VM1138

I see the Parise situation playing out like the Hossa one. We try to get him at the trade deadline but the price is too high, so we make a big push for him in the off-season and pick him up via free agency. That has risks, though. What if Parise likes the team he's traded to? At any rate, Parise is probably the biggest name on the market next year so it's going to be tough to get him.

Franzen is on pace for a career year. Let's hope he can keep it up and in 70-80 point range!

Eeeeexactly. I hate when people say it's blind hatred. The guy is a total tool. I think NHL fans have made themselves quite clear in their Crosby-hate. He is popular, but mostly among Pittsburgh fans (a large demographic) and casual NHL fans who don't really follow the sport. And it's not just that teams only like their players. Ovechkin is hugely popular, as is Ryan Miller, and both are among the best. The NHL did market Ovie for a while, but it seems most of the press he gets is of his own making (endorsements, etc.) or if he's playing Crosby. The sheer circle jerk for Crosby makes it worse. The guy is good, but he gets 10x the coverage and he's not 10x as good as the other superstars. It just makes us fans feel that he doesn't deserve it, and we see all these guys that do not get any attention.

Ericsson you SOB if they score on this...

I was so confused. The feed went out, then came back but with no audio, and everyone was skating off the ice. Power outage makes sense.

I love that they were clever enough to have all the Canadian officials and players represented by Canadian South Park characters.

Paul Woods drives me effing insane. Ken Kal is great to listen to but Paul Woods talks so strangely it's hard to follow what he's saying. All the "ahs" he throws after every other word really break up his sentences to the point of gibberish. Larry Murphy is really starting to get on my nerves, too. I hope he's not going to replace Mickey, and finds a job somewhere else. The guy sounds drunk all the time and his sentences just meander--the worst thing a radio or TV personality can do. EDIT: Whatever happened to McCarty's attempts? He wasn't bad, and I bet he'd be better doing color commentary with Ken Daniels than sitting around a desk giving analysis.

You would really give up a 1st round pick for a guy who will probably retire next year? EDIT: Not that I wouldn't want Selanne, but let's be real here, you don't trade guys with many years left in them for someone probably in their last.

I think it's more that Getzlaf-Perry-Ryan are the only ones on the Ducks who ever score against the Wings than that they dominate the Wings.

Crosby is just an unlikable guy. At any rate, I guess this means the Thanksgiving Wings-Boston game will just be a Crosby fest even though Pittsburgh won't be playing. Being on NBC and all. Amen. He doesn't dominate or represent the sport the way someone like LeBron (like it or not) represents the NBA. He is a world-class player, but he's playing during a time that there are several candidates just as good as him. The point is there was no debating Gretzky was the best of his time, yet people argue all the time that certain players are better than Crosby. He's just another superstar to most fans.

Lidstrom-White Kronwall-Ericsson Stuart-Smith Kindl Would much rather have Kindl in over E but we know that won't happen. Those matchups look promising to me. Offense and defensive mixes in the pairings, give them fairly even ice time like last year and you've got a winning combination, I think.

I'm not so sure Smith can benefit from playing lots of minutes in GR. What more does he have to learn there? I don't see what would hurt him about getting 13-15 minutes of ice time every night at the NHL level. He needs to learn from Lidstrom before he's gone, and Kronwall could teach him a lot, too. Smith looks supremely confident out there when he's moving around, you don't want to lose that by forcing him to finish the season in GR. He's proven he can hang at the NHL level, let him stay.

At least not til he's 38.

I think they're prepping the team for some changes, if Holland can work them out. Plans change, and he probably wants to make a few players feel like they're exposed to trade to light a fire under their asses. I saw Babs and Lidstrom talking at the end of the 2nd period. I don't want to project my thoughts onto them, but they looked angry and a little bewildered. Seemed very serious, and I don't think I've seen that before. Something serious is going to happen relatively soon. And I get so damn tired about hearing the toughness argument. We're not getting dominated physically. An enforcer will not help us win games. We need to f****** score.

There was one point where a Shark was right on him as he was behind Howard against the boards. Time was running out fast, the pressure was on, Smith had almost no support, and he made a really brilliant pass behind him right to a Detroit player. I've seen countless players screw that play up and end up turning over the puck right next to the net, but he made the right play without hesitating a single second. He sees the ice well, and has confidence. For his first NHL game he did brilliant, I hope he stays up all year.

