Hairy Lime

Maybe in pee-wee.

NYI is wearing the white, Detroit is in the dark-coloured uniform - http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on-hockey/25127922/watch-ex-nhler-viciously-attacks-opponent-during-warmup-in-sweden

Oh boy...

Now lets give THEM a 2-goal lead, so we can turn this game around...

I was wondering where this team was. Un-Welcome back!

Asking for Babcock to start making better decisions is bit unrealistic. IF Lidstrom comes out of retirement might happen before that.

Hudler!!!!!! Oh wait...

Oh, Alain Vigneault ....f*** YOU!!!

It all depends. Toronto is very eager to get rid of him, and it seems like the issue of how much salary Toronto would eat was the only thing holding up a deal last time they talked, if you believe the gossip. So if Toronto eats some salary, it may get done. Janmark had some upside, but I don't think Backman was ever going to play here. I actually think this was a decent deal.

I have a feeling Dion Phaneuf or Jeff Petry to follow.

I'm hearing it was Mantha and Larkin. Just kidding, I hope.... At 37, I hope we did not give too much...

Above and to the right of the man wearing camo, a woman with a camera. You must find that woman!

But Neil, despite his age and build, actually isn't terribly slow. He's certainly faster and more mobile than McCarty was in that Stanley Cup run. You're always going to have to sacrifice a little speed in order to add a little grit, but balanced teams have a better track record in the playoffs.

Of course we are. We always are. The last presence of "grit " this team had in the playoffs was Dallas Drake. I would love to acquire Chris Neil, but Mike Babcock would just bench him. Why play Neil when you have Joakim Andersson?

Abby is such a s*** fighter. But at least he had the balls to drop 'em. Is that his first of the season?

Scoring goals is never redundant.

I've been asking for this since they abandoned it. Especially now that you have more US-born players to represent NA. Either that, or back to East vs West, winner gets home ice, though I know a lot of people will not like that stipulation. But if it's not competitive, it's really not worth having...or watching.

Well, on this we can fully agree. Edwards and Julien both have a way of mitigating Bruins' players actions. Ken, Mickey and Mike don't usually sugarcoat a bad play.

Ok, if that's your biggest beef against him, then yeah, absolutely, he sucks, and he and Mick could not be further apart. Mick, while still having "homer" moments, is pretty unbiased. And while Mick may still get nostalgic about the old days, I think he understands the direction the league is going and he has, begrudgingly, accepted it. But I also know that he would probably get giddy like a schoolgirl if Holland traded for someone like Matt Martin.

I never said Mick condoned dirty plays of said attaboy to bad hits, just good scraps. Mick loves big clean hits as much as the next guy (excluding a few people here), but he does from time to time talk about giving another player a face-full of lumber, again, paraphrasing. So it's hard to say that he's got it all out of his system. I'm not saying you're wrong, but again, they call two very dissimilar teams. Mick was never as big of an ******* as Edwards, but I can't say he'd be so different in terms of enthusiasm for the rough stuff if Detroit had a similar team to Boston, which they did throughout the 90's. He'd just have a less annoying voice.

I was comparing a similar aspect of younger Mickey and JE, but I was more or less referencing your line about fans "holding their announcing team to a higher standard". Because 80's-90s Mickey, though less whiny, was as enthusiastic as JE about a big hit or scrap when he called games, and when someone went after Yzerman he would reference retaliation, and there usually was some. Obviously Redmond and Edwards are not very similar these days, because they call two very dissimilar teams. But Boston is actually not so different from Detroit's back-to-back teams of the 90s, probably even softer AND cleaner, but it's a different game.

I never said they were similar, but Mickey loved a good scrap, enthusiastically; and if you listen to him, he subtly mourns the lack of team toughness without coming right out and saying the team is soft. Mickey has sorta been forced to. He calls Red Wings games; not a lot of hitting (at least on our part) or fighting. But when one does happen (rarely), what does he always say? "Attaboy! Not one person in their seat! They love it!", to paraphrase. He loves old time hockey as much as the rest of us neanderthals.

Apparently you never heard Mickey Redmond in the late 80s/early 90s whenever Probie, Kocur or Mac dropped 'em.

Probably because we grew up Red Wings fans and they've only become "pussified" in recent years. I'm not going to stop rooting for a team because they're a bunch of *******, but I certainly have the right to mourn the loss of team toughness. And I don't necessarily want a talentless goon; I'd settle for Chris Neil, Matt Martin... even Lucic, or Proust. Anyone who actually still knows how to throw a check or stand up for a teammate will suffice.