Theophany

I absolutely love the irony presented here. Wings fans are always so obsessed about being classy and that their organization is the classy organization, but then when a player does something completely expected of him by looking out for himself and his family, he's booed. Get it through your thick skulls: Hossa has played for four NHL teams. He played for the Wings for the second shortest amount of time of any of them. He said specifically that he LOVED playing in Detroit and would try his hardest to stay here. Detroit offered him $4m a year at best. That's a significant pay cut for a guy that scored 40 goals, and unacceptable pay. So he walked and went to another team willing to offer him enough money and a long-term deal that would provide for his family until he can't lace them up anymore. Here's the kicker: every single one of you in his shoes would have done the exact same thing. And if you want to boo him for his playoffs performance, look at it from this perspective: his PPG average was better than Datsyuk, and he had his rotator cuff injury at that point. Anyone booing Hossa has no class and is an idiot (based on the definition put forth by the posters of LGW during the SCF).

Hey, keep it PG, this is a family site!

The Wings can't play Red Wings hockey until we get people off LTIR. Let's hope they play some Devils/Wild hockey tonight, because I don't care if I'm bored; I just want a win.

Should be "couldn't care less" unless you're trying to say that you care.

Yeah, somehow I don't think other sports would let plays play (or the players wouldn't even want to play) with a torn sack, or whatever Lidstrom had done to him. He missed TWO GAMES when someone inflicted serious harm to his TESTICLES. I would be done for life at that point. Say what you want about hockey, but these guys aren't *******.

And you're not gonna ***** about Crosby being up there on the second team? The only reason he wasn't on the first team was because Sakic is pretty much a legend.

Kindl has been called up. Someone posted the MLive link earlier.

It wouldn't even have anything to do with the revenue sharing. It would be due to the fact that agents negotiate their client's contract based on the salary cap and what percentage they can get of it; increasing the salary cap would just increase the amount of money that teams would have to spend each year on guys like Ovechkin, Crosby, Datsyuk, Malkin, etc. If the salary cap increased, you'd see teams giving guys like Ovechkin contracts for like $14m per year, not getting more talent in on a roster; it's not like the Wings could suddenly go out and get Kovalchuk just because we had an additional $10m to spend.

Gonna be good to have Fil back.

Gets my vote, too.

The Wings beat a Hawks team that was without Hossa. The Hawks beat a Wings team without Zetterberg, Franzen, Kronwall, Filppula, Cleary, Ericsson, and Williams. That's a bit of a difference in talent lost in those two games. Yes, the Wings played a pretty uninspired game. I would too, had I left Dallas the day before and had to play one of the best teams in the league the very next day in their own house. Your argument doesn't make any sense. How does is not matter that the Wings essentially brought an AHL team plus Lidstrom, Rafalski, Osgood, and Datsyuk to play against one of the best teams in the league? It's pretty easy to blame the loss on that and only on that, considering when the Wings were healthy, we beat the Hawks. BTW, it's porous, not poorous.

Oh, I definitely agree with you, don't get me wrong. To mash together two clichés: s*** happens; that's life. But to assert that more can be concluded from this game other than the Red Wings didn't play well and the Hawks played well, and that obviously the Red Wings are at a disadvantage (possibly severe, depending on your opinion of how talent stacks up), you're coming to false conclusions based on data that isn't present. My comments aren't all aimed precisely at you; I'm more trying to hit Blackhawk nation with the posts that I'm putting up, as I've seen some incredibly asinine assertions like "we'd dominate the Wings even if they were healthy!" I apologize if it seemed like I was trying to rake you over the coals you for something you didn't say in the first place. In my defense, though, Blackhawk nation is getting a little uppity for essentially kicking a dude in the nuts when he's already been shot in both legs and one of his arms.

The goaltending comments are legitimate. We had four guys on the team that have EVER scored above 50 points in a season tonight (one hasn't for 5 or so years); the fact that you blanked a team that has predominately fourth-line (at best) quality players is like saying "dude, my Ferrari can totally smoke that Honda Civic in a race!" In that analogy, good NHL goalies are F1 cars; average NHL goalies are Ferraris and other supercars. An AHL team is a Honda Civic. I mean, congrats on flexing your goaltending muscles, but blanking a Red Wings team that's crushed by injuries and bragging about it is a little... Uh... Pathetic? Sad? Puerile?

