stormboy

i think that kronner has a lot of potential. other than the injuries, i agree with those who say that he's out of position a LOT and fans or fumbles the puck in some pretty nasty situations. to me, i think that with a full season under his belt of playing regularly, a lot of those mental mistakes will clean themselves up. but that's back to the whole issue of whether or not he CAN stay injury free. i can't speak to whether it's "bad luck" or if he's just injury prone...i hope it's the former, and that karma will be nice to him this season. only time will tell, but i haven't given up hope that he'll be a damn good d-man, and just the one we need. i think it's possible, but not guaranteed.

did anybody get to watch the game? i'm curious how our two former players performed. (asside from schnides getting injured, of course.) i'm sad we won't get to meet matt when we play them on the third. that would have been interesting. fromer coach of the ducks, former players of the wings. ah, well.

to me, it seems like hockey is just a lot less popular now in general. i'm not sure if it was the lockout or what...but i mean, watch a "top fifty plays" or something like that on espn or fsn and maybe two out of fifty will be hockey highlights. espn pays no attention to hockey. i really don't think that crosby is a superstar in terms of name recognition. if i asked my co-workers who sid the kid is, ten percent of them would know. i really hope that sidney can, in some ways, begin the revitilization of the NHL. he's relatable in addition to being immensly talented. also, i thought the comment made earlier about detriot being a blue-collar town, etc. was very insightful. i think that heart really sells more than skill. i don't remember which game this was, but at one point zetterberg was taken down from behind while streaking towards the goal. it probably should have been a penalty shot, but wasn't. datsyuk was pissed. he was jawing at the ref (though i wonder if the ref knew what he was saying) and being very animated. to me, that was one of the best datsyuk-zetterberg moments i'd seen. even better than no-look-through-the-leg passes and all of that. it's them digging deep and showing that heart. i really think that more attitude like that -- if it can become more of a team ethos -- will go a long way in selling tickets.

i would be surprised if mule didn't get 20 goals this year. it seems to me that he's been improving his game a LOT, particularly towards the end of last season. i don't think he'll ever be a first line all-star, but he scored some nice goals and i think has shown that he has good presence on the ice. it remains to be seen, of course, but i could really see him coming into his own this season and playing an important role on the team. and, for the record, i'm not convinced that flip will become a "star," but i can't see him not being an impact player in the next three years. the kid's got great stuff. he's solid on PK, has scored some very zetterberg-esque goals, and, although not a physical presence, i don't see him getting knocked around the way some of our smaller players do. he might not be the next z, but if he continues to improve, i could see him scoring seventy points two seasons from now if he's a consistent fixture on one of the top two lines.

i think i disagree with this post. didn't homer get another assist after coming back that very game? yes, our powerplay was weak last season. but if that's better this season, i think the way to get back at cheap shots is by scoring on the team. i, for one, really respect that the wings are a classy organization. someone takes a cheap shot at homer, they don't respond by stooping to the same level. now, i can see the value of someone wanting to take on pronger in a fair fight after his hit on homer. but what if they lose? how does that get the team pumped up any more? i think if you get angry at a cheap shot, take it out by digging deep and playing hockey with heart, anger and determination. i don't think that having a fight is necessary to get players going. i'll agree that the wings maybe showed a lack of resolve after the hit on homer. i'm not sure if that's something that can be addressed or not. i guess the bottom line for me is that if having an enforcer helps you win games, then do it. i guess i'm not convinced that having someone who throws punches would have made pronger not hit homer like that. i could be wrong, but i'm not convinced. and i agree with the posters who have asked who are we going to sit if we add someone who gets eight points a season and two hundred penalty minutes? maybe one of the new kids. but i woudn't want to give up kopecky's roster spot so that some guy can be a -10 and occasionally fight someone. it doesn't seem to make sense. that last bit is a good point. i got pretty tired of watching ellis skate around the ice and accomplish nothing. i guess having a bruiser couldn't have been much WORSE, although ellis -- while not producing anything -- wasn't guilty of a lot of bad givaways leading to goals, either. i'd be interested to hear from a fan that watches every game of a team with an enforcer in today's NHL with the instigator rule and everything if they feel it's reduced "cheap shots." there's not really a way to view that statistically; you kind of just have to watch the games.

i thought he retired after getting his arse handed to him in a fight in like his fifth red wings game. i was probably just fried on the 'shrooms. point is: just when you think a tough team can't get any tougher.......they don't. the guy had what, four points in forty some games with the griffs last year? and every fight i saw him get into as a wing he pretty much got destroyed. *shrug* i guess after spending time in michigan, everyone just wants to go to california.

