stormboy

i wonder, though, is there a way they could lose that would be an alright way to lose by your standards? because i'm kind of not thinking so...which just means that any loss from the wings is due to lack of effort/skill/coaching/something that WILL make them lose in the playoffs. sure, you never like to lose, but late in a game, this team was playing for their absolute lives. we weren't. to the preds, this game was more important than the first few games of a playoff series. this was a game seven for them. this is probably the loss that has bothered me the least all season. despite losing, they looked good overall. our PK was 5-6 while our powerplay was 2-4. at this point, those stats are the most important to me going into a playoff series. i mean, look, preds were doing their absolute damndest this game, and we still killed them on special teams. and again, yeah, it's the regular season so they won and i'm not taking anything away from that, but them winning a shootout is nothing like winning a playoff OT. i personally think babs picked cleary because he knew the extra point wasn't that important for his team and was hoping that if cleary scored, it would give him a confidence boost, which he could use. franzen is obviously doing alright confidence-wise right now, so i don't disagree with that choice.

yeah...too bad lils's great season has to end this way. : ( i think that best...BEST case scenario would be that they get if fixed up sometime soon, he has a few weeks to get back into game shape, and he comes in in the WCF or SCF if somebody goes down with an injury. he hasn't been able to work out, so he's lost a lot of his conditioning, and even if/when he gets it back, it's going to take him a while to get back into game form....not something you really want to do in the playoffs unless it is required. unless a) a miracle happens and then b) three of ericcson, lebda, chelios, meech go down with injury, i don't see lils playing in the playoffs this year....which is really too bed considering the season he had. all that being said, my biggest concern of course is for his health. let's hope for some good news soon!

boston ships manny fernandez and signs ty conklin as backup. tim thomas goes down to injury weeks before the WC. you heard it hear first.

the "best team in hockey" title is a slippery one. is it the team with the highest potential? i'd say that's us. is it the team that has the best regular season record? that's the sharks. is it the team that's playing the best RIGHT NOW? that's probably the blues or ducks, i'd guess. i think ultimately, it's the team that wins the stanley cup--though even that can be brought into question, if one was so inclined. like others have said, i don't worry too much about beating the ducks in the first round (though no team should be taken for granted; confer with red wings vs. islanders) but that will definately take something out of us for future rounds. now if we win regardless, you haven't much of an argument, but if we win going through, say, st. louis and chicago to get to the WCFs, you can make that argument. and even if that is the way to judge the best team, you're only the best team after you've won the cup, and as soon as you start playing again, everything's back to square one--so you never even really play any games as the "best team in the league." the sharks are probably the most complete team and have played very near their potential all season. the same can't be said of the wings. i personally don't have any problems with the guy's comments. that's his opinion and it's pretty difficult to refute with anything other than our own opinion (second-line debate, for example-- their second line has 177 points, 77 goals and is +39; our second line has 167 points, 87 goals and is +60. you can debate which is better--and those numbers are subjective because the lines haven't been static all season...it's just a matter of opinion that cannot be easily refuted with stats). edit: that's if you consider our second line as franzen-filppula-hossa with DHZ as the top line, which is not even what the lines have been as of late...i guess those would be our "standard" top two lines, if such a thing exists.

pretty slick move. probably not the best ever, but i enjoyed it.

i guess i'm not sure why everyone is so terrified of calgary. i mean, we've obviously had our own problems keeping pucks out of the net, but they've allowed four or more goals in 7 of the last 16 games, while being shut out three times and earning no shutouts themselves. they scored 2 goals or less in 11 of those 17 games. they're a tough, physical team, but, i don't know... i guess they don't scare me as much.

yeah, i just checked the box score of that game...that has got to be the most one sided game of the season. i think powerplays were like 10-1 in favor of carolina as well. sheesh. i know it seems ridiculous the outcome of those two games (us vs the island and tonight's game) but you have to imagine that the isles were playing really, really hard the night they beat us and tonight were absolutely not playing at all. there's no way a team gets beaten that badly unless they are absolutely not even trying.

funny to read "ovechkin" and "franzen" in the same sentence. i don't watch a ton of highlights, but i think hossa's goal from earlier in the season was almost if not more impressive than franzen's. i guess mule shed more players than hossa did. *shrug* i didn't see what was so great about hagman's goal personally...maybe i have to watch the hightlight again. voted for mule.

probably the one thing in the article i didn't know. ovie gives the puck away almost two times as many as he takes it!? holy s. i guess because he scores pretty much every time he takes it away from someone it's alright...but jesus. gotta love pavs. i see crosby's got another couple points tonight...so dats probably isn't going to overtake him. still lookin' for 100 though!