Filppula won't come back before the 26th. That was the absolute earliest estimate that Holland and the medical guys would give. Franzen still has a long way to go, despite how he looked working out; that's how ligament tears work. He's still probably in the process of healing, and they won't let him return until he won't see more tearing. As much as I hate to say it, Wings fans will just have to suck it up and wait patiently. Franzen coming back early to try and frantically give the team a boost would be more detrimental in the long run. Same with Filppula, Z, Ericsson, and Kronwall, really. Coming back early will likely mean more trouble in the long run, which means less playoff appearances. Not many people seem to get that, though. I'm just glad Holland does.

A lot of talent? You obviously don't know what the Wings' current roster is made up of. We'll put it this way: our eight best players point-wise last year were Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Hossa, Lidstrom, Rafalski, Franzen, Hudler, Kronwall. The Hawks' eight were Havlat, Kane, Toews, Versteeg, Campbell, Ladd, Bolland, Sharp. So of the top eight scorers on each team last year, we have three for the Wings, and eight for the Hawks. How did I get eight? Hossa. Yep, beating the Wings like this is significant because you got points, but that's about all that it proves. It's like Wings fans claiming that since we beat you 4 games to 1 in the playoffs last year that we're the better team right now; it doesn't make sense because neither team is the same, much as the Wings aren't at full strength right now after losing a vast majority of our scoring. You can claim that the Hawks are better at the moment, but then I'd argue that most teams are better than this current Wings team; we're playing with something like $32-38m in salary cap space, while other teams are playing with around $56m.

Why is this even a thread, for the love of God?

Kovy won't happen. He doesn't fit in the type of organization that Holland has built, and that Yzerman will continue. As for who has disappointed me, I picked Lidstrom; mainly because I thought he still had a lot in the tank after how strong he was in the playoffs, but it seems that he's been trying to pick up too much of the slack that his partners have been dropping, thus overplaying certain situations. Don't get me wrong, he's still the #1 defenseman on the team, IMO. The number of small plays that don't get noticed that he makes are astronomical. He's just been a bit disappointing because I thought he still had 4-5 years left in him, and he's looking like it'll be two at best. Leino I didn't expect too much out of, and he hasn't really done anything. That's below my expectations, but it's not as large of a step down as Lidstrom's drop; then again, I've had the image since I was 7 that Lidstrom was like a force of nature on defense, and to have him start to show flaws and weakness is really weird.

Expected fourth line player and Grand Rapids Griffin to score a lot? What? Do you know how hockey works? That Helm and Abdelkader have points at all is frankly shocking, since neither one of them have much of any scoring touch.

The Blackhawks beat the Grand Rapids Griffins. This is shocking news. If we come out of these two games with even one point, color me surprised. 8 of our 18 normal starters are out.

There must be three then, because I don't fit into either of those categories. Soft goals are soft; not being in position for a goal that could have been prevented had a goalie been in position is letting in a soft goal. On the other hand, some goals are just too hard for goalies to save. Bert putting one right over Giguere's shoulder (into a puck-sized hole)? I'd count that as one that's just too hard to save. Five hole? Yeah, generally soft, especially on butterfly goalies.

That's amazing. BTW, I find it hilarious that our injury report reads like a paragraph more than a sentence.

How about a point for each week a top 6 forward/top 4 defender is out? Oh wait, we'd have won the West already?

Yeah I read it (and translated it, thanks to my iPhone app) but it's still hard to read.

It's a decent video; the song is kinda "meh". Larionov's daughters are hot, even though they work (at least Alyonka does) for the Pens. It comes as no shock to me that Homer wrote "Christmas ham" on his card. Lidstrom's handwriting is hard as hell to read, BTW. Edit: is that Larionov himself at 3:53? I suck at recognizing people unless it's completely obvious.