Uncle Danny

Starbucks Four distinct seasons or 12 months of summer?

Indeed. I'll eat my Howard flavored crow now. The kid's been playing pretty well, considering that most (myself included) were ready to feed him to the pigs before the season even began. This slump, provided we manage a playoff berth and late season surge many are predicting, has been great for the development of guys like Abdelkader and Helm. Amazing to think that the Wings have been semi-regularly fielding five rookies. As much as we are all looking forward to a fresh legged Mule come March, I hope these kids still have some legs left after the long season and heightened pressure on them. None, aside from Ericsson is getting crazy minutes, so I think they'll be fine. (and his minutes aren't crazy for a d-man) And, as you pointed out, it's been nice to see Draper get some of his swagger back.

Three very different questions there: 1) what does Forsberg provide us that we don't already have? I'm not sure this is really even worth dignifying with an answer. I'm not going to insult you by asking if you ever saw the man play. I'm sure you have. As for what he brings that we don't already have, he'd bring a fourth world class talent to our roster. A healthy Forsberg (more on the healthy bit in a moment) is an asset any team on the planet would welcome. 2) Sure, he's still got talent but he's so injury prone he'd be useless. Speculation, but I'll grant you that his injuries in recent years are more than a little worrisome. If he's injured, he's useless. If he's playing, he's anything but. In Holland's shoes, would I roll the dice for a Jason Williams sized contract to bring him on? Abso-f'ing-lutely. 3) Where would he fit on this team? This one made me chuckle a little bit. The answer is, if he's healthy, anywhere he wants. First line scoring? PP? PK? Secondary scoring? Shut down line? Energy line? Check, check, check, check, check and check. This guy was his day's Zetterberg and then some -- the best all around forward in the league (rivaled maybe only by Fedorov). Shoot, I'd bet the guy could play defenseman better than 90% of the bottom pairings in the league today. Can he still bring it like he did in his 20's? Doubtful, but I'll take 60% of Forsberg in his prime over Eaves, Maltby, Williams, May (please don't turn this into another anti-enforcer argument ), Meech, Leino, etc any day of the week... so long as he's actually playing...which, again, is a considerable "if." All that said, it ain't gonna happen. He's been gone for too long, won't accept a reasonable contract (I'm guessing), can make more in Russia, and, all other things being equal, would almost certainly choose any other contender before signing with Detroit given history. But I'd sign him in a heartbeat for $1.5 million given the chance.

I understand where you're coming from, but the logic is flawed. 1) "Hes producing as much as an 800k player should." No, he's being paid to help the team win. The team hasn't been doing that, and the coach thinks he can do a better job. 2) "gets benched when players are playing worse than him" I honestly don't mean this as a personal attack, but have you ever managed people professionally? It isn't a black and white job. If underperformance A, then penalty Z. It just doesn't work that way. Any good manager/coach will look at the personalities of his squad and determine what the proper motivation is to fix the underformance. Maybe in the case of Z, it's a harsh one-on-one talking to. In the case of Draper, maybe it's giving the last d-zone faceoff in a tie game to another center. Maybe in the case of Leino, it's a benching to let him think about what's been happening. Etc, etc, etc. Just because other players have also underperformed doesn't mean they deserve the same punishment or that punishments get handed out in some sort of order. We're not grading on a curve here, we're grading an entire team, on which he has a job to do. A job that Babcock doesn't seem to think he's being doing as well as he should. Babs knows more about hockey than everyone I know combined, so I'm going to defer to his judgment.

But Salo and Jackman are both hurt. Order is restored.

In no particular order: Pat LaFontaine Pavel Bure Doug Gilmour Trevor Linden Al Iafrate HM: Alex Mogilny, BGL, Tony Twist, Teemu Sellane, AO

Random question... why is #19 the only number listed there with the C? The majority of the other players honored were captain at one point or another as well.

Well said. This just about sums it up from my perspective as well. Also, your description of Howard sounds like a certain other Red Wing goalie circa 1998

Nice hit there by Big Rig.

I'm not 100% sure, but I'm fairly certain they're calling it a home and home.

I'm liking this new look 4th line. Who are these kids stepping up?!? Draper? Maltby?

Someone was mentioning the 4th line?

