Octopus's Garden

It's time to sit Hudler again. He's completely worthless right now. Or at the very least, get him off the power play ... if you refuse to touch anyone, even when you're a man-up, you shouldn't be on the ice.

At least he didn't hurt his beer drinkin' hand. 3 weeks to go ****** it up in Chicago! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I know this won't come as a surprise to anyone, but the officiating in the Pens-Sens game has been an absolute disgrace. The Senators were called for 2 penalties on the same play, giving Pittsburgh a 4-minute PP ... just as the first one ended, Pittsburgh took out an Ottawa PKer with a pick in the middle of the zone, then scored. They finally called a penalty on Pittsburgh and then the Pens proceeded to blatantly high stick a guy in the face without a call. This is bad, even for a Penguins game.

Make a f***ing save Howard.

RT @KyleHanlin: Canes get D Ian White and F Brett Sutter from Calgary. D Anton Babchuk and F Tom Kostopoulos head to Flames Discuss.

Let me preface this by saying that I've survived this Michigan football season by convincing myself that it's good the handful of freshman and couple of hobos they've had to play on defense will make next year's team better by experience. So ... Howard had to play a ton last season. Guys like Helm, Cleary, Abdelkader had more responsibilities. Drew Miller and Patrick Eaves were adds just to fill the roster. But! All that's done now is give Detroit four-plus lines that are lethal plus added depth and forced some young role players to grow up faster. Not to mention all the rest everyone got with the injuries and early playoff exit. I'm officially calling 2009-10 a major key to developing the Red Wings for the next 4-5 years. So everyone can feel better about last year.

Great, great shift there. Kiss the Avs momentum goodbye.

This is part of why the Caps crap out in the playoffs every year. Their division SUCKS. You put a decent team in that division and it's an automatic 100 points. They barely have to try until the postseason.

Nice Stuart. Get those dudes out of there

Oof ... where ya going Jimmy?

I'd love to see this year end with Detroit beating the Caps in the finals. I really cannot stand these guys.

Friday, October 29 Montreal at NY Islanders Carolina at NY Rangers Philadelphia at Pittsburgh Buffalo at Atlanta Edmonton at Chicago X2 New Jersey at Anaheim Saturday, October 30 Nashville at Detroit Pittsburgh at Carolina Florida at Montreal Boston at Ottawa NY Islanders at Philadelphia NY Rangers at Toronto Buffalo at Dallas Atlanta at St. Louis Chicago at Minnesota Columbus at Colorado Tampa Bay at Phoenix Washington at Calgary New Jersey at Los Angeles Anaheim at San Jose

Fun to look at the standings and see that Detroit will be in last place in the Central after St. Louis closes out Nashville. This division is going to be a beast all year.

Probably would then go to 4-on-3. Like it does if a team takes 2 penalties in 4-on-4, it doesn't go to 4-on-2, it goes to 5-on-3. That was a lot of numbers.

MLive update indicates Cleary's Ok. So ... yay.

Obviously, the bigger problem at this point is that the injuries are starting to pile up and it's been 4 games. Franzen, Rafalski, Big Rig ... Draper, I guess. This team cannot afford to get off to another terrible start and it's a killer to have to scratch and claw into the playoffs. Let's just hope that's the end of it, they go get 2 in Phoenix Saturday, and we can put these last 2 behind us.

Doesn't sound like an overly serious concussion (if that makes sense) -- if he was doing interviews, that's a good sign, I guess.

Looking for vid ... Hjalmarsson gets 5 and a game for a ridiculous hit from behind on Jason Pominville. Pominville taken off on a stretcher, pretty sure he was unconscious for at least a minute. Looks like this is rolled into the GDT ... missed that before I posted, apologies. Feel free to boot this post if it's repetitive

4 shots. Blech.

Well that was bound to happen. Colorado's been better in this period.

Ozzie?

That was the worst fight ever, Janik. Dear lord.

Every time one of these longtime guys retires it makes me feel old. I was in high school when Malts came to the Wings ... stupid growing older.

Holy crap, Stuart. Sloppy.