stormboy

merh. i'm not excited about it but it wouldn't bother me, i guess.

*pushes up coke-bottle glasses, sniffs loudly* no! he'd just have to take a golf-style swing from the center dot, goddam it! and i mean, with all the force that a goalie-paddle brings to the table, he could score. PLUS, don't you know that hockey players play golf on the off-season / thursdays? c'mon, we've all seen the pictures of datsyuk at the links. i'm sure ozzie was there, just no one took a picture of him 'cause he didn't have great stats back then. so, the official word is, "yes." but he's gotta happy gilmore that sumbitch from the center faceoff dot.

again. wow.

holy s***.

heh. dan cleary: be our hope.

the kopecky-franzen-samuelsson line seems kind of awkward to me. like, it's clearly not a scoring line with the likes of kopecky out there, but not really a bruiser like with samuelsson. it's more like 2/3 of a b-grade scoring line or 2/3 of a mildly effective checking line. i'd sooner put draper (who is a center) with franzen and sammy (who are both wings) and then put kopecky with drake and maltby to form a line that's for checking only. it seems like you put a pretty big damper on what scoring ability sammy and franzen have by putting them with kopecky -- not that draper is a great playmaker, but he's MORE offensively minded than malts or kopecky. but maybe babs saw something he liked in practice. *shrug* we'll see. p.s. fourth-line status also hurts sammy's trade value, if that's something we're still hoping for, yeah?

just out of curiosity, what makes you say they have the *best* group of forwards in the league?

i think homer gets a couple. other than that, no predictions. what will the lines be like tonight? flip - dats - cleary hudler - zetterberg - homer franzen - draper - sammy drake / downey / ellis / kopecky ??? and then throw ZDH back together on the power play, with hudler, flip and franzen / sammy playing second unit? or do you think they'll keep ZDH together for the whole game, or keep the lines somewhat as they are even on the powerplay? it'll be interesting to see what babcock does. i like the idea of kind of a 1(a) line and a 1(b) line, as above. and since hudler and zetterberg have been playing well with whoever else is on their line, replacing sammy or franzen with homer can only improve things. the flip - dats - cleary line has obviously had no trouble scoring. what do you guys think they will / should do?

best of luck with that, 'canes.

yeah, he had twenty last year. he was skating into the trapezoid about every game for a while, it seemed.

also remember that a trade to the wings does not necessarily equal a cup win, as it seems some people are implying. yeah, the wings with sundin are a pretty scary team, but anything can happen. still, i agree with those who are saying, "why not?" on sundin's behalf. sure, he can come over, take a shot, and then resign with his beloved leafs after the season's over. and, if the leafs know this, they could potentially trade him pretty cheaply, considering that whatever picks / prospects they get are essentially just a free addition next year, as they will have sundin back as well. i also agree that the wings are bargaining out of a position of strength, which might not actually made the trade come any more cheaply, but i do not believe they will make a desperation trade to get a scorer. as many have pointed out, we've already got plenty. sundin would be icing on the cake (as well as a side of vanilla ice cream).

as of dec. five. just sayin'. http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/rumors/post/Su...o?urn=nhl,56026 "...he says he already has chosen the team and the city where he will end his career. "It's right here," Sundin insisted yesterday at the Toronto Maple Leafs' Easter Seals skate. "I have no wish to move."

they seem pretty accurate, if a little generous. i think franzen is moving in the b / b - direction, and i could see him being around a b+ by season's end if he continues to improve, but i don't think he's there yet. kronwall's a- is too generous -- don't get me wrong, i like kronner, and i think that he too is improving as the season goes along, but i'd put him somewhere around a b- right now. lebda and rafalski i think are each a third of a letter grade too high. i expected a bit more out of lebda this season and, despite his solid numbers, rafalski does scare me a little bit with the bone-headed plays from time to time.

