FlashyG

I'm so conflicted in this game. The Wings all play for Sweden but its so hard to cheer against Slovenia who are easily the cinderella team of this tournament.

I actually agree our chances of winning the cup are quite slim, but how would buying out one of our best players improve them? Maybe if we signed a better scorer and needed to make room to get under the cap it could be done, but in what world does buying out Franzen then trying to replace him in Free Agency make sense? Have you paid any attention to the prices of Free Agents the past few off-seasons? or to the fact that we can no longer get players to take discounts to come here? We're going to be a bubble team for a couple seasons, lets just accept that and have hope that our prospects will develop into the next wave of players that will return us to the upper echelon of NHL teams.

If we signed him I'd want him at a shorter term than 5 years. I'd even be willing to pay him a bit more to get the term down. I want as much flexibility as possible in our forward line-up over the next couple of years to make room for our prospects knocking on the door. Even though I like Kulemin, I wouldn't want to lose any prospects we've developed over him, especially when we're not probably not going to get the 30 goal scoring Kulemin.

He scored on the very first shot of the tournament. Hasn't done much since. And yes Healy was talking about Kulemin. I agree he's not a sniper by any stretch of the imagination but his goal scoring abilities are better than Healy's commentating abilities.

Pierre can be equally as annoying, but he's at least knowledgeable. If he could just remember that nobody cares where every player on the team played peewee hockey I could stomach him a lot easier. Healy is just all around awful, and it baffles me how he has a job in broadcasting at all.

Listening to Glen Healy doing commentary during this Russia/Norway game is excrutiating. He's referred to a guy with a 30 goal NHL season as having non-existant goal scoring abilities. He has a few times attempted and hilariously failed to use the word Ironic in a sentence. He's beyond disrespectful of anything to do with the KHL Players. At one point he suggested getting a NHL Center Ice Package for their teams management so they can see some games played at an NHL level. And he also makes bold predictions like, "The Ice will get worse as we get later into the period" Even Eddie O would be better.

With the way the Canadian and American fan bases have argued for the past couple days it would be fitting if the Semi final on our side of the bracket was Slovakia vs Switzerland.

Should be a great game...I'd put my money on the US ending Canada's streak in that one. Our team just isn't very disciplined and the US will bury a bunch if you keep giving them power plays.

You're underestimating our ability to come up with excuses....If we lose to anyone at any point in time there will ALWAYS be excuses...most of which will rightfully be incredibly hilarious to you guys. Bad Ice, Bad Refereeing, wrong coach, wrong line-up, Crosby had a hangnail that hindered his shot all tournament, some idiot in Regina shaved his Olympic beard too soon, Glen Healy stole our mojo...we've got a million excuses when we lose. Win or lose at least we've still got curling right fellow Canucks???

I was referring to the hundreds of posters on HFboards who seemed to be trying to figure out any scenario they could where they were on the opposite side of the bracket. Posts like these That's just from a tiny portion of that thread...Maybe Red Wing fans are a little more open to a tougher challenge on the way to gold, as I didn't see anyone posting thoughts like that here, but it seems that the wider team USA fanbase really didn't want to have to face Canada unless a medal was on the line.

Joe didn't make it because they only had a certain # of center spots and they wanted guys with better foot speed for the bigger ice. That's also why Eric Staal and Milan Lucic were left out. If these games were on NHL sized rinks I think you'd see a very different line-up. Apparently they learned from Nagano and Turin that you need a different style of team for different sized rinks.

USA is playing very well, but they aren't playing better teams. Canada has played teams that are ranked #2, #9 and #15 The US has played teams that are ranked #3, #8 and #17 Its hard to say either has it any tougher than the other. I also haven't read a single person say Canada will win because we've always been good. I also haven't read anyone saying Canada has played better than the US. I can however understand people thinking Canada will win because as Son of a Wing said, we have the best team on paper. That doesn't really mean much, as the games aren't played on paper, but if Canada wasn't a team to be feared most American fans wouldn't have been cheering for a Canada win in Regulation or a Finnish win in Overtime so they could avoid having to play them until a medal match-up

Teemu is that you? Even if Crosby went down easily on that play today it was as blatant interference as they come. You can't throw a body check on a guy when he's nowhere near the puck. Besides, if you actually look at the stats I wouldn't say Canada has had any help from the referee's, they've spent by far the least time with the man advantage of all the contenders, almost half as much time as the next closest to them. Penalty Minutes Against Finland 12 Canada 16 Russia 20 USA 20 Sweden 26 Penalty Minutes For Sweden 30 Russia 28 USA 18 Finland 18 Canada 10

I don't disagree that we need to get more from our forwards, but instead of worrying about their lack of production in a tournament we're undefeated in. Why aren't more of us looking at it optimistically, recognizing that we still have a lot of room to improve despite having won our group and only allowing 2 goals. I'll complain and second guess like the rest if we lose, but I'd rather just enjoy the tournament while its going well.

