dobbles

wow. awful.

god the flyers are such goons.

pretty much all of downies points can be directly attributed to stamkos. as soon as he is off that line, he will tank faster than you can say jonathon cheechoo.

i am hoping colorado. i actually root for them a bit because of kyle quincey and ryan wilson. i got to see ryan wilson a lot when he was with the qc flames so i hope he does well and obvious reasons for quincey wanting to see him succeed. i know the avs used to be hated, but i like all their young guys. neither team is going to make it far or play us, so i figure might as well root for colorado. also would love to see calgary choke after how good they thought they were this year.

i don't care what the date is, i think there actually is merit behind the idea. obviously the logo doesn't change, and the general color scheme stays, but i definitely think they could do some tweaking to the jerseys.

FWIW, this thread hasn't really had anyone rail on bertuzzi for a while. it just gets bumped by people supporting bertuzzi and then folks talk about how absurd it is not realizing that most of the posts are 4-5 months old. (though there were some people getting on his case mildly during the 19 game goalless drought)

maybe he means afinigenov? regarding bertuzzi, i am pretty neutral on him now; and considering i was one of his bigger critics i would say thats pretty good progress. still too often plays go to die once they hit his stick blade. however, this has decreased pretty significantly. i think he has fit pretty well with his linemates recently. i have been a bit disappointed that he doesn't have a few more goals. i know the instant reaction will be 'what do you expect he only makes 1.5 mil' but with the linemates he has had and the TOI he has gotten this year, i would have hoped for a little more. however, i think his overall game has improved over last year and early in the season. so thats why i haven't been overly critical the last couple months.

i think osgood should play tonight. howard is about to the max number of starts he has had in a year. if we expect him to take us far in the playoffs, he will be way over the # of games started for any other season he has had. so i think considering how much hockey he has played these last few months, it might be worth it to let osgood play against the oilers. that would give the team more flexibility if they wanted to start howard both games this weekend. i think they are walking a dangerous line; howard might be playing too much and get burnt out, and osgood might be getting so rusty that he wouldn't do very well if howard falters. then again with how awful we looked last time against the oilers, maybe howard is needed tonight just as much as the other games. its just hard to look at that schedule and see edmontons record and not view it as a perfect time to start osgood.

good job OP, several of those made me chuckle. i always say that if the wings win 6 playoff games i am satisfied. that means they made it to the 2nd round and at least put up a fight. after those first round flops we had earlier in the decade, i decided to set my expectations lower which really allows me to enjoy the later rounds. obviously i would love to win it every year, but in a 30 team league, thats just not going to happen. call me a bad fan or whatever, i just like lower expectations. however, along with others in this thread, would love to see teams like the hawks and penguins get embarrassed in the first round. i actually love underdog stories and would love to see someone like phoenix go on a run. in the east, i wouldn't mind the capitals going deep. even though it would mean a ton of ovechkin love, at least it would bring him back up to cindy's level and help temper the media crush just a little bit. would love to see atlanta squeak in and make some noise, but i think making the playoffs might be all they can muster up. i just want to see some good clean hockey so we can hear about things other than crosby and headshots.

wow, flames get a 5 minute PP and get 2 shots. man they suck.

i have been an active member over there for quite some time as i used to be a season ticket holder for the flames ahl team when it was in the Quad Cities. in general, they get good hockey discussion going; however, this implosion has been really tough for them to deal with. though, pretty much 100% of the time they irrationally talk about the wings. whenever we play each other, their forum gets pretty awful to read. while i understand their hate for the canucks and oilers over there, the wings hate is always baffling. comes out of the woodwork to say the least. as other have mentioned, all forums have crazy members, and people overreact all the time. unfortunately, since different people like/dislike different players/issues, it often can turn into big whine fests as each segment of the fan base has something different to complain about. it happens everywhere though.

the press release says that its available in the packages it used to be in. anyone know what those are?

this is great news! i got center ice for free because of their fight, so i wasn't too sad to miss the handful of games that they had. i got to watch 10 times as many regular seasons games on tv thanks to center ice. i had always thought they would make up in time for the playoffs, but was starting to get worried. this is awesome news.

having watched most of this years games, i think the lebda over ericsson opinion is valid right now. ericsson has had a tough year for sure. as others have said it could very well just be a confidence issue. additionally, lebda has played better the last couple weeks which has his stock higher than any other time this year i think.

former wing anders eriksson got traded to the rangers. i got to see him most of last year in the ahl. guy is a turnover machine at times.

dustin boyd for a 4th surprises me. i think he still has a lot of potential. i got to see him a handful of games in a couple ahl stints, and the guy was good. he was always put on the 4th line with goons and then they wondered why he wasn't producing. considering he was a 3rd rounder initially, i see this as a loss for calgary. he could be a guy like howard or quincey that just needs a chance to play to really get it going.

ti hijack this thread a little bit, does anyone have updated news on the versus-directv fight? i was more than happy to go without versus in exchange for the free CI they gave me, but as the playoffs get closer, it is a bit more scarey. anyone know if they have made any progress towards a deal? or if directv is handing out more freebies since they still haven't settled?

i love this thread: part 1) all canadians think the reffing was perfect part 2) some americans say that reffing was crappy as usual part 3) all canadian posters call out all american posters as whiney crybaby losers did i miss anything?

i do miss the big ice. and i do think the nhl should expand their ice. as some suggested, perhaps splitting the difference between current width and olympic width. that could be a good compromise for the short term. as has been mentioned with the increase in player size and skill, the current ice plays too small.

i disagree entirely. why should a team get 2 rewards for 1 penalty? i do however think the team should have the choice of a penalty shot or PP. that adds in more strategy to the call.

http://twitter.com/FriedmanHNIC http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=309159

yeah, as keith jones notes, he was out before he even hit the ice. the hit does seem to be to the shoulder which is good, but these late hits have to stop. i know people like to take the manly position of 'well he should have had his head up' but in so many cases the hits are coming from weird angles and get there pretty darned late. i know the game is fast and its hard to time things perfect, but thats why you can't be going 110% towards guys like that. everyone has questionable hits, but i think if you look on average at the big hits from 10 or 20 years ago, most of them the player still had the puck. you take a hit like this where the puck was in the net or last year in the playoffs on hudler where the pass was long gone.

would just like to note that most statistical evidence points to a much younger age for prime scoring. i am too lazy to look it up, but pretty sure all top scorers peaked their point production before they were 25.

LTIR allows teams to bring someone on the team that can 'replace' an injured persons salary. however, if you bring someone in for less salary, you do not get to accumulate that cap savings for later in the year. thats one of the reasons the wings had to just stick with callups because had they made a move earlier in the year to bring people in, then once players returned, they would have had major cap problems.

i always liked edwards back in the day when he was on espn. i mostly just enjoy his voice. has good timbre. anywho, the guy is paid to be a homer. sure, he may be better or worse at his homerism than other announcers, but at the basic level he is still just doing his job.