Opie

I didn't vote because they both suck today!

Sticknmove, Please notice the difference between the way you disagree with me and the way F.michael disagrees. The point about philly was and is this, they were horrible, did they beat up on the wings yes. But in order to be that physical presence they sacrificed scoring. The wings in this administration like to sacrafice physical play for scoring. That is where the "how did philly finish" comes into play. Because some one already referenced the philly game. You may have proven to yourself that it is impossible to win a cup without a fighter and maybe even others, however not me, not yet. Because there are not enough numbers in the salary cap era to answer that yet. For example who was the badass bruising fighter on the Canes in 05-06, that's right you guessed it Jesse Boulerice! With a whopping 5 fights and a team total of 17. Not too sure how many guys in the league skated around looking for him over their shoulders. And in case you were wondering who the other guys to stick up for their teammates were here is the list: Mike Commodore 4 fights Craig Adams 3 fights The following all had 1 fight all season: Chad Larose Danny Richmond Eric Staal Oleg Tverdosky Doug Weight I believe I made my point early in disagreeing with your need a fighter to win, but here it is again: The wings did not lose to the Ducks because of a lack of a fighter or because of team toughness, they lost because the pp sucked donkey DICK! The injury to Schneider which hampered the wings pp greatly would not have been prevented by any kind of enforcer. Now had the power play scored on one of those 5-3 pp we could be talking about another team winning the cup without an enforcer in the salary cap era. Now I am not saying I don't like fighting, what I am saying is it can be won without a fighter, and the wings will try to do it again next year. If you have been a fan of the wings for a long time (I have to assume you have been) then you will have noticed that trend. I am not saying you have to like that trend. As I said to F.micheal to say guys will not stick up for players, in my mind means they do not help each other. In your mind and F.Michaels that means exacting revenge. I have already agreed that if that is what you mean than fine. I have a different opinion of standing up for each other, and this is why. If the media talks bad about a player and a teammate stands up for him does it have to mean he kicked the crap out of the reporter, No. I found the use of the term "Stick up for a teammate" a little vague, after discussing it with F.Michael I see his point.

I love Mozilla, all I have to do is close the tab and then go back to the site and low and behold I can vote again without going to a new machine. THANK YOU FIREFOX!

Cleary never flourished with top 6 minutes anywhere else. In fact he didn't flourish with any team on any line until he showed up in the D. Sammy on the other hand put up respectable numbers. I am not saying he is the top forward on the team but of the players that are on this roster currently he fills the need and has done it before. Not every player on this team is going to be a 40 goal scorer. That just won't happen. GONE ARE THE DAYS OF THE 02 WINGS-LIKE ROSTERS!!!!!!!! And even that team had Boyd the void, Dandy, and a Holmstrom that at the time was not as good as he is now. So maybe just maybe having a guy that scores 20 goals on the wing of a 40-50 goal scorer or a guy that has 60 assists may help him out, but it takes a good player to score 20 goals, think if that were Boyd on D's wing or Z's what a commotion these boards would be in.

Biggest stat of all for me atleast: DOB Apr 21 '84 Meech February 13, 1975 Norton Meech has the ability to be a good defensive presence, he is young and can develop into something. Norton is over 30 and is pretty much what he is always going to be. Other than that I have no issue with either. If Norton was who they signed then fine, but they opted for a young guy with potential that they could develop. Meech's signing has nothing to do with fighting, team toughness, Lang being lazy and sucking, Fedorov coming back, Forsberg in the wheel, anything other than he is a young prospect the team wanted to sign, Norton was an older vet they thought they don't need.

I agree 100% with you hank, plus if the wings are struggling, Babcock has shown he has no issues juggling the lines and putting the people he thinks will get the job done, where they need to be. Unless that players name starts with H and ends in UDLER!!!! LOL

Where are Legionaire and those other preds fans, they were very informed and I would like to know more about this. This is Potentially worse than anything Basille was trying to do, at least he had his intentions up front. I will save judgment until I hear back from the informed preds fans that were here.

Very true and Blue jacket is right behind them, wait what is a Red Wing??? LOL

Lebda like Sammy in the other thread is the type of guy that teams need in the cap era. He fills a roll in the 5-6 slot and fills it cheaply. Look at what LA just paid Preissing and Stuart, those guys are not going to be #1 or #2 on the wings, so 3-3.5 mil a year would be to heavy for the wings to deal with and keep their offense together. So they need a guy like Lebda to be a 5-6th dman and be cheap, same with Meech, and the others, if they develop into a potential #2,3,or 4 then hopefully the wings have their salaries under control before Lowe comes after them. But these guys are necessary, gone are the days of the 02 wings-like rosters, just not feasible any more.

