mjlegend

^^^ This. Crosby and the success of the Penguins is the only thing saving the NHL from being a fifth-tier sport like cockfighting, staring contests and Dungeons & Dragons. I heartily congratulate Gary Bettman for recognizing this a few years ago.

At this rate, here's the Wings' lines for Jan. 16's game against Dallas: Helm-Zett-Cleary Mursak-May-Leino Newbury-Ritola-Tatar Bernie the Rally Bird-Sergei Mnatsakanov-Chet Lemon D: RoboLidstrom-Meech Lebda-Zombo McCrimmon-Karen Newman Then, the goaltending tandem of: Some random Swedish second division goalie from 1980 (starter) Osgood (backup) Babcock is still going to have to run four lines. Unless, of course, there's any more injuries.

What if he prefers to rent?

Yeah, he was actually screaming "Wolf! Wolf!" at the trainers as they looked at hin. I still think he's faking it to get an extra long break for the Olympics.

No, this isn't happening. I'm not even fooled for a second. I expect Holland to come out in a few minutes and say: "No, I'm just ******* with you about the Holmstrom injury. Had you going, though!" before laughing maniacally and disappearing in a cloud of magic smoke.

Larry Murphy = Wayne Gretzky?

You would have thought after Yashin, they'd have been reluctant to hand out 15-year, 50 bazillion dollar contracts. Good for Dipietro for coming back, but remember he played three or four games last year before it flared up again.

I, for one, was never calling Canada an "overwhelming favorite". Someone should point you to DVDs/tapes of the 1972 Summit Series to see a classic series between two evenly matched teams.

Didn't Devereaux have a really serious injury when he was much younger, too? Hate to see a player out with what could be a career-threatening injury.

I have a permanent hatred about the "head coach Dave Lewis" years. Easily the most disappointing playoff performances I've seen from the red and white.

Why can't Swedish teams win this? It's been nearly 30 years since they won it. It's not through lack of talent.

With one exception when I had the world's worst service, I've never been at any place where tipping was customary and not tipped at least 12 per cent. But I'd rather the government not tell me I had to tip as part of the charge. Calgary and Edmonton are both two-paper towns with pretty tough competition. This is the kind of story you'll get in the middle of the year in this kind of market. In Edmonton last year, a few autograph seekers complained that a pair of young players (Gagner was one of them, forget who the other one was) were charging $25 each for autographs at a collectors show. They faced questions on that for a few weeks.

Walt McKechnie is lazy and he sucks!

He couldn't name himself captain. Or Luongo, since he'll ikely be the #3... Of the players on the team, these are decent choices IMO. As long as Sir Sid doesn't have the C, I'm ok with whatever Steve thought was a good idea.

Heh heh. The rest of the west will also be dog-tired come playoff time. Especially Chicago.

I'm not necessarily anti-May but I am anti-crediting him with curing cancer, inventing the personal computer and building the Taj Mahal with his bare hands. He's a six minute a game goon getting a lot of his games in the last few weeks due to his presence as a healthy body on a severely injured team. Nothing more, nothing less. He hasn't redefined the Winged Wheel. He's contributed nothing offensively, defensively, on special teams, or in the clutch. If he's an MVP candidate, I'm the king of Sweden.

FYP.

Unless Vokoun stands on his head, that team isn't contending for anything. No Hudler, I note. Probably a mistake, given they found a role for Cajanek and Rolinek.

Yeah he really has prevented a rash of contact-related injuries from ravaging the team this year, hasn't he?

Howson's got to be getting desperate to do some kind of change there, particularly on the blueline. Filatov involved?

I would hardly call his tenure here "two season" yet. And you didn't say "Simon Says".

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Newbury would have scored at least three goals against Chicago.

This. It doesn't even have to be in a game, either.