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Burke is and always has been overrated. You could just see this day coming the moment he signed in Toronto, and even moreso when he started making his trademark bonehead moves. Not to mention he's always so bitter and angry over everything, and is a total ******, so firing him can't be that hard a task for whoever has to do it lol. The guy practically asks for termination.

So to toot or no to toot is the question? I say if Tootoo brings reason to toot, then toot we shall, for Tootoo.

Toronto might.

I'm just curious and would like to see the opinions of people here if this scenario were to arise. We know about Jimmy's contract, two year "try out" sorta deal, this is his last year of it. At any point if another team offers us the elite forward or defenseman we've been coveting so badly, yet ask for Jimmy in return, would you give him up? Knowing we have Gustavsson, who has started and did alright considering how poor Toronto was, and Mrazek, who looks a lot like he could not only start but succeed in the NHL. I'm not a huge fan of sending away players like trading cards especially after grooming them for so long but for the right deal I may be OK. I'm interested to see what others think.

Don't get too upset about it. The writer couldn't even bring forth any fact-based evidence for his claim, and the only reason the Wings made this list is because of pure speculation on the writer's part: "Any team with that much success is sure to have bandwagon fans...the Red Wings have many loyal fans, but surely a lot of them are only fans of their success." 'Sure to have' and 'surely' are his clever ways of saying "I can't support my claims at all, but I still suspect there are a lot of bandwagoners and my suspicions alone are why the Wings are on this list. I've said it a couple times before but this is a good time to repeat my thoughts. Bandwagon fans are defined by being only interested in teams during successful eras. I've been following the Wings since I've been old enough to understand sports (1995). Technically I don't know whether I'm a bandwagoner, because the Wings have never been unsuccessful during these past 20 years. And just a side thought: bandwagon fan is a term that only elitist fans throw around to make themselves feel better about their image. Who cares if people are bandwagon fans?

Is he going to stay there until Sochi 2014?

I think all teams, except those that always suck, have some fans that are only fans because it's cool, or because the team is winning, or because the team's colors look nice on a shirt (heard that one once). The more successful you are, the worse it is. I don't think the entirety of the Red Wings fan base is made up of bandwagoners, but that doesn't mean we don't have any.

We wanted Nyquist up right away and I think we're just a little miffed that we don't get to play with our new toy right away. The season is short but it's not 25 games, it's about 50 or so, that's still a lot. I know personally after the first 32 games of a regular season, I'm never sitting there thinking "man the playoffs are almost here". And these are just the starting rosters. If Nyquist doesn't make it up I'd be surprised. It's better to keep Gus ripping up the AHL for now while Sammy, a vet who knows how to keep up in this league, plays. We could use his defensive responsibility and right handed shot. It's just smarter. Less fun, but smarter. And in time, Nyquist will be up.

There's a tendency to want to downplay how good some veterans are, mostly because as fans we like things that are new and exciting. But guys like Sammy, Cleary, Bert, etc. have been playing (and thriving) in this league a long time, and will be HUGE contributors over the course of this season. If watching Red Wings hockey over all these years has taught me anything it's that smart, hard working veterans are almost always a better option than rookies when you need to give responsibility to someone. Let Nyquist work his way into the NHL game by filling in during injuries and starting out on the third line. It will serve him, and the team, better in the long run.

You mean the man who singlehandedly won us game 1 of the 2008 SCF?

Next season. Should be pretty nice now that they have a lot of time to plan for it. http://www.letsgowings.com/forums/topic/73462-nick-lidstroms-jersey-to-be-retired-next-season

Lest we forget...Burke signed Brett Lebda as a free agent. Two years at $1.45M per. Genius, he is not.

Most of us play for free because nobody would pay money to see us play. If anything, professional athletes earn their money in rather transparent manner compared to other occupations, which pull similar incomes. They get paid because people pay to see them play.

I think many people forget just how vital a piece Holmstrom was of the 1998 team. He ranked third overall in points for the team during the playoffs with 17, trailing only Fedorov with 20 and Yzerman with 24, and this came in addition to his invaluable contribution in screening the goalie. He was truly an unsung hero.

If you're not aware: the forums underwent an upgrade on 12/28 (part security update, part new version) and following that update forum members started experiencing various errors here. Sometimes the stylesheets for certain pages wouldn't load, sometimes the WYSIWYG editor wouldn't show in a Reply box, pop-up menus wouldn't work, HTML wouldn't be parsed correctly (on quoted replies this was most common), etc.. Today I performed some further updates to remedy these issues: a small database fix, re-caching the forum skins and then finally (tonight), rebuilding the updated template skins (Red and White versions) from the default template that came with the updated forum software. What's this mean for you? It should be the end of any issues you were having on the site. But first you'll have to clear your browser's cache. You can do so while viewing the site by pressing Ctrl+F5 (PC) or Cmd+R (Mac). That'll force it to re-load all of the site's template files: specifically the CSS and javascript files -- both of which underwent some significant updates and must be re-cached. If you have any problems after re-caching your browser please feel free to PM me or post your problem in the "Member Services" subforum (and include screenshots if you can,) Note: The site templates are visually no different from the previous look -- just changes in some functionality and placement (like the "share" capability).

He says: "...I'm sorry". He sure is. Just waiting for word word when he's exiled to Elba. He obviously didn't name names, but Mr. LeBrun did suggest that the numbers of the "overwhelming backing" of Uncle Gary are lessening.

Burke added only the Sedins and Kesler to Vancouver, and he wasn't around long enough to see them benefit from that. In Anaheim, he inherited a very good team and added to it a gift-wrapped Pronger and a gift-wrapped Niedermayer. He then screwed up the team in the next season by adding an aged Schneider and an overpaid Bertuzzi (whom he bought out the very next offseason) and dumping Andy McDonald to clear space for an out-of-shape Scott Niedermayer to return. I'm sure Burke had plenty of control in Toronto. He was, after all, supposed to be the team's savior, and he was paid accordingly. More, I doubt he would have taken the job had it entailed brooking interference of any significant kind. The fact that he did so poorly was almost certainly his fault alone. This was the first time he'd taken over a team in full rebuild mode, and he did an awful job of it. It was clear from his groveling apology speech last year that he knew he was on the verge of being fired.

I know it's not the case but I would love for it to be that he's replacing Bettman as commissioner.

lockout over, Burke gone. what an epic week... thank you, hockey gods!

The only reason that this is surprising, is that it's actually a move for the good of the franchise and it was made on time.

I need to contact JLA with a clever marketing idea that I know Murph will be on board with. They can spin dollar hot dog night into 'Tootoo's too hot dogs for too dollars night!'... with a Tootoo whistle thrown in! Winning?

All I want to know is how can we work in Blackfoot's song Train Train with Tootoo

I'm all for the whistles. Yeah they're a little annoying, but at the same time anything that gets fans into the game I generally support. So whatever, if the whistle creates a more festive atmosphere then by all means lets do it. And let's be honest, Wings fans have been watching the team win for so long that they've become fairly stoic anyway, might as well do something to lighten up.

I happen to know that Downey's manhood and toughness during the regular season, made our soft Euros play tougher come playoff time. It's like he rubbed off on them, especially Filppula. A source close to the team (Hudler) told me so.

Approved.