Nev

You would be wrong. 2007-8 was one long bitchfest, mainly about how the team was too soft to compete in the playoffs. When people weren't bitching about the lack of fighters, there were endless threads about our sucktacular goaltending as Hasek and Osgood fanboys took turns in deriding the other goaltender as an over the hill fruitcake, or as never good enough in the first place. The month of February saw us decimated by injuries, with a 1st pairing of Lilja-Lebda. Nevertheless, the associated slump in results was proof positive for all the Chicken Lickens that the team was not good enough to win the cup. Trade deadline day was an orgy of Holland hate. The announcement of the Stuart trade, coming after the deadline had passed, meant that the outright fury was only quelled down to a sullen, grudging "OK , I guess that'll do", but prior to that not even the Cleary re-signing generated so much HOLLAND YOU SUCK!!!! Being 3-0 up against the Stars and them coming back to 3-2 was further proof positive that this team wasn't good enough to win the cup. Not to mention, we had Eva Unit Zero and his always entertaining mental gymnastics bemoaning the under utilisation of Jiri Hudler, and how Hudler was a better player than Messier etc etc, if only we used Hudler more..... Finally, we had Mindfly. If you weren't here for it, it would be hard for you to understand just how overwhelmingly negative he was. Every loss, every goal against, every shot against, every icing, every lost faceoff was evidence of what a truly terrible team we had, how Holland should be fired, and the whole team traded for prospects and picks. After every loss he would pop up, preaching his gospel of doom and gloom. Thankfully we won a lot that year. I think us winning game 6 in Pittsburgh was probably the worst night of his life. Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk

Bruins would never have traded Boychuk to us. But still, trading from a position of strength (deep prospect pool) to address a position of weakness (defence), shocking! Nobody tell Holland.

All summer long Babs has said the same thing "if you jump, you better make sure the grass is greener before you do" Honestly, I don't expect him to sign before the season. He's going to coach this season, see exactly what he's got with the kids, see what coaching spots come open this summer, then decide to stick or twist. I live in perpetual fear of him going to coach the Penguins.

Put is this way last year 1) We were riddled with a completely ridiculous amount of injuries 2) Howard had one of his worst seasons as a Wing 3) We didn't ice the best possible team for much of the year because we were crippled by terrible roster decisions And yet we were still an 8th seed. So imagine if this year 1) Injuries are at a reasonable level 2) Howard plays like he did in 2013 3) Cleary/Kindl/Lashoff don't keep more deserving players off the roster Like Kliq says, I think we are easily capable of being a 4-6 seed. And if Holland ever makes a trade for a RHD........

LGW in-joke. Anyway, as Euro-Twins said, this is just standard pre-season fare. Holland and Babs warned us to expect pulled groins, and that they were going to be more cautious than usual with them this year.

I find Babcock's comments on the D prospects......interesting. Kindl and Lashoff best be looking over their shoulders. Interesting also that he talks about "who wants to play on the PP?" With Alfie appearing to not come back anytime soon, and having hopefully left the Tatar experiment in the bin, that leaves our D on the PP as - Kronwall, Smith (promised PP time) and...? Dekeyser? Quincey? Ericsson? Kindl? I don't know if Sproul is ready for the NHL yet, Marchenko Babs has said he sees more as a PKer, but he is a righty....

It depends. Lidstrom - Rafalski was one of the best pairings we ever had. Lidstrom was bigger than most people realise, but he wasn't physical - although he did make whoever he was paired with look better. As for Hicketts, he can skate (which Almquist couldn't) and he's quite physical and feisty by all accounts, despite his size. Reading around people who've watched him in Junior, the consensus is that if he were 2-3 inches taller he'd have gone in the 1st round.

Woke up this morning, first thing I thought was "wonder how the Wings did?". Second thing I thought was "I wonder who got injured?"

I don't know if he's good enough to win a spot in GR, or if he would be prepared to play in Toledo, but the kid has had a great camp. Is he still draft eligable if he returns to Junior? There was a quote from a scout a few weeks ago who was surprised he'd gone undrafted.

He doesn't have to be great defensively, but do you think he could at least try to be average? He does the Controller Disconnected thing all over the ice, all the time. Regarding Mogilny, the Devils used him on their checking line at the end of his career.

In the AHL maybe. I'd rather see Miller - Helm - Abdelkader, since that would mean our top 3 lines are full of quality.

I think the point is there is no Rob Brown effect with Dats (as opposed to Z), its the natural goalscorers who benefit from playing with

I've said it before, but I really want Mantha on Pavel's wing. Throughout his junior career, people have complained that he doesn't dominate play - Malik even complained about it after the first prospects game (after he scored 2 goals ). Those who watch him closely say this is because his style of play doesn't involve chasing round the O-zone, but rather waiting for the puck to come to him and then taking advantage. Rather like Brett Hull used to be with Pav - hanging round the slot while the kids mucked around in the corners, the puck would suddenly come free and there was an open Brett Hull firing a shot on net. Sounds like Mantha has the shot, and the awareness (and the size, and the skating) to be a perfect foil to Pav.

This sentence makes no sense. What are you talking about?

That's good to hear. As for that zip line, I wouldn't do that for all the tea in China!

Zetterberg is on Wings FB page doing it, and nominating....Kimi Raikkonen. Are they friends off ice?

GMR has nailed it. If that is your criteria, then only a handful of players drafted during the Bettman era will make the HOF. One only has to look at the list of total NHL points, I think Thornton is the highest ranked Bettman era player and he was something like 37th last time I checked. The list is dominated by guys drafted in the 70s and 80s. Under your criteria, all the accumulators who played in the 80s will get in ahead of the superstars of the 21st century, which is just wrong. Plus Pav's points can't be looked at in isolation, the guy won 3 consecutive Selke's whilst averaging 92 points and winning a cup. He's a top-10 all time defensive forward. Throw in his jaw dropping playstyle and he is just a unique player.

We saw flashes of it (like those four 20+ point playoffs) but never consistently enough. Both HOFers. Better player? I flip-flop between the two,

I know you wouldn't want this thread to be about you, but how you doing anyway man? I know its been a while since you were diagnosed.

Is this a thread where all of LGW is in agreement on our problems moving the puck? The inability of our D to make a pass under pressure? The number of board battles our wingers lose in their own zone? The lack of righties? Check, check and check. Quincey is the king of passing the puck into his partners skates, Kindl won't take a hit to make a play. Smith got a lot better when he was taken away from Quincey and gained the confidence to start skating the puck out of the zone. Lashoff just chips it out (the "safe" play) which means the puck just comes straight back at us.

I work for a Swiss company, in England, but the servers are all in Switzerland. When I check LGW at work I get a lot of German dating websites. And the occasional asian one

Soooooooooooo true

In a few years, yes. And especially since they changed the recapture rule in the last CBA and didn't grandfather it in.

Just to clarify, the arbitrator didn't award him the 8 year contract, they can only award a 1 year contract. The Canadiens and Subban agreed the 8 year deal to avoid arbitration - because otherwise Subban would be 1 year away from UFA and after the way Montreal have messed him around he probly would have walked. As for the salary, as Dragonballz pointed out above, the only reason the cap hit is so high is because they can't tack on the throwaway years on the end to lower the AAV like we did with Z and Franzen. The big contracts signed this summer have all been signed in anticipation of the cap continuing to go up. $9M may seem like a lot now, but in 5-6 years time it will be seen as good value.

In a menage a trois with Matt Ellis. After breaking up with Brad Norton.