numberthirtynine

I hate to play the Bettman card but the guy has completely f***ed up this league. This is the most entertaining and exciting major sport there is. Period. And he over the course of his tenure, has turned it into a ******* joke the point where we can't even keep players. GMs making stupid signings account for some of it but it all goes back to Bettman in the end. Almost every head scratcher you see in the NHL can be traced back to him. This may just be the evolution of our sport. It may eventually be a european influenced game, with canadians and americans travelling to russia to make a living. And I can foresee, down the road, it'll all be Gary ******* Bettman's fault and I'll want his head.

I swear, something always seem way too sketchy whenever Burke does anything. He's always been the most shady character anywhere. He's truly made a career out of ******* up teams but just been so popular amongst owners and other GMs that he's always got a job somewhere. He even took a good team in the Ducks and damn near f***ed them up too with stupid trades. All he did was convince Pronger to come over and they gooned their way to the most undeserving title ever(well until Pitt won this year). I anticipate nothing short of a complete failure in Toronto and moves like this don't make me question myself at all.

Lidstrom is way too low. Goalies are about right. Rest is just fluff. These lists always are. Too many opiniosn based on everything except true talent. Hasek finally gets proper credit from somewhere for being the best goalie to ever live.

This may spell the end of Giggy in Anaheim, who has been stinkingly overrated for a long, long time. Hiller is so much better and I think it's become extremely apparent now. Send the Michelin Man somewhere like Toronto or the Isles where he'll sink like a f***in stone, at a much faster rate than the glacial pace at which he moves his body.

This comment is ironic considering you're doing what you're asking me not to do. I had to make about 4 or 5 posts that were basically personalized disclaimers. You misinterpreted what I said, got argumentative and when you realized what I was really saying, you just dodged the whole thing and posted this crap. You'd swear some board veterans here do dumb s*** because no one calls them out on it. Smh...

Who are we supposed to be rating on the Wings? It would all depend. It goes much deeper than just his team, too.

Nice helmets but they left out some epic ones. If only they would've counted the years after it we would've seen Cujo's amazing Wings mask. My family knows the guy who did the Kidd mask, as he did a mask for me when I was younger. It ended up costing quite a bit and while really cool, I moved on to try the HM50 L Hasek style cage and have been using it ever since. I love it. I esp love when Hasek finally decided to paint it. That was one of the coolest masks ever. I think they could've added so many other better masks.

Unless we get him next year, f*** it. He's 30. It's not like when we signed older goalies before because they had experience winning for what it's worth. The clock is ticking on Roberto and I don't want to pay 8 million for a goalie without the things we're already paying about a couple mil for in Ozzy. On the same hand, every goalie who has won a Cup or a Vezina had a first time. Luongo hasn't ever been on a team that has helped him do that. Ever. He's carried every team he's ever been on because they've been s***. Granted it's not a Hasek style carry job but still, he's done well with bad teams. Not many goalies can do that. Careers are ruined that way and the mediocre goalies we make fun of, sometimes weren't that bad and were just strapped with a bum team. I'd imagine if he played for Detroit, he'd have a much better shot and would routinely go to the conference finals if not deeper. It's just all about age and money.

Holy f***...it all goes back to my original post. He said he liked our team and players, not player, players have taken discounts here. I dunno where you got this "one player" crap. Now look closely, I'll say it again-I'M NOT SAYING HE WILL OR WON'T AND I'M NOT SAYING HE SHOULD. I simply just said with our team, and his comments, it makes it that much more likely. Problem is, I openly left the "that much more" part open for interpretation by you and you assumed I thought he would or should do it. Perspective, c'mon. Is it just that an argument is more fun? Zherdev's a superstar? I was unaware. All the talk by the naysayers seem to indicate he's a ******* bum not worth 2 million of our precious dollars. That is partly why I think it's not impossible Didn't have to tell me, I already knew.

