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@murphPPress: Backes is a phenomenal quote: "Im the beef. Dustin Browns the pig or pork and then (Ryan) Callahans the chicken. Thats our meat line" I don't know what to say, I just felt this was really important to share.

He's ready for Canada.

That, and the insistence that the US and Canada are absolutely the best seems kind of a North-American-centric view of things. Last I looked, Sweden had some pretty damn good players on their team.

But he's not ready for Wonder Cindy....Nobody is.

whether you root for USA, Canada, or neither.. we can all be glad we haven't had to watch kyle quincey play any hockey the past couple weeks

Ok fellas, I called the Canadian fans out yesterday for not being online during their close game and heavily implied that they were "hiding" from criticism until the game turned in their favor. To protect myself from similar criticism I have a few things to announce... 1) I took a half a day off from work tomorrow to watch this game. Because I have no responsibility I will be watching it in a bar and getting drunk (so I won't be on LGW). 2) However, because I took a lead part in hyping this matchup and participated heavily in the trash talk it's only fair that I be here to take my lumps if USA loses. 3) So...in the pursuit of fairness, I will be on LGW the second I get home to be taunted endlessly by you Canadian Scallywags in the event of an unlikely American loss. 4) God help you if/when we win.

I've just re-read this entire thread purely from an entertainment perspective (and because I'm procrastinating instead of working, but still) and have found myself enlightened. To summarise: A rather crazy suggestion was made that we should buy out either our franchise icon at present, our best player and captain, leader, heart and soul guy, or a guy who has firmly established himself as a 30 goal scorer in this league, a guy who is one of the most dominant offensive threats in the league when he's rolling and on his game. Subsequently, the statement was made that we don't have goalscorers, and that to overcome this problem we should trade either of the two aforementioned, who have combined to provide the Wings with 1/6th of our goals this year. As us fans often do, we look back retrospectively at what could have been, and thus the last 3 pages of this thread have been spent lamenting the fact that we didn't get Bobby Ryan and thus our entire front office is 'lazy', just like Franzen and even Bobby Ryan himself! Thus I feel compelled to add my 2 cents: No we shouldn't buy out our captain or Franzen, what kind of a message does that send to the rest of the players in the league for a start, to both players? Can we scrap this 'floater' term to describe a player who is lazy? Is annoying and wholly inaccurate in terms of describing a player's tendency when they're on the ice. Franzen IMO, is worth that much more than Vanek. 1. He has great chemistry within our team. 2. He's proven to score when we needed it most (see 08 playoffs). 3. His contract is an absolute bargain, in a league with a cap that will forever go up, once again driving up salaries and leading to another lockout when Gary can't face the fact that the Panthers are losing more than just the $100,000 a day that was rumoured this past week (and just to avoid another 'fact' argument here's the link with proof! http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/2014/02/19/pols-support-panthers-bailout-plan-co-owner-says-team-is-losing-100k-daily/) and doesn't want to have them fold or re-loacte them to Quebec City Franzen may be infuriatingly inconsistent at times, but he's not lazy or a 'floater'. Surely most of us here have gone out there and played hockey on a regular basis (or any sport for that matter) and just had an 'off' game, when it doesn't all fit quite right and you know you haven't got it that day. You can argue they're paid to play, but everyone is human after all. And when he's hot, like he was for a lot of this year, it's incredibly exciting. I still believe in this team, with or without Z for the remainder of this year. You could classify me as being optimistic perhaps, but if Franzen and Weiss come back and are healthy and productive, with Howard getting his game together, and the kids staying up, why can't we squeeze into the playoffs? I see no reason why not.

I can't wait until we Canadians get to beat some American meat. Wait..that doesn't sound right

I don't understand why they haven't hired blue adams yet, seeing as how babs is a nit wick and all... very excited for this game though, hope my fellow canadians beat the USA, but really i don't like very many players on either team, actually kinda rooting for team Zetterbeard, c'mon boys win it for your captains ailing back!

I think he was actually still complaining that Crosby dove.

Right. Never any grammar issues with YOUR posts eh? And heaven forbid autocorrect gets in the way. Also, way to avoid addressing my claims that you are an over zealous fantasy GM that has no idea about how to run a hockey team in this dimension. Who are you to call Babcock a nit-wit? Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to see which of my old He-Man action figures would make the best line combos for the upcoming fantasy toy Olympics.

