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I think a lot of it is because some of the posters on here only watch the Wings. While this is fine, I don't see how someone can make a valid argument for or against an enforcer if they don't watch the other 29 teams in the league outside of their games with the Wings.

How many of the recent cups have come without an enforcer on the team? I'll save you the time- the answer is zero.

I'll never understand you folk that don't get the idea that the Wings could use a guy who'll drop the gloves with some regularity during the season. One guy taking a penalty here and there while giving the opposing team something to think about when it comes to taking liberties with our players certainly isn't going to cost us in the win column. AND HELL, I'm not even talking about a guy that JUST fights. Hell, I'll even throw this little nugget out there for you to ponder over. Seguin is healthy scratched last night in favor of Thorton. Sure, he might not be on the scorers sheet in the way of points... but I tell you what... his presence was felt and it certainly helped spark some team-mates and get some opposing players off their game.

The Wings were hated on fight sites even when they carried Downey and May. Of course, they're going to be hated now when our best fighter is Ericsson of all people. I would like to see some toughness on the 4th line, since we hardly have any irreplaceable 4th liners anyway. I'm sure the fans at the JLA wouldn't mind it either.

Decided I'd illustrate this: A: Horton is entering the neutral zone and examining his options, Rome is just ahead of the red line, skating back into defensive position. Ho-hum B: Horton looks over at his winger option, sees him opening up along the boards. He accelerates a little to the left as he enters the circle to put him more squarely between the 2 Nucks d-men. Rome still chugging along. He's ready to pass. The dotted black line indicates the direction in which Horton's head is turned. C: At this point, the puck is coming off Horton's stick. He keeps his eye on his winger in preparation to accelerate, making sure he'll be onsides. Rome, meanwhile, is just starting to adjust his stride, away from position (one that will put him between the net and Horton as well as leave him open to cover his side on a dump in) and on a course that will take him across the blue line, towards his partner. The yellow lines indicate Horton's likely field of vision. D: Horton is just starting his stride and turning his head back towards the middle of the ice. Rome is adjusting himself and is starting his lateral movement. E: At this point, Horton is probably 2-3 steps into his acceleration. Rome is on roughly his second lateral stride. Rome is just outside of Horton's vision, on his blindside. If Horton notices him at all, it's in his peripheral and he hasn't really figured out what's going on yet. The black lines indicate they're both accelerating. F: Point where contact begins. At this point, Rome has both adjusted his skating and then made two strong lateral pushes plus another stride or two worth of gliding east-west into Horton's path. Horton has taken 3 strides, in the middle of #4, probably noticing Rome far too late as he enters his vision. Contact is made more or less with the full of Rome's body into Horton's left chest/collar bone area. The green line indicates Rome's overall trajectory during this sequence. So there are multiple things in play here. Horton is reasonably safe; he assessed Rome's position, looked over to make his pass, kept his head up a moment to check onsides. In that moment, Rome slid into his blindside and began to adjust his own stride. Horton glides a couple steps' worth at this point, then begins to accelerate as he begins to turn his head back. At this point, he figures he's safe as he's already glided a couple strides worth after his pass, Rome wasn't close enough to make contact at this point. Horton begins to accelerate forwards as his vision returns to the middle of the ice, but doesn't notice Rome as Rome is fully in his blindside at this point. Rome's lateral steps begin not only after the puck has left Horton's stick, but after Horton's glided a little. Their accelerations begin at roughly the same point. By the time they make contact, Horton has made 3 to 4 accelerating strides and Rome has made an adjustment, 2 lateral strides and another 1-2 strides worth of gliding as he braces for the hit, moving fully east-west by the time of contact. Ultimately, Rome creeps into Horton's blindside and begins to accelerate towards Horton well after the puck is off Horton's stick. Horton begins to accelerate, the puck at his winger by now and Rome is just beginning his own stride at that point. He has another stride or two plus a little more distance worth of gliding to decide to ease up on the hit, though he's already put himself in a stride that will bring him out of position. Probably subconsciously realizing he's already begun to take himself out of position, he continues accelerating towards Horton even though Horton has traversed most of the Canucks half of the neutral zone since releasing the puck. Even though Horton's vision returns, at this point Rome is well into his blindside and Horton doesn't likely see him until it's too late to do anything. Not only does Rome not back off the hit, but he even puts follow through into it. This play contains: 1. East-west blindside hit, though it wasn't targeting the head, it was a blindside that caused injury. 2. Extremely late, not enough so to be totally away from the play but well after the puck is gone from Horton. 3. Possible charging, as Rome accelerates laterally into the hit and towards Horton. There's no doubt he did so with intent of violent contact. 4. Possible headhunting, or at least very stupid decision making, as Rome put himself out of position to make this hit and followed through either because he realized he'd put himself in a dumb spot, or because his intent was to demolish Horton. 5. Resulting injury. Unbraced contact at high speed, the very likely concussion was probably sustained at impact due to the sudden G force acceleration and whiplash, rather than when he hit the ice (he was probably already out by that point). Doesn't really help matters with the above 4 conditions. All of this adds up to a long suspension. I think the NHL got it right.

