VM1138

Well, for one, he does things.

God, just imagine. We re-sign Kopecky in the hopes of signing Hossa. Hossa doesn't sign, and we're stuck with Kopecky and no Hossa. I would cry.

Wow, just watched the highlights, I don't think I saw the Rangers goalie move on any of the goals. In every single goal he was standing center-left and only raised his hand to make the "save." That's horrible.

I guess this means the Wing's aren't serious about rewarding hard work and getting a physical presence on the team. I have so many expletives going off in my head about this.

A Dallas-Houston rivalry could be interesting. As could a Wisconsin team. I'm not sure I want a team in Southern Ontario. Taking fans away from the Leafs AND the Red Wings? Erm..no thanks.

I bet you our "disruptive" ranking is primarily due to us throwing Octopi onto the ice. Other than that we're pretty well behaved. But I could see how a team losign in front of their home crowd would find someone throwing an octopus on the ice disruptive.

Me, too. I really liked him when he was here (but then again I was totally unaware of his primadonna behavior) but man, what a bad attitude. Go feel sorry for yourself in the minors.

The Rangers do all sorts of stupid roster moves. I don't think they've understood the value of having a coherent roster that gets along and has no chemistry issues. All they see is on-paper-talent without thinking about the intangibles.

I've been agreeing with you quite a bit lately, but I have to disagree here. Clearly Filpulla is on the trade block more than Kronwall. We need to improve defense but a gritty forward with a little scoring touch would be good, too. Clearly we need to get rid of Flip, he's doing nothing for us. Kronner has shown more potential than Flip, and I think it's simply the anti-Kronwall bandwagon. We do have a tendency to pounce on a player. Kronner has had a bad year. But Flip has had a much worse year in my eyes and wouldn't hurt us at all if we dumped him for a roleplayer we need.

I agree. We're okay with goaltending if our defense can wake up. We could get a goalie and be okay, or we could rejuvinate the defense and be okay. Upgrading the D would be cheaper, I think. Add a little mean streak and solid defensive play and we could probably ride either Ozzie or Conklin.

That's amazing. I don't know if I'd agree with your assessment YET, but Hudler is certainly getting there. The guy is one of the most reliable players on the ice, and he's quietly entered the "Just Under Elite" level of NHL players. Give him a year or two and he's going to be just plain Elite.

That is a glorious, glorious hunk of silver.

I love reading these stories. They seem like a great bunch of guys. Zetterberg, however, even in other interviews, strikes me as someone who takes himself very seriously and probably is the least fun guy on the team to hang around with. I would totally buy one of those comedy videos if Datsyuk, Hudler, Homer, Cleary and Draper made one.

I'm with you about playing overseas. But the more I think about it, we have 6 days until our next game stateside, and it's basically a home game. I highly doubt we'll see any Blues jerseys in the stands, but I bet there'll be Wings jerseys all over the place. Besides, despite an overseas "curse," the Wings seem to like destroying conventional wisdom (i.e. Euros are too soft to win the Cup, no Euro Captain will ever win the Cup, yada, yada)

I liked Schneider as well, but he fills no role here. Offense is not our problem, goaltending and defense (particularly the PK). We also lack heart. So someone scour through their database of NHL players and if you find someone who fits the following mold: Affordable Excellent PKer Lots of grit and heart Probably a defenseman And there you go. If we pick anyone up at the trade deadline I bet it'll be this player.

He's been rattled a lot this season. One of his strengths last season was that when he let in a bad goal, it didn't bother him. I don't know about tonight (I worked and missed the game) but it's been often enough for me to notice that when he lets goals in, he looks extremely irritated. Much was made of his re-training himself during the Cup run last year and how he no longer let things faze him and stayed focused. He's not doing that anymore for whatever reason.

Schneider is NOT coming back. He adds nothign we don't already have. Holland knows what he's doing and whoever he gets is going to add much needed heart and grit. We've got depth defensively, and by and large our lower guys have played well. We can't move any of our top 4 (and I'm not sure I'd want to, even with Kronner and Stuart having issues). If we pick anyone, he's going to be cheap, he's going to have a mean streak, and he's going to be strong defensively.

Um.... Hudler IS amazing, I can't wait to see him locked up long-term, too.

I try not to be pessimistic, I've always been one of those fans who thinks the Wings will come back from being down 3-0 with 3 minutes left in the game to win before OT (and have been proven right on several occasions), but I think it's fair to say that they're not going to start playing any better until the trade deadline. Every season we ***** for Holland to make a move, and he almost always makes the right one. So I won't predict whether we pick someone up or not. I will say, however, that for the rest of the regular season, if we don't move some people, we're going to be on the losing end of 5-4 games come playoff time when the other teams pick up their intensity, unless we pick up ours. That being said, it's entirely possible the Wings will just turn it on come playoff time. They've done it before. So let's not count them out, but yeah, there's definitely disappointment and a sense that something must be done.

When the hell does he ever play the body? Kopecky is absolutely useless. I'd rather have Downey out there.

Me, too, but I'm also tired of crappy teams weighing everyone else down because hey can't afford to run their teams. That only guarantees teams will exist longer than they should, which ruins the product being sold.

Yes, Filpulla for grit or something similar would be a good move. We need the Cap space (if that's even how the Cap works), don't need Filpulla so much, and he could help out another team. EDIT: Come to think of it, I wouldn't want Smith or to lose the pick, either. But I'd definitely give up Filpulla for someone similar.

I think so, too. This may be what Ozzie needed. He started off damn shaky, but he got better as it went on.

And Hudler, too. Man, Hudler is going to be amazing someday.

If Ozzie could play like that for a whole game........wow.