55fan

Dear Lions,
Thank you for beating the Vikings.  My Vikings-fan friend and I had a pride bet. 
Had the Lions lost, I would have had to say, "May the Force be with you" to every customer the next shift I work.
Sincerely, Lions fan in Vikings territory

My theory on the Last Jedi (possible spoilers)
Force Awakens was the setup to the new sequel trilogy, much like New Hope was the setup to the original Star Wars. And much like in the 2nd film Empire Strikes Back, the 2nd film The Last Jedi will have a shocking twisting akin to "No, I am your father".
Lucasfilms has even already promised a "shocking revelation of the past" in The Last Jedi.
A lot of people think this twist will be finding out who Snoke is... I think that's too simple and certainly not twisty enough, but we have to answer who Snoke is regardless. To do that I think you have look back at Vader, the original unknown Sith.
George Lucas's biggest clue that Vader was Luke's father was in the name Vader, which is basically a foreign spelling of the word father.
Looking at the name snoke critically, it looks like an obvious combination of the words Smoke and Snake. Smoke as in a smoke screen or distraction, and snake as in lies or deceit.
A snoek is also a type of fish... But not just any fish. A snoek is a herring. Like a red herring argument, snoke is a misleading distraction from what is actually going on.
This is why they never revealed much about the guy. He's a deliberate farce. Even the way he appears in the first movie pays homage to Wizard of Oz. He appears as a giant scary flickering hologram.... but in the end he's just that, a fake hologram, nothing more.
Once you establish that Snoke is a puppet being paraded around, the question becomes... who is the puppeteer?
We know a couple of things. Whoever is controlling Snoke has to be powerful in the force. They explain that Snoke is strong in the dark side of the force, so his master or puppeteer has to be at least equally as strong. 
From a narrative/story-telling standpoint we know it has to be an already established character that the audience actually cares about. They can't just explain a new character with a new character. In this respect they also can't just bring back a dead character. It has to be a natural continuation of the story. Saying "it was Darth Maul the whole time! He never actually died!" would just cheapen the plot.
So who is this evil dark side puppeteer that we know as a character and isn't already dead?
The first clue comes in Force Awakens: "Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence the sinister First Order has risen from the ashes of the Empire"
So the empire is defeated, the galaxy is saved, then Luke disappears and the First Order, with a powerful new baddie sith, just conveniently comes out of nowhere? There's more going on there that hasn't been explained to us. 
Also why is Snoke so willing to let the map that leads to Luke Skywalker, the most powerful man in the galaxy, be destroyed? Wouldn't he rather obtain the map for himself and use his Death Star laser on the planet Luke is living on, winning the war for himself once and for all? doesn't make sense does it.
Folks, the answer is Luke Skywalker has fallen to the darkside. The audience and the other characters in the plot just don't know it yet. 
Remember when Luke was training under master Yoda on Dagobah? Leia and Han had been captured by Vader on the cloud city. While frantically scrambling to get off Dagobah to go rescue his friends Yoda warns him not to go. That if he abandons his training now to rescue his friends he will go down the path to the darkside and it will consume his destiny. Luke foolishly doesn't listen and abandons his training. Sure enough, Luke returns to Dagobah to attempt to complete his training in Return of the Jedi, but it's too late. Yoda is kill. So now you have an extremely powerful force sensitive being, who has a history of extreme darksidedness on his fathers side, who is not trained in the ways of the jedi, heading off to kill and hopefully not be turned by the most powerful Sith Lord of all time. Yoda is an 800 year old jedi master, he doesn't just make these predictions up. In The Last Jedi we will finally see Yoda's warning come true.
We also don't know what went wrong at Luke's jedi temple. Just that something went horribly wrong and Luke took off. I would hedge my bets that he went dark, decided that Ben Solo (who shares his skywalker blood) would be his new Sith apprentice and commanded the now Kylo Ren to off the rest of the jedi students. (The Sith rule of 2 says there can only be one master and one apprentice) However he did this all through his mask: Snoke, who Kylo does not realize is Luke. This would also explain how Kylo came into possession of Vaders burned helmet. Surely an artifact that would have been in the possession of Luke. Now, Luke will try to swap out Kylo for Rey, much like how Palpatine attempted to swap out Vader for Luke.
This explains as well the title The Last Jedi. Luke was it. The last. And now he's gone. The Jedi are over.
The "no, I am your father" twist flipped the whole narrative in the originals. It was no longer about simply destroying the bad guy, it was about redeeming Anakin Skywalker and bringing him back to the light. It created a villain we cared about. We are witnessing the same with Luke. He will go from hero to anti-hero/villain, which creates a bad guy that the audience actually cares about, and our good guys will go out looking for Luke not to destroy him, but to redeem him and bring him back to the light.
Like his father before him.

That's just how wiley coyote looks after all those unfortunate anvil accidents
pretty much

I'll be your wingman, er, woman.  I'll distract Kocur.  I only ask that you buy drinks.

I'll be your wingman, er, woman.  I'll distract Kocur.  I only ask that you buy drinks.

Why do you have so much disdain for a player like Kronwall? Guy gave everything he had to this team, and his body is breaking down. I get why you may be upset with Holland for contracts, but why do you want the guy "to rot" you make it sound like he did something wrong and deserves to be punished.

