mmamolo

how the f*** is that possible

I guess the thing that bugs me in a way is that Stuart, or whoever, shouldnt be forced into that situation. If you get into a little scrum and you decide for the better of your team you'll take a couple of punches to the face to draw a penalty you shouldnt get an automatic 2 minutes. In that case Stuart really didnt deserve a penalty and we should have had a PP if they were going to call anything. It's lame that in those situations they give a penalty to both guys no matter what. That being said, if you know that's the case, f***in punch away and earn your penalty

Im all for rough stuff. I'd mcuh rather have seen Stuart throw some back in Morrow's face cause you knwo they're both getting 2 anyways. All I'm saying is that in situations like that, and not just cause Morrow threw more punches than Stuart, if one person is doing far more than the other they shouldnt both get called. Morrow instigated the altercation and should there for be penalized. But you're right, Stuart should have just knocked Morrow around some too cause the refs are always going to give each guy two minutes so if you're going to get a penalty you may as well deserve it.

yeah no s*** eh...the nhl refs always pull that s***. Morrow punches him three times in the face and Stuart shoves him once and they both go. Maybe the refs should grow some balls and call the one who is instigating the altercation

jesus, that was ridiculous

just unstoppable right now

the justin.tv stream is super choppy for me but the atdhe one is working very smoothly. It's just not very good quality picture wise

with the way these refs have been calling penalties so far that should have been a slash on cleary's breakaway

yeah no kidding...that was just as much of a trip as the May slash or Rafalski phantom hook. I cant handle strict or s***ty refs....so long as they are consistent

bulls*** penalty and a bad bounce...not a great start for us. jesus, talk about a soft slash. Another weak penalty call

anyone else's justintv stream really choppy? the atdhe one is working smoothly but the quality is kinda s***ty

Break out game by Leino. Wings win 4-1 Leino scores all four and gets both assists on each goal. He finishes the night with 4 goals and 8 assists. You heard it here first

As we all know teams cannot go over the salary cap for next season by signing players to extensions during the current season. A window exists in the off season where a team is allowed to go over the cap so long as they are within the cap limit by season's start. I'd imagine that the Hawks want to get deals with Kane, Toews and Keith done as soon as possible but not at the expense of makign roster moves now in order to be cap compliant for next season. With their current situation I really don't see how they can sign all three for approx $13.5M (according to capgeek.com).

There are a lot of factors that contribute to a player's number being retired...especially at the Joe. Not only do you need to be HOF caliber but you need to have had a huge impact on the team during yoru tenure, which Shanahan did. However, if you look at the list of retired numbers in Detroit one thing that you'll notice is that each and every guy demonstrated a very high level of loyalty to the game and to the franchise. Not only were they all winners but they all put the team ahead of themselves in order to win. Most of the retired numbers had long, long tenures with the Wings and are remembered as the face of the franchise during their stint. Maybe Shanahan's Red Wing legacy is overshadowed a bit by Yzerman and Lidstrom but the fact is Shanahan was a key cog in the Red Wings wheel but he wasn't the main cog. He is a hall of famer but will not have his number retired at the JOe. The Wings have high standards in order to have your number reitred, we're not the Avalanche who retired Ray Bourque's number after one year with the club. Talk about taking somethign away from the honour.

After looking through some stats and reading some daily Red Wings articles NIklas Kronwall's stats popped off the page. Currently he sits at 3 on the team in points with 13 in 18 games played, behidn only Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. That currently puts him on pace for 59 poitns on the season which will be an improvement on an already solid year last year with 53 points. Here's the link to an interesting article: Niklas Kronwall

Although I do agree with what you’re saying, to a point, I think the main difference between the Franzen/Zetterberg deals and the Hossa deal is when the contract ends. Both Franzen and Zetterberg’s deals end at the 40 year mark, which it is not inconceivable for a player to play in the NHL until he is 40. Hossa’s deal extends until he is 42. On top of that he only makes $1M/year in years 9 -12 (from age 38-42). In today’s league there are very few players who play until the age of 42 so I think the thinking is that it is far more reasonable to imagine Hossa retiring before his contract is up than it is for Franzen or Zetterberg and since all these deals were signed before each player has turned 35 if they were to retire their cap hits are washed off the board. Although it’s not a written rule I have to believe the ‘upper boundary of absurdity’ has to be what to an age where a reasonable person would think a career could extend to. All that being said, I also tend to think it’s a different situation when signing an established player of the age of 28-30 to a long term contract (10-12 year) compared to signing 21 year olds (Kane and Toews) to career contracts. The only way contracts like this would benefit the Hawks and Kane and Toews would be to sign deals that would extend until they are at or just over expected retirement ages (approximately 28-40). Therefore, the Hawks would have to sign these guys to say 19-20 year deals with cap hits of say 4M. Problem with that is since the duration is so lengthy even if you front load the contracts you need to have an extended period at the end of low salaries to offset the high early and medium years. It’s all weighted averages. It’s not so easy to do when you have so many years of high salaries. Simply put, I don’t think contracts like Franzen’s, Zetterberg’s, Pronger’s, and Hossa’s will really help the Hawks in this case.

