StormJH1

I'm very happy with Babcock as our coach. Whether or not he needs to be extended, well, that's a decision for the front office, and maybe it's just as well explored next year. But one Cup, 3 consecutive trips to the NHL's Final Four, and general excellence in a salary cap era with a fair amount of roster flux...what more do you want? Plus, he wears a fedora.

When the Wings won their first modern cup in 1997, Yzerman had just turned 32 years old, and Fedorov was 27. They were in the same points of their career as Datsyuk and Zetterberg are now. Yes, in the pre-salary cap era, the Wings had the ability to go buy or trade for star players, irrespective of salary, but: (a) So did Colorado and any other serious contender at that time; (b) The players the Wings "bought" were almost always OLDER players (Larionov, Murphy, Sandstrom). Shanahan was the same age as Fedorov. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with having a core of players in the prime of their career, supplemented by younger energy players (Draper, Maltby, McCarty in '97; Helm, Abdelkader, Miller, etc. 2008-10). And "old" is not the same as "slow". Derian Hatcher wasn't necessarily old, but he sucked. Lidstrom is 40 years old but still effective. Chelios was very effective in 2002, and passable in 2008, but it's not like we don't have younger quality players too. Oh, and our goalie is a Calder nominee, by the way.

No way you put the VKSM patch on there, that's just cryptic and wrong! If the whole point of "authentic" is making something as close to what Vladdy would've actually worn, then there's no way you have a '97 Vlady with VKSM. Strangely, I can't see Vladdy's left shoulder in any of the pictures to recall if his '98 jersey had the patch. I assume it likely did, does anyone know?

I got chills when the VS announcer said "Matthieu Schneider is basically a specialist at this point..." Really? That wasn't clear to you before? He really did show some elite speed trying to catch up to BRAD STUART there after he turned it over, haha: Yandle was on the opposite side of the ice, managed to get much closer than Schneider did, and still had time to set up behind the net after the goal and wipe out Zetterberg in anger. Brilliant!

What a gutless play. That's the same type split-second reaction Keith Ballard made when he "accidentally" clubbed Vokoun in the head. I have no respect for Yandle after that. Also, watch the first part of that replay again (nobody has mentioned this yet). What about the one handed slash across Stuart's upper body as he was shooting the puck!?! WTF? That wasn't even an effort to stop the goal...he just lost it out there. Inexcusable. I thought the Phoenix fans were fine--The one idiot threw the bottle on the ice, but that is just one guy, and Detroit has idiot fans too. It reminded me of the last game in Winnipeg (same franchise!) where they threw those bottles of chocolate milk or whatever on the ice. Does anyone remember that? I only found this clip, but it shows the final 20 seconds and not stuff being thrown on the ice: Has to be hard for that Phoenix fanbase (even if it is a small one) not to know if they'll have a team next year, and pretty much having that feeling EVERY year until this thing gets resolved.

Okay, first of all, making fun of Detroit or Detroiters isn't exactly clever commentary...in fact, I think Detroiters started making fun of Detroit about 20 years before it became as "cool" as it is now. Second, anyone who has a byline photo that looks like a cameraphone self-photo...not too worried about your credibility... Third, you could take a handful of fans from ANY fanbase in America and generalize about them based on that small subset. Is life in the worst in the worst parts of L.A. really that much better than the worst parts of Detroit? What is this West Coast fan you're talking about? I'm not going to make of the Phoenix fans in the building b/c they actually showed up in the middle of the desert to watch hockey...but most Phoenix residents are "laid back" because they JUST DON'T CARE. I'm sure you could've walked around the streets of Tampa Bay in 2004, Anaheim in 2007, or Phoenix...pretty much anytime...and they might not have even known that Phoenix had a professional hockey team, where they played, or how they were doing.

I agree with that, and I think that player reputation and history should be taken into account when considering suspensions and other discipline, but it has no place on the ice in determining whether or not a play was a black-and-white tripping infraction or roughing. But the worst problem is the "results-based" punishment that the refs try to use. Obviously, if you can see that a guy is injured (or bleeding, by rule), that may be used to increase the level of penalty. But take that Shane Doan hit on Kronwall at center ice earlier in the series. The VS. commentators were basically pleasuring themselves over it: "Oh, look at that tough play by the captain". But it was a blind side hit. The puck was nowhere to be found. At the very least, it should've been a 2 minute obstruction call. Now suppose that Kronwall hits his head on the ice like Booth did on the Richards hit, and is out for the playoffs. Suddenly, we're taking that same set of facts, replaying the tape, talking about Doan as a dirty player, and probably suspending him. But the fact that Kronwall did or didn't get injured on the play has more to do with physics and luck than anything Doan did.

