stormboy

yeah, that whole "through thick and thin" part of being a fan isn't as easy as it sounds, i guess.

do you think the wings are staging an on-ice protest in which they refuse to win a game until a trade is made? i smell a conspiracy...

agreed that, while a pretty good player, prospal is made better by those around him rather than making those around him better. (which is still something; some people aren't good no matter who you put them with, and prospal can clearly rise to the occasion.) i like the idea of him with dats and fill and then putting jiri or franzen / sammy depending on the situation with homer and z. you'll probably see z's scoring go down a bit, but the team's overall scoring go up quite a bit. and to the person who suggested that there's a feeling that the wings could use some more passion guys: i couldn't agree more. i've actually been impressed with dats' improvment over the last year: i remember him getting chippy in the playoffs a few times last year and it was the first time i remember him getting pissed. we have great players like lids and dats who have amazing skill and a good work ethic but don't display that much passion. i'd love a guy who can score / make plays (at least to a reasonable degree) and get really fired up. the wings clearly have the skill -- what they lack sometimes is the passion. plus, his what, 1.9 mill has only got to be like...800,000k now? i don't know. but that would still give us a few mil to land a d-man if possible, which i like. plus, it's a good trade for prospal and TB -- out of conference contender. now, because i like this trade so much, you know it won't happen.

i haven't seen meech play much this season (since i don't get to watch many games) but i remember being impressed by quincey in the playoffs last year. (not impressed in the sense that he did anything amazing but impressed in the sense that he was filling big shoes and didn't f*** up, which a lot of our regulars were doing with consistency.) if we can't send him back down, and we have guys that will be able to fill out the d for a few seasons, i'd be fine with trading him. sounds like he might have at least some trade value to other teams, but wouldn't kill us to let go of. i mean, if we want someone good, we're going to have to trade SOMEthing. *shrug*

right now i'm not sure if z would crack my top ten. he's been getting a decent amount of points since returning from injury but -- and i may be wrong here -- i feel like a lot of his goals have been a bit flukey. i haven't seen him dominate a game, and not even really a shift, in quite some time. i would put datsyuk above z, especially for the last few weeks. and i agree with malkin's inclusion in a top-ten list. the kid's dynamite.

i mean...franzen scored. half our goals. *shrug* just sayin'.

most likely. trying to sell more tickets. ...dick.

so i'm just following the game online...wings are outshooting something like 35-18. is mason just playing great or are a lot of the shots weak blue-line-straight-to-his-chest sammy type shots?

interesting sidenote: after alfie-spezza-heatley got back together, and they won 6-1, i was pretty scared the sens were not going to lose another game this year. i know it's only one game, buty they lost 5-1 to buffalo with their top line getting zero points. so...yeah. every team loses bad games.

i hope so much that you're right...but i can't ignore this feeling in the pit of my stomach. i'll eat my words if the wings clean up, but somehow i see the struggles continue. 3-1 nash.

the lang trades needs to happen.

yeah, it really doesn't make sense that the goal was disallowed and homer wasn't given a penalty. it seems to me that if homer, in the opinion of the ref, was interfering with the goalie, he should have given him a minor penalty. you have to wonder if the ref would have called interference on homer if, say, the shot went wide of the net. no chance. and to me, that says that if the "infraction" wasn't enough to warrent a minor penalty, it shouldn't have canceled out the goal. i hope i'm making sense. it just seems like there are often times when players are marginally in the crease (half of his skates and his ass) and the refs let it go. yeah, if you skate in and bowl the goalie over clearly that's a call. this just typifies the "holmstrom effect:" if it was any other player, i highly doubt that the goal would have been dissallowed. i'm not subscribing to any conspiracy theories, but homer obviously has a reputation. to me, you can't really argue that the refs should be fined or fired. yeah, it was a bad call. but just the fact that it could even be described as marginal (homer DID have skates and body in the crease) means that the refs won't get reprimanded. if homer was completely outside the crease and contact was definitively not made, that would be one thing. but that's not the case. still, i'm glad i didn't get to watch the game today...watching the video was enough to get my blood boiling. i'd probably have to buy a new TV if i'd been able to watch it. count your blessings, i guess.