how it seemed last season is that with z and datsyuk on the same line, the two of them were much better (at least "better" in the sense of getting more points, maybe not in contributing to the whole team overall). but you have to figure out if putting, say, zetterberg on a line with hudler and flip will improve their collective point totals, while if putting dats on a line with homer and whoever else (sammy is not a first-liner; i'd like cleary to be, but who knows; i'd love franzen to really come into his own and take charge of a top-six slot) raises the overall goal scoring of the team. maybe the euro-twins won't get a hundred points each, but i'd still rather have six or seven twenty-goal scorers than a team with two guys who score 105 points and a bunch of forwards who get 30 points a season. there were all those stats of the z-dats-homer line being like the hottest line in the league after getting put together. i'd LOVE that line to stay intact as long as, say, a huds-flip-franzen line can actually be responsible for a goal or two a game on a consistent basis. with line # 1 putting up massive point totals, if we can get 60 goals out of a second line, have draper and malts still checking the hell out of people and one other line that at least pulls its weight, we'll be fine. all that to say: we cannot survive on one sensational line. if we can't get a good second line, i think the team will be better off splitting up z and dats, except maybe in situations where it's late and the game, no one's been producing, and we NEED a goal. we'll see what happens; i have faith.

as i think many were, i was frustrated with detroit's power play last season. it was never as good as the year before, and although they had a lot of talent on the ice, it never seemed to "click." i remember watching the games and being frustrated that they'd just keep passing it up to the blueline, where either the puck would skip over someone's composite stick and we'd have to chase it down the ice, or we'd get a shot that would end in (usually) an easy save, (often) a blocked shot, or (rarely) a goal. as i was following games last season, i just remember seeing rafalski's name game after game on power play assists. we have plenty of guys that can score goals. maybe what we NEED is a blueliner who instead of shooting a lot and scoring occasionally will make great passes down low. i feel like datsyuk, z, homer, filp, (hopefully) hudler and (lately) cleary have the ability to make great things happen down low on the power play...we just never seemed to be able to get it there with any consistency without the other team's d being all over us. maybe rafalski's lack of a point shot will actually be a blessing in disguise. (here's to hoping.)

i agree. i too was sad when we lost bert...but then thinking back to the playoffs, i was kind of irritated with him most of the time. maybe a healthy off season and he'll regain his old form. or maybe he'll be the bert from this spring's playoffs. i guess at the end of the day, i'd rather give his playing time to someone like filppulla...someone who you're waiting to see how high they can go, not if they can regain some of their former glory. (and at a fraction of the price.) i personally think that full-time roles for flip and huds fills the void left by bertuzzi. sure, they don't have the size, but i never really saw bert using his to anyone's advantage during the playoffs. fill their roles last season with grigs and kopecky. it'd be nice to have someone with lang's skill and cleary's heart, but that probably won't happen. by the way, i think the sharks will still be excellent this season. in fact, i see anaheim as beeing a weaker team than they were last year. (as others have mentioned, bert + schneids < teemu + neidermeyer [ sorry about the spelling ] ). there are still some decent d-men out there. looks like markov's not going to sign with the wings, and it seems a popular thing lately for our former player to head to the left coast. wouldn't be surprised to see him in teal next season. edit: clarity.

this goes without saying for all players, but is especially true of zetta what with his nagging wrist problems and all: z will have to have a perfectly healthy season to break a hundred points. i'd love to see him score forty goals, but i'm not sure it's going to happen. honestly i'd more expect datsyuk to break a hundred than z...but it would be sweet if either of them did! other than that i think lidstrom's numbers might fall off a little bit...and i'd expect rafalski to get a few more points under detroit's system than he did with the devils. i think flip and huds might get 20 goal seasons if they're given proper playing time, which would be excellent. it'd be great to get another 20 goal season out of cleary, but unless he goes on an amazing tear like he did last winter, it's not likely. i'm not saying it's impossible, but some part of me feels like that was a bit of a fluke. although i'm not sure how the lines will play out, i don't think grigs will get enough ice time to get 40 points. huds appeared in seventy-plus games last season, but only managed meager ice time. the kid is a goal scorer, and he only got 25 points. i'm not sure what to expect as far as ice time goes for grigorenko. i'm not sure what to expect as far as scoring out of kopecky. in some junior leagues he was a near- or beyond-point per game scorer, while in others he averaged less than a quarter of a point per game. obviously, he's only had one goal and no assists in 27 games with the wings, and i assume we want him more for his physical play than his scoring ability, but i wonder if he could do better than you predicted with lots of playing time on a line with play makers. (which he probably won't get, at least this season... but you never know, with injuries.) that's my analysis.

that's how i feel. i spent so much of the last few months pulling out my hair it might be nice to just sit back and watch some hockey. i won't make every effort to watch each and every game, though, as i did with the wings. still, it should be a good series -- two strong, physical teams. i expect aneheim will win and honestly, i wouldn't be that heartbroken. they're a good team and, excepting pronger, a good, hardworking one. go hockey!

