StormJH1

Well, that's right of course. The Wings' attitude has always been to try and win now and worry about the consequences later. Really, the league is structured such that most teams with our draft position would've burned out a long time ago, except that we manage to hit on guys like the EuroTwins with absurdly low picks, plus create serviceable players out of reclaimation projects (Drew Miller, Cleary, Eaves, etc.), and do other "out-of-the-box" things (like drafting Ericsson as a forward and turning him into a Top 4 defenseman). I would absolutely welcome the problem of having to give Howard a raise if he plays well enough in the Playoffs to warrant that question. At some point, the Wings will have to actually pay decent money for a goalie in the post-lockout era, which is something Pittsburgh, San Jose, and even Chicago (they're paying, we'll see if he's decent) already have to do. But playing for the Wings also devalues goaltenders because whenever the team has been successful, it's generally seemed like the goaltender benefited from the overall system.

I don't hate Samuelsson, just like I don't hate Hossa or Kopecky. The idea that you root for these guys as Wings and then suddenly they're complete garbage the day they choose or are forced to put on a different sweater is kinda fraudulent to me. Sammy's comment wasn't arrogant or angry. He simply welcomed the matchup (what's he supposed to say?) To his credit, you can think of a long list of former Red Wings (from Lapointe to Fedorov and beyond) who thought that they might be more productive playing a bigger role on a different team, but Sammy actually proved his point this year. I'm sure he hasn't forgotten that we revived his career, like we did for Cleary and countless others.

Looking at the accomplishments on paper and factoring in the importance to their teams, I really think Jimmy Howard should be #1 or #2 in the Calder vote. I feel like Tyler Myers is thought of as the biggest "potential star" of that group, and that's why he may win. Also, doesn't Jimmy Howard get downgraded somewhat for the fact that he's a "rookie", yet he's played in every season since the lockout, except 06-07 (back to 2005-06)? Sure, he's still eligible, but I feel like voters set the bar higher for you when your NHL debut took place back when Tavares and Duchene were probably 13 or 14 years old.

I hate "Power Rankings". I understand the concept of "Some teams are playing better NOW than their overall record indicates", but that's what a Last 10 games split is for. The only possible rationale for having the Wings ranked 3rd are the history of what this team did in 2008 and 2009. But even with everyone healthy, this team lost like 25% of its scoring and replaced it with guys like Bert and Jason Williams. The idea that we're "better" than the Penguins AND Hawks right now from an objective standpoint is just B.S. I'm a huge Wings fan, and of course it's possible we could beat them in a playoff series, but you can't pretend like some of the larger problems facing the Wings this year have suddenly disappeared.

All accounts point to Zetterberg, and once they got him signed long-term, that became a sure thing. I've had doubts about that in the past b/c he isn't as important to the team as Pavel is, but the language issue and the ability to communicate are part and parcel of that role. For what it's worth, I wasn't sure Lidstrom was a verbal "leader" either, but (a) he had time to get groomed into the role; and (b) like Yzerman, he leads more by example than by screaming at people on the bench.

Acquired Jordan Owens from the Rangers, per TSN. Who is this guy?

This. I'm pretty sure Doc Emrick does both Versus and NBC, but he is the KING of this. I would take Dave Strader (or even Gary Thorne) over Emrick in heartbeat. I don't think anything could contribute to the idea that your sport is full of random occurances more than an announcer who doesn't seem to have any clue when a goal is scored. One of these days, I'm waiting for Emrick to just keeping going on with one of his rants and never even acknowledge the goal happening at all, even as goal horns are going off in the background and players are celebrating. It's gonna happen.

