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Honestly, nothing you've ever posted needs to be repeated here, or anywhere. Ever.

Kane scored the stanley cup winning goal as the nhl 10 cover athlete. The next year, Toews scored a career high 76 points in 80 games as the nhl 11 cover athlete. And of course, Stamkos hit 60 goals as last year's cover athlete. Seems more like good luck than a curse.

I love how they used Pav's number as the year....this sooooo has to happen.

I heard the new arena will be called The Little Caesars Brandon Inge Memorial Colosseum.

They don't. They are doing all they can to get investors to put their own money into infrastructure so more people will come to the city, increase the profits of shops (so they won't fold after a year or two), increase the demand for jobs, increase the population, and increase the tax base. The city helping put the Red Wings in an arena that is actually downtown and not tucked away in a corner surrounded by bridges and highways would do a lot for the city.

Stamkos scored 60 his cover year.

Hard to say with guys that have yet to play a single professional hockey game. There is a huge step from juniors to the minors, and an even bigger step from the minors to the NHL.

Iginla is exactly what we need. He is a sniper and would provide some much needed toughness. Nash would be good too but more expensive salary wise and for compensation in a trade. There is a lot of speculation that both will be available for a trade and that the Flames will go into rebuild mode. I would part with Nyquist, Kindl and a first for Iginla but unfortunately it will probably take more than that for a 34 yr old who is in the last year on his contract for a team that probably won't make the playoffs next yr and will probably move on after that. He could probably score 50 goals again playing with the Wings and brings a lot more of what the Wings need than either Prise or Semin

Correction, US and Canada won gold and silver only twice since 1998, and coincidentally, when the Olympics were held in North America. In Nagano and Turin Czech Republic and Sweden won gold, and Russia and Finland - silver. So Canada won some and Europeans won some. There's no clear advantage either way, and the sample size is too small anyway. As to the fact that Canada is deep, so what. There still are only 6 players on the ice at a time. In Turin, all that depth didn't help, did it? And if you actually look at Canada rosters at the Worlds, at least in the last 7-8 years, those are some pretty impressive rosters. No. Do you even know who did play for Canada and the US this year?

"Better" teams lost, so they were not "better". And they didn't lose 1-0. USA lost to Slovakia 2-4, and to Finland 2-3, Canada lost to Slovakia 3-4. Goaltender equipment was the same as in NHL. What "best veteran North Americans" didn't play that could have strengthened their teams? (Apart from the ones busy in the Stanley Cup playoffs or injured.) Remember, Steve Yzerman was the GM of this team Canada, surely the players must realize that this may have been their last chance to audition for Sochi-2014? On paper, Canada and USA were "better" than Slovakia, Finland, or even Russia. Unfortunately for them, ice is more slippery than paper.

I agree I have sat in multiple places at the AA arena from the best to the worst and in between and always had a good view of the game.

For Megatron's cover I wish they had a photo of him out jumping a triple coverage. Now that would be sweeeeeeeet. Might as well do this Madden curse in style. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAkmxoWvHjc

I only regret that I have but one +1 to give.

Tatar with some kind of moves!

Ah draft him anyway. He is likely just as good as Conklin is and the same size as Hudler.

I think we can all agree $10mil is a ridiculous number. He won't get paid that much. Even if he was offered that, Ken Holland would never pay that much. There are a number of teams in good position to sign him which is why I think that the bidding will ultimately get too high for Holland and unless he wants to take a substantial pay cut (1-2 mil) to play here, he will be elsewhere.

I think you are mostly correct, but until they don't make the playoffs and/or accumulate 100 points in the regular season, the dynasty is still intact, although it's power is clearly waning. The Wings need an infusion of youth and talent in the top 6. I think any Wings fan should be able to see that.

I'm betting the Preds are going to lose, so I called in the donation to Ilitch Charities from the Paypal account; checks go in the mail tomorrow. Our grand total is $264.39. Way to go, LGW! Very nice amount, especially considering the limited opportunities to pad the bill. Again, thanks so very much to all who participated. Hopefully next year I'll take you all for a lot more money.

