now that their knocking off the top teams their going beserk. Hope the Flyers meet them.

Go marry him, already. It's legal in Canada. Tell us where you're registered, we'll get you some nice crystal.

He had 1 goal and 0 assists in 5 elimination games. Nice work on pretending that round robin points matter. Saying Crosby carried us on his back is like saying Semin carried the Capitals on his back in the playoffs this year-- afterall, he may have only had 1 playoff point but he had 40 regular season goals! Nice try.

Plus he was a -1 overall for the series. I think Ovechkin still ended up something like a +4 in his series. What annoyed me even more was that during the postgame, Crosby couldn't give one iota of credit to the Habs, just like he refused to give any to Zetterberg for shutting him down. Plus, predictably, he whined during the postgame about the penalty he took. "I don't understand how you can call that penalty 10 seconds into a Game 7..." Well, Sid, technically the rules aren't supposed to change whether it's Game 1 of the regular season or Game 7 of the SCF. You f***ed up, you pay the price. Own up to it, you baby.

Bingo. First guy to get the Cup handed to him and the first person who has to shoulder the blame when his team is ousted. It's part of his job description. But hey, he's still really young. He'll have another 10-15 seasons to try again. lolololol Carman has the memory of a goldfish. Apparently he's forgotten how poorly Crosby played for every other second of the Olympics. So he played exactly like he did in Game 7 against us except Malkin wasn't there to save his ass.

Crosby was awesome in game 7. He took a bad penalty right off the bat which put his team down a goal, played 29 minutes and was ONLY a -2 with no points! CLUTCH I tell you! CLUTCH like no one has ever been!

You are quite right, one series is not the defining factor; I AM and I say Ovechkin rules. Okay now that thats over and done with.... Play on!

Yeah, that's also another reason. I just don't like how Ovechkin was thrown under the bus, and everyone seemed to say convincingly that Crosby was better than him.

I don't know about "more" blame. They were both their team's best players and both under performed. Ovechkin really hurt his team with his superman rushes where he tried to go around 5 people and shoot from the blue line. But Crosby/Malkin sure didn't perform up to par either. I really do think more credit should be given to Halak then Ovechkin/Crosby/Malkin should be blamed. Because they all had great on the door chances that Halak just simply stopped.

I would love Brandon Prust. He can't handle a puck to save his life but he can skate really well and cause some mayhem on the forecheck. Not a bad fighter either, good energy player.

i want brandon prust. hes only 5'11 195lbs but he looked good on the rangers 4th line

Kirk Maltby

I think his assumption is that Lids wants $5 million, but rather than sign him to a one year, $5M contract, spread the cap hit over 3 years, assuming he'll retire after the 1st year. So, its a 3 year deal for $1.67M per year. However, the big problem is that if Lids retires after the first year, he doesn't get his $5 million, he only gets paid for the year he played.....but the cap remains. I'm sure you could play around to work something out to pay him well next year and get the cap hit down, but I'm all for not having cap hits for guys that are no longer playing and I'm sure they wouldn't do something like that. If he is played his last game, I'm a little disappointed that it wasn't well known, then he could have gotten a proper send off from the fans. Pretty sure he'll be coming back though.