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Great interview, what a straight shooter! It's quite refreshing to hear someone say it like it is.

This is not at all a knock on Datsyuk, who is my favorite active player hands down by 12 country miles, but Fedorov was better in his prime. I've heard some say that Datsyuk is a great defensive forward (he is, and the Selkes back it up), that his stickhandling skills are par none (they are) and that he just brings straight up sex appeal to the on ice game (he does as well -- dude is slick). The thing is, if you can come up with an adjective or description of a good skater in hockey, Fedorov matches that description (to my knowledge, he never played goalie, thus me saying "skater"). Want a power forward? Check. Need speed and energy? Gotcha, boss. Want a top forward shut down? Not a problem. Penalty killed? P'shaw. Need someone to dish? Yeah, we can do that. Shots from the point? Snipe? Check? Just need me to intimidate the entire other team with how much better I am at the game than all of you? No sweat. See you next shift. The man's double helixes were made of hockey sticks. Pasha is an incredible talent, and a great role model...but Fedorov was the better hockey player.

Another decent perspective on the lockout. Towards the end he hits upon one of the reasons why I put a lot of the blame on Bettman and his strategy. http://www.tsn.ca/blogs/dave_naylor/?id=405623 Bettman wanted to expand the game into non-hockey markets. Fine. Then when those franchises struggle he points the finger at the players as to the biggest reason why and locks them out. It's going to take time and commitment to turn a non-traditional market into a good one for hockey. It's not the players fault that people in Phoenix just don't want to watch hockey that much. Right out of the gate owners of franchises in Detroit, Toronto, New York, etc have a HUGE advantage over those in places like Nashville and Phoenix. It has to do with the history and popularity of the teams, the length of time hockey has been part of a culture in that market, and also the strength of the Canadian dollar. The biggest reasons for the economic disparity has nothing to do with the percentage of revenue allocated to paying players. Bettman apparently doesn't have the skills or the will to get his owners to share more revenue and actually address the economic disparity, instead he goes after the players because it's easier and something all his owners can agree on. Unfortunately his spineless strategy is terrible for the fans and ultimately for the NHL.

comparing doctors to athletes is ridiculous. these guys are entertainers, not nearly as important to society as doctors. not even close.

Love Jimmy D interviews - his frankness is refreshing. Flipping it, to 43% players and 57% owners still seems like a good deal to me. That's still a huge chunk to the players, but you have to remember the owners still have to pay coaches, scouts, doctors, vendors, trainers, administrators, insurance, marketing and maintenance. Imagine if doctors at a hospital demanded 50% of all revenues? It's getting real hard for me to side with the players as this keeps going on. My biggest worry is contracts coming down so much the NHL can not compete with a league like the KHL for top salaries. It's just too bad the top dogs on each side are famous for relating poorly with the other side - Fehr and Bettman.

Your company does it to motivate the employees, since their increased work effort potentially increases company profit and therefore offering employee bonuses benefits the company's bottom line. NHL players are paid to win games. That would tend to increase the profits of their own team, but not the league combined profit, since for every (Wings ) win and a happy (Wings) fan buying tix and merchandise, there must necessarily be a loss and an angry fan of some other team who does not buy NHL stuff. So it would make no sense for the NHL as a whole to give the players a share of the combined profits, because increased players' effort does not increase the combined profit of the league. And every NHL team already pays bonuses for winning - that's what playoff bonuses are for.

Both. After reading this interview, it is painfully clear that they both are pretty disgusting.

Ive heard he's indeed going back to play for Zug, but just for a few games...and that he intends on playing for GR once the AHL season begins

If that turns out be the outcome, the lockout is almost worth it.

Lockouts are commonplace amongst all industries, so this is no surprise. Its only until recently that owners of companies have begun to exercise that right more, knowing they can squeeze their employers down to their demands eventually. I hope the NHLPA never gives in to what the owners want and the league ultimately suffers a great defeat. I'm a Red Wings fan, NOT an NHL fan, so I could care less about the other 29 franchises. The longer the players refuse to negotiate, the better it will be for them in the end. They can always play overseas and marginal players with 2-way deals can play in the AHL. I think the whole season will be missed, maybe more, and the NHL will fade into obscurity in the American sports realm. The owners have brought this upon themselves and they will get what they deserve.

