AIK'91

You stole my avatar, man. Yours is just zoomed out a bit. For a second, I thought I was reading my own post.

I agree, Toews is a great player. Obviously not on Yzerman-level, but good nonetheless. However, Keith is definitely not overrated. Underrated if anything. He is simply one hell of a dynamic defenseman at both ends of the rink. He has one of the quickest first few strides in the entire league to go along with terrific hockey sense. And Kane I hate. Enough said.

1. Mike Comrie won't sign that cheap. 2. Even if he did, he's not the kind of player I would want on "my team". 3. You forgot Draper. 4. Or conveniently made him disappear. 5. Despite all this talk about signing Asham, I think he's going to stay in Philly. I mean, unless it's for a bigger payday (which won't come from us), why leave a team you've gone this deep with--a team with which you have a solid role already established. 6. Even if he hit the FA market--after these playoffs--he'll get more than $1M from some team. 7. We need a veteran defenseman to compete with Kindl. If not Lilja, some other cheap veteran at least. 8. Lastly, how many FA-related threads have you created in the last 24 hours?

Sorry If you showed me in person, it'd be completely different though. Then, I could laugh along with it right away. At least it really is irony though. So many people misuse the term.

No, it's maybe just English not being his first language. We'd have to watch him say it in a video though so we can see the pauses of the sentence. It's possible that he might have still been thinking of a word to say after "more" and ended up picking one that made his sentence grammatically incorrect. If that's the case, he should have been more quicker in his word choice, I guess. It's easy and common to make these mistakes while speaking off the cuff though--no matter how well you know English.

Leino

Leino's also leading the Flyers' forwards in ice time right now.

Gretzky must have been in Russia and saw Pavel play as a kid.

Kopecky...

Maybe the NHL will make the Wings play Tampa Bay in the season opener?

I don't like it. Although I mostly hate rap, so that might have something to do with it. Just putting this out there though (as an observation, hopefully not a prejudiced statement)...of all the rappers, the NHL chose maybe the only prominent Caucasian one out there. Now, obviously this isn't on purpose or anything. But, inadvertently, the connotation doesn't exactly break any stereotypes about the league in general. In order to grow in the coming decades, the NHL has to do a much, much better job of getting minorities interested in hockey. Surely this commercial will have virtually no impact either way, but I would think even if only a few people notice what I just did, that's not helping the league at all.

Now, Stevie's by far my favorite player of all time, ever since I was 3 years old. And I have no qualms with still wearing his jersey around. But, if you were to go to a Wings game next year, would you still wear #19 to the game even if you had the jersey of another current player? I was just thinking this would be kind of awkward. It would somewhat be like supporting another franchise while attending a Wings game. If it was anyone else who left the organization, I wouldn't even think about it--his jersey wouldn't be worn. This case is different obviously. In my mind, the Red Wings and Yzerman are still one and the same. Since Yzerman's done so much for Detroit and Red Wings fans, I feel really bad for the fact that I'm even thinking about not wearing his jersey to a game. Has this crossed anyone's mind at all though? EDIT: I guess it's too late to backtrack now. I already screwed myself with this post. So I should probably just better explain what I was thinking at the time I posted this. Of course, it's ridiculous to not wear Stevie's jersey. He's done everything for this organization. Like for a lot of people, he's maybe the main reason I love hockey so much. For the longest time, I only had an Yzerman jersey. And I still wore it often to games the past few years. But I wore it less after he retired; not because I didn't have the same emotional attachment, but more so because I thought at games it would be better to support the players on the ice now. So, what I'm saying is, if on gameday, you had an option, would you now be slightly more inclined to wear a Datsyuk or Zetterberg instead, while obviously still having the same utmost respect for Stevie.

Ahhh...good choice of words, you're absolutely right. Now I feel really silly for creating the topic. I should have thought it through. I wish I could go back in time and prevent this thread from ever happening. The Internet isn't very forgiving though. Oh, and sorry I'm not really another Chicagoan. I lived my entire life in the metro-Detroit area and now I just go to college near Chicago.

