dat's sick

Have some patience... the whole team is struggling. Last year he was on the 4th line for most of the time and had 9 points in 13 games. He's got it in him, he's just gotten off on the wrong foot this season and losing his buddy Filppula didn't help since those two looked good together.

Anyone notice that Hank has pretty much copied Pavel in every shootout this year? When Pav shoots, Hank shoots. When Pav goes backhand, Hank goes backhand. It's like he doesn't know what to do and figures, hey I'll just do what he did. Kinda funny. Didn't expect Wings to win in the SO. Ozzie is so easy to deke and get out of position. Glad we got a point though.

I really, really want a point out of this game. Don't do anything stupid anyone, and keep your legs closed Ozzie.

That's how it feel, but remember this is the way the Devils play. Get a lead off some bounces, then play defense the rest of the way and squeak out a win. They're really good at it too. edit: shows what I know. SCORE

scratched? you crazy?

Yes of course, this is LGW, where every draft pick regardless of which round and number becomes a Crosby or Ovechkin as long as they don't play in the AHL for a little bit too long in that case they become Meech.

Great deflection by Homer. Just wish Pavel got a point, he needs something, anything to get his confidence back. If that's even what's wrong with him.

By his standards, yes. He's making passes that are totally uncharacteristic for him, he doesn't seem to be very focused. edit: oh crap.

Great goal, LOVE that line.

Brodeur was out of the crease, weak penalty. Still, clumsy by Homer.

I don't know what team you have been watching. Zetterberg has been AMAZING for the last 15 games or more. I don't know what more he needs to do before you think he has stepped up. Sure I'd like Lids to step up more, but he's 39 and a defenseman. He's not the kind of guy that goes end to end and drives the net. Also, we've played some really good games, and even stretches of games, since Franzen got injured. The injury to Kronner seems to have been the last straw though, that was a huge loss.. In the future I see Hank with the C, Pavel and Kronner with A's.

I'm excited about seeing Hank and Pav together, but I hope Babs actually give them some time and don't split them up again if they haven't lit the place up in the 1st period. Hopefully Hank can jump-start Pavel so we actually have both our superstars playing at the top of their ability. I do have that it's a pretty weak lineup looking beyond the 1st line. It's basically a 1st line, two 3rd lines and a 4th.

I haven't made any predictions for a while and I notice the team has been struggling. Time to set things right. 5-2 Wings. Datsyuk 2, Hank 1, Bert 1, Lids 1.

lol I was gonna say him and Hjalmarsson. There's a 99.9% probabilty neither of them will come here, but that's what we need: a secondary scoring threat and a really solid d-man. Depending on whether Lidstrom retires or not we might need more, we might need to go after a real no.1 goalie. Semin would be sweet.. but the Caps are gonna do what the Hawks and Pens have done, lock up their core. Ovie, Semin, Backstrom, Green and Varlamov are the guys they'll build their team around for the next decade or more. They won't let them go.

Soon we'll have to make threads like "player X still healthy" or "Lebda still not injured", because that will be more newsworthy than anyone actually getting injured.

Friday: Tampa Bay @ New Jersey Boston @ Montreal Anaheim @ Minnesota Nashville @ Chicago Saturday: Vancouver @ Carolina Edmonton @ Dallas St Louis @ Los Angeles Toronto @ Boston NY Rangers @ Buffalo Detroit @ New Jersey Washington @ Philadelphia Atlanta @ Florida Colorado @ Columbus Chicago @ Pittsburgh NY Islanders @ Tampa Bay Minnesota @ Nashville Ottawa @ Phoenix Calgary @ San Jose Sunday: Detroit @ NY Rangers Ottawa @ Anaheim

With both Ovechkin and Malkin missing a chunk of games, Crosby has a good chance to take it. I'm putting my money on Thornton though. With Heatley and Marleu to feed passes to, he's going to get a s***load of easy assists.

He's getting older, getting less ice-time, focusing more on the defensive side of things, babysitting Lebda/Meech/Ericsson and so on. We can't expect him to put up 10+ goals and 60+ points until he's 45. Someday his production has to drop, and I think the beforementioned factors contribute to that. But he's still playing really good and he's pretty much the last player on the team I'm worried about. I will say that his shot from the point is a bit of a concern. I'd like to see him blast one in someday soon, or atleast hit the target more. He's usually been the only one you can rely on to always get his shot through to the goal for deflections and rebounds, but lately that hasn't been the case and it's the only part of his game I'd really like to see him step up again.

Relevance? this thread is just getting MORE irrelevant every day. Pavel has played with almost everyone now, and still hasn't really found his game.

I think he has potential to be A LOT more than that.

I'm sure they have something planned. Huet is playing good this year so it wouldn't be impossible to ship him out and go for budget goaltending. Campbell would be more difficult, but a desperate team like Toronto could maybe take him if they sweeten the deal with some draft picks. I don't think Chicago are as f***ed as you think. But I would freakin love it if we could steal Hjalmarsson.

Yeah I sure hope this doesn't turn out to be something recurring... really strange though because he already went through this once and then they supposedly "fixed" it but apparantly there's more to it.

I'm kinda surprised by this actually. I know he has had some struggles lately but he's been a pretty solid backup the last 2 years, even though Lundqvist has obviously played the majority of the games. If this was a couple of weeks ago I would loved for the Wings to pick him up, but with Howard playing the way he is I'm not sure Valiquette is of any use to us.

I like the way Leino has played lately and I've been wanting Babs to try him on Pav's line for a while. In a perfect world everyone would be healthy and we could play Hank and Pav together, but now we can't really do that without having 3 terribly weak lines.