xtrememachine1

That's pretty questionable. He put up good numbers with Nashville a few years ago, but pretty comparable to Nyquist, Tatar and Larkin. Maybe he doesn't have an attitude problem anymore, but if he does, that's not another problem we need to take on right now.

While I would rather see a Bolts vs Caps series, I would LOVE to see the Bolts knock off the Pens. After TB eliminated the Wings, so many Pens fans were celebrating saying "Go Bolts! Great job!" "Woooo Lightning!! Yay!". I would love to throw all their comments back in their faces.

The Pens do have a great offense, I mean, Malkin and Kunitz are on the third line at the moment. However, they've been getting some good bounces in this series and I don't know if some of these goals are necessarily his fault. Having said that, he can't afford to have an off game because that offense and these fortunate bounces will finish them. Tomorrow's game will show which way this series goes.

The Pens have been doing this to the Caps since Ovie and Crosby were toddlers. I've seen the Pens come back on the Caps a few times over the years. The Caps owe them one and if there's any year for them to do it, its this one. The Pens were outshot pretty badly in Game 3 and got some great bounces in Game 4. This luck can't last forever.

Good for the Pens to get that win because you won't win too many games getting outshot 47-23. They might be up in the series now, but they need a better effort in the next one or it'll be tied going back to Washington.

Kind of disappointing not to see Larkin even as a finalist after the tremendous first half he had. Having said that, it's not surprising, just disappointing.

I don't hate the name, but I don't love it either. When you have a classic non-corporate arena name for all these years, anything would sound weird though. It'll get shortened by the fans though. The official name is the Little Caesars Arena, but everyone will just call it Caesars, which doesn't sound so bad.

Wow! What a crazy series. How do you lose two games at home, then win 3 games in a row, then blow the last 2? Good for the Preds.

Imagine having them around 24/7. That's my life. lol It was disappointing mostly because the Wings were definitely the better team. Nothing went our way. We had a grueling 7 game series going back and forth across the country against Anaheim, then had to play a tough series against the Hawks just to make it to the Finals. Meanwhile over in the East, the Hurricanes took out two of the teams that would have given the Pens a hard time and then they got to whoop the crap out of them in the Eastern Finals. Datsyuk, Hossa, Lidstrom, Ericsson, Osgood, and Rafalski were all injured, the Pens were completely healthy. It just wasn't meant to be, I suppose. In regards to the original post, 2003 was most disappointing. Defending Cup team, very similar to that team. We should have gone far. Instead we had to deal with the Michelin man and his enormous "no way those are regulation size" equipment. I remember Shanny saying that when Giguere dropped to his knees, his shoulders were even with the crossbar.

What I mean by proven prospects are guys that are young players that currently in the NHL that WPG would want in exchange for a potential stud defensemen. Nyquist, Tatar, Larkin, Mrazek, DeKeyser come to mind as player they might want in exchange for someone like Trouba. Unfortunately, it will take more than draft picks to acquire him. Ericsson is currently on a 6 year deal that keeps him with the team through the 2020 season. You don't give long term deals to 4th or 5th d-men. Datsyuk and Zetterberg aren't being paid like elite forwards either. They signed Ericsson to that long term deal because they were gambling he would develop into a first pairing defensemen aka elite defensemen and they would have him at a good price for a long time. I'd hate to give up any one of the players I listed above to get another underachiever. Not saying Trouba looks like a bust, I'm just saying it's risky to give up proven young talent, players that we know work well in our system for someone that may not. These d-men address weaknesses in our defense group. Our defensemen are soft, don't block shots, turnover the puck and crumble when against a strong forecheck. Polak is a physical shot blocking defenseman. Schenn is a physical, shutdown defenseman that makes good pass out of the zone. Russell is a versatile defenseman with good speed, passing and shot blocking skills. These three defensemen would drastically change the look and play of our defensive corps. I disagree on the point that we have plenty of depth. I think we have maybe 2 or 3 good defensemen and the others are just in there because we don't have anybody else to put in.

I see what you're saying now. That's a little risky. Giving up proven prospects for someone that may end up being an elite defenseman. Trouba's name came up a number of times already on this board. Not a bad idea. The biggest problem I have with that is our front office believed Ericsson and Brendan Smith were future elite defensemen too. Misfiring here could put us in a lottery draft spot/full blown rebuild process in future years. Keith Yandle at $6 mil isn't really my target either. I was thinking guys like Roman Polak, Luke Schenn, Kris Russell. Guys that don't make a ton, shouldn't be in line for big raises, still young and are better or at the very least different than what we currently have.

Hmmm I did not realize that happened. I'm kind of annoyed. I'd probably rather have, Yzerman, just because he's so active down in Tampa. Meanwhile, Kenny's signing aging veterans and "kicking tires". Having said that though, aside from Ben Bishop, none of the players Yzerman has picked up via trade or UFA has been very impactful. Lecavalier and St Louis left on his watch and it looks like Stamkos will be next. He and Drouin seems to be at odds too. Hedman's a UFA next summer. Now not all of these are his fault, but he's building a reputation as a guy that can't work well with star players.

If you think this class is weak, wait until next year. Lots of 35+ players contracts expiring and not much else. Hedman will be a UFA next year, but I can't imagine he'll make it that far especially if Stamkos does leave TB. In today's NHL, who would be willing to part with a top pairing defenseman? I agree that we need a stud d-man, but who are you thinking about getting that anyone would be willing to part with? PK Subban? Shea Weber? Ryan Suter? Kris Letang? Alex Pieterangelo? Drew Doughty? Erik Karlsson? Those are some of the best in the league right now and I can't imagine any of them moving even if we offered Dylan Larkin. Even if we were able to swing a deal for one of those guys or some other top tier d-man, that's not really going to fix the problem. The unit as a whole isn't very good. The UFA defensemen aren't great, but they're better than what we currently have and I think several minor upgrades would be in our best interest considering the unavailability of top tier d-men around the league.