Yet another disallowed goal with Holmstrom involved, and the explaination given by the ref was that there was contact between Holmstrom and Craig Anderson. Watching the replay, however, there was basically ZERO contact. Even if Holmstrom snuck a baby elbow in there, he was completely cleared out of the play by the defenseman, after which Franzen picked up the puck and put the rebound in. I watched the recap on NHL Network and they seemed to all agree that it was a great call by Kerry Fraser because "Holmstrom was clearly in the blue paint." Help me out here...is this still 1999? Because in 1999, I remember that if you had even a foot in the crease when the puck was shot into it, it was a disallowed goal. Hull famously got away one in the infamous "No Goal" game against Hasek and Buffalo, and the rule was so ridiculous and overdone that it was gone the following year. What is the actual rule now? Holmstrom didn't interfere with Anderson when the shot was being made, and I don't believe he was in the crease when Franzen shot it b/c he had already been knocked over by the defenseman. If any player on the Red Wings puts a skate in the blue paint at any time during an offensive possession, are we to assume that any goal subsequently scored will be called off? I thought we fixed this garbage...

I think that deadline deals, as fun as they are to follow (and especially from the perspective of a Wings fan circa 1994 to 2002) are significantly overrated. It seems like the best moves are the Brad Stuart and Hal Gill-type moves that add depth without completely altering the chemistry of a roster 20 games before the playoffs. But it is a little frustrating that the Wings need to "stand pat" because of cap concerns while a team like Chicago (which has MAJOR cap issues and signed Hossa after we declined--due to cap issues) made two pretty nice moves in swapping Barker for Johnsson and now picking up Boynton. No, I don't want us dangling the Tomas Tatars and valuable draft picks for stopgap upgrades, but I'm also not sure I buy that our hands are completely tied. And it's not like don't have NEEDS this year.

The "Intent to Blow" (Brad May) play angered me more than this one, but both of them involved some act (either a covered puck or goalie interference) that was retroactively said to have ended the play, even though play clearly continued. To me, you can't leave rules like this that create even the appearance of impropriety. We shouldn't have to question whether or not the play ever would've actually been blown dead. In the Brad May play, I'm sorry, but that play continues until the whistle BLOWS, because that is a indisputable place in time, and one that can be reviewed. In this play, first of all, he didn't interfere with the goalie, and even the alleged interference had nothing to do with the goal. But either you blow the play dead when it happens and move the faceoff outside the zone (which would be so frequent as to be assinine), or you let them play. Don't put your refs in a position where they have to take a point off the board and retroactively explain why something you just saw happen shouldn't "count". Like henrik40 pointed out above me, I don't think this is a "conspiracy" against the Wings and I'm sure it happens to teams all over the league. I don't want a bad rule to screw them over either...I just want the rule fixed. I do think that after 15 years of Ciccarelli, Holmstrom, and now Franzen and Cleary, Detroit is getting a sort of "reputation" for these types of plays, similar to the "reputation" Anaheim developed for rough play.

http://hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=80271 Yeah, not much exciting. 6'0", 180, shoots left, 23 years old. Had 12 goals in 67 AHL games last year.

See, this is where 30 years of "Miracle on Ice" has hockey fans totally screwed up in the head. People seem to think that Miracle on Ice remains as important as it does today because people really like hockey. Miracle on Ice had almost nothing to do with hockey. It was an Olympic event, a political event, and a heartwarming story, but what was the state of the NHL in the U.S. from 1980 to 1985? Nothing. There was an Islanders dynasty (near a major media market, and in the same state as the Lake Placid Olympics) for 4 years after Miracle on Ice, but the NHL didn't become big business because Miracle on Ice did not make people suddenly appreciate the game of hockey. And if that game didn't do it, I don't know why the Vancouver Olympics are any different. The Olympics are their own things--it's a once-every-four-years TV show that lasts for 2 weeks. The masses aren't going to start following professional figure skating or alpine skiing because of the Olympics. I'm glad that a few media commentators are using Olympic hockey to remind themselves that hockey is still played in this country, but non-hockey fans aren't suddenly hockey fans because they watched one good game in the Olympics.

Yes! Thank you! This is why I don't exhaust myself trying to convince football and baseball fans how awesome my favorite sport is. Who cares? Even my wife (who is a casual football and baseball fan, at best) doesn't understand the sport of hockey in the sense that you need to sit down and watch a 20-minute period, and enjoy it for what it is. While I really want the sport back on ESPN (for marketing and availability reasons), in some ways I'm glad that I don't see hockey highlights forced into the same SportsCenter format you see for football, baseball, and basketball highlights. A real hockey fan (which usually means somebody who either played the sport at some level or at least grew up with it enough to understand it) understands that a scoreless period doesn't mean "nothing happened".