Datsyuk

1. What response do you have to Havlat's twitter posts? 2. Have you assigned a "handler" to Kane after his incident? 3. Without resorting to cliches such as "we did what was best for the organization," explain the firings of Tallon and Savard. How long in advance of their firings did you anticipate them? 4. How do you respond to being the new darling franchise of the Central? How will the added pressure affect the team? 5. What would be considered a "success" this season? What would be considered a "failure?"

I'm going decidedly unscientific with my vote. It's a tossup for me between AO, Datsyuk and Crosby. I hate Crosby, so he's out. I am clearly a biased fan for Datsyuk, so I'm going with an anti-bias bias and voting for AO.

44 Todd Bertuzzi :: the number of chicken wings he can eat. 11 Dan Cleary :: the percentage chance he has of making team Canada. 13 Pavel Datsyuk :: the number of quotable interviews he'll give this season. 33 Kris Draper :: the age he wishes he still was. 96 Tomas Holmstrom :: the number of interference calls he'll receive. 26 Jiri Hudler :: his age soon? 40 Henrik Zetterberg :: on a scale of 1-10, his wife

Thank you, Egroen. I can start breathing again.

So you're comparing dogfighting to a marginal athlete whose substance abuse problems maybe shortened his career by a year or two? Come on. I also highly doubt that Vick ever took his dogs to work. Just sayin. I don't ever recall hearing about Mac showing up drunk at the rink, either. Where is your argument? Did I call him a saint? Did anyone appreciating his contributions in this thread call him a saint? EDIT: Also, where was it ever stated that Mac took his personal life to his job? Where was it even implied that he would get a pass for so doing? No where, so far as I've seen. If he even once showed up too hungover to compete, let alone drunk, he'd have been on his ass in the AHL faster than the 99% you mentioned. This is a man making a lot of money to compete at the highest level in the world. You mentioned sainthood being unfair, which I've already (kinda) agreed with. Does vilifying him for being a human being with imperfections for the same reason make any more sense? Have you never had a few too many ginger ales? You're fired!

I don't even know you and I'm still willing to say this, as I'm 100% sure it's true: Judgmental hypocrite. EDIT: I should expound, lest I come off as someone simply making personal attacks. Who among us hasn't run into a spell of trouble in our personal life, be it substances, finances, infidelity, resentment, jealousy... If you want to take Yzerman or Sakic first, fine, but I don't think that was the point of this thread by a long shot. Mac ran into troubles like the rest of us, conquered them, and has provided us with many years of entertaining hockey before and since. To condemn him for his personal troubles has your glass house trembling in fear.

Maybe I'm misreading here, but I think you missed my point. I am in no way, shape or form dissing Larionov or Fetisov. Quite the opposite. The fact that they were able to accomplish what they did in Detroit, despite being past their prime and taking a few years to adjust to the NHL shows what types of players they were. Igor may be one of my top 10 all time favorites. Absolutely no diss intended.

While I loved Sheppard on the Wings, I don't think he is in the same league with most of the folks being mentioned here. My top five, listing only players I've seen play, and based only on their time in Detroit: Yzerman, Datsyuk, Fedorov Lidstrom, Coffey I would've gone for Konstantinov, as he had more of an impact (ahem) during his stay here (and was the better D-Man, IMO), but the man wasn't exactly a scoring powerhouse...and Coffey taught Nick more than a few things about how to work a PP, despite his defensive shortcomings. Watching an aging #77 and an upstart #5 together was a thing of passionate beauty. I'm also glad to see the love for Fetisov and Larionov in this thread, counting their time in Russia. Not only were they past their primes when they got here, they also both had to adjust to a completely different style of hockey. Had they grown up in the North American system, I'd venture there wouldn't be much argument about their places on these lists. Amazing players, both.

Or Dionne and Dino.

Well, two big differences there: 1) He's seven years older, which is decades in hockey years...especially when you play the kind of game he does. 2) Look at those fourth line linemates from 2002. Look at the 2009-10 4th line. Their mandates are entirely different. Lucky Luc and Igor were not put out there for "energy," they were put out there to score. I'm too lazy to look -- are you certain that was the 4th line and not the 3rd?

This just from Darren Dreger on Twitter: