dobbles

who cares what he does on his days off??? i think its great for him and will only make him a better announcer overall. there's really no downside to this assuming it never interferes with wings games.

being a bit over dramatic arent you? all i have seen in this thread is an analysis of the wings bottom 6 depth for next year. heck, most of the posts aren't even about modano as they are more talking about who would fill the bottom 6 best. and for the posts that are about modano, all of them i read are just objectively talking about his play and stats this year. no one is dissing his family or him, and i think the very worst comments are people saying he floated at times this year. if that is all it takes for you to feel someone is being mistreated, you might not have thick enough skin to be on internet message boards. they are the epitome of hyperbole and despite wishes otherwise, LGW is unfortunately no different. also, while i didn't expect a 20 goal season, he has been a disappointment. he has almost 3 minutes a game on the PP, and has only 7 PP points IIRC. he is the 2nd worst minus player despite playing only 32 games. he has under a .5 PPG. out of the 8 wings players with over 100 faceoffs, he is the only one below 50%. need i go on???? and let me reiterate, i am sure mike modano is a cool dude. and he certainly was a great hockey player for decades. but if we look at his play this year, its been disappointing regardless of how much i love or respect him.

we could have the best bottom 6 in the league and we would still have the same problem. its our top 6 that needs to pick up their game. aside from the hudler/datsyuk/cleary line, there has been no real good combo of top 6 lines that have worked. bertuzzi has went into his yearly slump, franzen has been almost invisible since the 5 goal game, filppula has been cold with no good wingers to play with, holmstrom has been pretty ineffective at even strength all year, etc. even zetterberg has went 6 games with no points. yet with all that, the team is still first in the league in scoring. they have had great offense from the back end, and decent production from the bottom 6. helm with 30 points is huge. eaves with 13 goals. even draper with 11 points in 38 games is good production for a limited role. offensively, these guys are earning their spots. the wings need to figure out how to set their lines, specifically their top 6. that is the key going into the playoffs.

i am 2 hours south of there. was able to get lower bowl tickets at the end for 70 bucks each. a bit pricey but could be worse. my seats are here:

last night i bought wings tickets for my first ever game live!!!!!! it will be april 6th in raleigh! i have been a wings fan since the early 90's but never really had the money to get to a game. and i had always hoped to see my first ever nhl game in detroit, but figured might as well just pull the trigger now that i am fairly close to raleigh. i am so freaking pumped. this will definitely go down as a top 5 day of my life! having been to well over 100 minor league games live hockey is nothing new, but getting to see the wings will be outstanding!

buppy, in my mind, your first sentence should be 'could' work together. in theory they make a deadly 3rd line. but those first few games were painful to watch how bad that line was. i sincerely hope they don't get put together again. while some of it was hudler adjusting to the nhl again, i think its just bad chemistry. on paper that line could be good, but on the ice it would be a disaster.

i will just post on his behalf: "hawks looked real good today. it was a tough win and we will have to string more of those together to make the playoffs. this team is amazing, they just can't put it together. if we score more than we give up, we will win. p.s. - if this team drops below 8th i will eat my own pubes"

he has played a lot better lately. he is at least starting to earn some of his cap hit. i think the super slow start will mean he was a bad value contract unless he puts together a huge playoffs or something. but at least he's turned it around enough to not be a total loss. the nice part for me though, is that once you look past the first few games when that 3rd line was beyond awful, he has been a plus player. because he started off with like -6 in the first 6 games, he is still a bit negative, but he is no longer worst on the team. so that makes me happy.

for probably the first and only time, we will agree on something fight related! i am about the last guy to advocate fights. thought i dont post a lot, i am pretty anti-goon. however, i love what the isles did last night. the only bad thing was the sucker punch. and if talbot wasn't a ***** ass coward like the rest of the penguins it wouldnt have even had to happen. martin tapped talbot as a warning. and as far as gillies, it was less than a second between when he hit tangiardi and when he threw a punch. in that time he fell down and spun around. so its not as if gillies was standing there watching tangiardi be injured. it was a split second. anywho, i don't want to try and defend the isles guys, i could honestly care less about either team. but this is the crazy crap that has to happen once in a while. and as others have stated i do love how noble the wings were in gooning it up in 97, but the isles are gutless cowards in a very similar situation? hyperbole FTW!

