kliq

I was agreeing to the "Their was some good intensity up until the 5 on 3." part.

I agree with this. We pretty much matched them up to that point, then as soon as that 5 on 3 happened everything pretty much fell apart.

I would never wish an injury on anyone, but I think the only way we will ever find out how much Towes means to the Blackhawks is he ever goes down with an injury for a long period of time. I agree Toews is the better 2-way player, but I think Kane is the more impactful player and a greater reason for the Hawks success. Completely agree with you Frank, Towes is definitely the better person.

I wouldn't put the Blues in that category, they have won 1 playoff series in the last 13 years. Unless they show me otherwise, they are just not a team built for the playoffs. For everything you say about the Wings and their first round exits, the Blues are much worse.

I swear you have said this before, and last time you did we won. So keep saying it lol.

Excited for the game tonight! I picked this game in my package hoping to see any new acquisitions, but nevertheless even though we didn't trade for anyone, still excited to see Chicago hopefully get beat!

Your mixing up caphit and salary. His salary would have been 3 million, his caphit would have been I believe 2.5 million. Caphit cant change year to year within a contract. For example, if I guy is paid 8 million year 1, and 2 million year two of a 2 year contract, the cap hit is 5 million each year.

Do you think the Wings lost?

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. As bad as it sounds, as as much as I hate saying it, the best thing for us is for Mrazek to slightly falter and for Howard to jump in an pick up the slack. The better Mrazek performs, the higher his cap-hit for next year, the better Howard performs, the higher his trade value come summer. I will in no way cheer against Mrazek, but if he struggles or gets hurt and Howard takes over and carries this team into the playoffs.....I'm okay with that.

Keep trolling Bill. At some point the mods are going to give you The Axe.

Not going to waste my time counting your BS number.

Could you please list these 26 hall of famers? There is nothing wrong with playing with great players, but when people say you have "intangibles" it usually means your team wins alot. This is why I believe Toews is overrated, if he was on Columbus, nobody would be calling him the best player in the NHL. This argument doesn't apply to Datsyuk, Datsyuk is not overrated.

In his case "Intangibles" are being surrounded by guys ridiculously talented making him appear much better then he is.

If Datsyuk stays healthy, based on his PPG, he should take the lead at some point.

Tatar maybe, but when Nquist had his amazing run a couple of years ago, D & Z were both out with injuries.

Not to dismiss this as it definitely has a place, but the one thing I don't like about stats like this are they don't account for quality of opposition (unless I am missing something). For example, a pair like Kronwall/E (when they were the first pairing) is likely going up every night against the best of the best, while a pairing like E and Marchenko are likely going up against lesser competition. Essentially Marchenko/E have an easier shot of performing better together, so IF they had the better numbers, it doesn't mean they are necessarily the better pairing.

Not to mention, he was drafted as a forward lol.

Its on Sportsnet.

You are literally contradicting you first point of Crosby being number 1, and Ovie being number 2, with your last point of Crosby being number 1, and Toews being number 2. Its like you started out trying to make a valid point, then you ended trying to troll me and contradicted yourself in the process. Whatever, you pretend to think Towes is second best in the NHL, I don't think he is close. No point repeating ourselves.

I'm saying he is not as good as people think he is. That video game is a perfect example of my issue with him being ranked #2 in the NHL. There are many forwards/D-men/Goalies much more valuable then him. Just off the top of my head, guys I would rather have then Toews (assuming healthy), Crosby, Ovie, Kane (if he wasn't a ******), Keith, Weber, Price, Lundqvist, Quick, Kopitar, Malkin. I never said he wasn't a great player, just not the best of the best. Bergeron is a great example, everyone respects him as a player, but you dont hear people saying he is the face of the NHL, the best player in the league etc. You do hear that about Toews, and IMO they are at the same level. I question how people can say he is the best in the league, when he is probably the third best player on his own team.

Holland said he will explore trading Howard in the off-season, so some posters are interpreting that as Holland refusing to trade Howard. Don't shoot the messenger lol. I disagree about the free agent pool for goalies being deep, its pretty much all backups. There is quantity for sure, but not a ton of quality. The "headliners" are Hillier, Ward, & Reimer. I think a healthy Jimmy is better then any of them. Ward, Cam Hiller, Jonas Backstrom, Niklas Ramo, Karri Khudobin, Anton Reimer, James Scrivens, Ben Stalock, Alex Johnson, Chad Enroth, Jhonas Montoya, Al Peters, Justin Lindback, Anders Raanta, Antti NYR Hutton, Carter Gustavsson, Jonas Desjardins, Cedrick NYR Labarbera, Jason PHI MacIntyre, Drew CAR Smith, Jeremy Zatkoff, Jeff Budaj, Peter Danis, Yann Dell, Aaron Ellis, Dan Leighton, Michael

I've said this to you before when you've gone with this narrative and I'll say it again. This is today's NHL. If you count SO losses as regular losses, or you dont count SO wins as regular wins, everybody with the exception of a team or two that is in the playoffs is hovering around ".500". To see how close everyone is, look at ROW (Regular/OT Wins) of all the playoff teams. Florida - 28 TB - 31 Boston - 29 Detroit - 28 Washington - 41 (the outlier) NYR - 31 NYI - 28 Pitt - 28 NJ - 28

An Emmerton reference....interesting lol. If you take two extreme's after the fact, yes that looks silly but that can go both ways. In 1998 Datsyuk was taken 171st overall, David Legwand was taken second overall. Does this mean it is better to pick lower? Of course not. The higher you pick the increased probability you have in drafting a star, but a star can be found anywhere in the draft if you scout well and you develop properly.

Someone on here came up with an idea where the best non playoff team gets the first overall pick, and the worst team gets the last pick of the teams that don't make the playoffs. I kind of like this as it gives every team a reason to play hard right until the end. Though this idea may kill the trade deadline. The other option, and IMO the most likely is just making the odds much worse for the worst team, and much better for the best non playoff team. Make it so the team who is in 17th place is only a few percentages below the team in 30th to get the #1 pick. You could even just do a complete random pick of all non playoff teams (ie. 2005 draft when Pittsburgh drafted Crosby).

I don't think anyone is disputing that there is a higher probability to pick an elite player the higher you pick. My point is that its not a guarantee and that development is more important then simply having high picks.