One thing I have to hand to fans of the USA you are much more optimistic and positive about your team than most Canadians. It seems odd to me that I'm finding myself defending team Canada to countrymen when they are 3-0 without their best players hitting their stride and having allowed only 2 goals so far. Makes me wonder what they expected from the round robin? 10-0 wins vs everyone and the rest of the world shrinking away in fear...Who do they think we are...the Dutch Speedskating team?

"Floater" is one of the stupidest fan created terms ever. Generally the guys who get the label are great goal scorers that tend to look for open ice to shoot from, while their line-mates fight to get the puck to them. Look at the list of players who've all been given that stupid label. Patrick Kane, Ilya Kovalchuk, Brett Hull, Alexander Ovechkin, Alexei Kovalev, Tomas Vanek, Dany Heatley, Alexander Semin, Phil Kessel, Anze Kopitar, Paul Kariya etc,,, Basically anyone who scores goals and doesn't get nominated for a Selke is considered one. What really irks me about Franzen getting that label is that he's only been given the label after signing his current deal (which is a deal for the team BTW) yet his defence has actually improved since the signing. He actually gets used as a penalty killer when one of our regular guys is injured or in the box themselves so clearly Babcock doesn't think his defence is near as bad as you seem to. I agree that Nyquist should have been in the line-up since day 1 of the season, in fact I think Holland and Babcock both know that as well, but Nyquist wasn't in the minors because we signed Alfredsson and Weiss. If Holland deserves criticism for an off-season move that kept Nyquist out of the line-up (he does) its for bringing back Cleary and/or not buying out Tootoo for a roster spot. Signing Alfredsson was a great signing, and while Weiss wasn't my first or 2nd choice, we needed a center because Flip had no interest in coming back. You have no objectivity at all when it comes to players you don't like. Just for comparison sake here is Franzen, Nyquist and Alfredsson's ppg rates this season. Nyquist .72 ppg Alfredsson .76 ppg Franzen .74 ppg We agree that our young talent needs to filter into the line-up to make this team a legit contender again, but they need to filter in WITH guys like Alfredsson, Franzen, Datsyuk, Zetterberg etc. The guys up front that should be cut loose are guys like Bert, Cleary, Sammy, Miller, Eaves, Emmerton, and Tootoo. Replacing them with our prospects has potential to make us much better, but replacing our best players with prospects will at best be a wash and will more likely make us worse.

I don't think Canada has looked anywhere near as bad as some of you make it seem, or that the US has looked much better. Defensively Canada is playing FAR better than I've ever seen them on the big ice, they're getting tremendous amounts of offence from their defence as well and their goalies have both been steady. The US have been very similar, Quick has been great and their defence has been solid although I don't think they're as good at contributing offensively, that's easily been made up for by the strong play of their forwards though, especially Kessel. Canada's forward group should have scored a few more goals but they've faced some better goaltending, which can, and probably will happen to everyone at some point. I'd rather deal with it in the round robin than I would in the medal round. (although I think Canada is in for another tough game if Switzerland gets by Latvia) When it comes to comparing their pools I don't think the gap is that big either. The American's pool had a better bottom 2 teams, and they looked a lot better vs their minnows than Canada did vs theirs. On the other hand I personally think Finland is a better team than Russia and that Canada looked better vs Finland than the US did vs Russia. I thought Russia outplayed the Americans for the majority of that game, but Quick played great and T.J. Oshie was the definition of clutch in the shootout. Canada controlled the flow of play for the whole game vs Finland but Rask was outstanding and we don't have a forward on a hot streak like Kessel's. I won't be the least bit shocked if the US goes on to win gold, or if they go through Canada to get it, but the gap between all the top teams is so small that in a single elimination format its anyone's gold medal.

That may not be such a bad idea...I sure wouldn't want Howard trying to make passes like that. Sometimes I wish he was tied to his posts so he wasn't able to handle the puck at all.