look, because you're such a loyal fan -- which i respect, by the way -- i just don't think you're seeing things objectively. you and brian burke are pretty much the only people who have defended this hit as even "borderline" clean. i have seen some things on this board from wings fans that i don't think were "classy" moves (i'm starting to get a little tired of that word). i do not support comments like "i hope he gets hit by a bus" or recommendations that the wings have bertuzzi slam his head into the ice. at the end of the day, people get riled up when they see one of their guys go down, even if it's not as bad as it could have been. i think the most important thing is the way our team handled it. you did not hear babcock railing against pronger in the press conference, demanding a suspension, etc. homer even just said he didn't see the guy from behind him -- he never went on a rant about how pronger was trying to injure him. he knew the league would deal with it and that's that. sure, some of the fans here don't epitomize class -- it's not their job. their job is to support their team, which you should appreciate based on your defense of and indefensible incident. how our team responded is the most important thing, and i don't think there is any way anyone can criticize the players or the administration of the wings in any way following this incident.

categorically untrue. a similar comparison would be someone saying, "i'm sick!" and the other person thinking, "well, if it's a cold or if it's cancer...it doesn't really matter; sick is sick!" i'm sorry, but that's absurd. and as others have pointed out, there's a difference between being glad that an impact player from the other team is not playing and cheering when someone is laying motionless, bleeding on the ice after a check from behind to the head. i'm sure there was not a short supply of ducks fans who were glad to here that schneider would not be playing, and i can't blame them -- it gives you team a better chance. it's as simple as that. secondly, any talk about homer's helmet being on too loose as a cause for the injury is ridiculous. burke said he though homer's helmet came off four times. unless i'm wrong, it only came off three times and one was by the linesman who pulled it off when falling to the ice. i'd like to see anyone's helmet stay on through that. the last one was, if i recall, a minor blow to the head when homer was down after returning in the third. not an illegal hit, but players helmets fall off all the time. sill, i have to support the fact that burke is sticking up for his player. of course, it irritates me as much as the next wings fan to read his comments that say it was the wrong call / not pronger's fault, etc. (just as i was irritated by ron wilson's failure to give the wings any credit for their victories). but the point is, that's his job. he wants his team to win game four, and to do that they cannot be demoralized. also, i have not seen the "end zone" view of the hit burke referenced, the one where he said it was obvious that pronger was not trying to check him into the glass at all. i'd like to see it. finally, i agree with the posters who have said that this does not significantly improve our chances for game four. sure, in the long run, a d-man like pronger helps out a team. maybe the loss of pronger makes their power play a little less worrisome (not that it's been dreadfully so yet this series). but at the same time, they now only have one norris-nominated d-man rather than two. people will take his minutes, people will replace him on the power play. if the ducks really want to win, they'll step up. if the wings really want to win, it's been shown that we can handidly dispatch of them on their own ice, even with pronger in the lineup. bottom line is, giguere had a rough game (though he can't be blamed for all those goals) and s. niedermayer was playing like s***. he's not going to be -3 in game four. this one's still up in the air, and a win without pronger could provide a serious boost for the ducks. still, i like our chances overall. go wings! i still disagree, but a little less than when i wrote my last response. no, he looks like a beaver. especially in the picture vs. always uses.

all is forgiven. : ) i think that would be acceptable.

i agree with you. franzen was not hurt by mclennan's hit, and he still got dished a suspension. still, two things go against pronger getting a similar suspension in my opinion. one, as you mentioned, he is a marquee player, not a back up goalie who never sees the ice. while that SHOULDN'T matter, i think it will. secondly, although as a human being watching the game you KNOW that pronger was trying to hurt homer, based on past experience / score of game in addition to the type of it hit was, there still are some ways (though they are dubious) to argue that pronger was just finishing a check. mclennan's hit was a clear use of his stick as a weapon, and after the whistle. although, in my opinion, pronger's hit was just as bad (considering it was a head shot compared to the torso shot on franzen), the slight chance (in the mind of those making the decision) that he was not trying to injure homer plus the fact that he's a norris trophy candidate...i don't think the league will have the balls to pull the trigger. i hope i'm wrong.

i agree (except for pronger being the BEST d-man in the league). i just hope the office sees it that way. [ edit : content ]

you both proved me wrong (in my belief that responsible duck fans were staying away from this thread) and right (that there are many respectable duck fans out there). i thank you for doing both.

it's interesting that he is the only ducks fan appearing on this thread. most likely, the more educated duck fans are aware that pronger's hit was by in large indefensible. as a result, they have appropriately refrained from commenting. kudos to them. i always enjoy when the "i know more about hockey than you" debate replaces an honest discussion of the facts. really, it's a sure sign that the propegator of such comments either has no legitimate defense or doesn't care to think one out. i agree that he doesn't do much for my view of ducks fans, but i'll try to give the group of them as a whole the benefit of the doubt despite the comments of this fellow here. [ edit : spelling ]

lidstrom would not do that. that's the point. and learn how to spell his ******* name.

