StevieY'sguy

When it comes to playoffs, this is a no brainer: Through Crosby's first 31 career playoff games he has 40 points Through Z's first 40 career playoff games he had 33 points Through Pav's first 37 playoff games he had 12 points Through Hossa's first 44 playoff games he had 30 points. At 21, Z was still playing in Sweden, a year from playing his first NHL game At 21, Pav was playing in Russia 2 years from playing a game in the NHL at 21, Hossa had played 145 NHL games and had 44 goals and 42 assists for 86 points. at 21, Crosby has played 290 NHL games has had 132 goals, 265 assists for 397 points, has captained a team to a Stanley Cup Finals appearance, has been a 4 time all-star and has won an Art Ross Trophy, a Hart Trophy and a the Lester B. Pearson Award. If you are talking cap space, and trading for him today , etc. then i understand you not wanting Crosby for those reasons; but for those of you who are saying no even if the cap considerations and such were thrown out the window then you are idiots, thats all there is to say. No matter how much you all hate to admit it, the fact is that at the end of his career, Crosby will have morphed into a far better player than Z, Pav, Hossa ,etc. ever will. He will win a Cup(s) and will be considered one of the top 10 players to have ever played the game. I'm done with this thread, the biased ignorance among some of you is alarming

Crosby and Z tied for the playoff scoring lead last year, the wings had a better team and won the series, if you truly believe that had the Pens beat us that Z still would have won the Conn Smythe trophy over Crosby then i would suspect that you've taken some serious blows to the head in your time.

egroen, i'm sending you a personal message

An opinion is an opinion but anyone who thinks Malkin is the best player on Pittsburgh doesn't watch enough Penguins games. Crosby is the Yzerman to Malkin's Fedorov

Challenging Canada number-wise i don't think will happen, but on a talent basis we certainly have it in us to compete in the Olymipcs and WCs, etc. The next Olympics will be rough but only because USA is on a down cycle, the players that have been the mainstays of team USA (Weight, Modano, Chelios, Hull, etc.) are either retired or almost there and the new crops of guys like Kessel, Kane, etc aren't in their primes yet. Agter all, we did win the 1996 World Cup and the 2002 silver medal so it is not out of the question.... The NTDP in Ann Arbor is a phenomenal program, a former teammate of my brother's, Jack Campbell, started the year out as the starting goalie of the U-17 national team but got pulled up to the U-18 team for the U-18 worlds championships last week and he got the start as the U.S. beat Canada in the semi-finals and then he shutout the Russians in the finals to win the world championship. Jack was always a great goalie but he has raised his level of play so much since joining the NTDP, that program will continue to produce studs and should float Team USA for many years to come.

Once again, your hate is blinding you.....Crosby is a better player than Zetterburg hands down end of story. Show some impartiality and use your head before you type things.

Okay i have to respond to this, because almost nothing you said is correct...... 1. He would be better with the Wings then he is with the Pens, due to the players around him, he would certainly increase his point total, apparently you don't realize that most of the 2nd tier guys that have had success on the Wings due to the many 1st tier guys they'vre played with. This has helped out Franzen, Hudler, and Holmstrom's career especially 2. Not only does Crosby make everyone around him better, but he's known for it juast as much (probably more) than Z and Pav. He was having problems meshing with his wingers because most of the year he was playing with Pascal Dupuis, a bona fide 3rd liner, and a bruiser in Matt Cooke who wouldn't even make most of the teams in this league. It would be the equivalent of sticking Datsyuk with Downey and Maltby and still having him put up 100 points....very impressive. 2. Crosby is anything but immature, he has been expected to be one of the faces of the NHL, and the captain of an NHL team all by the time he turned 19. He was the first captain in NHL history to lead a team to the Cup finals as a 20 year old, and he puts up 100 points season to boot! He is extremely mature. 3.Take off the rose colored classes for a second and realize that Maltby is hated for his play as the one guy already said and Chelios did not change at all from when he came to Chicago, he just doesn't play as much anymore so he has less oppurtunities to pull the crap he used to....Also in 2 of the 3 fights Crosby has got into he has been sticking up for teammates, which is the sign of a good leader, I love him to death and he's still the best captain ever, but Stevie Y never did much of that...... 4. obviously we cant take him due to the cap but strictly speaking if you really would take Hossa over Crosby, then i would hope my team gets to play yours because you obviously have no idea how to pick a hockey team. In terms of all around play, Crosby is the 2nd best player in the NHL behind Pav. I love the Red Wings as much as anybody but the short sighted ignorance that many of you seem to have is ridiculous.....this is a no brainer question

I know he left as a Free agent, but Marty Lapointe never quite had as much success after he left the Wings

First of all, let me congratulate you on being a hardass, second of all, if you look 3 inches to the north of your post on your computer screen, you will see that i already said that if Ovie didn't live life the way he does, he wouldn't be the same hockey player that he is, but thanks for repeating what i had already said

We need to get rid of Kopecky, he's awful

Listen, if i came off as though i was lecturing to Ovechkin then I apologize, it was not my intent. I was simply floored that someone could be so short-sighted as to the long term effects of doing something like this, especially with his family's tragedy. With that being said, I believe you are correct that if he didn't act the way he did, he wouldn't be the fantastic hockey player that he is.

