P. Marlowe

Yes. I'm not saying Babcock shouldn't have pushed him 'cause that's his job. Fil seemed to me a shy guy who wanted to play his unaggressive brand of hockey and be left in peace. He was still quite succesful playing that way. He should understand that more is excepted from gifted youngsters or $5M\yr veterans in any teams.

Maybe Fil meant the expectations that he had to live under. He was put next to Z on purpose. I remember years ago some teammates speculated Fil would have at least an A on his jersey when veterans retired. Babcock was always pushing him to take iniative on attack. I've wondered if Fil left Detroit because he didn't like the pressure. Okay, Holland didn't want to pay him what he asked but I think Fil used the high asking price as an undirect way of saying that he wanted to be elsewhere. He chose a good team and I doubt there's as much pressure on his shoulders as was in Detroit.

Kerry Fraser's take on the game (TSN.ca):

His cap hit is split too. That was the only way Rags were able to fit Yandle under the cap. I tried to find out if Coytoes retained half of only the cap hit or the salary as well. It seems they retained both. I don't even know if it's possible to retain only the cap hit but not actual salary.

Couture's just being himself... but what the heck is going on in front of then net? Is Raffi Torres celebrating because Abdelkader's butt is touching him?

McCrimmon and Salei...

Ericsson fought Benn earlier in the game. I thought that thing was supposed to stop cheap shots and make rats and other rodents scared. Still Benn hit Z right in front of Ericsson. How is that possible? Didn't Ericsson enforce Benn enough or is Benn just too much of a rat to understand "the code"?

Lindback once was to be Tampa's number one goalie and Yzerman paid a lot to get him from Nashville. Not all he does is genius.

Does Nabokov's retiring mean that San Jose will need to keep his cap hit? If this is how it goes then it's actually classier from San Jose than from Tampa as Tampa now get's rid of his cap hit for free.

Something about Ahl just smells like a minor leaguer to me.

9 wins in the last 12 games. I'm glad that after the awful 1st period they didn't go the good ole Canadian eating-lumberjacks-for-breakfast-with-Don-Cherry-pie rote throwing tantrums and "sending a message" and actually worked hard to salvage the situation. I also know that I'm quite late to the joke. Edit: Also this from TSN.ca: I wish Sabres will win soon and one of the Penguins greatest records stays intact.

<3

TSN.ca/nhl The math freaks are at it again. Come to think of it Red Wings are fifth in the league in GAA. This with Kindl, Quincey and Ericsson in the top six. I haven't watched many games this season, but I've understood that the team defence has been very good. It's a thing that doesn't draw attention as much as mistakes like bad turnovers do.

Ben Bishop is a Vezina-candidating beast, but Jimmy Howard's stats this season are identical to his.

NHL.com

I hope Wings win and salute the crowd after the game.

Down Goes Cleary

Maybe he should change his name to "Overman". Ha. Ha.

Sure. I suppose there are other examples too. The question is who wants that from hockey or from their favourite team. Of course it's good to try and protect your better players if it looks like the other is trying to hurt them. What Scuderi did though was just a normal hockey hit.

Sure, but TSN tells that when Tampa traded Purcell for Gagner they didn't know yet that Coyotes were going to get Gagner off their hands. So instead of Purcell their owned would've had to pay for Gagner. The timing of these trades was right after the announcement of the new salary cap (which was lower than what was expected) so you'd think that cap hits are the reason behind these moves and not the actual salaries.

So why not buy out Purcell straight away instead of trading for Gagner? Tampa wasn't going to keep Gagner and even after trading him have to retain third of his salary. It seems that Yzerman took a complicated route just to get rid of Purcell. Purcell cap hit was lower than Gagner's so buying Purcell out would've saved them money.

What happened to Trotz wanting to continue living in Nashville? I think he said something like that when he was fired.