VM1138

Hockey fan children are not the same as regular children. They are warriors. They can handle Ovechkin's awesomeness. Seriously, he has just fully become my favorite non-Wing.

Well, he just got one more complaint E-mail. Does anyone think Burke's complaint is ridiculous. How many Octopi-slime accidents have happened? I don't remember that being a problem against ANaheim or any other team....ever. Sounds to me like psychological games.

The Ducks wouldnt' have made playoffs without Selanne. So it doesn't matter if Nieds stays. Of course, Burke will find a way to wrangle in about ten huge free agents on some loophole in the by-laws.

So it was gang-related? That makes more sense. Can anyone pictyure a situation like this: "Yeah! We won the first round!" "Let's go make molotov cocktails and burn the city down in happiness!" I'm not understanding the leap there.

I think it's funny though that they think all they need to do is shut down Zetterberg and Datsyuk and the Wings will collapse under terrible goaltending and no scoring. Do they even watch Wings games? Heh. Not to mention shutting down both Z and Dats is nearly impossible for teams much better than Colorado. But yeah, the hockey world deserves a Wings/Avs series, but maybe it's best to hold off until the Conference Finals, where it would be even more epic. And I would say Ozzie is at an equal level or better than Theodore. Let's not forget that Hasek and Osgood both beat the Avs regularly, and the Wings have never really had a problem with Theodore. Knock on wood.

I don't think it's that they are fickle. It's just that there's only so many fans to begin with. I don't think we should be gloating too much over this. It's great that they're out, and it's always nice to see a classless team get eliminated. But let's not insult their fans IN RELATION TO LOSING. We've been down that path and karma is a *****. Let's stick to ridiculing their fans outside of their loss and ridiculing the Ducks for being goons.

My God people, do you realize that this year stands a better chance of an Original 6 Finals matchup than most other years? Not making any predictions, but of the POSSIBLE matchups, we have Detroit vs. Montreal or Detroit vs. New York Rangers. Immediate awesomeness.

Think about it people. The only cheap, dirty team in the West left is Calgary. After them it'll be a pretty classy, fair physical playoffs!

I don't know how long it'll take Detroit to pass Toronto in Cup Wins, but I bet we'll get 14 before Toronto does.

Have some faith guys! It seems to be a consensus around here that we all like Dallas enough to want them to beat Anaheim. So let's put all that positive energy that helped the Wings win into the Dallas-Anaheim series. I'm sure the Dallas fans will appreciate our support!

I'm not picking a preference based on who I think we can beat. That's picking your own poison and the bad things about that have been discussed. But for old-times sake, distance, and the fact we haven't played them in years, I kind of lean toward Colorado, though I don't want San Jose to survive the first round. Just so the media will have to find a new darling to pick over the Wings, since both Anaheim and San jose would be gone (hopefully).

I also want to give props to Nashville. You guys take a lot of ribbing from us but (most of) it is in good sportsmanlike fun. It was a hard fought series and I'm surprised at how civil it remained despite the high level of physical play. Hell, even Tootoo didn't do too many things to get bent out of shape over. Anyways, Nashville did you guys proud.

I'm way more excited about playing Dallas, Colorado, or Calgary over Anaheim or San Jose. I'm not cocky, I'm just tired of seeing San Jose and I don't want Anaheim cheating it's way out of Round 1 only to coast to the Finals on the strength of their dirty play. I think Dallas, Colorado, and Calgary could be really memorable series, unlike the Nashville one.

I may be reading too much into it but if those words aren't accidental or coincidental, it seems "TEAM" success, not personal success, will determine the contract. Maybe there si some fine print stating he has to play in the majority of games or whatever.

