flip

I'm not depressed, I'm being pragmatic. Lidstrom looks his age, an aging roster will only be one year older, and the young guys aren't there yet. Osgood is a major issue, too. I honestly think this team will not have what it takes to vie for the Cup next year. I would've said the same exact things had the Wings won.

I'll point to reasons a team lost a single game (thank you, Chris Osgood and Brad Stuart), but I refuse to attribute a SERIES loss to a single player, unless the same player contributes heavily to four losses. That's absolutely ridiculous. Like I said, Osgood was asked to do nothing but make routine saves tonight and he couldn't do it.

The Wings don't have a chance in hell at being good enough to win a Cup next year, even if Hossa comes back.

It's a team sport, especially when you're a Red Wing. If you want to celebrate individual accomplishments, root for the Penguins.

Let's see here. First goal: Stuart tries to clear the puck up the middle (don't they teach you not to do this when you're four?), turns it over, and Talbot scores. Second goal: Stuart pinches when he shouldn't have, which results in a two-on-one, and Talbot scores.

Sorry, but if you're as dumb as you've come off in this thread, I'm sure you view anything that could make an intelligent point as a waste of time. One person doesn't win a Cup. Gretzky couldn't do it alone, Crosby couldn't do it alone, Malkin couldn't do it alone, and Hossa sure as s*** couldn't do it on his own. To use him as a scapegoat for the team's shortcomings is so far beyond stupid that the English language lacks the words to accurately characterize it.

Osgood was asked to do absolutely nothing tonight except make routine saves. He failed to do so. He sucked all season and sucked when the team needed him most tonight. You think Hossa didn't want the Cup? Do you have the memory of a dog? Did you forget the part where he turned down nearly ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS from the Oilers for a chance to come to Detroit FOR A SINGLE SEASON to win?

You should wake up and feel awful for being such a goddamn idiot if you think this loss has anything to do with a single player. How many points did Crosby have in the series?

Have to agree with this. Brad Stuart and Chris Osgood lost this game tonight. And the referee who f***ed up the icing call on Talbot's first goal.

Had you bothered to read the thread, you'd have realized that I attributed Hossa's drop in performance to an injury, which is substantiated by his low shot totals.

A pointless* topic. As I said (and as everyone should agree with), any objectively reasonable person will tell you that Malkin is better than Hossa. There's no point in discussing it (or bringing it up) at all.

Firefox was calling it an attack site (for me) well before the Pens series began. It may've been during the Chicago series, though.

We're talking about Hossa's playoff performance, not whether he's better than Malkin. Any objectively reasonable person will tell you that Malkin is better than Hossa. For that reason, your posts on the subject are pointless. Contribute something worthwhile.

Does anyone give a s***? Is Malkin better than Hossa? Yes. Do you have a point? No. Why are you posting?

Wow, a bunch of Detroit fans chose a Detroit player over a player from the team that Detroit is playing in the Stanley Cup Finals? A Penguins player that has taken numerous stupid, dirty penalties during the series and jumped Detroit's beloved Henrik Zetterberg? Color me shocked.

Well, if you think of Crosby's line as Kunitz - Crosby - Guerin and Staal's as Cooke - Staal - Kennedy, the latter has out-scored the former in the series and played better defensively. Maybe Crosby tweaked something diving.

Math really isn't your thing, is it? He's 30 and joined the league when he was 18. 30 - 18 = 12. 25 - 12 = 13. I've followed him since I was 13. Anyone could sound smart compared to you. Is he a leader? No. No one claims he is. Is he a great player and one of the Top 20 forwards in the game? Undoubtedly.

Oh that's cute. I don't play hockey, so I'm clearly fat. I'm actually 25 years old and have 9% body fat. Tell me more about my life. Listen, grandpa. Playing hockey in your local beer league doesn't give you much insight into how the game is played. The ineptitude you've displayed in this thread is more proof than I could possibly provide with an infinite amount of time. I've followed Hossa since before you'd even heard of him, so I know quite a bit more about how he plays than you could ever dream of.

Having followed Hossa since he was an 18-year-old playing for the Portland Winter Hawks, I'll give a simple way to tell if he's injured or not: how many shots he's taking. If he's healthy and not scoring, he still gets shots, they just don't go in. If he's injured, his shot totals drop considerably. Shots in Game 5: 2. Shots in Game 6: 1.

Only an idiot uses a single statistic to judge a player's worth. In Hossa's two best games of the playoffs, he didn't register a single point (one of the games against Columbus and Game 5 against Chicago0.

Has this sherwood40 clown ever watched a game of hockey in his life? I feel sorry for him after reading what he's had to say in this thread.

Hossa's clearly injured if some of you haven't figured that out yet. So is Franzen. You might recall Hossa hurting his knee at the end of the Chicago series.

Oh I guess Hossa's the scapegoat tonight. Grr Hossa I hate you! Grow up, kids. We get a chance to win on home ice. We wont lose.

There's no way in hell the Pens do anything even remotely resembling dirty play because this is it for them. They don't want to take a single penalty. This will be the cleanest game of the entire series so far.

Whoever is saying that Hossa couldn't talk to anyone before July 1 is wrong. He couldn't talk to anyone other than the team he was playing for. A team can always talk to a player they have under contract.