dat's sick

So much wrong with this post. You want to say "I told you so", but in order to say it you first change history to make it sound like Holland didn't go after Suter/Parise and that the LGW boards liked the Sammy/White/Cola signings, and STILL the "I told you so" is purely hypotethical and impossible to prove, and ignores the fact that the Wings did better without Suter/Parise than Minnesota did with them. As for your 7-step plan to win the cup: 1 - could happen, either way I don't see Sammy playing much unless he stays healthy and finds a way to be effective, in which case what's the problem? He'll be gone one way or another, or be a healthy scratch a lot. 2 - Not gonna happen and it shouldn't, Bert's been good for us. If he can't play anymore we can just LTIR him, right? 3 - Happening 4 - Probably happening 5 - Hopefully happening 6 - Hopefully happening 7 - A trade that actually gets the response "LOL" when attempted in EA Sports NHL 13.

Good for them. Dangerous to give him a long-term deal after 1 amazing half-season by him. 2 years is perfect for Columbus.

Good trade. Holland & Co. probably takes their chances that the guy they would have picked at 18 will still be around at 20 and adding a 2nd rounder in process, knowing the kind of diamonds we have a habit of finding that late is a smart move.

I like Fil and think this season was not indicative of what kind of player he usually is, but that kind of money and term would be crazy for him. If Datsyuk wasn't going to re-sign I would have considered giving Fil a good contract for him to stay as a backup-plan, but now he's expendable. With Nyquist/Tatar coming up and Järnkrok not far away either we have enough guys that can fill Fil's shoes.

If we could have him for that price I'd do it. Datsyuk and Malkin together for the next couple of years potentially? Heck yeah. I haven't crunched the numbers though and I guess we'd have a pretty sad depth if we picked him up.

Jimmy was amazing the first half of the game, and really none of the goals are on him. Team didn't have a lot of energy tonight, it happens. I trust the boys to be better in Game 6, it was never going to be easy to beat these guys so I'm not feeling too disappointed we couldn't seal it tonight.

Yeah all is not lost if we drop this game, but you don't want to give a team like Chicago life. If anyone can mount a comeback and win 3 straight, it's them against us. Also if they force this series to 6 or 7 and we win, that extra fatigue could hurt us next round. So either way winning tonight would be much better.

Well it would be great if we could mount a comeback here. Imo going into a Game 6 with sort of a must-win situation is not ideal, so we should do everything to try and get back in this game. Babcock needs to make some adjustments. On the PP to start the period, pair up Dats and Z. Play Smith little or no time at all. Give the 3rd line more icetime. Move Franzen and Filppula. Don't take any more silly penalties and get a real PUSH going towards the Chicago net. They'll get a bit nervous if we get a goal in the first 5-10 minutes of the period so I think we have a chance.

It's crazy how everytime something bad happens for us defensively, it's Smith causing it. Everytime. This game feels very 50/50. Every little thing could sway the game in favor for either team. A broken stick on the PK swayed it in the Hawks favor. We need to not give them anything easy like another stupid penalty.

Looked like we came out protecting a 3-1 lead, only the guys didn't understand they actually have to score in this game too. Way too cautious and defensive, though obviously some of that is due to Chicago being aggressive and desperate. Need a much better 2nd period, would love to see some offense.

Now that was a game Howard stole for us. Team played pretty well in front of him, especially the PK was amazing, but Chicago had enough chances to score 2-3 goals atleast. The stop on the 2-on-1 chance was crazy. Well done Jimmy. I'm in awe of what this team is doing, they're playing their hearts out and are doing enough of the little things correctly to make up for the occasional mistakes or giveaways. Also gotta give props to Kindl, that was a beautiful heads-up play on the goal. Lidstrom must be proud if he was watching.

Toews must be frustrated right about now. Hope it stays that way. Much better period but still not perfect in terms of our zone exits. Too many bad passes. Howard's great and we're playing well without the puck. 20 to go, get it done boys!

We probably should play less 'pretty' offensively. Tha one rush where both Smith and Franzen tried a deke instead of shooting was bad. Just get it on net and get rebounds. Lots of giveaways defensively that need to be cleaned up. In a way this looks like the start of Game 1, we don't look awful but Chicago's faster and more dangerous. Hopefully we can turn it up in the 2nd and get some sustained offense going.

Hagelin's gotten plenty of PP time tonight. Torts obviously want it to work out.

Honestly this was not that bad. He gives Hagelin a ton of compliments, "I love the guy, he does everything else well", but simply tells it like it is: "he stinks on the powerplay". He could have used other words but I like that he didn't use a lot of subtle and weak words to describe Hagelin being a bad PP guy. Also this wasn't blaming the Rangers weak PP on Hagelin, rather answering the question why Hagelin doesn't play on the PP when it's struggling so much and he's playing great. Not a huge fan of Torts but let's not make this into more than it is.

Hossa's salary > Franzen's salary

Crawford is actually vastly underrated. Imo he's a top 3 goalie in the league, probably a top 5 goalie in the league of the past 20 years. Chicago's a decent team but without him they'd have a lottery pick this season. How he wasn't nominated for the Vezina AND Hart trophies is crazy. I actually think Detroit could win this series if Chicago had a human being in net and not that space alien born on planet SHUTOUT.

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=670684&navid=nhl:topheads Go Pav!

They're good but we are just not doing good things with the puck. So many simple mistakes and trying too many difficult plays.

We are a giveaway machine tonight. More passes to Chicago players than to our own players. Somewhat lucky Chicago's not got any real rythm going and it's still 1-1. Need to wake up while this game is still winnable.

MVP: Zetterberg Unsung Hero : Andersson Best Rookie: Nyquist

Before game: is it possible Z could go without a goal in these playoffs? After game: ...how could you even think that was a possibility??? When Z and Pav are playing like this, we are difficult to stop despite our...lesser..players causing us trouble.

Ovechkin with the amazing backcheck last night:

Kronner/E have been great, who cares if they haven't gotten any points yet? Zetterberg is probably not 100% or even close to it. He's a warrior and is still involved in a lot, including both goals last night. Hopefully he can empty whatever he has left in his tank in Game 6 and if possible a game 7. Filppula has to be better. His one point was a great one but overall he's not getting anything done offensively. He's doing okay on faceoffs and defense atleast. The PP was terrible. It's unfortunate though that we couldn't have gotten a break on atleast one of our shots in the post. Most likely that would have meant a win for us and better outlook.

I thought it was a good game, other than the 1st period Wings played well enough to win. We had a chance when we were up 2-1, we hit 2 or 3 posts and had a 5 minute PP that we wasted. I thought the penalty to Smith there was extremely weak, leading to the 2-2 goal. After that it was a one shot game, we just weren't able to get it done this time. Should have killed the game much earlier. This has been a great series and I'm not giving up. If we take Game 6 anything can happen in a Game 7. If we had Dekeyser and Helm I would be more confident but nothing is impossible. If we end up losing, I'll just be happy we made the playoffs and got to see a great effort by this team against a very good opponent. The experience will be worth a lot for the young guys.