numberthirtynine

When was the last time Nick pissed away our teams playoffs with horrible play in the clutch? Yeah. That's what I thought. Marty is a sham. Play on NJ long enough and you're bound to win a few cups. Nick on the other hand is about as close to perfect as it gets. This isn't even close.

My point was that it's not impossible. I didn't think that was difficult to understand. Look familiar? Or what about our goalie last season? Not Ozzie. Ty. He said he was getting bigger offers elsewhere but came here for slightly less. Even this season he could've waited it out and got a deal worth well over a million but he just keeps signing with teams for nothing. Hasek's career with Detroit was a lot of the time for less money than he could've pulled elsewhere, he just wanted a winner. That said, that was never even my point. I was saying it's not out of the question, but this board is just filled with people who will throw logic and interpretation out the window in favor of a fun little argument. It's entirely possible to think a player may come here for a slight discount. I'm not saying he should, because ripping on people who look like they demand players do that seems to be the trendy thing to do nowadays. I'm also saying that since he didn't mince words and directly brought up the Wings as a team he's always liked and wished to play for, that makes it that much more likely. And I guarantee the agent of the players looking at signing here aren't stupid, they tell these players they'll be taken care of. Again, read what I said. I'm just saying it's not impossible. I'm not saying he should, or would, or hate him because he won't. smh...the f*** are you talking about?

Yeah, ridicules. It only happens on a consistent ******* basis on this team. And far be it from me to assume that, and read what I said closely, I assume there's a chance he might. I didn't say he would. I didn't say he should. I implied that given the circumstances it's silly to assume that because he wouldn't take less to play in some s***hole, he won't take a little less to play here. So stick it up your ass pal. It's a reasonable post no matter how bored you are.

St Louis isn't bad but I'd take a lot of Wings over him. Lecalvier is very good. But we've got passers just as good on this team as him and we're better than Tampa at everything else, like chemistry, environment for players, coaching, defense, everything. Prospal could do very well here with Fil or Pavs feeding him passes depending on the lines and scenarios.

Hossa didn't fit in, in retrospect, so I think having Fil center the second line might be better for chemistry. So I think sometimes we will, sometimes we won't. I think we'll see more of Z/D on the top line and Mule/Cleary/Fil on the second line than anything else, but it'll be switched up now and again. The wild card I think will be Leino if he starts scoring like he did before. He may force Babcock to put him onto one of the top two lines. Same if Homer plays like s***. He does a lot of things stat sheets don't keep records on, I know, but that can only hold up so long. I could see Cleary playing with Z/D while Leino goes to the second line sometimes and if it works out, he stays.

He was asking for more money from them, not us. We don't know what he'd be willing to take to play here. He did say he'd always wanted to play for us.

