XxGoWingsxX

actually we will face the caps at least once this coming season...i'm pretty sure it starts this year where bettman said every team in the league will meet eachother at least once this season.

i got it.....we call franzen the mule, hossa, the hoss (kinda like saying horse with an accent) and call filppulla flipper.....that way they all have an animal name of sorts

lol, you're forgetting one important thing tho dude...there IS a max cap to how much a single player can be paid...i'm not sure but i think its between 10 and 12 mil a season

While i don't disagree with you on almost any of it...theres 1 small detail i'd like to bring to light about the 4th line. Mike babcock has all but stated that helm has earned a regular playing spot on the 09-10 roster due to his performance in the playoffs. I'd look for babs to start out with one or the other (helm or kopecky) and find out which one is going to produce...my guess is helm is ready to explode, and go from there. Other than that i think you've nailed it on the head

In franzen's defense on this one....i believe it was about an ice time/confidence thing. When homer and cleary were injured he moved up a line and saw more playing time. He got a couple nice plays and assists...cofidence goes up, and he starts to realize he can push his way through people to the net. Scores a couple goals confidence boosts more...so then he gets on a run and realizes that with his size and weight it's hard for people to stop his momentum in front of the net. Homer and cleary come back and he moves back down a line and he still has that confidence....hence he goes on a long run of scoring. He gets injured in round 3, comes back early in round 4 and only had like 1 goal i think but his play picked up right where he left off and has nice setups and assists...never really found his scoring grove again but the 1 he did get in the finals was a beautiful goal....i think alot of people aren't crediting franzen enough.

Anyone who wants to talk bad about ozzie, well i'll meet em at center ice...over 300 wins and if anyone ever says he's the worst goalie to win the cup, i'll go punch em in the mouth HAHAHAH DMAC is back....I saw that right after the game, and was ROFL As for the refs...i said it from game 1 this series.....theres no conspiracy to make the wings lose...but i DO BELIEVE buttman told the refs to try and draw the series out to gain fans, and revenue. I also thought that everytime Detroit started to look threatening to the pens the refs stepped in and slowed it down....we DOMINATED the pens even strength. I'd love to see the wings vs pens play a whole series of 5 on 5 games (no penalties) and bet we'd slaughter them, as most of their chances and goals were on the PP...they had trouble generating offense most of the time 5 on 5...and i believe there were like 5 periods this series where we held them to 5 or less shots even strentgh....and a couple where we held em to less than 5 including power plays. It's pretty bad when a former wing...who happens to be one of my neighbors (paul woods) who...well i dont know if hes the wings radio announcer anymore but, My older neighbor who is pretty good friends with him said even paul woods who played the game some 30 years ago when you could get away with murder...called the officiating a JOKE, and said that the NHL is becoming more and more of a disgrace every year. That comes from a ******* ex player who played during the roughest days of the game. All i can say is bettman is probably miffed that he did everything in his power to draw this out, and we still got the job done. The trip on datsuk with 24 seconds left was blatant, the ref was 5 feet away, and it DIRECTLY led to pit almost scoring to tie it up. I have to wonder had they tied it on that play after dats trip...if some reporters wouldn' t have stepped in and wrote an article about this. I play hockey, and even in my league the hook hudler was called for would be let go, the charge by drake (a charging penalty requires you to skate from one side to the other in an attempt to just slam an opposing player) where he was only 10 or so feet away to begin with and glided most of the way to hit the guy was bs for the 5 on 3, and the blatant slash on huds's stick at the end omg , he got called for that "hook" and they get away with something as blatant as that? Calls did go both ways, but it just seemed that it wasn't justthe calls themselves alot of the time but WHEN they were called that made them that bad. Oh well wings in 6 lol

well ozzy, draper, and babs, and i think even lidstrom came out after game and FINALLY said yea it was made harder cuz we had to fight the refs...., then ozzy said yeah so many soft calls....too many blown calls...., that were double standards....called on us but not them.