yeah...i mean, while rafalski hasn't exactly been dynamite defensively this season, kronwall has also been paired with stuart most of the season, who's been quite the turnover-machine himself, and sits at a -1. granted, kronner's got way more points, but a lot of them are on the powerplay and a lot of them are when he's teamed up with stu, i'd imagine. an interesting comparison, lebda and lilja are a combined +22, while stuart and kronner are a combined +3. hmmm... anyway, to the topic--yeah, i think it's sweet that we have three d-men with 50+ points. hopefully they all pick up their defensive play in the playoffs, though...

thanks for your helpful post!

man, i would be so stoked in datsyuk passed crosby. i don't really dislike crosby and don't think all the attention he gets is his fault...blah blah blah...the point is, for datsyuk to finish ahead of the guy who is the "face of the game" would just go to show how great datsyuk is. dats is obviously on a more offensively talented team than crosby is, but crosby also has malkin...who is the scoring leader on his team. dats is still (i think) 25 points ahead of our second-place guy...which just says to me that dats can to do much amazing work on his own! i think it's been a while since we've had a guy finish in the top three, eh?

if calgary wins they'll seal it because they'll be up by 4 points and have the edge in wins even if they go 0-2 with vancouver going 2-0 in their last two games. if vancouver wins, though, they'll be tied in points with calgary playing edmonton in their last two and vancouver playing LA and colorado in their last two. both are pretty winable for both teams, though vancouver certainly has the better schedule in their last two. still, even if calgary loses tonight, they are still in control of their own fate b/c two wins will at worst end them even in points and ahead in wins of the 'nucks at season's end. the nash and stl games are the biggest of the night vis-a-vis the wings, IMO. san jose has first, and calgary/vancouver's seeding wont' affect us in the first round (vancouver can't get lower than sixth right now, i think). the stuff at the bottom is still pretty relevant.

so at this point anaheim can ensure a playoff spot by winning their last two games, correct? if nash and st. louis win their last three games and ana wins their last two, they'll all have 92 points but ana will have more wins, and, assuming cls scrapes 3 points out of their last three, st. louis will still be on the outside looking in. *shrug* i wouldn't say it's locked in at all at this point. that seems most likely, but other than cls and stl for one game, none of these teams play each other, so really anything could happen. any one of those teams could win all the rest of their games while any other could lose them all. in all likelyhood, they'll all get SOME of their possible points and things will end up about how they are now. tonight will be a big night.

nice! now, when he scores a hattie next game, he'll hit the 100pt mark AND we'll all finally get free arby's on the same play! go pavel!

i don't think so. overall, i thought the commentary was alright tonight, and i thought the officiating wasn't bad, other than the blatant double major that should have been called on the high stick against franzen. but, yeah, i caught that too...i know edzo will talk about how amazing a detroit player is when he does something amazing...if datsyuk makes somebody look foolish, edzo will talk about it and give props. i do think, though, that when it's a 50-50 situation, he'll give the edge to the non-wing and/or non-euro, which in this case, and in many cases with us, are the same thing. when a good or bad play is beyond question, most of the time the vs. guys will call it right...but i think there's a degree of bias. they pointed out that the high stick should have been a penalty, but i remember in game 6 against pitts last year, lilja laid a hit that probably SHOULD have been called interference, but was still somewhat marginal, and pierre was all "I DON'T CARE WHO WINS OR LOSES THIS GAME THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PENALTY OMGWTFBBQ," whereas franzen gets high sticked, clearly, with blood, and they're kinda like, "ho-hum, should have been a call." *shrug* but f*** 'em. edzo doesn't win cups; the wings do.

before the topic went down the "most of our players are *******" trail, i read some posts near the beginning that actually changed my mind. while i stated in a different thread (or agreed, actually) that i think dats is the only player who plays really hard every single night, including lids and z, i do think that he works better as a sort of under-the-radar guy. i mean, obviously he's not an unknown in the league..but he's, what, fourth in points right now? obviously the top three get a ton of attention, number two and three the most, but i think a lot of guys below datsyuk get a LOT more attention than he does, and i think that's kinda how he likes it. in fact, i wonder if giving the C to zetterberg would bring out that intensity in him. then pavel can defer to hank all while kicking massive amounts of ass on the ice and not having to worry about anything else. *shrug* keep dats as an A and let him do his thing. and p.s. our team is amazing, and calling them "*******" is really insulting to a fan of their team...especially from someone who calls themselves a fan.

haha...thanks man. i love that an opposing fan is like "wtf is wrong with you guys." i wonder, how would wings fans feel if we had gotten three points out of a possible twelve instead of ten out of twelve in the season series, like the blues did? i'm sure that has been mentioned in this thread, but the blues are playing for their lives right now. every game is a playoff game right now. we've had a playoff spot wrapped up for how long now? and not just since we "clinched," but since there was little to no possibility that we would NOT make the playoffs? of course i'm disappointed with the loss, but you can't expect anything less from the blues right now. hopefully we'll just find our hunger when the games do matter--we're clearly more skilled than most teams, but lately everyone we've been playing has been way hungrier. *shrug* we'll see, said the zen master.

