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wait one second! ICE GIRLS!.....WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?

Whatever CBA they come up with this time around, we're just going to be right back here in 5 years. Unless the fans hit them where it hurts, they won't start negotiating until the 11th hour again. These bastards forced me to check in on BASEBALL. Not sure how long it's going to take me to forgive them for that.

The worst part about this lockout is the Wings finally brought in a guy that will punch people in the face on a regular basis (Tootoo) and we can't even watch it now! esteef

I think you are asking two unique question here, with different answers. Who was the better Wing? Yzerman Who was the better player? Lidstrom

When he takes a dumb minor (which is rare, he actually dras 2 penalties for every one he takes http://behindthenet....0&team=NSH&pos= ) we can all go hug a tree with you and cry about it together.

I am a fan of the saying "As worthless as Nipples on a breast plate" lol

Joe Thornton only has 9 points in 10 games there, in Thornton's most productive season on the NHL, he scored 114 points in 82 games with the Sharks in 2006-07

You must not pay attention to any other sports. All of those men are despised by the fans of their leagues. Read any articles about Stern or Goodell, and it talks about how they try to out evil each other (Bountygate in the NFL, both leagues have recent work stoppages) The fact is, it's the Commissioner's job to be the hated "face" of the league. That's why they are paid well. Instead of you hating Jeremy Jacobs, Mike Illitch, and Ted Leonsis, instead you hate Bettman. He doesn't do any of this stuff on his own, but it's all his fault. Also, thinking someone like Gretzky could be the Commissioner is laughable at best. He has none of the requisite experience, and he's not the type of person that can stand being hated. He was a great player, but was a horrible coach, because that's not where his skills lie. I seriously doubt his ability to score goals will help him in an owners' meeting. IF Bettman gets fired, expect another Commissioner in the mold of Bettman, Goodell, Stern.

That's awesome dude. I wish i was in Switzerland with you watching that. I have to settle for seeing Andrew Ladd at the pretzelmaker at the mall....brutal!

But then all the Crosby fans will cry themselves to sleep when his jockstrap is in the parking lot and Datsyukian things happened and Wings win. Just sayin'

I wish you a good game. I'll watch it on tv. I'm usually for fribourg but all I can now is GO Zug!!

Yes.

Lockout X 3. This tactic shows a total alienation from both the entire process of collective bargaining and a of your employees. On today's episode of OTR on TSN, Michael Landsberg said that the "leak" was provided by the League; he said "NHL" and not "NHLPA. The more I think about it, he may have been referring to the details of there "lipstick-on-a-pig" offer.

its nice that Z and brunner can build some chemistry

This is the part that concerns me the most... So, in short, if Fehr has dug in, we are in for a long fight. I hope that he is at least willing to concede something. Otherwise, the season is on deep freeze.

That's not really the point. The point is that is that the players will be paying themselves to cover intitial shortfalls. If 50% fo revenues are not enough this year to cover salaries, the players will just take less money later to cover the difference....so they might get 45% of revnues in a later year for example. The league suggesting no rollbacks is completely bogus.

There are other reasons. People tend to forget (or didn't witness it firsthand if they are under, say, 30 years old) that NHL scoring fell off a cliff after roughly the 1992-93 season. http://www.quanthockey.com/TS/TS_GoalsPerGame.php If you only talk with Red Wings fans, you grow up with the impression that the 90's and early 2000's were this golden age of hockey. And they were...for a Red Wings or Avalanche fan. Everyone else refers to it as the "Dead Puck" era - the first time in this history of hockey were goaltenders were absolutely fearless in net, when they wore absurdly large (and since outlawed) jerseys, pads, and chest protectors that took up the whole net, but still benefited from trapping defensive schemes, no two-line passes, and unmitigated obstruction that slowed the game down. There's a reason Teemu Selanne scored 70 goals as a rookie and never got close to that total again. If Gretzky's career started in 1991 instead of 1979, he'd still have been a great player, but I'm almost certain he doesn't break Howe's goal record. It wasn't even the same game in the 1980's, and blocked shots are a huge difference even between the 90's and 2000's. I want to say Lidstrom in the poll (who won an extra Cup, and did so as the leader of a Salary Cap-limited team), but my heart knows that it's Yzerman. However, I do think that the praise for Yzerman swings a little too far at times, and people forget that that those 80's Wings teams where Yzerman was an offensive beast were still basically the likable losers. It wasn't until Fedorov and Lidstrom came along that this became a perennial playoff team, Bowman got the star players to play defense, and even then, they still couldn't beat the other great teams of the day ('95 Devils, '96 Avs) until they added Shanahan and some other "spare parts". But if you look at Yzerman's first half of his career compared to Lidstrom's, he was a much more important player to his team, even if the team wasn't doing much at the time. Lidstrom may well be among the Top 5 or Top 10 defensemen of all time, yet Yzerman's importance to the Red Wings is somehow much more complex than that.

It would have been interesting to see the responses had Brunner been included in the list. Personally, I'm not holding my breath on a smooth transition for him into NA style hockey, but you cannot deny that he is a pure goal-scorer based on how he is lighting it up overseas. I hear his shot is reminiscent of Brett Hull, but I haven't seen him play yet...

Pretty hard to argue with that. On a side note, Franzen is lazy and would score more if he'd hit the net more than 10% of the time.

I voted Datsyuk. Here's my logic - disregarding the way these players choose to play the game, if you told all four of them to simply go try their hardest to personally score a goal... I think Datsyuk has the best moves and hands to make that happen. His goal totals are lower than what they could be only because he chooses to be more of a setup man. In short, Datsyuk got the skill.

To the OP, I'm going to parrot what others have already said. Yzerman was the better Red Wing, Lidstrom the better player. That said... I actually came here to refute this point by saying that Stevie's body broke down in later years, and he no longer would've been able to compete with a purely offensive game. I still think this is true, and I don't believe he would've lasted 12 more seasons that way. However... I took a quick peek at the all time scoring leaders, and it is not unfeasible (hi, double negative!) that he could've taken the number two all time spot if things had gone differently. Had he even played one more season in the real world, he definitely would've ousted Dionne, and possibly even taken the #4 spot from Francis had he remained healthy (given his numbers from his last two seasons -- 75gp, 55p and 61gp, 34p). With him only 132 pts behind Messier even with his switch up to two way play, I could honestly have seen him topping every other forward all time save for the Great One. 2 Mark Messier EDM, NYR, VAN, NYR 1756 1887 1.07 3 Gordie Howe DET, HFD 1767 1850 1.05 4 Ron Francis HFD, PIT, CAR, TOR 1731 1798 1.04 5 Marcel Dionne DET, LAK, NYR 1348 1771 1.31 6 Steve Yzerman DET 1514 1755 1.16 ...of course then we'd have exactly zero cups, and people would be talking about how he was the best centerman never to win the big one...

I don't think any of them are really natural goal-scorers. Franzen could probably get classified as that because all he does is score goals, unlike the other three. The Red Wings haven't had a legitimate sniper since Hossa. Of the four, I would take Z. His backhand is sick and he scored goals at a nice clip until his game evolved more as a center.

None of those players are pure goal scorers, as the stats show.

I totally agree with this. On pure hockey ability and skill, Lidstrom comes out on top. But the best Wing? Yzerman showed up for this team in any manner that they needed him consistently and reliably for over twenty years. Lidstrom was a great leader, but Stevie was The Captain. Love them both, and am honored that I got to grow up watching them play for my team.

Lebda sucks. Could skate really fast, though.