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I've watched the replay from each of the 3 angles (overhead, from in front of the net, and from behind the net). Homer never "jabbed" Fleury with his stick, his stick never left the ice, and Fleury was not impaired at all. It was a bad call and is a legitimate gripe regardless of what the final score was. The league needs to acknowledge these bad calls so that they can fix them, either by firing poor referees, changing the rules, or implementing new review standards.

Let me get this straight. -you're denying that Pittsburgh's financial trouble had nothing to do with being screwed around by their city and state, and it was only because fans weren't buying jerseys/tickets (ignoring tickets, as I've already pointed out that their attendance was decent for a team/arena of that caliber - who is going to buy a Dick Tarnstrom jersey?) -you think Pittsburgh got Crosby because they sucked, even though every team had a decent chance to get him and standings were almost irrelevant -you think the Joe is even remotely close to how terrible Mellon Arena is, even though the Joe has practically no restricted viewing area while the Igloo is littered with them -you think that a terrible arena is not going to affect prices with a team that can only muster 58 points and that the attendance for one year is somehow relevant to how the fans support their team, even though Detroit's attendance problems were MUCH worse back in the 80s, and the only reason they got Yzerman was through "sucking hard" -you think attendance figures at 90%+ capacity indicates that fans showing up aren't showing up -you think Malkin was a surefire winner, even though there was a lot of struggle to actually get him over here and playing -you think Fleury was a surefire winner, even though he's probably not even in the top 5 goalies in the league and will likely never be there Really? I could go on a rant about how ridiculous your quote is, but this sentence should be enough to convey my feelings. Haha, you think my comment had anything to do with Gatorade profits? It has everything to do with marketing the NHL, you dolt. If Crosby doesn't do the commercial, and Gatorade doesn't want anyone else, GUESS WHAT - there's no commercial marketing the NHL anymore! Well done, Gatorade wants to promote hockey for free but Crosby, who should act more like Jesus apparently, has told them to piss off and now there's no free marketing for hockey. Gee, I wonder if this is a bad thing. What part of PITTSBURGH - 28 can't you understand? Here's some basic math you missed out in school while raging about Crosby: If arena A holds 21,000 and has 18,000 attend - that's 85% capacity. If arena B holds 17,000 and has 16,000 attend - that's 94% capacity. Guess which arena is filled more? Go on, guess. This is why we don't look at total attendance to compare franchises, and instead, we use arena capacity to determine who is really filling their arena. Until you click that PCT to re-sort the column, you're arguing pointless data.

Detroit totally sold out every single game in the 80s. Free car giveaways? Nope, never heard of those. My figures came from ESPN by the way, you just apparently don't understand the difference between total attendance versus arena capacity attendance. Also, you really want to talk about attendance? Detroit couldn't even consistently sell out as President Trophy winners: 94.2% average capacity places them at 16th in the league for attendance.

2002: #15 92.3% capacity 2003: #18 87.0% capacity 2004: #28 70.0% capacity 2006: #16 93.2% capacity A one year dip when the Penguins were being threatened by relocation in the midst of a 58 point season. 70% capacity at a time like that is phenomenal, especially when taking into consideration that ticket prices didn't drop and the Mellon Arena has some of the worst sight lines in the league. Do you get this upset when you see Tiger Woods doing a Gillette commercial? The PGA marketed the hell out of that guy and golf is amazingly popular despite being terribly boring to watch on TV. What about Michael Jordan and his numerous commercials? What happens when Crosby turns down the Gatorade commercial and they decide they don't want to do a NHL ad if Crosby isn't a part of it? There's no legitimate reason for Crosby NOT to appear in those ads, other than the few schmucks on the internet who rush to their keyboard to yammer away about how overhyped a 19 year old MVP winner is, and trust me when I say - nobody cares about those people.

You act like his whining is stomping around the ice and throwing a temper tantrum. He complains about calls and sometimes dives. Every single player in the history of the NHL has done this. Crosby also has 0 control about who wants to call him an "ambassador." He's 20 years old, for christ's sake.

They were forced to get rid of Jagr, Straka, Lang, Morozov, and many more because of issues within the city/state. Their fans stood up when the team was almost moved. Lemieux stepped in with his own money to keep the team in Pittsburgh. Their fans continued to show up even when the team was horrible, even when the team was on the brink of relocation, even though their arena is the worst in the NHL by a fair margin. High draft picks don't instantly make you a contender. Columbus, Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, Florida, and many other terrible teams prove that. Pittsburgh completely redefined their game in order to compete defensively. The players, the coaching, the management, and the fans all deserve credit. Luckily for the NHL, nobody subscribes to your idea that terrible teams should always be terrible. That's why the draft is set up to promote this kind of parity, where terrible teams with 0 future can turn it around to be a legitimate contender in under 5 years.

