Yellowknife Redwing

If he comes back to the team, the hilarity of him leaving for Anaheim to win the cup and allowing us to get Rafalski is greatly reduced.

When all is said and done, I still think that McCollum is going to be a much better NHL goaltender than Markstrom but I have to admit that pick mystified me when it happened.

At some point the onus is on Osgood to elevate his game the same way he let things get out of hand. When the backup goalie is 11th in SV% and 8th in GAA and the starter can't be relied upon to give 60 minutes without allowing a terrible goal, the choice is an absolute no-brainer. I'm glad he's pissed off and I hope it motivates him to play like we know he can. One bad goal can be the difference between 2 points and zero with the current state of the team and Howard's play is the only reason this team isn't completely in the basement of the West yet. Osgood is my favorite goalie of all time and I wish nothing but the best for him, but "clutch in the playoffs" isn't going to cut it this year with the injuries we have. Everyone has to be at the top of their game for the Wings to win right now, and this holds doubly true for the goaltenders while we deal with injuries because we're currently 27th in the league in goals per game.

The devils this year look like the 2002 Red Wings. They're exciting to watch and ridiculously dominant.

That roster is nothing to sneeze at. Any time they can ice Chara/Vishnovsky with Hossa/Handzus/Gaborik they could very easily have the most dangerous line in the tournament.

Good list overall, but the inclusion of Ovechkin at #10 was stupid considering how many great shootout goals there have been this decade.

Rick Nash x 12

Never had a lot of reason to have confidence in Leino, just hoped he would help pick up some of the slack. Over the past 2 seasons Osgood has had bad games more often than he has had good ones despite his record. Last year we could just outscore all of our mistakes in the 3rd period and call it good. This year we can hardly score enough goals to win when we're playing stellar defense and getting great goaltending. Call it poor fundamentals, lapses in concentration, age, whatever you want, but Osgood's lack of consistency and his tendency to miss at least one easy save per game are really starting to cost the team.

End of the line, Osgood has to go. If Howard is in net, this game is still 0-0.

I've heard that contract negotiations aren't going so well with Semin and Kovalchuk too. I figure we offer Jason Williams and a 5th rounder for Kovalchuk and Cory Emmerton and a 6th rounder for Semin.

That was a very well played game by both teams, no reason to be pissed off about the effort in this one. You can't win em all.

I figure we're about due for an accidental knee on knee collision between Datsyuk and Lidstrom that puts both guys on the shelf for the balance of the season.

I don't see how they could go with anybody but Nabokov.

Lines 2, 3 and 4 are all arguably staffed by 4th liners for this game. Hopefully Mario Eaves and Wayne Bertuzzi can keep this party going.

Miller and Eaves have outperformed Helm and Abdelkader all year long. I would really like to see these guys extended for at least another year at a similar cap number.

This is a must-win. All the chips fell in our favor last night and this is our chance to begin forging some separation from the rest of the pack looking for 8th seed. There is absolutely no excuse for losing this one. Here's hoping this is a serious confidence boost for what's going to be a very difficult weekend.

Moving along to Thursday night I belive the winners we're looking for in pertinent games would be Atlanta over Dallas Columbus over Phoenix Detroit over Tampa Edmonton over Nashville Anaheim over San Jose Philadelphia over Pittsburgh (in the interest of keeping the President's race close) Los Angeles over Calgary The last one could go either way, but I think we should keep the more immediate target in mind.

Exactly right. Thank you. D-Mac will always be one of my favorite players and I will never talk down about the guy, but it's hard to argue that his return to the team had any impact beyond leadership and nostalgia.

Anaheim badly outplayed Vancouver in the 1st and limited them to 2 shots but as luck would have it, Hongcouver scored on their 2nd shot. 1-1 in the 2nd. Let's go Ducks! (I feel dirty) EDIT: Ducks win 3-2. There were 2 horrible non-calls by the refs in this one. First one was a clear boarding by Kesler on Perry and the second one Niedermayer got mugged about 15 feet away from the puck and it created a 2-on-1 with just a couple minutes to go. Either way, Ducks win and 8th place is all ours for now. Time to gun for higher places.

Both are flavors of the month and neither one has made a significant enough impact for me to care whether they stay or go. May, Downey, McCarty, etc are all interchangeable parts in the most easily staffable role in hockey. Don't get me wrong, I like(d) all these guys and their character, but their impact on the club's success is almost completely negligible.

I'm not trying to pick a fight, but I think you're letting your homerism blind you a little on this point. I challenge you to find me a 2nd line from more than 1 or 2 teams that this line would stack up against.

The only thing I want to see for sure is Bertuzzi and Franzen on the same line. They have the potential to absolutely dominate.

Patience, lads. We're playing Dallas on the weekend and that means a guaranteed tilt with Barch.

Chances are it was a minor league or beer league team somewhere that just borrowed from both logos

Keep bumping this thread, it seems to be working