stormboy

legit call? i guess it's one of those have-to-be-in-control-of-your-own-stick sorta deals, even though simmonds lifted thornton's stick into dude's face...

kings really need to get it going to have a shot in this game. not looking good so far...

yeah, it's been one-and-done every time for LA. sharks with sustained pressure all game.

agreed, and i even like kunitz, 'cause he went to college in my hometown. but the dude smoked another player with his elbow, and even if he says it wasn't deliberate, it was a really, really bad mistake. way worse than Ruutu's hit, IMO.

helm ******* brings it in the playoffs. IMO the first hit in the videos by OP should not have been a penalty. looked like a clean shoulder hit to me. (maybe i'm a homer, but i don't think so, at least not in this case.) as much as we've all seen this team suck at points in the regular season, it's hard to bet against them right now, and helm is not least among our assets.

assuming mule and Z start the second round, i'd guess Mo is out, at least to start. my question is: what if we go down, say, 2-0 or even 2-1, and guys like Miller, Draper, or even Hudler aren't showing anything good? does Mike get another chance if we're losing games and need, say, help on the powerplay or it seems like the guys would need some leadership?

yeah, it seemed a little late, but not dirty or blindside. elbows were down, didn't leave his feet, etc. ruutu's history + injury + "crackdown" = suspension, i guess. seems a little weak. i'd be pissed if i were a ducks fan. that being said, i hate the ducks, so f*** 'em.

i don't totally disagree with this post, but i think it represents one of two different perspectives fans and observers (and players and management, i suppose)can take. one contends that winning whatever championship you're after is simply "doing your job" and that anything else is "failing." the other (or ONE other, perhaps) perspective contends that the goal of a professional sports team is to entertain their fans, and that by (at least sometimes) rising to the very, very top of their game is what gives us hope and makes all the other years and games worth watching. i think about it in terms of my job: is it that only the person who is the BEST at the job i have actually doing their job, and everyone else is failing at their job? i don't think so -- some people are just better than others, and those that aren't as good should be encouraged to do better. don't get me wrong, i love the "show no mercy, leave no prisoners" passion for the games themselves, but IMO i don't think it's fair to say that they completely failed just because they haven't done very well in the playoffs. maybe we (as wings fans) have a bit of a different perspective because of this team's perpetual success. i'm a tigers fan, too, and i still really enjoy watching/listening to their games even on years they don't even make the playoffs. yeah, their trip to the world series was great, and the memories of that season give me hope, and that's what makes following them fun, even when they "fail." *shrug* just my $0.02.

really? i realize he's not alex ovechkin over here. sure, he's gotten a lot of praise around here (and elsewhere) of late, but the kid always plays with tons of heart and speed, even when he's not chipping in a lot of points, which isn't really his primary role on the team.

i don't get to see st. louis play that much (or ever, really) so i can't really comment on him, but it sure seems like lids epitomizes gentlemanly play. he's never dirty, will never hit a guy who's vulnerable, is rarely involved in and almost never initiates post-whistle scrums. makes perfect sense for him to get it in the late stages of his career.

:clap: i'll try to stir up some contributions when i'm a little less intoxicated, but you guys are doing a great job. lgw.

lol @ hudler with a lazer and miller with an assist. won't be sad or surprised if drew sits for mike in game two, but this has to stick in the craw of everyone who was shocked at the modano scratch. and, yes, i was one of those ("surely miller can't be better than modano," i said; and maybe he wasn't. but he didn't f*** up and we won, so, it is what it is, as they say).

it's even more disconcerting to see perry to anything good or noteworthy. god, i hate that guy. still, gotta give credit where credit is due, i guess.

great pics, man. congrats. i agree, but i'd argue that in that situation, Z might as well take the penalty with kane breaking in with only a few seconds left. you get the call, prevent the goal, get the faceoff, get a point, and still have a tiny bit of hope that you kill off the OT 4-on-3. if he doesn't do his best to obstruct there, and the wings get scored on with three seconds left and get zero points, that has to be worse than what happened. but, yeah, to the people bitching about the call: sure, it was a soft call. but like HHDI said, that gets called almost every time, and IMO we benefit from those his-stick-touched-the-other-guys'-midsection calls often enough.

this is exactly how i felt. IMO, bert should have kept his stick on the ice -- he didn't make the play in the best way, and he got nailed for it. like johnson said, he knew he was going to get hit, he knows he skates low, and it wasn't a malicious or "intent to injure" kind of hit. if you slow the replay down, it looks a lot more like he back of his arm than an elbow, but with a big guy like bert flying in there with his arm up and dude's helmet getting knocked off, they almost have to make that call. if a wings player got tagged by a similar hit, we'd be screaming at the guy to keep his arms down, give up on the hit when the player is vulnerable, etc. i can see them throwing a game or two at bert just to keep up the example of ALL headshots being banned, and honestly, bert should have ******* kept his arms down. look at the abby hit later in the game: crushed the dude, had his stick on the ice. nailed him, but no question as to weather it was clean or not. hit above reproach, IMO. not lost in this is this quote from johnson: i don't know much about this guy, and of course he plays for the enemy, but i love that quote from a hockey player. i hope they take his other comments into consideration when making a judgment. i agree with this one hundred percent. we'd be hypocrites to pretend that just because it was a wing delivering a hit, it had to be clean and perfect. i would call bert out if i thought he'd done something malicious, and from everything we've ween and even from what johnson himself has said, bert just should have kept his arms down. he didn't, and he'll live with the consequences. maybe a little extra rest, a bit of energy from a griff trying to make an impression on the big club, who knows. the hockey gods work in mysterious ways.

