lomekian

The great thing is that for teh first time in as long as i can remember is that its the best of East & West and two potentially very evenly matched teams with vry little experience of playing each other. I'd call in Wings in 7, but only because dats and zetts are both scoring a lot away from the Joe at the moment, and that could be key. SO many questions and intangeables, but as with many, I think the outcome is largely dependent on the Mule returning or not. Of course any injuries over the series completley changes he dynamic. I think if Franzen comes back we will be so defensively strong the pens could be strangled into making mistakes and playing into Detroit's transition game - much as with the conference finals, the first goal in each game is big.....

TO be fair the old Welsh male Voice Choir could make anything sound rousing....witness Bread of Heaven at the rugby...spine shivers all the way.....mind you an old irish whistle on its own is surprisingly potent...over in England there is agrowing campaign for a change of anthem given the new found irrelevence of the current one....Send her victorious? Why? and at what? etc....

TO be honest its still a whole lot better than the English national anthem that i'm stuck with...'God save the Queen' - compare that to the unofficial anthems of Scotland (Flower of Scotland) and Wales whcih are vastly superior. What I can't understand from an overseas perspective is the relationship that you guys have with your anthem...all the hats off, and on heart bit...national pride is all good, but for me it borders on reverence, which is slightly alien to us in Europe. But then we tend to be more cynical and I guess our fractious history makes us more wary of the way that national symbols can be abused, hence the reason we give them less value on the whole. England is particularly this way, and our loss of a clear cultural idendity makes it all a bit embarrassing. But I imagine the same would happen in the US if you had 100 years of watching all your glory, power and sense of improtance slowly ebb away.... As for the Stars - I'll already commetned on how I don't like them, but big respect to the likes of Morrow, Lundqvist and winchester who really stepped up. Sad to see Modano on the wane, but glad to see the back of the likes of Turco, Ott and Ribero whose contribution seemed intrinsically linked to their ability to be arseholes. And to be fair to Dallas fans, If we had lost I'd be chanting for the PEns too...I just quite like them as a team and a hockey cleub...

No point bashing Sammy too much...everyon knows he's a 3rd line player playing on the second line because the roster isn't totall balanced. If grigs had tunred up like he was before the accident or if the jackets had been willing to give us feds for as little as the caps, it wouldn't be an issue. Thought flip played pretty well tonight...cleary was in and out, but was very close to scoring twice. Ralf seemed a little off, and I think Stuart gould have imposed himself more. Cheli was gritty but slow as we know, and ledbda still offers little beyond decent passing and great speed. helm looked lively, and huds was impressive again...d-mac a little off the pace, and ZDH were inches from being at their dominant best. Malts and Drapes were good again, but would benefit from someone with more offence than Drake....mybe sammy next year to keep them company? If Franzen was fit we win tonight, as his size around the net was missed...

Ott is such a *****.. if he tried that s*** in girls hockey he'd soon find himself with shattered cheekbone. having said that my girlfriend could kick his arse with pretty much any weapon of choice......and even i could f*** him up in sword fight! Quite how anyone can believe in a benvolent deity when he's a millionaire and thousands of poor kids in china get killed by an earthquake. Not to mention that dropsy faced f***** ribero. I have a funny relationship with Dallas - i like players like Modano, Lehtonen, Grossman, Barnes, Richards and even Morrow and Norstrom, (and previosuly Turgeon, Hull and a few others) but I've always hated them as a team and wanted them to lose. I even used to shout for the Avs ahead of them because they used to play a more creative game. I shall mightily enjoy them getting violated by the wings, hopefully this weekend. Pig screwing, bandy legged, inbred, small minded s***-eaters that they are! Its amazing that a sports team can make me hate a place I've never been to, but I guess the old phrase about steers and queers may have had something in it....only most *** men I know are far too good looking and sophisticated to set foot in Texas

Lets hope we can snuff out the momentum gained by that bulls*** call in period 1 on saturday. The fact that Modano got the GW (ands a good one too in all hinesty) makes it slightly easier to bear - one of about 3 stars players with any class, and Lehtonen is injured. I would love a nice big in and D-mac breaking Otts nose with a haymaker or 2. Stars defence played pretty well, and while the media will **** all over turco getting the win, he was bailed out several times by Norstrom alone.