Every sport has rules that "break" the game to a certain degree by leaving things open to interpretation by officials. The NBA basically devolves into a free throw shooting contest after a guy throws himself recklessly at the basket but gets fouled. The NFL has pass interference calls where you can move the ball 30/40 yards down the field after even incidental contact by a cornerback. MLB has the strike zone, which seems to extend a foot or more on either side of the actual plate. Part of the reason Americans don't like soccer (and many of the same people don't like hockey) is that they turn it on and see officials heavily impacting the results, and players flailing all over the place lobbying for fouls. In the NHL, there's no question that penalties are used to "tell a story". Which isn't to say that the refs are being dishonest, but that there is this huge assortment of "unwritten rules" that kind of plays into the narrative of a hockey game. If you have a super-aggressive game with tons of roughing, fights, etc., the run-of-the-mill holding or obstruction calls might be overlooked. I call this "Anaheim" effect...2007 Anaheim got away with tons of penalties that Pavel Datsyuk would never get away with b/c the refs know that over the course of the game, they're already going to be calling tons of penalties for much worse infractions. In their minds, if they call every penalty they see, Anaheim would have had like 20 penalties per game, so they feel like they're dictating an outcome simply by applying the rules. Of course, if they actually did call 20 penalties on Anaheim, they would probably have to adjust their tactics and not play like that, which is why it's unfortunate that this goes on.

Wow, I'm guessing the defense didn't lose track of him when he has a BRIGHT, SHINY GOLD HELMET blinding all the fans and opposing goaltenders! That looked like game with a bunch of 14-year olds.

http://www.versus.com/blogs/nhl/vs-nhl-schedule/ Shut up guys, it HAS to be on Versus. No frigging way they don't carry that one. The link above has them covering it.

Thank you! I'm not sure if that play was legal in 1990, but it sure as hell isn't in 2010! You can't just around and cold-cock a guy at center ice when the puck is nowhere to be found. At least when Kronwall launches one of his "questionable" checks, there's usually a puck or hockey play involved SOMEHOW. Doan hit a guy who wasn't even look at him...if he lands wrong and hits his head on the ice, that play isn't any less reckless or unnecessary than the Richards hit on Booth. In today's NHL, you can't issue a clean check without starting a fight, but garbage dirty hits like that are just standard fare. WTF?

I really don't get all the negativity against Hossa in this town. This time last year, the same people on this site were telling Pittsburgh fans that they had no ownership interest over Hossa, and that they should've known he was a mercenary and nothing more. When he signed his one-year deal here, shouldn't we have gotten the same message?! Hossa was a great two-way player for the Wings all season, and was probably their most consistent goal scorer. Datysuk, Lidstrom, and Rafalski had limited effectiveness in last year's playoffs, and they missed 14 games combined. Hossa's shoulder was destroyed, and he didn't miss a single game. Yes, Hossa was not effective at all in the final two rounds, but why is it that people use injuries as the excuse for all the other slumping Wings, but Hossa's just "sucks"? Pavel Datsyuk had one goal in 16 playoff games last year...secondary scoring (Cleary and Franzen, primarily) had to carry us to Game 7. But okay, it's much easier to blame the guy on his way out the door. I had an interesting conversation with a non-Red Wings fan about Fedorov recently. I told him that the a significant portion of Wings fans felt betrayed by Fedorov, even though we won 3 Cups with him, because of his exit to Anaheim in 2003. My friend found that surprising, but not because Fedorov won 3 Cups with us or because he put in 13 good seasons for us--my friend's point was "Why would Detroit fans have wanted Fedorov back...he only had one more good season left in him." It's the nature of Detroit fans (particularly from our big spending, pre-lockout days) to want, want, want, and expect everybody to want to play here and only here. But if you're mad at Hossa for leaving, don't you have to balance that against the negatives of Hossa STAYING? As in, taking a $6.5 million cap hit for a guy probably already past the prime of his career, and with serious shoudler issues requiring surgery? I have a Hossa Winter Classic jersey, which I wear from time to time. How is Hossa any more of a "traitor" than Martin LaPointe, Shanahan, Fedorov, or Samuelsson? (Or is this a business, after all?)

