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The best thing in the world is when the Wings win the cup. The 2nd best thing in the world is when the Hawks DON'T.

4-1 at the end of 2. Eddie O must be crying in his Patrick Kane pajamas right about now.

Paul Van Eijl of Minnesota has invented a machine that will resurface the ice in approximately a minute, which will mean no more Zambonis and no more Al. I understand progress, but where do we draw the line of putting people out of jobs? And when do we progress versus protecting the history of the game? BTW, this won't shorten intermissions; the CBA states it has to be 18 minutes. This leaves that much more time for Musical Chairs at center ice. Oh, yay.

Wow. This has backfired on me tremendously

Before the cap, there were usually multiple top end free agents available in any given year. If a team didn't get their first choice, their second, third, and even fourth option were usually pretty good. Now players get signed to super long term contracts to try to keep the cap hit down, and they're not hitting the market as frequently. If you miss on Suter, the next best guy should be a second pairing guy. This year the best d-man potentially hitting the market is coming off a career year that just happens to fall in a contract season and very easily could fall back to being a second pairing guy even though he'll get top pair money and term. The rest of the top guys are either old, injury prone, or both.

Fair enough. I do agree with you about the Blues and drawing the Blackhawks in the first round was just unfortunate. However, I think you have to achieve and maintain playoff success before a team can be declared a model.

I still wake up sweating in the middle of the night hearing "SAVE by Giguere!"

...followed by his ginormous pads retiring in mid-July. /try the veal

I'm calling for a disaster. The team isn't built for Trotz' style of game and I don't think Leonsis will stomach huge roster turnover and/or significantly less scoring. This will be a real test for Barry. He's going to need to coach a (more) offensive game to get wins initially. We'll see how he fair. Oh...and Ovechkin will eat him alive. Alex is an institution in D.C. and nobody, but nobody, will make him do something he doesn't want to do. I expect the honeymoon to be short, a lot of internal problems (e.g. Hunter and Ovie) and eventually Trotz will be let go because Ovie sells merchandise and tickets. That's my prediction.

is this the draft thread or next seasons needs thread? Because no matter who is drafted, he isn't gonna help next season. if we must mention the draft in this thread, then I say trade to pick for someone who will help us next season.

Kings will win it all.

Hope the Kings did what the Wings couldn't do last season, finish off the Hawks after being up 3-1.

That's like saying, "If you can trade 3500 lbs of metal and plastic for a new car...". You can't. You can't even if you "package" it with 5 tons of crap either. You want a proven young player you're going to have to add a lot. Look at the Ryan trade. He's not even a great goal scorer and was already 26. Went for a Mantha-level prospect, plus another good prospect, plus a 1st. Aside from maybe a few overzealous fans here, no one is anointing him the second coming. And I think you and Dickie are over-valuing his trade value just as much as they are over-valuing his potential. His value may be higher than it's been in the past, but I'd say it's unlikely as high as it will get. Even moderate success in GR (or with the Wings) would move him up. Obviously, no one is literally untouchable. I assume when anyone says that it just means they don't believe said player would bring a worthy return. For me, Mantha, Sheahan, Sproul, Mrazek, and Pulkkinen are untouchable right now. Their skillsets are mostly unique in our prospect pool (Pulks is a little redundant). You'd have to really blow me away with an offer to get any of them.

5-2! Empty netter!

Everything is going according to plan... Excellent

If you told me a year ago that Emmerton would be playing in Sochi in 2014, I probably wouldn't have believed you.

Somewhere The Axe is trying to figure out how to say Emdog in Russian.

He has his head down because he was shooting the puck and was focusing on the goal; what is he suppose to have, those side sonar sensors installed they have on vehicles now?

Am I the only one here that kind of wants the Habs to win? At first I thought I was coming down in the side of the Rags, but I keep finding myself rooting for Montreal. I think it's because they were our avengers... They're our boyfriends, sticking up for us when some crusty homeless guy tries to grab our ass. Or something *grabs popcorn*

What if they put aside their differences and pooled their resources to create a superteam? Conference Finals teams should be allowed to do this. Then if they beat the [insert Western/Eastern juggernaut] in the SCF, each organization gets half the Cup. Or they could split apart and square off against each other in a second, winner-take-all SCF round. And the Anthems would be performed by Freddie Mercury and Jeff Buckley, undead duet style.