think about this: for both teams, this was a rare effort. which side would you rather be on: the side who seriously underperformed and took a bad but rare loss, or the side who -- OH MY GOD -- actually beat a good team. i'll still take being a wings fan any day. yeah, you don't want to lose to the kings, but all good things...as they say.

i think more than a bit of chicken and egg. you could just as easily say that without phaneuf's goals, iginla's at the end only pads his totals. clearly, there is a lot of value in clutch players. but at the end of the day, the teams that win have many not one guy who steps up every time but enough guys who step up enough of the time to get wins. before the minny game i was a little frustrated about our last few games: boston: dats, z, rafalski, homer, lids are the only ones with points in the contest. colorodo: other than draper's empty netter, same story. no one other than the top five has points. phoenix: chelly gets one assist. we win, but other than him, only our top five get points. on the one hand, i like that those five guys have been playing well enough (along with our goalies) to win those games. on the other, i really am uneasy with the fact that they're the ONLY ones scoring. so, our top five guys only contributing one assist and us still winning a tough game? i'll take it. even if zetterberg wasn't "clutch" last night, somebody made it happen, and that's what counts.

so they have 27 games left? obviously san jose will lose some games, but even if they didn't the wings would have to go 20-6-0 to make absolutely sure they'd clinch the league? they're 21-4-2 at home and 20-6-2 away...so a 20-6-0 stretch isn't actually that incomprehensible. like an .769 win percentage... i think they're around .780 for the season after the seven-game winning streak. interesting stat. sharks have been playing at about .605 win percent thus far in the season. if they continue to play the same way (obviously a big if), they'll have right around 100 points on the season, meaning the wings would need only eight wins to clinch. is that right? i think so. but, yeah, don't be surprised if san jose turns it on down the stretch. even if they start winning a lot, we could play .500 and still probably be fine.

i like the idea that winning your conference gives you more of an edge, but i'm not sure this is the way to do it. it makes sense that home ice advantage would mean a lot if the series goes to a game seven, which is essentially like playing a single-elimination game. but in say, football, home field is a bigger advantage because you have 100 % of the games in that round at home. but, i guess there's something to be said for the fact that as long as you make it into the playoffs, you're not given that much of a disadvantage. that way if a team wins the president's trophy and the cup, it's not like, "well, they had a really easy playoff run..."

I was just wondering what people's opinions were about who's going to make the cut this year. obviously it's a little early to make any real solid predictions, but, hell, people make pre-season playoff predictions. something interesting i noticed today regarding standings: the western conference is a cluster f-- well, it's crowded. the wings are the only team in the west to have won seven (or more) of their last ten games, and only two teams have won less than five of their last ten (chicago with four and st. louis with three). so twelve of fifteen have won five or six of their last ten; no one's really hot, no one's really cold. also interesting that the gap between the second place team (san jose) and the second to last place team (chicago) is only thirteen points, which, incedentally, is less than the gap between the wings and the second place team, even if the sharks win their game in hand. so, that being said, my current predictions for the west: 1. detroit 2. calgary 3. san jose 4. anaheim 5. minny 6. dallas 7. colorado 8. vancouver kipper's been hot in calgary of late, which i have a feeling will bring them up to the front lines. to me, aneheim is the real wild card here. not only does their fate simply affect themselves, but a real hot ducks team will beat up on divisional opponents dallas and san jose, possibly affecting their playoff standings. phoenix has been playing well of late but i don't see them having all the right pieces to make the cut. although, they did play great against the wings last night -- ozzy really won that one for us. i could see them squeaking in. similarly, columbus, much improved over last season, i still don't think quite has it. leclair has been frequently brilliant this year, but i'd still rather have consistency over seven shut outs. i don't see their offensive weapons really staking up down the stretch either. i'm disappointed that chicago has been doing so poorly lately; i would have loved to have seen them make the cut, maybe as the eight team to our first. but, alas. and for the east: 1. ottawa 2. pittsburgh 3. carolina 4. jersey 5. philly 6. montreal 7. rangers 8. islanders or boston pitt's goaltending is in a bit of a slump right now, but when crosby comes back and conklin / fleury (if healthy) are playing well, i really think the penguins could challenge this year. they're the prediction that i'd be the least surprised if i was way off on, but i could see them easily finishing in second place. flyers are on a hot streak right now, beating up on some pretty weak teams (florida, toronto, atlanta, LA, washington) over that stretch, though it did include a crazy game over the sens. thoughts? edit: grammer, spelling and content. guess i need to proof read more.

