Wombat

I don't think the tired thing is valid when talking between different seasons. As said above, these guys get 2 months to rest up their bodies so I don't think that excuse is totally valid. I do think there can be some mental fatigue, as that can last a pretty long time if you can't shake it during summer vacation. If they are tired, I think it has more to do with the compacted schedule and them having to do western conference travel. Not really different than any other year.

The NHL needs to adopt the IIHF rules. Any hit to the head is a penalty.

Lidstrom. 3rd on the team in points, and a team-best +18. And that +18 comes with him still playing against the other team's best players when the Red Wings as a whole are close to even in goals for/goals against. Howard has been good, but Lidstrom, even when he wasn't doing as much offensively in the 1st half, is the player playing the best over the course of the season and is the most irreplaceable player on the team.

I agree that teams will sit back at the end of regulation to try to grab one point, but they did that in the old W-L-T setup as well. It's been done forever. Neither method is good at opening up play during regulation, but the current system improves OT vastly. We've already seen what not having the loser point means... there is far less forcing on offense. Pushing the pace will mean that you are more likely to make a mistake that the other team can capitalize on. Assuming the shootout means winner takes all, I think a poor team would try to hold out for the 50/50 shootout rather than push pace against a better opponent. That's what we saw prior to the loser point in tied games... they wait for the better team to get frustrated and make the one mistake they can capitalize on.

In regards to the discussions about loser points... I agree that logically, it does not make sense to award teams fewer points for wins in OT, or award points at all to teams that ultimately lose the game. However, as stupid as it looks, it DOES actually improve the quality of play on the ice. I remember that before the loser point came about, bad teams would do everything they could to simply get the 1 point tie out of a better team. The overtime period was horrible to watch. Now, both teams are guaranteed a point, so it puts a premium on forcing play offensively to try to EARN the extra point for the win. OT is now a very fun and competitive 5 (or less) minutes of hockey.

Pro sports teams don't really even need divisions anymore. To me, it was mostly a function of travel issues across the rather large North American continent. Well they aren't taking trains anymore, they have planes and can make the travel. 58 game season, play every team twice. Or if you must get close to 80 games, play 14 teams 3 times a season, and the rest twice for a 72 game season.

In almost all sports with a ball (or puck), you are taught to follow through on your contact with the ball (or puck). and in many instances, these occur without a big windup (which almost always necessitates a follow through to slow down the momentum). In tennis, playing up by the net, you often let the ball hit the racquet with no windup, and you then follow through upon contact. Bunting in baseball is similar. I think this incident is also similar. The guy gets his arm in position, and tries to follow through to force the puck downward upon contact.

Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

Maybe I'll be the first one to admit to voting for Miller. I think if you want to win 1 game right now, he's the pick. Brodeur definitely has the best career of the list, and is still great, but I don't think he's the top guy anymore. Since '01/'02, Brodeur has only won 2 games in the 2nd round of the playoffs. Sure, he hasn't had the greatest team, and I think his coaches ride him too hard in the regular season so he's worn out in the postseason, but I can't vote for a goalie to be the best right now if he has only 2 playoff series wins in the past 7 seasons. Ryan Miller, while missing the playoffs the past two years (with extremely flawed teams in front of him), at least has 4 series wins in his 4 full seasons in the NHL, and is playing great this year.

At least for this situation, it's moot whether or not cap space is accrued during the season. Since players on LTIR count against the cap, the Wings have been "over" the cap from day 1. These 23 players have been on the cap since the beginning of the season: Forwards: Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Filppula, Cleary, Holmstrom, Draper, Bertuzzi, Williams, Maltby, Leino, Helm, Eaves 13 players, $32.152M Defensemen: Lidstrom, Rafalski, Stuart, Kronwall, Lilja, Ericsson, Lebda, Meech 8 players, $23.483M Goalies: Osgood, Howard 2 Players, $2.134M Total 23 players, $57.769M, which is $.969M over the cap. Add to that all the salaries for LTIR replacement players, and the Wings have been decently over the cap the entire year. So even if the Wings could accrue space, it was impossible to do so from the onset of the season. But you are totally right... this supposedly clear-cut hard cap is actually quite muddy and confusing!

Players on LTIR don't have their salaries disappear for cap purposes. The salary still counts against the cap. The exception is that teams are allowed to exceed the cap with replacement player(s) for him to a level less than or equal to the injured player's cap number. So it's not like the Wings have been accruing extra cap space by having guys on LTIR... it means that they have used the full daily cap hit (plus the replacement player exemption extra) for almost the entire season. And actually, I'm not even sure if you can accrue cap space over the course of the season. It seems ambiguous and different websites make different claims.

I don't think that has much to do with it. Football is the most popular sport in the US and there are no international tournaments. Baseball is no longer in the Olympics. People don't care about the Olympics and such as much as they used to. I see the real issue with accessibility to the sport. In the US, I would venture a guess that almost every high school in America has at least one of football, basketball, or baseball offered as varsity sports, and probably a great majority offer all 3. How many offer ice hockey? You need some combination of a large enough metro area to support a rink (with activities besides HS hockey), a community with some money, and a region that historically supports hockey (basically the Northeast and some Midwest). I'd be surprised if even 50% of school districts in Michigan have hockey programs. My hometown (Big Rapids) was the only high school in the region that offered ice hockey if I do recall, and none of our prominent rivals/conference mates did. I don't think the NHL has a chance to be the #2 sport in the US because of the dearth of high school level programs. It's fairly easy to field high school football, baseball and basketball. Every school has a gym for basketball and it serves as a multipurpose space for assemblies or other sports. Baseball diamonds and football fields are relatively cheap to maintain when you just need to cut the grass and put up some cheap bleachers. Hockey? You need a substantial investment to create a large indoor, refrigerated building that for all intents and purposes is just a single use structure. It costs a lot to maintain. I also agree with those earlier that stated the cost to enter the sport is difficult too, because of the need for a lot of specialized equipment and space as opposed to the other sports.

