dobbles

thanks for finding that post about the trade. i had overlooked it as i never read that guys posts as they are always pretty out there. like i said though, 99.99999% of people are asking for minor tweaks. as i stated, switching around bottom 6 forwards for a few games is NOT a big deal. thats not an overreaction by any means. i honestly don't care what modano was brought in to do, because right now he isn't doing it. and one of the best ways to get players to improve is to switch up the lines a bit. as i stated before, babcock has already done this with cleary going in for homer on the PP. the top unit wasn't clicking, and so there was a bit of change. i am not advocating giving up on anyone or anything. i don't see why you have to resort to hyperbole and such. the wings record is great and i am supremely happy about that. however, the 3rd line is pretty bad right now; so i, as a fan, am wondering aloud to other fans about what hypothetical changes could be made to get that line going. and yes the khl is a fairly high level. i would put it up there with any league outside the nhl as a contender for 2nd level status. i am not really sure what you mean by that team russia comment either; team russia is mostly nhl'ers. also, as far as 10% not mattering, wonder where last season would have been without the last 10% of the season. its not about arbitrarily taking out 8 game segments and saying that streaks don't matter. its countering the people that think its too early to make changes. lots of people seem to think games in october don't mean anything. every game is 2 points. you can't afford to throw away any of them. and having a 3rd line that is a liability can lead to that.

pretty sure that game he missed is part of the 6. so it will be that game and 5 more. i think.

switching modano from the 3rd line to the 4th line is minor. thats nothing major. moving around bottom 6 forwards is pretty tame. and i would actually appreciate if you could quote the posts asking to trade hudler. i honestly did not see that when i read the thread. you keep bringing it up as if loads of people are suggesting it. 10% of the season is significant. having that depth scoring would help. should we wait another 10 games before making a move? then all of a sudden its 20% of the season. it doesn't matter what month it is. every game is worth 2 points. if a line isn't working, its in the teams best interest to try and get it going. and if swapping modano and helm for a few games is needed, so be it. you seem to be really over dramatic about the impact a move like that would have. also, you got called out exaggerating. give it up. he missed 1 season. players miss that long with acl injuries all the time. he was still playing hockey at a fairly high level. pretending its 1.5 years is a lame attempt at back peddling. its like saying the whole team missed .25 years of hockey because of summer.

its a message board. we are here to discuss red wings issues. right now the 3rd line is not looking great. in another game or two we will be 10% through the season. when is it long enough to make changes? very few are advocating anything other than a slight mixup in lines. what is wrong with that? i would actually argue mike babcock doesn't think its too early as he already was pulling homer off that top PP unit in favor of cleary. all he was doing was shaking things up to help get guys going. thats pretty much all people in this thread are saying. also, hudler missed all of 1 season. no need for exaggeration.

good call i think. i think most would have liked a few more games. but personally, i think it was a pretty minor incident.

the 3rd line has been tough to watch. so funny that before the season we all thought it would be the best in the league, and currently its one of the worst. personally, i think modano is the one that really needs to step it up. so many stars fans felt he had been mailing it in the last couple seasons. looks like the change of scenery hasn't done anything to alter that. hudler has been unimpressive thus far, but i think modano sticks out much more. as has been said, the injuries on D certainly isn't helping them as they mostly end up out there with that 3rd pairing. however, i do think the problem is the line, not their lack of defensive support. i also agree that modano on the 4th might be a solution. since he gets PP time, its not as if he would get 6 minutes a night or something. as others have mentioned, with the top 6 playing well, theres not a lot of moves that can be made.

first time i saw that bernstein commercial with mickey in it. not sure i can put up with that for 8 months...

yeah, we are probably 95% in agreement. i have no problem with a suspension as long as its reasonable. my only complaint with all this is they are making way too big of a deal. if what rypien did was 'assault' then the law needs to change. what rypien did was wrong; however it was pretty inconsequential and trivial.

yeah, that confirms this guy is a douchebag. he is a grown man and instantly resorts to lawyers. what a fricking coward. regardless of what the law says, dude was not harmed. the law needs to change apparently.

the fan doesn't deserve s***. no tickets, no jerseys, no apology. he got pushed/grabbed for 1 second of his life. i can only imagine the long term emotional distress he will endure! what a bunch of ******* vaginas you guys are. once cal clutterbuck told me to f*** off and made an obscene gesture towards me when skating off the ice while in the ahl. what did i do? i came back at him even harder the next period. no need to whine about how mean he was. i was ribbing him because it was fun and i deserved anything he did in retaliation.

what grounds could he sue on? NOTHING HAPPENED TO THE FAN!

i think you're overreacting. think back to the milbury shoe incident. no suspensions over 10 games. and milbury beat a fan with his shoe!

it happens. i already had lgw open since i am arguing the rypein issue. and when they said it, i rewound the segment to get the exact quote.

