VM1138

I'm not a prejudiced person generally, but what is wrong with French people? Whether you are in French Canada or France, it's like you're automatically programmed to riot.

Hire Pierre, hire Pierre, hire Pierre, hire Pierre. Please?

Oh, everyone with common sense knew his great performance in the 1st round was because they played an AHL level team. Now he's back "among" the best, not "the greatest human being ever born." And I for one am glad the Pens are out.

I really see no reason for this move in the off-season. This team can do just fine in the regular season, so I say he sticks with what we have (unless he can find an impact forward) and wait until the trade deadline to see what the teams' situation is then.

Oh man, if Montreal wins this year will be a little less painful. What will the league do if the Pens lose? It'll be harder for them to declare the Wings dead and the Penguins the greatest dynasty of all time if they both go out in the same round!

He took a paycut in '01 to sign Hasek, Hull and Robitaille, didn't he? I wonder why he'd suddenly decide not to take a cut in his final year?

Yeah, it's a room issue. We'd like to have Maltby back, but there's no point right now. When he was injured the team didn't even miss his presence. I love Malts as a player, but there's just no room or need for him right now.

Wonder how long they're going to give Phoenix? It seems that despite being "move in ready" Winnipeg would still need time to design and create uniforms, and come up with a new name and do promotions. That is, I'm assuming they would change the team name. EDIT: Let's say the league did contract, what happens to those players? With the cap world, a lot of them would go unclaimed it seems. Poor players. But I agree with what was said about taking half the US teams away and expecting it to flourish. The idea isn't to get rid of every team in a market that isn't hockey friendly, just some. For instance, get rid of the Florida Panthers but keep Tampa Bay. Keep LA and San Jose but get rid of Anaheim (hey, we can dream, right?)

I'm not ignoring reality. Flip is a very good player, but he doesn't provide what we need. We need scoring, and since he's good, we could get a good scorer for him. Flip will never be better than he is now, and while he can get points, he just isn't a consistently impressive player. He's a 2nd and 3rd line tweener. But again, he's good, but that just means we can get something good for him. He's just not what we need right now, we need someone with a nose for the net.

They said that last year and we lost half our team. It's just to keep everyone guessing. It's harder to get the players you want if the league knows you're competing for them. I don't expect anything major, but already we have Williams for sure gone, Maltby being forced out to play for another team (not official yet but Maltby doesn't think his odds are good it hear it sounds like). On top of that I fully expect them to sign a power forward scorer (if any are available) to add depth. If Lidstrom returns we're set on D. We can't make any improvements without losing Rafalski, Lidstrom, Kronwall, or Stuart, none of which are going anywhere. Meech and Lebda will be gone, for sure. So yeah, there will be changes, just not a firesale. EDIT: And Flip has been "at that point where he needs to break out" for a few years now. Time to cut the cord and find an impact player for him. Not saying he hasn't been good but he hasn't been what we need him to be. Flip for a scorer.

Great coaches are hard to find, lock him up for life! Seriously, I can't think of any coach that is better than him on a consistent basis. He's the best there is in the league. Can you find me anyone else since the lockout who's been in some kind of final three times in a row, won an Olympic gold medal, been called the greatest by people around the league, and had excellent records each season? Change isn't good if there's no reason for it. Jack Adams liked change and "fresh legs" and traded away the top half of the team in the '50s. Yeah, they didn't win a Cup for 40 some years after that "change."

I swear to God some people are delirious, or hate players so much they obsess over some little detail. Rafalski was one of our best players, overall, and he was the star of the Olympics.

Anyone else hoping for an Original 6 final? Chicago losing to Montreal or Boston would be awesome. When was the last time there was an original 6 matchup? EDIT: There also isn't very much animosity toward the Sharks on these here boards. Wings fans have never really considered them a threat and to be honest, despite the loss I bet a lot of people still don't consider San Jose as our equals. We were angry over the reffing more than at San Jose this series, so most of our anger and disappointment is directed that way. I honestly have nothing against San Jose as a team. If they win the Cup, great, you guys have a good fanbase out there. There really isn't a rivalry there. Now, Pittsburgh and Chicago (to a lesser extent) is a different story...

