PavelValerievichDatsyuk

He's wearing a Hendricks jersey so I guess he's embarrassing the Oilers, Canada and the U.S. all in one go. Now I know one probably shouldn't probe any deeper into such matters, but does he have something wedged into his ass crack?

I assume "a guy" would also put up assists. Mantha certainly does - he has talied more assists than goals almost every recorded year he's played. So even if you're making the mistake of judging impact by stats alone, your premise is false. Also, I think you took the meaning of my comment (or other's comments) to an extreme. I said that I don't think Mantha will be a "complete" player - not that scoring is all he brings. Just don't think he'll ever win any Selkes.

The Who! An intersection in Portland (fans of a certain show should get this one)

I agree. I think Mantha will always be a controversial player. Partly because of his size - people will say all the "he doesn't use it.." stuff and he that should play to the power forward mould. I've seen him stand up for himself in scrums (as Franzen did) but Mantha is on the finesse side of things. It's a curse for big guys that they're given specific expectations because of their size. Also, I don't think he'll ever be a complete player and I've read a lot of people casting off players completely because they lack certain facets of the game (Miller, Nyquist, Pulkkinen, Marchenko). We just need to put players in the right roles and pair them with the linemates that compensates for these aspects.

Green. Dekeyser may not have been a big name, but was in high demand. Alfredsson... I'm pretty sure I've had this debate with you, though...

I think that's overdramatic. If Mantha or Svech don't reach their potential we could have other guys exceed expectations (maybe Bertuzzi). Or Stamkos, Okoposo or someone else comes in and is a big part of the team. Also, Nyquist has 2 25+ goal seasons, Tatar has 1 - this could have been a down year. I think it was due to Blashill's dealing with them on the 3rd line.

If we signed Stamkos and he continued to have bloodclot problems - how much would that hurt us? That's a true question not statement by question (like how many roads must a man walk down...). My impression about blood clots (which, admittedly, is from little knowledge) is that it seems like it's something that forces you out of the game or your version isn't as bad and won't effect performance. Or is it something that would make him miss a bunch of games regularly? Or will the blood thinners effect his ability to train and his stamina? If it's the first option, than the worst case scenario is he goes to LTIR and Ilitch gives a 10 mill yearly donation to Stamkos and we aren't strapped with the caphit. If it's one the other options, the cruel part of me wants him to go to Toronto and foil their rebuild.

So we got rid of Bedard, who by all reports was close to Howard and Mrazek only had a "professional" relationship with. And we signed the guy Mrazek said he wanted. Howard, start packing your bags?

Twisted Sister! An Anagram for: The One Troll Sings

It was Blind Melon. On behalf of Fiona, I have to wonder why you think her impaired, haha. Also, Billy Corgan is a vegetable.

Impaired Fruit.

Rob Zombie - Living Dead Girl

The Commodores?

Curtis Mayfield - If There's Hell Below, We're All Gonna Go

Coaches are not usually dictators - they take advice or suggestions from players especially vets or elite talents. Would Datsyuk be better with pure goal scorers beside him? maybe. Maybe they wouldn't get the chance to do the finesse stuff 'cause they can't get the puck out of the corners. I do think Datsyuk has a good idea of what he needs to succeed. P.S. It's bothered me for the year - or however long - you've had it: You're Maple Leaf joke in your signature is misspelled.

I'll allow this point only if you're comparing our drafting now to when we drafted Lidstrom, Fedorov, Konstantinov. etc. And that was a special circumstance when we had a jump on other teams with scouting Europeans and Russians. Since you're looking at the past 15 years I don't see anything that backs up your complaint. It seems like you're saying that we need more of our draft picks to become NHL players (but then you contradict yourself, saying we should have less drafted players on our roster?), but I think the norm is that you can hope to have 2-3 players, on a good year, that turn out to have an NHL career and our numbers are in line with that. Look at some other teams' draft history for comparison chosen randomly: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/teams/dr00005404.html http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/teams/dr00006929.html And those teams have years when they picked pretty high. - From 00-12 Dallas had 4 years when only 1 player made the NHL (for more than a handful of games) and 4 years: 2 players made it. - From 00-12 Habs had 2 years: 0 players made NHL, 5 years: 1 player made it, 1 years: 2 made it I don't know why you have set up the 12-15 drafted player limit. They will almost always cost less because of either being RFA deals or signing a deal before testing free agency. If they fill the need it's the better way to go.

