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Sharks had a nice tribute for him in Game 6.

ummm...

2016 has been brutal.. RIP

Is that real? If so leave it to the Penguins to dent the Stanley cup. Holy f*** this team is annoying. What a disgrace of a club.

a man can dream...

That sucks I have a soft spot for him. I grew up with him and Mickey Redmond doing the Wings games on channel 50. I hope he has a quick and painless recovery.

Hahaha nice. I knew that sounded familiar.

I'm not sure why these arenas have to be specifically "Little Caesars' Arena". Why can it not be some thing like "The Gordie Howe Arena" by Little Caesars' or something of that nature. You would think that kind of association would be great way for these sponsors to gain some more local respect and still get their name out. Also someone on 97.1 mentioned the new "District Detroit" be called District 9. I liked that.

found this on twitter

Oddsmakers and bookies could not be reached for comment...

The Canadiens named their arena in honor of Jean Beliveau. Wish Detroit would do the same but not gonna happen.

gordie on the cover would be pretty sweet. but let's just at least be glad it's not another blackhawk

In an industry that is rampant with homers (Olcyskcysztvcyk), idiots, and people only trying to make a name for themselves, Strader is one of the few that has risen above it. Best wishes to him on a full and speedy recovery.

Dallas StarsVerified account ‏@DallasStars 5m5 minutes ago Stars Announcer Dave Strader has been diagnosed with cancer. Our thoughts & prayers are with the Strader family. Beat it Dave! Thoughts with you!

Thornton is still a pretty good player and it makes total sense too. His game has never been based on speed, so there is no reason why he couldn't operate at a fairly high level. Similar situation with Jagr. Jagr had a bit more speed, but no one would have thought of him as fast or that being an asset to his game. Lidstrom was similar in that he didn't decline dramatically, was more of a slow decline, largely because his game was less focused on speed and physicality. He was going to decline, everyone does, but it's wasn't as dramatic as you tend to see with other types of players. It will be interesting to see how Ovechkin's career goes late into his 30's since he's the type of player I'd expect to decline quicker than others if my theory holds up.

As others mentioned the Pronger contract would go to LTIR so it wouldn't count against cap.

Crosby has a much different personality now than he did then. No more whining or sucker punches (although him and Thornton went at it pretty good). No more acting like a petulant child. He's not perfect, but he's light years ahead of where he was when he played us, in terms of maturity, which is one of the reasons I was okay with them winning it this year. While the Sharks were getting good pressure on the Pens last night, I noticed that a lot of their offensive pressure was a result of good passing. That's one way to get around relentless forechecking. Pass that puck around and wear them out, they can't move as fast as a pass. Then I thought, about the '08 Wings and how ridiculously well they could control and pass the puck around. If the '08 Wings played the '16 Pens, it would still be a good series, but the Wings would take it. The Pens wouldn't be able to do what they did throughout these playoffs against that Red Wings team or really any Red Wings team for that matter. Hopefully everybody remembers this next year when they start complaining about how we have too many "soft players" and we need to get bigger. Bigger equals slower. Film? Y-You mean... that wasn't... real??

I wanted them to win for Cullen.

The petition has been around since the day they announced the name of the new arena.

Very interesting. Think I take Matthews still

Seriously. Blashill seems to want to be Babcock Jr. and it doesn't work.

I'm retired from posting on this board but I must make a brief return just to say this and then I'll be retired again... Poel, you are a complete moron. lol Mike Babcock once called Darren Helm the best 3rd line centre in the league. So you know more about hockey than he does? Seriously...Helm isn't even a good 4th liner? Do you even watch hockey? So you're one of those guys who thinks you're right just because you say are. Guess what? You're completely wrong. Why? Because I said so. See, I know everything just like you do. If Helm is so bad, then why is he in the NHL? How did he make it? Helm gives the puck away all the time? When? Once when you saw him play? Guess what genius...every player gives the puck away. I don't care how good you are. So if Helm gives the puck away a lot (which he doesn't) then it must mean that he has the puck a lot of the time, yes? Or are his opponents just letting him always have the puck? Maybe, he has the puck alot because...he is a good player? Nah of course not! He is useless right? Helm is an excellent third line player. He has speed, grit, tenacity and is solid defensively. If he is so bad then why is he consistently used late in games when protecting leads? Only Andersson was worse than Helm last season? So you're saying guys like Jurco, Pulkkinen, Miller, Richards were better? Lol How? If Helm is so bad then why are teams willing to sign him as a UFA this summer? He will likely get between 3-4 million per season on the open market. I don't think Holland Will 're-sign him because his hometown Winnipeg Jets likely will offer him more term and money. Anyway, I'm done now and will go away again. I just wanted to let you, Poel, know that your posts about Darren Helm are the most idiotic posts I've ever read on a hockey message board. Congrats, Yours truly, Darren Helm

That's interesting - I didn't know about the $2,000,000 penalty he was facing if he retired early. Any way you slice it the money is going to be (at the very least) close to what he would have made next year... Keep in mind, he may be comparing the next 2 years of his contract when deciding to leave. Based on what we all saw from his this post-season, he isn't close to what he was - and would not have been paid $7,500,000 by any NHL team in 2018-2019. So in theory, he could easily sign a 2 year contract in Russia that pays him more in 2016-17/2017-18 than he would have made in the NHL. He will also be more effective in the KHL, and collaterally more valuable. My biggest problem still exists: Pavel has no problem financially penalizing this team by leaving to go and do the same thing in Russia, for a similar amount of money. This team, happens to be the same team that paid him more than $79,000,000 in NHL salary the past 14 seasons - and gave him a chance to to play/develop with hall of fame line-mates as an undersized 6th round pick. The fact that he isn't honouring the final year of his contract, and at the same time preventing us from taking a run at his replacement - says more about his character than anything else in my opinion.

I'm not going to lie, some of all this is leaving a bad taste in my mouth, which is tough to admit. At this point in his career, I don't think the team's on-ice performance will suffer because Datsyuk is not there, so I'm not dreaming of him coming back or anything, it just doesn't sit well with me that he isn't playing out the contract he signed. If he didn't think he'd stay, he shouldn't have signed a 2 year deal, or whatever it was. Those finding excuses, suggesting his ankle injury, etc. holds no value to me when you consider he went straight to the world championships after the season and will likely play in the KHL next season. The biggest issue for me is the dead cap space for now, not missing the player (other than nostalgia). I probably won't hold it against him too much, but for now, it does sting.