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you guys know that's Rod Allen right? Color commentator for the Tigers on FSN Detroit! Get em Roddy

Monkey's Last Train to Clarksville song playing in the background while Toews thinks of his long lost teammates: Take the last train to ATLANTA And I'll meet you at the station,You can be here by four-thirty,'Cause I've made your reservation, don't be slow, Oh, no, no, no,Oh, no, no, no.'Cause I'm leaving in the morningAnd I must see you again,We'll have one more night together'Til the morning brings my train and I must go,Oh, no, no, no,Oh, no, no, no,And I don't know if I'm ever coming home.Take the last train to ATLANTA,I'll be waiting at the station,We'll have time for coffee-flavored kisses,And a bit of conversation, oh,Oh, no, no, no,Oh, no, no, no.Da-da-da-da-da-da, etc...Take the last train to ATLANTA,Now I must hang up the phone,I can't hear you in this noisy railroad station,All alone, I'm feeling low.Oh, no, no, no,Oh, no, no, no,And I don't know if I'm ever coming home.Oh...Take the last train to ATLANTA,And I'll meet you at the station,You can be here by four-thirty,'Cause I've made your reservation, don't be slow,Oh, no, no, no,Oh, no, no, no,And I don't know if I'm ever coming home.Take the last train to ATLANTA,Take the last train to ATLANTA,Take the last train to ATLANTA,Take the last train to ATLANTA.fade out...

Are you seriously still second guessing a decision that could not have worked out any better than it did? Babcock in all of his delusions got this team to 5th place, 4th was completely out of the realm of possibility, there was no realistic way the Wings were catching the Yotes unless they lost all of their games after the Olympic break. The way Babcock coached this team took them from 9th to 5th in a flash. Say what you want about the situation and your personal feelings towards who you wanted to see in net, but his decision worked! Plain and simple it worked, and all of you saying Osgood could have done the same as Howie are doing the same as those who say he couldn't, GUESSING! None of us know if Ozzie would have been better or worse than Howard in that situation because he was not put in it. All we can go on is what happened. Babcock had to weigh Ozzie's last two regular seasons vs what he was currently getting from Howard. Now Howard COULD have collapsed and the team would have been stuck with a rusty goaltender but that is not what happened, and any other thoughts about the situation are conjecture.

There's not a smile emoticon on here that has a big enough smile to properly portray how I feel about this....

Crosby's gotta be lying. There's no way Bettman likes doing that to all the Stanley Cup winning captains.

More time to bounce back than in February.

I thought that said Tiger Woods and then saw the number 3966 and then thought, "No way I'm sure Wilt Chamberlain has that number beat."

wait... I got this one... "Where the f' are the rest of my teammates?!?!? oh yea, that's right, Atlanta or Toronto..."

Salary Cap Reality He knows he'll never have the Cup again.

"This bus driver better give me my 20 cents, I'm sure Patty will have a word with him if he doesn't"

How you spell association right and blow guilty... w/e

I TOTALLY ripped this off from the HF Boards, but it's too good. Props to whoever did this. Winning the Cup: Not winning the Cup: Again... this IS NOT MY WORK. Just wanted to make sure that was clear. Here's the link to the thread: http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=799141

Somthing like this? I just had to join in with the great stuff I was reading~

"I wonder why I couldn't get a cab..."

Alexander Semin and here's proof

1. Lilja 2. Lilja 3. Lilja 4. Lilja 5. Lilja he'll hurt your fist with his head.

Since, you said fighter and enforcer, and since I'm not really in the mood for deciding where the Tony Twists of hockey belong, and since I want a list of Wings... My five favorite fighters. I've always loved watching Shanny fight. He had some real slug fests with Foote. Darren McCarty he could play hockey, and throw down as needed nuff said. [Honorable Mention: Chris Chelios, remember when he fought Luc... I distinctly remember his boy saying, "mom why is that man hitting daddy?"] Probert and Kocur are gimmies, but they were really more on the enforcer end. Fischer, he didn't fight much, but I'll also never forget the pounding he gave Hartnell after he healed. I would not what to be anywhere close to the receiving end of that. Plus he was just so young, he really had the passion. Martin Lapoint, he had more upper body strength than any other Wing at that time, and he got into some great match-ups with guys who didn't realize it. Mike Vernon, probably the chippiest netminder I'll give credit to

