Lidstrom for life

Ok a couple things. First I don't know why the Rangers aren't planning on signing him but I doubt he has character issues considering he could have already turned pro but chose to go back to school and finish his degree, plus he is the co-captain of Michigan's team. Second he is not a one way player, he is probably the best defensive forward in the CCHA (yes better than Riley Sheahan). Hagelin would be a great pick up.

According to ESPN the attendance for the 6 game home stand looked like this: Calgary: Attendance: 19,636 (97.9% full) Minnesota: Attendance: 20,066 (100.0% full) St Louis: Attendance: 20,066 (100.0% full) Colorado: Attendance: 20,066 (100.0% full) Edmonton: Attendance: 20,066 (100.0% full) Phoenix: Attendance: 19,207 (95.7% full) Obviously it hasn't actually been 100% full so I assume that ESPN gets these numbers based on the number of tickets sold not actual attendance. I think Theophany is right and most of the empty seats are the ones owned by corporations that go unused. http://espn.go.com/nhl/boxscore?gameId=301121005

Babcock said he wants the extra size on the top pair against Getzlaf. Edit: Centerice beat me to it!

When I read the title of this thread I thought it was something real, sounds like something the NHL would do...

Home team picks. Also would they get mad? I don't know the statistics but your odds of scoring on a 5 on 3 are probably about 50/50, some teams might choose to try and kill it.

I know this would never happen but I think it would be interesting if, instead of shootouts, the game went to a 5 on 3 situation for two minutes after overtime. If you score on the 5 on 3 you win, if you kill the 5 on 3 you win. IMO it would have the same excitement level as a shootout but it would make it a lot more of a team effort. Also I am totally in favor of the 3 points for a regulation win, 2 for an overtime win system.

Instead of my girlfriend putting her actual name into my list of contacts when I got my new phone, she put her name as "Zetterberg's Girl" That probably tells you all you need to know.

"But don't be shocked if the Wings make another move to secure another scoring forward at a bargain price." I would be pretty shocked if that happened actually. I am not quite sure what the author is thinking on that one.

I guess my original post was misleading. By "pretty damn good" I didn't mean Shea Weber, I meant a solid #5 or 6 defender. I am pretty optimistic that if we traded Miller we would be able to either A) trade Miller for that type of guy or B) sign a free agent that fits that bill if we shed Miller's salary. I think I over reacted to the idea that we might trade Miller. It made me sad.

I am not saying I expect that to happen I am saying that is the only way I would approve of trading Miller.

He is signed through the end of next year.

I would be surprised if the hawks won the central, but I would also be surprised if they didn't make the playoffs comfortably. Turco actually had a slightly better save % than Niemi did last year and they still have the reigning Norris trophy winner leading a pretty solid group of defesemen playing behind those two good lines.

If we are shopping Drew Miller we better get a pretty damn good defenseman in return, or sign one with the cap space it opens.

I think the argument that we shouldn't sign Mitchell because it takes away Kindl's ice time is pretty weak. Kindl would get plenty of ice time as the # 7 defenseman. In 08/09 Meech and Chelios were the 7th and 8th defensemen and they played in a combined 69 games. Last year we had 7 defensemen who played in at least 48 games. Plus, signing Mitchell might put us in a position where we have enough quality defensemen that we could occasionally rest either Lidstrom or Rafalski on the second night of a back to back. Also, even if we don't sign Mitchell, Kindl could end up being the 7th defenseman anyway behind Janik or a lesser free agent signing.

Why? Its the off season, this is no time for being realistic.

I am bumping this thread because the 1997 final is on in 30 minutes.

All three players on the Holmstrom-Zetterberg-Datsyuk line will score at least 20. Franzen will hit that mark easily and I think Filpulla will be able too as well as he should have more of an offensive role as the second line center. I love Bertuzzi but I see him as being more of the set up/net front guy so I am not expecting a ton of goals out of him. Hudler should certainly hit 20 and I think either Cleary or Modano will but not both. This is of course assuming we stay pretty healthy but I think we should have 7 guys that hit the 20 goal mark.

This made my day! How long until the season starts?!

I found some interesting statistics, it didn't seem worthy of making a thread about so I decided to throw them in here. For all the talk that VS and NBC were good ideas and how hockey is more popular now then ever we still have these statistics: Game 6 of the 2010 Stanley cup finals = 8.28 million American viewers Deciding game of 2009 world series = 22.3 million American viewers World Cup Final (A sport which Americans are said to not care about and a game that didn't involve Team USA) = 24.3 million American viewers Game 7 of 2010 NBA finals = 28.2 million American viewers Source: http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2010-world-cup-final-most-watched-soccer-match-us-history

Edit: I decided to just remove my post because I refuse to believe there is any truth to this.

The wings are not allowed to pay for college players expenses (plane tickets, hotel, etc) to attend the camp so they can but they have to do so on their own dime which is why some are there and others are not. Also I thought this would make a lot of LGW readers happy, from a George Malik article on mlive: "Two players nearly dropped the gloves today, but they simply thought better of it and skated away. No sense in trying to beat up a teammate. It was pretty cool to see." He didn't say which players though.

Brendan Smith seperated his shoulder today and is likely out for the rest of the camp http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2010/07/red_wings_lose_brendan_smiths.html I am not sure how much of an impact this will have on him potentially making the roster this year, hopefully he will be fine in time for TC.

So if this works out for San Jose are they just going to let Devin Setoguchi go? I am not sure they will be better than they were last year. Hjalmarsson is an upgrade over a 40 year old Blake so their D will be better but their goaltending situation is much worse and now their offense isn't going to be as good as they also lost Malhotra and have not signed, nor will they have the cap space to sign, a decent replacement forward for either of those guys so I am really not that worried about San Jose. They only have 5 forwards signed that had at least 20 points last year (Draper had 22 points last year for goodness sake). Does anyone else agree? Or am I missing something?

I forgot that we won that game without Datsyuk or Lidstrom. That is incredible.