VM1138

I don't think we'll see an Original 6 matchup in the finals for decades. As for the Capitals...I'm not sure they have everything in place yet but it's certainly possible. I'm betting some random team out of the East will make it. THere are very few consistent teams there.

Just updating with info from another thread. The defensive pairings to start the season will in fact be: Lidstrom-Ericsson Stuart-Rafalski Kronwall-Salei

It will be weird seeing Maltby wearing a Griffins jersey.

Look at it this way guys, Kronwall-Salei is going to be freaking murder. Like people have said, we have to stop looking at this like it's a traditional lineup. There are three pairings of equal depth and talent (actually, the bottom two have much better balances) that will get almost identical playing time. It's also early in the season, which is when you want to be experimenting with lines. It makes sense for many reasons already articulated. Again, time on ice will be virtually identical. Just look at those pairs. Other than Lidstrom being a god on skates, they're all about the same skill level. As for egos, you could shuffle those lines and say either one of them can be top pairing. So I don't think ego will really come into play here. I know if I were a player and I'd be getting the same minutes (or more) as before I wouldn't really care which line I was penciled onto on paper.

You can never have too many PKers. Simply put, Ritola was replaceable. The praise he gets is that basically he doesn't suck. But he'll never be great, and probably will never be good. It was a depth move on the part of Yzerman and it wasn't a great loss for us. As for keeping Miller for one year instead of Ritola for many, why would we want Ritola for many? Our forward spots are locked up for a few years and we have tons of great prospects that easily top out anything Ritola could do about to come up in a year or two.

I don't really want Illitch to be anymore distracted than he already is. I guess having a cap means he doesn't have to invest as much in the Wings to ice a good team, though so maybe it won't matter? I really hope they name something in Detroit after Illitch, the guy is singlehandedly resurrecting it's sports culture.

I know Ritola excited some people but in my understanding he was never called a high end prospect. If he'll just be a bottom 2 lines player losing him won't be a huge loss. That being said I'd still rather keep him, you never know what he could turn into. But with Smith, Nyquist, Tatar, and all the kids we drafted this year, Ritola is a bit lower on my list of "prospects I'm excited for."

It's obviously going to be Maltby put on waivers. Odds are no one will pick him up. So he's extremely low risk. Why lose one when you can lose none?

Campbell is a terrible player who adds nothing to their team. Him being out hurts the Hawks how?

Good thing you're so good at catching exaggeration. In hockey, his career will long be over by the end of the contract. Thus the comparison to 123. If I kept with the 11 years for a regular person in a job, it wouldn't have made sense.

I understand wanting the most you can get, but none of us would walk into negotiations for any job and demand a billion dollars over 123 years and expect to be taken seriously.

coughMCCRIMMONcough.

A lot of people here appreciate Maltby, like myself. The team just had too many players. Maltby can still hang in the NHL, but he would've needed to go to a different team to really have a shot.

This is why I've liked wood sticks when I've played. Composites just cost too much for how weak they are. I'll take a little slower handling and a heavier stick over wasting money any day of the week. EDIT: Unless of course I was a pro player who could obviously afford to replace them all the time.

He's looked great for years. And each year was going to be "His year." You can look great without being great. I think people need to accept he's never going to have a breakout year and will never be anything more than a decent 2nd line center.

Sometimes I think athletes live in a fantasy land where reality has no meaning.

Questions don't become answers. Questions get answers.

Glad he's doing well, wish he could've stayed a Wing but it just wasn't in the cards.

Honestly, most sports related things lack any sort of real insight. There's simply no way, on their tight schedules, sports writers can really get to know their subject teams. They can only touch on the obvious, superficial stuff. And since journalism is dead, there's no one to teach them how to do research.

Exactly. I'm not sure pairing him with Lidstrom will help him any. It will inevitably make Ericsson look better but when Lidstrom retires we'll have an over-hyped Ericsson who comes crashing down to reality. Better to stick him with Salei or at best Stuart or Kronwall, someone who plays a style we want Ericsson to learn to play.

You think they'd try and take their time to make sure there weren't any mistakes, but they seem to misspell names all the time.

EDIT: Nevermind.

I always liked him, but once he went East he fell off the radar for me. I only heard bits and pieces here and there about him. 34 seems too young to retire, but if his talent dropped off that bad what other choice did he have? I remember him and Duchesne, liked both of them, though I was younger then and less critical so I might have rose-colored glasses on that score. Good luck to you, Dandy.

Seriously, it's not like these are great battles between Ovechkin and Crosby. Sure, they're in the same game but usually one of them is on their game and the other is off. I'd rather start hyping up some other rivalries.

There are so many players talented like Crosby. He's a great player but not the best and I know many people would argue he's not second best. I agree with a previous statement that the NHL should market commercials toward particular regions. Frankly, how can they not get excited about guys like Ryan Miller, Toews, Datsyuk, etc.