I think people have vastly underestimated the depth of this Phoenix team. People kept talking about Shane Doan like he was the only legitimate scorer on the team, and I don't see that at all. They may be lacking pure top line scoring talent, but they have secondary scoring all over the lineup, plus, their defensive corps has been getting invovled. I think if we win, it could take 7. Next game is so huge, though. If we win Game 4, I could see us dropping Game 5 on the road. If we lose Game 4, uh oh. Also, there's a good chance Osgood plays if we get to 3 losses, no matter what. It doesn't even have as much to do with how Howard is playing (which is pretty shaky) as it does with history and the fact that you don't want to get eliminated wondering how your historically clutch playoff goalie might have played differently--even if he's done nothing on the merits to suggest that he'd play well this year.

Good stuff, guys. Though, I have to say, when your opponent's most identifiable "star" player is....is....Shane Doan (?), it kinda raises the difficulty bar.

Okay, two things: (1) Franchises should evolve in this order: Local ownership --> Strong Performance on Ice --> Traditional of Excellence created through years of playoff success --> Traditions and rituals associated with long-term success. Phoenix, you are owned by the NHL. Fail on Step 1. The only guy who even wanted to buy your franchise was only going to do so on the condition he could immediately move it 2,000+ miles away from Jobing Arena to Hamilton. Evaluate where you are before you get too attached to new "traditions" (2) It's bad enough to copy a Red Wings tradition--it's even worse when you have to copy a FLORIDA PANTHERS one-year tradition that was so obnoxious the league made specific rules against it. There's a reason the league is willing to "tolerate" a real octopus occasionally thrown onto the ice now and then....12,000 people are not going to attempt to keep a wet, slimy octopus down their pants for 2/3 of a hockey game. However, if your "tradition" is to throw plastic snakes or rats that you could just keep in your pocket, then yes, 12,000 people might try to do that, and it would be extremely freakin' ANNOYING and disruptive to the game itself. Not a "tradition" so much...just being a dick.

Haha, that article trips all over itself. First he's telling (native?) Phoenix fans not to sell their tickets to any Red Wings fans to make money. That part I understand. But then he's telling Arizona residents (many of which are transplants) who own Red Wing jerseys in their closet to leave the jersey at home and not root for Detroit. Hey, how about this...if I'm ALREADY a Red Wings fan, I don't think your stupid article is going to root for the Bettman Coyotes, just because it would ruin your color scheme. The sad truth about that article is that if you removed transplants (many of which happen to root for other NHL teams) from the equation, not only would the Coyotes draw about 2,500 fans a game, but 85% of the "Valley" would be unoccupied desert, since that whole state is built on transplants.

I think it's a trick. He's trying to get somebody to scan their Ticketmaster printout with the UPC code, so they can print it up and go to the game! Haha.

This thread is rivaled only by the octopus in Detroit playoff traditions. Was hoping for a better turnout from the Phoenix fans (c'mon is it really that hard to pretend like Zetterberg is a girl?), but apparently Columbus from last year has a slightly stronger fan base, haha.

(1) There's no way anybody should be comparing numbers from past seasons to current seasons for purposes of handing out awards. If that were the case, I guess both Crosby and Ovechkin "suck" because they haven't eclipsed that 200-point mark yet, ala 80's Gretzky. (2) Two years IS much less of a difference than six years, and there is a younger goalie (Rask) who is 23 years old and has better numbers than Howard anyway. The Ovechkin/Crosby comparison is stupid because they only ended up in the same rookie class because of the lockout. Moreover, Crosby very likely would've won the award as a Canadian media darling, but Ovechkin ended up with 4 more points and 13 more goals over the same number of games, which made Ovechkin a pretty clear favorite on the merits. Both were first-year NHL players--whereas Jimmy Howard is in his 4th NHL season. Yes, I am aware that Tuukka Rask played in two other seasons, but see the earlier comments about age and numbers, and he also played a grand total of 5 games in those first two years. (Howard played 9, but has been "in the league" longer).

