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People here trash Franzen, then suggest Alexander freaking Semin? Really? Semin is softer, has fewer points, and makes way more money. I'll pass. Suter would be great. As would Parise. It should be easy to make one work, but would be hard to make both work. However, as has been mentioned, there's a fair amount of uncertainty with regards to the CBA, so who knows.

I've seen a few of the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoff commercials they have started playing, but I had not seen this one yet. I saw it on NHL.com today. Pretty cool they are singling Dats out...he deserves it. Even though we're stuck in a rut, slumping beyond belief, and guys are dropping like flies...watching this commercial gave me that feeling. You know, THAT feeling that even though all this is going on...you never know what's going to happen and it still feels like this should be our year. I for one am ready for the post season tournament to start. There is no hockey like playoff hockey. http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?hcatid=1083&id=166165

I swear I'll beat the crap out of a person who's playing with the voodoo doll wearing the Wings sweater...

I am glad that Theo is man enough to come forward and publically deal with this. Some men would not be strong enough to do so.

Time to get Bertuzzi in net.

im not coming on here anymore, always some bad news.

Yeah bring up Mrazek.

With all the injuries, someone should call Osgood and Rafalski to know how they are feeling.

Homer is a warrior, but his game is playing off of players like Z or Dats. He's not a 4th liner, hence the lack of identity. Cleary could be a beast down there and give his brand of gritty game on the 4th line, plus I think he'd be man enough to accept that role as well. The analogy of the car, whilst quaint and eloquent, is misleading. It suggests that when we lose one piece the others fall apart. It's more like taking the four wheels to be Dats, Lids, Z, Howie (say for arguments sake) then when they're injured replacing them with a milk crate, a corner section of Scalextric track, an overused VHS of the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, and a Fast Break. I know I'm being flippant, but the current situation isn't like we're a crap team who utterly, completely must have them to function whilst other teams can deal with it, it's simply that we're stacked with injuries at the moment and the players who are being asked to come in and replace them either haven't developed yet or are severely inexperienced. In short, they're just DIFFERENT pieces. Whoever it was that said teams like the Pens don't fail like this, I'd like to see them without star centre Crosby AND top scorer Malkin... AND starting goaltender Fleury for that matter........ AND a top-line defencemen like Orpik. Because that's what we've been going through. Not to mention we had players like Bert out (so say, take out Staal there), Helm now.... We're simply injured. It's a bit of a kick in the face to say that without a few certain parts this team isn't worth jack. I miss Aaron Downey

This is nuts.

I'm gonna skip the car analogies and get to my point lol The wings are built in a way that when a top guy or 2 gets hurt they completely suck. They dont have the personel in the bottom 6 to switch up the system a bit and play a more rugged style of game necessary when youre using bottom guys to win. Look at the pens, whenever they have top guys hurt they rally and seem to do just as good as they did before because they play a pretty rugged dump and chase style of game outside of the top few guys. I dont think Babcock has the guys to start playing that way when you only have one good scoring line. A Gaustad or Moen in the bottom would be a good start. People always comment when I complain about the bottom 6 saing if thats the worst thing than who cares and think I make a big deal about it, but its true. The wings have 2 good puck possession lines and than 2 lines with no identity. If we had a couple more Helm and Abdelkaders it would make the bottom 6 more effective on the forecheck/ grind it out game and when top guys go down a little tweak away from the skille puck possession game would be possible

I had too

All of this Homer hate in here is just pathetic. You are all sad people.

Being a shop owner and mechanic I tend to see life through the guise of cars in very odd ways. Ive noticed that our team has been assembled as a well oil machine with each player providing a very focused action to the overall machine. Each player is a small gear in a very complex watch and if one gear fails, the machine ceases to function. I have noticed that certain car makes are built the same way. Some companies build the Ultimate driving machine, much like the Wings. In good repair there is little that can stop such a well defined and sorted mechanism. Each piece is in place to support every other piece with little leeway for failure. German cars are built like this. They work awesome until there is a small problem. At this point things go south quickly and repairs take a long time and are typically very costly. A Chevy on the other hand has its share of failures but you can typically drive for a while until there is a bit of time to get it fixed. When its in for repair, most of the time its not going to break the bank and even expensive repairs are fairly rare. I tend to look at the team in a way that we have a hard to repair and very expensive team when parts need replacing. Instead of having a robust system that can interchange parts and are easy to fix or replace, we have custom pieces that take months or years to obtain. If we were in a car we would hate what we are driving. Theres a fine line between exotic performance and heavy duty horsepower but when you compare it to hockey it becomes clear that heavy duty trumps high end precision every day of the week, especially when we are in an endurance race. Corvettes have won the 24hr of LeMans not because they are on the cutting edge of technology but because they use a well know system and hone them to compete while also being bullet proof at hour 23. I think our team needs more honed yet traditional engineering instead of a highly strung and very fragile powertrain that fails in horrific succession once a main part breaks. I appologise for the car analogies but like I said, I see most things as a comparison to them. So, do we need to build a more traditional engine with some hop up parts or is F1 performance the only way to a championship?

I hope Matt Cooke knocks his brain matter into 2014.

He's easily the best 3rd line Centre in the league right now. Wonder how much better he'll get when his minutes increase and he gets better linemates.

History will be made is so much better

This is what I think of this post :thumbdown: :thumbdown: :thumbdown: I couldn't agree more.

They should put Mrazek in and see what he can do. I know he's young, but he's the team's best goalie prospect. Giving him a small taste of NHL action would let him know what level he needs to reach. It worked pretty well for Howard during a similar injury crisis back in 2005.

Except.........Kyle Quincey.

I'm all for playing Dallas, but rooting for sixth seed could backfire if San Jose wins the Pacific!

You're common sense has no use around these parts.

Call up my boy McCollum! Then I can buy a new bottle of scotch and enjoy watching our first round matchup against Vancouver.

I would be against reuniting that line, I think Homer's career is simply over. Hes been a great wing, but this year was just one too many. I would rather see one of the younger guys given more top line minutes than Holmstrom who isnt going to get better.

this season Malkin, last season Malkin/Sedins/Crosby, two seasons ago Ovechkin/Datsyuk, three seasons ago Crosby. Say what you want but to be the best player in the game you have to be able to play the game (be healthy). Crosby has all the potential to be the best.