He didn't "earn" my respect by scoring the GWG for Canada because he already had my respect as a player. As a sportsman or as a human being, I don't know, but I don't really know that about anybody. He is a little bit of a whiner and the handshake thing from last June wasn't great (but it was also way overblown). I was watching NHL Live today and they had Phil Borque on the phone, who I guess does TV or radio for the Penguins. He couldn't stop glowing about how great of a model citizen Crosby was, and how he finds himself asking "What would Crosby do" during his day-to-day routine (he wasn't joking). That's a little over the top. But you can't deny that this guy is 22 years old, and already he's led a team that basically should have collapsed and moved to Kansas City to two straight Finals and one Cup, and now Canada to an Olympic Gold medal. And he's done it all despite the pressure of being annointed by Gretzky at age 16, a #1 overall pick in the draft, an extremely young captain, and the "face of the new NHL". As much it pains me as a Wings fan, you have to acknowledge that for all the absurd hype around this guy, about 95% of it has already come true, and that's really pretty remarkable. Yes, he has tons of help on both Pittsburgh and Canada, but it doesn't make me any less of a Wings fan to acknowledge his accomplishments. If it were the Red Wings who ended up with the 2005 #1 overall in that jerry-rigged lottery system, LGW would already be talking about him like the next Yzerman.

See, and I agree with FrozenMan's earlier point that even if you have great respect for Mike Babcock, you can't pull old quotes given to the media and use them to justify a player's role on the team. Again, Brad May had 1 point in 40 games, so if your coach obviously can't point to his scoring to justify his role on the team, he's going to have to point something positive. If that "something" was positive enough, May doesn't lose his job before some other guys that could've been axed instead. And the "service" that you refer to is the service of "fighting," which creates a perceived toughness for the fans and maybe some occasional morale for the players. But you can't add "toughness" to the identity of a team by adding guys that go unclaimed by 29 other NHL teams on the waiver wire. If you had a team that was slow, you don't solve your team speed problem by adding Brett Lebda or Stacey Roest, because neither of those guys are going to play a significant enough role on your team to supplant the guys who actually get minutes and are still slow. I don't think the Wings have a toughness problem. I think they a defensive problem. I think they have an age problem, and a secondary scoring problem. When Lilja got his face bashed in by Shea Weber, which caused depth issues for us in last year's playoffs and derailed his career, he was fighting in 5-0 game that Detroit was going to lose anyway. This fighting stuff is a sideshow. It's entertaining and sometimes it sends a message, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the success of a team, as Detroit has proven time and time again.

Brad May's impact on "other teams" playing dirty against us is only marginally more significant than his impact on Detroit's struggling economy. And I never said that he was the reason the team played poorly, though I did say before we signed him that signing him would do nothing to make the team play better (and it hasn't). So, you think that having Brad May in the lineup makes other teams less likely to dress their enforcers? Really? Answer me this: If the Wild are playing Detroit, and there's no Brad May in the lineup, is there a single guy on the Wings' roster that would fight a guy like Derek Boogaard, who is 6'8" 260 pounds? So the point of dressing Boogaard against the Wings would be....??? Go to YouTube and type in "Kronwall" and "Laraque", and then remind me how teams suddenly stopped cheap shotting the wings after good ole' Brad May suited up for us. It simply didn't happen. And arguing this point with Brad May worshipers only serves to fan the fire because this is way more attention than any Wings player who is lucky to get 7 minutes of ice time deserves. The reason I argue the point anyway is that it feeds into this idea that you can just add toughness by throwing goons on the 4th line who barely play, yet supposedly "deter" everyone else on the ice from playing their normal game. This is patently false. The 07-08 Wings fought 11 times all year (IIRC) en route to a Stanley Cup. They did it with a finesse roster with predominantly European stars. Now we're supposed to believe that two years later, the Wings (having subtracted Hudler, Hossa, and Samuelsson from last year's team and ADDING Todd Bertuzzi) are somehow not tough enough, and that has to be the reason they aren't as good. Except that doesn't make any sense.