I'd be sad to see Conks go but the bottom line is that eventually the Wings have to bring up one of the goalies that are stashed in GR. I was a huge Howard fan when we got him but i may be an even bigger fan of Jordan Pearce having watched him in college the last 2 years, this kid is the real deal, and then there's always Larsson. The Wings for the last decade have just been buying goaltending help off the market, but this is no longer an option for 2 reasons: 1. we have cap problems as it is just keeping most of our team together as it is and 2. The current goaltending cycle is the NHL is down, for the last 10-12 years there was a golden age of goaltending with Roy, Brodeur, Hasek, Joseph, Belfour, Vernon, Osgood, Khabibulin, etc. now those guys are either retired or on their way out and there is a wave of teams bringing in fresh blood (Hiller, Mason, Rinne, Price,) and a young set of goalies just starting to enter their prime (Ward, Fleury, Miller, Lundqvist) The time has come for the Wings to start doing the same if they want solid goaltending in the long run.

I really hope the Wings don't end up getting a new arena, the Joe is old but I wouldn't call it a dump, it's aged with character, just like this franchise and many of the players who have played there. The nostalgia factor is awesome with all of the monuments and stuff, and many of the Wings fans, I personally have 2 great memories of the Joe; playing there, and, on March 26th, 1997 as an 8 year old second grader standing on my seat to see over all the adults to watch Darren McCarty beat the piss out of Claude Lemieux and with Roy and Vernon skating to center ice to go at it...at my second Wings game ever, what a memory!! The Red Wings are indeed a world class franchise but definitely do business differently from almost every other pro sports team, and I think it would be refreshing if the Wings didn't join the masses of pro franchises building flashy high dollar complexes that have no personality and are more famous for their archectural intricacies than then their game watching (for lack of a better word) "ability" and decided to stick with a barn full of memories and character!

I completely agree, even though i don't care for him personally, he is a great player and is great for marketing the NHL

thank you, this is exactly what i am saying!

You are correct, you did not say they were liabilities and i apologize but you did say that "those guys were elite defensively" while putting up huge numbers... what I am saying is that in 83-84 Coffey had a plus minus of 52 and this year Green had a plus minus of 24, so they are obviously playing pretty good D as well. Also, based on his point per game ratio (which was amassed over the course of 68 games, so there is no reason to think that he would stray from the average very significantly), had Green played a full season he would have amassed 88 points, which would have put him in the top 10 in points for all players- tied for 9th to be exact. During the time he missed he certainly was not helping keep the puck out of the net, but he also wasn't getting the oppurtunity to put it in the net either, which would have increased his already incredible stats...... I'm not here to get into a pissing match with you, in fact I agree with most of what you are saying, I think the Norris should go to the best defensive defenseman (Willie Mitchell in Vancouver routinely gets left out of the conversation and i think it's a crying shame), but it's not up to us (unfortunately lol) to pick the Norris, and my argument isn't who should win it but who i think will and i just think his offensive numbers will be too much for the voters to ignore.....to be honest i don't even like Green and i hate Washington, I just think that this is the way it will go down

I'm gonna go thorugh this point by point for you 1. You calling me a tool when you have that awesome display pic by your name is hilarious 2. It's not my business to tell Ovie how fast he should drive, I am simply saying that anyone that drives that fast on a regular street or highway is an idiot and being that his family already lost one son that obviously has left some deep scars, he clearly doesn't use his head and realize what the potential negative effects of doing something that reckless is. 3. I am not "to far up Crosby's ass" and if i was i would be "too far up Crosby's ass"...I'm guessing somebody didn't pay attention in spelling class 4. It is most certainly a rivalry between Crosby and Ovie, when people like Wayne Gretzky are comparing those two to Magic and Larry then it is most certainly a rivalry 5. Ovie does not "win anyway" Crosby is a superior passer, a better leader, has better vision on the ice, has had more postseason success, isn't afraid to stick up for teammates and drop the gloves, and is a better shooter......Ovechkin had more than double Crosby's shots on goal and had only 23 more goals, if Crosby had taken 290 more shots to equal the amount Ovechkin had in the regular season, he would have had close to 70 goals......also Ovechkin has better linemates than Crosby. Ovechkin is much faster and more physical than Crosby, but offensively speaking, he's a carbon copy of Pavel Bure.... he'll have 6 or 7 50-60 goal seasons (which is excellent, don't get me wrong), but because he plays the game with such reckless abandon and relies on his speed, by his late 20s his body will begin to breakdown thus reducing his speed, and once that is gone he will lose the cornerstone of what made him such a great player in the first place, and his production will drop off sharply. They are both great players, but from an all around perpective, Crosby is superior. Ovechkin has highlight reel goals regularly, and is exciting to watch but he is not a better all around player, it's as simple as that.

