Theophany

Ovi uses twitter too (@ovi8), but he doesn't post tweets that often. You can check out who I'm following if you want some NHL stuff to follow (my Twitter account is @wkfink). @umassdilo/Michael DiLorenzo (NHL Director of Corporate Communications) is a frequent tweeter, he posted some pretty awesome backstage shots from the NHL Awards. @NHLTransactions is pretty good, shows transactions. I also follow some NHL bloggers, since I've found some pretty good stories from them. Twitter is mainly something I do when I get bored, I'm not nuts about it like some of my friends are (I used to work at Apple, so some of my friends are technuts).

The Winter Classic will not top last years until there's another Wings/Hawks game.

I don't think Lebda has been bad at all, TBH. He's actually shown remarkable improvement in just this playoff run. That said, I want Lilja back; I just don't think that we need to be running to free agents right now for defensemen of all things.

This is way OT, but that would be a really really heavy sack. Hell, just like 100-200 pucks is heavy as s***.

Hawks, Bruins, Habs, and Caps are all favorites as long as they're not playing the Wings. And yes I like the Hawks, I can't help it. Too much history and now with Kane and Toews, it's hard to not like them. Same with the Caps and Ovi.

Well, they're both awarded to the MVP, it's just who votes on it that's the difference. In the last 10 years, there have been 4 times that the players and media didn't agree and the Hart and Pearson were awarded to different players.

I will never endorse anything that's been used by the joke that is professional wrestling.

Pretty ridiculous comparisons when Franzen got 2 mins more of ATOI during the season. 2 mins multiplied by the 71 games he played = 142 more minutes played. Just gonna guess that he can score a few more goals or get a few more assists with more than 2 full games more of playing time than Filppula got. Filppula is the future of the organization. He's going to be part of the transfer from Zata and Pavel's generation of players to the new generation that are younger than Helm and Abdelkader right now.

Without a doubt; put Pavel on a team like the Caps without AO, and you'd see him picking up the hardware too. But that's what the Hart is. It's a MVP, as in most valuable player for their team. That's AO without a single shred of doubt, especially when you look at the teams around Malkin and Pav.

It doesn't make your opinion not true, but it does invalidate it as a logical opinion. I would have loved to see Pavel win the Hart. Was he going to? No, obviously. Did he deserve to win it? No. Ovechkin has done so much more for his team than Pavel has done for the Wings it's pretty ridiculous. If you took off your homer glasses for just a second and watched any hockey but Red Wings hockey, you'd know that. By the way, we still won with Pavel out and we still lost with him back. He's not a make-or-break player on a team as deep as we are. The Caps wouldn't have won a single game in the playoffs without AO. He's that much of an impact player for them (mostly because the rest of the team is terrible).

If you don't think Chara deserves it, you're an idiot. He's easily top 5 defensemen in the league. Nick deserves it, but winning 6 out of the last 8 is kinda redundant. Only Harvey and Orr have won it more times at this point. I was going to break something if Green won it, but to say Chara doesn't deserve it is ridiculous.

No it shouldn't have. He's not the most valuable to the team, regardless of how amazing of a player he is. BTW, classy Mike Green; good job being happy for your boy Ovie. I've seen happier people at a funeral, in all honesty. Don't be so butt-hurt that your mohawk didn't win you the Norris.

Winning an 11th Cup vs winning the 3rd for your team. Also, we won in 2002, the last time they won was 1992. Big difference. Good to see Beliveau honored.

"At least your english not as short as Pavel's." Pretty funny.

And the Lady Byng too.

Hiller and Ward are there, but nothing is said about Osgood and how he made every single talking head in the media shut the f*** up and eat every word they said? Of course, the writer of the article probably trashed Ozzie and just doesn't want to have to eat his own words, but something should be said regardless. Helm should also be up there; series-winning goal against Chicago, 25-second penalty kill solo, etc.

They have a right to their opinion (just as you have a right to be annoying and color your posts red), but it doesn't make it right, logical, or intelligent. People also have the right to try to explain how things really are to people that are too involved in making tinfoil hats to notice the world around them.

