T.Low

The OP is interesting. First off, I hesitate to break up Huds, Modano, and Cleary yet. They have had some great chances but they seem to be just a half step off in timing. I still have faith that it will come together. That being said; Hudler is the weak link, not Mike Modano. Hudler totally looks like a guy who's had it a lot easier while making almost 3 times the money (factoring salary w/out taxation). Huge money, star status, less effort, much less of a price to pay. He may never return to the player he was before he left. 70 pts? The Wings are going to be lucky to get 40 pts out of him this year. I do see the merit of putting Helm up to center Mike and Jiri; he will do the hard, dirty work, and possibly be the playmaker when Mike and Jiri find the open spots on the ice for easy one timers. But that does indeed penalize Cleary. But Dan Cleary is a role player and no doubt will take one for the team when asked or assigned. I still have faith in Modano; but my faith in Hudler is on lifesupport.

I love the South...but I don't expect them to know hockey down there. I expect them to know BBQ.

Excellent post. In what little I've been able to see of Modano this year, I have thought the same thing. Skates great, back checks hard, get some shots off. They will have a break thru game soon.

Chicago is now about to get a harsh lesson in "depth".

As awesome as Zetterberg is, let's face it, he could never do some of the things Pavel does: the dekes, the passes, the take aways, the Best Russian award...

I watched the video more than a few times looking for that, and I'm going to have to disagree with you. He was plainly and obviously hit and then the guy was falling on him too. Therefore, I think Clemensen's reaction was to relax and go with the energy and force of the hit to minimize it's impact on him. Why fight it and expend energy and risk injury when he has nothing to gain? You can see where his knee was aobut to be in a very awkward position with all his weight and Orr's weight on top of it, risking injury, so he whipped his leg out from under himself and spun a little with the hit to minimize it's impact. If there is one ref in pro sports that is on the take (that NBA ref a few years back), you better beleive there are more out there.

I was trying to follow an acquaintance of mine and found http://boltprospects.com/forum/index.php (Matt Butcher- he got dropped by Vancouver, Yzerman picked him up for the Prospects Tournament, Matt scored the game winning shoot out goal in the 16 round shoot out against the Wings). If you don't like what you've seen so far, you may ask there. I have to say that I agree with you: Stankos is a horse. And your avatar rocks.

Yeah that one always get s me too. it's the default response from people who get all tense with jealousy that their team doesn't play that way. Some fo the Vancouver Team 1040 guys say that the WIngs play like poetry in motion and it's like an incredible symphony orchestra of hockey play. I actually get bored watching other teams dump and chase all day. The plays don't develop and there can be so much randomness to other team's play; while you're gnipping, they're gnoppiing (just tossing the puck back and forth down the ice to the other team, crashing and banging, it rearely makes it out of the nuetral zone.) (When my beer league team gets really sloppy and can't seem to get it together we always imitate a Russian coach getting impatient trying to coach us North Americans and somebody will inevitably say in a bad Russian accent "OK boyz, itz time to keep it zimple for you zimple Norz Amerekan boyz. Letz play zee dump & zee chaze hawkey. Now rememba, za keyz to za dump and zee chase are?..ze dump!... and ze chaze... zen go hit zombody. Letz go, boyz.". How exactly can puck possession hockey played by a collection of some of the most skilled players in the world be boring?

She is not a sports journalist; just a "freelance" "yahoo user" blogger. Anyone with time on their hands and a propensity to want to see their own writing on a screen can do it; no subject knowledge required. https://publish.associatedcontent.com/signup.shtml http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/495535/sherri_thornhill.html "The Detroit Red Wings: Why I hate this obnoxious hockey team By Sherri Thornhill, Associated Content This article was produced by a Yahoo! Sports user. Submit an article" Watch this with a beer and remember who we are and who she is; you'll be fine.

Yes i know it's very early, but I've gotta say that Bertuzzi looks like he has more jump than he's had in a long time. He really hustles on the back check, looks like he relishes playing with Franz and Filp, likes his role very much. And the little fight in preseason for the hit on Franzen . While he is indeed a scoring threat, he is really a great passer with his vision and hands and this seems like such a perfect fit for him. He really looks like he's settled in with the Wings and is foucussed and will contribute even more this year. WHat do you think?

Wrong forum.

All those years of lurking, depriving us of that sharp wit. What a shame.

Way to make good use of the archives. (don't look now but your join date is showing: May 2010)

ano...honto ni omoimaso. Zanen desu ne. Z wa gambate. (Gomen desu ne. Watashi no nihongo chotto hen. Takusan wasuretta deshta ne, naze naraba America ni shabe nai.) Wakaru? edit: ShanahanMansan, Yoyogi Koen ikimas***a ka? Sugoi.