that would be a good point except for the fact that homer did not get up uninjured because the hit was put on with intent to injure. if it were a clean check, homer gets up without a problem. the reason he laid on the ice bleeding from the head was because it head was intentionally run into the glass. yes, players are sometimes injured by clean hits, but this was not one of those cases. and to those who will point to the height issue, i have two things to say. one, yes, there is a height differential between homer and pronger, but it's not like we're talking about zdeno chara putting a hit on jiri hudler over here. your shoulders are a least a foot below the top of your head. if pronger's arms were even extended straight out, they would not have caught homer in the back of the head. secondly, if you're exceptionally tall, it's your responsibility to make sure your hands stay low when you hit somebody. the league does not extend any special privileges to short players -- if hudler gets knocked off the puck by joe thornton, they don't give it back to him because he's short. as such, the league should not excuse tall players for putting their hands into someone's head. if you're big and tall, it's an advantage in the NHL -- no question about that. but, if you're big and tall, you get everything that goes along with that, including the fact that high hits to the head (particularly from behind) are not allowed. no grace should be given to pronger because of any height differential on a play like this. if zdeno chara's shoulder hits jiri hudler's head on a clean check, there's nothing you can do about that. but when you get your hands up, that's your responsibility no matter how tall you are. enough ranting for one night. i have a final exam tomorrow. night fellas -- we'll see how this one pans out tomorrow.

over reacting, maybe. but jesus christ, man. the man drove homer's head into the glass with both hands from behind. do you love your players? think about what would happen if someone did this to getzlaf. how would you feel?

if you're asking me, i am 100% sure that he SHOULD get a suspension. i'll be honest in that i haven't followed hockey for that many years, so i don't know much about pronger's history. but from what i've been reading in the last two years since i started watching, few people have confidence in bettman and the nhl front office. i think the right call is to suspend...i'm just not sure that it will happen. lord knows i'd like it to. also, i was just over at the ducks board, and one of them was saying that homer "ducked" what would have otherwise been a clean hit. alright. i'm sure he caught a reflection of pronger in the glass just in time to put his head directly in the way of two gloved hands streaking towards the back of his head at (literally) break-neck speed. i won't say that i'm the most objective hockey fan in the world, but for god's sake. i agree with you. i just hope the league does too.

i have a feeling pronger won't get suspended. i'll eat my words gladly if i'm wrong...but given the fact that homer wasn't hurt and that pronger didn't get a penalty on the play...i'd be really surprised if they issued one. plus you know people would start shouting about the league determining the series by pulling a norris-nominated d-man from the western conference finals...even though that hit could have easily taken out one of our most effective players for the rest of the playoffs. i'll just say this: if homer isn't half the iron man he is, he sits out the rest of the game and it makes pronger look that much worse. but, even up four zip, homer comes back and keeps adding to the humiliation. i also don't want to see any retaliation for this...other than we win the next two games and take the series in five. send the ducks packing -- we get the series and prove to everyone that we're a classy team, not cheap shot-dealing children. even todd -- it's a new page in that guys book, being with the class acts from d-town. f*** 'em.

i see your point, but what if his pads are legal? then it makes it look like the wings think they need to look for an advantage over the ducks. giggy has a great gaa / save% for the playoffs right now, but you've got to remember, both min. and van. had much lower goals-per-game averages than the wings during the regular season. on top of that, giggy had a higher gaa and a roughly equal save percentage during the regular season in comparison with hasek. you could pretty easily make the argument that the only reason hasek has such a low gaa is because his team allows the fewest shots on goal in the league. i don't think giggy's numbers are really all that elevated all things considered. we just have to put pressure on their d-men and control the puck. big pads or no, if we're playing our game, we'll get pucks in the net. if i were the wings, i'd let it rest. [ edit : clarity ]

wait...didn't selanne get caught with an illegal stick curve near the end of the regular season!?!? they're all cheaters!!!! seriously, though. if something's wrong with his equipment (which i doubt there is) they'll catch it; if not, it's not like he CAN'T be scored on. i would say "shut up and focus on the game," but then i realized that nothing here actually has to do with what transpires on the ice...so by all means, keep talking about his pads, even if it is a little silly and, dare i say it, childish. *shrug* even if it is true, i just don't like the idea of blaming the refs, pads, ice surface, whatever when your team doesn't win. for me, it's like wine: lord knows i've done it, but i always regret it the next day. (now, if giggy shuts us out two games in a row, you know i'll be back here complaining about his illegal and way-too-huge padding. )