That's not really the point though. We can all speculate on 'what if' all day long regarding Osgood. He's the king of mustering 'what if's' about himself. The point is, the Wings had absolutely zero wiggle room last season to allow Osgood to find his form. There was never any breathing room for the Wings. They started battling in November and didn't stop until April. Everyone seems to conveniently disregard the jacked up point structure the NHL utilizes these days. With most teams getting at least one point every single game, it's extremely difficult to A) Catch up when you are behind and B) Put any kind of space between you and the teams behind you. But of course we can wonder 'what if' just a bit. But to deny that we were in a dogfight in November to make the playoffs, like a few on here have already half-heartedly done, is pure Osgood homerism.

Even though I'm arguing Howard was the right call, I have to admit there's a voice in the back of my head that Ozzie's done it before and his best playoffs typically came in years he wasn't the clear #1 goalie. It's certainly possible that Ozzie getting hot could have happened and carried us to a Cup. But the odds seemed so long and if it doesn't happen then we still have our #1 up and coming goalie with no playoff experience. The price to find out if Ozzie could turn it on again at the age he's at was just too high. But one does have to wonder, just a bit...

What if Ozzie lost it? What if Ozzie became injured? What if Ozzie began to noticeably decline do to age? I know you're saying your not Monday morning quarterbacking, but you really are and in a case that it was the judgment of our head coach as the best option and worked out. Howard is clearly not the reason we didn't go past the second round and we have no reason to believe Ozzie would have done any better.

This was the only funny one. Kind of disappointed.

I like that Howard got so much playing time this year and we went the distance in the playoffs with him in goal. Realistically with all things considered we had a rough year and now Howard is a lot more prepared to take it another notch up next year. With the endless injuries and two straight seasons ending in June, I felt all along it wasn't our year. Between Howard, the late season rally, continuing our 100 point streak and going to the second round I think it ended up being salvaged as a decent year. And I love that even though we lost to the Sharks in 5, we outscored them in the series. Now this year we go back for another Cup!

all of these records will fall before somebody even gets 70% to +124

Well put. Also, giving Howard the experience he had last year for the future was priceless and giving Ozzie that would have been irrelevant unless we won Cup. Winning the Cup would have been the ONLY scenario that would have better then what happened. With the injuries and last two Junes I'd rather lose when we did then go to late May or June again in a row without a cup. This way Howie got the season and two playoff rounds of experience and the team still got an extra month of summer. I just didn't see it as a Cup year. But sure, if Ozzie would have won the Cup I'd have preferred that. But that just seems like a stretch given where we were last year and to your point we'll never know.

Dave Tallon won a cup, I would consider it a success, was it a potentially dangerous way to do so yes, but he won Chicago a cup something that hadn't happened in a very long time! Many die hard fans probably appreciate that. I mean it is not like the are the leafs right now. If he had not won a Cup it would have been worse, but look at the fan base he built for that team, bandwagon or not, die hard or not, Jersey sales are up, ticket sales are up, and they hoisted the cup. Perfect example of the ends justifying the means! What if I win the lottery tomorrow, what if after Howard sucks/gets hurt and Ozzie tears a groin, what if Howard went on to be a Calder candidate and help the team go from 9th to 5th, what if Howard gained valuable experience, what if Aliens landed on the planet tomorrow and had the best goaltender in the Universe who wanted to play for the Wings. What if Babcock put in Ozzie for a 3 game stretch after the Olympics and he was as good as he was last regular season, the team loses 2 of the 3, Howard's confidence goes in the s***ter and the Wings finish 9th, how would you feel then? What if, what if, what if, what if. All I know is none of what you were/are worried about happened and like in almost all sports, a coaches decisions are almost always going to be seen as great or horrible, there is no middle ground any more, you appear to be offended or bothered whichever term you like the most, by Ozzie being sent to the pine. Howard helped take this team to the playoffs and you are complaining about could have beens. And even in the Sharks series I would have a hard time complaining about Howard's play, did he have a bad game, meh yeah but the special teams let the Wings down far more than Howard. Look at the box scores from the playoffs and see how many teams needed to score 4 goals to win, so yeah he gave up three a game, he still had a better GAA then the cup winning goaltender.