ComradeWasabi

Seriously, aMonster, you are like aChicagoFan now. You might as well go and chant "DETROIT SUCKS" at your next home game. You are playing the BOSTON BRUINS, in case you forgot. If you want to troll someone, go do it to them - we're flattered that you consider the Red Wings the gold standard of the NHL and thus feel the need to come here of all places and brag, but it doesn't contribute anything to what we would like to be a place where Red Wings fans can talk about the finals. We're losing respect for you with every post you make. I have no problem with more tasteful 'Nucks fans here like Chairman Maouth - at least he contributes more to a discussion than simply coming in and trash-talking a team that you have never even beaten in the playoffs. Get a life, man.

I would cream in my pants if we got Parise.

Ha! I hope all the Toronto fans catch wind of this, they're even worse than Red Wings fans when it comes to assuming that players will want to play for their team -- and we are pretty bad for that. Every time a big-name free agent comes up, Toronto fans assume he will want to come there and lose play. It gets tiring.

Bettman doesn't decide on the opinions of the owners. He is their mouth, not their mind - he might agree with them, but it's not like the hard salary cap was Bettman's pet project which he shoved down the throats of everyone involved with the NHL. The demand for a salary cap came from the owners, the ones who were paying the players. So yes, while Bettman represents the interests of the owners, that's simply a requirement of his job. You can't really try to give orders to the people who pay your salary.

On the other hand, I find unrealistic possibilities extremely boring as they will never come to fruition, so take your optimism and annoy some other people.

Your avatar made me think you were mindfly. Don't scare me like that, man.

That still happened in 2003. Gimme a break.

Back to 2003 to draft him before Nashville! Get 'er done Kenny!

You see, this is where I find your logic flawed. Hudler has always been able to make the most out of very little on this team - limited ice time, playing on the bottom two lines. He performed admirably in this role in the 2008 playoffs. However, apart from his hot streak with Datsyuk and Cleary this year, he has been Consistently Inconsistent © when given top-six ice time. He has been given chances and has never shown himself to be an invaluable and irreplaceable asset on the top two lines. Regardless of the Red Wings' own lines, Hudler's game simply has too many holes to compete against other teams' top-sixes. He is too small, too slow, not strong enough, not good enough defensively to bring it on a consistent basis against players who are bigger, meaner, and faster than him. He can make plays, but far too often his size and speed restrictions, coupled with either his inability or his unwillingness to win tough battles for pucks, make him an easy target. When he has time, he can make some great passes, and he's quite good at capitalizing on defensive miscues and finding what space is available on the ice. Unfortunately, he rarely gets the kind of time to make passes that he needs when playing against the opposing teams' best players. For that reason, I don't believe he can cut it on the first two lines. Just because he is small doesn't make him ineffective; Marty St. Louis is Exhibit A for small players being successful. The difference is that Marty has great wheels, is certainly a better playmaker than Hudler, and in my opinion St Louis simply plays harder than Hudler and wants to win more badly than Hudler does. I don't know why I bothered to make this post, I doubt you're going to listen to anything I've said anyways.

How about Franzen?

This is exactly what we've been trying to tell eva this entire thread, read the last few pages. We've all mentioned it, his play on the ice isn't that great and you simply cannot take one of his hot streaks and say that merits him getting top-six time on a consistent basis. Eva simply refuses to listen to reason.

Like I said, every area except for passing.

I think Rolly gets a bit more rope to hang himself with, but not very much. If he puts in a bad performance in Game 5 and it costs them the game, I would expect Smith to start Game 6.

Eva, your arguments for Franzen vs Hudler are inherently flawed. Both were subpar for long stretches this season. The difference is that Franzen has demonstrated the ability to bring it and simply take games over, putting the team on his back, especially in the playoffs. Even during the 11-game stretch where Hudler flourished with Datsyuk and Cleary, he was not the single-handed force that Franzen has been. Franzen was not good the last third of the season, that's true. But that was a slump for him and when he plays to the best of his ability, his game is better than Hudler's best in every area but passing. I believe that if you polled everybody on this forum, you would be the only one who would rather have Hudler than Franzen.