I'm responding to a post, and if you don't like it then don't read it or respond

You're right, i bet if AO lost control and hit a tree or a guardrail going 180 mph and was killed instantly before the age of 25 i'm sure his parents would just shrug it off and wouldn't regret saying oh well, we encouraged him to "have fun" while he was here.....I guarantee they would. By the way, living for today does not constitute going 180 miles per hour, only stupidity does; and just because someone tells you that you can do something, doesn't mean you should take it to the utmost....... like if you're a guest in someone's house and they tell you to "make yourself at home" most people wouldn't start belching out loud, walking around the house in just a pair of shorts, leave dishes lying around like they might if they really were at their own home, its the same concept here; bottom line: Ovie needs to use his head more

What an idiot, he is clearly shaken up from the death of his brother, as I imagine his parents are too, and he drives cars at those high speeds........say Alex, ever thought about the hell your parents would go through if they lost 2 sons???? It is stuff like this that makes it so much easier for me to take Crosby's side in this rivalry.

In 83-84 Rod Langway won the Norris with 9-24-33 and a plus minus of 14 he beat out : Coffey who was 40-86-128 with a plus minus of 52 and Ray Bourque who was 31-65-96 with a plus minus of 51.......you're right these guys were HUGE defensive liabilities, thats why they combined to win the award 8 times....gimme a break..... Also, for the last time Green missed 14 games this year and still scored 31 goals ,if he had played a whole season he probably would have had close to 40 goals and would have won this award by an even bigger margin, the fact that he missed some games and still put up some all-time great defenseman numbers will help him, not hurt him.

He didn't get a sniff last year because he didn't have a goal total that ranked among the all time leaders by defenseman....which he does this year. This is the same reason the top goal scoring defenseman hasnt won the award in a while....they didn't have an exceptional goal scoring season. Not counting Green's season this year (we don't know the result yet), there have been 16 defenseman who have scored 30 goals in 14 NHL seasons (3 did it in 83-84) and in 11 of those 14 seasons the 30 goal scoring defenseman won the Norris (The three exceptions were when Hall of Famer Rod Langway beat out Coffey, Housley, and Bourque in 83-84, and when Chelios had identical 15-58-73 seasons in 88-89 and 92-93 beating out Coffey and Hatcher, respectively.) Couple this with the fact that Lidstrom didn't have a great year by his standards, the fact that he's won this award for the better part of 10 years and the fact that Chara doesn't even have the best defensive stats on his team and you have Green running away with this thing.

It's also a proven fact that GOALS play a huge part in the Norris voting, you're obviously a little slow so i will try to spell this out for you as clearly as possible. Mike Green tied for the 11th highest goal scoring season in HISTORY by a defenseman. The only defenseman who had higher goal-scoring seasons were: Bobby Orr ( hall of famer), Paul Coffey (Hall of Famer), Denis Potvin (Hall of Famer), Doug Wilson ( 8 time all-star), and Kevin Hatcher ( 5 time all star). All of this and he still missed 14 games. Everyone else ahead of him on this list played at least 73 games in their respiective season, Green played 68 Among the top 35 goal scoring seasons by a defense man, Green finished 7th in goals per game average, only Coffey, Orr and Wilson had better. In the season you are referring to, Orr scored less goals than Green did this year (1 less goal in 2 less games) and had the exact same goals per game average that Green does this year. You're acting like the guy missed half of a season, the bottom line is the guy had one of the greatest offensive seasons ever by a defenseman despite playing only 83 percent of the season!! The fact that he missed 14 games and still put up those numbers will HELP him.....He also broke the consecutive games with a goal record by a D-man.......The trophy is Green's plain and simple.

Mike Green became the first defenseman in 16 years to score more than 30 years, that alone would win it for him..... the fact that he did all of this IN SPITE of missing 12 + games is even that more impressive. Let me make it clear here that i am not saying that Green should win it, and i'm not saying i believe he's the best defenseman, even on his team, but if you truly think that the 30 goal season didn't win this trophy for him lock stock and barrel then you are delusional.

Why don't both of you bickering school-girls dry your eyes, take a Midol and learn HOW TO READ! This thread is about the CALDER trophy which is for the ROOKIE OF THE YEAR discussion, the award for the best defenseman is called the NORRIS trophy and believe it or not, it actually has it's own thread! Please take your pissing match there!!