dobbles

as i mentioned above though, how can he be doing a good job for the owners when they spent the last 12 months convincing fans that at least 2/3's of the league was losing money???? thats the definition of not doing a good job.

just because people are putting him in there doesn't mean he is back. if you follow the helm thread, theres still mixed messages coming out. of course we all want him back, but i think its important to remain cautiously optimistic.

as a former season ticket holder for the flames ahl affiliate, i have followed their moves for several years. i think they have a lot of work ahead of them. they are trying to rebuild through youth, the draft, player development, etc, but unfortunately, they have not really developed any successful players in years. they've had a lot of first round busts over the years.so i just don't see them effectively building this way unless they overhaul their coaching staff/philosophy in the nhl an ahl.

i'm pretty sure your point was that bettman isn't the worst choice for commisioner in the world, he's the SECOND worst choice!

i realize that fans hate bettman and he isnt as bad as we try to make him sound. i also get that his salary is not exorbitant compared to other sport commishes and other executives in charge or similarly sized entities, but i do keep falling back on something... one of the main talking points of this last lockout was that a vast majority of teams are losing money each year. so is bettman really doing that good of a job as commissioner if most of the teams actually are losing money each year? sure, i get revenues are up. but revenues are up for all sports. so i kind of wonder if bettman really is doing that great even from the business side. cause we all know how terrible he is doing from the pr side...

these might not be exact fits, but all come very close to the goals or salary criteria. since your numbers are all arbitrary to begin with, i feel the list is valid. it shows that franzen is not some super great contract that absolves him from any criticism: matt moulson andrew ladd chris kunitz michael ryder erik cole

the hawks won the cup in spite of crawford not because of him. theres a lot of guys names on the cup that didnt deserve to be there.

99% of the people would trade smith because he is a valuable asset. and unlike on xbox, in real life you actually have to give up something to get something. so its not a matter of disliking him or giving up on his development, its just the reality of the nhl. there are very few people out there that think smith should be traded because he stinks. unfortunately, one of them decided to make a thread saying so that stayed at the top of the list for weeks. made it look as if there were tons and tons of people losing faith in him. most posts in the thread were whining about overreacting, and the others were just advocating that smith be sat for a couple games and not traded.

seems like overpayment to me. he's been playing behind some real good teams. and in 11-12 he was pretty mediocre.

we see examples in all sports of athletes that can make it to the top level with a poor attitude or work ethic. they do it by having an immense amount of skill. because of that skill level, they can afford to not put in 100% and still make it. thats what makes these types of players so frustrating for fans. when you see flashes of brilliance that show just what a player is capable of, only then to see them float around for months and not show it again is just not what most fans pay to see. sure, i understand if a guy is shy and wants to limit his exposure outside the game. with hockey being a 2nd tier sport in the states, i think most players can do that without much trouble during the season. its not like you see tmz running tons of articles on hockey players. franzens only saving grace is his cap hit. because its fairly low, he gets slack from a lot of fans. but my recollection was that up until this year he had been the 3rd highest paid forward for a couple seasons. and lets not forget that the only reason its so low is he got that insanely long deal that isnt even possible anymore because of how abused it was becoming. its not like franzen made a sacrifice to keep his salary down. it was just creative work by holland.

even though the nerd level has gone way too high already, euro, in your numbers, how did you get your area for the hockey puck? most pucks are shot so that they are travelling with their flat surfaces parallel to the ground which would only give them 3 square inches of surface area moving towards the net. to me that would be more realistic considering most pucks arent shot with their flat sides perpindicular to the ground. that would mean the puck only takes up .000868 of the net.

THIS time 1000! I think back to the trade smith thread that popped up in the playoffs. there was like 1 guy that actually wanted to trade him and everyone else in there just wanted him to sit for a game or two to get his head straight. its the same thing here; its not that people hate cleary or wish him ill fortune, we just hate seeing him brought back and given way too much of a role. especially at the expense of younger players. and while theres the idea that young players have to earn their time, we all know darned well no matter how well they play, when they have waiver exemption, they always end up getting sent down. we all know babcock is an amazing coach. it just seems that on certain issues he remains stubborn. this is one where i think a majority of the fan base disagrees with how much slack cleary is given. and just because babcock is an nhl coach doesnt mean hes infallible. he can be wrong. so when ever people cop out on the 'i think ill trust the nhl coach' crap can just save it. worst of all, the lgw backlash gets totally blown out of proportion. there are so many posts about how cleary is the whipping boy and how he is irrationally treated by other fans. but if you look at a majority of the cleary dislike, its often just frustration of how much ice time he gets or the linemates he gets. its not like people are insluting his family or anything.

every ufa class looks great when its a year or more away. by the time the ufa period finally gets here it will be the same as all other years. a few legit players that will get massively overpaid and then a lot of role players that get moderately to massively overpaid.

but hasnt scoring returned to pre lockout levels anyways? so whats the difference?

more goals doesnt mean ridiculous games. i prefer a 6-5 shootout over games where a team goes up 1-0 in the first period and milks the lead for the next 40 minutes. heck, pre-lockout, if a game went into the 3rd with even a 1 goal lead, you might as well just shut the tv off, it was going to be a snooze fest.

