Datsyerberger

Not really, that's more or less included in 5, the one about the East and point totals. To me, Iginla with 98 points in the West (50 of those goals) is more impressive--even though I much prefer to see Iggy getting beat up by a Wings enforcer. He's the more experienced and developed player, though, so we'll see what Crosby does in time.

Crosby was picked for a few reasons: 1: North American 2: Young and talented 3: On a team with other young and talented players, and leading them 4: Good-looking (when he doesn't have a playoff beard) 5: In the East, so he's more likely to put up higher point totals and thus look better (also, larger potential market) 6: His previously s***-ass team is sort of a Cinderella story 7: He's the star player that "everybody had a chance at" in that convoluted draft All of that makes a pretty winning combination, marketing-wise. Personally, I wish they wouldn't put all their eggs in one basket, because hockey players have this odd tendency to take injuries and what have you. But he's a good choice, even though hearing his name every other sentence does get tiresome. But hearing Doc attach the word "back" to every directional change while announcing a game is much more annoying. A player goes behind the net: "he goes back around behind!" a player moves through the neutral zone on the attack "he goes back ahead" a player dumps the puck into the zone "he dumps it back in" .. "back around" is another you hear a lot.. "back out" (confusingly enough, this is often used for the exact same action as "back in"). Drives me nuts much more then the Crosby stuff. He'd addicted to that word and says it every other sentence--take it out of almost any sentence he says and the sentence still makes perfectly good sense.

Pretty much agree with OP, except for me 98 and 02 are pretty much a tie.

This all proves my theory that the Wings like humiliating opponents in front of their home crowds. Especially Pasha.

Hartigan and Meech, both assumed important roles for good amounts of time and are a sizable part of our success this year.

Always been a huge Oz fan, one of my favorite goalies ever. Definitely HHOF material.

Nash and Stars. They both have tough goalies so that argument is kinda moot.. however, we were playing Hasek vs the Preds and he wasn't working out too well then. Because of that I give the Stars a slight edge, but really, they were both good opponents. Now, as compared to the Pens, I honestly still think the Stars would have taken the Pens, probably in 7 games. Nashville, Im not as sure... Pens in 6 or 7, maybe? Then again, Nashville's gritty style could have given them the same sort of trouble they gave us..

Oh, I spent half of the night until I went to bed "celebrating" by reading the various Pens boards. I can be quite grim : D

Giant ******.

As per my reply to this business on hfboards: This breaking story just in: Don Cherry is a euro-hating ****** canoe! In other news, water is indeed quite wet.

Everything I want to say has already been said, except this: Matt kicks ass.

I was very impressed with Lebda this entire playoff run. Not like Kronwall impressed, but he far outdid my expectations of him, and in my opinion secured himself a spot above Lilja. Notable was that he is finally using his speed properly, was making safe passes and relatively few turnovers (for a bottom line D-man), was being surprisingly physical when he needed to, and didn't make a habit of making bonehead mistakes in his own zone. His offensive zone play could be better, but atleast he was using his speed to get the puck there. He was defensively sound, and that's what matters most for a #5-6 D-man, imo.

Hossa was the scariest player they had on the ice and was far and away their best skater.. overall best performance only a touch below Fleury. A good scorer and probably the best two-way top 6'er the Pens had. I do think Gonchar's performance has been overlooked, however, and he did a great job of shutting down some Detroit rushes and offense. He gets my vote for #3. Crosby takes a bit more of a distant #4 for me.. he had an overall good and pretty consistent performance but he failed to execute in some situations (though this may have been more of a linemates problem), and he wasn't as near as effective in his own end as Hossa was (while, on the other hand, Gonch was quite effective in the offensive end.. about the only active Pens D-man there...)

