Z Winged Dangler

Hockey is by far the best sport, though it has the worst officiating which is probably due to so many rule changes all the time and deciding what's a penalty. Football is 2nd, but I mainly stopped watching cause it gets old quick when every play some overzealous ******* just NEEDS to celebrate the play, no matter what it is. Holy crapballs!...I ran for 2 yards, here's a pre-cursor to my end zone dance in another 80 yards. Baseball...home runs are cool, that's about it. The rest of the game is so painfully boring that if I had to suffer watching an entire game, I'd peel my skin off like a fiending drug addict. Basketball. What can I say. You want a sport that's so much hype... You can win a championship with 3 good players. 3! Oh no you di'int just slap my wrist. Foul! Look ref, you can see where he slapped me. Soccer. They play dead every time someone slide tackles you. If a football or hockey player (not named Mike Ribeiro) saw that, they would be completely disgusted. Which brings me back to baseball. Synchronized swimming is pure excitement compared to that s***. I'd take the Westminster dog show if given the choice.

If he and Sammy are on the wings, who comes back as the retread centre men?

Ha! Keep the puck out of your net forever! Good stuff. thanks for posting that gem.

And what did the announcers say during the playoffs? Zetterberg has the most playoff points since 2006? To hell with the regular season if that's all a guy's good for...Z puts up when it matters most. He's a big time playoff performer, which will hopefully merit in whether or not he gets his jersey retired or dare I say the HOF. If he captains the Wings to a Stanley Cup and maybe even gets another Conn Smythe (though I'd rather see Dats get the next one, they're my 2 favourites) then he may merit both, as long as he keeps a decent pace in the regular season still though.

Vladdy paved the way for Kronwall. The open ice hits Vladdy used to lay on guys would make Kronwall blush. He no doubt studied the tapes before he started Kronwalling guys. So to say, the Vladiating of many was passed on to what we now refer to as Kronwalling. Open ice hits kick ass.

Tell us how does iPhone Siri knows you are the Magic Man? “How? Well, I picked up the phone and called Apple. I said ‘Let’s do this! It will be a great project!’ "And it turned out to be great, everyone is happy. It was easy. You just need to have the right connections!” I love Dats. He should be interviewed every game....twice.

Yandle and Kronwall are basically the same Dman, except Kronwall hits harder. And for a top 4, wait 2 years and here's your top 4 with Kronwall on the 2nd pairing: Sproul-DeKeyser Kronwall-Ericsson And you can round out the 3rd pairing with Ouellet-Kindl with Backman as our 7th. Anyone who worries about our D hasn't paid much attention to our forwards and the scoring troubles the past couple years. There's bigger fish to fry there.

Nice to see the owner giving the Mark Messier garuntee. The "1967 and counting" motto is getting old? Either way, I actually like the Leafs team now. JVR is awesome.

The KHL season would have to end pretty early though. It would be funny if he joined the Wings and we won it. That would really crawl up the ass of 29 other fanbases

Lidstrom was a defensive kingpin. Now we have Kronner as our #1 with a new mentality. The boys don't have the luxury of looking down the bench to see Lids. Kronwall had his ups and downs last season, but ultimately improved greatly throughout the year and the Wings adopted a "defense by committee" philosophy. As a result, we saw Kronwall struggle a lot at first and then everyone stepped up and took a lot of pressure off him. Ericsson showed us he's the real deal for a shutdown Dman. Kindl earned a spot in the top 4 and silenced us all as fans that were ready to let him walk. Smith had some growing pains, but had flashes of brilliance and showed he's not intimidated by forechecks, he stands them up. DeKeyser stepped in and looked like a seasoned vet, Lashoff was a capable defensive Dman, and Quincey improved a lot over the season and was really good in the playoffs. All in all, Kronwall doesn't need to be a big time Dman, we just need 6 guys that play well together and keep them together. The Kings D corps isn't even as good as ours and they won the Cup 2 years ago.

He'll probably sign 1 year deals with the best team at the time and chase a Cup....Hossa style!

Brendan Smith when he stands guys up and floors their ass.