While I'm glad McCrimmon's gone, I have to agree somewhat. In 2007-08 (when they were hungry for a cup) they were tops in goals allowed per game and third in goals scored per game. The next year, they were first in GS/G but dropped hugely to 21st in GA/G. Last year Detroit was 7th in GA/G, pretty respectable if you ask me. That year, though, they couldn't score nearly as well (due in part to the outrageous rash of injuries). This year, once again their scoring was up but defense was down. Last year, when their defensive game was better, they were 83.9% on the PK - only 0.1% lower than in our cup-winning 2007-08 season. While McCrimmon certainly hasn't helped at all - and for that reason I support him not being brought back - there's obviously something wrong with our players' commitment. They haven't been able to bring it both offensively and defensively, there's been a tradeoff in the past few years but they have shown that they can be successful both on offense and on defense under our current coaching... just not at the same time.

You're contradicting yourself. On the one hand you crucify him for leaving because, according to your interpretation, he felt he deserved more respect and more ice-time when he hadn't earned it. On the other, you crucify him for wanting more money. It seems like you're just looking for reasons to hate the guy. And I say that as someone who is not a big Hudler fan, but because of his play on the ice, not because of the 2% of what happens off the ice that we as fans are exposed to.

Agreed, I'd rather have Ehrhoff every time. Much better offensively (40-50 points each of his last 3 seasons) but has upped his defensive game as well. As far as McCrummy being gone...

Seguin of course, Julien's veterans can do no wrong.

Because, as I said, Franzen can and should do much, much better.

Umm... Crosby's stat lines from the past 6 (that's six, as in one more than five) seasons: 39-63-102 36-84-120 24-48-72 (in only 53 games) 33-70-103 51-58-109 32-34-66 (in only 41 games) Sounds like he's doing it pretty consistently for 5+ years to me. As a matter of fact, he's only getting better.

For an injury or the net being off its moorings, yes; a helmetless goaltender seems like a somewhat more pressing issue, ESPECIALLY if the other team has a chance to take a shot.

Franzen was bad as well. My point was that when comparing Franzen and Hudler's peaks, Franzen's was superior - by a long shot. At any rate, your ridiculous extrapolation that Hudler could get 105 points in a season is, well, ridiculous. He hit a hot streak on a hot line and did well in those eleven games, but the nature of hockey suggests that even if he plays beside Datsyuk for all 82 games, he still wouldn't hit 30 goals and 75 assists.

Any of those players would turn a checking line into a scoring line. Any line that has one of those players you listed is automatically no longer a "checking line". All of those players (with the exception of Kovalchuk) make everyone around them better because of their multidimensional skill sets. Hudler does not make anyone better; he is capable of producing when he's put with players who are more talented than him, but apart from flashes of brilliance in the 08 playoffs he has never demonstrated himself to be a top-tier talent. As far as your argument that Hudler has a higher scoring peak than Franzen, that's absurd; I cite Crymson's example of the end of 2008 when Franzen went on an absolute tear scoring clutch goals, which he continued into the playoffs, where he put in the kind of performance Hudler never has. I don't care about an eleven-game stretch this season where Hudler played well on Datsyuk's wing. You cannot extrapolate full-season stats from an eleven-game stretch. If you could, then I could pick out any 11 of the other 71 games where Hudler was less than spectacular and present them to you as evidence that he's worth nothing more than a bag of pucks. Your selective memory and bias towards him is ridiculous; yes, Hudler has a lot of talent and puck skills, but that's it. He has no size, no speed and no tenacity. He's weak, slow and if he's not scoring, he's not doing anything at all.

Columbus is farther east than Detroit...

Who's Gordon McIntyre? I'm struggling to figure out how he came up with any of the conclusions he reached in that piece. Talk about propaganda.