To me there is a difference between the Canada Russia and Canada USA rivalries. I hate when Canada loses to anyone, but the hatred when they lose to Russia is far worse than it is with the US. I think it will take losing a big game to the US to elevate them into the Russia category for me.

Lehtonen has outscored a ton of people in this tournament. Sharp, Duchene, Kunitz, Toews, Tavares, Benn, Perry, St. Louis, Nash, Crosby, Vanek, Parise, Stepan, Callahan, McDonagh, Wheeler, Pacioretty, Semin, Anisimov,Nichushkin, Kovalchuk, Tarasenko, Jurco, Handzus, Tatar, Hossa, Kruger, Eriksson, Zetterberg, Nyquist, Hagelin, Landskog That's a pretty crazy list

Tatar's new nickname should be the 10 ton Elephant.

So this is basically where the tournament stands going into the final round robin game #5 Russia - #12 Norway faces #4 in QF #6 Switzerland - #11 Latvia faces #3 in QF #7 Czech republic - #10 Slovakia faces #2 in QF #8 Slovenia - #9 Austria faces #1 in QF If Canada wins in regulation, #1 Canada, #2 Sweden, #3 USA, #4 Finland If Finland wins in regulation, #1 Finland, #2 Sweden, #3 USA, #4 Canada If Canada wins in OT/shootout, #1 Sweden, #2 USA, #3 Canada, #4 Finland If Finland wins in OT/shootout, #1 Sweden, #2 USA, #3 Finland, #4 Canada (These are assuming that Canada wins by less than 9 and Finland wins by less than 8)

I voted Canada Russia because of the history, but I think USA vs Canada has been the more prominent rivalry since the NHL started taking part in the games.

With Austria beating Norway the bottom of the standings are starting to become clearer. Slovakia will finish 12th if they lose to Russia by more than 1 goal. The only other team who could finish here is Norway.Norway will finish 11th unless Slovakia beats Russia, forces overtime with Russia or loses by only 1 goal and scores at least 1 goal of their own. In that case they'd finish 12thLatvia will finish 10th unless Slovakia forces overtime, in which case they'll finish in 11th and Slovakia would finish 10thAustria will finish 9th unless Slovenia loses to the US by 7 or more goals.Slovenia will finish 8th unless they lose by more than 7 goals to fall to 9th. If they win vs the US they have a few potential seedings. 3rd if Russia also lost, 5th if Russia wins, or 6th if they win in overtime. Just forcing OT would move them up to 7th.Czech Republic will finish 7th unless Slovenia wins or forces OT vs the US, in which case they'd be 8thSweden will finish 1st if Canada vs Finland goes to OT, otherwise they'll be 2ndUSA can finish as low as 7th if they lose to Slovenia in regulation. They'll likely finish 2nd or 3rd depending on Canada vs Finland. If that game goes to OT there's a very good chance the US will finish 2nd. A Canada win in OT would only require the US to win by 2 over Slovenia to take 2nd. If Finland were to win in OT, the US would need to win by 4 goals vs Slovenia, or win by 3 goals but score 4 more goals than Finland gets vs Canada today to move up.Russia could take 3rd if Slovenia beats USA and they win their game. They could potentially finish as low as 7th should both they and the US lose their final game.Switzerland will need huge blowout between Finland and Canada or for both the US and Russia to lose their final game to move up from 5th spot. Should Russia and the US both win they will fall to 6thFinland will finish 1st with a win over Canada in regulation, an overtime win would put them in 2nd or 3rd depending on the US vs Slovenia game and goal differential between themselves and USA. An OT loss would drop them to 4th unless Russia beat Slovakia by 7 or more goals. Losing in regulation combined with a Russia win would put them in 5th.Canada is in the exact same spot as Finland, except in their case an OT loss would require Russia to beat Slovakia by 5 or more goals.

Yeah why would we want to keep one of our best goal scorers on a team that struggles to score goals!!! Holland refuses to buy out Franzen because he's not clinically insane. There isn't a GM in all of hockey who would buyout his contract, the value on it is fantastic. We could still sign someone like Vanek and keep Franzen so there's absolutely no point in buying him out. Although I personally don't think Vanek is worth the 8+ he'll probably get on the open market. Its also hard to say Holland won't pursue free agents when we signed 2 of the biggest this past off-season and just missed out on the biggest one the year before. You'd be hard pressed to find a GM who is more active in Free Agency.