Made this handy little spread sheet. it covers the 5 of our top 6 forwards that are signed for next season. has the names, ages, and 3 stats for each year from 2008 through 2012. Those stats are: GP=games played, PTS=points, and shts=shoots on goal. Black numbers are no change or improved, red numbers are declines. Name----Age--------------------2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 --------------------------------GP PTS shts GP PTS shts GP PTS shts GP PTS shts GP PTS shts Zetterberg--32-------------75 92 358 77 73 309 74 70 309 80 80 306 82 69 267 Datsyk----34---------------- 82 97 264 81 97 248 80 70 203 56 59 137 70 67 164 Franzen----33---------------72 38 199 71 59 246 27 21 91 76 55 248 77 56 211 Burtuzzi----37---------------68 40 121 66 44 127 82 44 216 81 45 138 71 38 118 Cleary---34------------------63 42 177 74 40 163 64 34 140 68 46 192 75 33 199 Now for some follow up. Of the 15 numbers for each player, dat has 9 reds. meaning he is declinging just about every year, in just about every catagory. it would be worse but his numbers this year are improved over 2011 when he was hurt. But his 2012 numbers are worse than his 2010 numbers. Second in red numbers is Z. he has 7 out of 15 in red. Cleary has 6 out 15 in red. Burt also has 6 out of 15 in red. franzen has declined the fewest times. Only 5 red numbers. The number that stands out to me the most, is dat's decline in shots. In 2008 he took 264 shots. Then followed by 248, 203, 137, and finally 164 this past year. Granted he played 12 fewer games, but he had 103 fewer shots! That is a 38% drop! None of us want to se a bad RW team. We all want to win Cups every year. But we also have to face facts. The fact is we need to find our next pair of great forwards that can lead us for the next 10 years. We started this run with Yzerman and federov, then continued it with dat and Z. No where in our organization do we have 2 guys that are potential 80 point per year guys. This is Holland's big challenge. Do we trade? Sign FA's? move up in the draft somewhere? My personnel opinion is they need to be C's. A wing by himself can't do it. A good sniper-like parise is, can't score if no one can get him the puck. One last thing. Please understand the difference between good and great. dat and Z are still good players. They are not great players anymore. They will continue to work hard, provide leadership, and score 60 to 75 points for a few more years. But they are not guys that can carry a team anymore. help carry yes, but we have to find the next pair to do the heavy lifting. Chart was fixed, loaded poorly.....

Way to show a complete lack of class. But you have to live with yourself, not me. To bad you can't engage your mind. Good to see the old commie trick of: "if you can't refute the message, attack the messager", is alive and well.

Having 2000+ less seats seems kind of dumb. If anything, I figured it would have been about 2k more. They have an opportunity here to make a really badass arena. I hope they don't screw it up. I can almost hear Ilitch now, pulling a Holland. "We like our 18,000 seats".

The easy part is to say: "we need to upgrade at x, y, z postions". the harder part is doing it. Lets look at a few things. 1. we don't have much to trade. Burt-old and no trade clause, Dat-old and no trade cluase, Z not really old yetbut how many are willing to take on the remianing 9 years of his contract, franzen-same problem, Ericcson-no trade clause. No 2-3 players in our minors are going to bring a big name. The only real pieces we could trade are Filppula and Kornwall. 2. trying to rebuild via FA is always a crap shoot. You never know how it will turn out. You also tend to overpay for players. 3. The draft. In many ways we got very very lucky. getting 3 superstars: dat, Z and Hommer, that late in a draft is PURE luck. Not going to happen again. But looking past those 3, how mnay superstars or even stars have we drafted in the past decade? Not many. Howard was in the past decade, but after him the next best would be Filppula. good yes, but star?

The stereotypical underachieving soft Russian player or the gritty powerfoward that's scored the most goals of the decade and is hungry for a cup? I'm gonna have to go with Iginla and throw in any prospect that isn't Smith. Iginla + Suter + Parise with Nick taking a major paycut for one more run.. a boy can dream.

Before anyone jumps off of a bridge, this has nothing to do with any team. It is a general set of thoughts. What would I do in terms of team make up and roster control/spending if I was running a NHL team. Keeping some things in mind: 23 man roster and a 70 million $ cap, here we go. 1. Player experience/roster management. Ok we have a 23 man roster. It is impossible to have all 23 players between 27 and 32, which is the prime of most players careers. Not to mention the cost of having a team like that. My ideal roster would have 2 rookies, 2 second year, 2 third year, 2 fourth year, 2 5th, 2 6th, 2 7th, 2 8th, 2 9th, 2 10th, 2 11th, and 1 guy with 12 or more. By doing this you are keeping young and cheap plays coming in and managing the costs. If the average rookie is 22 when he makes the roster, this still keeps the majority of the players between 26 and 32. The prime playing years. Some of course come earlier and some later. 2. managing the cap. If you divide 70 million by 23, you spend 3 million per player. if you actual payroll looked like that you would have a pretty poor team. Also most rookies and young players don't make nor do they need to make 3 million per year. So where and how much do i spend? The backup goalie, 7th Dman, and the 13th and 14th forwards are all at 1 million or less. That is 4 guys of the 23. leaving 66 million to spend on 19 players. The starting goalie is in a 5 million per slot. The 1-6 Dman make the oppisite amount. IE the 1 makes 6, the 2 makes 5, the 3 makes 4, the 4 makes 3, the 5 makes 2 and the 6 makes 1. At this point I have allocated 30 million of the 70 and covered 11 players. Leaving 40 million for the remaining 12 forwards. The 4th line guys make 2 million each. This leaves 9 players and 34 million left to spend. The 6 remaining RW and LW each get paid 3 million. This leaves 3 players and 16 million to spend. The 1 and 2 C get 6 million each, and the 3rd C makes 4 million. That allocates all 70 million allowed for the cap. 3. Now i have never been inside of RW HQ. But I am sure they have a plan along these lines somewhere. Every company does. You have to know where the money is going etc..... Now some may want to spend more accross the board on the top line. So be it, everyone has their own opinions. But in the end, you still have to have 23 players and can only spend 70. later I will take these thoughts and tie these with the wings and their roster. I am sure that will be fun! LOL!