For Christ's sake, what do you want him to do? Parise is playing out of his mind, do you think New Jersey is going to part with him right now? In the off-season there was nobody of any value. Holland is a great GM but he can only do so much if no one wants to do business with him. This season is so crazy and all over the place. I'm tired of losing to San Jose. They are the one team that just has their way with Detroit over and over. I turned off the game. First game I haven't finished watching because of anger in years. Total garbage. The Wings dominate, yet San Jose still trounces them. it's the same old story. Wings spend 10 minutes in San Jose's zone, San Jose breaks out, scores. Wings go right back, spending 10 minutes in San Jose's zone, SJ breaks out, scores. Rinse, repeat. Terrible luck against San Jose. I'll say it again, the Wings will make a move at the deadline, but don't get all over Holland because he's not doing something right now. He can't.

This happens when we play San Jose especially, it bugs the crap out of me. No matter how good the Wings play, San Jose always evens it. So damn frustrating. On the plus side, Smith looks awesome out there. Looks confident. And Brunnstrom looks confident and aggressive, too. I also like how Kronwall has been stepping into people a lot more than usual lately. Set the tone. Abdelkader impressed playing with Datsyuk, too.

I don't hate the Sharks more than I hated the Avs or Anaheim, but they're beginning to really annoy me, for sure. I guess I don't hate them because they don't really take all that many liberties recently with our team that I can think of. But I would be positively ecstatic should the Wings beat them into the dirt. My most hated: Pittsburgh Anaheim After that, nobody really. The Sharks are a rival, but not an arch-rival yet. And Chicago hasn't been a direct threat to the Wings yet in the playoffs or in any significant games to really hate them. I know I should, and out of respect for history I can never root for them, but I don't hate them yet.

I guess no one is bitching about Homer because he's not really doing anything wrong. 5 points seems pretty reasonable. Sure, he's put up better, but he's not a kid anymore, he's not hogging up cap space, he's not being forced into positions he can't play. When he does play he's still effective. Not as effective in front of the net anymore because of the refs, but he's not hurting the team any. Bertuzzi started off great and only drifted off when the team took a leap off the diving board into the deep end of the pool.

For pride and confidence in themselves, please beat the Sharks. I can only imagine how it's going to start affecting the team if they start thinking of the Sharks as unbeatable. Trounce them! 7-1 final. Datsyuk with four points.

I don't think he needs new linemates. Certainly they would help, better linemates would help any player. But being a star, he can dominate a game by himself. He'll get there. We all know he will. We just have to wait, unfortunately. It'll happen for him, probably once he stops worrying about it. Stop thinking, and just school your opponents again, Dats!

Homer has been playing well thus far. I don't know about stats but he's looked good. Helm and Datsyuk don't play together because Helm centers his own line. It'd be nice to see for sure, though, but it would pull apart one of the few things that consistently goes right for this team, the third line. But I don't see this movement working. It's Babs' team, and if he went with this he'd be publicly admitting he didn't think of something so obvious, and if it worked and Eaves did great his reputation might take a hit. Career-wise, he can't let the mob dictate to him. I wish he'd do it, though, Eaves has a monster shot, and he never gets a chance to use it.

Two or three sounds about right. It was a dangerous hit, but I don't think there was an intent to break his neck or anything. Just a bit reckless, as pissed off as it made me during the game.

This just screams fixing something that's not broken. The trap may be difficult to play against, but it's not fool-proof, and I don't even know if it's statistically any more successful than any other style of play. Only a few teams in the league do it. I feel that any fix is only going to ruin the game in some other aspect. The owners will feel the bite if fans don't like it and stop going to games, no need to make any rule changes. Like people have said, Philly had an obligation to at least try. It's all about good faith, the whole point of the game is to try to score. It'd be easy to win if you just lined all your players up and stacked them in front of the net with the goalie, but teams don't do that because it defeats the purpose of the game.

Cleary has been frustrating, for sure. Last year he was about to break out into a team leader in scoring, then his injury happened, and when he came back he was never the same. It just seems that sometimes the team lacks that killer scoring intellect, though tonight St. Louis did an amazing job at blocking shots. I really wasn't all that frustrated with Franzen, he did some good things out there. But the powerplay meltdown was embarrassing. It's been weak all year it seems. We really miss Rafalski out there. All in all, a frustrating loss, but nothing to freak out over. It was a 2-1 defensive battle and sometimes you come out on the losing end.