i've never done this before. am i allowed to start now? if so: Friday: Philadelphia @ New Jersey Ottawa @ Buffalo Carolina @ Atlanta Chicago @ Anaheim Saturday: Washington @ Montreal Detroit @ Dallas Florida @ Pittsburgh New Jersey @ Boston Philadelphia @ Toronto Tampa Bay @ Ottawa Minnesota @ Nashville Carolina @ St Louis NY Islanders @ Colorado Anaheim @ Phoenix NY Rangers @ Edmonton Calgary @ Los Angeles Columbus @ San Jose Sunday: Buffalo @ Atlanta Detroit @ Chicago

at this point nothing would really surprise me. do we have a really solid team right now? obviously. do we have issues in case of injury? possibly. we fared pretty well without 2/3 of our top line (the st. louis shutout notwithstanding), so it seems like we could carry on pretty well even with injuries to our forwards -- although you could pretty easily make the argument that guys like flipper would have a harder time having multi-goal games in a playoff environment. our offense is pretty potent right now, so you could say that a forward signing would help with depth in case of injuries. same goes for d. so, i could see mgmt. standing pat, though in some ways i'd like depth signings. a blockbuster is unlikely, i think, but never say never. there are some dream scenarios involving top-notch players. any huge scoring threat would make this team even more scary than it already is but, at least at this point, it doesn't seem like we NEED one. it'll be intersting to see how the next month plays out, regarding both injuries and production. we all rag on sammy a lot, and he is inconsistent, but if his recent production keeps up and -- dare i say it -- improves slightly, he *could* be a scoring threat that we need. it's hard to say, but i think it's possible. at the same time, i wouldn't mind seeing him traded for someone that fits in better. that's a trade that would not surprise me at all.

agreed. at one point this season, i remember looking at the standings and the central was the only division in which every team was over .500. obviously a lot has happened since then. i'm not sure why the wings have had so much trouble with the central -- i missed all the chicago games so far this year, but i wonder how much of it has to do with a lot of ex-wings being on those teams, you know? correct me if i'm wrong, but i think that manny is the only goalie to shut out the wings this season or last. and the 'hawks obviously have lang and williams, who, on top of their own knowledge of the wings' tendencies, share that insight with their teammates. *shrug* i'm not sure how much that affects things, but i think it's a possibility, especially in manny's case, knowing all our forwards tendencies, etc (which doesn't explain the game vs. us where he got chased...but if we know one thing about manny, it's that he's a bit inconsistent).

"Even a smart, experienced general manager like Ken Holland can't just patch over those kinds of personnel losses and warts." "the start of this season has been indicative of a team that no longer is a top-10 club." sure, this was the beginning of '06. but we tied for most points in the regular season AND made it to the WCFs. and what players are on the roster now that weren't at the beginning of '06? you've got rafalski replacing schieds and some of the new ahl guys? maybe some addition by subtraction by giving the minuets of lang and williams to rex and flip. obviously, the players are more skilled than people thought they were (zetta, dats, homer, hudler and flip are an average 158th pick, and our top line alone being an average 213th pick) but i think that a lot of credit has to go to babcock. yeah, the team struggled in early '06, but they really haven't looked back much from there. sure, they didn't get a cup last year, but neither did 29 other teams, and most of them haven't been labeled failures. thanks for posting this. good trip down memory lane. : )

so...he's basically saying that since downey wasn't going to fight they had free reign to rough up hudler and other skilled non-fighters on our team? and he's bitching about our players' "dirty" play. i totally agree that jackman rotated towards the boards split seconds before the hit. in no way did it seem like franzen was lining him up for an intentional board. and i don't see the elbow at all. *shrug* maybe i'm just a homer. but this one i just don't see. it's interesting...after the game when we beat the wild 5-0 and hasek sent gabby flying, weren't the reported quotes all about hasek's intent to injure gaborik? i mean, you can make an argument on either of those plays (hasek's or franzen's -- both of which i believe were mostly if not entirely acceptable) but i think it's somehow ironic that after both big time blow outs, the coaches aren't talking much about the game (what are they going to say about it) but rather taking the focus off of their teams catastrophic failure and on to something else. anyway, the wings are playing out of their minds right now and winning games like nobody's business. keep it up.