It's time for the women to get involved! Sure can't hurt.....

Sergei should be in the top 5 hands down.

I remember when I was 8 or 9 I built a Steve Yzerman out of Legos. Obviously it didn't look anything like him, but I would have hockey cards I'd use for templates and just build trying to match all the lines and colors while making everything proportional. I'm sure there is a picture of it somewhere in my mom's collection of photos from when I was a kid. I believe it was about a foot tall, ah memories.

I'm not sure if I detect a hint of sarcasm in your post.... but I agree. This is how free market economics work; if your business fails, you don't get to rely on your competition to bail you out. The argument that successful teams should redistribute their wealth to failing teams because the failing teams give their team someone to beat up on... doesn't hold water in the current scenario. The NHL can afford to lose 3-4 (or more) of the teams in the league bleeding money, and be better for it. Of course, Bettman doesn't want to do that because he wants to land lucrative TV contacts... which he deems only possible if you have teams / viewership in a wide assortment of markets geographically (Phoenix, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, N. Carolina), and not just in the northern US and Canada.

End the lockout. End of story.

Because the NHL's original proposal was so utterly outrageous that "meeting in the middle" would still represent a massive reduction in pay and rights for the players. As I said earlier, the NHL's started out not with a basis for negotiation between 2 parties, but an ultimatum of surrender for a vanquished foe. And all because a handful of teams have bad business models/bad markets, and the majority of owners keep handing out bonkers contracts.

End the lockout. Come to an agreement. Stop screwing us the fans. This has gone beyond ridiculous. The 4th out of the 4 major American sports leagues is undergoing its 4th work-stoppage in just over two decades.

I have no interest in watching replacement players. I think you can tell from my posts I support the players. I always support the players, because I don't go to games to watch the owners, plus all the owners care about is profits.

Agree. The owners need to either get rid of the Floor, revenue share with bankrupt teams, or move the bankrupt teams to better hockey markets (if they want to continue under the current system). The Players don't have to give an inch. I heard Forbes said the Leafs could pay Phoenix's entire debt and still be the richest team in the League. Obviously this isn't the Players fault. With fans and media on the Players side this time around, the longer this goes, the more info showing how screwed up the current system is will come out. The Owners will be the first to cave, and Bettman will lose his job.

I am afraid you are wrong here, they would need to be done by December 1, 2012. Not because they can't cancel the classic after that date (they can can cancel up to the day of). The reason is because they work too hard and they need their christmas vacation which should run from December 1 to about January 15. I think they are currently on thanksgiving vacation too. I'll be the first to say it, since no one has yet. You are on a Red Wings Forum, and you could not even spell our newly retired captains name properly? there is no N in Lidstrom.

I have to give the edge to Fedorov due to his flair I believe the minimum amount is 37 pieces

I wouldn't be happy that the Red Wings were playing, because they wouldn't be. Guys like Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg and the like are all under contract by the Red Wings. They are Detroit Red Wings hockey players. Besides, no one can match what Dats does out there. Certainly not some replacement player that couldn't crack the NHL except as a scab.

I'd rank it right where it belongs...ahead of Minnesota's.

I think we will be okay to everyones' surprise. Why do I say this? Because the Red Wings best move of the summer has been bringing in Tom Renney as assistant coach for the Defense. He has a lot of experience working with younger players, and has a very good defensive approach to his system. When he was the coach of the NY Rangers, they played a very solid defense system, and had an outstanding penalty killing system. There were several times, back in 2008, when Mike Babcock praised Renney and his system and sometimes even had the boys watch tapes to help them out. So I think Renney will be a huge help. By no means am I saying that we will be just as good as years past, but we won't be as bad as everyone seems to think. I mean honestly, look at Jersey. Our dmen are way better then theirs, and they just came within 2 wins of a Stanley Cup. How about s***sburg? Their D is not that strong. Also, as someone said, we play a good TEAM defensive system. I guess we will have to wait and see, but I expect Babs and Renney will get things together.

I believe it. Down here in Toledo, while we have the Walleye and the nice new arena and family atmosphere now, I remember the Storm days where people attending a game pretty much expected to see a fight, and see the boys kick some ass.