I think Datsyuk is clearly the MVP. But, like any successful playoff team pretty much EVERYONE was crucial. Franzen, obviously, was clutch, as usual. Drake and McCarty were making crap happen all over the ice for most of the series. Lidstrom was well....Lidstrom. Hudler performed much better than we expected. Draper was all over the freaking place. Helm delivered much more than expected and won't be going away soon. Osgood clearly gave this team chances to win. He's not MVP simply because he wasn't in the whole series. Zetterberg, while slightly less spectacular than expected, still played extremely well and made smart plays. Chelios and Kronwall were freaking beasts out there and were absolutely crucial. Rafalski made some great plays. Stuart proved why we need him on this team. Physical and smart. So far the only guys who truly need to step it up are Filpulla, Sammy, and it'd be nice if Zetterberg could just erupt like he did in the early season, though I'm not saying he's playing badly. It'd be nice, too, if Lebda or Lilja did anything, but I guess being a wash in the sense that they don't create anything bad while doing nothing isn't that bad. But Datsyuk made it all possible. It seems like he was out every shift of every game absolutely terrorizing Nashville. MVP.

He's inconsistent. And if he's such a reliable scoring threat then he should be fine on lower lines to spread the wealth.

We've seen that goalies just get hot against certain teams. So Nashville solved Hasek. That's not to say he won't be back. Maybe Ozzie will have trouble with Dallas or somebody down the line, and Hasek will come in and be a brick wall. That's the beauty of rotation. We've debated it all year, but now we've seen it in playoff action and we know it works. We should all be thankful we have the likes of Hasek and Osgood in net for us.

I'd like to play Colorado for old time's sake, but really, I guess I could live with playing Calgary. After all, we could still face Colorado in the Conference Finals, knock on wood.

I've said this before: This Team that was born in 2007 is not Yzermans' team. They have nothing to celebrate yet. People are wrongly associating them with Yzerman's team. This team hasn't faltered in the playoffs until the Conference Finals last year. They haven't been stopped by a hot goalie, defeating Kipper, Nabakov, and Ellis and nearly beating Giguere. This team knows, even if the media doesn't, that they are expected to go much farther. But it's still awesome. On to the next round!

Again, we shouldn't pick our poison. Clearly Colorado is the fan matchup, not for level of difficulty, just for old time's sake.

My God, I hope the Wings win. It will make things so much less stressful for me. I really don't want this to go to a Game 7. Close them out and show them you guys can play dominant two games in a row and this time the bounces will go in! Go Wings!

I know we all love to talk about goalies like Luongo, but let's be realistic. I don't think there is anyone in the league today that can make saves like that. Brodeur and Hasek's glory days are behind them, Roy is gone, Belfour is just...not good anymore. There are no truly "Great" goalies out there right now. Luongo is certainly the best, with a few other amazing ones. But legendary? I'm not so sure. The age of great goal-tending is past. Maybe someday in the future it will come back.

I don't really think the Wings will go after a goalie. Ozzie has shown he can start. When he didn't play for Detroit he was routinely a great goalie on crappy teams. This is how I see it happening, ESPECIALLY if Ozzie takes us far this year: Hasek retires Osgood becomes a starter Howard is brought up. Osgood and Howard share 80/20, 70/30 depending on how well Howard is adapting.

Look at how much the Wings dominated. True, not so many goals go in but you know that can't last forever. If the Wings go in with a wary confidence, they can successfully keep the Preds down. last night was a defensively perfect game, if they can repeat they should be fine. But yeah, Nashville is going to play whoever they can, injured or not, because it's possibly their last game. They're going to be fired up, the crowd is goign to be in it, and they're probably going to strike early. The Wings CANNOT let themselves get deflated. But I don't think they will. They've got experience and the ability to persevere. This Red Wings team that was born out of the fires of the 2007 Playoffs is not the Red Wings team we've had since 02. Forget about all their past history, this is an entirely new team that will not disappoint.

Does anyone else think Tootoo looks like he has some sort of un-funny disease that makes his face turn into a blimp? I mean, there are ugly hockey players and then there are hockey players who look like there's something wrong with them.