Tom Waits - Straight to The Top

The way I look at it is: the only players that played for the Wings this year that weren't drafted by the The Wings were Green, Richards, Miller, DK, and Glendening. So we have built our team from the draft. No team will be completely made of of their draft picks, but ours is pretty close. Cutting the numbers to get your 9 players from 01-10 makes no sense to me. First of all, 01-04 we didn't have a first round pick and weren't in the mindset of rebuilding from the draft since we were kickazz (shout out, haha) and were in the "win now" mentality. Also, that's before the salary cap so building from the draft was much less important. Also, that starts 16 years ago and will obviously skew the numbers because players like Hudler, Filpula, Kindl, Q?, Helm? will move on after that amount of time. I'm guessing next year we'll have 18 of 23 players drafted by the wings. maybe 16 without Helm and Howard, but then again maybe more if Sproul, or some 4th line Miller/Helm replacement makes it. (Not lines, just filling out roster) Abby-Larkin-Mantha Jurco-Shea-Tat Helm-AA-Z Pulkinen-Nyquist Marchenko-Oulette Ericsson-Smith Kronwall Mrazek Howard I'm not concerned about the number of players from the draft, though, it's the quality of players. I think when rebuilding from the draft it's whether you can put together the core talent because those are the guys that won't be traded or go to Free Agency (except in rare cases: Suter, Stamkos?) For me, that's probably 2 top Dmen, 3 elite scorer/playmakers, and a goalie. Once you get those pieces, you can pick up supporting player through free agency or by tradng some future picks for those supporting players. The defence is the big question for me in that equation. We got lucky with DK and we've done well at getting 2-3 pair guys (Q,E,Smith,March) but this is where the potential core is missing.

That does work. It's not what I meant, though - I think my clue sucks. Think that you would have domesticate or _____ the animal in order for it to be a pet

That is completely correct. That's why I tried to word it as a German fighter rather than a nazi fighter (although he was later drafted and faught with the Nazi Luftwaffe, but that wasn't his choice). He did refuse to give up his Jewish manager despite Nazi orders and even saved the lives of 2 jewish children under Nazi Germany. It is sad the way Schmeling was used by the Nazis and also how he was viewed as symbol by the U.S. press/government. I guess you could say both fighters were treated with prejudice by the other side, even if it wasn't racial with Schmeling.

BLUR? An unlikely African pet

Okay. But he was probably the biggest sports star and a national hero at the time and African-American. Oh and this was 10 years before Jackie Robinson played MLB. In one of the most famous sporting events of the century, he fought and beat, Max Schmeling, a German fighter, who's previous dominance the Nazi's claimed as proof of ayran superiority. Schmeling's publicist said a black man could never beat him and that Schmeling's winnings would be used to build Nazi tanks. The fight was hyped as Fascism vs. Democracy, Hitler raised the natonal curfew so all could listen to it and Roosevelt brought Louis to the White House before the fight to encourage him. This was about a year before war broke out in Europe. Did I win you over yet?

The Clash - Jimmy Jazz

Yes, Joe Louis was a boxer and he has the record for holding the heavyweight championship (almost 12 years), but his cultural importance is much greater than that. I'm not a boxing fan (I think it's barbaric), but I don't think you have to be to understand his importance. He's not the first African-American Heavyweight campion, that's Jack Johnson, but Johnson received such racist backlash that no blacks were even given a shot at the championship by promoters in the 19 years after he was champ. Joe Louis overcame this and became the champ and a national hero and I don't think any African American had achieved that level of national icon up to that point in history. Add to that it was the depression and he was from a poor family (1 of 8 kids and his father was sent to an insane asylum permanently when he young) who fled the racism of the South to Detroit and I think you can appreciate why he was such a figure of hope for people and why he deserved to have a building named after him. He also was the first African-American golfer to play a with the PGA (on the amateur circuit).

Fall - Kicker Conspiracy