Buppy

Judged by the standard he set last year and in the playoffs, he has certainly been disappointing. Whether that standard is reasonable is a different debate.

I can't say I've been all that impressed by Jabs or Draper either, or even May (though I was a little surprised by his energy and ability...didn't know much about him, expected something more Downey-esque). I don't expect Maltby to maintain his current level, nor do I expect Homer or Bert to go injury free. So that's 7 players filling 5 spots (4 once Mule comes back) plus whatever other injuries we get along the way. So I'm sure Patty will get plenty of chances, provided he doesn't start getting worse.

Considering that any Columbus fan would likely have to go through either Detroit or Buffalo to get to Hamilton, and the proximity of Pittsburgh and Chicago, I'd say that any fans willing to take a long trip for a Hockey game already have much better options than anything that might move to Hamilton. So it's probably safe to assume that any Columbus fans either aren't willing to travel, or just aren't interested in other teams. The only franchise Hamilton would significantly threaten is Buffalo.

I wouldn't pay $700 for two seats on the bench at a Coyotes game. Wouldn't pay that for two seats at every Coyotes game, for that matter. Maybe that's why they're losing so much money. Can't charge Ferrari prices for Kia product.

I've noticed he's going to the net a lot more without the puck, which I think is a more important advancement in his play. Not so sure I want him taking the puck into traffic too aggressively. His curls and point passes are a bit too predictable, but he and Leino are pretty much the only forwards that seem to generating a decent cycle right now. Our defensive system relies on that cycling, so I wouldn't want him to change much. That said, Flip being our best forward so far (I agree, with Leino not far behind) says a lot more about how Datsyuk and Zetterberg have been. All due respect to Flip, but if he stays our best, we're in big trouble.

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I seriously doubt the coaching staff would be so secular. I'm sure they have coach's meetings, and team meetings, with some open discussion. And considering last season, I'd frankly be amazed and disappointed if I were to find out that Babs hadn't asked for any advice from MacLean. Like everyone's been saying, it isn't just 5 games.

Not in love with McCrimmon or anything, but MacLean is still here. You'd think if he had anything worth contributing to the defense he would have done so by now. He can't be that busy. I still think it has more to do with effort and declining efficiency of our puck possession than it does our defensemen and goaltending. Our defense, aside from the PK, was stellar in the playoffs.

Of course you can't compare that...apparently everyone on the planet watched the Olympics...TWICE! Seriously though, I wonder what the numbers are for just Olympic hockey. More specifically, North American viewers. I don't doubt they're better than the NHL, just wonder how much better.

My favorite part was the "WTF?"-shrug from the goalie afterward.

Homer's solid play and team lead in goals got you looking for another target? lol Seriously though, a lot of people were questioning Rafi's worth last year, and he hasn't exatly been stellar. NTC though, and not likely in a hurry to leave his hometown. And honestly, no one would trade someone any better for him. I would like to see the defense lines shaken up. Kronwall and Stuart look alright, and Lids has been top notch, maybe new partners will get everyone looking good. Ericsson with Lids, Rafi with Kronwall, Lebda with Stuart.

93-94 was an 84 game season, though I only used 82 games since that's what Sergei played. Actually comes out to ~137.6 points, or ~141 for a full 84 games. I couldn't find TOI stats for either of those seasons to compare. Both were 1st liners, so probably closer than you think, especially with Yzerman missing the first 20 some games in 93-94. Sergei was the primary player to compensate. Again, that Yzerman was able to put up 82 points in 58 games after coming back from a back injury (that he would have surgically repaired the following off-season) says a lot about the offensive capabilities of that team. You keep citing the 'lower scoring era' when the fact is it wasn't that much of a difference. 1/2 a goal a game per team, and incedentally, the Wings scored half a goal a game MORE than they did in 89. If it had been 2000, with another 15% drop, I'd be more inclined to side with you. And one more time I have to cite the precipitous drop off from Yzerman to everyone else not either named Gretzky or Lemieux, or playing with them. Joe Mullen was next with 110 points.

I stand corrected, it was 6286 goals scored in 88-89. Had a team missing from my sum range. Nevertheless, that still tranlates to 138 points. Then when you consider that the Wings scored 356 goals in 93-94, and only 313 in 88-89 it's clear that Fedorov had a lot more to work with. (Yzerman, that same season, scored at a 116 point pace.)

That figure was goals per game. Doing the math any other way isn't going to change anything. 5979 total goals in 88-89. 21 teams, 80 games, 840 total games. 7.1178 goals / game. 3.5589 / team / game. 7081 total goals in 93-94. 26 teams, 84 games, 1092 total games. 6.4844 goals / game (91.10%). 3.242 / team / game (91.10%).

