stormboy

yeah, we've been squeaking by teams that aren't good...even losing to them. granted, you're going to lose against some crappy teams some times, and a SO win over the kings is just as many points as a 8-1 rout. still, four of our next five games are against better teams (or at least teams that match up better against us...i guess we can debate whether anaheim is actually bad this year or whether they just haven't been playing up to their potential--either way i think they'll still be a tough matchup for us), and the fifth game is away versus a team that has beaten us at home this year (vancouver). if we continue to win games by one goal against the sharks, devils and penguins, then i'm alright with it. but if a SO victory against LA is the best that we can do, i don't see us beating the sharks, etc. but, who knows if last night's win IS the best we can do. only time will tell.

thanks dude. i honestly had been a bit confused by this situation up until now, with the dallas players and whatnot. i'm glad somebody (obviously not me) knows what the f*** is going on.

wait, so what the f***. he is being called up? jesus, i can't keep up. if so, it'll be nice to see him play...v.s l.a. might be a good place for him to start. plus, we'll see kyle, correct? i hope he gets a hat trick against us. oh the irony. we'll still win the game 5-4, of course. but i can't imagine the tirades that would go on here if that happened.

hmmm...i don't think this is a good rule. as has been stated by myself and countless others, you don't need goals for a game to e exciting, you need chances. you need rushes, shots, saves, races for the puck, etc. i think what grinds the game to a halt is just a lot of chipping the puck around, inaccurate passes, dumpins with no real fight for the puck, etc. shot blocking, in my opinion, in no way contributes to the slowing down of the game. if i remember anything from the series in which we got bounced by edmonton, it was us being in the offensive zone and hearing, "shot...blocked. shot...blocked. shot...blocked." now, as a wings fan, it was obviously really frustrating, but it sure as hell got my blood pressure up. it was exciting. sure, i guess a blocked shot could slow the game down, but it seems more likely that a puck would go out of play from a blocked shot when someone was standing up anyway, not laying down. i just think there's a big difference between generating offense and generating goals. this rule might allow a few more goals, but with the clusterf*** of penalties that would be called it would not be worth it, as i don't think that blocking shots really cuts down on the excitement of the game. just my $.02

you rock, aussie. Friday: Anaheim @ Ottawa Philadelphia @ New Jersey NY Rangers @ Columbus San Jose @ Florida Atlanta @ Detroit Los Angeles @ St Louis Saturday: New Jersey @ Philadelphia Atlanta @ Boston Ottawa @ Toronto Anaheim @ Montreal Carolina @ NY Islanders Pittsburgh @ NY Rangers San Jose @ Tampa Bay Los Angeles @ Nashville Columbus @ Minnesota Washington @ Dallas Detroit @ Chicago Florida @ St Louis Buffalo @ Colorado Edmonton @ Vancouver Calgary @ Phoenix

i am inclined to agree with you, but honestly i think it's hard for a fan to fairly judge reffing. i was listening to the blues feed of the game and several times i heard "so and so hauled down, no call." then a minute later, "so and so tripped up, no call again!" finally, "so and so interfered with, STILL no call!" (of course, the so and so's were all blues players.) penalties are, for the most part, i the eye of the beholder. thus what looks like a penalty to us does not to the blues fans, and vica versa. it should be no surprise, then, that the calling of games is so inconsistent. obviously they shouldn't be biased at all (and i would argue against bias in most cases...the holmstrom effect was definately in effect towards the end of last year, but i'd bet that happens to other players in other situations as well, from time to time), but most of the calls are just as subjective. and it's always hard to tell exactly what the ref sees. we have the benefit of camera angles and replays. it's hard to say exactly how certain things appeared down on the ice when the refs are trying to watch the whole game at once, etc. that being said, i get just as frustrated as the next person when calls are so inconsistent...and i do think there has to be a better way of making penalty calls more clear cut. but it's the same in every sport, to a degree. balls are called strikes and strikes are called balls in baseball all the time, and it's just part of the game. but, yeah, every fan thinks the reffs are out to get their team. see: the rangers board after last game, our board after most losses.

anyone think he'll score 162 goals this year?

you can't really blame him for that pinball goal...if that one doesn't go is save pct is over .910. and i think it wasn't as much about the quantity of the saves but rather the quality of many of them. he made some outstanding ones, and the goals that did go in IMO weren't really soft goals, esp. that pinball goal. another was on a well-executed odd-man rush. the tkachuck goal he probably could have had, but i also feel the d needs to to better on those behind-the-goal passes into the slot, both in terms of stopping the pass and clearing the crease. i'm not a goalie, but i imagine it'd be pretty hard to track a play when the pass is coming behind you and it's so bang-bang like that. not saying he couldn't have made the save, or that he played the game perfectly, but he did made a lot of really nice saves at key times, and kept us ahead. my opinion.

