#19forPresident!

Not to burst the rant bubble, because those were some good rants you had going, but Nickelback is actually from Canada Not to be confused with the Nickelback position in football, which is of course as American as winning 8 gold medals on a diet of junk food.

In my perfect world they would be able to purchase and raze Cobo, build a new, better Joe (keep the name!) next to the current one. Heading to the Joe on the river is just tradition, nothing like an afternoon game when its sunny out walking by the water on your way in. In the real world, I think unfortunately if they build new it will be relocated to the aforementioned Foxtown area and be named something stupid like "Some stupid product, bank, or insurance comapny" arena. Oh well a fan can dream can't he?

After Detroit, of course, it would have to be the Blackhawks. I've always loved Chicago as a city, and I have a special place in my heart for O 6 teams. I was just a kid when Chelios got traded there and I've always loved his playing style, especially when he was younger and fighting / rough stuff was a legitimate strategical part of the game because he was always shaking things up.

Downey's got heart, I'd just like to see him get some more points, but then again I guess to do that you may need to log more than 3 mins of ice time. Can't dislike this signing, he's got a work ethic second to none regardless of his production.

I was there too, and it was a let down, but I can still say that was the best game I've ever seen in my life and it was the last home game of a championship season. I guess my glass is half full .

Well his girlfriend is probably the only thing more distracting than a 4 foot tall legendary silver trophy.

You just summed up exactly what I was going to respond with. You can't really compare them very well, I would want both of them on my team, and I wouldn't want to lose either of them.

People that win the Cup have been doing what ever the hell they want to with it since it came into existence. Thats the whole point of winning it, you're the Champion and you get your trophy with which to do whatever the hell you want. Not doing so would be like winning a Ferrari and just looking at it, whats the point in that? Oh and Draper's kid wasn't the first to do the business in it and probably won't be the last either. If you think they're disrespecting it you're kidding yourself, its probably 10x as sacred to the players as it is to us fans, and what they do with it in the off season is just tradition. They also take it to children's hospitals and use it raise awareness for positive causes in their communities, I suppose you want that to stop as well?

We all know that along with losing the starting job in Ottawa permanently, regardless of his upcoming free agency, Emery pretty much made an ass out of himself with his multiple bad career decisions last season. From being late on a regular basis, to fighting his own teammates at practice, he pretty much carried around the "thugged out" attitude that would give any GM have a stomach ulcer if they saw their players copping it. So, understanding his general f*ck the world attitude, when I read the article below (there's also a video with his interview up on TSN) it was pretty refreshing to hear him admit that hewas the problem, and not only that, but he also pretty much absolved his teammates and the Ottawa front office of having any infulence related to his "issues" last season. Of course we all knew that anyway, but it's pretty unusual for someone in his position who is dumb enough to do those things in the first place to show the character it takes to admit that he was an idiot and put the blame soley on himself. Emery honest in his self evaluation

Time, and their play, will tell. And it will be between more than those two, but they will have an edge having the experience.

Christ, its like watching a fish out of water flop around and slowly die, just hang it up while your fans still have some memories other than your latest injury.

Zetterberg imho Datsyuk is also a great candidate but unless his English improves by leaps and bounds he will remain assistant. Captains are required to interact with officials too much for someone with difficulty speaking the language to be able to manage. Of course his teammates would have no problem following him but officials would probably have to call Toronto to have his audio translated for them

Hossa Kronwall or Fischer

I couldn't agree more, I mean technically that's annoying fans, but I don't care I'm still with you...... If there was some way to erase the "OLE" song from human history and existence it would be one of the single greatest accomplishments of man kind.

Past his prime....... In my opinion he mentally stalled out after the Moore incident, it screwed him up psychologically and he was never the same, couple that with his back problems and I don't think he will ever realize the full power forward potential he had earlier in his career. Of course he could prove me wrong and have an amazing season with Calgary, but personally as a conference opponent and a regular playoff opponent it didn't bother me at all to hear about that signing because he has been dead weight on the ice recently for the most part.

Russian 5 had good chemistry and good talent, this line potentially has endless talent and good chemistry, if Hossa fits in well then I'd say ZDHLR > R5 Well if he doesn't score off his ass legs or torso and actually puts it in with his stick, its usually off the shaft anyway, so I don't think he's too concerned with the curvature of his blade

As others have said he's in player development, and he makes appearances at charity events occasionally. I'm pretty sure that he's made peace with the fact that he is more than capable of playing but his heart condition doesn't allow him the safety to know he can do that without having any future problems. Unless he has some breakthrough with his doctors that allows him to know he can play without repeating the on ice incident he went through before I would not expect to see him play in the NHL again. Damn shame, he was a bigger meaner Kronwall, but good health > all so best wishes to him and his family.