You're probably right, though there are successful "brands" in NASCAR and in soccer (see: Manchester United and every other club soccer team) where this is not only tolerated, but part of the appeal. I don't want it in hockey, though, because it seems like the only thing the NHL as an institution has left is it's tradition. I HATE the banners on the boards. I felt a little sick to my stomach when I realized what they were. That type of advertising (kinda like the Mentos commericals of the mid-90's) is purposefully designed to make people irritated and draw attention to their product. If they want to put a mini Spartan foods or DMC Docs logo next to the score and clock at the top of the screen all game, I'd much rather have them do that than superimpose a bunch of garbage on the glass during gameplay, which feels distracting and cheap.

I refuse to follow suit with the majority of LGW and pretend like Brad May is some type of tragic figure in Red Wings history. For pete's sake, in September, 90% of the people here knew him as a goon and a cheapshot artist, a washed-up hack whose traditional hockey skills had diminished to the point where his tough guy skills were no longer enough to make him employable. Then we have a rough October, and suddenly, this guy is the savior who is going to magically improve the toughness of the OTHER 22 guys on the roster and prevent our skill guys from getting injured. Whoops. Neither of those happened. In fact, if anything, they took a turn in the WRONG direction, because signing a garbage time player like Brad May never had any correlation to those things to begin with. Brad May had one freakin' point in 40 games for us. He lost his job to a guy claimed off of waivers from Tampa Bay. The team we kept hearing would be "revitalized" if only we could add an enforcer is 5 games under .500 in true record, and 10th place heading into the Olympic break. And his addition deprived some other young player of the opportunity to prove himself on one of the weakest Wings rosters in weakest memory. And I'm supposed to feel sorry for him? Boo effin' hoo.

There we go, I like that one. I think part of the problem I'm having is that the "intent" is supposed to refer to the intent to make the motion, not the intent to kick it into the goal. It's a legal legal play to kick a puck, just like it's legal to glove a puck (without closing your hand around it). You can even kick towards the net or at a goalie. It only becomes ILLEGAL in the sense that if it goes in, the goal doesn't count. If it hits a foot by accident, though and deflects in, there was no intent to make any motion there, so it's allowed. It really isn't any different with using a hand. You can put your glove on a puck, but if you direct a pass to a teammate in the offensive zone or deflect it into the net, then it's not a legal goal. What the NHL is (apparently) reasoning here is "Sure, Chipchura meant to move his hand towards the puck, but he didn't mean to "swat" down at it as it was coming at him. How is that any different than me saying "Sure, I meant to draw my foot back and kick the puck forward, but I didn't INTEND for it to go in the net, therefore, it's not a true kicking motion?" What Chipchura DID do was move his hand toward the puck, which RESULTED in the puck being deflected into the net. They're one and the same, and that goal should NOT have counted. And I also don't buy that the replay was inconclusive because there was no dispute that the puck hit either his glove or arm--it was only a question of whether or not the motion towards the puck signified an intent to make contact with the puck. I wonder if that had been at the JLA, if the call would've been the same, even though the review officials are in Toronto, and therefore, probably more immune to home crowd pressure. I don't buy the conspiracy, but just like we've been hit by the injury bug harder than most teams, I feel like we've been hit by incompetent officiating much more than it has benefitted us this year. Everything from the Hossa goal in last year's playoffs, to 6 men on the ice for Pittsburgh, to May's "intent-to-blow" goal, to the shootout mess, and now this thing, it just makes me sick to think about it.

