Theophany

You're saying that on a team rife with scoring talent, no one else can step up and score? Two hypothetical situations for you: 1) Lids goes out for the rest of the playoffs. We bring up Meech to pair with Lebda and play Ericsson with Rafalski. We give Meech minutes like Chelios and he saw against Anaheim while Rafalski was out. 2) Osgood goes out. We bring Conklin in. Which would you rather see? The best goalie in the playoffs out for a goalie with ONE GAME of playoff experience, or us playing slightly worse defense with the best goalie in the playoffs? I know my pick. Ozzie has been absolutely clutch and shut up any doubters he had.

The thing about Lidstrom and Franzen, though, is that we could still be in this position without them. We've got enough experience on our roster to have others step up. Franzen and Cleary are the only other legitimate contenders for the MVP, IMO. They've both turned up some clutch goals that without which, we wouldn't have won important games. Ozzie though has clear and away been absolutely ridiculous in the playoffs, though, proved by his numbers. Any team would be incredibly happy to have him with how he's playing goal right now.

LIDSTORM 4 MVPPPP Like I said in the MVP thread, we're not in the WCF without Ozzie. Put Conklin in his place, and--as much as I respect Conklin's abilities--we're out against the Ducks. Enough said. We're not in the WCF up 2-0 without Ozzie. Give the man his due.

Yes, Ozzie is clearly not the MVP. Slot Conklin in and we'd still be in the same place. I see the argument against having Ozzie as MVP because other people (Franzen, Cleary, Zata) have come up huge is some games or have been playing amazing positional play, but saying that Ozzie has been anything less than stellar indicates that you have no idea what's involved in goaltending. Let's keep in mind that MVP means most valuable player. I.E., you wouldn't be where you are without that player. If we had Conklin in Ozzie's place, I can guarantee that we'd not be doing as well as we currently are. Hell, we'd probably have lost the Anaheim series pretty handily; he made a lot of clutch saves in that series. He's the best goalie still left in the playoffs by numbers. Fact. Not arguable. He's saved our bacon numerous times this postseason, and it's time to give the guy some credit. Lids playing his position as always doesn't take this team all the way; the other team is still going to get shots and goals. Yeah, it would suck to go without him, but I can safely say that I'd rather go without Lids, Franzen, Cleary, etc rather than go without Ozzie in the net with how hot he's been. I love Lids, but he's not been as clutch as Ozzie. Ozzie has been saving our asses, and deserves the credit.

Osgood, easily. He's been standing on his head.

Yeah, pretty much. Even more-so than Ozzie, he's got liquid nitrogen in his veins. Or something else that's really, really cold.

I was pretty much giggling hysterically the whole time. But yeah, I found that part hilarious. Also, Zata's "can I pull my goalie?" line made me laugh pretty hard.

That's my favorite, personally. I also enjoy Abdelgator, especially after seeing a photoshop someone put up in one of the photoshop threads (I think it was Anaheim). I've been sorely tempted to photoshop Darth Vader's head on Abby's body, maybe with a lightsaber instead of a hockey stick (or a lightsaber hockey stick!).

Definitely. I've been pleasantly surprised by the boys we've brought up from GR thus far. I really shouldn't be, but there's always some trepidation there when you're contemplating the unknown. Well, other than Meech, though he was a better alternative (IMO) to Chelios. Neither are an optimal #6 D-man right now. Maltby and 'Kader is kinda a toss-up at this point in my mind. I'm not too stressed about it either way it goes. 'Kader has proved he can hang with the best the league has to offer in the role we'd bring him up in--playing with Helm on a speed/hitting/energy line--which is much better than I thought he'd do.

I dunno, Darth Kader has been playing pretty well; I've been really happy with his line. We've been playing pretty well in these past two games. I don't really see a reason to change it up--especially going into the United Center--unless Babs is just worried about the 'Kader's experience being a factor on foreign ice.

Awesome. No other words to describe it. "Oh, Lidstrom! My buddy!"

Interesting that he whines about Walker's punch, but then praises hitting and fighting in hockey. Hypocrisy much?

Dats.