I'm a Wings fan, so Pittsburgh isn't 'my team.' #1 Crosby is possibly the best young player the league has seen since guys like Lemieux and Gretzky. It's unlikely that anyone will ever come close to the points those 2 put up, but Crosby is already poised to put up 100+ a year and he's only 20 years old. He's the best player in the league right now and is finally a legitimate player to hold the title 'The Next One.' People like to root for superstars (see: Jordan, M., Woods, T., Gretzky, W.) and the media is doing the right thing by promoting a guy who could actually bring in new fans. #2 The Red Wings haven't been the Dead Wings in 20 years. Pittsburgh is ~5 years removed from being dismantled and nearly relocated. Detroit has been a Top 3 team for ~13 years now and nobody outside of the Detroit fanbase cares anymore. Do you really think people want to see Detroit hoist ANOTHER Cup? They don't, and that's why VS/NBC are subtly pulling for Pittsburgh. #3 How can you talk about Pittsburgh being handed players while mentioning Yzerman, Hull, and Robitaille in the same paragraph? Hull and Robitaille were bought and Yzerman is the result of Detroit being a terrible team. Why are Shanahan and Schneider legitimate earnings for Detroit, while Crosby/Malkin/Fleury are simply flukes? Moreover, Holland has had the money to spend to make this team a contender every year. Pittsburgh lost their players (Jagr, Straka, Lang, etc) because of monetary issues, not because the team decided to conspire to tank so that they could pick Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury. #4 The media took the side of Pittsburgh in the ECF because the Flyers are the villains of the NHL. However, if Philadelphia had actually won that series, I guarantee that we'd be hearing nothing but "Mike Richards, blah blah blah, RJ Umberger, blah blah blah" instead of "Sidney Crosby, blah blah blah, Evgeni Malkin, blah blah blah." Philadelphia is certainly a better story than Detroit, but they didn't make the finals now did they? #5 Who cares if Crosby whines? Gretzky whined, Lemieux whined, Chelios whines - what does it make a difference? Zetterberg dove a lot this season, does that somehow negate the fact that he's an amazing player? The amount of people that hate Crosby just because he's popular is astounding. I want Detroit to win, but I see absolutely no reason why the media should be focusing on them. Pittsburgh is the better story by far.

VS: "Wow, Lidstrom made an unspectacular poke check! That's why he's a Norris winner, will always be a Norris winner, and why the trophy should be renamed the Lidstrom trophy! Let's watch that replay 8 more times from 3 different angles and comment about how great the pokecheck was for the next 3 minutes." LGW: "Damn straight, Lidstrom is the best player ever!" VS: "Wow, Crosby just shot the puck into the goalie's chest! That's why he's a Hart winner, will always be a Hart winner, and why the trophy should be renamed the Crosby trophy! Let's watch that replay 8 more times from 3 different angles and comment about how great the shot was for the next 3 minutes." LGW: "HOW DARE THEY CROSBY SUCKS AND IS LAZY A DIVER!" VS: "You know, it just goes to show you how great these players are. Lidstrom's pokecheck in the 1st period directly lead to this 3rd period goal because of the change in momentum by that single play. Likewise, because Crosby shot the puck 2 minutes into the game, it's the sole reason why Pittsburgh is winning 7-0 right now. Those players are amazing!" Newsflash: NHL media coverage loves to fellate players for things that are ultimately pointless in order to hype the game. The Red Wings have won 3 Cups already and have consistently been in the Top 3 for 15 years now. It's an old story that very few non-Detroit fans care about. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, is being captained by a guy who gets legitimate comparisons to Gretzky at age 20. Crosby will be the face of the NHL for the next 20 years, whether we like it or not. They're a young team, they're a fun team, and they've been through some major struggles in the past 10 years whereas Detroit has not. The franchise was almost moved, the team was absolutely dismantled, and the arena is one of the worst arenas in professional sports. The team deserves credit for their turnaround and the fans deserve that airtime for their devotion. The media would like to see Pittsburgh win, and they should, because Pittsburgh is the bigger, better story.

The issue here is that playoff calls are clearly different than regular season calls, even if the NHL won't admit it. It was a weak roughing call regardless of the situation, and on top of that, it came when Dallas was a man down. It was clearly a call that was made to set a tone, and those types of calls just shouldn't happen when a team is already down. Both teams committed roughing penalties there, Detroit just got lucky that the refs only took one guy off. The Wings outplayed the Stars by a lot, but the calls also went in Detroit's favor as I've said before. Kronwall left his feet on his monster hit, no call. Fistric throws a weak punch in the middle of the scrum, Dallas goes two men down. There's a legitimate complaint there, but ultimately it probably wouldn't have affected the result of the game.

Yep. From the calls I've been seeing, that goal shouldn't have counted. Turco had no room to move to make a save there and he was very deep in the blue. Like Tippett said afterwards, Turco needs to be more aggressive if he's going to deal with Franzen and Holmstrom crashing his crease like that. The Wings got some favorable calls/non-calls and I think the Stars have legitimate complaints. Kronwall left his feet, Holmstrom was 'interfering,' and that Fistric penalty to give us the 5-3 was weak. Granted, this doesn't change the fact that Dallas looked absolutely lost out there, but Detroit definitely got some calls to their advantage and that helped out (to the tune of 2 goals).