Yes, the officiating has been downright lame. Granted, part of it is due to some very unclear and shaky rules, such as the current case with goaltender interference. Another is a matter of tolerance/severity, where we often see blatant late hits, cross checks, and cheap shots go unpunished but half-second hooks and little love taps take penalties left and right. Another part of the problem is that there were 2 officials (O'Hiterlan/Devorski) who never should have been officiating the finals, much less as a pairing. The other 2 guys were more decent than I expected for a coupla no-names, but atleast they don't look blatantly biased and have a hard on for goal/goaltender infractions. (Hey Devorski, lets call another GI from the blue line with a bunch of traffic). I don't think there was a conspiracy against us winning, but I /am/ convinced the O'Halloran/Devorski pairing was intentionally created to give us hell for our in front of the net style. Another thing that needs to be addressed is make-up calling and evenly matched penalties. Even if your team plays dirty as hell, you still have a decent chance for a not-too-lopsided game special teams wise, just because the other team's ticky-tacky stuff will be called almost as often as your outright brutal penalties. And then there's the issue of diving. Hard one to deal with and can be a hard one to call. If you call a guy for diving but it turns out he actually went down for a legit reason (such as a trip that was hard to see from a particular angle), you look like an ass. If you call a guy for a trip because it looks convincing from one angle, but on the other hand it's a blatant dive from another perspective, you again look like an ass. Very rarely are these clear-cut, unless Forsberg is around somewhere. I think the best thing you can do here is not to call the diving penalty unless it's a blatant dive, and call the penalty the other way if it looks like a drop for a legit reason. All penalties are reviewed, so if in review after the game it turns out what looked like a penalty was actually a dive on the 'victim's' part, then drop a fine on them. And make it public. On the other hand, if a ref calls a dive on someone and it turns out it was more likely a legit drop, fine the ref. It's a penalty that does not need to be called lightly.. and at the same time, should be harshly punished when its caught, even when its after the fact. The worst scenario is when an uncaught dive results in a PP that turns out to be a game winning situation for the diver's team. That really kills image, and is why diving needs to be addressed, even if in many cases its going to be off the ice. On the other hand, in some cases we come down too hard on the refs. Hockey is a ***** of a game to officiate and call consistently. However, I do feel we are on the verge of a crisis, and besides a handful of noticeable bad apples, the problems stem more from poorly worded and misinterpreted rules than the officials themselves.

On a more positive note, I think he's still got a couple more years left in him. Fair to middling enforcer these days, great team guy, decent grinding depth player. If he manages to get himself somewhat back into shape, he'll probably fill Drake's role as a 4th line vet. I liked seeing the double Darren's out on the ice together, and Helm seems to make up for McCarty's biggest weaknesses. D-Mac seems to still have a pretty serviceable shot for a 3rd/4th liner. If not that, he's good veteran #13 material and will probably be happy just to be there.

I've little doubt Drake retires. Cheli won't. Not yet. Hasek... might, might not. I'm leaning towards he will, but hard to say with him.

Past 5 am here, still up, and the only amount of alcohol I had earlier was a single ale (3rd period). Playing EHM while I try to break my forum addiction.

Because your own problems (and I'm sure they exist) are of some sort of lesser nature. Let's face it, we all have problems just as nasty, just in different ways. Some people have a natural predisposed weakness to substance and activity addiction (likely this is the case for D-Mac with his drinking/other stuff and gambling). The fact he is able to overcome it speaks bounds. I know I haven't been able to overcome my own problems yet, I've got a long way to go to reach the point McCarty has. You want to call me classless because of that? Be my guest, but I hope you've got a parachute to dismount from that horse.

Cup! Cheers!

Go Lids, go Cleary, go Drake, go Helmet.

There was a misprint on the job information sheet and in the ads. They left the last 3 letters out of analyst. Both parties though they were looking for anal.

What's to stop Chelios from getting a /win on this thread and ban everyone whose screen name starts with A-M?

I dreamt the Stanley Cup grew arms and pimp smacked Bettman when he tried to pick it up. I have no idea how/if that pertains to a win or not, but GO WINGS!

And here I thought the anti-smythe candidate was the person on the other team who has contributed to your success the most XD In that case, I'd say Malkin. One of the best Wings on the ice.. look at all those passes he's been getting to our guys. He's really putting em tape to tape and creating some great scoring opportunities.