i guess my biggest thing is i interpret the physical part of it much different. he was in physical contact for maybe 1-2 seconds at most. in that time he grabbed the person and it appears nothing more. since when is that assaulting someone? maybe in our hyper-litigious modern society where we sue everyone we can, but for most people, that is not assault, that will not get you arrested, that won't get you in trouble. he didn't punch, kick, spit, head-butt or anything else. additionally, he appears to have walked away entirely on his own. if you watch the video closely you can see a trainer in a jogging suit and a coach in a real suit are the first 2 back to the tunnel. but if you watch real closely, you can see that he is already walking away before either of them had time to intervene. so in my mind i see the altercation as a very quick, very harmless event. he used his own restraint to walk away. unfortunately it was 1-2 seconds too late. i am not saying he shouldn't be suspended. the incident needs to serve as a reminder for players and coaches to leave the fans alone. i just don't think its a very big deal. i think a lot of that may stem from the fact that the canucks play tonight. and they certainly dont want him playing because it took them an extra day to make their decision. with these crowd incidents being more rare, i am sure they want to take it a little more slowly to make sure they get a proper length. it may very well be a longer suspension, i just wouldn't read too much into the indefinite ruling today.

a fan pays money to see sports entertainment. they have no job. there is no 12th man in football or 7th man in hockey. fans can think they effect players, but 99% of the time they don't. and in that 1% they do, the effect is pretty minimal. and i wouldn't really say rypien went ballistic either. he grabbed the dude, probably told him to stfu, and went on to the locker room. what rypien did was obviously a bad choice. but in my mind it was pretty harmless and hopefully will be quickly forgotten.

i think something over the line must have been said. these players deal with tons of belligerent fans every night. so i find it hard to believe the altercation was unprovoked. additionally, malhotra seems to have heard it too as he gestures that the fans should be tossed. bieksa seems very peeved and even smacks his stick on the glass at the folks 10 or 20 seconds later. it doesn't necessarily justify what rypien did, but i think lots of people are trying to play the poor innocent helpless fan card. and 99 times out of a 100, then fan gets whats comin to them.

lots of commentators and fans have been saying this really hurts the league; i think kraus called it a black eye in this thread. i disagree. the nhl has seen many fan attacks in the past. rypien even restrained himself and had kept going. so its not near as bad as past incidents where players made it into the stands and were very aggressive. additionally, hockey is not the only sport dealing with the issue in general. all the time you see nfl players giving fans the finger and getting into verbal altercations. since there was no actual injury or dramatic factors, i see an incident like this as not much more than incidents like that.

yeah, he's getting points, but still not exactly playing well. so many plays go to die on his stick. as others have mentioned, he just cleans up trash. i guess its not surprising though. hawks have been lethal on the pk the last couple years, and with kopecky out there, its like a PK too!

i agree to an extent. the point of a forum is constructive discussion and debate. and all teams do have bad fans on both ends of the spectrum. to me, the biggest problem you see on the message board is that due to the variety of opinions, it appears as if the fans are way more negative than they are. for example, my pet peeve might be ericsson. so i might complain about him regularly. your pet peeve might be bertuzzi. another person might have a problem with hudler. and once you add up all the different folks complaints, half the team is on the list! so even if a player has 95% popularity, there will still be a fair amount of people out there complaining. so since the forum is a repository for all complaints, it can look worse than it is. to me though, and the reason i made my initial comment, it too many people come off all pious telling others how to be a fan. there seems to be the same set of posters that come into any thread that has a negative comment saying that the red wings never make a mistake and holland is perfect and that the wings wouldnt have all these cups and all these playoff appearences if they were wrong. and to me its just gross hyperbole. obviously the wings are a great organization because they have good overall decision making. they have great scouting. great player relations. etc... but that doesn't mean that drafting yuri butsayev was the best decision in 97. they have done things wrong. thankfully they were often minor and insignificant. but it is ok to question moves.

lightning are getting railed by the panthers, 5-0. ritola is -2, but there are some that are worse.

you come off way more 'douchey' than any fan that thinks draper or osgood or anyone else should retire...

i really don't see much benefit to getting rid of either of them. as has been mentioned, because of drapers contract situation, if he retired, the wings would get no additional cap space. so there is nothing that can be done about his contract. and as far as his play, he has been injured, so theres really no problem. there either. like has been stated, hes not playing so he isn't prohibiting some prospects development or anything like that. it does suck that drapers cap hit is so high. would be nice to have a few hundred thousand in cap space if he had a more reasonable contract. as far as osgood, it may be that he is finally dropping off significantly. however, are there really many better options available right now? for osgoods price he is still a decent value. i don't think we have anyone worthy of calling up and i don't feel the team should give up any assets to pick up someone elses backup. and i don't know of any goalies that haven't signed that would be better options. i am all for young players getting a shot. however, there is really no benefit to either of these guys going anywhere. however, both are at the point where any new deals will need to be very seriously debated.

maltby is supposed to be on nhl live in a few minutes. edit: he's on right now. its 1:34 edit 2: interview over. its 1:39. went well. maltby sounded good and excited for the future.

i do think he has looked good so far. hopefully we won't have to have a todd bertuzzi sucks thread this year! the thing to remember about bert is he is pretty streaky. 2 years ago he started off real well in calgary but was invisible down the stretch. so hopefully he can keep up his consistency this year.

do you really think thats the case? to me, its more of the typical example of wings loyalty. offer a guy a contract because its the 'right thing' to do, not necessarily because the player is still capable of producing at the nhl level. even when the contract was signed, holland was very clear that it was primarily going to be a grand rapids role. all 29 other gm's also had a shot at him on the waiver wire and none felt he could contribute at the nhl level either. i am not trying to be all negative in the retirement thread, but just hoping to provide an objective opinion on why people were against the signing. also, i am watching nhl live on the nhl network, and they mentioned that they are hoping to have maltby on the show later. if they get anything definite i will let you guys know.