Theophany

He's scouting him for team Canada. Hardly surprising, since he's been doing that for months now.

Over the past four years in the playoffs: Franzen: 63 GP, 29 G, 22 A, 51 Pts, 0.809 PPG Hossa (only 3 playoff seasons): 46 GP, 18 G, 24 A, 42 Pts, 0.913 PPG Hossa is better, even when he's injured for the most significant portion (22 games) of his playoff career in the past four years. Hossa's also better defensively. I realize that everyone here doesn't like Hossa because he 'betrayed' the Wings, but c'mon. Stop being a homer and admit that you would easily take Hossa over Franzen. Oh, and realize that Franzen was playing with the Wings all four years and Hossa was playing with Atlanta (lol), Pittsburgh, and Detroit.

Just bring back the Seattle Metropolitans, the first American team to win the Stanley Cup. Like you said, Seattle is definitely a sports town, and there's really not that much going on here during the winter in terms of sports.

Seattle is desperate for more sports teams, especially if they're successful (like the Sounders, unlike the Seahawks). I could see the Seattle Metropolitans coming back and doing really well. Key Arena is really really nice and isn't even used for much anymore.

Same, except I'll be getting Lidstrom on mine. Anyone know if he'll be captain, since Mats Sundin won't be playing?

I miss Hossa.

I should hope it is. It would be ridiculous if he was still a Norris contender at age 45. Ridiculously awesome, but still ridiculous.

They keep Kindl in GR because he still needs experience before they can bring him up to play third pair minutes. Did you notice what the pairs were tonight? Lids/E Lebda/Stuart Meech/Kindl That's Kindl as the 6th defenseman. That you think you know more about the team than Ken Holland and Mike Babcock (or even Steve Yzerman) is a complete joke. You might be even dumber than Jake Ryan if you believe that. Both of them have lived and breathed hockey for longer than you've probably been alive. Both of them have been incredibly successful. How you can doubt their professional opinions and go with your own biased and uninformed opinion is beyond me. If Meech and Lebda were as bad as you're making them out to be, we'd have Janik and Kindl up and playing in the 5/6 spots; both were on the roster in the preseason.

Good idea. Either that or I'll do one of these:

If he were truly better than both, do you really think that with the best GM in all of hockey and the best coach in all of hockey, that Lebda would still be on this team? If Kindl were truly better than both, would he still have been sitting in GR for the past month? The obvious answer is that you're wrong. You don't have the knowledge that Ken Holland and Mike Babcock have, and as they've been mildly more successful in hockey, I'm going to trust them to do the best with what they have. It really bothers me that some people don't seem to realize this stuff; Mike Babcock and Ken Holland get paid to do this. They put tons of time into putting forth the best team that they can. Do you really think that if Kindl was the amazing savior of our defensive efforts, that he'd be sitting in GR? I need an effing facepalm smilie.

This just in, Nick Lidstrom has a better +/- than Datsyuk playing more minutes per night.

It has to do with the number '20', currency, and assault charges.

I really dislike when people talk about 'on pace for' in arguments, like goal scoring and assists are linear calculations to be made. Lidstrom could come out on Saturday and get a goal and four assists. Who knows? Yes, it's mildly concerning that Lidstrom hasn't produced like he has in the past, but he's 39. It's gotta be a very real factor in everyone's mind that while he's still obviously first-line caliber, he may not be the offensive threat he used to be as he gets older because he needs to focus more on defense. I never said that Lidstrom should get a free pass; I said that he should be the least of our worries, because of all the players on the Wings, he's the one that's produced time and time again. Hell, the guy only missed two games when he had that unspeakable injury against Chicago. Far more should be our concern over our forward lines, and having to use third/fourth liners like Bertuzzi and Leino in first and second line scoring roles. That said, we're still in 10th with pretty much one of the worst lineups we've seen in the past two decades; as players return, we should see our fortunes turn around.

You're really picking Lidstrom of all people to be worried about? I'd be more worried that we're not seeing production from our forwards who are supposed to be producing. Lidstrom is pretty much the last person on this team to worry about (other than his age).

Like he did the first year Malkin played for the Pens? Yeah, again. To end his career.

No, that wasn't the question. The question was 'would you take Franzen over anyone on Chicago's top line'. And my answer is of course I would take Hossa over Franzen. You'd have to be an idiot not to.

They won the West in '92, FYI.

That's because you have no clue what you're talking about.

I'd easily take Hossa over Franzen. Easily.

No, rivals indicate a level of equal competition for the same award. The Hawks have not been on the same level as the Wings since like 1993. They're starting to come back, but make the playoffs and compete with the Wings before you start slinging around a title like 'rival'. Because right now, you don't even compare to the Ducks, and they're not a rival.

Apparently the rivalry can be one-sided, or at least according to some commentators. During the Preds game on VS a week or two ago, one of the commentators said that the Preds and Wings had a rivalry. The last team we really had a rivalry with was the Avs; we don't have any more real rivalries where the players get amped up and want to slaughter people when they take the ice against the team. We might have something like that develop against the Hawks in years to come, but both teams don't really have the kinds of players that will make that rivalry anything special.

He's not going to as long as Ovechkin/Crosby/etc are playing in the league and he's playing with Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and the like. Pronger won the Hart because he was pretty much all the Blues had going for them at the time; much like AO in Washington for the past two years.

Fine, Conn Smythe, a Cup, and a Norris! He can't retire until he gets all three!

Not really when you lose 4/5 games and get outscored 19-10, to be frank. Just sayin'.