If you put as much effort into forming arguments and debating topics as you did making up stupid assumptions we might be having a decent conversation here. As it stands, you're just puking out this crap. Where would I have him ranked? Do you really want to fan the flames and make a list? Oh I think you do. You're in here defending him, telling us we're wrong. That's perfect reason enough to check it out. You're f***in scared. Stop dodging it. God I hate people who talk all big and back down. Translation: I'm happy living in my world of BS because it's comforting. Anything that rattles my comfort zone will be promptly ignored. Baaaaah baaah baaah.

I tell you you're bringing up team heavy and longevity based achievements and yet you do it again-it's all you've got. I bolded the one that isn't. Are you seriously asking me how he got shutouts and wins by facing easy shots? Think about that for a minute. Fact is, play on a team as talented as NJ for your whole career and you're going to win eventually. What gets ignored is his poor play year after year. He completely s*** the bed every year since 2003 and routinely lost to worse teams before that, too culminating in this seasons f***in embarrassing game 7. NJ had the game locked up with a min left or so and he lets in two weak goals to blow the whole thing. Naturally Cherry and the Canadian media that acts as his lap dog defended him blindly but they were easy saves. Both of them. Also, the blog has excellent interpretations of his play in very specific situations where he routinely ranks among the most average goalies in the league. GO LOOK AT IT. You f***in refuse to even look at it. Actually, they do keep track of all of this. It's all there. Statisticians at games keep track of far more than you'd think. Shot quality is something the NHL refuses to acknowledge but is a great show of what a goalie faces nightly. i'm telling you exactly how yo ucan find out but you're too damn scared to look You have no idea how much deeper those numbers go. You just pulled out one that looked really good. opening your mind and shifting you away from the other sheep to see what is what would be nice. but you came in here with a chip on your shoulder and were overly proud, and obviously didn't want an intelligent discussion so i don't think you'll change. It would because that's hwo you've practically been trained to think. You won't dig deeper. It's like you have a comfort zone and you lash otu at anyone trying to bring you into reality.

He had f***in 60 points once. If he really this absolutely pitiful player we should never, ever want? Or did we just come down too hard on him. I don't remember him as being that bad. The 05-06 Wings are not the Wings we have now. He will most definitely have a better supporting cast and that always helps. I'll give him a chance before I rip him. I think it's better than signing Todd "aw f*** backchecking" Bertuzzi or Robert Lang, who doesn't actually take strides unless it's beyond center ice. For the role he'll be playing, I don't expect a ton of points. We've got possibly still the most feared and talented top 2 lines in hockey who can score the f***in lights out and we're worried about a 3rd or 4th liner scoring? It helps but we dont' need it and man you know how many fans of how many teams would kill to be in our situation anyway? Hejduk's 4 million dollars and do we really want him? We don't need to pack ourselves full of top 6 guys until we have more than 6 of them. Then it's bye bye to someone to the limbo of the 3rd line, where expectations are high and it's too hard to achieve anything and then all of a sudden we'ev got a new scapegoat. If Hejduk was available when we had more money we wouldn't go for him, we'd go for a real viable long term player. Who for 4 million scores more than 60 points and fits in with our system. I just look for him to not seriously f*** things up. For his role, I just want energy and a rest for the big name players. Just don't turn it over and be lazy. And I think this is also partly why we signed him. A lot of other players on the market had high upside but were prone to a lot of things that'd hurt us. We don't need that, we'ev got upside coming out of our ass. The Griffins are full of it. We're the Wings for pete's sake. We just wanted someoen who wouldn't throw the game away, for one year, and we got it.

what goalie would we get for williams and lebda? and why would you want hejduk without even knowing how he did last year? you know, i don't think i've appropriately thanked god recently that holland doesn't run the team like this