thanks...

because it's a discussion board, and as long as people keep posting on a topic, it means they want to talk about it. and if people post just to *****, they're only encouraging discussion on a topic they're annoyed with. no one made you click on this thread. anyway, i wanted to point out this quote: "I can guaran-damn-tee you that no more than a small handful of NHLers have ever stared down into the Wings net on game night and thought to themselves ‘Damn. That’s Chris-*******-Osgood in net. How’re we gonna score tonight?’ " i see the point he's making, but i'm just not sure how true it is. i don't know if people are really intimidated by him anymore. dom may be capable of making good saves now, but all you have to do is top shelf a rebound and you will score almost every time. people watch tape, and not just old tape -- film from this and last year where hasek does the alligator death roll after making the first save and lays there in the net. i'm not saying he's terrible, and i do think that he has a lot more league-wide name recognition than osgood. i'm just not sure if that name inspires fear the same way that it used to.

oh my god.

i highly doubt they will, but i can't predict the future. i, of course, would hate it. but things happen.

were and are contenders. maybe they have a bit more of an edge now. obviously he's a world-class player, but it'll be interesting to see how an older guy does after not playing for half the season. it's been, what, nine months since he last played a game? that seems a pretty long time ago. then again, it might just be like riding a bike for him. i hope we get to play them in the playoffs this year after all the anehiem vs. detroit hype. i wonder if the other teams they knocked out of the playoffs last year are all talking about this on their boards, too...

no f***in' way.

nine points last thirteen games, not too bad at all. +9 with only 4PIM during that span. barring injury (which is a big if, but so far he's looked pretty solid out there) he should hit forty points easily. fifty if he gets hot and plays every game, 35 if he cools off. like has been said a million times, give the kid a few injury-free seasons and i think you'll see a big improvement. i think that's what we're seeing right now; he's starting to get into his game, maybe for the first time as a wing.

i think maybe he does that because he sees someone makes a pass and decides to announce the pass when he sees it rather than waiting to see the number and then calling it. *shrug* i noticed that too, but it doesn't bother me. since i'm such a ***** when it comes to talking like those around me, i've noticed myself starting to do that in real life sometimes, which is kind of awkward. "She passes me the salt shaker, does my girlfriend." but, yeah, i love ken. sure he's a homer, but they pay him to keep people watching the game. so if the wings go down by five and he has some stat about one time ten years ago when the wings scored six goals in the third period then he's going to say it, just to give people some shred of hope. plus, with all the obscure stats like that, he's probably not saying them off the top of his head -- somebody sitting at a computer is feeding them to the broadcast booth, i'd guess. tangent: the thing that bugs me is that vs. announcer, not emmerick, but the other pxp guy, who tried to make everything as poetic as possible, or use as many different words for the same thing as he possibly can. "save" becomes "squeezed," "vacuumed," "gobbled up," "frozen," "captured;" "pass" becomes "shoveled," "flipped," "shuffled," "directed," "tossed along," etc. etc. i mean, i guess there's something to be said for not just saying "save" "save" "save" all the time, but vacuumed? really? hasek has never vacuumed a damn thing in his life, i mean let's be honest. edit: grammer.