JaketheShark

Not into conspiracy theories or believe that the NHL is trying to make certain teams win, at least not without more proof than just suspicions; but way too many games have been decided by the refs instead of the players in this playoff season. What do you expect when you put a greedy basketball lawyer in charge of the NHL. True story; a guy who knew a little about hockey took a girl as a date, to a hockey game. It was her first time and they sat in a section full of hard-core season ticket holders. After the guy had been trying to explain the game, about halfway through the first period, the girl clapped her hands and yelled, "I get it, it's just like basketball." After that the game got pretty physical, with many big hits and a couple of fights. After every big hit or fight, more and more people in the section they were sitting in started shouting "it's just like basketball". The guy and his date left their seats between the second and third period and didn't return. If Bettman is in charge of the NHL (no hitting league), much longer the girl will be right.

Anaheim is a very good team, even without Pronger. If you look at the excellent pre-game stats though you see at a glance how important Pronger is. If the Wings don't take the Ducks lightly, and veteran team that they are, I don't Detroit will, the Wings will win. Ducks will come out in the first with a lot of fire, both because they are embarrassed about the last game and Duck's players will be trying to step up to make up for Pronger. If Wings can weather the storm, maybe take advantage of a Ducks mistake or two, the Wings will wear down the Ducks thinned-out defense and win going away by two or three goals. GO WINGS

This is good stuff. Have you seen the YouTube Wars between Buffalo and Ottowa? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8gQ8GwEu3o...ted&search= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUi1xoSUS5A...ted&search= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k49GauQgb8g...ted&search=

YouTube some of Probert's old battles and it will make you wish he was still in prime fighting trim and suiting up for game 5. Wouldn't that be fun to see him go toe to toe with Pronger

Another great win by the Wings and another great shutout game by Hasek. Even after Detroit eliminated my Sharks, I was hoping the Wings would go on to the Cup, mainly because I didn't like the Ducks, but now I'm actually beginning to like this Wings team. BTW I wonder if the league will have the guts to overrule the on-ice officials and suspend Pronger instead of Niedermayer? It looked to me after watching many replays that it was Pronger not Niedermayer that went for the head shot.

Yeah, I remember thinking at the time, how in the hell is that not interference, Chelios was nowhere near the puck? Check the video and you'll see that Perry clearly took a look before he looked away and pretended not to see Chelios as he ran into him. That's another example of why I hate the Ducks, It you thought Calgary was a cheap shot team, you haven't seen anything yet. I just hope the Wings survive this series with enought left to win the Cup.

Giguere "The stick U idiot, use the stick." Carlyle "Nice try Beauchemin but maybe you should look at the Lidstrom save on Grier again to see how it's done."

Wow, that's cool, I didn't know Barry Melrose was your brother-in-law.

I will jump on the Wings bandwagon for two reasons. Wings are a great team, well-coached by Mike Babcock and fun to watch, except when you are playing against them. I hate the Ducks. GO WINGS

Thanks for your comments and those of the other Wings fans in this thread that said nice things about the Sharks and their fans. Red Wings and their fans on LGW are a class act. Sharks brought it in the first period and were unlucky to be down 2-0 but Wings played a great shutdown defense once they got the lead, and as usual Wilson was unable to adjust when the game didn't go the way he had planned it. I hope he's gone but I hear he has one year left on his contract. Hope the Sharks buy him out or kick him up to Asst. GM or something. Sharks are a very talented and very young team so they will be back in the playoffs next year but they need a new and better coach to get them to the next level. Shouldn't be too hard to find one willing to take on the job. Great game and series Red Wings, Congrats and Good Luck against the Ducks. GO WINGS FOR THE CUP

Smack talk aside (lol Detroit Bones), the Sharks so far have gotten almost all their scoring from one line. Marleau and Guerin have been completely ineffective, Clowe is the only second liner to chip in a goal. The rest of the scoring has come from the D-man Carle and 3rd/4th liners Grier and Goc. Sharks second line was so bad that Wilson was giving 2nd line ice time to Goc's line last game, and Goc is primarily a defensive forward. As for Wilson, I have the feeling that he is a good technical coach as he has developed the young Sharks to be good two-way players, but Wilson sucks as a motivator. Once a game starts going bad, he doesn't seem to be able to turn it around, unlike Babcock. If Wilson's Sharks get blown out of the second round in 6 again this year I think he's gone. Of course I could be wrong as I was quite surprised that Nashville stuck with Trotz. That has to be good for Wings fans. Even as a Sharks fan, it doesn't look too good at this point but I am far from giving up, I'll be cheering them on Monday - GO SHARKS. I don't think we have seen the best of the Sharks yet in this series. Some of that I blame on Wilson, but mostly it's the Wings fault. Sharks and Wilson need to find a solution before they run out of time. We are now the last second round series going. Even if this series goes 7, I still believe either of these teams can take the Ducks.

http://www.letsgowings.com/forums/index.ph...2835&st=100 http://www.letsgowings.com/forums/index.ph...2835&st=113 http://www.letsgowings.com/forums/index.ph...2835&st=122 See posts #100, 113 and 122 - not sure why these links don't seem to go directly to the posts? But if it's smack you want - Just wait till we crush your tired old men in game 6, then come back to JLA in game 7 and break the hearts of Wings fans - sorry, thats about as smacky as I get on someone elses board.

