kipwinger

I don't really understand all this speculation about whether some owners are for or against the lockout. ALL the franchises voted for it, Jimmy D is the alternate governor for the Wings and it's pretty clear how he felt about it. I don't see any reason to believe that he and Illitch are too far off on their respective views of the lockout. You might believe that there are extenuating reasons why an owner would vote against his best interests, but at the end of the day all that really means is that in a world with a lot of conflicting priorities, the owner of the Detroit Red Wings felt (after weighing all his options) that a lockout was better than playing the season. As did every other owner in the league. We can't have our cake and eat it too. If the owners are the bad guys who don't care about the league, the fans, or the game, then OUR owner is a bad guy, who doesn't care about the league, the fans, or the game. And that's a pretty hard pill to swallow.

The guy was hurt all season long, it's not like he underperformed. I find it remarkable that anyone would suggest that a VERY important part of this team would need to prove himself after gutting out an entire season with injury. Certainly few would have suggested that about Kronwall or Franzen when they both hardly played during the 09-10 season.

No room for Cleary on your team eh? And how are we supposed to take you seriously again?

Bowman also had a team full of Hall of Famers. Kinda loses its effect when you're putting one dimensional guys in roles they aren't suited for, or aren't suited for any longer.

I agree. I love Babcock, but I think he shuffles a bit much too. The first thing every hockey player says when they come back from injury is, "it's going to take a while to get my timing back". So obviously timing is really important. As such, going from Bertuzzi on a wing to Filppula probably f***s with that a little bit. All in all I think Babs is a great coach, but I think most of the time it's better to let players work through slumps rather than mix it up all the time.

Brett Hull is sort of a bad comparison because Brunner doesn't really use a slap shot. His wrist shot is sick though, more comparable to Semin's shot than Hull's.

Lotta love for Stevie, but Lidstrom by a mile.

I've had about enough of all this lockout talk. As best as I can tell given that I don't speak Swiss, Damien Brunner is tearing it up in the Swiss League. 5 goals and 7 assists in 9 games. Additionally he's got nearly twice as many shots on goal as the Omark (who leads the team in points, though with two more games than Brunner). Absolutely can't wait until Hank gets over there and suits up with him, I'm dying to see what Brunner's shot can do with Z creating space for him. His release is quick and should be very effective in the NHL, and his finishing ability seems (admittedly based on not much) to be better than Hudler's. Here's hoping all that success isn't do to shoddy Swiss defense. I've got high hopes for this guy!

Agreed. There's a reason they're all playing here in the first place. I assume it has to be a combination of the inordinately large amount of money they make, paired with the fact that they don't have to live in a country which ranks just below Belarus (the last remaining dictatorship in Europe) on the UN's human development index. Then again, its pretty clear that some people think Bettman is much worse than crime, poor institutions, flawed democracy, and abject poverty. Priorities!

This fan doesn't want to see superteams. It would get awfully boring watching the same teams win every year, even if that includes Detroit. Baseball got real tedious when the Yanks won in 96, 98, 99, and 2000. Or look at the superteams in the NBA, they don't seem to be creating any more excitement for the fans. Sort of reminds me of the Harlem Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals. How exciting! Obviously this is just my opinion, but I actually liked the fact that Phoenix, LA, NJ, and the Rangers were the final four last year. Something different than the norm is good as far as I'm concerned.

The same sentiment was expressed by Bryzgalov recently. So given the credibility of the sources, I'd say it's safe to say that this position is CONFIRMED with a hard "C". I'm sure Bryz and Hank can think of hundreds of reasons why Russians would stay in a piss poor league for roughly 60% of what they make now.

Didn't that hack put up 30 pts. last season? On a team that doesn't score much no less? Which would give him more points than Helm, Miller, Abby, Emmerton, and Holmstrom. And he plays physical. And he scraps. Not mad about this one dude.

I didn't hear that Bettman was behind facebook, but I did hear that he is the one secretly sending you game requests for farmville, mafia wars, and most recently...BUBBLE BLITZ! "He must be stopped," says Henrik Zetterberg, "fired, beated, killed, and eaten. For the fans, and for all of facebook."

He's also the cause of global warming.

Any player that wants Bettman fired is a fool. The current lockout is based on the fact that the players want to retain a high percentage of the revenue that Bettman is largely responsible for creating. No reasonable player has any intention of going back to the "good" old days. Edit: As evidenced by the fact that the players' whole position in these negotiations has been to keep everything exactly the way it is right now.

huh?

God it's weird to see Radulov wearing the "C" on a team with Datsyuk on it. It's like bizarro world.

Well this just in, apparently the league is fining the Wings and undisclosed amount due to Jimmy D's comments. Here's the link. http://mobile.mlive.com/advannarbor/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=LbsRCHLd&full=true#display

Great read and dead on. If some vaunted NHL icon like Scotty Bowman or Mr. Illitch had said the exact same thing it would be taken as gospel and the whole debate over the lockout would pretty much disappear.

Again, you show me where to find the total number of goals scored league wide during Fedorov's Wings career, and then Datsyuk's and we'll do it. I cannot for the life of me, find one reputable list of all the goals scored from 90/91 until 02/03, and from 01/02 to 11/12. Also, you wouldn't divide it by 13 as that would give you a goals per year total, not a goals per game total. You'd need to know how many games where played during Fedorov's Wings career and divide the total goals by that. But I'm fairly sure you just misspoke there.

Ok, will do. You provide me a link which shows the number of goals scored from 1990/1991 through 2002/2003 (to determine Fedorov's stats) and another which gives the goals from 2001-2002 to 2011-2012 (to determine Datsyuk's) and I'll do the math right here.

Haha, perfect. Of course you realize that shootout goals, which don't benefit Datyuk's stat line, also don't inflate Fedorov's right? It's a moot point, neither of those players stats were affected by the shoot out.

1. I didn't realize we rounded when citing statistics, how convenient for your argument 2. Goals per game was above 6 in 2005-2006 when Datsyuk had the first of his back to back 87 pt seasons.

NO...HE...DIDN'T. Of his first 6 seasons 1991-1997, both 1995 and 1997 were below 6 goals per game. Go back to the link YOU provided on the last page and double check. Actually, here's the link. THE VERY SAME ONE YOU PROVIDED ON PAGE ONE. Look at 1995 and 1997. http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/showthread.php?t=97918

Neat story. Go ahead a remove the first FIVE (in 1995 gpg was actually lower than some of the seasons Datsyuk has played in) seasons from Fedorov's goals, assists, and points totals and he's still a more prolific scorer for the remainder of his career. Remove roughly one third of his career and pretend it never even happened and he still scored more than Datsyuk has. Leave those same seasons in, but reduce the numbers by about .50 pts per game and he's WAY out front. I'd recommend you ready Harold's post above...twice. From 1991-1994 gpg was higher than post lockout. 1995 was lower, 96 higher, 97 the same (roughly), and 98, 99, 2002, 2003, 2004 lower than they've been in 50 years. No matter how you cut it your argument rests on nothing. Several people have already proved your "goals against was higher during Fedorov's career" hyperbole wrong, and so you're now resting this absurd argument on the already tenuous premise that if you exclude the most productive seasons of Fedorov's career then his numbers aren't as good as Datsyuk's, which would dubious even if it were true...but alas, like most good pipe dreams, it's simply a figment of your imagination.