Ms_Hockey

Do you have kids? If so, utilize them in your excuse. OR you could just say "The Ducks are playing game 7 tonight - elimination game. I need to be there to watch them. You do NOT understand," and see if that works. ...I'd still pimp out the kids, though.

The calls have been inconsistent for every team at least once in every series they've played in. I don't know why we'd expect anything different in the Pens/Caps series.

I've been saying since the start of this series, whoever takes this series is a shoe-in for the Stanley Cup. These are the two best teams in hockey right now. Now, I may not necessarily LIKE the Ducks (and Lord knows I can't stand 'em), but they're a talented team who've challenged the defending Cup champions with everything they've got. Win or lose, this has been one hell of a successful season for them. I expect a hard-fought game, with the momentum switching back and forth constantly, and a lot of post-whistle scrums. It's going to be a war tonight.

My god, some of you people are so ridiculously rude. The OP asked a perfectly legitimate question and you're all up in arms because it's not regarding the Wings? Grow the hell up. If you don't like the topic, don't read and/or respond to it. End of problems. To answer the OP's question (since I'm not a whiny little kid), I think the Pens' have a great core to their team.. but it's still 50/50 at this point. I mean, they just had to get a new coach and they barely squeaked their way into the playoffs. Things need to be a little more consistent in the management/coaching department before we can tell for sure. As it stands, though, if they keep the core players they have.. they can build that up and definitely become a force in the future.

LOL, if only those could actually predict the future.

I think it's fair to say that the pressure is just about even between these two teams. Realistically, both teams are going to be playing desperation hockey. The Ducks have pressure because they won the last game and now have to pull out a win at the JLA (which, even though the Ducks have a good road record - the JLA is a really difficult building to win in. Don't know why, it's been that way for years.) Likewise, the Wings have pressure to win at home, in front of their home crowd. And pressure is something the Wings can deal with better than 80% of this league. They're experienced enough to know how to handle it. No one team has more pressure than the other. For both of us, it's game 7.

Let's cook the Ducks tonight. Go Wings! Play a full 60 minutes of hockey!

If the game is being showed on the Canadian channel, I have to watch it there. If I don't, lots and lots of bad juju. If the game is on FSD, that's my second choice. That's a 50/50 chance of a win. If the game is only on versus, I have to put it on, but mute the volume and turn on the radio and listen to it on there. Listening to the the versus broadcast is WAYYYY bad juju. I go get the towels and white pom poms from previous playoff games I've attended and put one on each couch in the living room. If it's a home game, I wear my red Dan Cleary jersey.. but I must put it on as soon as the Wings hit the ice. If it's an away game, I wear my autographed Steve Yzerman jersey (for that extra push), and it must be put on when the opposing team hits the ice. My dad and I MUST have hot cocoa at every intermission from our Detroit Red Wings mugs. As a side note, you cannot finish your cocoa before the last three minutes of the period. That is EVIL. And, like all of you, I must sit in the same position in the same spot with the same blanket on the couch.

The day that I take hockey advice from Mitch Albom is the day that Chris Pronger makes a speech about how dirty of a team the Ducks are and how they're an embarrassment to the league.

There's only one person from this site who signed up on the Ducks boards and she's been incredibly respectful over there. So before you start bringing out the "99999 wings fans" thing, realize that those people are not from this board. We don't do s*** like that because we don't want THIS. People like you over here trying to flame on our forum.. so likewise, we don't flame on yours.

I certainly didn't say that.. but it's amusing that you practically ignored my entire post and focused on that one section. Being a Lady Byng finalist shows that you're generally more geared toward "gentlemanly" play. Datsyuk doesn't go out and cheap shot/drop the gloves. It's just not his game. So the fact that Niedermeyer got a little pissy about some facewashing and proceeded to kick the crap out of Datsyuk doesn't impress me in the slightest. And my point with Rafalski - the dude is little, just off an injury, and - typically speaking - DOESN'T FIGHT. Holy cow, man... I could beat up Rafalski. There's no honor in that whatsoever.

There's no doubt in my mind that Homer meant to elbow Wiz.. but you all seem to think he knew that Wiz was injured. There's no way Homer would've been able to know Wiz was hurt - none. He wasn't bleeding from the elbow Homer gave him.. he was bleeding because of his lung contusion.. he was coughing up blood. So before you get up on your high horse talking about ZOMG, HOMER ELBOWED WIZ WHEN HE WAS ALREADY INJURED, you should probably understand that the probability of Homer knowing Wiz was injured is slim to none.