Give me the old school North stars logo any day of the week, Dallas stars lose to the Yotes, that is a great logo for the modern era. Most of the modern logos have words all over the place (see dallas) or are just words (see the duck). Most of the logos I like to see are just graphics. Winged Wheel, Coyote, Flyers, Blues, Preds, etc. I am tired of the logos that look like my nieces box of 64 crayola puked on a jersey like the blue jackets, wild, thrashers, what in the hell is a thrasher anyway? a bird? I don't know honestly and I don't feel like googling it.

Yeah it can be hard to have a debate, but once in a while a good one goes on. I felt bad Hijacking this thread but at least it wasn't all name calling and hissy fits!! I am not so sure that Laraque is a guy I am too excited about, I haven't seen him do a lot. Granted I haven't seen him a lot, but he is slow and lumbering, and I fear would not fit the wings offensive scheme. Asham, I have stayed out of that topic all together because I don't think I have seen him skate one game. So I have no opinion of him really.

Where did Philly finish the season and where did the wings finish the season. That is my point, I have said it over and over again, I would love to have a fighter if it fit into the organizations mold or the mold that the league is heading towards. There is a time when you have to look at this realistically. In order to be successful in this league a fighter better be able to score you 15-25 goals or be a shut down guy like Draper (not saying he is a fighter just a shut down guy). Gone are the days of Shanny, Thornton, Howe, whomever else you want to throw in there. The game has become so offensive minded that teams can no longer afford to give spots to guys who are going to go out there and beat the crap out of a guy and score 1 or 2 goals a year. I am not arguing the fact that the wings could benefit from a fighter (that is an opinion) but this delusion that some how the wings would have won a cup with an enforcer is beyond me. If you are not saying that a fighter would have won the wings a cup than you are one of the few here who have said they want a fighter because they like seeing fights. At least they are being honest. One thing kept the wings from the SCF last year and that was PP production. So what would a fighter/enforcer have gotten this team last year. The whole "Zetterberg would have been healthy" argument is BS, he played very well in the playoffs and an enforcer does nothing to stop Schnieds from being injured, which imo is what killed the pp. F. Michael, we will have to agree that are opinions are different. What you call not going the distance, I call standing up for a guy. What you call standing up for a guy, I call getting revenge. Not trying to argue definitions here just saying we look at it differently.

micah, I still have my PJ stock fan club t-shirt. I used to wear it to volleyball because we had to have a black T with a number on it. That was black and had 42 on the back of it, I WOULD LOVE PJ on the wings. However I realize that under Holland and Co. the wings will never have a guy like PJ Stock. And with the way the league is moving away from fighting, enforcers who can not score and play regular minutes will not make it in the league. It is important now more than ever in Hockey to be able to roll 4 lines. Teams with 1 scoring line and 2 decent lines are not going to make it very far any more. That is my main point in debating these posts/threads. People want a PJ, Worrell, Hartnell, who are you going to give up for that, Draper, Cleary, Samuelson, Hudler, ????? All of those guys added to the cup run, now granted the cup run came up short but can you honestly tell me in your heart of hearts (not saying you micah this part is back to the forum) that if an enforcer, straight fighter that most people want would have won the wings the cup. Remember you have to subtract a player to add said enforcer. So lets pick everyone's whipping boy, Lang, now you have to replace his numbers. It is not that easy to just throw a fighter into the mix. Even if you replace Huds minutes which were limited he scored in the regular season and those points need to be made up for, an enforcer can not do that. And I think my point still stands, these guys will stand up for each other, they do not exact revenge. Like I said in another post, if the line on the ice is Lids, Schnieds, Dats, Z, and Homer (arguably the wings softest pairing and forward combo except homer), and some one starts white washing Homer do you really believe that the other 4 will skate off of the ice, and do nothing. If you want to have the wings add an enforcer, say that, but I don't like the wording of "they do not stand up for each other." Coming to a teammates aid is different than exacting revenge.

Can you find a fight he was in last year? The McCabe fight was not a fight he twirled him around the ice. And when he tried to do the same to Worrell what happened to him. So you show me him spinning a guy around like a merry go round, and getting beat up by Worrell and all of the sudden he is a enforcer, or tough. The wings already have some one who can fight like Chara, his name is Lilja. Yeah Chara starts off every one of those fights in an ok position, but 3 out off the 5 he cross checks a guy in the chest and then starts the fight. If I hit you in the chest with a stick when you weren't looking, and then started spinning you around the ice, it would look like I was kicking your ass, however in reality seeing as I have never been in a fist fight and have a half destroyed knee, you would probably kick my ass in a straight up fight. I watched 75% of B's games last year, Chara is not tough, if you think he is than Guys like Worrell and even Hartnell are indestructible. PJ Stock could have kicked Chara's ass!!!