Marty has a 1.73GAA and a .929SV% having played 6 more games against 2 better opponents. Turco is also a better goalie than Osgood, period. The only 'advantage' Detroit has in goal is the psychological factor, which may not even play a part in this series.

I'll agree with you on that. It's a terrible title. He's implying the team is playing good by using a negative statement. That's really poor writing.

An article that praises Osgood's play is "taking away from Osgood's success?" Osgood isn't the MVP thus far. He's been good, yes, but he's not the MVP. Franzen, Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lidstrom have all been more integral to this team than Osgood. That doesn't mean Osgood is bad, it means our team is ridiculously awesome right now.

There's parallels to all of our successful playoffs runs. Round 1 '96-'97: 4-2 win over division rivals '97-'98: 4-2 win over a team that did more damage than most people thought, with crazy loud fans in their building '01-'02: 4-2 win over a team that looked to have the momentum - center ice goal by Lidstrom crushed their hopes Round 2 '96-'97: 4-0 sweep '97-'98: Massively outscored an old rival '01-'02: Complete domination of an old rival In fact, the best way to look at it: Round 1 was '01/'02 with the 4-2 nerve wracking series featuring a center ice Lidstrom goal that deflated the other team Round 2 was '96/'97 with the 4-0 sweep Round 3 will be '97/'98 versus Dallas Round 4 can either be a rehash of the '96/'97 finals or a new piece of history for this team against Pittsburgh

I don't think you met Rafalski as he wasn't with the Devils until the '99-'00 season.

Rafalski replaced Schneider though, Bertuzzi had 0 impact on our team, and Markov (as much as I liked him) isn't that special. Lang is the only guy that could've potentially effected the team with his loss, I think. Even then, nobody was saying in October that Detroit had the roster to completely dominate the regular season. When Filpulla-Cleary-Samuelsson was our projected 2nd line, there were legitimate worries to be had. The guys bought into Babcock's system and they ended up playing some tremendous team defense to make that record happen. Babcock deserves it, but as I've said elsewhere, I don't think there's a chance he wins over Boudreau (who also did some amazing things).

If Naslund signed for a mid amount of money, I wouldn't mind taking a chance on him. Stick him on the 2nd line in a low pressure situation and I think he could regain some of his scoring touch. Huselius as #1 for LW is a joke. Malone, Avery, Naslund, Brunette should all be ahead of him for various reasons.

New Jersey in '00 was one of the most exciting teams in the playoffs that year, and ditto for Tampa in '04. What exactly does it take to classify as "worthwhile" in your mind?

Altitude is worse than VS in my mind, and it has nothing to do with the Colorado/Detroit rivalry (I don't really get worked up over "rivalries" too much). Those guys ramble on about nothing and are the defintion of homers, even more so than Ken Daniels. Any time the opponent does anything good it's "lucky" or "catching a break," and every time Colorado does ANYTHING it's marvelous, wonderful, outstanding, a play no one has ever made before, groundbreaking, etc etc. I know many Avalanche fans who find it difficult to listen to. Along the same lines, many Av fans find Denver hockey coverage to be abysmal. We've seen some of the terrible articles written, particularly the "loserville" one as well as the columns written about the Minnesota/Colorado series (they flat out called Minnesota the dirtiest team ever to have existed), so it's no wonder they feel that way.

Don't forget these: "DRIIIIIIIIIVE!" "And it's into the goalie's paraphernalia!" "Here they come on the counterpunch!" and last night he added a new one after Holmstrom did a bank pass off the boards: "Holmstrom with the geometric pass!"

Kronwall was great offensively and with those hits (though a couple were illegal ) but man, he was atrocious on the giveaways so I can't say he's the MVP. Top 3 1. Osgood (1 goal in ~150 minutes?) 2. Datsyuk 3. Lidstrom hon. mentions: Hudler, Kronwall, Franzen Bottom 3 1. Lebda/Lilja 2. Stuart 3. Cleary dishon. mentions: Hasek, Filppula, Zetterberg

I think it's too early to make that kind of a judgment, but with Vancouver and Toronto being the two front runners, you may be on to something. Those 2 franchises love to reward apathy, so if Brunnstrom is just looking for the cash then it's a no brainer.

I imagine that will rocket up to about 2.5 in round 2. Ottawa looked awful. Osgood and Joseph leading the pack is pretty funny though.

I like Holland and all but I would rather he leave for Vancouver than Nill.

That's not even true. Tucker and Blake both came out and said Avery didn't bring up cancer at all. As was said elsewhere, in a Vancouver/Detroit game, Downey was incited by Burrows asking him "how's the potato farm?" - it obviously doesn't take a whole lot to get these people riled up. These are the only things that are off limits when it comes to agitation: a) children b) death/serious illness