McAwesome

Big Rig jawing it up there, hopefully he gets his head out of his a$$ and does something to earn his place back in the lineup.

Got to love Sean Avery. I don't care too much for his off-ice antics, but the way he gets in the opponents' heads is priceless. When he waved his stick in Brodeur's face instead of screening him, that was epic, I wish I had thought of that when I played.

It really depends on which team shows up on a nightly basis, as others have said. If the team that played against Nashville shows up, we will make it going away, probably pull into a 5 or 6 seed even. If the team that played against Vancouver shows up, no way, not even with help. If the team that played against Colorado shows up, we will need some help, and unfortunately the teams ahead of us have been pulling away due to our struggles of late. I am confident that we still control our own destiny, but we absolutely have to play like it. Our top players have to play like our top players, and lately Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Franzen have been doing so. Filppula has got to step up his scoring, he's been getting good chances but has been snake-bit when it comes to finishing, he is just too talented to be trailing Helm, Eaves, and Miller in goal-scoring. Babcock needs to start alternating Osgood and Howard, Jimmy's proven he can handle the load, now it's time to get a more even rotation going, if not every other game then at least every third game or so for Osgood, otherwise we are going to be hurting is either one gets cold or has a melt-down in the first round (which seems to be almost a given with this franchise). This team is capable of winning 2/3 of their remaining games, and a 6 or 7 game winning streak wouldn't be unthinkable either. :fingerscrossed:

I lol'd. But seriously, big thanks to Matt and all the other admins for all that they do to give us a place to celebrate and lament the fortunes of the greatest team in the history of professional sports. Who would hack a hockey forum, seriously? Someone needs to find this Black Chicken character and teach him a lesson in some creative and poetic-justice way.

Actually, I think the term is depraved indifference, but I agree. Heatley plead out to a lesser charge of 2nd degree vehicular homicide and a number of other misdemeanor charges, though he was originally charged with 1st degree vehicular homicide, a felony, which if convicted would have put him in danger of being deported and seriously jeopardized his playing career. Not that I am defending Heatley by any stretch of the imagination, but the actions that led to Snyder's death were reckless and Heatley will forever have to live with that on his conscience regardless of what the legal system decided his fate would be. Is Heatley a murderer? No, murder implies intent, and no matter how reckless he was being, I don't think he meant to kill him. Is Heatley a killer? Yes, he is responsible for the death of another human being as a direct result of his actions. Some may see that as semantics, but it is a distinction nonetheless. Now that I have that out of my system, whoever made these videos obviously has a sense of humor, and on the Heatley video it looks like he did a good job of syncing the voice-over with the footage, but some of his other efforts (i.e Burke, Miller) were not very convincing. This guy will obviously not be winning any awards for editing or cinematography, but those videos were good for a chuckle, as is most of the conversation in this thread.

^This Hindsight is definitely 20/20. Filppula was signed to the deal he was with the anticipation that he would be the 2nd line center, and when he plays that role he is worth the contract IMO. Am I opposed to the idea of moving him if the right deal came along? No, as much as I like him as a player I realize this is a business and with very few exceptions, no one is safe in the current climate of free agency, salary cap, and the forced parity that we must deal with as fans. I also don't think that trading him for draft picks would be smart, granted we have some of the best scouting in the world, draft picks are a crap shoot and for every late round gem that Hakan Andersson & co find, there are as many if not more players that do not live up to their scouting. Hossa on the other hand, I never placed much faith in being able to keep him anyway. People say that it was a matter of a million dollars to keep him, but as others have pointed out, how many lifetime deals can one team afford to have? I guess I do not see the direct correlation that others see between keeping Filppula and Hossa signing with Chicago, but maybe that's just me. I think that the worst thing that happened to us over the off-season was Hudler skipping on his arbitration, that situation really hand-cuffed Holland in a way that no one could have anticipated. BTW, I voted for Filppula in the poll, too.

I'm not panicking yet, but I have to agree with you, things are getting a little more tense with every passing game, especially when we are literally playing for our playoff lives each night. It seems like every time we start to look like we are pulling it all together, we have a game like tonight where a couple of bad breaks seem to take all of the wind out of our sails and we implode. It's getting old fast, and if we have even one more game like tonight for the rest of the season, we will likely be out of the playoffs, and the way we have played this season we do not deserve to make the playoffs.

This is funny. Like him or hate him, it's entertaining to make fun of Crosby because there is no shortage of ammo.

What a great decision by Datsyuk, froze the entire Avs PK unit with that no-look drop pass, perfect shot by Lidstrom. Way to go, boys.

Even the Versus announcers could see that was a massive flop-job by Anderson. Can't say I'm surprised, just disappointed.

Franzen!!!!!

I do not share the blind hatred that some on this board display, but the answer to the OP question is a resounding NO, scoring the GWG in OT in the gold-medal game does little if anything to improve his image in my eyes. Is he a talented hockey player? Yes, no one can rationally deny that. Does he receive a lot of media attention? Yes, again no one can rationally argue that. Has he earned the amount of attention he receives? Not yet IMO, but winning the Cup and now the Gold go a long way in that respect. Does he display a lack of humility and respect for his opponents at times? Yes, many here can give specific examples, and while that is not the only reason I dislike him, it is one of the biggest. That being said, I do not dislike him any more or less than other players who have similar attitudes, and I doubt anything will change that, but I am not jaded or deluded enough to actually think he is not one of the best players of his generation and may go down in history as one of the greatest of all time, but that does not mean I have to like him, nor do I expect others to agree or disagree with me, this is the internet and everyone has an opinion.