Dats is 2 inches taller than Hudler and 2 inches shorter than Leino. Also, having seen Hudler compared to some other guys, I'd say he's more 5'7" or 5'8". They're being generous giving him 5'9". Either way, I'm not saying Hudler is worthless, just that the pros of giving him up outweigh the cons of keeping him. I'd love to keep him. Unfortunately, though, we're trying to win Cups, and in a salary cap era, a team needs to be run like a business in order to win Cups.

3 NHL seasons is hardly "a hell of a lot more proven than Leino". Regardless, Leino is much cheaper than Hudler will be, thus we don't need to have a discussion about it. Leino will be sub-$1 mil, Hudler will be $2-3 mil. That we can also get draft picks from getting rid of Hudler, getting a guy that can at least compete with Hudler's place on the team, will take less money, etc, points to us getting rid of Hudler and taking Leino. You also leave out that Leino is ~4" taller than Hudler, making him immensely more attractive for any line that we would normally use Hudler on, as the physical aspect of the game ramps up in the playoffs. An elbow shot that would normally hit Hudler in the forehead would hit Leino in the jaw. Edit: It really also comes down to us not having space on the first 2 lines for Hudler. With Dats/Zata/Homer/Franzen/Filppula, that leaves one spot open. If we take Hudler, he HAS to stay in that 6th spot, as he's near-useless on grinding lines. If we pick up Hossa, then Franzen is a 3rd liner, or you have Filppula on 3rd line and Helm back in GR, which is something that we shouldn't do. Leino has proved that he can be effective playing on a grind line in the NHL, where Hudler has proved nothing of the sort (in fact, the complete opposite).

Sportsk has Helm RBK shirts.

It would be more accurate to compare their FIRST year in the AHL after coming from a euro-style hockey organization, due to the differences in how the game is played on a euro rink vs a NHL rink. Leino: 57 games, 46 points. Hudler: 57 games, 49 points. Keep in mind that Hudler had been playing in the AHL/NHL for 2 seasons (i.e. he was in his third) before he put up 96 points. Also keep in mind that Hudler never scored over 46 points in any season prior to his first season in the AHL. Leino had 77 points in 55 games with Jokerit. But this really isn't about production; it's about cap space. We can't afford to keep Hudler at anywhere near his real price; we have too many roster spots trying to be filled with too little money. Holland saw what Leino could do with the puck. He's much stronger on the puck, a much better winger, and much more of a physical presence than Hudler is. He may not have the same play-making ability (something that I just don't see in Hudler, regardless of what others have said in this thread), but I would argue that he does, given a 28 goal, 49 assist season with Jokerit. When Leino appears ready to go in the NHL and is a lot cheaper than Hudler (on top of getting you more draft picks), it's pretty obvious why you'd go with Leino.

I don't really think I need to say anything to try and make you look dumber; you're doing that job for me. It's spelled "remember," "popping," "definitely," "jugular," and "a lot." An ellipsis is three periods--generally--BTW. Nothing in your posts makes sense. Calls were pretty even during the series, and teams all play through the playoffs with injuries. None of those points really tip the scale in the Pens' favor; they simply wanted the win more, or the Wings didn't think they could lose until there was 6:00 left in the 3rd period of game 7. Edit: Oh, and Illitch is awesome. I wouldn't shake Bettman's hand either, with how he's managed the league.

I thought it was pretty funny.

I think you'll see Lidstrom in a Sweden sweater, but you will not see Ericsson in one; Kronwall is like a #5/#6 on the national team. I also think that Holmstrom may not make the cut, though it's rumored that Forsberg and Sundin won't be playing, so that would open up some spots; Homer should be healthy by then, so I don't see why he wouldn't play. Leino is a good possibility, considering his 77 point season on Jokerit and 46 point season in the AHL. He'd almost for sure be a 4th-liner for Finland, though. Rafalski is almost sure to play for the US. There aren't too many more US-born defensemen that are better. I can almost guarantee that Stuart won't play for Canada. Pronger, Blake, Bouwmeester, Foote, Mccabe, Redden, Regher were all on the last Olympic roster. By the same token, Ozzie may be a backup, but I doubt he'll be the starter with Brodeur in net.

He did have a 77 point season with Jokerit in 07-08. In his first season in the AHL/NHL, he had 46 points; that's when he's getting used to the differences in how the game plays over here. And to your point about Ericsson, Abby, etc, yeah; you're right, but they weren't consistently making me go, "wow, look at <player> go!" like I did with Helm and Filppula.