kipwinger

Yes, I do. Your razor sharp arguments cut me to the core.

Like in the playoffs? When all those guys fight after hard hits? Lol. You're grasping at straws. Why not just admit you get your jollies off watching guys punch each other? At least it would be honest.

Sure they are, they're just too dumb to know it. I bet you get all antsy in your pantsy whenever you see a foul ball at a baseball game too.

Here's a comparison I'm sure the two of you will no doubt understand completely. Watching hockey for the fights is a lot like watching NASCAR for the crashes. It's too bad The Joe doesn't have an infield full of underage girls in halter tops, that way the two of you could go hog wild the next time Brendan Smith oozes machismo after a crosscheck.

You need to stop fetishizing penalties.

You're right. I'll order another Miller Light and yuck it up with all the other low brow dips***s. Because it's obvious how interested I am in agreeing with the crowd. Afterward I'll head home and jack off to all the pass interference calls I missed on Monday night football, because penalties are totally awesome bro!

yes.

Wouldn't McGrattan need to spend more than 6:30 minutes with him per night to have any sort of impact at all? I literally spend more time on the toilet per day than Brain McGrattan does playing hockey on game night.

I like how in your mind "the action" of hockey and penalties are the same thing. You want the league to leave game misconducts alone, so that you can enjoy the "action". Lol. Nevermind what happens between the whistles, that s***'s boring. The real stuff comes after the play is dead. And one day, if we're really lucky, all the fun stuff about hockey will happen after the game is completely over. Then we can just watch Dan Carcillo and Zac Rinaldo beat the s*** out of each other in the parking lot. What a sport that will be.

Nobody can hold the players accountable because management will always take the players' side, and particularly the high end pick players' side. They'll just keep bringing in coaches, who will in turn try to get these prima donnas to play a real game of hockey, there will be a backlash from said players, and the coach will get fired.

Not really. He's a little bit like Maltby in attitude, but his skill set is almost entirely like Draper. Both Draper and Glendening are/were matchup defensive centers, with excellent faceoff and penalty killing capabilities. The only thing Maltby and Glendening have in common is that they're both pretty big douchebags lol. They love chirping dudes, being quasi-dirty, and facewashing guys. On second thought, Glendening is a Maltby/Draper love child. A perfect combination of the two. 100%

I agree. The year before he was a monster against Chicago. He was all over Toews and I recall him absolutely decimating Bickell along the boards as well. People always harp on stay at home guys until they're gone. Did it with Stuart, do it with Ericsson.

Lol. I remember that. What a s*** bag.

I wonder, now that he's been fired, if there's any reason for Dallas Eakins to NOT kick Keven Lowe and Craig Mctavish in the balls four or five hundred times? What a s*** organization from top to bottom. Lazy, entitled, half assed players get raises. Players like Perron get put on the trade block for speaking out. And Dallas Eakins gets fired. How many coaches have to lose with this same group of guys before someone realizes its the players?

Who's the most relieved man in Canada right now?

Miller?

I agree with your position on fighting, but I don't really want to make his a pro vs. anti fighting thread. And you're right, I am assuming people would react differently. That's because in all my life, I've never known a sports fan who was ok with with a questionable referee decision if said decision wasn't in their teams' favor. Occasionally fans will begrudgingly accept a refs' decision if it's too obvious to ignore, or else the outcome of the decision is inconsequential. But if it matters at all, every fan will always take their teams' side. That's what being a fan is all about. So if Smith is winning it's "let em' go ref" and if he's losing it's, "they need to get involved earlier". Same with penalties. Think about it. People ***** and moan about the refs CONSTANTLY on this site, but conveniently leave out the part about how the Wings get more powerplays than almost every other team in the league. Pretty mum on that one, because it helps us out.

That's my whole point. You say that now. But I don't believe, in the wake of just such a hypothetical fight, that you'd take the moral high ground. Nothing personal against you, I'm just basing this off of a long established homer bias that all fans (of all teams) have. People go to EXTREME lengths deny, or justify, reality when it's in favor of the Wings, but not the other way around. Why do you think people get so irritated when Eddie Olczyk talks about the Wings' "subtle interference"? He's not the only one who's called the Wings on that. We DEFINITELY do it. And yet, you can almost hear an audible hiss from our fans each time he brings it up. If Brendan Smith won that fight nobody would be talking about this right now. I'm not saying this because our fans are duplicitous or wishy washy. I'm saying this because our fans are like every other fan on earth. They like getting away with one, and hate when the breaks don't go our way.

