Carman

It's not like Nystrom is a valued free agent, I wanted someone like Travis Moen. Nystrom is just not that good of a hockey player, and he only had what 2 fights last season to go along with the worst +/- on his team(Granted +/- isn't much of a statistic). Nystrom had a terrible season last year, and him getting cut from the Wild just tells me he hasn't improved much.

No thanks, Drew Miller's pk value is much more important then Nystrom useless punching talent.

Fighting just isn't important anymore. If they* take out the stupid instigator penalty I can see the point of an enforcer with it's impact. But that's just not the case anymore.

Because he had all those fights in the post season that helped them win that cup right?

It's a purely entertainment decision. It has zero impact on making the team better on the ice.

He has more fights than a certain #8 that has piles upon piles of questionable hits to answer to. Look I understand not liking him(I mean he did lead the Penguins to a Stanley Cup win in Joe Louis), but I was getting spammed with "You aren't a Detroit fan", even getting just plain insulted for an opinion on a hockey player. I just never got the whole I wish his career is over sentiment that prevails here. Also comparing him to Big Ben is confusing to me, when was Crosby ever accused of raping women? Or hell when has Crosby ever been in legal trouble?

Yeah, I guess what I mean is it should be cut and dry if you are laying on the ice and the other player is given a game misconduct it should be in everyone's best interest to check the well being of the player hit and have him taken to the room. To me it's a no brainer, hopefully it would cut down on players embellishing if they know they can't come right back out on the ice, and make it so a player doesn't come back to the game too quickly ~ala Crosby.

You shouldn't be. I was crucified for saying Crosby was the best in the league when he was on the 11th best game scoring streak in the history of the game(51 points in 25 games). This forum just has a seething hatred for anything that is about Sidney Crosby, and I will never understand.

And that's why Semin was out there for the powerplay? Not only that, but he didn't miss a shift.

I can see the point on both sides, this is going to make it incredibly difficult for referees. Any devastating hit can be penalized now if the player dives, even if no head contact is made, because a whiplash effect can happen. I'd be ok with the player that was the recipeint of a head shot that is penalized severely to be taken off the ice for some time(10 minutes?) if he happens to lay on the ice or anything. That way it will hopefully stop players from taking dives?

Good for him. He needs to come to work every day and give a 100%. He has the skill, size and tools to help this team, it's all up to him. Looking forward to seeing him become the next reclamation player that helps the team win a cup

Exelby is so bad, man we do we even have someone that fights playing?

Good thing Babcock doesn't think like that. Glad we have a great team and not some goon team.

Nah, Exelby is already costing us by taking penalities. Helm seems to be doing just fine as is, no need a player to sit in the box for 5 minutes.

I'd rather our hockey players play hockey and prove themselves for the future.

Helm is having a great night getting the puck to the net.

Nice job Helm + Abby, good job driving the net. I'm so glad we don't have any goons on our team.

It's apart of the game due to the speed of the game, not do to the negligence of the hitter. Now I believe the head hits are more prevalent now because of the shoulder pads, back in Don Cherry's day hitting with just your shoulder would cause more injury to you then anything else, not to mention players back then protected their head more by keeping their elbows and stick up. The issue with concussions would be solved better by changing the shoulder pads then punishing north-south checks. The hitter still has the majority of responsibility to not be late on the hit, not to charge, not to elbow, not to go too low, not to miss and get beat, not to check from behind etc., there is still a ton of responsibility on the hitter, the person being hit's job is simply not to be hit, he doesn't have to worry about being penalized for any infraction while he's carrying the puck. I'm afraid these shoulder to head rules will have a negative effect on the integrity of the game, you are taking even more responsibility away from the puck carrier, and putting nearly all the blame onto the hitter. These are also going to be incredibly difficult to enforce by the referees, us Red Wing fans will need to prepare to a). Never see Kronwall hit someone in the open ice ever again, or b). Prepare for him to get a 5 minute major and a lengthy suspension. His Havlat/Heatley hits would put him out for both series most likely now. Eventually defensemen just won't check in the open ice, which will in turn let the puck carrier let his guard down even more coming across the blue line and we will still have the same amount of injuries. I just think this is overall a bad path to go down for the league, I just don't see the perfect end point in what they are trying to accomplish, they are going to take open ice checks out of the game because the risk of suspension isn't worth it to the defenseman.

My main gripe is that ben smith knew that he was going to be hit, yet did nothing to protect himself. Brendan did not come from the blindside, he didn't charge, he didn't jump therefore I really disagree on the length of suspension because Brendan did make contact with the head that was the only issue with the hit, everything else was text book. So for the NHL to remain consistent they are going o be giving out A minimum 6 game suspension for a head hit, not even including if the hit was late, charging, blindside, or if was a repeat offender. The NHL is goin to be giving out a tremendous amount of very significant suspensions considering the precedent being set by this hit. And I don't have much faith that they will be able to. These hits are a apart of the game, it's so difficult to line up a player, now any hit that is devasting will be penalized because everyone's head snaps back in real time on impact.

This is why I hate the hits to the head suspensions. Good bye open ice checks.

Nice scoring chance by Ferraro, anyone see what happened to Nyquist? Said he went off with an injury=( False alarm, Nyquist is back out. Thank God.

Yep thanks for bringing him up, I didn't talk about him enough in my post.

Fighting is already useless because of the instigator rule so why not.

I completely disagree, telling a defensemen to concentrate hard on not hitting a forward coming right at him and challenging him to the inside ice is asking way too much. Hockey is a very fast game and this hit is due to the speed of the game more so then the hitters meaning to head hunt. This hit should never be held against Smith in a way that would paint him as dirty, this hit was completely legal just a few seasons ago, it wasn't a malicious elbow, charging/jump, slash to the head, check from behind. I don't know the next time brendan smith is on a one on one situation with an NHL player the last thing I want on his mind is worrying about being suspended if he misses the target on an NHL forward who is doing everything he can to avoid a body check by the defenseman. Now if he starts checking people from behind, throwing elbows or slashes people then I'd be ok with talking to him about not becoming Matt Cooke. Then again maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, Pronger has been pretty successful afterall.

To be fair the travel factor is also a benefit at home ice for team's coming from the west to Detroit.