I think we've all gone way too overboard on the kid. It's snowballed into more of a reputation situation, where he's not as bad as our memory degradation would have us believe. He's not a bad player and will be playing a slightly different, possibly lesser role this time around. And here's the disclaimer for all the overreactors: I don't think he's a really good player. I'm not a fan. and it's for one season only, people so calm down. It's not like he's here for 2-5 years. He's just here to buy our young guys some more time, he already knows the system and overall if you've got a little perspective, isn't a horrible player. It makes sense to me. We barely have enough money right now, so why bother trying to sign some big name forward and screwing ourselves? By trade deadline, the same people calling for a new player NOW, will have wished we saved money because they'll want a new player THEN too. Why not wait for a year or two when we'll have more money and sign someone we really want, rather than just some schmoe who is the best at the moment. It takes more patience and I thank goodness it's something Holland has. We obviously dont' and I guess it's understandable, we want a new toy and waiting is no fun....but I think this signing is in the best interest of the team. Wait until we can make a real signing worth more to us in the long term. Who were our options anyway? Prospal? Zherdev? You're telling me we don't only want those two because they just happen to be the only good scoring options at the moment? If we had more money at a later date and thsoe two were brought up amongst other real scoring free agents, we wouldn't want them at all....and that's why Holland made this one year signing I think.

lmmfao the f*** are you talking about? i'm addressing everything you say and if i happen to miss something, please alert me and i'll f***in bold and red color my replies. there were other contenders who wanted him. he chose us. he said he very much liked our style of play and our tema atmosphere. he wanted to play for us long before we signed him. oh f*** you this is just insulting lol. YOU MUST BE HIGH, everyone in the hockey world knew it was a discount. f*** it was in most of the headlines or sub text of any article on the signing. this is like me saying datsyuk isn't a good player. it's almost too flat out wrong to even write a reply for. and lest you forget, he turned down multiple contracts that would've made him upwards of 40-50 million dollars at as much as 30% more per season than he was making here. even he and his agent acknowledged it. no, it's also a discount. why the f*** am i even having a conversation with someone like you, who is either just doing this on purpose to perpetuate an argument or is a complete retard? you, kiddo, just dodged half of my reply too. you're one to talk chicken s***

idiots? no. going along with the crowd? oh f*** yeah. who do you think is overrating crosby, fleury, or any number of players throughout history? plenty of players. theodore? huet? we could go on and on forever and crash the server with all the players given inappropriate praise. the term overrated at it's very heart comes from "hockey people" praising one player and failing ot praise another appropriately. it happens everyday. just because they wear a suit and speak on tv doesn't mean they're any more educated on this than some people online. as that blog quite obviously shows, if you'd dare actually read it. this is what we're talking about-you don't try to form arguments, you just either insult people without making a decent argument or just try to make jokes. it wasn't an insult. it truly sickens me that we even have to have this conversation on here. this is all? this is the end of your post? if you want to f***in argue brodeur as overrated or underrated, DO IT. or f***in leave. you're not doing anything other than just yelling at us that we're wrong with no evidence to prove any of it. you're just resorting to what most people do when they're wrong-tell us a larger group of people think something we don't, like large groups of people being wrong doesn't happen every minute of every day. the canadian media has drilled into our heads that winning is everything, and goalies get all the credit for team accomplishments, and you went right along for the ride. other people, chose to question it and saw that underneath it all, brodeur is a guy who sinks in the clutch, has some of the easiest shot quality of any goalie ever and can't carry a team.