Might be one of your best posts I've seen. Solid points here.
1. People don't know Daley, are looking at his age (forgetting defenseman age is not equivalent to offense players) and judging.
2. Daley is easily our second best defenseman after Green.
3. He can play on all ends of the ice, and can play big minutes, including PK, PP (has a hell of a shot). 
4. Great puck moving defenseman
5. He's better than all of our young defenseman
6. Our "young" defenseman aren't that good, nor will they be. Sproul, XO are plugs (sorry guys I know some of ya'll are in denial but they aren't that good). Jensen is the only one with true potential without having major shortcomings on defense (which is the recipe for being an NHL defender). 
7. The young defenseman that COULD be good are still 2 years (probably more)  away (Saarijarvi, Cholowski, Hronek). Hicketts maybe 1-2 years. 
And the best point of all.
8. NHL is NOT a development league. If you're not already developed into an NHL ready player, then spend some more time in the minors. 

I see a lot of people making this argument. Frankly, I don't think it's much of an argument.
Hicketts, 21, could use another year in the AHL. Saarijarvi, 20, is at least two years away. Cholowski, 19, is at least two years away. Hronek, 19, is at least two years away. Sambrook, 19, is at least two years away.  Mcllrath, 25, is not a high-end defenseman. Sulak, 23, was a no-risk signing who may or may not have what it takes to play in the NHL.
Ouellet and Jensen haven't been hugely impressive; at this point, they're serviceable middle-pairing defensemen, and that's probably all they'll ever be. Russo didn't really impress me in his stint with the Wings; I don't think he fits into our long-term plans. If we're being honest about Sproul, he's not likely to become much more than what he appears to be at this stage, which is a bottom-pairing power play specialist whose natural gifts don't outweigh his shortcomings. At this point, we could lose Sproul and Russo and Ouellet/Jensen for free and replace them with veterans and I honestly wouldn't care all that much. I don't see any of these players as true building blocks.
And, to me, that's what this comes down to. Basically, our D group is bad. Daley makes it a little more competent (at least until Green's gone) -- and a slightly deeper, slightly more capable D group is a good thing for everyone.
People say we need to develop our youth. Well, the NHL isn't really a development league -- but even if that weren't the case, "development" means more than just having a player on the roster and giving him ice time "because we have no one else to give these minutes to." Daley will be eating some minutes that could otherwise be going to Ouellet or Jensen, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The benefits of Daley's presence will outweigh it. A top three of Green, Daley, DeKeyser is better than a top three of Green, DeKeyser, Ouellet/Jensen/Ericsson. Having Daley run our first/second power play unit is better than having Kronwall run it. Having someone who can move the puck like Daley is a good thing.
I think a lot of people are unfamiliar with Daley and are looking at his age and assuming the worst. But he's actually a perfectly competent top-four defenseman who can 1) play big minutes without getting caved-the-f***-in (see: DeKeyser), 2) outskate all of our defensemen not named Jensen (and possibly even Jensen), and 3) manufacture offense more expertly and reliably than all of our defensemen not named Green.
He's our second-best defenseman. He's a solid stopgap for a team that otherwise has exactly one proven high-end NHL defenseman on its organizational depth chart (Green) and is years away from being a contender. Personally, I'm happy to have him on board. I don't think adding him hurts our youth. If anything, I think it'll help our youth.

I'm so excited!  He was captain of the Force (my local USHL team) and he is quite the fighter and all around good guy.
He was a d-man here, but was offensively capable.
Good Michigan boy.   I always hoped he'd play for us.

I was hoping we'd get him.  One of the few reasons I didn't throw things when Pissburgh won again.  (Cullen being the other.)
Reasonable contract, I'd say, all things considered.  We've been begging Holland to give us help on the D and he did.
Witkowski will be playing F, but can play D if needed when/if injuries arise.

Always good to have a player who can play both F and D in case of injuries.  Just ask Meech.

I'm so excited!  He was captain of the Force (my local USHL team) and he is quite the fighter and all around good guy.
He was a d-man here, but was offensively capable.
Good Michigan boy.   I always hoped he'd play for us.

Me too.  Just because he's Jagr.

http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/daley-will-make-re-building-red-wings-better-on-and-off-the-ice

I'm so excited!  He was captain of the Force (my local USHL team) and he is quite the fighter and all around good guy.
He was a d-man here, but was offensively capable.
Good Michigan boy.   I always hoped he'd play for us.

I was hoping we'd get him.  One of the few reasons I didn't throw things when Pissburgh won again.  (Cullen being the other.)
Reasonable contract, I'd say, all things considered.  We've been begging Holland to give us help on the D and he did.
Witkowski will be playing F, but can play D if needed when/if injuries arise.

I have not.  I'm not a fan of tea.  I have watched the Facts. video where they try it.
The person below me has a crafting hobby and will now tell us about it.  (If you know anything about people with crafting hobbies, you know the last part of that sentence was unnecessary.)

They need to fill an AHL team, too

Sent from my LGLS676 using Tapatalk

Probably the greatest day in Red Wings history.  
 
 

Interesting bit of trivia:
This is the first Stanley Cup Finals where both teams' jerseys are the colour of the first letter of the team nickname.

I really hope they don't. That would just open old wounds that haven't and may never fully heal from 2009. That loss was on the Wings, they had it in the bag and collapsed, but that doesn't help things. Having them be the last team to repeat... WHY THEM?? The repeat in '97-'98 is one of the major things we have left from the dynasty days and Stevie era. 

I wish their fans would stop chanting stupid things like they did 10 years ago.  They should have grown out of the stereotype of the unknowledgeable, hick fanbase by now.  

Preds lead 2-0 after 20 mins.
I'm torn. On the one hand, f*** the Ducks. On the other hand, the Ducks might be the tougher opponent for the Pens -- and the most important thing in all this is that the Pens do not repeat.
Ah screw it. Go Preds!

I can understand going with Murray, but Fleury got them this far.  I would have given him another chance.  Bad periods can happen to anyone at any time.  I fear the Pens will come roaring back to prove themselves after the last game.  No matter who is in goal, Ottawa will have a fight on their hands.