Well I can sympathize to a certain extent, I was a bit annoyed when we lost to Anaheim in the WCF and then Schneider and Bertuzzi changed out of our uniform and right into theirs.......But annoyed was where it ended, I wasn't completely irate or blaming them or either club. First of all because I knew Kenny hadn't left himself in a position cap wise to be left for dead by the move for Bertuzzi, sure it sucks watching Mattias start to come into his own knowing we pissed him away for a rental but that's the life of a GM, you have to gamble, and you don't always win, but you DO make sure you're not going to bust in the process. Secondly because its a business, players are contracted workers, if there is a more promising opportunity somewhere then else don't expect them to stick around for better or worse like Pitt did with Hossa, they're your employee not your spouse. Kenny is probably one of the smartest GM's in sports and he knew damn well that Schneider and Bertuzzi would test free agency and he had a plan B waiting. This is where the difference comes in between those occurances to us and the ones this offseason to Pittsburgh, their GM didn't plan nearly as well for the future, they've lost so many this summer already its like sars spread through the locker room. They got Malkin and Orpik back but they should have seen these problems coming and perhaps done as we did and passed on Marian at the deadline instead of trading tons of talent to rent him, instead they had to hope he would take their offer or pray that they can pick up Jagr because otherwise barring an amazing trade they aren't going to be able to fill the hole Marian left.

Doubt it, our success and big signings will probably yield less actual attendance than ever. As long as this team does well (imho) ticket prices aren't really going to move too much, hell they could probably raise them and still "sell" every seat. Having said that, the problem isn't that weren't not selling out, the problem is getting all of the people that bought the tickets to show up. With all of the corporate accounts and online ticket brokers pony'ing up to buy season packages now think how many more will keep hopping on the bandwagon to make a buck. Example: I got free tickets to a game in the Dallas series from a friend's business, he said his boss walked into his office and plopped 4 tickets on his desk and told him to have a good time because he didn't have any clients in town to give them to so he had no use for them. So with people like that holding season tickets its no surprise to me why there are some vacant seats. They should just start making people take blood oaths before they sell them season packages. That ought to weed out the weak links! Here sir *hands them a paring knife* now if you could just remove the tip of any finger you please and kindly write "Steve Yzerman rules me" 20 times on the corresponding lines we'll get that ticket package finalized and you'll be all set.

Quote from Kenny's interview for Red Wings T.V. "I've got some cap space now, you know, I'm talking short term, long term with Val Filppula, you know, prepared to go either way. And obviously long term higher cap number, short term lower cap number, so there's some things that need to be done (referring to free agent signings) but eh, as far as any major signing news we're done for the summer." Hope that helps

The memories, everything else is nice but those can't be ruined or tarnished

Future HHOF'er end of discussion.

Well TSN signed a 6 year deal with the NHL recently, yes I know it's TSN which is obviously Canadian and their broadcast market has no boundaries on hockey fans, but TSN is partly owned by ESPN so for the sake of this conversation its at least worth mentioning.

ha ha ha Get it done Kenny! Seriously though, not much, I think Stuart is worthy of a fair offer, he scared the crap out of me at times, but he also had some timely assists, at least one timely goal, and a finals rating of +15. Other than that just off the top of my head if Drake retires I don't know where we'll find that dedicated of help in the grit department for that bargain basement price. And if he does decide to play another year I'd also imagine he'd like to at least move up to the Big Lot's price department from the Dollar Tree deal he signed this year.

The trade deadline is one of the most entertaining times to read hockey message boards. That time of year the armchair GM in all of us comes out, but a guy like Kenny is obviously a professional that has a serious knack for his line of work. It really reminds me of some freakish x-men like ability, or how some slightly autistic people who aren't burdened with any handicaps from the condition, but they can do a twelve part trigonometry equation in their head in ten seconds or less. Some people just know what the hell they are doing, after being a Wings fan for so long I've just learned to trust him. While most of the GM's around the league are getting out their magic eight balls, or shooting for the obvious big name high stakes trade at the deadline, there is Kenny quietly picking the diamonds out of the rough, all the while being criticized by everyone from the media to his own fans. Then three months later he is usually sitting there wearing a grin, and sometimes a shiny new ring, looking pretty damn smart.