I watched the entire thing on VS. There was no punches being given to Niedermeyer. It was Dats rubbing his glove on the side of his face.. which is pretty common when you get into those types of altercations. The elbow was WAY too excessive of a response. If you're going to try to convince us that the three-time Lady Byng winner and finalist again this year who, until last night, has never received a fighting major in his entire NHL career was actually PUSHING for a fight with Niedermeyer, you might want to get your head examined. By the way, where can I pick up a pair of those orange and black glasses?

We don't need more offensive fire power.. we just need our guys to play a full 60 minutes of hockey.

Here it comes, guys! The "NHL loves the Wings" conspiracies! Oh goodness, let me get my popcorn and sit back and watch this. The Wings dive because the teams making infractions against us DO NOT GET CALLED. If the refs would be consistent and call the game the way it's supposed to be called, no diving. You know why? Because if one of our players gets hooked and he takes a dive to draw attention to it, who do you think is going to get the penalty? The diver or the person who hooked? That's right, the person who hooked! I suggest you pay closer attention to the games. Our guys stay on their skates until the calls begin to go unnoticed. Now, I'm not defending the fact that we dive.. it shouldn't be done by anybody in this league. But come the f*** on, man. You can't honestly tell me that there's no precursor to them flopping all over the ice. This league does not want the Wings to advance any more than you do. I've said this before and I'll say it again.. the NHL is a business. And part of that business is promoting ALL teams and drawing in new fans. When you have one team that dominates the league for 11+ years, there's not enough room for competition for them to promote other teams. Everybody, other than us, wants this dynasty to die out. Everybody. The Ducks play a physical game, the Wings play a finesse game. You say we're just as much of a dirty team, but I challenge you to find even one instance where any Wings player has tried fighting one of your guys when a) he just came off an injury, b) is ridiculously smaller than the our player, and c) DOESN'T EVEN FIGHT TO BEGIN WITH. I'm not even going to get into this any further because this idea that the Wings get away with s*** is just pathetic. The refs are inconsistent to EVERY team in the ENTIRE league. The Ducks have guys on their roster who've made their entire career out of cheap-shotting and otherwise being disgraces to the game of hockey.. so if I were you, I'd step back and consider my train of thought before posting again.

Nobody is whining, buddy. We're just talking about whether or not we think post-game handshakes would get awkward. Stop "whining" about us "whining".

I get what you're saying.. but I think it's more out of respect for the game than out of respect for the player.

He may not, but he'd still shake his hand after a game. Doesn't mean he has to go have beers with him down at the bar. It's sports etiquette. Even Draper doesn't have any hard feelings toward Lemieux anymore. It's really us, the fans, who gets so up in arms about this kind of stuff. The players take this kind of crap in stride.

Then you don't belong in the sports world. These guys have made careers out of playing one of the most emotional sports on the planet. They don't take this stuff personally. I mean, heck, NHLtv did a special on enforcers and Darren McCarty was on it. He said when you drop the gloves, it's never anything personal between you and the guy. It's just a sign of respect towards your team. He said that he's even had conversations with guys mid-fight. Holmstrom elbowed Wisienewski in the jaw. During the off-season, Holmstrom and Wiz play hockey together since Wiz is from around this area. They're actually friends. Not shaking their hand is about as disrespectful and unclassy as you can get. Leave your team issues on the ice, but respect the person in front of you.

Apparently, Nieds' elbow is justified because he stood there and didn't run away after. Oh, and I guess that's why the elbow was deserved. Datsyuk should NOT have been standing there.

That's a joke, right? Niedermayer looks right at Datsyuk's face, pulls his elbow sideways, and pounds him with it - but it doesn't look intentional?

A ridiculously lousy move on Neidermayer's(sp?) part. But Holmstrom elbowed Wiz a few games ago. Granted, that wasn't nearly as blatant as this one - he still did. If Holmstrom didn't get suspended, I don't see Neidermayer getting suspended.

Our only problem: We didn't play a full 60 minutes of hockey. This may sound arrogant, but I'm not worried about game 7 at all. Last night, Anaheim played desperation hockey. We didn't even bring our game until, arguably, the third period.. and it was STILL a one goal game. Game 7 is home ice - and the Wings are hard to beat that Joe. We're the superior team. As long as we come out and play our game from minute 1 to minute 60, we're set.

Reading through the Ducks boards, I almost spilled milk through my nose from laughing so hard when I read this. Really? The league wants us to advance? Okay then.

LOL. Whistle malfunction, ref?