Cern

Phew, we've got a lead again

Oh yeah, I also know where Vernon lives. Haven't seen/met him in person yet though.

HAHAHAHAHA, Chelios

My parents lived in Edmonton during the dynasty years. Edmonton's never been a huge city so they'd always run into Gretzky or Messier in line at the bank or at the supermarket. My mom also used to do cancer research so she'd always see the team when they came over to the hospital to show the Cup to the kid patients. I was just born when all this stuff happened and we moved to Calgary when I was three, so I never (knowingly) encountered them myself. I do have a bunch of their signatures though.

I'm actually kinda hoping that San Jose overtakes them. The Wings have topped the league so many times now and if the last two games are any indication it's resulted in uninspired play. Maybe having a bit of a mental shake-up and change in perspective in the playoffs will help them go all the way.

Could be any of the other teams in playoff contention in the NW division. Vancouver's neck and neck with Calgary and Colorado, and Minnesota isn't far ahead of any of them. Because there's a big cluster of divisional games right at the end of the season we probably won't have any kind of definitive answer until the season's over.

Keep an eye on the yotes next season, they're finally on the brink of becoming something big. Picking up Iggy pretty much for free was a dream come true for their team, if they had him to start out the season it'd probably be the Canucks on the outside looking to butt in on their playoff spot right now. Now if only 'Phoenix' was 'Winnipeg' and 'Coyotes' was 'Jets'...

I can't hear his opinion over the sound of Vancouver's cripplingly nonexistant offense. Not to mention a severely-reduced blue line squad. Van proved last year that you can't win a stanley cup purely on your goalie's shoulders. Hell, does Vancouver even really HAVE a first line?

Is it too late to add this EDGE system crap to my list? What a downgrade, all the teams have been forced into five or six inflexible templates and virtually every logo/jersey design change looks terrible compared to what they had the previous season (beyond teams that simply retained their previous design and adapted it into the new cut, the only teams with new jerseys that were actually improvements that I can think of were Boston and Tampa Bay). Plus the replica jerseys look terrible. The material seems suspiciously thin and insubstantial, the shoulder patches are cheap-looking single-piece leathery sew-on things, and they put a giant RBK logo right on the front of them because God knows you haven't been reminded quite enough times that you're wearing a RBK product. Thank god the Wings kept to the exact same design as the pre-EDGE jerseys and hence provide me with zero reason to get one instead of a vintage sweater from CCM. Not to mention the redundant number-on-the-front trend is being adopted by more teams and will probably wind up becoming a mandatory feature in an effort to confuse audiences into thinking they're watching football on ice. Plus talk of putting advertizements onto goalie uniforms means that in a few years we'll probably start looking more and more like the Euro hockey leagues. Wow, I write way too much sometimes

Insisting on penetrating 'new' markets that may possibly potentially in the distant future be profitable instead of capitalizing on already hockey-crazy markets untouched by the NHL. Almost all of the SE division is a joke, they can't even give away enough tickets in Atlanta or Miami to get their arenas half-full. Football, baseball, and basketball are king in those areas, hockey is simply a joke to people down there. Oh, and the overtime format. And this talk of making nets larger.

Grigorenko will make a miraculous overnight recovery to his famed former self, share a line with Datsyuk, and finally take the role of 'young player badly needed to finally take Sidney 'Horse-Face' Crosby down a peg'.

To think if we started with Ozzy it might have been 3-0 and holy crap, norrena's skin looks FREAKY.

You just wanna hug him tightly until the twitching stops...

Truly our ability to shoot the puck square into the goalie's chest is formidible.

aaaaaaaaaaaand it's been jinxed.

At least the Wings showed up for the game for the last two minutes... *facepalm*

Still a little too early Actually, never mind, if we don't score here we wonn't win it anywHOLYs***THINGSAREGETTINGINTERESTINGNOW

I remember virtually the exact same thing being said about the Avs chances to make the playoffs last season. And then I just kept lolling harder and harder as Colorado kept winning games and Calgary kept losing. The Avs sneaking in against all odds for a series against the Wings would have been epic

It's alright Sammy, we didn't want to win the game anyway

Yeah, my last-minute edit came just a touch too late there. Something didn't seem quite right about what you were saying. Then I remembered "Oh right, that's because it was bs"

Not true, Downie was in the lineup in the Wings' last game against Vancouver and they lost (he even sparked a full-scale confrontation at center ice during the warmup). Might have had more to do with having virtually all our D-men injured and Howard being put in net though *shudder* Oh f***, wait, was that sarcastic?

Won't Downie's role pretty much become obsolete once McCarty gets around to joining the lineup anyway?

Hahahahaha, Lang...

Makes me worried about what's gonna be shaken up during the offseason. Hasek's most likely retiring and I just don't see Ozzie as being a very reliable starter. Any decent goalies becoming FA's this summer?

How does farmers know what internets is?