That really sucks. Kid had a bright future in the NHL, but at least he still has a bright future.

My thoughts exactly. The other 2 should get around the same $$$ and I very much agree with the sentiment of the A+ if Sammy can be discarded somewhere.

Lets put it this way too, if Fedorov stayed in Detroit, we may have seen 1 or 2 more Stanley Cups between 2002 and 2008. Along with all the other guys we already had, Feds would have kept the Wings more of a dynasty and that 6 year cupless gap would have been less.

In the span of 2 years, the Devils lose Parise, Clarkson and Kovalchuk. That's a top line... With our D departures in the past few years, we know exactly how they feel, and it kinda sucks. Lots of ice time for Brunner if he goes there. And he'll either be flanking Zajac or Henrique likely.

Calvert will be on that list soon too.

Nope. 2 years from now Frk will be wearing it.

If the lockout lasted the entire season, how many of you think that Datsyuk may not have signed on for 3 more years and would be right there with Kovy? At first, I thought Kovalchuk was out of his mind leaving the NHL as one of the best pure snipers of this generation, with over .50 goals per game over his 816 career regular season games, but then I thought to myself....lose Kovalchuk now from the NHL and maybe we see the next CBA expire without another lockout, cause the NHL will be afraid of losing more of their top players to leagues without lockouts or salary caps where you can play tax free. Maybe in the long run, something like this is the best thing for the NHL, cause Kovalchuk is NHL talent bringing his bag of tricks elsewhere.

That's because the Norris has become nothing more than a scoring race for Dmen, no matter if they can even play the defensive side of the game. They just load up their points on the PP and win the Norris. Suter should have won it this year over the other 2 candidates. The Norris is supposed to be awarded to the "best all-around Dman" and that's where the trophy is losing a lot of credibility along with numerous others. As for guys "as good" or "better" than Kronwall: Pietrangelo, Doughty, Chara, Weber, Suter, Boychuk, Keith, Yandle, Ekman-Larsson, Shattenkirk and McDonough. There is a list of guys who can play both sides of the ice. Kronwall is basically equivalent to Keith, Yandle and Shattenkirk as an exact play style.

I think he did ok. Not great, but ok his first year as our #1. He had a lot of ups and downs last year...and i started a "Kronwall is a #1 Dman" thread during the lockout i think it was. I wonder how close all of our predictions were from it?

Sorry dude, but that's hilarious. Remember Boston sweeping the Penguins? The Pens lost Iginla to the B's now, who also got Eriksson for their top 6. The Wings took the Hawks to OT game 7 and then acquired Alfredsson and Weiss. Ottawa lost Alfie to us. Devils lost Clarkson and now Kovy. Washington is just a joke, I hope you put them there as a joke. They're such a pile of crap, even Ribeiro left. Here's a better list for you: 1. Bruins 2. Wings 3. Rangers 4. Pens 5. Toronto From there, it's a crap shoot. There's your top 5 next year. You can save this post if you want for an East prediction and I'll eat crow if it's closer to yours, but I think you're out to lunch on your power rankings. Not trying to disrespect you either, just throwing that in there.

So now Jersey loses Clarkson and Kovalchuk. I heard they signed Ryder, which is good for them, but then they way overpaid for Clowe. All in all, they will likely finish bottom 5 this year. Oh well, good thing I never liked Jersey. I feel bad that in Brodeur's probable last NHL season, his team will be so terrible that he likely won't get a last playoff run.

Coyotes, nuff said on that part. The Jets have a lot of the pieces to be a playoff team, but the GM needs to lay off the excessive bottom 6 signings, we know all about that... And he needs to get his top RFA's locked up. Mark Scheifele and Jacob Trouba will be nice additions to the Jets next season. They're a top 6 sniper away from being a real threat. I hate to say it, but Brunner would be a great fit on the Jets.

Not too big a salary, but for a team that you're playing on long term, take a small hometown discount of $6mil and let the team have more depth. How do we think their top 6 will look now? Horton and Seguin gone...my guess: Lucic-Krejci-Ericsson Iginla-Bergeron-Marchand I'd say that's a pretty solid top 6.