dude...no one could do anything to convince you that they were more important than downey, ever. also, lidstrom got majorly caught deep in the zone leading to one of the blues goals. should he be benched? obviously i'm exaggerating, but jesus. the blues were 2/7 on the pp, but one was a 6 on 4. i agree the pk needs to be better, but our pp was still better than theirs without benefit of a two-man advantage. anyway, wings win a nail-biter. now i can work on my homework with contentedness....

haha...looked like it to me. franzen w/ another gwg.

god oshie was ******* close right there....

s***. yeah, they're really sucking this oshie guy off.

yikes. 6 on 4 for 2 min...

oooo....that sucks for the blues. nice shot by franzen!!

can we please not give up another lead????

f***. lids got caught deep.

that got my blood pressure up....

what's with all the goals going against us being on passes from behind the goal line? we either need to work on breaking up the cycle or clearing the crease a little better, methinks.

mmm...that could have been a hook on rafalski i think...

i think we've found our powerplay, fellas. i think my feed is way behind...we're not on the pk yet

wow, i feel like there were a bunch of missed pucks right there....

good read. it's interesting to me how players always kind of react the same way--at least during interviews--when they're going through a hot streak. it's always just kind of, "yeah, it's nice to score i guess...the bounces are kind of going my way." you wonder if that's what they're told to say to the media or if they're really that nonchalant about scoring on a goal-per-game pace. also, not to nit-pick...well, what i'm doing is exactly nit-picking, but he hasn't scored in every game. he's on a goal-per-game pace, but he's scored in four of the games.

^^

franzen will maintain no where near that pace. you could argue if he'll be come a 30 or 40 goal scorer. he's "on pace" to score almost fifty right now. he got almost thirty last year basically in half a season. i think is' possible that he could get around forty one of these years. but i honestly don't think that he'll become dominant on such a high level. i'll be really, really surprised if he ever scores as many goals as zetterberg in a season. but, just my opinion.

it's tough for me how fans (and maybe players and coaches, too) will talk about the time at which a penalty was called. granted, i've probably been guilty of this when the call goes against the wings...but still. i feel like if a penalty is a penalty, it should be called regardless. if it's a weak call (maybe a little hook or something) and someone says that they shouldn't call that penalty at this point in the game, my argument is that it should never be called at any point in any game. i remember...i don't know which game exactly it was last year, but it was in the finals (i'm pretty sure...wow, my memory sucks) but there was a blatant trip on datsyuk right outside our zone. it was late in the game, and if memory serves, the penguins scored on the play and it changed the outcome of the game. people say that the refs are not going to call a tripping penalty like that at that stage in the game, especially if the offending team is losing a tight game. but, i don't know. as much as you want to say that you shouldn't be dolling out power plays late in the game because that one power play can easily change the outcome of the game, i feel like that just encourages teams to commit penalties (i.e. cheat) with impunity. and that's not right either, in a close game. it seems to me that a good ref is one who does not pay attention to the score, the momentum, the number of other penalties that have been called, etc. but only pays attention to each individual play and calls penalties consistently regardless of the situation. if you look at a game and one team has had four straight penalties called against them, the tendency is to say, well, they're due for a power play. most of the time, they will get the next power play. while there's some sense of justice associated with this mindset, the fact is that if team A has committed four penalties and team B has committed none, justice is being served by penalizing the offending team, and it is an injustice for team B to be issued a penalty just for the sake of keeping things even. but, then again, this assumes that penalties are called with some measure of consistency. because they're not, you can always point to an earlier call that was or wasn't made as an argument for the call you want or don't want getting called or not getting called. the rangers fans kept saying that that exact play happens fifty times a game and that if you're going to call that tmm you have to call them all. first, that simply isn't true. but you have to wonder if the refs let other marginal tmm calls go by but called that one because of the context of the game. while i disagree with this (in this particular case), i think it's pretty clear that stuff like that does happen, both in terms of calls being and not being made, and thus gives some credibility to the argument of the rangers fans, though i, of course, think they're wrong in this particular instance. oh, and by the way, their own coach said it was a penalty. so shut the f*** up. in my opinion an obvious blown call is when, say, the puck goes in the netting and the refs don't halt play. yeah, you can argue the guys foot was half in the door blah blah blah but at best it's a marginal call, no way that's it's a blatant blown call.