stormboy

um, yeah, you would. pretty much every game. but, the last sentence of your post is absolutely right. when the calls go against us, the say the reffs are ******* our team over. but it's still one power play that you have to kill off. if you kill it, nothing happens, the rangers still win the game. still, you have to understand the emotions those fans are going through, as stupid as it sounds. after the first five minutes, you want to kill your own team. then you get super excited in the third when they take the lead. then it all gets taken away. pretty rough. then again, f*** them. they're not wings fans, therefore they are the enemy.

haha...yeah, this does get talked about a lot around here, but i don't think i've seen it laid out specifically in those terms. iginla is a close third, though, dropping down to more than a third of the way through the first round i just find it hard to believe that 209 people were considered to be better than z in 1999. it's funny, too, because while i agree that our scouting did well to pick him, they also picked several people before him. i was just looking at the 1999 entry draft. heh. the sedin twins two and three that year. patrik sefan went first overall, who got 35 points in 105 games over his last two seasons in the nhl (with atlanta then dallas). he is now playing in switzerland. he never played a playoff game, much less won a cup. if i'm reading right, detroit didn't have a pick until the 120th pick (4th round), with which they took jari tolsa, who never played in the NHL. our 5th round pick never played in the nhl, and our sixth round pick played about thirty games for the bluejackets over a couple of years. jeff finger was taken in the eighth round that year, as was george parros. radim vrbata was taken two picks after z. those are the only names i recognize in the draft that took place after hank that year. not sure why i decided to report all this information--it's keeping me from writing a paper. heh.

eff.

well, i missed friday and one game today, but here are my picks for what's left this weekend. Phoenix @ Montreal Boston @ Ottawa Toronto @ Pittsburgh New Jersey @ Washington Buffalo @ Atlanta NY Islanders @ Florida NY Rangers @ Detroit Minnesota @ Tampa Bay Columbus @ Nashville Chicago @ St Louis Calgary @ Edmonton Philadelphia @ San Jose Sunday: Vancouver @ Chicago Carolina @ Anaheim

i was following the game online tonight--and let me just say that i have a horrible fantasy team this year (jason arnott is my best center.....yeah)--and i was like, damn, whoever has brunnstrom is real happy tonight. then, of course, i realized no one did...thinking about picking him up. then again, i picked up niklas backstrom (of the caps) last year after he had like seven assists in two games, after which he didn't do s***. it'll be real interesting to see what this kid's season is like.

^ this.

wings finally find offense. 6-2. dats, z, franzen, hudler, one of malts draper kopy, stuart. hossa with 3 assists.

good night, kyle, and good luck.

doesn't sound too bad. from the title of the thread, i imagined him being out for a few months. heh. i guess the sens will have 2/3 of a line for a few weeks.

HAHAHAHA people discussing their favorite sports team--oh, right, this is a hockey discussion board. my bad. i thought it was a hockey discussion board. thanks for your constructive input.

babcock does. i heard it in a little interview...i'm not sure when, second or third period. he was talking about how aggressive the leafs forecheck was, and said, "we're going to have to win it on the cycle." the wings then completely failed to win battles and races to the puck and maintain pressure in the zone. well, failed for the most part...they had a few good moments. if all it takes to beat the wings this year is a hard forecheck, it's going to be a long ass season. hopefully the wings will adapt. i have faith in babs to kick their asses and get them into the trenches. we've seen datysuk's and others' more scrappy, physical side...we're going to need a lot more of that this year if a few checking forwards in our zone can completely f*** up our offense.

agreed. ONE LAST SHOT....

ugly play at center.

i did call that this game would end 3-2 leafs. so far that's true. i also predicted that the wings would then win 81 straight after this. so we'll see.

is it that we're playing really slow and lazy or that the leafs are playing really fast and executing really well?

i'm not aware of anyone saying that franzen was better than homer in front of the net. there could be debate about which combination of skills is better overall in certain situations, as well as the admission that we still don't really know exactly what we're going to get out of franzen. the franzen of late last year probably with slightly worse net skills but better puck and skating skills might be, overall, better than homer. but if that's not the franzen we have, then i wouldn't argue mule is better. all that being said, homer is still better in front of the net, where he's done all his damage tonight.

the problem with having a great team is that every loss is kinda crushing.

wings games don't have STDs. leafs 3-2. then the wings go 81-1-0.

hopefully he's really into the 2008-2009 version of the iScore. *groans*

agreed about being bummed by z and dats not playing together much. my thoughts are these, though: you put Hos-Dats-Z on the top line...in my opinion you don't have much room for either homer or franzen. again, just my opinion, but you don't want franzen and homer on the same pp line b/c both are such great net crashers. homer may still be the best in front of the net, but add in the homer-effect and, again my opinion, franzen has better puck skills. it seems like franzen-hudler-homer isn't a great second pp unit. in that situation, assuming the reasons i've given above are correct, homer's the odd man out. thus, i think, if, say, it's late in the game and we're down by a goal and go on the powerplay...you might just see Hos-Dats-Z together. if they can't get it done, we go to cleary/flip-hudler-franzen (or back to homer if mule's skills come back to earth this season). not a bad second line, but again, you don't want to NOT have homer at all on the pp, which is why you don't go with these lines all the time, and i def. agree that having a 1a 1b situation makes our powerplay very hard to fight. i still think that, occasionally, if we really, really need a goal, you'll see the three big boys together for a hail mary. but, babs i am not, so we'll see.

well, maltby does say "f***" on screen a lot more than any NHL player i've ever seen. that's always good for a chuckle.

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

i streamed a lot of wings games last season. i lived on campus (in michigan) and we didn't get FSN. i looked here every night for the posts, and there usually was a good lead. yeah, there were a lot of similar threads created every week with people looking for streams, but at the same time it made it easy because the sources changed from week to week and there was usually a topic about streaming. if not, it was in the GDT. i think that this point the NHL isn't too concerned with this activity, or at least does not have the time and money to care about it. if this was an MLB forum, you'd probably get banned for posting about streams. those guys are insane. NHL, not so much.

i think that would be fun. AO vs. Dats.

it'll be real interesting to see what happens with hudler this year. part of me wondered if his placement on one of our top two lines was really grooming him for a trade. hudler has taken a lot of s*** over the last few years, and i just think it would be sweet if he silenced the critics this year. i like him better on that line than sammy. good combination of grit, passing, and shooting. i'm hoping for a minimum of 20 goals and 50 points from huds this year. 25-35-60 would be amazing. we'll see. he got 41 last year, but he wasn't playing with z and franzen all year.