Yeah, I wouldn't blame spamgoblin if he was, I feel like doing that myself after that game but it's hard to type with your thumb in your mouth. Great game by the Wings. You guys would be just about unbeatable with a completely healthy team. If you get by the Sharks, and that's still a big IF at this point, I hope you have enough left to take the Ducks and whoever comes out of the East. Wings of '07 are a great team with a lot of heart. Only really bright spot I can think of for the Sharks is that this game was only Detroit's third win in the Series and not the fourth. Sharks are paying the price for letting those earlier 2-0 leads get away from them, though that's also to the Wings credit. Looking forward to game 6 in SJ, I'll be making some noise, trying to help bring out the Sharks best. If the Sharks really bring it in game 6 and get the W, anything can happen in game 7. I hope Wings fans get to see another Wings-Sharks game at the JLA this season.

Great a hockey bash site, just what we need So is it impossible to get banned from HockeyBash? I notice that there are 44 posts bashing the Wings but only 11 bashing the Sharks.

Doesn't bother me either, whatever floats your boat. Don't they have bays on the great lakes?

That's my story too. They haven't been tested yet, but (yoda voice) they will be, they WILL be.

OK, question mark, got it, just trying to stir up some controversy, eh? I was reacting to this part of the post; "...Calling out his players, they seem to me in shock mentally." I could hope the Wings players would think the Sharks were psyched out and take them lightly, but it's not very likely that the savvy veteran Wings squad is, even most Wings fans, as you say, aren't counting the Sharks out yet, and well they shouldn't. Looking forward to a great game on Saturday, even if it is too early for hockey.

Execs excited over Wings vs. Rangers? What so they can see a 1.2 TV share instead of 1.1? Hardly the stuff of good orgasms. As long as no original six team makes it that will be good for hockey, they all have way too many Stanley Cups already. The SCF series I would most like to see is Sharks vs. Wings but that can't happen until next season at the earliest. Don't worry about the SCF, enjoy the series you have now, you are likely to get to see the cup winner playing on Saturday.

Sharks falling apart? Yeah you wish. I hope the Sharks players are reading this, comments like these, some from Sharks "fans", Wilson's calling out players after last game, and their own frustration at blowing two goal leads, should give Sharks players plenty of motivation for game 5. This series is going into the stretch and Wilson is going to the whip. OTOH Detroit players don't seem to have any problems about giving it all they have, once they realize that a playoff game has actually started. I have a feeling that anyone with game 5 tickets is in for a really fast-paced hard-hitting game, even more so than the first four.

right, which means Detroit got 12 points from shoot-outs and regulation ties (2*2) + (8*1) vs. 6 shootout/OT points for San Jose (2*2) + (2*1), which is exactly the difference in the standings. San Jose also had 51 wins, tied for second with Nashville. Only Buffalo with 53 had more wins. But if you look at regulation losses San Jose had 26 and Detroit only 19 so Detroit, even though they did poorly in shootouts, were at least able to get more of their games into OT so they still got a point. However, even under the old pre-OT system of 2 points for a win and 1 for a tie, Detroit and San Jose would still be 6 points apart since they would both lose the "extra" two points for the two shootout wins. The shootout is a gimmick since it doesn't mean a thing in the playoffs but teams that are good in shootouts can gain a lot of "bonus points" that count the same as a regulation win and improve their seeding. I say get rid of the three point games. WTF is wrong with a regular season tie? Save OT for the playoffs. But what do you expect when you put a basketball lawyer in charge of the NHL? I dread the day when playoff games are decided by shootouts or the basketball lawyer and his cronies come up with some other weird gimmick.

Since nobody has won two in a row so far, I've gotta go with seven and either team could win. I was saying 6 or 7 before the series because I thought both teams would win some games at home but the Sharks would take the series by wearing down the Wings. So far, home ice has been about as important as who scores the first goal and I'm not sure who is being worn down. Great Series.

I wish that had happened to my cable.

Sharks had more points than Vancouver and only 6 less than the Wings. You expected them to be easy? All the top teams in the West are very talented and very close in points. I'm also wondering why Nashville, who had more points than the Sharks, was blown out in 5. Calgary barely held off Colorado's late run to make the playoffs but were very tough at home, gave the Wings a tough series. Sharks are much better than the Flames. Sharks, when on their game, do look like they should run away with the Presidents Trophy but they can also look like they shouldn't even be in the playoffs. I put it down to the fact that they are one of the youngest teams in the league and young players are more inconsistent, with the exception of Vlasic who is amazing. At one point the Sharks were the youngest team by average age in the NHL, but after acquiring Guerin and Rivet I'm not sure if that's still true.

I don't think it was the dead shark that some fan threw on the ice that was bad luck for the Sharks. I think it was all the dead Sharks that Ron Wilson threw on the ice towards the end of the second period and at the end of the game.

But last night he did play well. Kudos to the floppy bastard. sly.gif A truly heartfelt apology At least you don't have a bunch of posts saying play Osgood. Some Sharks fans are calling for Toskala in game 5, now there's a goalie controversy. Here the debate seems to be whether Hasek is or still is a great goalie or merely an extremely good one.