Glendening?

Here's why I think this "the refs should have stopped it sooner" argument is bunk. If Smith had been winning the fight, and the refs stopped it sooner, everybody would be irritated that the refs "should have let them go". When you say "usually the refs jump in TOO early" you're suggesting that they're doing something wrong by getting involved before they SHOULD. And now, you're advocating them getting involved before they DID. It's a judgment call for the refs, and when the fight is going well for our boys, people are almost never in favor of stopping the fight. If Brendan Smith had the sweater pulled over Panik's head and was serving him his lunch, everybody would have been fine with the refs' inaction. They'd have LOVED seeing a Red Wing win a fight for once. But because Riley's Brother was getting handled it's somehow wrong for the refs to stand back and "let em' go". I don't buy it.

I agree with some of what you're saying, but I disagree on a few points which I'll describe in more detail after the jump. (Jump) Ok, glad you're still with me. 1. Tyler Myers isf****** horrible. Can we please stop talking about him like he's in the same class as these other guys? If Ken Holland traded ANY of our good assets for a guy with SEVEN points on the season, he should be drawn, quartered, sewn back together, and drawn and quartered again. Also, Myers doesn't even really fill a need anymore considering how we run our new powerplay. In a single point powerplay (as opposed to two point men) the guy in back (defenseman) must be able to skate (since he's the only one consistently monitoring the blue line). Hence why Chara was moved off Boston's powerplay point in favor of Krug. He can't skate (quickly). Neither can Myers. 2. We can't afford Yandle and Green. That's almost 12 million dollars in cap that we can't really afford to take on. It would need to be one or the other. Also, ignoring the cap hit, I still wouldn't want both of them as you'd have a whole bunch of redundancy in terms of skill set. If you acquired both you'd have one of Yandle, Green, or Kronwall sitting on the bench too often to make a difference offensively (especially on the powerplay). One or the other, but not both. 3. Ericsson is probably not going anywhere for a long time, and we should all be thankful. If our defense was some combination of Kronwall, Yandle, Green, Smith, Dekeyser, and those kids, they'd get eaten alive in the playoffs. You still need big bodied, stay at home defenders in this league, and Ericsson is probably one of the most underrated ones in the league. Kindl can go, Quincey can go, and (if Babs' use of Ouellet over Smith has shown) Smith could theoretically go. But Ericsson isn't going anywhere.

I have no problem with Darren Helm...as a third line center. I think in that role he's got a comparative advantage over almost every other third line center in the league. I also think, in that role, he can take on more defensive responsibility (which he seems good at), thus allowing us to exploit matchups. Where I don't like Darren Helm, as should be obvious, is on a scoring line wing. Sure he can be made to look decent there (Ian White could be made to look decent on a top defensive pairing too), but that obscures the fact that his talents are better utilized elsewhere, and somone else (who has the skill set needed to be a top six winger) could be slotted in that spot for maximum efficiency. But what do I know? I'm as wrong about the roster as I am right most of the time. Nevertheless, I'll beat the drum for moving Helm, not because I don't like him, but because he's redundant on this team and we've got a couple of needs to fill to be a true Cup competitor (in my opinion).

We need an offensive, puck moving, d man who can quarterback the powerplay and you'd bring in a career stay at home defender or else a guy who's got about as many points as Jakub Kindl does this year (despite playing 25 minutes a night)? Thank god you're not the GM of this team.

I knew you'd like it. I was waiting for your inevitable comment lol.

No need to trade either of them. Almost every team in the league asks for top young talent, and almost nobody trades it. There's a reason why guys like Stafford, Stewart, Fleishmann, Boyes, Perron, etc. are the names being rumored for trade. Because those are the kinds of guys teams trade. Not their 23 year old future top sixers. Teams can ask all day for Sheahan and Jurco, but they're not going anywhere. Doesn't mean we don't have valuable pieces for trade though.