VM1138

Jimmy Howard is my hero.

There was a time when I thought I'd never stop hating the Avs, but now a game against them barely registers on the calendar. So sad.

I would lose Hudler for Parise in a heart-beat. And I wouldn't' want Hudler for 5 million, either. But some people act like Hudler is worthless which is clearly not the case. Even if Zetterberg weren't having an off year Hudler would still be 3rd in scoring. Nothing to sneeze at. Until we get someone who is a bona-fide improvement over Hudler (Parise) we need to keep him. Don't trade him for a bottom 6er is basically what I'm saying.

The more I read about his quote the more sense it makes. Colorado has had a lot of talent upcoming for years and they just seem lost in the wildnerness. No direction, players not being properly used. I see Quincey's point and I'm glad players are more frequently coming out against poor management these days. And Dater is a ****** (aside from his book Blood Feud which was fair) who hates the Wings and bashes them every chance he gets.

Yeah, who needs his 18 goals? What a scrub. 2nd in team scoring 18 goals, no less.

Holland has been pretty adamant that he's looking for a rental in the final year of their contract. So that narrows down the options somewhat and lowers their trade cost.

Hudler is a UFA this summer, correct? If so, his asking price just got higher and most likely he doesn't return to the Wings. Wonder if Holland will try harder to trade him now? Not an ideal situation as he is much needed depth scoring.

I like Sammy, and for all the accurate ridiculing of him being a logo hunter, he still scored a LOT of clutch goals for us. That being said, he doesn't really do anything Hudler doesn't already do, and Hudler is younger and on the upswing. I'd rather keep Hudler. Also, Sammy doesn't add anything the Wings need, except for he's a right hander, isn't he? I think it's a smoke screen, or else the media is just jumping to conclusions, thinking Holland is just picking up old Wings.

http://www.nhl.com/ Click on that link any day, any time, and you will find something that is minor yet irritates me to no end. The witty plays on names. "Brad Habit," "Avs Crown Kings," and "Fan-Stast-nic." For God's sake, this is so bush league. I understand marketing requires you to give catchy titles to articles, but is that really necessary on a sports website? None of the others (that I've noticed) resort to this sort of cheesy, blatant tabloid-style writing. I realize this is sort of a random topic and it's not really all that important, but does it bug anyone else?

Vancouver, as usual, put on quite a diving show. But on a positive note Quincey looked great. I kept my eye on him and his stick seemed to always get in the way of a Vancouver shot or pass. Aside from those two penalties he looked comfortable and did all the right things. Plus, the way he moved up Kronwall-like for that goal is a good sign of things to come. He's going to be the best 3rd pairing defenseman in the league, haha.

Exactly. Some of the clips are only 10 seconds long and the commercials are 30. It's frustrating and I usually avoid the videos unless the title is tantalizing.

I don't think Stuart gets traded. He's vital to a Cup win. I think we'd rather lose him for nothing after winning the Cup than trade him now and risk throwing our defensive depth out of whack for a scorer who might get cold at the worst possible time. I think the Quincey trade shows that Holland wanted a replacement locked up before the bidding wars of the off-season hits. Meaning he fully intends on keeping Stuart.

Is it really helpful, though? If it were, wouldn't the NFL and MLB use it more frequently? True, it happens once in a while, but the NHL website is just littered with absolutely terrible titles. I second the FSD thing, too. They do a lot of terrible puns, too. I just wish they'd reserve them for when a title is actually witty.

This is the part I like/hate the most. Speculation. We've got four days until the trade deadline and it seems pretty likely that Holland still has one more move up his sleeve. So when with the other shoe fall? Closer to the deadline? This afternoon? Tomorrow?

If Vancouver wins, they tie us for 1st place. Therefore, the Wings need to hammer Vancouver.

Grabovski's really good, isn't it? Toronto isn't going to trade him.

This puts the Wings in an interesting spot. I just read an article where it says Commodore is likely to be waived. What are the chances he gets claimed? I feel he's played well for the Wings and adds a role we don't really have. I realize they don't want to just dump Kindl, but I'd hate to lose Commodore with the playoffs coming up.

Jiri Slegr. Obviously. Funny story, back in the day I loved having him on my team in one of the old NHL games based purely on his name. Hey, I was younger back then, haha.

Kind of funny. As soon as we heard Detroit was rumored to be interested in Kubina it became pretty obvious we'd be trading with Yzerman somehow. Including them in a 3 way deal makes sense. Also the "out of left field" move I was predicting, not to toot my own horn. At any rate, after Quincey's initial stint in Colorado I lost track of him. I assume he's still a solid defenseman? And to people getting bent out of shape over a 1st rounder, it'd be late enough in the draft to essentially be a 2nd rounder. After the first 10 or 15 picks there's little difference between a late 1st and a 3rd round pick. Kind of funny how he winds up back here though. Not going to say I'm unhappy, depth is good, but I'm not sure exactly how he helps us. That's probably because I haven't followed him since he left though so I'm not sure what he brings to the table.

You don't play as amazing as Ovechkin did for years and then just suddenly drop off the face of the earth. Clearly something is wrong. There's no way he's past his prime. I would take him in a heartbeat. Keep in mind, too, that he tried to change his play to a more defensive style earlier this year.

What makes you think Detroit wasn't up to Vancouver's standards last year? Vancouver is not really all that huge of a threat to Detroit.

It's not THAT crazy that he'd want to go to Toronto, but it's unlikely. 1) Toronto is a borderline team, unlike Columbus. They are on the verge of improving. If he could be "the guy" that sparks that team and turns a legendary club into a playoff performer again, that's quite an incentive. But still, it's way more likely he'd want to go to a team that has a 1) a good chance of winning a Cup or 2) has awesome night-life. With his contract, remember, he's got to look long-term. He may want to win a Cup this year, but he knows that picking a team based on that criteria is like winning the lottery. So Toronto, being a team "on the rise" supposedly, wouldn't be all that unattractive. But yeah....still unlikely. My bet is on LA. Hot night life, Hollywood, great weather year-round, and another team "on the rise."

I think Smith is going to have a break-out playoff run, like Helm, Abdelkader and Ericsson did when they first came up. We've got 6 NHL-ready defensemen, 7 if you count Kindl, and 8 if you count Smith because he looked pretty good when he was called up. Hopefully we don't need a depth defenseman. But I do expect Holland to make a move for a forward.

Okay, so Yzerman rejected us to show he's his own man. Now he can go ahead and trade us St. Louis.

Agreed. He seems to offer a very limited upside (powerplay) so we better not give up much for him. I'm sure he'd be fine as a bottom pairing defenseman, but nothing more.