it's possible that they could both hit a hundred this year. for dats, he's on pace for over a hundred, and that was with a somewhat slow start. if continues at the rate he is, he'll break a hundred easily. same with hank. (except the slow start.) the thing is, i have to believe that both of them, at some point, are going to go through a pretty severe cold streak, even if they don't get injured. it just seems like that happens. not only will that be pretty devastating for the wings, if they even cool down for a second, either of them could miss a hundred. on the other hand, if hank keeps rolling and dats continues with his lights-out passing, and lecavelier breaks his leg or something, zetta could have a *shot* at the title, though i doubt that's likely. even still, it's fun to think about it...

sammy's shown in the past that he has some kind of ability but, like lang or williams, maybe he just needs to be some place else -- maybe he just doesn't work well with our system. i think it'd be ideal to trade him (along with other things, possibly) to get a forward of "equal" talent who will compliment hudler and flipper more. i feel like huds and flip have a style that is much more based on mobility, similar in someways to dats and z, whereas sammy is just kind of a stand-there-and-fire-heavy-shots-and-hope-something-goes-in kind of player. homer's style perfectly compliments dats and z: he gets in there and f***s s*** up to make their jobs way easier. i'm not saying flip and huds need a homer-like player, but someone who compliments them better than sammy does. or someone who is just more talented. *shrug*

i read about the first four pages and the last one, so forgive me if this has been stated already. i watched some other clips of hasek doing this, and even if he its the guy, most of the time the other dude doesn't go flying like THAT. if you watch the replay of the gaborik clip, it seems like he sees hasek a split second before the hit and straightens out his body from the crouched rush stance he was in. what was probably a split-second reaction of defense actually had the opposite impact: by raising his center of gravity and lengthening his body, i think that gaborik made his vault that much more spectacular. i'm not saying it's his fault: it was just a reaction. but i think it could be argued that in this case, if gaborik hadn't seen hasek at all, he would have remained more crouched and, though he probably wouldn't have gone down, most likely wouldn't have flipped in that fasion, which would not have made the risk of injury so high. i think it's true what some have said: if this happened to a wings player like datsyuk, we'd probably be pretty upset about it. but that's part of being a fan, i guess -- always having your boys' backs. but, at the same time, i think that the argument that we would be wrong in that situation has some merit. if you contrast this to the pronger hit of last year's playoffs, driving a player's head into the boards from behind usually has about the same result: injury. however, looking at this from hasek's perspective, he's done this move many times and, though there is often an impact, it is usually one that isn't even close to injury and is not called for a penalty. so, i mean, statistically, you could argue that dom is making what he thinks will be a clean hit that won't injure anybody. like he said, he's never gotten called for that before, and i think it's fair to say that no one's gotten hurt before. still hasn't. and since gaborik didn't get hurt, and it's pretty clear that hasek wasn't trying to hurt him, i think it's fair to sit back and watch the fireworks.

i wouldn't worry about it. we've got plenty of kids that can score goals. i'm really optimistic about huds (should he get time) and flip this season. expect great things from both of them. and, my prediction is we'll be getting some goals from unexpected sources (e.g. franzen). i won't sweat it until we're 2-8.

i agree with that a lot. and honestly, i don't see him screw up really bad very often. i've seen flashes of brilliance from him, and some periods where he was doing really well. i don't expect him to ever carry out defence, but if he were surrounded with a little more bulk, i dunno...i think a corps does well to have a guy like lebda on it, since you obviously can't have all top 1 or 2 defencemen on your team.

i was hoping the wings would give him a shot a little while ago, but he obviously played like crap last year. he's one of those guys that for some reason i believe has potential, even though i don't have much evidence to back that up. in my mind, i imagine him playing for detriot and getting 25 goals. ah, the mind of a child....