I wonder how long it'll take Lidstrom to announce his decision or announce a contract? It seems that contract negotiations would be short, since Holland will obviously give Lidstrom whatever he wants. So I guess it's all up to Lids, let's hope he decides in the next two weeks or so.

Meh, I'm tired of primadonnas who bolt when things don't go their way. I'd rather they go for someone without considerable problems. And if there isn't anyone, trade down. It's too risky to blow draft picks on a guy who might bolt.

Yeah, being one of the best offensive d-men in the league and having a great plus/minus...who needs that.

Someone with hockey knowledge would recognize the fact that the reffing was one-sided. It wasn't like the Wings lost their cool and deserved all these penalties. THey didn't self destruct like the Sharks did in Game 4. They were very clearly questionable penalties and non-calls at crucial junctures that ended up deciding games. This is a problem no matter what team suffered as a result.

There need to be serious change to the reffing organization. There has to be some real oversight or punishment for embarassing the league. Bad calls is one thing, but consistently being inconsistent and terrible raises some eyebrows. The reffing definitely controlled this series. Despite the Wings playing sub-par for a lot of it, almost all of the game winning goals came off of terrible calls (5 on 3s) or non-calls. It's hard not to blame reffing when you take away those repeated blatant terrible calls and non-calls and see how different the series would look.] What I think is impressive is that despite playing on the PK for most of the series the Wings did as well as they did. So yeah, I'm ready to blame the reffing for the overall series, if not every single game. It's frustrating because the Wings could've had this series in the bag despite their sub-par play, which to me indicates San Jose is not the better team.

Oh stop. We were outhitting teams regularly. This isn't a "soft Euro team" we lost because we couldn't win faceoffs and made stupid blind passes in addition to bad reffing.

I think that on paper there's really nothing wrong with this team, which makes personnel decisions harder. Clearly something has to change, though to infuse this team with some life. Since we have a lot of role players who were fresh and energetic, I think the problem is in the top 6. Hudler might help in this department, but a power forward (if there are any left out there) might be a good option if we could trade Flip for him. (You have to give talent to get talent.) A physical 4th liner would be nice, or maybe a physical 3rd pairing defenseman. I'd like to see Holland go for a younger version of May. We've seen he's willing to sign physical guys like May and Downey, but there's got to be a player out there who is younger, physical and is a good penalty killer for cheap.

Wow, is this the best that's out there for his replacement? Good thing he won't retire this year. Gut feeling from watching his post-game interview.

Just a quick pick me up: A while back someone posted a thread about some website that had complete broadcasts for some of the games from the '50s and '60s. I couldn't find it with how fast things get buried around here, does anyone know what I'm talking about and where I could find it? I think one of the games was a Detroit-Toronto final.

It was a successful regular season but a disappointing playoffs. Making the playoffs while devastated by injuries=epic success. Losing terribly in the playoffs while healthy and full of talent=disappointment.

I hope Maltby won't be back. And maybe Draper. I've never been one to jump on the old guys, I'm a loyal person. But honestly, this team needs something but there simply aren't enough roster spots to go around. Draper isn't great on faceoffs anymore (at least to my knowledge currently) and doesn't really provide anything except experience. But he's not the first one I'd get rid of. Maltby, I'm sorry, but you and Draper only provide experience and we didn't really notice you while you were gone. You'll always be a Red Wing to me and a piece of this franchise, but it's time for you to step aside. Bertuzzi: You've been great and you've been searching for a home and you're a good story, but honestly we don't have the roster spots. You were great for what we paid for you, but if we can find a better deal we need to take it. Eaves and Miller need to stay. Man...I'm surprised I had that much to say right now. Maybe it's because we all sort of knew that this would be the ending? A close game decided by poor decisions and bad reffing? EDIT: If Draper doesn't go away, I assume he's going to be the 13th forward, just rotating in.

Let's go Wings!