No they're doing fine. As a way to separate players with equal points, goals is fine. But when it comes time to judge the player, aside from stats on a sheet where the goals matter less than his style of play and points, the goals mean s***. I already brought this up. Not everyone is Hank or Pavel. Almost no one is. Aside from Brind'Amour Selke type players are always in that 40 point range. Playing D will just take a toll on your stats unless you're a superstar which I'm sure you won't condemn Fil for not being. Lest we bring salaries into the conversation, but don't forget who is getting paid around 7 mil until they're old men and who is getting paid 3. More than Franzen, Sammy and Hudler? s*** yeah I'd say so. There's a reason those three aren't playing damn near the most PK minutes per game. A second line with players bouncing all over the place. I've always liked how Babcock will get different players with other different players on differing lines to see how it works out but it doesn't always help every player. Fil really suffered from never finding chemistry with anyone. For a kid who is still trying to find himself here we've not exactly been accommodating. Hudler, probably our least defensive forward who has been called lazy without it being an inside joke. Yeah great comparison. Fil's been given chances in the way that stats will make it appear he has but when you're young and being asked to play defensively all the time, not to mention kill penalties more than anyone outside Draper, you expect him to play like Hudler? Why not examine what the relevant players do when they play the whole game at even strength(and don't kill as many penalties). Hudler - 29 even strength points Sammy - 20 ES points Cleary - 34 ES points Filppula - 36 ES points Hell why not look at Franzen and Hank? They had 40 and 43 respectively. And Hank not to mention was only +13. Lower point production? Plus/minus only what? 3 or 4 away from Fils? Sounds like a guy playing non stop D to me....but got PP chances. I left out Pavs because we can and should all agree, he's a freak of nature who is the best player in the league today everything considered. Now you're telling me you don't think those point totals will increase of he stops playing almost 2 minutes a game on the PK, almost more than anyone else, and gets that time replaced with PP time like most of our big guys get? C'mon man. You don't think, if given at least a minute per game, he wouldn't product a PP point once every 4 games and go up to 60 points this season? He could do that by accident with the kind of guys he's playing with. I think his playoff run proved to many people he's quite obviously maturing, now if he builds some decent chemistry with some linemates and maybe sees one of those guys on the PP with him, it'll nto only be great for his point totals but it'd be more than we'd given him before. Some guys just take awhile and this site os so wrong so often when predicting stuff like this that if we think Fil will fall flat, s***, we'd better prepare for 60 points. Wow, I'm here to have a neutral unbiased discussion and you're obviously out to paint Fil as something he's not. For someone who posts here with such an arrogant attitude I thought you'd bring more than politician tactics. You bring up his rank in scoring but why not anything else? How the hell is 47 seconds a fist full of PP time? Lmmfao. That's Tomas Kopecky type time on the PP. The f*** is he supposed to do with that?I don't care if he was given 1:49 one year. It was one year. For a developing kid. Christ almighty talk about exhibiting the type of impatience this board is known for. Look at his PK time for f***s sake, that just proves my point. Yeah it had nothing to do with getting Hossa and us happening to have other very good PP options. You don't play much D on the PP and for an offensively based player like Hudler, that'd be his bread and butter. Now that Hudler is gone why do you think we signed a penalty killer? Maybe to get Fil off of the PK. You seem to have trouble interpreting what someone is saying. That's also neat. god you're such a schmuck. get over yourself. if you got paid for sitting here and smelling your own farts it'd be a full time job.

Zherdev at this point is a hell of a lot better than Cleary or Sammy were. So it's not that much of a risk. His whole laziness thing is blown out of proportion. I'd like to see how he works on a winning team under a coach who can get a guy moving. Unless someone has some better ideas, cause all our Mike Grier and Manny Malholtra "we love underdog no name grinders" dreams are way too optimistic. A lazy Zherdev may well be better than most options we have out there.

Im for Zherdev. Why not, he already said he always like the Wings, hometown discounts while not expected, are not surprising. He could realize his potential here and if he doesnt play how we want him to, let his contract run out, which would likely be a couple years anyway, and send him packing. We were home to Sammy for how long, and suddenly were picky about Zherdev....wow. Give it a shot. I can only imagine how many people wouldve siht themselevs and called for Hollands head when he signed Cleary and look at him now.

No, he's 6th. I don't give a good f*** about a little technicality that allows you to all-too-gleefully call him 8th in scoring. 40 points is 40 points. The goals only matter in game day topics, and arguments when overreactors want a scape goat. Points are points. Look at Datsyuk, or players like him like Thornton and Savard. Theyre points guys but arent goal scorers. Fil is that type of player. Hell from the first couple games I saw from Fil in GR I could see a ton of Datsyuk in him. I still do. I guess my rant was cute enough that you dodged the whole thing. Fil should not be receiving any flack for what he is doing. He is going out there and doing what he has been told. Considering the circumstances I ran down, he actually has done damn well. 60 points is not out of the question if they actually give him PP time instead of putting him out there on the PK and then telling him next shift to play D the whole time. Now that I think about it, Eaves signing may be a good way to egt Fil off the PK and onto the PP where he shouldve always been anyway.

for anyone who thinks he will go to the second line, you're dreaming. no matter how bad homers post season, he's going to be in the top 6 at the beginning of next season. babcock doesn't run this team the way some of you would-he's patient and realizes you don't forget how to do the little things homer does in one 2-month chunk. eaves will be a third line guy unless he starts scoring like crazy.

f***in eh, good to see someone from my hometown. i played against him years ago as a kid. never thought much of it but heard about shi success after i quit to play football.