There are more parks in Philly than Phoenix I heard...

There's no way you or anyone can really have any idea as to what exactly gave Horton the concussion. Bert got one by turning his head and hitting his chin as he ran into Heatley. When you get hit that hard and your brain gets rattled that much, the hit alone and head snap certainly could've caused it as much as the impact to the ice.

Seriously Broken - get your own ******* life and stop worrying about mine.

If Ericsson wants to say, he can start to fight more. He's actually pretty good at it. I'd be willing to overlook his faults if he'd play confidently and with an edge.

It's honestly pathetic that people are taken back so much by this hit. The hit was obviously late but besides it's timing it was a perfect open ice hit. There is a difference between coming from the blindside, and hitting someone head on when they're not paying attention. Should have been an interference penalty and nothing else. Rome led with the shoulder, you can''t punish someone for hitting too hard thats like suspending Datsyuk for stick handling too good. It sucks that Horton got hurt but next time he will be more aware when he is crossing the blue line.

It was less than a second late, it was a clean hit, and even if you want it to be interference, they should still fine horton for not having a f***'s clue of where he was on the ice.

Difference now, though, is that the Wings have a glaring weakness at defense and needs to fill. Back when we signed Hossa we had the best offense AND defense and a buttload of cash to spend. Now we have a buttload of cash to spend but we need defensive help in a bad bad bad way.

Except the Wings haven't expressed any interest (I know Babcock said top six forward/top 4 DMan, but EVERY coach says that. Holland says their top fine is fine) and we need to invest that "cap space" in defensemen, not an overpaid forward. So I still laugh at those articles.

