Leaderboard

these are two of my favourite jerseys that happen to be yellow First Go Walleye! Geeky jerseys are AAmazing. I own this one lol and both are fish related

it sure does suck to miss the playoffs, but the Hawks crashing and burning so spectacularly brings a grin to my face; bye, hawks! biggest (pleasant) surprise of the first round

Looks like that tank job didn't work too good

We need Eichel to come here so he can clean house.

Awesome... The Blackhawks won as many playoff games as the Wings did this year The Blackhawks become the first #1 seed to be swept by a #8 seed Preds are going deep!

I'm just glad Martin Havlat won't be one of the voters.

is the "we finally don't suck and think we're better than we really are" symbiote making Nashville its new host

are you declaring shenanigans?

Love a good sweep. What a game by Josi!

Make it 2-0 Preds.

See being in Canada I rarely watch the US feeds for hockey so my exposure to Emrick is very minimal, if I listened to him all the time though I could see his voice annoying me. I don't hate George like a lot of others do, but that is because I grew up watching him as a VJ on MM lol. Pierre, is someone who has been showing up on TSN, the score, and sportsnet for me in what seem like 20 years now. For me, he just comes across like a guy who is trying so hard to be "one of the boys". From the way he talks to the players, the way he announces etc.

Please please please take the job! Anything to get that ****** off my TV! Is this a shot at me for starting the thread?

YES! Now you're catching on. Other teams, with better core players, might find our depth players more useful than we do. And since we don't have that kind of a team right now, it's more beneficial to us to play kids, see what we have in them, and move out veteran underachievers WHILE WE'RE REBUILDING OUR CORE. Not, as you seem to be advocating, bringing back aging veterans on the back end of their careers and leaving potential future Wings in the minors. It's really not that hard. I'll break it down for you really simply. Abby is a better player than Ott. So replace Ott with Abby on the fourth line. Then replace Abby with Svech (or Frk) on the 3rd line, since it's likely they'll produce better offense than he did. And have Bertuzzi as a spare forward, learning the pro game, and filling in during injuries. THAT would be an improvement because you've replaced two players with BETTER players in their given roles.

You know which players I "like"? Good ones. Not washed up veterans. Our team is FULL of spare parts. Why sign another one? It would "hurt" because we have kids who are supposed to be part of our future. And to get them on the team we need roster spots. And you seem intent on giving one of those spots to a guy who obviously doesn't make our team better (we've already tried, remember?), and who definitely Isn't going to help us down the road. I"m not sure why this isn't clear. YES we absolutely should be "plugging" holes with kids to see which ones will work out. It worked with Jensen didn't it? MAYBE Frk or Bertuzzi won't pan out. That remains to be seen. But we aren't going to know whether they will or won't if they don't get the opportunity. We ALREADY KNOW that we're not a better team with Steve Ott. It's not like he's an unknown quantity.

You're right. I have a personal vendetta against a man I've never met. That makes WAY more sense than that I don't see the point in needlessly signing an aging free agent who isn't noticeably better (or better at all) than anyone currently on our team and whose presence on the roster would prohibit a younger player from gaining much needed NHL development. Good thinking. I think it's hilarious that a guy who said "Stevie O is the man" is accusing me of having a personal bias. Nice try.

Yes. Unless you're advocating signing him and then not playing him. In which case, why bother?

Nope. I'm saying whether or not we had Steve Ott made no difference at all to our winning and losing. So why sign him again? Why not try to find a solution that actually IMPROVES your team rather than one that does nothing at all? Again, this isn't theoretical. If having Ott made us better, as you're suggesting, then we would have been better when we had him. But we weren't. We were the same crappy team with or without his "hardness to play against" or whatever other stupid intangible you're suggesting he brings to the table.

Right, because we were so much better with Ott than without him lol. It's not like this is theoretical, we already know what a Red Wings team with Steve Ott looks like. I'm not speculating here. We need to improve our top 9, which will push guys like Helm, Abby, and Sheahan DOWN the roster. Not add aging veteran grinders which push guys like that UP the roster. On a good team, Helm and Abby are 4th liners, and guys like Miller and Ott, are in the AHL or are retired.

The big deal is, you've got guys on the roster who are better than Ott, you have guys on the roster you want to be better than Ott, and you're trying to develop you team in order to be competitive again in a few years. So giving a roster spot to a 34 year old grinder at the end of his career is absurd. Why not re-sign Miller if you're dying to bring back a veteran grinder? He had almost the exact same s***ty season that Ott did. Our team is stacked with 4th line types. More than we could ever need. And you're advocating bringing another one in for what? Because you like him? We've got Glendening, Helm, Abby, Sheahan, Bertuzzi ALREADY on the team. Smith too if you're really stretching it. The only way I sign a veteran grinder is if we magically get rid of at least 3 of them in the offseason, which is unrealistic. And WHY would that even make sense anyway? Get rid of grinders so you can sign different, older, less good grinders? It's dumb, regardless of how you look at it.

Because they're overpaid they're unlikely to be "shed". So you'd just be adding Ott's salary on top of theirs, and all of those guys are better players than he is. I can't believe I actually have to explain this. And even if you should shed one of those guys contracts, it would still be better to plug that hole with Bertuzzi since you'd ideally like him to be on the big club anyway.

Agreed. We've already got 3 guys that forecheck well, have 4th line level offense, and are already under contract. Glendening-Helm-Abby. Why do we need someone like Ott? Oh right, because he occasionally punches people. Ugh. Nyq-Z-Mantha Tatar-Larkin-AA Frk-Neilsen-Svech Glen-Helm-Abby

We need a better player who does that. Not Ott. Sent from my LGLS676 using Tapatalk

His red hair would look good in our uni. Susuki, Tippett, Glass are my wish list at the moment.

Goals since April 9th... Riley Sheahan: 2 Chicago Blackhawks: 2