i've always been proud of lids's +/- numbers, and maybe critics will say that i've been wrong all along -- maybe i have been, or maybe now i'm just re-thinking things a bit. but if +/- is a good judge of a player's offensive/defensive balance, how the f*** is dats a +12 while zetterberg is a -1; abdelkader is a team-leading +13 while the great nick lidstrom is barely scraping an even rating. obviously, it depends on the lines you're playing against and the goaltending you get, but jesus. abby has to be happy, though.

the way he's been playing lately, hell yeah. in his last nine appearances (whether starts or in relief) he's stopped 216 of 230 shots, for a .939 save percentage. in eight starts, he's let in 22 goals on 257 shots, for a .917 save percentage but a 2.73 GAA (which includes a five-goal-against win against Columbus). overall, he's got a .930 save percentage and 2.13 GAA, both of which are bests on the team. obviously, he hasn't gotten the workload that jimmy has, so that's going to play a big role in it -- which is why i'm not suggesting that we promote joey to our playoff starter. it is worth noting that jimmy has two shutouts in 58 starts; joey has one shutout in eight starts. all that to say, he could totally fall apart at any time. but right now, yeah, i'd be cool with him as a backup if Oz retires. i liked joey the first time we had him. i don't know if anyone else remembers this, but a few years ago we had the longest, currently active non-shutout streak going. it was up to a hundred and some games in which we'd scored at least one goal (we were second on the all-time list, IIRC, to calgary, who once went like 260-some games without being shutout). the night we lost that streak, we lost to (i think) the blues -- what i know for sure is that joey lost that game 1-0, and it was heartbreaking. anyway...random tangent...carry on.

ugh... four-on-three=brutal. surprised kronner didn't get off the ice when he had the chance...looked like he was a little hurt on that shot block. oh, well. good game overall by joey, can't fault him on the OT winner, i don't think. got a point, though we still can't hardly win at home.

i hear MLS is hiring

as much as some people argue that plus-minus is a worthless stat (and i don't totally disagree with them), the fact is that it's still kept and i would be very surprised if nick won the norris with a minus rating. i have no idea if any defenseman has ever won the award with a minus rating, but IMO they'll look for any reason to give it to someone other than nick. and, yeah, from what i've seen (don't get to watch a lot of games) nick has played very well this season. obviously, neither nick nor anyone else can do anything about a softie let in by the goalie, and there have been plenty of those this season. also, though he already has nine more points this year than he did last year, he had (at the end of last year) eight more even-strength (or short-handed) points than he has this year (37ppp this year versus 20ppp all of last year), so that may (or may not) have anything to do with it. (i.e. playing great on PP this year, but not as well 5-on-5?)

i blame this message board. clearly, our goalies have been reading it, and all the criticism has gotten in their heads.

oh, i certainly wasn't suggesting that. just making an observation.

everybody in the flyers GDT over at HF boards was calling him unprofessional, a jackass, and so forth. apparently he called a few of their players by the wrong name.

listened to the game at work...just got home and have paging through the GDT. it's only natural, of course, but it's so funny to me to read posts from different times in the game. knowing that the wings would eventually come back to tie the game, it's funny reading posts from people who were willing to murder every member of the red wings organization when we were down 4-0 only to revel in the joy later on. i can't say that i don't feel the same way, but it's just interesting to take a step back afterward and see how fickle we all are. anyway, glad to get the point, and, IMO more importantly, for the guys to prove to themselves that they can come back no matter what. yeah, we suck at shootouts (esp. with our third-string goalie in there, though joey has been playing well as of late), but you get the feeling that in a playoff game, with eternal five-on-five overtime, the wings end up winning it. like we've said before, hopefully the wings can build on the momentum of this game. even if it's a loss in the standings, it's still, somehow, a win emotionally. wish i could have been at the joe for mo's 4rd period goal. moments like that are why i like sports (magglio's walk-off homer to send the tigers to the series, usa's late goal vs. algeria come to mind. pure ecstasy.)

nice first post. but, yeah, i'm surprised there are no quotes from eaves on this (at least that i've seen). that makes me wonder if he was genuinely pissed and has chosen to not comment on it rather than insult kronners to the media. that's pure speculation on my part, of course. who knows? in any case, it was a funny lolwut sort of moment.