Third Man In

So, ehm, baseball season! RIP Ernie. You'll be missed.

Reminded me a hell of a lot more of game 6 against Edmonton in 2006. No matter what, I'm proud of the Wings, what this team has accomplished the past 3 years and what they overcame this year. And I'm not going to be all doom and gloom if they lose. Those 2006 Red Wings lost Yzerman and Shanny and everyone thought the team's glory years had past. The next year they nearly won the Cup. We'll be back. But we'll appreciate the next long playoff run, whenever it comes, all the more.

ZDH is all well in good in the regular season, but it becomes a problem when you go up against a team in the playoffs with two legitimate scoring lines. Right now the Wings have two good scoring lines and a collection of players (Helm, Abdelkader, Draper, Maltby, Miller, Eaves) that would do best on a checking line. Add Hudler back in the mix and you've got something like this: Franzen-Datsyuk-Holmstrom Cleary-Zetterberg-anyone but Bert or Willy Eaves-Filppula-Hudler Abdelkader-Helm-Draper/Miller The Wings are one good free agent from having three good scoring lines again. Now about that defence...

I agree that playing Ozzie couldn't hurt. Although it would be unlikely to ultimately change the result, it's the only conceivable thing that could give the Wings a big enough shot in the arm this series. But Babcock--probably with Kenny's input--decided to ride Jimmy, and they'll stick to it. They were pretty ruthless in sticking with Legace in '06 to see what he was made of, and I think they'll do the same here. They won't win the series, but they'll learn a lot about their goaltender to see how he responds. We know this now, tonight. The 2008 team had a bit more talent, but they had a lot more determination.

This is a fair point. On one hand, this game reminded me a bit of game 6 against Edmonton in 2006. But Howard showed us something by winning game 7 against the Coyotes. He's been inconsistent as hell this playoff, but I'm not ready to write him off. Go Wings.

The 'penalty' discrepancy this series had been atrocious. But you can't blow 2-goal leads on home ice in the playoffs. I don't question the team's heart, but they are missing their edge. The 2007 team would have found a way to win this game. The 2008 team would have buried them. Go Wings.

Let's Go Red Wings! :clap: :clap: Let's Go Red Wings! :clap: :clap: :octo: *splat* :octo: *splat*

Bettman's never going to throw individual refs under the bus, and he shouldn't. No boss should do that to their employees in public. But like stevkrause suggests, the league's efforts to increase consistency have been laughable. Did anyone see the bit on the CBC a couple weeks back where Ron MacLean had the video the league showed to all the teams with examples of pucks legally and illegally deflected in off skates? Most of the examples were completely indistinguishable.

Your pictures started off clever and artistic. Now you're just spamming the board with unimaginative drivel.

Variation on a theme

Ain't gonna happen. But rumor does have it that he will be back next year with stronger sticks.

Let's Go Red Wings! :clap: :clap: Let's Go Red Wings! :clap: :clap: :octo: *splat* :octo: *splat*

Just win. Full 60 tonight, boys.

Sharks fan or no, you seriously ought to patent that. There's not a Wings fan I know who wouldn't want that.

No kidding. The only thing better is when fans of two other teams show up here and flame each other, like the Rags and Flyers fans did a couple years ago.

You mean when Razor said this?

Don't Let Yourself Get Trolled by Mindfly (DLYGTBMTM)

Agreed. The way the Wings PP was going, they probably would have declined any penalty on Setoguchi anyway. Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. Just be careful--that's twice in this thread that you've compared us to Dive fans. Them's fightin' words around here.

Ok I'm gonna preface this by saying this alone didn't cost the Wings the game (they can't fall behind 0-3 and go 0-5 on the PP while allowing the Sharks to go 2-6). But I've found a crappy-quality video. Begin around 2:24: You're right on the first but not on the second. This replay pretty well dispels the idea that the highstick was because of the trip. Although Franzen's stick makes contact first, Setoguchi's stick is already coming up well before. Certainly, if Franzen is to be held responsible for the stick to the back of the leg that led to Setoguchi's best Greg Louganis impression, Setoguchi's gotta be responsible for his.

They often do have something like this during the playoffs, like a league representative or even director of officials. But as we see with reviews of goals in Toronto, even attempts to centralize and standardize calls doesn't seem to work.

This thread just died as soon as the playoffs started. Tigers are in the middle of a brutal stretch here: 37 games in 38 days with two West Coast trips and a host of games against teams we don't historically do well against (Angles twice, Twins twice, Yankees, and Bosox). So far so good--they've managed a split in Anaheim and took 2 of 3 from the Twins. If they can make it to May 24th in decent shape they'll be primed for a run.