GMRwings1983

People tout him as a big body, great forechecker, good fighter and a guy that's scored 10+ goals twice in his career, despite being a 4th liner. That seems like a dead on description of Winchester. I don't see what you're complaining about.

The Blues have the 3rd best logo in sports imo, behind the Wings and Hawks. All 3 teams from the same division, and I don't think anyone in sports has cooler logos than any of them.

That's because these guys are rich, spoiled athletes. In the days of the Red Army hockey teams, those players lived in apartments and got paid as much money as you and I. They also trained 12 months a year. Those guys didn't have this lazy, white collar attitude that the Russian hockey players have nowadays when they come over to the US. That's guaranteed millions for you and a chance to live in America. So your statement wasn't entirely fair. Kovalev is the stereotypical, "modern day" Russian hockey player.

I agree, but that same person played in the organization for 5 years. If they hated him, they would have never let him stay that long.

They're the two best logos in sports, imo.

Lebda stuck around in Detroit for several seasons. Longer than he should have. I can see Holland bringing him back if he needs some cheap depth and a guy that has played in the system before. It's not a much different situation really. Oh and Williams is a top-six forward like I am Frank Sinatra.

I thought they outplayed us in the first two games. When you outwork someone, you usually get most of the bounces. Sometimes, there's a thin line between winning and losing. In our Cup years, we could overcome bad bounces and wind up on the right side of that line. The last two seasons we couldn't. We can't just pin consecutive playoff disappointments on bad officiating and unlucky bounces. Crymson's post suggested as much. I hope the management doesn't feel that way, or else they'll be content with not making changes.

Stop making excuses. It makes us Wings fans sound like some pathetic losers. Sharks beat us both times. Plain and simple. They won 4 games in both series and we didn't. We had our chances to win and didn't get it done. This whining about bounces and refs is getting old.

I'm just saying they should think about it if he gets more concussions or untimely injuries. Of course, it depends on what kind of deal we can get in return. He's not unmovable like Datsyuk or Zetterberg.

Holland traded him in 2007 because he knew that Williams was a soft, lazy player. He freaking traded him for Kyle Calder for pete's sake. Re-signing him was as dumb a move as Holland has made.

What sort of thing?

I never said we should replace Datsyuk or Lidstrom. We have to ride those guys no matter what. Same with Zetterberg or Kronwall. However, Franzen has had many concussions and injuries over the last few years. No one can deny that. If he can't stay healthy over the course of a season again (and playoffs), I wouldn't be against moving him. I think of him as an injury prone player. Likewise, Cleary has only played 70 games once in the last 4 seasons. Homer has also only played 70 games once in the last 4 seasons. These guys won't be around forever. Bertuzzi hasn't missed much time as a Wing, but he's not getting any younger either. Now we have made some strides with Ozzie, Modano and Rafalski being gone and us getting a little younger. But our secondary scoring still comprises of certain players who I consider to be injury prone and wouldn't mind seeing a change.

Agree. I think NBC should get some famous porn stars to be the hockey reporters.

Instead of responding to your individual comments, I'm just going to boil it down to this. Do you not think that our team has too many injury prone players and has suffered from injuries throughout the playoffs which hurt our chances in recent years? I'm guessing "no" is your answer to that question, but I'll let you answer it your own way. Oh and Crymson's post wasn't broad. He left out the 2009 playoffs and the 2010 regular season. That's when our injury bug hit us at the worst times.

We didn't have nearly as many people hurt in any of our other Cup runs. Also, the Pens weren't riddled with injuries that year in the playoffs, despite going the distance. In any case, the players I originally singled out were guys like Cleary, Homer and Franzen.

Lebda = 1 Cup Thornton/Iginla/Luongo = 0 Cups

Wow, I was out of town that whole July 4th weekend. I honestly didn't know Lebda is playing for Nashville now. Or was I guess.

Thanks for citing stats from 4 seasons ago. How about the stuff you left out? We had more injuries than anyone in the 2009 playoffs. You and others have cited that as an excuse for losing that season to the Pens. Likewise, we had tons of injuries in 2010, which you kindly omitted from your self-righteous post. At one point, we had a farm team playing every night. Also, last year we had injury troubles with Franzen and Rafalski, which plenty of people have used as an excuse for losing to SJ. Didn't help to have Datsyuk miss half the season either. Instead you give me stats from 2008 and the 2009 regular seasons? And you call my post absurd? I don't see how anyone here can refuse to admit that we have lots of injury riddled players and how those same posters can then use injuries as an excuse for why we lose in the playoffs. We need some new blood at forward. Namely in secondary scoring, and not just 3rd and 4th liners.

What's not true? We've been among the league leaders the last several seasons in injuries to important players and man games lost. There's no reason to expect us magically to get healthier despite having the same injury prone players around, minus Rafalski. I know we can't move Datsyuk or Zetterberg, but some of these secondary scorers are hardly untouchable. We'll have to move in a younger direction eventually.

Like Detroit maybe?

Good riddance. Hopefully he'll take his fellow piece of cheap garbage Matt Cooke with him.

Good point. However, it's more age than size related. We seem to have more injuries in the playoffs than anyone else. Same thing with the regular season in recent seasons. Cleary, Bertuzzi, Homer and Franzen are injury prone players. They're not smallish players, but they are aging or already "old" players. We need some new blood in our secondary scoring, and not these older fragile players who can't finish out a series without some mishap. We just have too many injury prone players right now on the roster, and that's never a good thing. Funny how everyone here is expecting Burns or Havlat to be injured. Sharks fans could say the same thing about our guys.

And why were we down 3-0? You have to look at the series as a whole, and not just concentrate on the last 4 games.

I still think they're a bad matchup for the Wings. We didn't do much in the offseason to change that in my mind. They have a big, physical team and I don't think our forwards are big or physical enough to bring it every game on the forecheck against them. The Wings played well towards the end of the series, but still lost. I just don't like our chances if we play them again. I also agree that San Jose folds in the Conference Finals, but that didn't matter against the Wings since we faced them in the 2nd round.

Then why was Uwe Krupp wearing Red Kelly's number? Or how about Meech wearing Shanny's number? Did you get used to that?