dat's sick

We should get Ovechkin, he is a good goalscorer. And Lundqvist, he is a good goalie. Get Luongo as our backup. Make it happen Kenny.

I think there's talk about him wanting to go to Edmonton. If we can't get Hossa signed for a reasonable cap hit, I doubt we could fit in Heatley.

The two season openers in Stockholm Will be my first NHL games! Woooo!

Losing against the Ducks in that Game 7 would have hurt a lot more for me. Not just because it would have been an earlier exit, but because I felt Detroit was so much better in that whole series and still the Ducks managed to goon and cheat their way to a game 7. I just hate that team so much. I have no like for the Pens either, I think Talbot is a ****** and Crosby is annoying, but it's not on the same level as Pronger and the Ducks.

As the topic says, grade all the Wings by their overall performance this year. Take into account both regular season and playoffs. A+ Darren Helm - I WANT HIM ON THE ICE FOR 82+ NHL GAMES NEXT YEAR. A Datsyuk - Fantastic regular season. For a few months in the middle of the season he was without much doubt the hottest player in the league. Cooled down a bit towards the end and wasn't quite himself in the playoffs, even before the injury. On the whole, a magnificent year by him. A- Zetterberg - Disappointing regular season by his standards, but still solid. Great in the playoffs, and fantastic in the SCF. B+ Ericsson - Came in looking like a veteran. Showed some rookie-tendencies towards the end of the playoffs, but still played better than I think anyone could have expected him to. Leino - Maybe not ready for playoff hockey just yet, but played like a future superstar in his reg. season games. Franzen/Hossa - Overall they both had good years. But some more consistancy would have been nice, and both of them disappeared when we needed them in the SCF. Lilja - Was one of our most solid defensemen until he got injured. B Conklin - Saved the team when Ozzie was struggling. Seemed to play a lot worse towards the end of the season though. Lidstrom - As always you have huge expectations on him. This year he seemed to struggle a bit more than usual, maybe due to some injuries (elbow, face, testies), but still had a good year and I personally would not be surprised if he gets his 7th Norris next week. Rafalski - Nothing really out of the ordinary. Did his job quietly and well. B- Filppula - If I based this only on the playoffs, he'd have an A easily. But his regular season was not at all up to my expectations. I hope we see the playoff-Fil for the entire next season. Hudler - Was great for a stretch in the regular season, and other than that had some good games every now and then but too rarely for my tastes. Did some nice things in the playoffs (Game 4 Columbus) but was pretty anonymous most of the time. C+ Lebda - Surprisingly solid. Abdelkader - imo wasn't standing out much until those goals in the SCF. but I look forward to seeing more of him. Osgood - Obviously a night/day season for him. That regular season prevents me from giving him a higher grade, but his playoff performance was A+. C Samuelsson - Is a good value for the money he earns. Sometimes frustrates the hell out of me, especially on the PP, but he's a good depth player that won't be lacking offers if we can't keep him. Cleary - Might seem low to some, but I did not like him in the reg. season. Raised his game A LOT in the playoffs though. C- Kronwall - What happened to the guy that was so amazing in the last year's playoffs? 51 points and the hit on Havlat keep me from giving him a worse grade. D+ Holmstrom - Had a rough year. Still did some good work in front of the net, but didn't get as much out of it as he usually does. D Stuart - A very good playoffs except for you know what. Horrible regular season. Kopecky - .... can't think of anything to even say about him. D- Draper/Maltby - terrible reg. season. didn't make much of an impact in the playoffs. Chelios - really looked his age alot of the time. F Howard Meech

I think we'll know after next year if Howard or Larsson have any possibility of becoming our no.1 in the near future. If not, Holland probably needs to seriously look for a goalie. Don't know about Luongo. That might be too much money for someone that doesn't strike me as being the most clutch goalie ever.

Well I tried to give each player a grade, regardless of how little they played. Leino was so good in his 10-15 games that I think he deserves mention. You can't compare his grade to guys like Hudler, Franzen etc. that played the whole year. I just thought he did an awesome job in the time he was up. You're free to contribute with more specific thoughts and your own grades, but whatever. This is just my opinion. Maltby pretty much gets an F for his regular season from me. He played better in the playoffs, maybe at a C- or D+ level. Which evens out to about a D- overall. I ranked them by how good they were overall in the games that they played, but also took into account how they compared to what my expectations were on them. Which is why Lilja and Ericsson have a better grade then Lids and Raffi. While the first two far exceeded my hopes for them, the latter two, Lids especially, weren't quite up to their standard imo. On closer thought I was maybe a bit hard on Lids, but again my expectations on him are unreal. I think my biggest disappointment with him is that we didn't see more of his great slapshot in the playoffs.

Didn't he score 2 goals? I agree he, like many others, seemed to run out of gas in the final series. But he did so much for us in this and the last playoff run that I can't really complain too much.

Was my sarcasm not obvious enough?

It was so weird to see him cleanly shaven after the game though.

Good bye. You will NOT be missed.