Sorry man, my bad. I misunderstood. I just assumed that the 'ugh...like I said' meant you were grudgingly rehashing because you thought I was bringing up old news.

I didn't post the article to show how Tampa's a good fit. The main point from the article was that it refutes previous reports that Yzerman declined Tampa. If this source is reliable, apparently Yzerman's still the front-runner. As an aside though, does anyone think Yzerman would even consider TB if it weren't were Stamkos? He singlehandedly makes that entire organization so much more appealing. Hedman helps as well (but to a much lesser extent).

Not sure how reliable this is... Link

I'm not so sure. Even though Nystrom's an American, the Swedish name might scare Burke off.

Dating back to before September 19th, 2009, this is the first weekend where the Wings aren't playing a game (pre-season,regular season or playoff). This excludes the 2 weeks for the Olympics, of course. That's amazing when you think about it. For a span of eight months, regardless of what else I was planning to do, I had at least one set of plans for the weekend already in my pocket. I think I'm having withdrawal symptoms. Anyone else?

You're never too old. Go for it. Best of luck on your pro tryout this September though. Thank you. Best idea so far. I can get rid of my current withdrawal symptoms by replacing them with a whole different kind of withdrawal symptoms.

I'm the complete opposite. It's strange to play right after the season ends. I can play with friends, but never 1-player (that's sort of depressing). I usually play a little bit in the summer though after we've signed some new players or something. But, sometimes I even get really bored of that and wish I was playing real hockey instead. I plan on doing the exact same thing. I have to wait another month though, 'til I go back home for the summer. Hardly anyone I know here likes hockey. And if they do, they're usually a horribly annoying, bandwagon Hawks fan who's never played hockey in their entire life. Most of them aren't even from Chicago.

Well, my gut tells me they should be fine. The best part about our team is that our best players (Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Lidstrom) are also our hardest working players at both ends of the rink. They don't take nights off--so that sets a good example for the rest of the team. For the team as a whole, I think this year should help reinforce the idea of just how tough it is to go all the way. But, at the same time, it would be nice to have a new source of motivation. I don't think you can really underestimate the importance of a Dallas Drake type of player. In '08, it seemed like the whole team rallied around him in that run. Essentially, overhaul...no. But, tweaks...yes.

Tonight's game kind of reminded me of Game 7 against Pittsburgh last year. Sometimes, it seems like the Wings' demeanor just exudes the belief that somehow they'll find a way to get that tying goal. Yet, for whatever reason, we never really do get that late goal in a game like this. Don't get me wrong, you can still tell the Wings are working hard and making a concerted effort when it's a dire situation. But, whenever I watch a little bit of the '08 Cup run, something just seems a little different. As much as our guys still work hard (albeit, more so when their backs are against the wall), I never really liked our team quite as much after '08. To be honest, I thought we squeaked by and nearly won it all purely because of talent last season. And we would have won if we weren't plagued by so many injuries to key players. I think it's just human nature really. Pretty much all our core players from '08 are the same. When you haven't won something before, you just have that bit of extra zeal and intensity. In hockey, I think that subconciously translates into winning a few more battles, finishing a few more checks and winning the races to a few more 50-50 pucks. Of course, the players would never admit it--not even to themselves. Obviously they still have every intent to work as hard as they can. It's just that, I think winning it all before can manifest itself into the type of confidence you're talking about. It kind of produces an attitude of "we'll be fine since we've done this before". Sure, I'm upset about this loss. Especially considering Howard gave us such a great chance. But, I'm still proud of the guys for playing their best. From this loss, I think the team will realize again just how tough it is to go all the way. That should eliminate the negative aspects of the "confidence" you were talking about all while adding to our experience at the same time. EDIT: And I should add, the fatigue from the amount of games we've played the past 3 seasons is certainly a factor--especially for our high-end guys.

God, I sure hope so.

Thanks for the great season! I'm proud they went out trying. It just wasn't our year.