I posted earlier in this thread and broke down why I thought Osgood's game has suffered and Howard needs to be the guy for now. But all of this is a moot point if we get into the playoffs and go down 0-2. Is anyone under any dellusion that Howard would not be pulled in favor of Osgood in that situation? In Round 1 of the '08 Playoffs, the Wings were actually up 2-0, lost two to Nashville to tie it at 2-2, and Dominik Hasek was pulled in favor of Osgood in a tied series! I think if things continue as they are (and we sneak in as a 7th or 8th seed), you have to take a look at Howard to see if he's the guy. If it doesn't work for the two road games, you put Osgood back in at the Joe for Game 3 and try to recapture that '08 and '09 magic.

Exactly. You could take that question and apply it to 90% of the players in the league at some point in their deal and it would be true. But when people view the Rafalski addition in retrospect, he was added at a time we hadn't won a cup since '02, and the guy was critical defensive component for two Finals teams, and scored a huge goal in the cliniching Game 6 of 2008. If we're playing that game, Chris Osgood seems about $3 to $4 million underpaid when he's in the Playoffs, but probably $750,000 overpaid relative to his regular season numbers.

Really? Wasn't he brought in to fight and prevent guys from being injured? Two of our best players went down within a week of signing him, and after a few early fights, he went about a month without fighting anyone, if I recall. I'm not a May hater--he actually was a lot less washed up than I thought he'd be, but what exactly does he offer going forward? I read your comment and thought "he's done what's he's been asked to do," so now would be a good time to move on.

I think people are undervaluing Ponikarovsky here. Granted, the guy turns 30 in April, and he hasn't had a particularly stellar career, but he had 23 goals last year, and could get 30 this year. He's also 6'4" 220 lbs. And I heard that Burke was trying to avoid losing him in either the Giguere or Phaneuf deals, and they did hold onto him. What would the Leafs benefit from dumping him for Williams and Leino? Leino isn't in his early 20's either, and you'd have to think his trade value isn't that great when it's rumored he could be waived as early as tomorrow.

Pierre is a disaster, but I was worried about that hit b/c it was right on the knee. When I saw him able to stand up on the bench, I was more hopeful he was either fine, or it would just be like a sprain or something, but I'm still checking for updates. That was kind of an unnecessary hit by Kronwall on that play, so it'd be a shame if he got hurt again on a play like that.

I was at the game last night. It was very deflating to watch that performance. The point about lateral movement is well taken, and here's why: People forget a few things about Chris Osgood. First, he's 5'10", which is very small for a modern goaltender. Second, Chris Osgood was considered a "hybrid goaltender" for the bulk of his career, until he reinvented himself as more of a butterfly goaltender before the 2007-08 season. These two points are interrelated. Osgood's degree of success has always seemed overinflated compared to his size and apparent abilities. The reason he was so successful is that he played in Detroit with outstanding defenses that limited cross-ice passing. Anybody who has watched Osgood over the years probably has the image of Ozzie way out beyond the crease cutting down the angle on shooters and trapping the puck in his shoulder protector in a butterfly. The problem is that Osgood is a little bit older now, which means that his footspeed (both laterally and in his ability to get out on an angle) are diminished. But the bigger problem is that defense is a mere shadow of what it was even 2 years ago. Lidstrom and Rafalski are aging fast. Stuart and Kronwall (when healthy) are still very good, but we're forced to give significant minutes to guys who are far less consistent. So, those cross-ice passes that never would've happened on the '98 or '08 Wings are happening quite a bit now. What I saw last night was Osgood committing too early with the butterfly to sharp angle shots, which basically left the net wide-open on the Latendresse and Havlat goals. A larger goalie (even one Howard's size) would stay closer to the goalline and have a much better opportunity to make those saves. But I think it's too simplistic to say that Osgood was "rusty". He looked fine on straight shots and had good positioning. The issue with Osgood is that he changed his game to compensate for his size and remain effective on a good defensive team, but this is a very average defensive team now, and Osgood's movement is also beginning to diminish. Having been to the Joe as far back as the 1996 Playoffs and watching Osgood, I'm amazed that I'm still watching him in the Winged Wheel in 2010 playing in Minnesota. But after last night, I had a sinking feeling I was witnessing the beginning (or the middle) of the end.