+ to the bolded parts; ++ to the bolded and italicized parts. i honestly cannot tell you what is up with lids and zetterberg this season...i mean, they've both had relatively good seasons, numbers-wise. z is currently at a .94 points-per-game clip and a .42 goals-per-game clip, compared to his .57 GPG and 1.2 PPG rates of last year--obviously down, but not awful. lids's numbers (incl. +/-) are down quite a bit from last year (though his goals total is the highest its been in a few years)....but to me, the numbers aren't the issue. i just see lidstrom screwing up a lot of defensive plays and keep-the-puck-in-at-the-line plays that he made 99% of the time the last two years. zetterberg is still playing with skill, but, as much as i hate to say it, i see very little heart from him this year. dastyuk, on the other hand, looks like he's doing his damndest almost every single shift. he's chippy, he's in people's faces, he's lowering shoulders, all while playing his amazingly skillful game. i know this has been discussed to death, but think of this: datsyuk is 25 points ahead of the second-place points-getter on our team. he's in the 90s--there's no one in the 80s, and no one else even in the 70s. that is unbelievable to me. i know the dude can't speak english, but i think yzerman (not that i'm making an overall comparison here) showed that you don't need to talk a lot to lead. i think nick's shown that, too. whether datsyuk would be a great captain i think is debatable (i don't think it's a good idea to just give the C to your best player) but the dude leads by example in his play and in his night-in-night-out effort. a lot of our other players have shown flashes of brilliance...but jesus. anyway, long rant to support your post. if, by some small chance, we win the cup this year, i think safe money says datsyuk wins the MVP. on another side note that no one will read, nights that i work, i have to work at 10pm, which is always really frustrating because i can watch most of the game, then listen to all but the last 5-10 minutes of the game on my commute...then have to go punch in. i pulled into the parking lot to hear us tie it 4-4, and was like, alright, at least i can go in to work knowing its tied. then right as i was about to shut my car off, the blues scored again. i was so, so mad. i was pounding my steering wheel and yelling "f*** my life!" over and over again. then i had to work. *sigh* oh, well. glad to hear babcock is pissed. like others, i keep hoping that this game is the one they turn it around on, and i still believe that the next one will be. but look on the bright side: jersey, a cup contentender to most, is 3-6-1 in their last ten, and have lost six straight, being outscored 19-7 in that span. the infalliable martin brodeur was in goal for all of those losses. *shrug* like others have said, i won't panic until we're in an elimination game in the playoffs, and i won't say that we're not going to win a cup until we're on the golf course. anyway, that's my whole GTD posting wrapped up in one post. sorry if my spelling is really awful--i'm at school and they don't have spellchecker on the browsers here; my spellchecker-less spelling is amazingly terrible for someone who's about to graduate college...

samsies.

again, i don't see the point in making some games only worth one point. yeah, that system would make teams go for broke in the OT because they'd essentially be losing a point even though they didn't lose--but it's not a tie because some team is walking away with nothing. i don't see how a 1 point game makes any more sense than a 3 point game. anyway, i guess that's offtopic--we're talking about adjusting standings to eliminate the effect that 3 point games have on the standings...i think my proposal makes sense in that fashion...but i'm not sure. and, as i mentioned, i'm too lazy to actually do it.

so instead of some 2- and some 3-point games, we've now got some 2- and some 1- point games? i'm not totally sure how that makes sense. if i was going to adjust the standings to take into account the issues of the flukey shootout AND three point games, i'd take away all extra points for SO wins and all points for OT (non-SO) losses. shootout losses would still keep their one point (it would be the same as a tie). all games would be worth two points--games that go to shootouts would be treated as ties in this scenario and any OT games would be winner-take-all, without strangely robbing a team of a point for winning a legit game. i'm not trying to debate how the league SHOULD set up their points at this stage--i'm just saying that my method above would, i think, eliminate extra points gained for "just making it to OT" and extra points for the flukey shootout wins. i'm too lazy to do this, however, so i'll just play armchair critic and say that i don't understand why your point system "adjusts" for the flukeyness of the shootout or three point games. just as the current system unfairly gives out three points in some games, your system unfairly gives out only one point in some games. as it is now, there are too many teams who are over .500 in points percentage; in your system, i think there would be too few.

i quit reading after these two posts.

yeah, i mean think of hossa when we played in pittsburg. i think players always have that little extra drive when playing their old teams. a bit off topic...but i'm trying to think of joeymac's last game FOR us. wasn't that the 1-0 shutout that broke our super-long shutout-less streak a couple of years ago? i remember he played lights out that game and we couldn't score one goal for him. sounds like a similar story to a couple of nights ago...

hey fellas...i'm drunk, but i just wanted to say that if half of flips post hits tonight would have gone in we would have won. i have been an advocate of him since the beginning... and yes, it didn't work out for him tonight, but neither did it work out for franzen, zetterberg, hossa, or DATSYUK. filppula looked as good as anyone tonight... he's ******* got it. i agree about his need for consistency.