Opie

The team has shown excitement with Howard, they are just letting him develop. As for him not being the next Ozzie, that may be so, but in the cap era I think it is more likely that the will be. I don't see Ryan Miller being the second coming of Roy, he was 20th last year in GAA and 16th in Sv%. I understand that he is a local, however he is not a superstar goaltender, yet. He played on the best team in the league and was a middle of the road netminder this year. I have not seen a ton of Sabres games but what I did see I never saw him steal a game. Not saying he hasn't just I never saw it. I have a biased toward J-Ho, I would love to see a Black Bear in the winged wheel. So lets say the wings trade Howard (If Howard does not play in the NHL he will not garner much in trade.) and sign Miller, yes they will have cap room due to the departure of Lids, Cheli, Hasek, however you are losing two of arguably the top 10-15 Dmen in the league and you are going to replace them with Kindl, Meech, or Quincey. That is bad news. The wings would be better off keeping Howard signing Miller and playing with 2 goalies because that D will be weak. Unless the wings go out and sign top tier dmen. That would then mean all of there money would be tied up in a goalie, a #1 dman (rafalski is too offensive oriented to be the #1 dman replacing lids), Zetterberg (deservedly so), and then what do they do with Cleary, Franzen, Flip, and the other young guys that will be looking for raises. I say you give J-Ho the shot, if he falls on his face like Norton after a fight (Sorry had to do it) then you look for a goalie, but right now the wings have to be looking to bring from within. This kid has been highly touted by many scouts not just the wings scouts. The salary cap will prevent all teams from being able to buy all the players they want, they will just be able to afford the ones they need! I think they are better off letting Howard play, with a mentor like Ozzie a guy who as been there before and done that..

Apparently I was not the only one imprresed by Lebron on the Espy's. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-j...p&type=lgns

I was hesitant to reply to the Sakic comment because I do respect him a lot. To me he is very similar to Yzerman, in fact he is the only Av (from the rivalry era) player I would ever want on the wings. The man plays the game right and even when Floppa was diving everywhere he still played a respectable game.

I think the main reason that Messier gets so much credit is what he did when he promised the rags would win and then got the hat trick. People see that as oh my god what a leader he is.

Yzerman is my favorite player of all time however I don't rank him #1 of all time. Because as said by some one else you cannot calculate leadership and defensive abilities into stats. Gretzky Orr Howe Lemieux Hull, Bobby not Brett Richard Yzerman Esposito Dionne Bourque Let me tell you in my mind the rankings I think aren't up for grabs are Grets and Orr, everyone else I think an argument can be made for sliding them up or down a couple of spots they were all that good.

Zata40 your avatar in your last post looks like z is looking at the picture saying WTF perfect!!

I think I derailed it and you just hopped on the train. BTW Winged Scooter I love the sig!!

Damn I like that one!!!

West 1. San Jose 2. Detroit 3. Minnesota 4. Anaheim 5. Dallas 6. Colorado 7. Vancouver 8. St. Louis Beats Columbus in a tie breaker. East 1. Ottawa 2. New Jersey 3. Atlanta 4. Pittsburgh 5. New York Rangers 6. Toronto 7. Tampa Bay 8. Boston or Buffalo That is completely a bunch of guess work in a white coat!

yeah but sidekicks don't get their own theme music they have to borrow it from their super hero!!

Nope just post politely and without calling each other names and you have officially become a member of the LGW superheroes club. Matt and the crew that keep this place running get super-dooper hero status though!!!

Unfortunately I think those days are behind Hank. Not just in the NHL, every thing is so PC now that every one has to be happy and love each other and go dancing barefoot in the park with flowers in their hair.

He should have to give half of the money back to the taxpayers in some rainy day fund or something. He is setting a bad precedence for the future. some one may try this intentionally. Not saying he did or didn't do this with intent, but this is a damn good way to make a few bucks real quicky.

That would be great, is he the older or younger brother of andrew. Hopefully being around people who know how to win helps this young guy out like I think it did Cleary!

the funniest part about this whole thing is that if it hadn't turned it a fight the mods probably would have come on here, seen the double post and made it part of the old one. Thus bringing the old one to the front for all to see. It is also funny that between (what i believed to be polite posts) my post and cicada's post we let wing nut 19 know where he could find the info and neither of us had to resort to name calling. Man we must be super hereos!!

Good analogy!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the info man, this is a mess. This is being handled as well as the steriod issue in baseball. Not saying they are on the same level legally and impact wise just on how well all parties involved are handling it. Please some one save this team then the NHL!!!!

I see him and Hully doing play by play together is some bar, like sullivan's tap in boston. Just sitting at the bar watching the games and talking hockey with hockey purests. However he will end up on some channel flapping his gums. Too bad injuries kept him from getting to 500. You take away that fluke shot to the chin and maybe he scores those 5 he needs.

To prevent cheapshots let the players police themselves. Even guys like hully and other retired players complain about the players out there that are just running around reckless. Lets say the wings have Probert on the roster this past year (in his prime). Pronger hits Homer, Probie goes over and beats the ever living s*** out of him (ohh what a sight). Pronger no longer gets suspended, the only reason he got suspended is because he got away with that hit with no penalty, probie kicking his ass would have been enough penalty in the league and media's eye. Now Probie is gone for 5 for fighting, 2 for instigating, and 10 minute misconduct. All told the wings get 7 min in penalties and lose probie for 17 minutes, as he cannot start his 10 min until the 5 and 2 are up. That is a horrible horrible way to stop a guy from standing up for his teammates!!

David, If Basille is selling tickets how was he not willing to sign a binding agreement? Asking an honest question. I would llike to see an article that says that, if true this man is a bigger ass than just being a crackberry billionaire. I thought the league turned him down because Bettman didn't want to see the team moved. I could be wrong haven't been real closely following this until reading these threads. Need the info, throw me a friggin' bone here ( in my best Dr Evil Voice)

TV contact my man other than that I love the list. I don't care if hockey is on spike, the travel channel, and nick at night, jus tget it on TV where people can watch it more than one night a week!!!

Legionaire, In one thread you talk about business decisions and that moving a team would not make good business sense (I believe it was you, I could be wrong). But in fact isn't taking the lowest offered bid a bad business decision. I am in support of Nashville staying put, for now, I don't think bouncing teams around from small market to small market is going to solve anything. But my question still is valid. If the new group is going to offer the lowest bid out of all of them, than why have a bidding process. So that Bettman can yay or nay his way to the owners he wants. Doesn't that allow him to create a dictatorship of sorts (for a lack of a better term). He would be able to put the owners he wants and sees eye to eye with in the cities he wants, when and however he wants.

As a tall and some what beefy redhead I take offense to you not liking that because it is red and huge. Seriously though, who gives a flying f*** what font or color people post in, if you don't like it skip it. People on here are becoming elitist very very quickly. This is a forum for free discussion, if he/she wants to type in pirate, neon green, size 45 font, or using his/her ass cheeks to pound the keys why does it matter. Do the forum rules say people have to type in a certain font or with special spacing in their posts no, let the mods do there job. Geez

How did adding Lang make that team in front of Khabi any better. They have gotten worse defensively, including adding Lang. I am not a Lang basher but, he is not exactly a Selke candidate. Khabi will be hang with the linen more often than he is saved by a teammate.

Plus with Boston Schaefer will play on one of the top two lines, which means playing with Savard, Bergereon, or Murray, Unless they wanted to make a decent young line and go Bochenski Kessel Schaefer. They wouldn't be the greates line ever but I would take that line on the wings! (not saying over any of the young guys we have just saying I wouldn't mind that line)