nkuehnl

Not to spoil any surprises here but I guarantee Maltby, Downey, McCarty, Cleary, and many more Red Wings use personal issues to agitate. Particularly Cleary because he's a bit of an *******.

The same reason those families shouldn't expect pleasantries when they go to an R rated movie. There's booze flowing and there's men beating each other with sticks, fists, and bodychecks. Why is violence acceptable for a 8 year old girl but hearing "f***" isn't?

And my point is that it's the parent's fault for putting the children into a situation where this type of language is acceptable. The whole world can't be child proof.

Fair enough, but in response to that, if the parents know anything about hockey games then they should know what they're getting into by attending one with their children. I hear at least one swear word per game when watching FSN, that kind of language is extremely prevalent at these types of events. I could totally see your point if this was a little league crowd doing this, but not a mature audience of a sport where men beat the living hell out of each other on a nightly basis. The double standard of deeming the hurtful violence appropriate but meaningless swear words inappropriate just doesn't fly with me.

It's only a big deal because people make it a big deal, and that's that. "Bad" language has been a part of hockey since its conception and to get your panties in a twist because a child may hear one of those words at such a game is ridiculous. Raise your kids right and it won't matter if 10,000 drunken hooligans are offending your ears.

Haha, what? Hasek came out and played the angle on Arnott, but Arnott was given all the time in the world to put the puck just under the crossbar at about 95mph. Angles also mean nothing on Radulov's tip shot or Legwand's 2 on 1 goal.

Goal 1 - playoff type scramble with a tip in front of the net. Verdict: Not Dom's fault. Goal 2 - bad bounce off the boards, Radulov buries an empty netter. Verdict: Not Dom's fault. Goal 3 - Tootoo dribbles one in the five hole, but he should NOT have made it to the net. Verdict: Weak goal by Dom, absolutely no help from defense. Goal 4 - beautiful tip by Radulov, no goalie has a chance on that. Verdict: Not Dom's fault. Goal 5 - 2 on 1 where Kronwall plays the shooter instead of the pass, Legwand buries it. Verdict: Not Dom's fault. Goal 6 - Awkward slapper from the boards. Verdict: Dom should've had it. Goal 7 - Lilja is way out of position, Arnott is allowed to walk right in and set up a perfect slapper top shelf, absolutely no chance for any goalie. Verdict: Not Dom's fault. Factor in some of the amazing saves he made in Games 1 and 2 (and 3) and I fail to see how Dom's job should even be questioned at this point.

Good point. I suppose I'm seeing Cleary and not clearly! Hudler-Filppula-Franzen is like the junior ZDH line, not sure why I didn't think of that.

I would reassemble the Filppula-Datsyuk-Cleary and Holmstrom-Zetterberg-Franzen lines for the road match-ups, but that's about it. Hudler-Draper-Samuelsson has been doing well, for whatever reason (Hudler and Samuelsson cancel each other out, maybe) and McCarty-Hartigan-Drake was our absolute best line in the 1st period. Why sit Hartigan when he was integral to the Mac goal? You don't punish guys that are doing well, and that's practically our whole line-up right now. Nashville has scored 1 goal at the fault of our skaters (Hudler mishandled a pass, Lilja lost his man, Tootoo scores a dribbler past Hasek) while the other 2 goals were fluky playoff goals that you can't blame on anyone. They're doing well, so I don't see a reason to mess with that. Our 2nd PP has been awful for the whole season. I'm always surprised that they've never split Rafalski and Lidstrom up on the PP. 2 quarterbacks is nice but the simple fact is that Kronwall, Stuart, and Samuelsson are incapable of running their own unit. ZDH + Lidstrom/Kronwall and Cleary/Filppula/Franzen + Rafalski/Stuart makes more sense to me, but I don't know that I'd change that either given where we are.

Samuelsson has a 4.7 shooting percentage and brings nothing to the squad other than his supposed shot. It's a legitimate complaint. This guy should be nowhere near our PP, let alone our 1st two lines.

That's asinine thinking. Why acquire a guy for a what-if situation when our offensive depth is a guaranteed problem? What if Cleary doesn't come back and Filppula also goes down? I trust Ericsson and Meech to step in and play big minutes far more than I trust a Hudler-Franzen-Samuelsson 2nd line to produce.

I'll be the dissenting opinion, I guess. Stuart has been good, much better than I ever thought he would be, but he's still a completely unnecessary addition. Our defensive depth is much better than it was last year, whereas our offensive depth is gross. I would've preferred even another Samuelsson-type 3rd-liner-wishes-he-was-a-2nd-liner over Stuart. I also hope we don't re-sign him, as we don't need him, we don't have room for him, and I certainly don't want to spend another 3m-3.5m on a defenseman.