you are the epitome of taking stats out of context. its guys like you that make using statistics worthless because people see so many bad ones. a 10 year career? scott hartnell has a 10 year career... martins did not have a 10 year career. 4 of his seasons he played less than 5 games. only once ever did he play half a seasons worth of games. haydar produced a moderate level of offense in atlanta? he had 8 points in 16 games. while a .5ppg is certainly noteworthy over a long period, i would not really call some assists strung together over a 2 month period 'moderate production' the worst part, is it has nothing to do with what i was actually saying. i was implying that there are lots of guys with gaudy AHL numbers that aren't able to get regular nhl gigs. haydar scored 122 points in a season in the ahl yet only has 23 nhl games. then again by your standards thats a 4 year nhl career! heck, look at alexanre giroux: he has almost 600 points in the ahl including 200 points in only 138 games in the last 2 years. yet he only has 9 points in 31 career nhl games. so once again i am simply pointing out the ahl has lots of guys with good production that have trouble making and/or staying in the nhl. so ilari having 39 points in 49 games is not exactly a rarity by nhl standards...

Jiri Hudler in the last 6 games: 2 goals, 3 assists, 5 points, +/- 0 not too shabby now eh? posting stats from arbitrarily short periods of time is fun!!!!

its tough for older players and players that teams haven't invested resources in to make it to the nhl... a few years back i was a season ticket holder for the quad cities flames. i watched kyle greentree score 39 goals as a 25 year old and he still can't get a sniff at the big show. in his case its most likely a speed issue (he's pretty slow) but it just goes to show guys can have real good stats and still not make the show. guys like steve martins, jason krog, darren haydar, etc etc spend years in the minors putting up great numbers. i haven't got to see the griffs as much as i wanted this year. only probably 10 or 20 games early on. so i can't comment too well on how guys are looking. but philosophically speaking i would have liked to see a better rotation on the callups. mursak has 17 games so far, thats pretty darned good. would loved to have saw emmerton a few more games. would have loved to see owens for a few games after that great camp he had. i know its important for the team to try and see what they have in mursak, i just wish they would have played musical chairs a little bit.

i was eating lunch yesterday in a sandwich shop and they had a tv on with sportscenter and buccigross was one of the anchors. so he is definitely still active at espn. i havent read his stuff lately since i rarely go to espn's site, but definitely love what he used to put out.

i appreciate the thread and your attempt to stir up conversation. i am not sure i 100% agree with you, but definitely understand where you are coming from. federov and franzen are both guys that can look like they want to be anywhere other than on the ice. whether or not they really are being lazy or apathetic is kind of irrelevant. because as fans 99.9999% of the time, we will never know if a player if going 100%. but we certainly have our perceptions. and you are saying you get the same perception watching them and the same frustration. i can definitely see the comparison. just wanted to give some support as everyone on here is so negative and hateful.

this is something that often gets overlooked. if we were in a division with philly or anaheim or a tough team, i could maybe understand the desire. but i would say 99% of this season, an enforcer wasn't even needed. personally i would love to have a tough 4th liner like brandon prust. someone that can drop the gloves and also skate a regular shift. but i am also fine with the team not having a dedicated enforcer. i would also love to see guys like ericsson and abdelkader turn into guys that can fight more often and go against tougher opponents, but not going to hold my breath! unfortunately this will quickly turn into the hyperbole that it always does. i wouldn't be surprised if this new person was a regular user that wanted to start a big argument for something to do and just created a new account to do it.