they're heavily team based accomplishments. open your f***in eyes, go look at the blog i showed you. you're in for a massive surprise. Lidstrom is winning, so it's not like your accusations hold any water. they're just idiotic assumptions, you figured i just must be jealous or pissed a red wing is being contested as best. yeah, a spin job. IT'S ******* STATISTICAL FACTS AND FIGURES AND NONE OF IT IS STRETCHED OR MISLEADING. god, take gordie sid and ted out of your name, you make me sick. ok, let's take some things into account brodeur has won, behind the same f***in system he's always been behind. tim thomas this year won it being on one of the best teams in the league. hasek didn't win because he was on a bad team, that's only what makes it more impressive. he won because he did things no other goalie had ever done or will likely ever do again, with so little help. he was the most dominating goalie to ever play the game. that's what gets you 6 vezinas over the likes of cujo, roy and belfour. look at who won it befofr hasek, usually roy, belfour and fuhr. by no means bum teams. look at after-brodeur, theodore, thomas and kipper. also didn't play on outstandingly bad teams like hasek did. i dunno where this whole stupid perception of goalies getting more consideration on bad teams came from. if you put anyone else on those buffalo teams, they would've played like marc f***in denis and anyone who has even slightly studied hasek's career knows how impressive it all was. the hart is different than the vezina. the vezina will moreso go to a player regardless of team as i've just shown. hart, just goes to the highest scorer unless point totals were close. that's a constant. the two trophies are very different. if it's such a spin job howcome you couldn't refute any of it? it's a factual post which turns the average, casual fan on their head. like you. you've been following the other sheep and just realized marty may be overrated. get over it. you really sound like the guy who doesn't want to believe something look at the blog i showed you. it's all there. you'll see brodeur's average night is made up of 25 shots, the vast majority of which are from the point, easy angles and with no rebounds. they takeinto account the numbers nhl.com doesn't show you. and let's not get into his playoff performances. his accolades are team oriented and i don't see you doing much refuting at all my friend. you just yell insults with no real rebuttal. all i see from you, is `HE f***IN WON CUPS AND HAS THE MOST WINS AND SHUTOUTS!` which isn`t a real rebutal. go on. go to the blog i sent you. it`s all there. i want to see you argue against what he`s written. did you know hasek only lost to a team statistically worse than his twice, and the second only came in 2007, when we shouldn`t have even lost anyway. brodeur has routinely been beaten by teams worse than his. look it up. or we will.

no, it isn't. if you really and i mean really do your homework you'll see it's warranted. i would gladly take both of them over marty.

As a former amateur boxer, I was impressed by the punches he was throwing. Ericsson can hold his own. Esp considering he was shielding a wrist injury, because hockey fights will always require both hands, whether to punch or hold the jersey, or more cunningly, hold the other guys right hand. I've also seen many of his junior fights and the kid can fight.

Well I figured one of you would be around sooner or later. I highly suggest you check out brodeurisafraud.blogspot.com. It's one of the most informative blogs on the goalie position, which a lot of people reject but you'd be smart to take note. I really hope you're not one of his automatic defenders with a closed mind, not open to the fact Brodeur may be overrated. Which is most certainly is. It shows how his play has been behind the system and under pressure, he's not nearly as good as most think. Most of his accolades are highly team oriented.

rolf@point made thanks for playing not much for games under that rock huh? where were you when the entire hockey world s*** their collective pants over the massive contracts hossa turned down to be here. everyone knows that, why don't you just argue gravity or the sky being blue? just because chicago got him at a discount also, doesn't mean we didn't. rafalski made 2 mil more but that doesn't really drive home your point at all. and you still didn't acknowledge that you completely failed to really understand what i said.

This looks like it is one of those very rare times when the casual fan gets it right. Though he is still horribly overrated but it feels like a small few people start to realize this all the time. Sadly once he retires and the media does nothing but sing his praises, all his negatives will be wiped away with history, and all his positives will get two coats of wax (not just one) For example....not many casual fans remember Patrick Roy completing s***ting the bed during his last few seasons in the playoffs.

Whatshisname, that pansy ass ***** on Anaheim. Fairy Perry, yeah, he didnt think Ericsson could finish anything. This was before he got a nice look at the house lights being blocked out by Rigs fists.

I`ve been around a lot of concussed individuals and while tihs by no means makes me a medical expert, just from experience I would be shocked if he came back anytime before mid season. And if I had to guess I would say he will be out all season and likely will be the end of his career. I don`t see too many people predicting this sort of thing and I think it`s that not many of us want to believe it, but if he recovers from this enough to go out and be a defensive player like he was before, it`ll be a hell of a thing. Especially the way we like to be super careful with our players. At least there`s the positive of regaining what is it, 1.25 mil in salary.

Exactly. Cripes, finally someone sane. I wouldn't even put Marty top 5. I'd well take Hasek(any era), Tretiak, Roy, Cujo and even Belfour(who are both stupidly underrated) before him. He's a completely coddled product of the most defensive system ever and probably one of the most underrated offensive systems, too. did you know the 2003 Devils had a more productive offense than our beloved 2002 Wings?