I just think you are too damn full of yourself to see your expectations are skewed. Ur a condescending knowitall Drake. He`s sixth among forwards in ice time and ends up sixth among forwards in points. Well holy f***. And he played about as much on the powerplay as Kopy for f***s sake. That right there will kill point totals to the point where no one should ***** about 40. Also let us not forget he killed penalties more often than Pavel Datstuk and was right up there with Hank and Drapes. Hell, more time than Hank. And look at his linemates. So lets sum this up. He is a young kid who arguably is just coming into his own, trying to play defense while even strenth, never sees the power play, while trying to score at the same time, while spending almsot two of those sixteen minutes on the PK...with no consistent linemates. Im not sure what the hell you were expecting. 40 points is about indicative only of his circumstances and considering, he did pretty well actually. No wonder the guy blew up in the playoffs like he did. Not all players are Pavel Datsyuk and can score and play defense simultaneously. Well s***, no one else is Pavs. Who else gets Selke nods while also being up for the Hart? Playing too much D even hurt Hank's totals this season. Fact is more often than not it'll hurt a player. Far more players will have lower point totals while being asked to play D than players who won`t. Look no further than our own beloved Steve Yzerman whoj still scored well but we could all see how it lowered his totals. You`re pissing on him for not being able to score more than 40 points while playing D but are treating him like someone who is only able to score 40 anyway and it`s contradictory. Maybe if he played a Crosby or Ovechkin style of nothing but offense, he`d score 60 and I`m not sure many people would be complaining then. Fil is so quietly valuable to this team and so underappreciated. Just a shame around here when we get bored, we take sides rather than be objective. Which is funny, considering we are all so damn obsessed with not appearing biased that we dont even truly speak our minds.

Hands don't determine points, that's just silly. Fil's hands are fine, we're just spoiled. If hands determined points why the f*** does Jussi Jokinen score 50 points a season? Same with Mike Ribeiro. What about Dan Cleary, who has hands like lead bowling balls but scores in the neighborhood of those two guys anyway? If we were an all out offensive team like most teams in this league, and told Fil to just skate up and score at any cost, don't you think he'd score a little more than 40 points? He's a defensively responsible player and whether or not you agree on how well he does, he's still trying to be one. That takes away points, and so does a lack of real power play time. We're so f***in unreasonable that sometimes I can't take reading some of the s*** that passes for an opinion here. We want defensively responsible forwards who score a s***load of points, and we want it every damn game or we hate them. Fil's obviously worth something if we have these kind of expectations for him but man, let's give him some decent time on the ice and see what he does.

Fil to me looks like the most likely candidate on that list. He's got the best supporting cast of anyone on there and the best chance to do something. The rest seem like they're a year or two off or won't make the jump Fil will. the media is usually off by a year or so on these guys anyway.

Sometimes I think we've got the wrong people running these front offices. They know the technical aspect of coming to work and wearing the suit and knowing who to talk to and what to say....but when it comes down to it, I think the previous couple of seasons are proof that complicated mathematical figures confuse the f*** out of these men. Alot of folks online are sports knowitalls and everyone has an opinion but I think we can all agree even the smartest ones would be in over their head running a sports team-but in this case, just from a math and sensible decision standpoint, I think there are some people much more qualified than some of these schmuck GMs to make moves like this. Sports in general, needs to drop the whole attitude of giving office jobs to ex players, just because they were players. Because that's NOT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON. Cripes, the NFL has done this so badly they've completely f***ed up most of the league from a talent building perspective. The sport is practically inbred. I won`t even start on how bad it is in the southern states. I half expect to see Leatherface on the sideline. Yet they're so insanely successful in spite of it, no one does anything. The color guys, the analysts, a ton of writers, too many coaches and a wack of GMs are all ex players and are as stupid as rocks, and they don't even have a real cap to deal with(just look at the DHB situation in Oakland). Now look at the NHL-we can't succeed like the NFL can in spite of stupidity like this and we certainly, and quite obviously, have a more complicated and tight cap to work with. And a league that is actual competition. So unless owners start hiring GMs who can actually work with the salary cap, a load of teams are going to be going south for a good while and it`ll be easy to see coming. Tallon`s firing was easier to spot a mile away than a two mile long meteor.