Offensive guys generally were scoring when they've been healthy. You can't degrade pluggers who aren't supposed to score for not scoring. It's like giving a pitcher in baseball a bad grade for not hitting with power, or wide receiver in football for not being able to tackle.

Not necessarily. With the same hit, some guys would bounce right up, and some might be out months with a concussion. It's all different. but thanks for posting the 4 screen caps... it definitely changes my mind as I can now see that he really did keep his arm in. I still don't like headshots and this hit shows how difficult it's going to be for the NHL to institute a comprehensive ruleset governing headshots.

We're all just stating opinions. On a YouTube clip, with a 4 inch video running of a long off camera shot, to me it looked like the elbow hit the head. It's debateable of course. Cool, I'm glad the True Fan Police are out in full force. Personally, I'm not calling this a dirty hit but I do think it is a hit that should be penalized with penalty box time simply because my opinion is that he caught him with an elbow. It was far from egregious, and I don't think a suspension would be right. There are shades of gray... to me his toe went over the line of the penalty threshold, but didn't come close to the suspension line. But it's OK to debate it.

I'm all for huge hits, but it looks to me that Boychuk wasn't going to hit him square so he stuck out his flipper. Elbow to head. Yeah, there is a size difference, but an elbow to the head is an elbow to the head.

Problem being: where is the backup? On the same truck? Back home in Minneapolis? Unless they carry a backup of all of their equipment with them to the hotel, this is still going to cause a logistical nightmare for the team. And it looks like it might have cost them the game.

Injuries can't always be an excuse, but it can be a reason for a team struggling. The way I see it, the Wings are missing 4/5 of their 2nd PP unit. Kronwall and Williams were the point men, with Franzen and Fil up front with another guy (be it Cleary/Bert/Leino). That's fairly significant, and for a team already trying to essentially replace an entire 2nd line that left via FA (I know Hossa/Hudler/Sammy weren't a line, but it's close to being talent-wise a solid 2nd line on most teams)... it's tough to overcome all of that. Minus Kronwall, this is the same team that was putting up 9 against the Blue Jackets and 7 against the Ducks. They can score, but they need some confidence and some luck.

I don't think Draper has ever been good at breakaways. I've always called him "1 in 20" because he seems to only bury 1 out of every 20 breakaway chances he gets. Draper had a good offensive stretch in the early 2000's and Helm could probably match that when he gets some good experience over the years. I don't think Helm will ever consistently score more than 15 goals in a season.

I have never thought he would develop a scoring touch. I see him as a better version of Draper. Helm could fill a great roll on this team if he can be the 3rd line center consistently. It's OK to have a fast guy that can play defense and hit but can't score much. You need those guys to win Cups, just like you need big time scorers.

I don't think the goal judge is the answer. I would like to see this as a new protocol: 1. Eliminate intent to blow the whistle. Play until the whistle. the clock is timed to the whistle anyways, not to the ref's intent. This way replays with audio could judge if a puck entered the goal before the whistle. 2. Be able to review goalie having control of the puck. This could be a bit tricky. But it seems the intent to blow rule is in place to save goalies that have the puck from being whacked. Refs judge when a goalie has control of the puck anyway... so why not on a net front play when the puck is knocked it, go review and see if the keeper has it under his leg/glove/etc?

It'll be interesting what they do in terms of keeping these contracts compliant with the tagging rule (contracts signed to next year cannot exceed this current year's cap). From the reports, it sounds like they'll sign Kane/Toews, which will put them right up to the tagging rule limit, and wait on Keith. Another consideration is that Kane and Toews are currently on entry level contracts that have potential bonuses. I don't know what those bonuses are, but a team is allowed to go over the cap somewhat to pay bonuses. The amount they go over is then subtracted from next year's cap limit. It's more speculation, but Chicago could potentially have even less cap space to work with because of this. It'll be pretty easy for them to clear cap space. All they have to do is waive Campbell during the offseason. If no one picks him up (doubt they will), just send him to the minors. They still have to pay him, but there is no cap hit, so they can spend another $7+ million to fill out their roster. They are in fine shape and won't be a one-line team playing a bunch of "AHL scrubs".

That's what goalies do... when the puck is 60 feet out, you get on top of the crease to cut down their shooting angles. I'd rather him be out on top, aggressively facing the shooter, than sitting back in his net passively. I'm not going to blame Howard for an accidental deflection off of a skate.

Geez this is all over the place! Isn't OK to say he's played well the past two games? It doesn't mean people are calling him a Hall of Famer. He's going to have some bad games, but hopefully he'll have more good games like the past two. There is a difference between saying someone played well and thinking the guy is a bona fide NHLer. Howard still has a lot to prove, but he played nicely on back to back games.

Are you implying that a team that went to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final did not have their depth show up in the playoffs?