HA BLOODY HA

At least TSN have covered that exactly correctly..blatant goal, ref called because he was looking for it and the league has no excuse to not use video refs on such a call. Can't argue....it is interesting how so many major sports are fighting off the use of video evidence when stop start sports like NFL and free flowing sports like Rugby have proved that if done correctly it improves the game...... Maybe the powers that be at NHL and FIfa etc are worried that it would limit their capacity fo rbias and corruption.?

From a wings perspective I'd prefer to play philly as I thik they are for the taking despite their toughness, but from a spectator perspective, wings vs pens has got to be the best possible outcome. youth vs experience attacking superstars vs league's best defense European Superstars on both teams and the great canadian hope I also think it would be a tight series which I would back the wings to win in 6 or 7. Mind you need 3 more wins between us, so despite the seeming inevitabilit yof it lets wait and see

Take that turco you cheating prize *****! Sweet! One more Goal and then D-mac retailiation time maybe?

Ozzie was hit on join of chest and upper ribs. He sold it, but it'll ache a bit in the morning. Stupid thing to do, and in my mind warranting of a 1-2 game suspension becasue it was after the buzzer and there is always a small element of risk that you could really injure someone doing that, even though it wasn;t done that violently. Shame Ott got 10 mins and not a anything more - not only has he been good for the stars, but trying to sucker punch draper from behind afer having knocked his helment off is in my mind worthy of further disciplinary action. If he'd caught him as he intended, draper could have been pretty badly hurt. Not to mention Turco slashing and tripping at every opportunity. Despite his good run vs the ducks and sharks, you can't polish a turd.. Nice to see the Stars reverting to their scumbag ways of circa 2000. Scum that they are.

Good show from the second line tonight - 1st line created planety but couldn't finish, but flip mule and sammy all looked on it tonight. Though D-mac was pretty good in his limited role too, and Kronner was great at both ends of the ice. Ralf didn;t look too convincing though...

And what, maybe 2 athlete's based outside the USA...typical small miinded Sports Illustrated bulls***...you want tough, how about rugby ....running off to get 20 stitches so they can run on again to get beat up more. (Not to mention Samoans, Maoris etc) How about Joe Calzaghi....world champion for over 10 years, everyone scared to fight him, and defended his title against Jim Lacey with a broken hand from before the fight. Or the german goalkeeper who had his neck broken in the cup final and didn't even notice..... Tiger Woods My arse!

Very smart from hank.....not only did he win the chase for his own dump in (beating the bjs defnce and leclaire to the puck) and took his only option, banking it in of leclaire's legs, he also saw leclaire was wise to it and was going to jump over it, and so fired it a foot off the floor so it went in of leclaire's calf muscle...talk about adding injury to insult....

I think the wings will be fine. The cap rising is in our favour. We seem to have a very settled nucleus of players and staff, and have become a very attractive option to Free Agents - examples of Cheli & Hasek extending hteir careers, and cleary, samuelson and even lilja re-invigorating theirs stands us in good stead. We draft well, trade pretty well, and won't be held to ransom. When Osgood, Hasek, Lidsm, Cheli and dare i say it drake, drapes and malts have gone in the next 2 or 3 the team won't be as strong, but we have some decent prospects lined up for some of those roles, and can strengthen through FA. I think we'll be good for another 5 years of playoffs at the worst. As for Feds - he was screwed around a bit, but it was probably for the best (unless we could have traded him). The CBA would have made the original contract offer difficult to bear, and there's no way he'd say $32m for 4 years, make it $32m for 5. That's not plausible! As it happened his play has dropped off sufficiently to make the bullit of his contract a good one to dodge in all fairness. Another example of Kenny Gambling, and its turned out ok in the end. At the time I wouldn't ahve done it, but there's a reason he's GM and me and everyone else on here isn't!

10-15 games max - chris simon had no mitigation whereas pronger can with some justifcation that he was trying to free himself and was just careless. the 10 sounds pretty likely

Being English and mixed race, the NHL followed after Football (and not NFL), cricket and rugby, but discoverd ice hockey thanks to EA hockey on my mates megadrive and then saw the canadiens beat the nordiques in about '94 in Quebec. Picked Detroit because 1) Red uniform - like the mighty arsenal 2) Well balanced on the NHL games - some great players and some dross 3) Stevie was my fave player on the game, so I stated finding out more, and turned out he was a legend in real life, and embodied so many admirable qualities So since 94/5 all down to Stevie - looks like a picked a good time to start following hockey, and its all been gravy since! HJave been a hardore fan since the internet grew so approx 99 - disppointing playoffs! Now am unhealthily obsessed - and no one over here to talk to about it!