Not sure what you mean. I know when I've had a concussion.

Great info everyone, thanks. Can GameCenter streams be "DVR'd" so to speak. On the west coast, the home games start at 4:30. I'd like to ride and do other things and then settle in and watch the game after dinner later in the evenning. Is that possible with the Gamecenter streams or do is that not how a stream works? Thanks in advance.

Hey everyone, I just got here. Looks like it's time to put a little ketchup on the Wings. Maybe hot & spicey.

At the 123-124 second mark of the video you can see Hjalmarsson at the blueline center ice, while Pommenvile is below the face off dot along the boards coasting backward very very slowly to keep some spacing from the puck handler and thus be available for an outlet pass. Point being, the only way for Hjalmarsson to get to Pommenville is from behind. Maintaining good defensive positioning, he took a bit of a dog leg route, staying a little high as he moved over, then went in low, so he came over the shoulder from behind. Pommenville of course looks over his shoulder as he should, but it's uncertain as to wether or not he can actually see Hjalmarsson coming. It's reasonable to think that Pommenville realizes he will be challenged for the puck or hit as soon as he recieves the puck, but obviously he did not think he'd get hit from behind before he actually recieved the puck. Hjalmarsson glides in , wide stance with feet apart, to see what type of play available for him to make. His stance is wide, ready to make a move either way. He decides not to play the puck, but rather to take out the man. As the pics earlier in the thread showed, he difinitely hit him from behind, coming from the center ice blueline he would have put himself out of position to make any other play if he looped down to the face off dot and then over to be able to hit Pommenville from the direct side, so of course he did not take that route. I don't think it was a cheap shot so much as a bad decision resulting in a dirty hit. Like the video shows, Hjalmarsson glided in with a wide stance indicating to me that he was non committed to any particuar play, then you see his weight shift as he makes the decision to play the man instead of the puck.

Apparently not. If you did, you would have probably used "thesauri" instead of the more proletariet version "thesaruses". I'm just saying...

No, I agree, he is certainly past his prime and will never be that player again. Part of that is indeed his lower back issues. I do mean exactly that he is not near as tentative as he has been since leaving Vancouver. He has a lot more jump than he ever had in Florida, Detroit I, Anaheim, Calgary, and even last year with the Wings. He is playing with a lot more confidence and flow than I've seen him play with since leaving Vancouver. He looks like he is enjoing the game, at home with is teammates, and feels good to hustle. He doesn't look frustrated and like he is laboring and also thinking too much out there like he has since leaving Morrison and Nazzie. Is he good as new? No. Revitalized? Yes.

Three guys out injured and that's our lineup? Awesome. Give it up for the front office:

I saw it the first time I saw the fight vid. Yes, it's interference, but I don't think it's that dirty. It's a typical hockey play, even thought they call it a penalty (to keep it from getting too out of hand) A lot of guys in the league would really have totally unloaded on that guy, a hell of a lot more so that Z did. Noboy in their right mind lolly gags thru the neutral zone not looking where they are going. Interference or not, it's a given somebody is going to knock your block off. You can't Figure Skate thru the neutral zone without paying for it. Just like football; you can't cross the middle in front of the linebacker without him tryng to make you pay the price. If it were a Kronwall hit, then that would have been on Don Cherry and a complete line brawl would have broken out. I'm not being a Homer, it's just an observation. (Remember, I'm the one who caught hell from LGW for saying that Hudler should not have been admiring his pass just before that guy laid him out a couple season ago- no Red colored glasses here.) Edit: That being said, I totally agree with your premise with a slight modification; Expect to get blinsided if you try to cross the neutral zone with your head down; and expect to get jumped if your the guy makeing the hit on the figure skater. That's hockey.

For today, I am a huge Blues fan. Anaheim (0-2-0, 0 PTS) @ St Louis (1-0-0, 2 PTS)

I'm not saying anyone else has to care what Cherry says, but I get a major kick out of Coaches Corner. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree, sometimes I cringe. I just know that he luuuuuuuvs Perry (Like Daniels said, he is one of only four active players to have 100 goals and 400 PIM and thats a Cherry type "beautiful Canadian Boy"). And given his opinion on European players and their fight record and how he ripped Pavel for the protective way he once blocked a shot, I'd like to see his reaction to that fight. Does this make Datysuk the new breed of Power Forward? Serioulsy, though; Datyuk was awesome against Perry; but if he never gets into another fight like that in his career, I'm totally fine with that. Yet another example of how Pavs truely enjoys (and accels at) every aspect of the game. He is one of a kind.

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