Daniel C & Michelle L Ohalloranhome 10445 Farmbrook Dr Brighton, MI 48114-7585 (810) 225-3449 here ya go lol

i meant height wise...duh long legs= long pads? take your sign up there for yourself...lol jk man you haven't offended me

I remember at the beginning of the series, a pit reporter , or hockey critic rather, said that osgood's pads were too big, and even reffered to them as "Mattresses, except they couldn't be because malkin would have slept on them" <--not a direct quote, but he said something along those lines. Anyways...and i'm not saying this accusing Fleury of anything, i'm just asking anyone else's opinion...look when he's standing, knees bent....his pads look to be a good 4-6 inches above the knee....well above where the padding in his pants cover...i realize he's tall, but i played goalie when i was younger and coaches always told me that about 2-3 in above the knee MAX was good because of the weight of the pads...not to mention, they'd get in the way of eachother if too long. Not making accusations, just wondered what anyone else thought?

ahh ok, i must have misinterpreted it as i was reading it on lunch at work, so i read quick....but yeah i feel ALL goalies pads should be a bit smaller....but no...i know they're legal, i just meant they look huge...but he is one of the bigger goalies too

Yeah, i really don't see anything wrong with what fleury did...i think it was just all in good fun...its not like he dumped the water over his head or something......i actually saw him do this...to me it look like a little playful gesture on fleury's part...and sobotka didn't really seem to mind it either. It wasn't near as bad as mcleoud picking up the octopus , shaking it at the wings bench and then chucking it at the avs entrance behind the bench...THAT was unsportsmanlike...fleury squirting water at sobotka just seemed like a playful thing he was doing to relieve some tension...no big deal...if sobotka was pissed, which i saw his face....he wasn't....then he'd be pretty much a hypocrite....he swung the octo, and fleury played back with a little squirt...harmless.

Ehh my fault, i had my facts a little off about ohelloran reffing all our losses....but the inconsistency is the penalty part....nobody knows what will be called, nobody knows the clear cut rules anymore, and nobody knows WHEN or IF things will or won't be called....just the whole officiating, and keeping the rules to the books...its inconsistent....i didn't mean it was conspiracy

Wow really? Thats just even more of an inconsistency by the NHL at this point. what a joke of a professional sporting league. It's pretty bad the wings can't play their game because they don't know anymore what they will and won't be allowed to do from game to game....especially with ohalloran at the wheel. Ohelloran was shot in detroit 20 years ago....and i believe it to be some kind of conflict of interest for him to be reffing detroits games, especially with him PUBLICLY in the media saying he hates detroit. Not to mention, every game we've lost so far these playoffs....was reffed by ohelloran...coincidence? maybe...but it just looks suspicious...even to my friend in florida who is a penguins fan.

Ditto, cheli is rested and has more experience than lils...besides with cheli rested....he's pretty much one of the better d men to ever play the game

well good, now that you've brought up the point about not being able to stop or change direction...cleary and zetterberg, didn't really have a choice either...and its not like they would have hurt fleury with all his padding...i'm glad you agree here, k thanks bye.....and goodbye penguins

Edit...sorry gmrwings, i didnt mean to quote u in this post....i clicked edit because it wasn't aimed at u, its just a gereralization towards anyone As much as i hate to admit, if not for MAF that game would have been a landslide victory for the wings...kid looked spectacular last night, and if you do not see that you don't really have the right to call yourself a true hockey fan.

ON OFFENSE...i have to give it to him he probably is one of the greatest offensive players i've ever seen BUT....to say he's better than dats or z is just a lack of knowing what it takes to be the best player....is crosby nominated for the selke like dats and z? NO...theres a reason...and its because dats and z can play AMAZING both ways. Maybe crosby is better than them offensively (and even that is calling it close) but not as an all around player, which everyone knows that to be the best, you have to play amazingly on both ends, like dats and z. hank or dats are both better than crosbitch as all around players

Hey, i started the thread in example one...read my whole post before critisizing. I said crosby is amazing but dats and z are better overall player, and crosby is mainly an offensive player....why do u think crosby isn't on the pk line?

Thats why i said he is ONE of the best

thanks for the backing me up never forget mac, i left out something though...crosby is still developing as a player. dats and z have had plenty of time to develop. I was taking that into account when i said that about crosby. I think crosby is more like dats in the offensive aspect. dats is more of a playmaker too than zetterberg, yet somehow manages to be a high goal scorer.