Oh and if anyone on the face of the planet thinks fleury is better than Osgood, you're out of your f***in mind.

I'd be more inclined to tag this BS if we didn't have Special Gary running our league. Nothing much would shock me with him.

Fleury at 4th rotflmmfao Oh man you can just tell the Cdn media has been waiting, just waiting for this guy to win something so they can jump aboard. If you don't live here you don't see it as much maybe, but our media here loves the smell of our own s***. Most have a subtle biggoted undertone to their opinions while others just flat out say it(Clarke, Cherry). We will take any opportunity to lunge at the balls of anyone from our country and spit on anyone who opposes us, which to me would actually be more alright if we weren't so phony about it. We put on this facade, this show like we're the neutral ones. We also have a sickening attitude like "well we're Canada, so you don't worry your little heads about opinions, we'll tell you what to think". Incredibly condescending. The only ones I can stomach are Ron Mclean, who dare not even speak out of turn when Overlord Cherry is around, and Kelly Hrudey, who knows the game and speaks his mind more honestly and intelligently than the rest of the CBC cast, along with the whole staff of ESPN combined. So Fleury at 4th doesn't at all surprise me. The officials had been helping Pitt since before the playoffs even began and were going to until they won so I'm cautious as to which Pens I credit with much. Fleury to me, did sweet f*** all for them. He's your typical french Canadian goalie. Choke but make enough super flashy cool looking acrobat saves to keep people thinking you're great. Roy was the only one worth a s***. Fleury is a joke and a half. Guy sucks the whole playoffs, gets a free cup courtesy of Sid's real biological father and suddenly he's better than Luongo? Better than Getzlaf? Better than Pronger? GTFO. As sad as this is, it doesn't shock me. But he's to me, not even top 10. Fleury needs to send a bouquet of "thank-you" flowers to Hal Gill and every other Pitt defenseman who held, clutched, grabbed and interfered with our forwards all series long, and then those Dman need to forward it all to the NHL head of officials and Gary Bettman.

Well it sucks for Canada that we don't have a time machine to make these guys play for us now, the way they did then. Because players change over time. They both s*** the bed in the playoffs. Luongo is a great goalie but hasn't shown me anything under true pressure yet. And Brodeur has to be the most overrated goalie to ever strap on pads and no, I'm not kidding. The guy routinely loses to bum opponents and pisses away seasons with bad play in the postseason. Yeah yeah 3 cups, the way I see it, if you play on the most trapping, defensive oriented team in history which stats wise, does in fact give up the fewest scorign chances, you will win 3 cups eventually. For some reason no one wants to believe this and I know I'll be pointlessly flamed but look it up, it's all there. I've never been the hugest Osgood supporter but I say add him. He has proven he can step it up under pressure the past two seasons now. f*** Turco, he's good but not Olympic good. f*** Fleury, he "won" but Bettman knows why I put that in quotes(*ahem*manufacturedchampionion*ahem). Ozzy has proven time and again, when his D fails, he steps it up. The other two, do not. This is also why Sweden will have goaltending that will keep them in it. And did anyone else notice it said semen varlamov? lol semen....oh man.

I'd rather pay Jimmy that 150k to do what he's done in Grand Rapids than pay 600k to Nittymaki to do what he's done on other teams his whole career. Development in the Wings system is well, well worth that extra bit of money. And we sure won't pay Nitty to go wear a Griffins jersey.

I said IF. IF.

Does anyone truly want him back if he doesn't want to be here? That's the last thing I'd want. I say trade him or at least let him walk and get us picks. I don't want anyone here who doesn't want to be here.

I took one look at his pics ona google image search, and being Canadian, I'm fairly positive this kid is native(indian). You hear names like that all the time up here.

Holland said he's trying to trade a defenseman, why not try to trade one for a decent scoring forward? Toss in some picks and see if we can get a goal scorer. I like the way Brian Little plays, anyone think ATL would part ways with him for a Dman? They're a horrible defensive team and little is an RFA next season. That could help or hinder the possibility of the deal I supposed.