GMRwings1983

Isn't it slightly ironic how the fact that the league doesn't have bad publicity seems to give it bad publicity. Face it, Americans for the most part hate hockey because they don't understand it. And I don't think that if Crosby or Ovechkin were to get arrested with 100 pounds of Cocaine in their car, that it would make the league more popular. The NFL can avoid losing Vick, because football in America is like gasoline or heroin, no matter what the price is, there will always be a high demand from consumers. The NHL, on the other hand, can't afford to lose its big stars, since the current stars are so poorly marketed as it is.

I doubt if there's even 5 people who work for espn that could name 1 wings player.

What's this? The LA Kings actually have fans?

Hey, he might give us that right handed shot and grit that we so desperately need.

I heard that espn is airing each of the games in primetime. I bet the idiots on PTI will talk about it too.

espn equals mtv. It's a channel that was once great and is now an illegitimate joke. All they care about is ratings and not necessarily sports. That is why I'm not a big fan of any kind of news channels, because they're mostly concerned about entertainment over actually reporting the news. In this case, espn's biggest worry is ratings, and that should be for the 4 major networks to worry about and not a sports channel. Oh and by the way, I hate them because the only time they mention hockey is to make jokes or talk about some scandal the league might have.

What idiot who works for espn ranked the boxing matches the way they were ranked? And what is Lord of the Rings doing on the list? P.S. How about Patrick Roy getting busted open by Vernon. I would have liked to see that goof on the list.

Baseball fights are like watching 2 girls trying to scrape each other's eyes out. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect it to be Hagler v. Hearnes when those idiots throw down, but to even call baseball altercations fights is a disgrace to anyone who's ever been in a real fight.

Yeah sure, good riddance. Now we can finally watch baseball on ice.

The Panthers have had better rosters before this year and were unable to make the playoffs, so what makes you think they will do it now?

Let me guess, espn probably thought that Nolan Ryan throwing noogies to some guy was a better beatdown than any hockey fight.

You're joking right? What about Rick Nash?

I'll go one step further than that. What always gets me is the whole "team toughness" crap. Does anyone actually know what that means? Does it mean standing around and not doing anything when one of your own gets blindsided by a cheap shot? I want to see a big GOON on this team who will kick ass when someone messes with our players, and I don't care if he can skate or score, because that isn't an enforcer's job.

Columbus's biggest problem is that they're so used to losing, that they can't do anything else. Everytime they face adversity they fold the tent, because that's what they've done in the past. They've also made some risky moves over the years like bringing in an aging Fedorov and an injury riddled Berard. No chance they make the playoffs this year, since you need 100 points to make it in the West, which is too big a leap for them.

Has anybody here ever been to Vegas in May or June. The ice will probably melt right off. It'll make the ice in Dallas and Florida seem like playing in Edmonton.

First off, the career goal numbers don't matter because that has to do with a player's age. As for grit, the most physical players on our team are not exactly the biggest players in the NHL. I want to see some more size on this team for balance and variety, and that's what I was implying by grit and toughness. As for lack of scoring, blame that on the management and coaching who have put too much faith into unproven players.

He can always teach Kopecky on how to run goalies. As for Drake's fighting ability, Lilja could probably lick him.

This whole waste of a roster spot B.S. is getting on my nerves. You guys make it sound like every forward on the team is a 20 goal scorer that absolutely can't be replaced. Look, I realize that our roster is full of smaller, skilled players, but I believe that we can keep our team identity the same, and at the same time add some balance by adding more grit. As it stands now, this team has absolutely no balance at all. It's all finesse and no grit. Everybody talked about how physical the ducks were last year, but that team had smaller, skilled players also. Thus they were able to have a big gritty team, and at the same time have a bit of variety.

Except for 2 games against San Jose, Samuelsson did nothing for us all year. He was constantly maligned by Wings fans, and had Robert Lang to thank for not being the biggest whipping boy of the team. All of a sudden now, he's a top line player?

Top 20 of what? He'd be lucky if he was even 1 of the top 20 Russian players in the NHL. Who cares what his superleague stats are as compared to the NHL? The competition isn't as high.

Looks like he's still smokin' that grass. What the hell is he thinking? Either come back to the NHL or retire. Why would a hall of fame goalie choose to end his career like this?

The sad thing with this current team is that not only the management, but also many of the fans are content with having Lilja as our best fighter. Do I even have to say anything else?

Ah, poor Oilers. They got some calls to go their way against us 2 years ago in the playoffs, so I'm not going to cry them a river any time soon. I'm not sure about this, but I think that it was McGeough who officiated the final game of our series against Edmonton, and if that's so, then he more than made up for it.

This division looks weaker this year than I can ever remember it looking. Nashville was ahead of us all year until the last month or so when we pulled away from them. I don't expect any such competition this year.

Shanny was great last year in New York also. He doesn't need a poker up his butt to be great, he's always been a great goal scorer and the reason he wasn't resigned here is because of his playoff failures over the last several years. Babcock had nothing to do with Shanny's regular season success in 2006.