First, I agree with you that age will be used by the voters against Howard. But I disagree that it is "unfair". MLB has seen a 28-year-old Rookie of the Year who was an established professional in Japan for many years and arguably in the "prime" of his career by the time he came over. http://www.seattlepi.com/baseball/46316_mari12.shtml That said, I do not think Howard will win the Calder. He should be "considered", but I don't know if he will even be thought of as Top 3. As impressive as he has been, he's 5th in save percentage and 5th in GAA, and the guy that leads both categories is a 23-year old rookie, Tukka Rask. And that's not even comparing him to non-goaltenders, such as Myers, Tavares, and Duchene. I do not believe that Howard has any realistic shot at Top 3 or even Top 5 in the Vezina, either. Rask has the numbers for it, but his workload (only 37 games started) is probably too low. Also, that would be 2 years in a row to Boston goaltenders. To put that into perspective, Carey Price has basically "lost" his starting job to Jaroslav Halak on MTL, this season, yet Price still has more starts (39) than Rask. (Howard has started 58 games). I think the Vezina will be Ryan Miller's award, and there are other guys like Bryzgalov and even Craig Anderson (whose numbers aren't all that great) who would be considered before Howard. As for the "fairness" point, it's not unfair to factor in age and previous experience into the Calder. The whole point of a "rookie" award is that we are supposed to marvel at how advanced this player is so early in their career. Jimmy Howard has had NHL experience since the '05-'06 season. At several points, it looked like there was an opening for him to steal the backup or even starting position, but it wasn't until this season (and Osgood completely falling off the map) that he was able to secure a job. Howard's early career is impressive, but it's more akin to a post-hype prospect, like baseball's Adam Lind, or hockey's Guillaume Latendresse (Wild) than a true rookie performer.

Selfish how? The guy has posted better than a 3.00 GAA or 89% save percentage over the past two seasons. Honestly, if the alternative had been somebody more prominent than Ty Conklin last year, he probably never even gets the chance to play in the '09 Playoffs. And from a fan's perspective, this thing is only going to get worse and worse with time. Osgood turns 38 in November. If he left after this season (and Howard plays well in the playoffs), there's a good chance much of this will be forgotten and he'll be remembered primarily as the winner of the 1998 and 2008 Cups, and a potential Hall of Fame candidate, based on his overall credentials. If I had the choice, I don't want to see another season where Osgood plays once a month, sucks, and then complains about inconsistent playing time again. I don't want to see this thing turn more sour.

I may need some help with #4, but honestly, I think all 5 of those items are just plain WRONG! Hate to rag on a fellow out-of-market fan b/c I know how hard it can be to watch the games sometimes, but he has been one of the worst goalies in the NHL in the past two regular seasons. Yes, he was terrific in last year's playoffs, but it's Howard's job now, and we wouldn't even be close to playoff contention had Osgood played all year. A $1.4 million cap hit for a backup goalie who can't even be trusted to handle the one the games in a back-to-back is NOT a good deal. On point #3, that has traditionally been true, though I think Osgood in front of a mediocre defense (which is what we've had this year) is not capable of the same level of play we saw in 2008 or even in the '09 Playoffs. On point #5, just because Osgood leaves (by trade, retirement, whatever), doesn't mean we couldn't find a Ty Conklin-type guy for half the price that could handle like 15-25 games next season. It doesn't have to be either Larsson or McCollum, if the Wings don't believe either of those guys is ready.

Anybody know of any Red Wings (verified) that post on Twitter? Or, if not, how about a reliable beat writer or reporter that would have inside info before a lot of the other media outlets? I was hoping for someone like Ansar Khan, but no dice.

I was never a huge Hudler fan, but c'mon. Watch some of the '08 and '09 playoff games, and he was another guy figuring into some of those results the same way that Sammy, Cleary, and others would occasionally get on the scoreboard. Heck, we made it all the way to Game 7 of the Cup Finals using basically nothing but secondary scoring. Datsyuk and Hossa were rendered far less effective due to injury. If we could reintroduce a guy on a value contract who is easily a 60+ point player, I'm all for it. Or, if Babcock can't stand him, trade him.

Yeah, I was gonna say! The Wings haven't spent big money on goaltending since the lockout, and any comparison to what we were doing in 1997 or 2002 is irrelevant. So for Holland to say that he "no longer" approves of dropping huge money on a goalie, I'm going to assume he's referring to his general philosophy in a salary cap world, which has proven successful from 2007-2009. Also, I disagree that the Wings would've spent big money on a goaltender had Howard struggled out of the gate. The reason I say this is that the offense struggled mightily for the majority of this season, but we didn't go out and trade for a goal scorer b/c we were so strapped by the cap and would've been screwed when the injured players returned. Another way of avoiding the cap (and we see this in baseball all the time) is to draft well and benefit from young players before the bill comes in for their full value. (See "Miguel Cabrera, 2003 Marlins" or "A. Niemi, 2009-10 Blackhawks" or "J. Howard, 2009-10 Red Wings").