xtrememachine1

If Bert doesn't re-sign (and I'm hoping he doesn't) I would much rather have Owen Nolan anyways. He still has a pretty decent shot, he's a righty, which could be helpful on the powerplay.

Ha! Lightzerman... I like it

1. Wings win the division. Chicago has a serious SC hangover, they'll lose some key players due to the cap and the Wings won't have half their team injured this year (hopefully). 2. Lightning start off slow, but finish the season strong and barely miss the playoffs. Everyone will be saying "Look out for the Lightning in 11-12." 3. Boston gets somebody that can actually score goals and gets back as an elite Eastern Conference team. 4. People will be wondering how the heck Philly made it to the Finals last year. 5. Anaheim will be a top 5 team in the West. 6. Marc-Andre Fleury will get dealt because Pittsburgh needs the cap space and they can do just as well with a $1 mil goalie. 7. San Jose won't miss a beat with Nabokov gone. 8. Jimmy Howard will be in the All Star game. 9. Anze Kopitar will be in the top 3 in scoring. 10. The Caps and Pens will both wear their old jerseys from the 80's for the Winter Classic.

My thoughts exactly. When the Wings won the Cup in 2008, I wasn't thinking about other teams. I wasn't thinking "Take that Chicago!" I was thinking, "We won the Cup!!! WOOOOOO!" If you just want to win so you can say "Detroit sucks", then you're not a real fan of the team.

If at first you don't succeed...

Shhhh, don't give them any ideas.

My prediction is that Emerick will say "For the Cup!" everytime the Hawks take a shot.

Actually I think it was exactly $4 mil per year, but that was the cap hit. It was one of those big contracts, where he would get around $6-7 per year for the first so many years and it would decrease later on.

Absolutely. I used to be pretty hard on him, then I saw how bad our PK was without him last year and part of this year. He does a lot of things that go unnoticed. I really hope he's back. As for Bert, I don't get it. I wasn't impressed with him in '07, he really didn't show that much this year. He's a big body in front of the net, which is good, but aside from that he doesn't do much. He doesn't really fit the Wings speedy, two way player system.

This will look good in my Red Wings mancave that I'm in the process of building

We were outplayed in the first two games? We were outshot by a little, but won those games by a total of 6-2.

Lidstrom has 6 Norris trophies, 4 Stanley Cups and a Conn Smythe. Pronger has 1 Norris trophy and 1 Stanley Cup. There's no comparison.

I'm just happy he's coming back and don't really care too much about the cap hit, but telling someone who has close to $100 million dollars to take a pay cut vs someone who won't make $1 million in their lifetime to take a pay cut is just a little different.

We're getting the best defenseman in the game back for another year and he's playing for more than 5 cents! Geez, do I have to draw you a diagram?

With the cap going up by a couple million $6 mil is fine. If he knew this was his last year, he could sign a two year deal worth $8 mil and have it front loaded with $7 mil in the first year. lol

But don't most series go 6 games? Even if the underdog splits the first two, the pressure is on them to win three straight against a higher ranked opponent to avoid going back on the road. Winning 3 straight is tough anywhere, I think.

Funny, football fans complain about the fact that teams work so hard all year, get home field advantage, then play at a neutral site for the championship. The grass isn't greener on the other side. If you want to cut down on travel time though, just change the format to what they do in MLB and NBA, have a 2-3-2 setup. That way the teams only travel twice in 7 games.

The Lightning are my second favorite team now that Stevie's there. I won't cheer for the Bolts with as much intensity as I cheer for the Wings (seriously, with every Wings playoff game, its like I have my house on the line), but I'm excited to see him build an Eastern Conference version of the Wings.

LOL With all this love for the Lightning in this post, maybe we need to change this site to LetsGoWingsAndBolts.com

What about Barry Melrose? No, wait...

I REALLY hate to see Stevie go, but he has a lot of good young players to start off with, he gets to pick his own coach, and he gets to live it up in Florida. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. There's no question who my second favorite team is now. On a somewhat related note, isn't it ironic that he went to the Lightning? The Wings are red/white, the Lightning are blue/black (the exact opposite colors). His best player has the same first name (except he's called Steven, not Steve or Stevie) and has the same two numbers, except in reverse (91). Its like Yzerman went to the bizarro Wings.

Here's a fun article to read now. This was written the day before Game 7. Love Pittsburgh sports writers "Bet on Crosby and Penguins to win" http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10131/1057266-87.stm

So does this mean Crosby can play against Ovechkin in the IIHF World Championship tourny now?

Actually, I think this goes back to when Bowman left Pittsburgh and came to Detroit. As a life long Wings fan in Pittsburgh, I can tell you that most Pens fans have been cheering for whomever plays the Red Wings for a good 16 years now. The back to back Finals match ups just intensified their hatred.

Wait a minute... two weeks ago you guys were laughing "Ohhhhh the Caps choked!! They lost to the 8th seed how pathetic!" Now you guys are in a Game 7 with that same 8th seed and you're "proud of the Pens". We lost to the #1 seed in the West, a team loaded with superstars. You're in a dogfight with a team that finished with the 18th best record in the league and has played the entire series without their best defenseman and now their second best is injured too.