I wonder how much ice Zetterberg would have seen in the winged wheel if any with Fedorov still in the mix. Think of the centers at the time Z came into the league: Dats, Feds, Yzerman, Draper Plus at that point in time he was a center prospect not a wing, his natural position is center and with Feds on the roster I can easily see Z becoming trade bait. He may have been able to slide in as a winger, but at that time would they have traded him for someone else, do they make Yzerman a winger. There are a lot of things that could have happened had feds stayed, but he didn't and this is a very talented young team. Remember technically the wings are in a rebuilding era, I love the fact that the team can still contend and bring up youth through the org.

Zdeno Chara He is very soft, he always picks on the smallest guy and is not a force on the ice, he does fight very rarely, but he can do it.

Notice I said "because the wings do not have..." An enforcers job is to stick up for players by exacting revenge, correct? That is my point, yes the team surely could have used a fighter/enforcer I am not disagreeing with that. My problem lies in the choice of words. People make it sound like (I guess read like) the players do not stand up for each other because no one gets in a fight. So lets say the wings traded for Hartnell at the trade deadline, he fights Pronger and they lose him for the next game, now the same roster is back out there to lose the next game. The wings did not lose the series to the ducks because of a lack of an enforcer, or because Pronger hit Holmstrom. The wings lost because the pp was atrocious!!!!!! I am not all excited or fiery about this, I thought we were having a discussion about this, sorry if my typing led you to believe otherwise, I was actually looking forward to debating this, not flaming each other. Edit: Sorry I did confuse the two posts, yours and stick and moves.

I never said we had an enforcer, in fact in the first post I made that you quoted I specifically said we don't have one, and I never called Zetterberg a fighter. You jumped to conclusions and did not read my post thoroughly enough. Here is an example of what I was talking about. On the ice the wings have: Lids, Schnieder (for example in this exercise we will use last years roster), Z, Dats, and Homer A scrap or a scrum (not a fight) starts in front of the net and Homer is being pushed around and shoved. Are you telling me that every single Red Wing's player skates off the ice and leaves Homer to be abused. I am telling you that I saw Zetterberg get in there and help his teammate. Showing he had his back. There is a difference between standing up for your teammate and exacting revenge. Speaking of exacting revenge I posed a question in my first post, who and what would you have liked to see done after the Pronger/Holmstrom incident? Using the same roster that was there in that game.

Sorry I read into the left wing as that will be the spot for grigs. My post should have been The wings have BASICALLY said that grigs..... amazing how trying to work while posting leads you to leave words out. sorry!

So what you are telling me is that none of the wings stand up for each other or have each other's backs because they do not have a fighter or enforcer. Correct??

^^^^^ Could not agree with you more, even if i tried. If anyone doubts why he left or how he felt when making the decision to leave read "The Captain".

Sorry for the double!!

I like the fact that the caps went back to the old school look, not a big fan of the Blue logo with the capital building on it, however it is still just words like the ducks. However the B's is not much better than the Oil and Leafs, a letter or word surrounded by an image of some sort. Neither uni really got me excited so I randomly selected the caps. Coin toss!

I am growing tired of the argument that because the wings do not have a fighter/enforcer they do not stand up for each other. Last year Z got in some scraps and scrums (not fights), Homer jumped in to get guys off of Z's back. Other guys did it too. Because no one goes out and beats the s*** out of a guy like Probie used to do, does not mean that these guys do not stand up for each other or that they do not have each other's back. Fighting (a part of the game I like a lot) is being ushered out of the game by Gary Bettman. I do not agree with it, but it is a fact, hence the instigator rule. Honestly whom and what would you have liked some one on the team do to last year to Pronger on the hit to Holmstrom? Before you answer that think of the consequences of the actions. Even if the wings have a guy like Probie, Kocur, Hartnell, or Laroque. That team is now down a player, more than likely for the rest of the series as well as the game. Short changing the wings for the remainder of the game taxing guy guys by making them cover an extra shift. Plus Pronger probably doesn't get suspended ( the only reason he got one game, was because there was no penalty called on him), the ducks now have the upper hand. Fighting was a great part of the game, it is no more, well that is the way the league is heading, imo!

You're right, he doesn't hit, man what was I thinking, damn it, those Norris trophy voters and I sure got that one wrong