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And yet pucks still manage to go between his giant legs into his net

On Vs. Brian Jones was saying he thought Savvy should retire. Engblom agreed. And while I know it would be the best for him health-wise, it just KILLS me. Makes me want to castrate Matt Cooke with a pair of rusty nail clippers. Dipped in paint thinner. With flaming match-heads attached.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110124/SPORTS18/110124007/1053/SPORTS/Red-Wings-have-to-toughen-up-soon sure this is one person with his own opinion, but i call derp on this article. first off, i am pro-enforcer and i do get tired of watching the players i love get smacked around. even players who don't normally play with a chip get a lot chippier against the wings (jordan staal, you so tough). kostopoulos should have been pounded into pulp. but that didn't happen and won't - this year, and maybe next, and maybe never. and that's a shame. but to say that these players have no heart is ridiculous. sure, we don't have an extreme example of somebody playing on a knee with no cartilage, needing to use his stick to prop himself up off of the ice. that's symbolic. but i'd say this team has plenty of heart - more than most if not all other teams. brad stuart comes immediately to mind. he takes a slapshot off of the back of his head, misses a few games, comes back, has his jaw broken by a nasty hit (insert enforcer rant here). while walking off of the ice he slams his stick not because of the pain but because he knows he'll be out for a long, long time. these guys want to play and win, and yeah they can be frustrating to watch sometimes when it seems they forget how good they are, but they're hustling their asses off on both ends of the ice. toughness is another thing. i think the idea of what is consider "tough" gets blurry in a game where fighting is allowed and expected. this team throws their weight around plenty, leading games in hits very frequently. after-whistle scrums and stupid roughing penalties are not tough. i grew up watching the wings kick the living crap out of everybody and it was fun to watch! but they sure didn't win much. now, they're perennial contenders and the envy of every team in the league as far as management and work ethic. can we have both?

I do not like the idea of leaving delay of game up to the discretion of the refs. Especially this incompetent batch of NHL refs.

Forsberg has never retired, he wants to play. He goes through alot with surgeries and rehab every year just to be able to play hockey again. What exactly is wrong with? The guy loves to play hockey and believes that he still have what it takes to play in the big league. Why wouldnt he follow his love and passion to make it happen? Who are you to tell him to stop pursuing his dream of playing in the nhl again? It's not his fault that media makes a circus of it.

What upsets me more than anything, is when Janssen hits Kronwall with a cheapshot, or Kostopoupus injuring Stuart, and no one does anything about it. These guys are supposed to be friends and teammates, yet they don't do a good job of standing up for each other in those situations. I know that wouldn't change the outcome of those injuries or games, but it'd be nice to show some ******* backbone in those scenarios and go after the guy who did it. I think that probably upsets guys like Lindsay and Kocur more than anything else.

Sorry if this is a repost, but I have recently started to see this pop up around the web... but I think this is just a kick @$$ photo.. Go Wings! And God Bless America!!!

God. It's a joke. We take it about living in Michigan/Detroit all the time. but no, you have to bring out the name calling. I thought you were more consistently open minded than that. You expect everyone to take a thumb in the eye when you are right and they are wrong; to be more tolerant of others rights. But when you get dogged a little, by a joke, I might add, we're ignorant buffoons. Nice. Why you gotta bully your way through things/ people all the time. You're not that important you know. Or no more important than anyone else. Even if they are wrong and you are right. Sometimes you come across as flat-out mean, imho. It's not my intention to bait or flame. Just wondering why you don't lighten up some?

Phenomenal avatar.

Guys, Lidstrom isn't tough because he almost had one of his balls removed via a stick and missed two games. I mean, really? The Wings need to "get tough"? What the author really means is, "the Wings need to fight more, because I don't understand hockey and I want to see someone get their face caved in". If we had a Dallas Drake-type ready to go, I'd gladly have him playing third and fourth line minutes, but should we go out and go after a guy like that when we have the potential in our system coming up in the next couple years? We're one of the top 5 teams in the league every year. When that stops happening and lacking a fighter is the cause of it, let's go out and get one. Otherwise, I'm completely content with us having more skill top to bottom than any team in the league.

He wasn't chosen for the ASG so he didn't actually break any rules though. But it's just another loophole in NHL policy.

How is Brett Lebda not on this list? If we took Mindfly out and replaced him with Lebda we'd have a hatred power play... Hudler. Crosby. Lemieux Lebda. Williams Snow

He has a concussion for f***'s sake. He has missed a lot of games for the Pens now, probably around 10. I don't think he is required to play in the ASG WITH A FREAKING CONCUSSION. Also, Z was not suspended, it was Dats and Lids. Dats missed 1 period before the ASG, Crosby has missed ~10 games!!!

1. Fighting and winning are not mutually exclusive. 2. Having a fighter(s) does deter some cheap s***, though not all. esteef

The whole "having a fighter/tough guy stops players from taking cheapshots on your team", is just a myth. I'm all for a guy who puts up 20+ points, isn't a defense liability, and fights on occasion. But just cause a player fights, it doesn't mean it should should give that guy an extra million ala Neil. Stuart would still be injured whether this team had Tie Domi or the Stay Puft Man. Stupid players are going to do stupid things regardless of who is on the other team. And yes, players of the opposing teams aren't scared of being hit by any Wings, but they are scared or having the puck picked right of their stick and having that puck go the other way for a goal. Forechecking doesn't have to be be about hitting, all it has to do is force the other team to cause turnovers, and a healthy Wings team does that almost as good as any other team in the league, if not better due solely to Datsyuk with great forecheckers Filppula/Zetterberg/Cleary/Helm etc. This team doesn't need toughness. It may want it, but it doesn't HAVE to have it. They needs guys who want and need to compete night in and night out.

What, Leafs forums? lol You start throwing punches like a big boy, you gotta be prepared to back that s*** up like a big boy too. Kulemin learned an important lesson today.

Total cheap shot, but you better believe that Kulemin will be the first to drop the gloves the next time he wants to fight instead of just jawing away.

It's hard to just forget about the depth of emotion we all experienced through the Wings-Avs rivalry. It's always going to color any comment from our generation.

well for what it's worth (and that's not much) The islander fans (all 3 of them) on HF boards are lighting him up, saying they hope he never plays again.

Those two are joined at the hip, so shouldn't they count as one?

They should have the "big four" play. Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax.

Noone really gets scared of having the puck picked though, that is not intimidating. Datsyuk gets into guys heads by taking the puck away, but is Drew Miller really scaring anyone? Not at all. Konopka or Rupp (since you said Neil makes to much I wont use him as an example) would actually scare guys when they are constantly hitting them hard. I think what a lot of people dont get is that noone is saying trade away Datsyuk or Z for guys like this, but when you have plugs to fill in the lineup, why not fill them with a Konopka instead of a Miller who actually provides something this team doesn't have? Its not really about stopping the really dumb players from playing tough, but like Babcock says, it starts to get tiring when ******* start acting tough against the wings. (I know not his exact words)

So how goes that Freep experiment with letting random people write for you guys?