Very impressive number for Nashville. http://puckthemedia.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/how-the-stanley-cup-final-did-in-both-nhl-and-non-nhl-markets2/ NHL Markets Local Ratings For Game 1 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final 1. Boston – 25.5/39 2. Buffalo – 7.2/11 3. Pittsburgh – 4.3/7 4. Minneapolis/St. Paul – 4.2/8 5. Detroit – 4.2/7 6. Columbus – 3.6/6 t7. Philadelphia – 3.3/5 t7. Nashville – 3.3/5 9. Washington – 3.0/5 10. Tampa Bay – 2.9/5 11. New York - 2.8/5 12. Denver – 2.7/5 13. Chicago – 2.6/5 14. St. Louis – 2.6/4 15. Raleigh-Durham – 2.4/4 16. Dallas – 2.1/4 17. Phoenix – 1.7/3 18. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose - 1.4/3 19. Los Angeles – 1.3/3 20. Atlanta – 1.3/2 21. Miami – 1.2/2 Non-NHL Markets Local Ratings For Game 1 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final 1. Providence – 16.7/24 2. Hartford – 5.5/8 3. Ft. Myers – 3.9/7 4. Richmond - 3.9/6 t5. Sacramento - 3.4/6 t5. Las Vegas - 3.4/6 7. Greensboro/Winston-Salem - 3.2/5 8. Baltimore - 2.9/5 9. Greenville/Asheville - 2.9/4 10. Austin - 2.8/5 11. Norfolk - 2.7/4 12. Orlando - 2.5/4 13. San Diego - 2.4/5 14. West Palm Beach - 2.4/4 15. Seattle - 2.3/5 t16. Albuquerque/Santa Fe - 2.3/4 t16. Tulsa - 2.3/4 18. Memphis - 2.3/3 t19. Knoxville - 2.2/3 t19. Dayton - 2.2/3 21. Oklahoma City - 2.1/3 22. Jacksonville - 2.0/3 23. Houston – 1.7/3 t24. Portland - 1.6/3 t24. Salt Lake City - 1.6/3 26. San Antonio - 1.5/2 27. Charlotte - 1.4/2 t28. Indianapolis - 1.3/2 t28. Louisville - 1.3/2 t30. Cincinnati - 1.2/2 t30. Milwaukee - 1.2/2 t30. New Orleans - 1.2/2 t33. Cleveland - 1.1/2 t33. Birmingham - 1.1/2 35. Kansas City - 0.8/1

I do.

The Wings would do well to go after Carle or Coburn. Both would be great additions to the team.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gPZare9vpI&feature=player_embedded Gotta love this hit by Thomas. Can't watch it enough Edit: With a loose puck that was risky!

All I can say is what if that were Datsyuk on the ice....

What an absolute joke he got 4 games for the hit. Horton shouldnt have been admiring his pass. Horton had his head down. Not a blindside hit. 2 minutes for interference. Thats it.

It took me several views of the clip to really get a good handle on what happened, and I've got to admit I've switched sides because of it. First off, the 3 stride thing mentioned in the thread is wrong. Rome took 2 "steps" to come to a halt and then drove (kinda jumped) into Horton. No strides at all. Second, it's pretty borderline to call it a blindside hit. I understand "blindside" to mean something roughly perpendicular to the shoulders. Rome comes in at a 45. If Horton is looking forward instead of admiring his pass, he sees Rome coming. That's not blindside. The point of impact looks to be something close to shoulder-to-collarbone, so I'm not sure you can even say it's a blow to the head. Horton probably took more damage from bouncing the back of his head off the ice than the actual hit, but that's certainly conjecture. The puck's long gone, so it's interference. We've seen 5 minute interference calls, and this one probably qualifies given the nastiness. So we've got that. The hit is undeniably illegal. Add it all up and you've got an illegal hit (which negates any Chara comparisons), and you could spin a pretty good case for "intent to injure". Although it's not "right", you've got a scrub taking out a star, which will tip the scales some. I come up with 1 game, maybe 2 max. 4 games seems excessive to me.

I've seen Kronner hit harder and have the same effect on people. Not to say Kronner should be suspended for a lot of his open ice hits but come on now, some of y'all need to take your homer blinders off. That hit wasn't as bad as it seemed, watch the replay. If it wasn't for the injury and stretcher which was most likely to prevent any worst conditions, I doubt this would be looked at just like many other members have stated.

I'm surprised he got four games. The hit was late and you could argue that it was an unnecessary hit to make but at least 50 per cent of all hits are. That said, Horton has got to protect himself better.

Yayyy San Diego for coming in 13th! No, seriously, we never get excited about anything around here, so that's pretty good for us. We did better than a certain city east of us which has a hockey team and a higher population, too, ahem. (Gosh darn it, can't we even get a minor league team up in here?!)

I love all these article that say the Wings are interested. Of course they are, the entire league is interested. Ummm: He has a Conn Smythe and a Cup.

Uhhh, that was a joke.