i realize its a pretty close battle. however, reading most of the posts in this thread would lead someone to believe that osgood is putting up vezina numbers while howard is pulling a jim carey. i am fine with osgood getting some extra starts. last spring the wings had to ride howard and i think he ended up overworked. additionally, recently howard has been off a bit. but howard in my eyes is still hands down the better goaltender. also once you take age into account, its obvious where the wings need to be focusing their attention. also, you seem to be implying that the shutouts skew the numbers? they are simply 2 games of the 30 howard has played in. he earned those games just as any other. maybe i am reading too much in, but it seems like you are trying to use his hard earned shutouts against him??? and regarding what sleepwalker said, its not about 'pussifying' the game, its about giving your top goaltender, and your team, the best chance to win. strategically resting goalies and letting them play through slumps is often the best long term strategy. its not about letting everyone have a trophy; its about developing your goalie long term.

wow are you guys shortsighted! sure howard has had some bad games lately, but you guys do realize for the season is goals against and save percentage are still both better than osgood?!?!?!?! i am not against osgood getting more starts. having a balance to keep guys fresh is a good thing. having a backup you can be confident in is great as well. however, i really dont understand all the babcock and howard hate. the team as a whole has been playing pretty poor lately. with all the injuries thats not really surprising. and for all the love you guys are giving osgood, he has given up multiple first period goals 3 games in a row. so he is continuing the habit he has had the last couple years of giving up lots of goals early in games and forcing the team to have to come from behind. anywho, can't we all calm down? can't we enjoy the fact that even with several key injuries we are still hanging in there and 2nd in the conference? can't we realize that no matter who is in goal, we aren't going to be as tough without 2 great forwards? (one of whom is all world, a selke winner and was a hart nominee recently; another who was leading the team in goals when he went down; and both of whom are guys that are on the ice in the last minute protecting a lead)

i think they waited too long for this move. they made excuses for too long about how sutter inherited a crappy team with no depth. but in almost a decade, he really did nothing to change that. that team had a lucky playoff run and thats about it.

it took a lot longer for those last few than we would have thought, but congrats on finally getting 400! way to do it in style with a 46 save effort!

thanks to the +2 tonight he is actually +5 in his last 5 games. though i am sure he could use a point or two for his confidence now.

how about each one for a 2 week stint? get to see each in a handful of games. neither has a realistic shot at sticking with the team regardless, so it could be a good chance to get a couple guys some exposure. tatar obviously is younger and can be developed slowly still, but both are at the point where they can gain a lot from getting nhl minutes and then translate that into increased work ethic down and fundamentals in GR.

in my opinion it is nowhere near the worst; not really even that bad. the reason? like you said, it was fair. both teams were called even and the game itself was even. you can tell when a game is going to be called tight or when it will be loose. and its up to the teams and players to recognize that and take advantage of it. and honestly i didn't see a lot of missed calls anyways. its the ticky tack penalties that have caused diving to go through the roof. really have to earn the penalties tonight

that was pretty funny. kinda weird that mietennan (sp?) was pushing the spare stick around. while i assume he saw it was a familiar stick, i would also have to assume he realized the only person without a stick was ryan. had he just left it alone, ryan would have had to go get that spare stick and most likely not been in that great spot for the rebound. definitely a bizarre play though.

first off i totally agree with this. as usual, its devolved into total hyperbole, but as you stated, most are pretty rational. also, in the past i gave you a hard time for only having drive by 1 liners, so i thank you for taking the time to have a post like this that tries to find a middle ground and contributes to the thread. obviously you dont need my approval or anything, just want to say i appreciate it.

i think a lot of it is just coincidence. i mean that by a matter of games played causing teams to look better or worse simply because of luck. while the wings are the one team with a bit of a cushion, just think how far ahead they would be if they werent behind in games played. the hawks are a good example of the opposite. they have helped clog up the points race but if you look at winning percentage they aren't really near most of those teams but have played tons of games. i think things will continue to sort themselves out over the next month and return things to normal. obviously the loser point causes the races to be tight in general, but i don't see the season being any different once we get into the new year