Nev

If he keeps this up he's got to be a contender for the Lady Byng again. He truly is a special player and a special person. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if Lionel Messi is the Playstation footballer, Datsyuk is the Playstation hockey player I have this horrible dream where he's denied entry into the HOF because he ends up with less than 1000 career points which would be a scandal.

Your line-mates are Cleary and Abdelkader - what's a man to do?

To be fair, their goaltending did all it could to stop their last legitimate cup run - they just had a talented enough team to overcome that (and played teams that also had issues in net)

We've had Cleary doing the net front presence thing with Sammy shooting from the point before.....it didn't end well. Although if it happened again I imagine half of LGW would buy Sammy flowers instead of trying to run him out of town like last time

Wondering if we'll see him drop the gloves tonight - team is on a losing skid, he's not fought for a few games, he might feel the need to provide a spark.

Very good point. We were playing great up until the point he and Dats got injured. When they came back, they weren't the same players, and we weren't the same team. I also remember being 0-3 down to the Sharks in the playoffs, and being lucky to have nil, and Jimmy (and Pav) were the only players showing up.

My point wasn't that Cooke's was a stomp, I was responding to the poster who questioned the mentality of what kind of person would delibarately try to injure another opponent with his skate blade.

Yeah, what kind of a physco stomps on another player? Chris Simon, Chris Pronger.......Matt Cooke. Spot the common denominator.

He clearly didn't get the memo about the two magic words, "contract year"

Pretty sure we scored 420 goals in the early 90s, but I'm happy to proven wrong. The record is 480-odd from memory?

Its only a discussion point. No-one (apart from the usual suspects) is going "OMG! Holland suxors!"

There's no doubt that Nyquist has some really high-end skills, its whether he can translate them to the NHL that is the issue for me. Whenever I've seen him play, his skill has been clear, but so has his lack of impact on the game, although he did show some flashes last time out with Tatar and Andersson.

Yeah, got to remember most guys start to slow down as they get older. A serious injury that you never 100% recover from, the sum of all those nagging minor injuries you accumulate over the years, the daily grind of the NHL day after day year after year, all the distractions life throws at you as you get older, wives, ex-wives (!), kids. That, and an NHL were teams don't score 400+ goals per year.

Are these the same talking heads who said that Colin Campbell was a man of impeccable integrity when those emails surfaced with clear evidence of his corruption?

Throw in a 5th and I think its a done deal

Just watched the highlights, seemed like Tatar-Nyquist-Andersson were our best only players. Defensive turnover continuing to be the bane of our season. We got away with it against the Kings when we were physically incapable of getting the puck out of our zone, but the Ducks punished us. I don't know if thats bad coaching, the forwards not working hard enough, bad decisions by the D.....I think thats why we're seeing so many bad line changes too, because our breakout/transition game is so bad.

Sir Alex Ferguson is 71. Man Utd are top of the EPL. As long as your still have the desire, and the health, age is just a number.

Sore shoulder according to NHL.com. Like a poster above, I wonder if its related to the Doughty hit.

No-one tried to argue that was accidental though.

Wow, I mean what are the chances, that two of the dirtiest, most hated players in the entire NHL have both "accidentally" stomped on an opponent with their skate? Poor old Pronger and Cooke, these guys can't buy a break eh? Just making a hockey play, and they both have the misfortune to stomp on their opponents. I mean, how come this kind of bad luck never happens to Datsyuk or St Louis? A sucker just can't catch an even break...

Its a favourite line of Holland bashers - Bowman + Devellano get the credit for players drafted in the early-mid 90s because Holland was just a scout. Players drafted by Holland when he became GM in the late 90s, they were nothing to do with him, his scouts like Hakan Andersson did all the work. Head they win, tails you lose

You got to find someone to spend it on, and in the modern NHL, Free Agency is weak year after year. Bottom line is, you don't let good players walk away for nothing.

Why? Because his back is holding up pretty good so far this season. Other seasons, back not so good, points totals not so high.

We blew a 3-2 lead in the 2009 finals because we were lucky to be 3-2 up in the first place instead of 4-0 down, and because we were absolutely riddled with injuries. Our PK has sucked ever since 2009 when Babs stopped using the big guns except on 5-on-3s. Why? Because his superstar forward broke his foot blocking a shot on the PK and we went on to lose in the finals without him......That and his all-universe defenceman started slowing down. But it is a fair criticism that Babcock bears some of the responsibility for not doing a better job with what he's got left. Ice time allocation - lots of criticism on here for him "trying to get guys going", but he's always done that in the regular season. He was right to persevere with Hudler, eventually he came good again. He's done it with Z in the past when he was stone cold, splitting up Datsyuk's hot line for him and vice versa. Cleary was bad last season, but come the playoffs he was one of the few Wings to impress, and Babs has always been big on his vets in the playoffs, every year he has commented on how Draper or Maltby or whoever has stepped up their play in the postseason. Clearly he thinks Cleary needs to play himself into fitness, form and confidence. Lastly, its very clear he and Holland have not always seen eye to eye. He publicly disagreed with the decision to send the rookie Leino and Abdelkader back to the minors. He has repeatedly moaned about a lack of sandpaper whenever we haven't had a Drake or a May or a Tootoo. He was critical of the strength and depth of the roster after the Nashville series. This is not the team Babs would ideally like to ice, but he can only play with the hand he has been dealt. Edit: Lastly, to repeat, to be 5th in the west after all the personnel losses, and all the injuries, I'm estatic. I didn't expect to be doing this well with a full, healthy roster.

No. Every 4 years we hear how much more open the hockey will be in the Winter Olympics, but the truth of the matter is that the defending team continue to collapse round the net to deny the attackers space to the inside, and the attackers just skate round the outside where they are no danger.