It would seem so considering EVERY time we hit someone the fans at mellon booed for apenalty, clean hit or not...everytime pens got called for offsides, even if someone was CLEARLY 5 feet inside our blueline when the puck crossed...they booed as if they just got a penalty, we scored, or the refs missed a call against us

Think of it this way...if you saw 2 cars start 200 feet away from eachother take off head on, and reach even 50 mph, and then collide, at least one of the cars would have front or back wheels lift off the ground, simple physics. Look closely at the kronwall hit montage on youtube, he leans into the hit at the last second, only standing on his toes and just like the car analogy, the force of coming to almost a sudden stop , makes his feet shoot up off the ice. Now sometimes Kronwall will leave his feet merely a half a second before impact which is still borderline legal. The rule is more so that people dont leap into a hit 2 or 3 seconds before impact and hit someone's head. Look closely he rarely hits the head, and if he does, its after impact when the force sends him flying that way. I'd say MAYBE 1 out of 10 kronwall hits has been questionable at best. In another topic, i love how Therrien has complained publicly about obstruction after every game, except the game they won...i had a good laugh when i realized that.

I could just see the pit local newspapers the next morning. News headline- "Thomas Holmstrom new King of Divers" Breaking News - "Thomas Holmstrom hauled away in cuffs in pitsburgh after game 3, being charged with attemped murder against Pitsburgh netminder Marc-Andre Fleury" / When coach Therrien was interviewed after the game, he had only this to say - "Dis was juss lucky vur us dat da bwutal addack on fluwwy waddn't a tucksexxvul vun" and later added "Homsdrum is juss guud akter, he vewwy guud at obstruking fluwwy's abiwity to make de zave" Really though...go over to the letsgopens board, and just read about them whining that we're getting away with LITTLE MINISCULE obstruction hooks, and holds...and yes the wings do that, but in a way that is borderline illegal/legal so to call it all would be soft. But for them to ***** about us getting away with that, and then cheer for orpik (i think thats who threw homer) throwing holmstrom into the net like a damn javelin, just proves their "our team can do no wrong, we're MAGICAL" mindset. I hope homer (legally, because i wouldn't doubt therrien to cry rape otherwise) knocks the s*** outta brooks orpik in game 4.

THANK GOD, finally some sensible fellow wings fans. I'm 25 and have been watching the wings religously since about the 94-95 season..i was like 12 then. People who are whining about who did this wrong, who should be benched , the refs cheated, etc etc really don't get the game of hockey all that much i guess. To some degree, hockey is also a game of luck as it is skill. You have to have those lucky bounces go your way, and the pens did, and we had the bounces against us too. To be fair, crosby said that it was really warm on the ice last night which causes the puck to roll and bounce alot because, they freeze the pucks before game to take any bounce out of them. When the ice is warm, the puck warms up and turns more rubbery, hence it bounces. Now i will agree that therrien's whining didn't help us, but its not like the refs were unfair about their calls against us. It just opened up the refs eyes so they'd pay more attention to the obstruction. When you think about it, the fact that we had only a couple obstruction calls against us, just shows that therrien was wrong saying we always did it. Thats the type of game detroit has played all season....we get in the way of their guys going toward the puck. Did anyone else notice that we didn't play the neutral zone trap that much last night? And when we did it was very weak and sloppy? It seems to me the wings are always a bit aprehensive in every first road game of every series so far...it took them far too long to settle down and find their legs, and by the time they did, it was just too late. Really we only played 20 minutes of red wings hockey, which is unacceptable at this level. Babs will make some assessments, practice things a bit and have the team fired up and come out swinging on saturday. Really, for as bad as we played for 40 minutes, the pens probably had their A game goin, with us with our like....D game for 2 periods and we still didn't get dominated like they did in games 1-2. I still say wings in 5...we will take sat's game, and come home to hoist the cup. Good posts guys, i'm glad some of you guys are here, or i'd go nuts....by the way what are hfboards? Thanks