Shady Ultima

I seriously can't understand how any Wings fan actually hates Toews. I can understand hating Kane, but Toews to me is like a little Yzerman. He'll be a real leader one day. Aside from that, other than the Wings, I don't MIND watching Chicago, Vancouver, Montreal, Boston and Ottawa (well, a few years ago). The teams I hate? Edmonton, Calgary, Pittsburgh and Toronto. The reason I hate Toronto, and anyone who lives in the Windsor/Essex area knows this, growing up, you were either a Wings fan, or a Leaf fan. There was very little in the way of other options, and it was crazy how harsh it would get. Because of that, I can only root for the Leafs to end up in the cellar until the Cubs win the World Series, and hell freezes over.

The thing is, it's not like that at all. There should not have been a whistle in the Hossa case, as the puck was in sight for longer than a second. In this case, the puck was covered.

There's such a thing as Sabres fans? I see what you're saying. But this situation is quite a bit different than the Hossa no-goal, from how I see it. The goalie had stopped the puck and had control of it. It was underneath his right pad. He KNEW it was, and was clamping down. Had his own player not crashed into him, the puck wouldn't have gotten loose. The ref saw the puck go into the goalie's pads. That's ALL he needs to see, and that's the end of the play. By the time the puck was in the net, it should not have been a goal. The play was dead when the goalie stopped the puck.

That's not how these things work. If a goalie has covered the puck with his glove, and the whistle goes, and he lifts his hand, and a player shoots it into the net... is that a goal too? The puck was covered, the play was over. The ref was not at fault here. He did the right thing. The puck was completely under the goalie, it had no way of moving at the time the whistle was blown. It slid into the net as the goalie was pushed aside, AFTER the whistle was blown. There's no way in HELL that's a goal. EVER.

Wow, that's almost as bad a mistake as Brad May's no-goal vs Dallas. Um... the goalie DID have control of the puck, at least until his own player came and knocked him out of the way.

The Irish Jig! Although, despite everything, Cleary feels like a poor man's Shanny to me a bit. He doesn't have all of what Shanny had, but he brings it. I dunno, just me.

Yea, for all the crap he takes, he's showing why he's a part of this team right now. He's playing like he did in the Olympics, and that's what we want. I hope he can turn this on come playoff time too.

Well, Macdonald has nothing to prove. He's never going to be a Detroit full-time goalie. If Osgood retires, and McCollum isn't ready yet (he isn't), we'll be bringing in some experienced back up goalie. But, I actually agree that with the teams we're playing next, we should be able to give Howie a rest. At least against Columbus. I think Atlanta is a lot better than most people are giving them credit for. But even if Howie does play the next game, it's not that HE is playing bad specifically. The whole team has played like s*** until the last 10 or 5 minutes of the last two games. Howie is great, but he's not the goalie god. He still needs his defense to bail him out sometimes.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ATTA BOY LIDS! PERFECT PLAY!

I really, 100% believed the game was over. Thank you Dats and Z for proving me wrong!

LIDS!

Lebda is better defensively than Green is. The guy should be a forward, he can't play back at all.

I don't think Dats has been our hardest working player. I think that goes to Cleary.

They have 2 more wins than us, and 5 more points, but they've played 3 more games. We have won more games than anyone else at this point. Of 17 games, we have 12 wins. In the west, Vancouver has 12 wins, with 20 games.

This is exactly the problem. You pay for the inferior product and the product WON'T get better. The people who make the money don't care about winning or losing. They care about money. Look at the Chicago Cubs. 102 Years since they won, and they make money, so they don't care to get better. That's not what he was saying at all. Maybe if you READ the post, and actually understand it, you wouldn't respond with such a snide comment. The problem is, that their blind loyalty to a poor quality tells the ownership that they don't have to improve. When a team is bad, the fans SHOULD stop paying money, otherwise, the team won't bother to get better. If Detroit was a last place team, I'd still watch on TV or my Computer, but I would not buy tickets or any other memorabilia. The fact that they sell out every game only encourages their ownership to put a s***ty product on the ice. It has nothing to do with their passion making them deserve to lose. It's that they continue to pump money into the pockets of people who ONLY care about money. A winning team is only as good as the money it makes. To compare Montreal residents to Toronto residents is ridiculous. Yes, both teams have hardcore fans. Have you ever BEEN to Montreal? The people there are crazy. ALWAYS. It's just a psycho city. Beautiful, and a lot of fun... but crazy. Toronto is a lot more business oriented, and so people are a lot more reserved. Try comparing New York to Miami. Miami is a party city, and is completely crazy, but New York is a work city and a lot more reserved.

I think the funniest part is that they are only focusing on the part about him being a protective father. I thought that the bigger issue here is that he is basically showing that if he hates a player, that player is f***ed in this league. Concussion? It was a clean hit. I'd hate/love to see someone 'Bertuzzi' Savard now. See if THAT deserves a suspension. I wish, I really do, that we could do something, ANYTHING about this bulls***.

The more interesting part on there would be Mark Streit. I'd like to have Iginla, but there's no real way it's possible. People were actually mentioning giving up Franzen. Franzen is way better than Iginla come playoff time.

I hope that Smith develops as I've heard talk of him doing so. Ericcson, Kindl and him all have a lot of potential. None of them are the next Lidstrom, but hopefully, the three of them, in the future can work together to fill in the gap left by Lids.

Man, I think it's interesting just how much respect Illitch has for the people around him. Some owners would have told him that their word was final.

Yea, I had thought it was 09 too, and was kinda confused about it. But I agree with most of what they said... especially that it hurts just thinking about it. Anyone else have the feeling from that interview we might have Lids for another 2 years? I'd love it if he COULD play until he was 55 at this level though.

I don't think we 'took the night off' at all. The first two periods were fantastic, fast paced hockey. The back to back games is what killed us, because in the third it was very noticeable that we completely just slowed down, especially in the defensive zone.

That's not possible. If Vancouver and Detroit are seeds 1 and 2, they cannot possibly meet prior to the third round. 1 vs 8 2 vs 7 3 vs 6 4 vs 5 no matter what happens, 1 will play either 4, 5, 6, or 7. Number 2 will play 3, 4, 5, 6 or 8.

I agree, unless some MAJOR flukes happen, this could definitely be the WCF.

ABBY! I was soo hoping for some fights tonight!

So, now that Modano, Abs and Cleary are playing together on the third line and kicking ass, while Hudler sits, lots of threads are popping up about dumping Hudler. Well, last year, there was a 'Bertuzzi is lazy and he sucks' thread, and he showed that he can play, and has earned his role on this team. I was a fan of Hudler in the past, and was sure he would be good coming back, but so far (yes, I know 11 games in) he has yet to show that he is even NHL-Caliber anymore. I know Eva will be on this thread like a fly on s*** within three minutes probably, but Hudler needs to either get better NOW... or we need to find a player who we can get for him. Much like Leino, while he had potential, neither player seemed to fit into Detroit's system, and perhaps Hudler should be traded to a team where he will get top 6 minutes and will be an important piece.