Heading to the Winter Classic, an SUV pulled up next to me on the street outside Wrigley and a guy yelled out the window the typical, "Detroit sucks!" My reply was, "yep, clearly they give out the Stanley Cup for sucking." The grin he had on his face fell and he just pulled his head back into his car and rolled up the window. All of the Hawks fans around me that were kinda laughing pretty much shut up at that point. I should have added, "by the way, what happened in 1961 that hasn't happened since?" but I didn't want to get my ass kicked. That and I was with two buddies who were Hawks fans.

It's even more pathetic when you realize how much bigger the United Center is over the Joe. JLA: 20,066 UC: 20,500 334 more potential fans per home game is a lot (41 home games = ~13,000 more possible fans).

Duh, after winning 3 cups, the regular season is boring; just something to get you into the playoffs. Ozzie is bored by the regular season. When the playoffs come, he actually starts to put his heart into it. IMO Ozzie should one-up Ward and put his 3 cups on his helmet like Ward has his one cup on there. Just because I think Ward is a wee bit arrogant.

I don't see a need with the talent we have ready and waiting. It'd be nice if we could keep him, but we just don't have the space.

I would say even a light trimming of the beard is alright, just so you don't look like a hideous wild ape. But yeah, hair is definitely fine to cut, IMO.

Little known fact: Osgood doesn't have blood in his veins. It's actually ice.

I'm pretty close to adding you to ignore. You seriously add zero to any thread you post in. On top of that, you don't have a coherent thought in your head--or at least, you can't communicate it clearly. If I were you and wanted people to read what I wrote, I'd shape up.

I had this discussion with my brother and my dad tonight. My dad was disappointed with Datsyuk's lack of production by way of points, and my reply was, "would you rather have Dats scoring 1 goal a game and playing awful defense, or would you rather have him practically killing penalties by himself and only getting an assist?" It's pretty clear that with how deep our team is, we can afford to have Dats tied up with a Neidermayer, because of our scoring depth. Teams then have a choice; shut down Dats and have other people score when Neidermayer isn't on the ice, or don't match Neidermayer on Dats and have him walk all over you. It's obvious that Dats did his job this series, and Chicago is a lot looser of a team defensively, so Dats should have a good time. Regardless, Dats still creates opportunities for his line-mates (and even gets some himself), even guarded as close as he is. That he also plays such good D shows why he's got a Selke (and will potentially get another).

Oh, don't get me wrong, I know they're good at D. It's just that when you compare it to the best D in the NHL (us), it... Well, it doesn't compare.

This really gives weight to the "drop Hossa and re-sign our depth and add more to that depth" argument, and I whole-heartedly agree with it. Not that I don't like Hossa, but I'd rather have more guys like Helm, Hudler, etc. BTW, someone should look into what skates Helm has; get them for the rest of the team, too, so they can actually go 200% when they're in instead of 100% in short bursts.

Hiller has a ridiculously fast glove hand, and with the mattresses he had on his legs as a butterfly goalie, well... He really doesn't have too many weak areas with how the Ducks play D, shutting down any chances at rebounds that we could get. Because really the areas that he struggles with are high stick side (as in extremely high stick side--see block on Dats in game 6 for relatively high stick side block) and rebound control, which he's pretty poor at. But with the Ducks playing D the way they do, rebound control isn't much of a worry, because you've got some great D in front to keep the crease tied up. Chicago essentially plays like we do, but they're weaker in every area. They play a skill-based, run-and-gun style, much like the Wings, but they have much less experience, and about equal if not less skill in everything when compared to the Wings. On top of that, they don't have any Norris/Selke-quality defenders/forwards, ergo they're weaker on D. On paper, not nearly as hard a match-up as Anaheim, but there are a lot of areas that can't be seen until game-time. We'll see how they do coming into the Joe for their first game with no home crowd, facing our Cup-hungry playoff-whores.

See you guys on the links tomorrow! Oh, wait, no I won't. Sorry Pronger, gonna have to pass on that invite to Pebble tomorrow. (Sorry to the few cool Ducks posters around here, I had to.)