kipwinger

I don't really know why you guys care whether they're healthy or not. Everybody knows that once you get in to the playoffs "anything can happen". It's just a crap shoot after that. Or so say all the dummies anyway.

Honestly, I have no idea how that works. I thought they already did that. But I'm not 100%

Khan says he's going on the trip and could be available if needed. But otherwise it'll be a few more days.

Just going to go out on a limb here, but everybody realizes that Columbus doesn't actually suck right? They're SUPER injured. Like worse than we were last year. But when reasonably healthy they're actually a pretty good team. This is the type of game we need to win, and I'm not making excuses for the loss. We clearly need to get our forward lines and defense pairings worked out in the wake of the Cole and Zidlicky additions. But Columbus is a solid team. So lets not make this loss into something worse than it is.

Raise your hand if you said none of our regular defensemen could ever get scratched for marchenko? Clearly we aren't better with him in the lineup. Except all those games we won against good teams...with him in the lineup.

Exactly, so what's the problem. If nobody thought Holmer was a millstone around Datsyuk neck, then they shouldn't think so about Helm either. Also, over 50% of Holmstrom's goals in 07-08 AND 08-09 were on the powerplay. He actually finished less frequently (5 on 5) than Helm does.

The guys over at Winging It In Motown are having a s*** fit on Twitter right now about Glendening on the first line. About six tweets in a row addressing it. I haven't seen this much indignation since Malik decided to address the Babcock to Toronto speculation. And then address it again. And again. And again. And again.

I honestly haven't seen a lot of Boychuk over the years. Am I missing something? I mean, he's putting up better offense than he did in Boston, and I know he's a good defensive defender, but is he anywhere near 6 million dollars good? Even if it were on a shorter term?

This will be a brilliant move if they turn around and flip Boychuk and Matt Martin to the Flyers for Voracek and a 2nd lol. Because Broad Street Bullies yo!

And he got a NTC for a few years. Who is his agent?

"As for preparing the Wings to play the Blue Jackets, this was Babcock's reply: "We come in here, we try to make everyone look like the '68 Montreal Canadiens," he said of the Habs team that won the 15th Stanley Cup in club history. "Doesn't matter what their record is. That's what we try to do. But they don't believe us. "The bottom line is we know we've got to get better. We aren't firing on all cylinders right now, like we were two weeks ago, so it's time to get our game back, and that's what we're going to try to do today." I think he means, "think of every opponent as the '68 Canadiens". Not "make them look like the '68 Canadiens", which admittedly, we've been doing the last couple of games.

He now makes exactly as much as John Tavares makes. Nuts. It's the term that kills me though. 6 million is too high, but he actually IS a good player. But 7 years for a 31 year old stay at home defenseman is awfully high.

Isles sign Boychuk to 7 years, 6 million per. Pretty steep.

Active or Latent?

None of that changes the fact that Datsyuk's production is likely not being noticeably affected by Helm's lack of offense skill. As a matter of fact, it supports my argument. Regardless of the fact that the 2008 and 2009 teams were better (and they totally were), Dats still had a 35-40 point guy on his line to do the heavy lifting. Just like he does now. It didn't seem to drag him down then, and it doesn't seem to drag him down this season either. Very few centers have two superstar wingers flanking them. And if they did, the team probably wouldn't be very good anyway.

Coburn > Gudas

I think he resembles the American Pie dude. It looks like he's about to finish that interview and go f*** a pie.

Datsyuk's two best offensive seasons (2008, 2009) came with Holmstrom on his line. In those two season Holmstrom scored 40 pts. (20G, 20A) one year, and 37 pts. (14G, 23A) the next. Given how that line is scoring with Helm, I'd imagine Helm will finish the season somewhere in the 35-40 point ballpark (he's got 29 already). If anything, the fact that Tatar isn't as good as Zetterberg or Hossa is a bigger impact on Pav's numbers. Not the fact that Helm isn't Holmstrom.

Athanasiou has played fewer games than Mantha. He missed 20 some games with a broken jaw. But I'd agree that it's tough to tell what either of them would be doing right now if they hadn't dealt with significant injuries this year.

Question for everyone, in your opinion has Athanasiou passed Mantha on the prospect depth chart? He was nearly as good in Juniors, he's been considerably better in the AHL, and while not as big as Mantha he's still got excellent size, speed, and skill for the NHL game. Thoughts?

At his current rate of production it'll take a little under 4 games for him to register a single point, let alone score a goal. I think the nets are safe, regardless of his linemates.

When David clarson was scoring goals in new jersey he was doing so disproportionate to his skill level. Nevertheless, new jersey would have been stupid to move him to the fourth line. Same with Glendening if he were producing like that here.

What's your point? We both agree he shouldn't be put with datsyuk. Which was what we were discussing.

Why? This is a gender friendly forum. If it were a half naked chick I doubt you'd be complaining.

Wasn't the point of contention that people were quick to jump on the "Franzen is done forever" bandwagon as a result of their disdain for Franzen, and not because there was any reason to believe his career was actually threatened? That's what it seemed like (five pages ago, or whatever). If so, I think there's probably a lot of evidence to support this. For instance, this thread was started on January 8th. Most of the posts immediately following the creation of the thread didn't even address Franzen or his injury, and instead focused on Pulkkinen. By January 9th people were already speculating that Franzen was done forever, despite the fact that the nature of his injury hadn't even been disclosed. It seems naive to suggest that "wishful thinking" didn't play a role in how people responded to Franzen's injury. Which seemed to be Number9's point (if I'm reading it correctly). Sidebar: The irony is that we now know that folks were wrong to be so excited about Pulkkinen stepping in for the Mule. Franzen was having a good year (22 pts. in 30+ games), and Pulkkinen has struggled to find his consistency and seems unable to stand up to the physicality of the NHL game (both frequently used to criticize Franzen). We're actually a better team with Franzen, regardless of what the haters say.