That has to be one of the coolest things I have ever seen. How cool for that kid to be able to hang out at Ozzie's house, what a great memoy and an awesome gift for his dad to give him. It is one of my lifeloing dreams to be able to build an outdoor rink for my kids (it would be hard to do now since I live in Orlando, maybe when I move back up north) and seeing the pictures made me feel like a kid again myself, I especially liked the table made out of sticks and the ceiling fan where the blades were goalie paddles. I know that most hockey players are great guys, but it is particularly cool to see Ozzie doing this.

Not a big fan of the reported line combos. I know we are deep at center, but we do not have enough scoring depth at wingers to try to roll a 3rd scoring line. Why not split up Draper and Helm and make 2 checking/energy lines to go with our top 2 scoring lines, which right now we have just enough scoring punch to create. Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Franzen/Filppula/Bertuzzi Eaves/Helm/Cleary Miller/Draper/Williams Just my

Won't the loser be playing on Saturday in the Bronze Medal game?

Not only a small sample size, but those two games were against Norway and Switzerland. Expect those numbers to level off after the USA game tomorrow, and as the tournament advances and they start playing better caliber opponents.

Germany finally on the scoreboard, and wow what a move by that Ugarov guy.

I don't know why people think Jagr is a lockerroom cancer, IIRC that talk started when he was on the Rangers, and that entire locker room was effed up, basically it was a collection of overpaid underacheivers with no real leadership, and Jagr as the captain of that squad took more than his fair share of the blame. That being said, if Jagr were to take the kind of money we could realistically offer (3-4 million), he would be a great addition, and as others have said every forward on the Red Wings does not have to be Selke-quality, we have just gotten used to that over the years. I doubt it would happen, but I would not be opposed to seeing #68 in a Red Wings jersey (though Kolosov would have to change his number in training camp)

SUOMI!!! Filppula tekee maalin!!!

I didn't know that either. I guess it's not a decision that is made very often, I can't remember ever seeing a penalty shot declined in favor of a power play. BTW, do you know where this is in the rules? Not doubting, just curious.

I agree with the OP, the way NBC has handled the coverage is atrocious. I thought that the whole point of the Olympics is to showcase the best athletes in the world on the biggest stage, yet they are locking a significant part of their potential audience out altogether, driving business away and encouraging piracy. If they were to make their streaming available to everyone rather than requiring that you have a cable subscription (which is stupid because if people have cable, then they generally don't need to stream the games in the first place) they could show all the advertisements they want and I doubt anyone would really complain. In the instances where I have been near a TV that gets CNBC or MSNBC, the OP is also correct that they are joining games in progress, are late coming back from commercial breaks and intermissions, and just generally lessening the overall enjoyment of the games with their cut and paste coverage on all of their networks. I hope that the Olympics sign with Fox when this contract is up, and I also hope that the NHL goes with another network nxt time around. /rant

I am definitely not among those who advocate trading Filppula, but I think that with very few exceptions the argument for trading him is twofold: 1) he is one of the few players who is not in the last year of his contract and does not have a NTC, and 2) he has the best trade value among those who can be moved, meaning he would yield the best return. If it could help the team, then trading Filppula is a viable option, though I personally would be disappointed because he is my favorite current Red Wing, and I agree with those that have said that moving him could end up being a move that would come back to haunt us.

With the systems being what they are today, there is simply too much of a gap between the elite-level national teams (Russia, Canada, Sweden, Finland, USA, Czech, Slovakia) and the rest of the world, money and population being the two biggest factors. That being said, I agree that Denmark is going to be a team to look out for in 2014, they are starting to get a lot of good players, being drafted by and actually playing for NHL teams (look for Frans Nielsen of the Islanders to be an All-Star next year). If the NHL players cannot participate in the Sochi Olympics and countries are having to rely on their national league players to fill their rosters, that will definitely hurt NA teams, but could work to Russia's advantage, especially if they keep luring big-name players back home with these big contracts (you could realistically see a mass exodus of Russian-born players jumping back to the KHL in 2013 for that very reason). As cool as it would be for a country like Switzerland to shock the hockey world and medal, I don't see it happening.

Is there such a forum? Sign me up!

I want at least 1 Red Wings player to come home with a gold medal, especially after that little pre-game ceremony they had on Saturday. That being said, my team of choice this Olymics is Finland. My favorite current Red Wings player is from there, plus a lot of my favorite non-Wings play for them (M. Koivu, J. Jokinen, T. Ruutu, funny how they all have brothers/namesakes that I don't like). Second of course will be Sweden (My wife will be pulling for Tre Kronner for Franzen). Would be cool if USA medals, but I can't bring myself to cheer for any team that has Patrick "20 Cent" Kane in the lineup. I could probably cheer for Canada if Stevie Y were still playing, but there are just too many hated players on that team (Crosby, Pronger, Niedermayer, Perry, Getzlaf) for me to stomach. Looking ahead to 2014, look for Denmark to have a strong squad and play spoiler.