I read this while half asleep last night and it caused me to have a dream in which Holland traded Green, Tatar, a 1st round pick and Anthony Mantha to Vancouver for the Sedin twins. While I doubt a move for the Sedin twins could be made (too old, too expensive), I do think that group of players we would be trading is a possibility, especially Mantha. The front office didn't sound like they were too high on him last year and he didn't get much of a look while with the big club this year despite all the struggles we were having scoring goals. It kind of bothers me that Holland doesn't think this is a very good UFA class, especially when there's a franchise altering center about to hit the market. Not to mention there are a ton of defensemen, many around or under 30 too. We're lacking on the back end and after Datsyuk retires, we're going to be hurting for a top line center. This year's UFA class has players to fill those gaps, but he doesn't want to go that route. I mean, maybe he can swing a trade or something that will have a big impact, but he really hasn't done anything or anything close to that in the last 10 years.

I think it'll be Abdelkader for sure. DK and Larkin haven't been on the team long enough. Larks will be an A eventually, and take over as the captain when Z retires. At that point, DK will have an A.

I think this will be the best playoff series on the year and quite possibly the real Stanley Cup Finals. The Penguins are playing really good hockey right now and have been for a few months. Matt Murray is the real deal in goal for them. I just wonder how long a 21 year old with very little experience can hold up under the playoff pressure. The NYR series was never really in question. This one will at least be close.

They've gotten knocked out in the first round 3 years in a row and 4 of the last 5 years. In 3 of the 4 first round exits, we were eliminated in 5 games. So yeah, there has to be change. Without change, I think our playoff streak comes to an end next year. I understand we're "rebuilding", but at the same time, rebuilding isn't sitting on your hands and just waiting for the young players to evolve into stars. There are some glaring holes on the team that won't be fixed with our prospects. Those need to be addressed.

That playoff season was a crime against the game of hockey. JS Giguere wore pads that were in no way regulation size. They swept us, beat the Stars in 6 and nearly went the entire series without giving up a goal in a sweep against the Wild. You never know what can happen, but the NHL won't let that garbage happen again.

I like seeing the positive, "I'll never give up", "Wings in 7" posts. It's a nice breath of fresh air. I still believe we're better than this team and if we can get that intensity that we played with in Game 3 and keep it going, we could pull this off.

Absolutely! I've been saying this all season. I remember a game back in December with him coming way out of the net to challenge while we're on the PK and he got burned. I thought to myself, "Ugh, that sucks, but at least its a learning experience and he'll know NOT to do that". Well... he's still doing it and has been doing it all year, which means either someone is coaching him to play like that or he thinks it works more often than not. When you're on the PK, your goalie can't be flying all over the crease. The opposition can pass faster than he can move from side to side. If he's at the top of the crease and/or over committed to one end of the net, it puts a TON of pressure on our penalty killers to intercept passes because if they don't, more often than not, it'll end up in our net, because Mrazek won't be able to recover. It's good to be aggressive, but not when you're killing a penalty. Concerning the 3rd Tampa goal, it's a shame because the penalty killers worked hard and nearly killed it off. If you watch the replay, Mrazek slides to his left and then slides a little more, then a little more, by the time he's done sliding, the entire right side is wide open.

I don't know, but it's helping both teams get their injured players back in the lineup. Murray and Fleury are both, supposedly, ready to go tomorrow. Malkin and Maata came back for the Pens and Lundqvist for NYR on Saturday.

I'm not a fan of Tyler Johnson either, but its more of a "ugh, he's always doing good things for his team and causing us to lose" hate. Jon Cooper on the other hand... I hope somebody "accidently" shoots the puck into the TB bench high and hard.

A lot of fans are echoing this sentiment, but that simply isn't true. If it was, we wouldn't even be in the playoffs. Prior to mid-February this was a pretty good team and threatening to take first in the division. It's only over the past couple months that the team has struggled to consistently put together good showings. With the end of Game 2 and Game 3 being a very physical and intense contest, I'd be really surprised to see the Wings look flat for Game 4.

It was nice to see some intensity from our guys. Something we haven't really seen since our last game at the Joe against Philly. I don't know who this Brendan Smith is, but I like him A LOT more than the other Brendan Smith we had earlier in the year. Mrazek got the shutout, which is great, but I feel like the defense had more to do with it than him. He seemed shaky at times and the defense bailed him out. Yes, I would have liked to seen more goals, but if you're giving up zero goals and only 16 shots, I'll take that over a ton of goals. Personally, I think Tampa is being really dumb getting into all these rough stuff. The Wings were out there sleep walking through the first two games, then the thing with Abdelkader and Bluden happens, and now we're all fired up. Rather than staying away from fighting, they basically just keep feeding into it with all that garbage they pulled at the end of Game 3. The intensity will still be there for us and now they'll have to deal with it again. Boyle might have to flap his chicken wings back down to Tampa tied 2-2.

Truth. It's a shame too for the Rangers as they were carrying the play for most of the first period, then all of a sudden Lundqvist gets hurt and the puck ends up in their net right before the end of the period, total momentum shift. I didn't think the Rangers would win this with him in there, but without him, this will be over in 4.