Adidarw

From a professional standpoint, business standpoint, common sense standpoint... all of these... Ken Holland's wisdom make sense. I'll use this as my source of injuries: http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/injuries Take a look at those names for the Red Wings. The majority of them have missed a lot of games. They are all solid players and/or veterans NHLers. At the moment, the Wings are not at the place in the standings that we have been accustomed to the past 15 or so years. However, given the circumstances (injuries, heavily relying on younger players, several long-time veterans departing, just simply not having the same core group of guys we had 10 years ago, etc.), they are in a very good place in the standings. We have been used to being in the top 10, but now a series of unfortunate events has brought us where we are. For a team that has so many injured veterans, I'm happy with how well they're doing. Now just imagine that, for all intents and purposes, those injured players are free agents. Now, around the trade deadline the headlines read "Wings make big moves at trade deadline, acquire Bertuzzi, Helm, Colaiacovo, Samuelsson and Filppula." My thought is: "Wow!" Players coming back from lengthy injuries really IS just like making big trades or signings, rather anyone wants to believe it or not. That's veteran players coming back into the game, where our team has been tested without them. If anyone translates Holland's logic to "Our injured players returning to play will shoot us up to first place in the standings." Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but you're expectations are too high by any standard, and you need to get your head out of the clouds. Our returning veterans will definitely improve the team's overall performance. It could be a matter of being in a "safer" 7th or 8th position (league-wide standings) rather than a nail-biting 15th or 16th position, where the Wings may not make the playoffs at all. Maybe even 7th or 8th is shooting too high. The fact of the matter is that adding those veterans to the lineup will be a huge benefit. EDIT: It is my belief that being a little more conservative with trades and signings today allows a team to build camaraderie and chemistry, which makes for a much better team tomorrow than acquiring star players to fill in gaps. It's like a snowball effect. Let the snowball grow, don't make it lopsided by packing snow in areas to make it bigger... you'll just knock it off course!

I haven't had a tangerine lately, which reminds me that I've been missing out. The person below me has a fear of heights.

Lol, thanks... I think. I get that once in a while. I'm 27

Here I am. Apparently I replied to this thread in the past, but I can't find where it was or which picture I uploaded before.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=656993&navid=DL|NHL|home Personally, I think the number of situations where challenging a call would help in the NHL is very small. It's one thing in football, but in a fast-paced game like hockey, I don't think it would help much. I'd anticipate some coaches taking advantage of their new ability. I can't think of any specific coaches that would do that, but I mean after a while it seems like once it's been taken advantage of one time it will snowball to teams taking advantage of it whenever they can. Of course, there will be rules and penalties against abusing the system. But I don't see this being an improvement to the game of hockey.

Ah, so you're right. Then they must be the only team to have done it then?

In my opinion, the Wings don't become "sellers" until it is a reasonable, educated reality that they are not going to make the playoffs. I mean a situation where they have to win the rest of the games in the season to make the playoffs and that number could not realistically be accomplished judging by the team's recent efforts at the time. As of right now, they're still in the race and anything could happen. Just making the playoffs always provides the chance to win it all. I did a little research just now, and I don't believe an 8th seeded team has ever won the Stanley Cup (but 2 have made it to the finals). However, no team in NHL history has ever gotten at least a point in their first 16 games either... Oh, wait... that's right, the Blackhawks just did that! Anything is possible. I believe that not only will the Wings make the playoffs, but they will also finish somewhere higher than the 8th seed.

The Wings had a rough start. However, they have been inching their way to the top of the standings. They have shown an immense amount of improvement. Babcock is an excellent coach and there is no reason to believe we should find someone else to take his job. Did we forget about all the injuries we have right now? For how bad we started and how we IMPROVED so much to get where we're at in the standings now without several key players is motivating. I don't find it shocking at all that this topic came after a loss.

Future job interviewer(s): "Hey, aren't you that kid who through a fit because you didn't get what you wanted? Get the hell outta here!"