Only video I could find of the trick play.

He's not implying that, but there really is no competition in Women's Hockey, it comes down to USA and Canada every time. Women's Hockey just doesn't matter as much as the Men's for most Canadians, that's the reality. We will cheer them on, but people don't drop everything like they do for the Men. Not sure if USA feels the same however.

I would say yes, he gets a medal. The back up goalie got one for the Czechs in 1998, and never even sniffed the ice for one second during the entire tournament. I think if you're on the team, you get a medal. http://kuklaskorner.com/tmr/comments/st.-james-red-wings-datsyuk-delays-return-to-detroit?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook per Malik, Dats is taking a few days to visit folks in Russia -- probably his daughter who lives with her mom in Ekaterinaburg.

Maybe your dad, being older and wiser realizes that this will not be the case and wanted to divert some of your attention to other sports team USA are doing well in in order to ease the disappointment you will once again feel Friday afternoon.

Its definitely not written as fact, but if you want to interpret it as fact there's probably little any of us can do to convince you otherwise. It was also written in July, not after the first round of the playoffs ended, and the thread link that you posted demonstrated that many of us at LGW also took the tweet by HSJ to be rumor and not a very valid one at that. Helene St. James was attempting to fill in the blanks and its sloppy journalism (although its tough to call anything tweeted as journalism). I don't believe she (or anyone) has published any references or quotes from Holland or any Detroit Red Wings upper management which suggests they passed on Bobby Ryan because of laziness, lackluster performance, or any of a handful of reasons we can speculate on. When it comes to rumors like this or any type of sports journalism, sometimes its best to ignore what the author of the piece adds in, and just sift through for quotes directly from Red Wings staff or other official personnel. I can't tell you how many times I've read an article with a certain slant on a story, only to find out that it was entirely embellished or interpreted or what-have-you by the writer of the piece, and the athletes', or coaches', or general managers' words were taken either intentionally or unintentionally out of context. Unfortunately there's a lot of slant forming that occurs here and on other forums as well, sometimes from otherwise entirely unbiased and honest journalism, and that can snowball into serious rumors. Anyway, that's my advice. You're free to do with it what you want.

Selanne letting Ovi know who is the greatest 8.

We were watching it at work. I dropped down our web filter and we were streaming it onto the projector in our training room, and the boss ordered in some pizza, it wasf****** awesome. All the salary people didn't do s*** today but watch the game lol. Canada absolutely dominated the game. Should of ended up 3-1 but the goal got called back even though the Lativan player pulled the puck outta the net with his hands. So pumped for another chance at the Gold.

Yeah any defense that relies on Smith, Kindl, Quincey, to fill out their second pair will not be "fine".

A lot of people were really puzzled by the Wings using their extra 2nd round pick in the draft on him this season but the Wings scouts have to be feeling good about themselves right now. He's grown from 5'9 155lbs to 6'1 187 lbs, and is 1 point from equalling last years scoring #'s in 28 fewer games. On top of that he's also been winning fights this season. It helps that the Storm are a powerhouse offensively, but those are still awfully good numbers for a guy we're hoping can be a good 3rd or 4th line pest.

Wish we had enough talent on this team where we could pair Fedorov on defense with Larry Murphy. Those were the days...

This is what I was implying. Wings have a very humble, team first oriented locker room. I feel like his personality would clash with leaders like Hank, and especially with Babcock. Yeah he can back up his attitude, so could Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Manny Ramirez and other world class athletes. Not saying he's even remotely close to the level of those guys, but teams shy away from those guys because they're a cancer to the locker room with their "me first" attitude. I'd rather get a player with slightly less talent that doesn't have such a big head.

Clarkson scored what he did by a combination of luck and the Devils PP strategy being "bank the puck in off Clarkson." He does nothing to create offense, isn't that great of a skater, and plays a style that doesn't lend itself to a long career. Even if he had 2 or 3 good years, that's a horrendously bad contract.

I didn't even know they had a hockey team.

I wouldn't be surprised one bit if the Lativian goalie played himself into a two way contract with this performance. There is nothing to be ashamed off facing such a hot goalie but now Canada is facing a hot goalie and a potent offense, they need their forwards to break out.