Haha that's so funny he came here to win the cup and was 2 whole goals away from succeeding!! What a dumbass!!! He should have stayed with the worst coach in the league a.k.a Therrien and the team headed for disaster until they turned things around 2 months before the end of the season!!! What a tool, can't believe he's not psychic and knew the same two teams would be in the SCF for the 2nd straight year and that he would lose in a Game 7!!! SUCK IT HOSSA

I ordered a Zetterberg jersey with a C on the chest before the playoffs started The ******* thing hasn't arrived yet though.. He's an inspiration to watch on the ice. Like Babcock said, the thing that sets him apart from other star players is his will and determination. He just will not quit. I would not be surprised at all if he has a huge year next season. This wasn't really his year, the pucks often didn't bounce his way, so he deserves to get some breaks.

Agreed, but this team will have to sort out some big things in the next few years. Ozzie was amazing in the playoffs and made me less nervous about our goaltending situation for next year. But I'm not sure we can trust in Ozzie beyond next year. I have little faith in Howard becoming a good NHL goalie anytime soon, but Larsson looks a bit more interesting. How many years does Lids have left? We need to start looking at what our defense will look like if he retires after next season. We're not going to be as stacked offensively as we've been this year maybe for a long time, especially if the cap goes down with any significant amount. Signing Hossa is imo not the right thing to do. I'm not as negative towards his playoffs as many are, but his still 30 years old and won't get much better. We have to get younger talent into the team. Z, Datsyuk and Franzen still probably have a couple of years left in their prime, and there's even a chance we haven't seen their best years yet, but signing Hossa as well would be too much money in too many players heading towards an age where they'll start declining. This year we had a team of a kind that we might never again see in the salary cap era. Holland will have to be both smart and lucky to keep this team competitive when we have underpaid players getting raises and a salary cap that is on it's way down.

I don't know, I saw all of those things in the end of the 2nd and in the 3rd. Had Kronner scored on his shot and we had won in OT we'd all be praising this team for having those exact qualities. The Pens just did an amazing job of not letting the Wings get a lot of good chances, and they had Fleury playing the game of his life and they had puck luck.

I think the worst thing he did was probably taking that penalty. Kronner had just laid a big hit that could be turned into a momentum surge for the Wings, and what does Stuart do? He slashes Malkin's stick in a completely harmless situation. He wasn't the only one who needed to be better out there, but he made 3 (THREE) big mistakes that probably accounted for atleast 80% of why the Wings lost. Take away any of those three mistakes and this game could have ended differently. Sucks that he couldn't handle the pressure. Some players just can't.

Flip had a great playoffs and was one of our very best players in the SCF. Guys like him, Helm, Abdelkader, Ericsson etc. make me look brightly on the future.

He played bad and should feel bad. It's a shame because he was one of the players that really raised his game in the playoffs. But when it mattered the most, he brought out the very worse side of himself.

To be honest it would be cool if we signed Hossa and won the cup next year. I wonder if he just put way too much pressure on himself to win the cup this year?

Bettman is our arch-rival. The Ducks are 2nd. The Pens are 3rd at best.

Just send Stuart on the first flight to whatever team wants him. We don't need anything in return. I'm not sure I can forgive him. Hossa I think had a decent game tonight. Too bad decent isn't really enough. What happened to regular season Hossa? He was nowhere to be found in the playoffs. I would not be sad if he's not on the team next year. I'd take him for 4 mil, maybe 5. But not more. If this year shows us anything it's that it doesn't matter how many big guns you have, if there's not chemistry and if the pieces don't fit, it doesn't help. There's a reason the Hudler-Filppula-Samuelsson line gave us energy in the 3rd. They have chemistry. Same as Datsyuk and Zetterberg does (I'm amazed they didn't score in the last 2 games).

It was my worst fear that something like that would play a big part in deciding the game. But Stuart had plenty of time to make something with the puck, and he just coughed it up. I have to agree that in the end it wasn't the main reason we lost. When you can't score more than 1 goal (2 games in a row!) despite having the most stacked team in salary cap history, you don't deserve to win.

They have Malkin, Crosby and Fleury. They just need AHL players to fill the other spots and they're still a pretty good team. Doubt they'll make the finals next year (hangover..), but I don't think they'll become a terrible team unless they seriously mess up in the off-season.

When I think about how sweet if would have been to win, to get Hossa/Conklin that cup, to get Lids/Homer/Malts/Drapes their 5th ring, to get Ozzie the Conn Smythe, to get the city of Detroit something to really be happy about, to be the first ones to repeat since we did back in the 90's, to shut out Crosby from the cup for the 2nd straight year and to end this roller coaster of a season on the ultimate high, THEN I'm very, very sad. When I think about how awful this team, especially the defense, PK and goaltending, looked for much of the regular season I'm amazed that we got this close and the loss doesn't hurt that much. It's weird though that it pretty much ended up being our offense, and our PP, that denied us the cup. I know the defense wasn't stellar tonight, but 2 games in a row that the Wings can't score more than 1 goal? That I didn't think we'd see in the playoffs. I feel less sad than I thought I'd be. But there's this empty feeling inside.

Lids also had the shoulder thing that's been bothering him all season. I think he's getting surgery on it in the off-season. I think Hossa probably have had some issues with something.