Good point. I'd like to point out that even while he's up there (number 5, currently) he also has (many) more penalty minutes than 99% of the other guys on that page. So he's putting points up there with the big dogs, even while spending more time in the box than them.

As for the impossibility of some trades, I give you one name: Gretzky. Those arguments are invalid.

lol

HAHAHA, this made me laugh so hard. I just imagine Babcock saying that. Oops, left cleary off the lineup tonight... f*** it, just turn it in.

I like how everybody here has different opinions on who the best players are. Just like Wayne Gretzky has an opinion. :thumbsup:

SOURCE - http://www.nhl.com/ice/blogpost.htm?id=13234&navid=nhl:topheads This is an absolute steal for the Sharks. Gomez did get bought out, so he doesn't really need a big contract right now. But damn, this is a great deal for the Sharks.

I have Oshie and Halak on my fantasy team! I'm in a Yahoo! Fantasy Head-to-Head League. So far I'm ahead 8-0, w00t w00t!

I found my way to this page from hockeydb.com: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/141.html From 1942 to 1967 (25 years) the NHL had 6 teams, then expanded to 12 teams in 1967. This is the longest streak the NHL went so far without an expansion. Then from 1979 to 1991 (12 years) the NHL had 21 teams, then expanded to 22 teams in 1991. As of the end of this season, the NHL will have gone 12 years again without expanding. These 3 eras are the longest streaks the NHL has gone without expansion. I find this to be some interesting information, rather it means anything or not. Although I'm sure the NHL management isn't looking at this information and saying "Hey, we've got to do something about this, guys!" I wonder if the lockouts we've gone through have had any impact on expansion talks.

8 shots... already an improvement lol

I think it's pretty sane and ok to be very upset about that first game. That game pissed me off. Being upset about the first game is not the same as saying "Oh my gosh, the whole season is going to be like this!" That game yesterday was absolutely horrible. It doesn't matter if it was the first game, last game, or anywhere in between. The Wings simply did not show up. We can use every excuse in the book, but at the end of the day they lost. The Blues did not have any sort of special attention, they didn't have anything extra that the Wings didn't have, as far as knowledge or training. The fact is the Blues beat us. If you watched the game, they beat us bad. The concern of mine is: Why didn't the Wings show up? Why was it not the other way around (Wings shutting out the Blues)? The Blues didn't bring any excuses for winning. The Wings looked like a minor league team playing an NHL team. It was very bad. That is a perfectly just cause to be angry. The game is behind us now, so we have to look forward. I know the team is better than the way they played yesterday. But I'm still upset that they came in and played that poorly for game one. They could not get a steady possession together to make anything happen. The defense failed us and the offense failed us. It was overall just a bad team effort. I'm no hockey expert, but it's tough for me to point at any position or player and say it's that person's fault. The whole team sucked. Although, in my opinion, I must say Jimmy Howard sucked the least, and I believe the reason they swapped goaltenders was just to save face for Howard and attempt to give the team a second wind. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

Per fantasy hockey player notes on Yahoo Fantasy hockey, here is some information I found (sorry if this is not news to anybody, but its something. News to me): Pavel Datsyuk player note: Johan Franzen player note:

Gustav Nyquist player note:

I did some research today and found out what each player on the roster has been up to. I also linked to the source where I got the information (or linked to their team website, if playing for a team). Nothing too detailed. I also have links to their Twitter pages, if they have one that is verified. I started a blog and posted it there: What Players Are Doing Now

I think it's interesting that the funds were approved for this when we also recently found out that Mr. Illitch owes $70 million to the city.

I believe the point GMR was trying to make by saying Ericsson won us the cup was that Ericsson was on the team that won the cup. So far, we have yet to win a cup with Bertuzzi on the team. Obviously he doesn't mean we won because of the sole effort of Ericsson. This is too funny though, to read peoples reactions to that. EDIT: I have always wanted to see Mats Sundin or Markus Naslund wearing a Wings jersey.