I just don't understand how you could ignore the offensive woes this team is struggling with when they're only missing Cleary up front. Meech and Ericsson have been great, did we really need to add another defenseman? Stuart isn't even that good, for christ's sake. 8 defensemen + 1st line + 3rd line + 4th line + 4th line? or 7 defensemen + 1st line + 2nd line + 3rd line + 4th line? Ridiculous.

Cleary is 29 and probably would have had 55 points this year. I agree that there's no way he'd get $3.9m, but $2m-$2.5m is too low. This is a Detroit team that gave Niklas Kronwall a 3 million dollar deal. Cleary has been much more integral to this team than Kronwall, particularly in last years playoffs. I would be shocked if he was signed for less than $2.75m, with $3m more likely. He's a legitimate 2nd line scorer, fantastic in his own zone, and can grind with just about everyone. A $2m contract would be a lowball.

Buffalo should be thankful that another team will give him his 6 year/42 million dollar contract. Campbell is awful in his own zone, and while it sucks for them to lose yet another "name" player, they'll be better off cap-wise down the line.

Yeah, clearly Lebda is the problem - not Lilja. Oh wait.

I find it laughable that Steve Staios is the name you picked from a hat. How on earth is Staios better than what we have currently? Hey guys, let's stock our defense with Lilja clones and then complain when those guys don't turn out to be the checking machines we fooled ourselves into thinking they were!

No team is going to win without those bottom lines chipping in, so I disagree.

It's news to me and the rest of the league that Chelios, Kronwall, and Lebda haven't been effective 3rd/4th guys. Another defenseman that could man the point would be wonderful, but actually being able to score goals when the Datsyuk line is on the bench is a necessity. There's only two teams with the defense you're talking about, and there's going to be cap trouble in Ottawa and Anaheim as soon as this summer.

Re-posting from the grade thread. Forward scoring since January 1st(18 games): Zetterberg 8g 20p Datsyuk 4g 18p Cleary 8g 16p Samuelsson 3g 9p Franzen 5g 8p Hudler 1g 6p Holmstrom 3g 5p Filppula 2g 5p Kopecky 1g 3p Draper 2g 2p Drake 2g 2p Downey 0g 1p Ellis 0g 1p Maltby 0g 0p The bold is why we're not doing well.

Really, especially since Niedermayer returned. We need a scoring forward much more than we need another depth defenseman. A couple bad games doesn't suddenly and permanently make our defense slow and stupid. Rafalski's had a bad couple of games. Lidstrom didn't look very sharp tonight. Lebda and Chelios have been alright. Lilja is still trying to deke through 3 people when coming out from behind the net, but he's not bad otherwise. Meech has even been decent since Kronwall went down. Acquiring another defenseman would be a nice, but it's a luxury, not a dire need.

At least Samuelsson is somehow putting points on the board, even if he is a giveaway/PP ruining machine. Filppula and Hudler have been terrible this year. They combined for 11 points (only 3 goals) in the past 18 games. If that's not a C or worse, I don't know what is. Franzen, on the other hand, should've been given an A. How did he go down a grade from mid season to now? He's been fantastic in 2008. For reference, here's the point production of our forwards in 2008: Zetterberg 8g 20p Datsyuk 4g 18p Cleary 8g 16p Samuelsson 3g 9p Franzen 5g 8p Hudler 1g 6p Holmstrom 3g 5p Filppula 2g 5p Kopecky 1g 3p Draper 2g 2p Drake 2g 2p Downey 0g 1p Ellis 0g 1p Maltby 0g 0p

I know that. I was responding to his bizarre comment about how Bell still has a job, apparently implying Cleary doesn't. Neither of them are playing right now. Bell's supposed "sobriety" sure has helped his game in Toronto. When a team has to enforce random checks on a player to make sure they're not being idiots, why would any team want to trade for him? Babysit a soon-to-be drunk, or let him make his own choices and deal with the high probability of another incident (DUI or not).

What does this even mean? Bell hasn't played a game since January 3rd and nobody is going to touch him after Toronto boots his ass to the curb. Bell was in the doghouse in Chicago for alcohol related issues during the season he was traded. While his DUI/Hit and Run occurred in San Jose, he was already a drunk.

Bell has worse problems. Tell me why he gets a pass when it comes to a tryout. Tell me why he's worth an asset on the trade market, when he hasn't come in and shown he can work hard and get past his drinking problems. If you're talking about giving Bell a tryout period next fall, then fine, there's nothing to risk. But to actually give up something to acquire a guy who just got a DUI and hasn't done anything useful on the ice in 2 years? No. Absolutely not.