Chunkylover

Interestingly he puts Maltby on the bubble with Kopy, Mac, and Downey. We may just see Helm and Leino if he's willing to put that many guys on the block.

My only concern with this signing is the cap hit. We do have too many defensemen and I wish they could all stay and contribute. Alas that can't happen. Meech and Quincey will probably have better value than Lilja and Lebda, so one of them will probably go, although Meech is still only an RFA. All five of them will be serviceable depth. On a side note, why the heck are we mistreating each other so intensely? Can't we debate a topic without accusing the other of being a foolish child, or worse, a Penguins fan?

Last season Chicago came together as a team against us then promptly fell apart against everyone else. Very little has changed since then. They have a lot of young talent being foisted into leadership positions whose only credentials are years of losing. Huet will be in the same position as Khabibulin; he'll have to stand on his head and hope his offense can score in the shootout. Campbell won't make them better defensively. Their offense will be better, though, because of Campbell and the maturation of Toews and Kane with a healthy Havlat. The question is can they play as a team for 4,920 minutes or at least two-thirds of that? When I think of the 'Hawks I think of a bunch of checkers running around chaotically and getting goals off of quick transitions. And let's be honest, they got some help from uncharacteristic mistakes by Future Hall of Famers and a little help from the refs. They beat us, to be sure, but not resoundingly.

I don't know who else we could really want or need, or who we'd be willing to give up in a trade. Luongo, Bouwmeester, Ovechkin... so yeah, they'd be nice to have but in the offseason we got Stuart and Hossa, and got a competent backup goalie. Where are there any holes? We'd have to lose Zetterberg and Datsyuk, or Lidstrom and Osgood before we started to worry about a rental player.

Both Meech and Lebda have two years left on their contracts but neither are making what Chelios will be making this season. Quincey will probably get something similar to Lebda, which is less than $1M and will probably just negate the Chelios signing, McCarty's contract notwithstanding.

Samuelsson won't have very much trade value because while he's pretty cheap and is serviceable depth, he has only one year left on his contract. When Quincey is signed I think it will be him, not Lilja, that gets stuck with the sign-and-trade. He's younger. In all other respects he's probably fairly equal with Lils. Even with that we'll need to unload one more player. I love this team and trust this management. If I were them I'd be stuck in the same position because I wouldn't want to force anyone out either.

Yeah, screw the media.

When we signed Hossa I wondered whether he'd have any chemistry on a line with Kopecky since they are countrymen. Now I find that they're friends off the ice. Perhaps we'll see them together in the preseason.

He's probably played with all of them while in Montreal, he was there for a decade. Are the owners the same.

Roy lead that team to two Stanley Cups as the Conn Smythe winner. He's a Hall Of Famer so it makes sense. I think the Norris family forced Lindsey out of Detroit because of an off-ice disagreement. Are there any of personnel from that '95 Montreal team still around?

It's highly unlikely that ZDH won't be reunited at some point during the regular season, bumping Filppula up a line with Hossa. Babs started out with Z and D split up, then put them together when Franzen was injured, then broke them up in the middle of the season when everyone else was slumping. We'll see every possible line combination this year.

Chemistry won't be a problem. Players like Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Hossa are to good for there to be a lack of chemistry.

I'm so excited to watch Ozzie inch closer and closer to the Wings' records and cementing his Hall of Fame nomination.

Wow, that's lame. I did accidently turn to FSN during a Baseball game and it was blacked out, couldn't figure out why. Guess that's the answer.

I think the Seals became the Barons. Checking Wikipedia... yes the franchise moved to Cleveland. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the Seals/Barons owners then merged the team with the North Stars before starting the San Jose Sharks.

ESPN asks who is the early favorite in the 2010 Olympics and Canada was chosen overwhelmingly. But in Nebraska, Virginia, and Michigan the results were different, especially Michigan. In Virginia, Canada had the slimmest margin of 36% with Russia at 31%. Kansas had the US as the closest challenger at 30% to Canada's 38%. Michigan is the only anomoly on the whole global map with Sweden favored by 40% to runner-up Canada's 28%. (Spelled anomaly wrong) Here is the link: http://www.espn.com/nhl/

Well, I have DirecTV, but I'm sure it operates in a similar manner to Dish. Center Ice should get you every game but they randomly choose which local sports team is broadcast. RSN sounds like the Regional Sports Network package I have which gives you every market's local cable sports channel. So you get all the FSNs and Comcasts but only American channels, no Canadian ones. Additionally I get the NFL and NHL network. Don't watch Football but the NHL Network is great. Hope this helps some.

I agree Therrien is a bad influence on Crosby and that team. Imagine how much better Crosby would be with Mike Babcock as his coach.

I know. Isn't irony awesome.

Actually, most Americans agree that indeed Canada pwns all. But then what do we Americans know about hockey? Give me my Football, and American Idol, and Nickelback, I'm a stupid, trendy American, GRRAAAWGHLLLL!

Yeah, but it's the story that is so attractive to sports journalists. It's their centennial. Maybe that earns them some extra love, maybe not. But it is clear that everyone in the media wants the '08-'09 "Dream Match-up" between Detroit and Montreal.

It has been commonly reported that the Cleveland Barons franchise was dissolved due to ownership issues. This is not true. Andreas Lilja traveled backward through time and beat every player on the team into oblivion. Their ashes were scattered over Lake Erie where they were promptly and unceremoniously ingested by some carp. It was a clash so epic that it blew the top and bottom corners off of the Ohio state flag leaving it looking like a piece of delicious blueberry pie, just like Grandma used to make before the old bag was tossed in a home for spitting on people. Lilja will eat your children.

Ug, did we just become the new San Jose/Calgary "Best Team on Paper"? I actually like when everyone expects us to choke that way I don't have to listen to the sycophantic media hiss their half-hearted praises of the Wings, while clearly hoping for their defeat.

Lilja is actually quite well-read and partakes of a diverse cornucopia of information whilst surfing the Interweb. And if you have a problem with that he'll score a goal on you, fight you, then assist on your game-winner against him. So there.

I think Dom's play last year was indicative of how the shooters have improved their game in order to beat the beasts we call the modern goalie. He was so great in Buffalo because he could read the play and react quicker than anyone else. Now I'm sure he has slowed some with age but it was also the way he had trained himself to respond in certain situation which caused him problems. If anything this shows that the league needs not meddle with the game in order to increase scoring. Osgood changed his style and Conklin is younger so they should be more able to respond to evolving offensive threats. edit: spelling