My favourite Pronger Moment is when he broke himslef trying to take out stevie - that was sweet ...I would love it if he screwed the other knee making an ill advised run at some peewee like huds in the playoffs.... AS for retaliation, how many real heavyweights out there could fit into the puck posession style without costing a packet? Regarding Phaneuf - its not to late to stop him turning into pronger mark II - a nice contract dispute followed by a trade to the wings would work for me - get him into a classy organisation, and he might play with greater discipline

I think the qaulifying offer is the best route to go, and is more likely to have a positve outcome than him staying here...... 3 things are obvious......a)he has talent, and his hands and hockey sense have been commented on for years b) He'll never be the player he was before the accident c) He is currently too slow and unfit for the new NHL, and possibly even scoring lines in the old nhl..... I still have hope though....lets not forget that this guy was a possible 1st liner before his accident, so if he gets his head together and decides he wants it, he could still be a second line winger next year....hopefully the experience will encourage him to reassess his game. He presumably assumed what worked in Russia would work over i detroit, but the game is very different. He'll never be a speedster, and would have assumed that as this hadn't hindered him in Russia, it wouldn't be an issue here. As the top brass have said, he's good enough on every other level, and with still has a fairly high upside. If he does come back, it means we've had a year to experiment with huddles, kopecky and ellis in larger roles, which is probably good for a wings team deep enough to do well in the regular season. If he doesn't come back, its a real shame, because he's not far away from being a player the wings could really use. Bet Kenny wishes he'd brought him over the year after he was drafted, because THAT grigs was a better player.

Re 1- the ducks were the best team built for playoff hockey in the NHL last year..pure and simple...size, grit, spread of goalscoring, great defense, very good goaltending and a few players sensing it may be their last shot, and quite a few with a lot of playoff experience. 2 -Injuries to wings d, and a few players not fully fit in the playoffs...prob only about 1/2 were at their best in tersm of fitness and niggling injuries 3 - the ducks seige mentality after pronger's suspensions served to strengthen not weaken them 4 - Our covering players we'ren't up to it.....Lilja had a good play offs, but will always have the potential to bea liability, and missing schneids was a big blow 5 - Dom is, was last year, and always has been a better goaltender than Ozzie. Yes his style is unconventional and sometimes backfires, and he is getting older and less agile, but I bet his save % and gaa will be better than Ozzie come the end of the season. Ozzie's a good second or 3rd tier starter or a 1st tier backup and seems happy in his role, and he's a steady eddie for the msot part, but will never steal games like Hasek and doesn't have the same mental strengh bloody mindedness and psychological impact as a fit DOm.......that said, I'd be amazed if this isn't hasek's last year, as he is slowing a little, and I think the wings will look to test Howard at least as backup in 08/09

1st post after reading for years..... THe wings were unlucky against the ducks, and were far more effective than ottowa have been so far, showing more balls and being more aggressive in all areas....BUT the ducks have been very impressive this year and playoffs, so there is no shame in losing to them. Lets face it, this is by far the best playoff performance by the wings since 02, so babs has done his job....sadly jiggy did us again, but its a shame we didn't got hrough as Wings vs Sens would have been a great potntially high scoring series. Still - we showed we have the squad to compete, and who can argue that out of the pre-cap powers the wings have been by far the most successful in adjusting...continuing to re-load rather than re-build. If we can get a quality scoring winger to replace the departing lang, and keep most of the rest together we'll be good for next year too. It says somehting when the team does as well in realitiy as I do with them on Eastside hockey Manager or NHL 07! A couple of good UFA signings and we'll be in great shape. PS...nice to see Alfredsson doing the same as usual ...looking great when the team is on top and then going quiet when things are going badly....surely one of the oddest choices for captain in the NHL......great player but not clutch enough..was at fault for the game winner in 2

When you almost fail your degree due to Wings matches only being on at 3 in the moning in your native country When you get moist eyed at the thoughts of Stevie Y Your STILL pissed at feds for leaving despite everything he acheived, his enormous salary and the relative disappointment of his time at eh ducks and jackets When Playing Eastside Hockey Manager you always draft at least one overage Swede or Russian just because.. You get excited whenever you meet another ice hockey fan in London, only to find out they support the avs or Stars and then conversation rapidly dries up...