disagree 100%. goalie gear grew exponentially in the last 20 years. its just shameful how big the gear is. it has to be reigned in. and part of the problem is that they always talk about it but change very little. so there is this impression that they have been taking away all this real estate from goalies and it ends up being like half an inch or something not even worthwhile. then add to that that the goalies often just replace it with other pads to compensate, and its just a circle. in the article it already mentions that many goalies are trying to make the knee pads larger to compensate for lost inches. until goalies stop looking like the michelan man out there, they have no room to say anything. i also think you are way off on allowing more hitting making the game more exciting. all you have to do is go back 10-15 years to the dead puck era. there was far less regulation on physical play. yet did you see more hits, more excitement? no way. you saw more clutching, more grabbing, more bear hugging. it was terrible. nhl hockey has a fundemental flaw right now that prevents it from being as exciting as it should be. teams, coaches and organizations focus not on scoring more goals than the other team, but giving up less goals than the other team. and no i dont think thats just semantics. teams constantly play a style which is to not give up scoring chances at any cost. even if that means not taking any chances offensively. why? because its become too hard to score a goal, so teams are afraid to give one up. if you make goalies human again, then you will see scoring increase, which will change the entire dynamic of the game.

i think the thing to remember is that most enforcers rack up all their fights against each other. the role of the enforcer may still exist on many teams, but the value is almost nill. the entire concept of an enforcer is to protect your star player from getting run. yet the wings have a guy in kronwall that can make those bone crushing, career ending hits. yet when he makes one, its not like the enforcer comes out and does anything about it. i can't even find kronwall listed on hockeyfights.com! so what kind of deterrent is an enforcer when guys can do whatever they want out there with no fear of retribution? another example would be that weasel matt cooke. we all remember that great photo of evander kane punching his face in. it was a classic. we all got a kick out of it. but did getting his face beat in (by a non enforcer for that matter) change the way he plays? not at all. dude is still as douchey as ever and takes runs at players all the time. and look at cookes fight history. a player as dirty as him should be regularly getting time with enforcers if they were actually doing their job. but on his career fight list you see names like kovulchuk and pominville, not crombeen, orr, etc. so just how exactly are enforcers deterrents when they never actually deter? and lets be honest here, is there really even much of a role in 'changing the momentum' when 2 guys that are basically unimportant to the outcome of the game square off right at the start?

is it really necessary to have a players number on their jersey in 4 places and on their helmet in 2? as far as the design i am fine with it. would have liked to see some piping around the waist as that part looks bland, but overall they seem fine. i am with euro_twins, as a fan base we shoudnt be bashing them for being plain or like practice jerseys as the wings are the same way.

nhl.com is working through all 30 teams and posting several articles each day when a team comes up on the list. Today is the Wings day, so I thought I would post the links. WINGS OF CHANGE Detroit's roster features new guys in first year in Eastern Conference http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=680051&navid=DL|NHL|home Age, health among questions for Red Wings http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=680048 Detroit will rely heavily on Howard http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=680098 Red Wings retool with Weiss, Alfredsson http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=680055 Time for Red Wings to turn to their youth http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=680252 nothing too earth shattering in the articles, but what did everyone think of the prospects article? i was suprised that dekeyser was on the list, but andersson, nyquist, and tatar weren't. all of them have varying numbers of nhl games played, but especially with tatar, he to me is still a prospect.

between the blatent trolling and how often he posts things as fact without sourcing them, i have grown to ignore every post he makes. doing so makes lgw a better place. on topic, this still is a great cap hit for andersson and hopefully helm is back this year and andersson can really dominate in a 4th line role. i really think PK is where this is crucial. andersoon was already among the ice time leaders in the playoffs. if helm gets back and is also in that rotation it lessens the need to have datsyuk and zetterberg out during the pk. furthermore, andersson had some of the best FO numbers in the playoffs and that would negate the strategy of having datyuk come out to take draws on the pk. i would much rather see 13 out there even strength where he has more opportunity to create chances.

excellent explanation. it has nothing to do with being a handshake deal. its a contract that benefits the player by being one way and garunteeing that high 6 figure salary, and benefits the team by lowering the cap hit slightly. you often see this with the mid level guys coming off their ELC.

i could care less what espn covers, because they are to sports what mtv is to music. they have turned into nothing but talking heads shows and behind the scenes dramas. they will continue to dig their own graves to true sports fans that increasingly go other places for actual sports news. additionally, for you guys arguing the cost of hockey you are having the entire wrong discussion. of course playing hockey at a high level is costly. but thats not the type of hockey that needs to be promoted. if the nhl wants to be more popular in the states, they need to be encouraging kids to be in their driveway or streets with nothing more than some sticks, a ball and a net. that is not a large investment. and if you get thousands of kids doing that, you will see popularity grow. because while hockey equipment and ice time is indeed expensive, so are football helmets and shoulder pads. the difference is i dont know any kids that own their own shoulder pads. schools and leagues own the equipment and kids just use it. it is absolutely asinine to imply all you need to get kids involved in football is a ball and a field, yet to get kids involved in hockey they instantly need 2 grand in bauer gear? you can't get more apples and oranges.

I disagree. I think Lashoff had a great year last year and really helped the team early on when many players were not doing so well. However, as the season went on he really showed some gaps in his game. So I would hate to dump a solid player like Quincey when there are questions. Now certainly I am hoping that Lashoff made the most of his time down in Grand Rapids and will come back this year way stronger, but we need to be prepared if thats not the case. The defense is still pretty young overall with Kindl, Dekeyser, and Smith. We can definitely use Quinceys experience. On-topic, has the length of time Brunner has went unsigned changed anyones opinion of his value? Its one thing if the Wings choose not to give him the salary he wants and then someone else snaps him up on July 1, but when all 30 teams have had weeks to sign him and no one has, I think that does put into perspective that his value might not be that high. The longer this goes, the more I feel like we don't need him back and a young player can take his role on the team.

is it just me or are there a lot more roadtrips and homestands? seems like there are several groupings of 4 or 5 gams on the road and 4 or 5 at home.

could a similar list not be made for teams in the west? additionally, how many of those guys wont dress against us since we dont carry a fighter? (genuine questions, not trying to troll or bait or anything)