More stats: Scoring average in 88-89 was 3.559 per game (per team), in 93-94 it was 3.242 (and skewed somewhat by the presence of 5 recent expansion teams). That's about a 9% drop. Yzerman scored about 1.94 points per game. 91% of that is 1.76 ppg, in 84 games equals 148 points. Considerably more than Fedorov's 120, or Getzky's league-leading 130, or Lemieux's ppg pace of 1.68. Not only was it one of the best Red Wings seasons, it was one of the best seasons, period.

Some stats at the end of the page 1. What stats do you have that suggest it wasn't? And Carman... Carson and Federko weren't here yet. Instead it was Oates and Klima that year.

For all the criticism Lebda and Meech are deservedly getting, keep in mind that Ericsson has played like crap so far this year. We don't have anyone to call up that's significantly better than Lebda/Meech, let alone good enough to carry an underperforming Ericsson. We either need to change up the pairings to try to get them going, or play the top four 28 minutes a game. When he was paired with Chelios, Lebda actually looked like he belonged in the NHL. Same when he was paired with good Ericsson in the playoffs. Basically, with a reliable partner, he's fine for the 3rd pair. Put him with Kronwall, and Ericsson with Stuart, see how that works.

4 players scored 150+ points that year (Yzerman-155, Lemieux-199!!, Gretzky-168, and Nicholls-150 [Gretzky's linemate]). 5 others scored 100+ points. 5th place was Lemieux's linemate Brown, and teammate Coffey was 6th, with 115 and 113 point respectively. Fedorov's 93-94 season was great, but still came before the big decline in scoring. There were still 8 100+ point scorers. If not for Lemieux's health there would have been 9. The drop-off from Sergei's 120 was not as precipitous either. 3 players tied for 5th place with 107 points. Yzerman's season was better. Howe scoring 44 goals and 103 points at age 40 may be better, especially since it was his only 100+ point NHL season.

There is a culture of violence in hockey that would take time to change. Many players have the mindset that violence is the appropriate response to almost any negative situation. Losing the game; Beat them up. Star player gets hit; beat them up. Other team gets too close to your goalie while trying to score; beat them up. Etc. Take away fighting and those same players are just going to look for other violent ways to respond. Sticks and elbows kind of stuff. The culture could be changed, but it would be a painful process. And would the game really be better? More popular perhaps, but does that really matter? Hockey is fine as a niche sport, we don't need NFL popularity. That said, the argument that fighting prevents cheap shots and players getting run is a bit silly. There was no difference between the St.Louis games and the Chicago/Washington games. At least nothing major. A few less face washes...big deal. If you think about logically, the premise is ridiculous. You have a bunch of big, tough guys. Skating around at 20-30 mph, purposely hitting each other. Swinging sticks, knives strapped to their feet. Purposely diving in front of 90 mph slap shots. But they're supposed to be afraid of some guy on the other team throwing an off-balance punch at them. Furthermore, fighting to prevent goonery from the other team supposedly increases your chance to win. Which means, from the perspective of the goon team, goonery must increase your chances of winning, or stated differently; not being a goon decreases your chance of winning. Therefore, for fighting to have a deterrent effect you must believe that the other team is SO afraid of you, that they purposely decrease their chances of winning in order to avoid a fight. Preposterous.

Nothing even remotely disrespectful about this. Shanny didn't get a role he was happy with, so the team just had to go through a rather convoluted process to void the contract. Does make me wonder how they were able to void the contract without any apparent negative consequences for either the team or Shanny though. Probably because it was just a one year deal, and he didn't play in the regular season. If you could do the same with anyone, it would make the whole 35+ contract stipulation pretty meaningless.

'Playoff hockey' sounds a little strong. But what does that really mean? Win 4 of every 7? That'd be 46-47 wins, about what I'm hoping for. But I think some people are forgetting that with who we lost, and who replaced them, we already needed to improve defensively and have certain players improve even before Franzen got hurt. Maintaining the status quo from last year, with a healthy Franzen, still would've been like 30-40 fewer goals scored which could easily be 10-15 or more losses. That would make us a low seed or out of the playoffs. With Mule out it's another 20-25-30 goals (depending on when and how strong he comes back) we need to account for, in addition to his defensive role. It's going to take a lot of hard work from a lot of guys to manufacture goals, and strong defense to put up wins. So in the sense that 'we can't afford to take games or even single periods off' then yeah, playoff hockey of sorts.

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'Wanting out' and publically saying 'get me out of here' then saying 'well, not there' are two different things. And Barry was a ******. Faxed his retirement announcement to some Oklahoma newspaper shortly before training camp. Can't blame him for his desire to quit, but his method left much to be desired.

Stevie was definitely the better player in '89, heh. And it was Fedorov, Yzerman, Lidstrom, Konstantinov, Shannahan, Draper, Maltby, Larionov, Kozlov, Vernon, McCarty, and most importantly, Bowman, (and a few others) that put us over the top.

He's a top five goal scorer, playing with a top 5 playmaker (maybe even the best). Good for the Sharks, as expected. But he could put up 100 goals this year and still be a ****** for publically demanding a trade then being picky about where he went.