I thought everyone would enjoy it

I dont think he'll ever lead the team in poitns while Datsuk and Zetterberg are here but he definitely has a shot to lead the defensemen in scoring, that's for sure. If he continues on his hot streak I wouldnt be surprised to see him get some first unit PP time. In some ways I almost feel like it would be good to put Rafalski on the second PP unit at times because I think he can be a better passer than Kronwall. I wouldnt mind seeing: Lidstrom - Kronwall PP Unit 1 Rafalski - Ericsson PP Unit 2 Both units have a great passer and a good shooter. Plus Rafalski and Lidstrom both have seeing eye shots at times.

I have to give it to Bettman, I really think he handled that interview pretty well. I'm easily a very strong advocate against Bettman and a lot of the decisions he has made during his tenure as Commissioner and although he doesn't always posses great soft skills while being interviewed you can't argue with some of the points he made. Granted, some things he said were said directly to deflect away from the question at hand but he does raise some good points. I was impressed with soem of his answers but I think he'd get a lot farther with the media and fans if he explained things a little more clearly. I felt like I had to read in between the lines a lot and that's even on answers where I was givign him the benefit of the doubt. A lot of times ppl in positions like his will use vague answers to circumvent answering the real question but in opportunities to make his case that much more reasonable he doesn't always come at you with enough to persuade you.

Right now that seems like a bit of a stretch but his numbers have improved every year he has been in the league. Plus with Lidstrom and Rafalski's offensive production soon to be declining Kronwall will be looked at to pick up the slack. I definitely think it's possible.

If their three bgi RFAs were to sign for those amounts, listed above, that's the only way it could conceivably work without dishing away tons of other roster players. but seriously, I would be absolutely blown away if all three of these guys agree to udner market value contracts like this. Duncan Keith at $3.5M is insane. Both Toews and Kane could easily get $6M on the market. You think over an approximate 8 year deal each guy is going to leave $1.5M/yr on the table. They'd be leaving $12M on the table a piece. That's insane. Just look at comparable players around th leauge who are that age, produce the way they can and have the potential upside that they do. I think they could easily demand $5M/yr on long term deals. If Chicago is going to sign all three of these guys they're going to have to move ppl. Obviously it has greatly been discussed about but movign Campbell and Huet would be their first moves jsut because of the shear value of their contracts. If Campbell can be moved then they really have a shot, assumign they take back a contract that expires at the end of this season. If they can't move Campbell or Huet they are going to have to look to move players like Sharp, Versteeg and Byfuglien. I think it would reflect very poorly on a team to sign a guy to a 12 year contract only to trade him away the next year even if they did win the cup. I think that would realyl hurt their chances of attracting UFAs in the future. Plus, then they'd be stuck with Kopecky without the bonus of having Hossa. Maybe you're right though, but I think it'd be a stretch

Somethign has to give. Look at the rest of the free agents: RFAs: Patrick Kane Jonathan Toews Andrew Ladd Ben Eager Colin Fraser Duncan Keith Niklas Hjarlmarsson Jason Hendry Antti Niemi UFAs: John Madden Adam Burrish Andrew Ebbett It'll definitely be itneresting to see how this all works itself out.

It was an interesting read but I still don't udnerstand how Stan Bowman thinks this is all going to work. Obviously I don't have the same in depth udnerstanding of the cap as the Blackhawks do but somethign doesn't add up here. Chicago's Cap Situation With only 13 players signed to deals next year totalling $43.392M I don't udnerstand how they can afford these three RFAs. With about $13.5M in cap space they'll have to either make some trades or have these three sign discounted contracts. I would imagine each of Toews and Kane would get at the very minimum $5.5M/year and Keith, again at the very minimum, $4.5M/yr. More realistically I think Kane and Toews are looking at $6M/yr and Keith at $5M/yr.

It's funny because while I was watching the Leafs game on Saturday on CBC here in Canada in between periods they showed this little clip about how PJ Stock was doing this ten cities in ten days European tour. In the clip they showed PJ Stock at the airport meeting Peter Forsberg and Marcus Naslund and they exchanged pleasantries. A friend of mine and I joked about how they'd probably want to play together and make NHL comebacks on the same team so they could play in the Olympics. Little did we know it would end up beign with Modo instead of an NHL club. Go Figure

I was just looking through the NHL standings and noticed a few interesting facts that I thought you all might like to hear. Goals For Per Game: 3.39 Ranked 4th in the NHL Goals Against Per Game: 2.89 Ranked 19th in the NHL PP%: 24.7% Ranked 5th in the NHL PK%: 75.4% Ranked 26th in the NHL Shots Per Game: 33.9 Ranked 1st in the NHL Shots Against Per Game: 28.5 Ranked 7th in the NHL Faceoff %: 50.8% Ranked 12thin the NHL Henrik Zetterberg: In 18 Games 8 G 14 A 22 P, his 22 points ranks him 14th in the NHL