PavelValerievichDatsyuk

Smith, Nyquist, and Brunner will be there. That will be pretty entertaining to watch them. I think the fact that Brunner will get some time on the North American size rink before the NHL should end up to be one postive out of all of this.

It looks like Tony Sopranos' House

I figured that. I was just checking out his stats and I was just surprised by the low number of Games played throughout his career. Hopefully he stays healthy.

I'm trying to get my head around what the forward situation is going to be like. Is Tootoo one who will be in the lineup every night. I looked at his stats and his games played are pretty low every year except 11-12 when he played 77 games and 08-09 when he played 72. In 09-10 and 10-11 he played 51 and 54. Was this due to the rehab time or is he a player who used in the lineup when the team need energy or grit?

Yeah then we have the unproven Lindback as our number 1 goalie. and Matt Carle for 6 years 5.5 million. No Thanks. I don't think many NHL players have a prejudice against European players.

Babcock walk away? What! He's in on these deals. He scouted Brunner. He travelled and made a pitch to Parise. He is part of management discussions. To me this is such a weird thought. Especially cause I don't count myself among the doom and gloom crowd for this offseason. We made some good moves - we just need to find that elusive top pair defenseman.

Due to ELCs Schultz got the same offer from everyone. The only way we would have got Schultz or Suter/Parise is by moving the franchise to Canada or Minnisota.

Hey, I've got another piece of positive thinking that I'll throw out there to try to lighten the negativity around here. Minnesota is the second best place that these guys could have ended up. I mean the could have really helped us, but them with the wild hurts us the least, I think. Imagine The Pens, Flyers or Chicago if they gotten one or two of these guys. To me, the fact that they're now on a weak Wild team dulls the impact these guys could have had. Sure, the wild will be competitive now, but other teams would have been extremely tough competition by acquiring one of these guys.

I think Mursak is going to surprise people this year. He faced a broken ankle in his rookie year. It's hard enough to make that transition. I also don't think management will give up on him know the circumstances

91...It'd be weird seeing another wing wear 91.

Best hockey forum! Thanks for putting in the work

How can you put down Eaves? He's been great for us. Great on the PK, has the compete level that the team has lacked. I know he barely played this year, but you can't flat out forget all that he brings to the table.

Hmmm...That's seems like a short term memory. Before Datsyuk had the surgery he was nothing but brilliant. But since then he hasn't looked like himself. hopefully he just needs time to recoup and this long off season will certainly allow him to do that...

A Modest Proposal.

Wow, that is something! The team dominated at times. They lacked the finishing push, but there were many chances. Crawford maybe not be amazing, but he played quite well today. The Red Wings battled back and tied the game. I'm not sure what you think the words "disgraceful, ridiculous, or fiasco mean" but I'd check the dictionary if I were you.

The guy that sets up near cobo joe's, right? "keep it goin' red wings, keep it goin'. keep it goin' red wings, keep it goin'........"

Babcock isn't the type of coach to call players out to the media. Calling players out in the media never made sense to me, anyway - He can talk to them one-on-one. When a coach criticizes players in front of the camera all it achieves is that the media will build up the story, ask the players to respond and compounds the problem and the stress on the player. I always used to cringe at how Ron Wilson used to do this.

I was there - Here's my ticket. I was 11. I remember saying the words "Dad, is that blood on the boards"

As a Montrealer, who is not fully fluent in french I expected some big push back like this. Montrealers complained about Gomez being an American Captain, etc. It's great that they hold the team so close to their cultural identity, but it can't be a team of locals and if they let such concerns guide their team it would handicap them.

Dude, what's your problem? He gave his opinion and it was a valid one. Why do you feel the need to attack him rather than just discuss the topic?

Welcome back to the best goalie mask!

found this: "Mike Babcock was without a doubt an obstacle in my career. I wanted to prove him wrong – I'm not going to lie. I used him as big-time motivation. I thought he put his best foot forward to bury me."<br style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">– Columbus defenseman Mike Commodore, who was a member of the Anaheim franchise for eight months when Babcock was coach of the Ducks. http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/25158-THNcom-Top-10-Quotes-of-the-year.html Maybe Commodore will use this as opportunity to prove himself to Babcock and the rest of the league. I like the signing.

Anyone interested in Versteeg? I could see him getting traded to make room for Bryz.

With all that went wrong with Modano this year I think his lackluster play and his reactions to the year are quite understandable if you try to imagine yourself in his place.

Friday, January 21 NY Islanders at Buffalo Montreal at Ottawa Tampa Bay at Florida Dallas at Calgary Saturday, January 22 New Jersey at Philadelphia Chicago at Detroit Boston at Colorado Anaheim at Montreal Carolina at Pittsburgh Washington at Toronto NY Rangers at Atlanta Columbus at St. Louis Los Angeles at Phoenix Calgary at Vancouver X2 Minnesota at San Jose Sunday, January 23 Philadelphia at Chicago Florida at New Jersey Buffalo at NY Islanders Atlanta at Tampa Bay Nashville at Edmonton