FlashyG

I don't hate Bowman, I think he's the greatest coach in NHL history. As a GM however he was bad, very bad. I didn't say he was the worst though, there are many GM's who were even worse than he was, but that doesn't make his record as a GM any better. He won 5 cups with Montreal, but he had no part in building those teams. Sam Pollock built them, and the core of those teams were in place before Bowman took over as coach. With the Wings Bowman had to be stripped of his GM powers because he was attempting to trade Yzerman to Ottawa for Alexei Yashin. He played a huge role in their success in his time here, but as a coach, not as a builder of the teams, that credit should go to Jim Devellano, Jim Nill, Bryan Murray, Hakan Andersson and most of all Ken Holland.

It was probably Babcock that wanted him all along. He seems like Babs type of guy. It will be interesting to see if the Leafs still trade him elsewhere or if he stays in Toronto.

The Blues were in a conference made up of ALL expansion teams. Every team they competed against to make the finals were also made up of guys from an expansion draft. His teams did not win a single game in any of those 3 finals against non expansion teams. I'm not sure being the best of the terrible teams in the league constitutes the most astonishing coaching performance ever. As a coach I'd agree that Scotty is the best the game has ever seen, as a GM he was among the worst I've ever seen though and its the credit he gets as a "Builder" that makes me call him the most overrated person in hockey history.

He was an assistant coach with the Blues when they came into the league and got promoted to head coach when the GM/Head coach quit, he had nothing to do with building the Blues and its not like the Blues were some sort of giant success story. They played in a conference where every single team was an expansion team and they were swept every time they faced a team from the Original 6 conference. He did coach them well, but his prowess as a coach has never been questioned Bowman jumped ship from St. Louis to Montreal, who had won 5 of the previous 7 Stanley Cups, so I'd say they were pretty well established as winners before Scotty arrived to "Save" them. They were built by Sam Pollock (and the lack of a draft allowing them a masive edge in acquiring all players coming into the league from the province of Quebec) certainly not by Bowman. Its also not that big of a coincidence that shortly after Pollock stepped down as GM, Bowman moved on to Buffalo to try his hand at being a GM. While Buffalo didn't win much before he got there, nor did they win more when he left, they didn't win anything while he was there either. They made the finals once, but were only 3-6 in playoff series under Bowman, they missed the playoffs twice and were the worst team in the league when Bowman was eventually fired. His next stop in the league was in Pittsburgh where he took over a team that was the reigning Stanley Cup Champs, he was able to repeat for them with a star studded line-up before moving onto Detroit who were a top team in the league for the previous 2 seasons before he arrived, and have continued to be successful after his departure. Bowman would be a fantastic adviser to a coach, but where in his history does he give you any indication that he knows how to build a hockey team. Perhaps Stan has gotten advice from his dad at times, who knows, but its absolutely clear that as a GM Stan Bowman has been a far better GM than his dad ever was and to credit Scotty for his sons success as a GM is completely unfair and somewhat insulting to one of the best GM's in the league. Personally I don't think he has anything to do with the Blackhawks success at all, I think he's piggy backing off his son's work now collecting rings while sitting at home in Buffalo.

I'm going to go ahead and say it. Scotty Bowman is the most overrated person in hockey history. He was a great coach, that's not in question but as a GM he was absolutely terrible, and he gets credit for millions of things he has absolutely nothing to do with. His is also incredibly opportunistic, in that he jumps from team to team that are on the cusp of winning and rides his predecessors work to add to his hardware collection. The only time in his entire career where he was tasked with building something was in Buffalo, and it was the only stop on his ride where he didn't succeed. I don't think Stan Bowman gets anywhere near the credit he deserves, Scotty lives nowhere near Chicago and has next to no impact on the day to day workings of the Blackhawks, yet when the Hawks win 3 cups in such a short span its not the GM that gets the credit, it goes to his 81 year old father who wasn't half the GM his son is. It's hard to find anyone on earth more overrated when you consider someone in this thead thinks your cup chances improve simply by writing Scotty Bowman on any type of paycheck.

This is true, I use Hola only while voting, as soon as I'm done voting its uninstalled. I couldn't find any other program that worked and allowed me to change my IP as easily.

I am shocked that we managed to pull that one off. I thought it was over after night 1. Don't underestimate Kesler though, I didn't think he'd get by the Leafs fans with Reilly and he seems to also get surges of voting late.

Either you plan on paying the RFA's far more than they are worth, or you think Cleary is going to sign for 10 times what he's worth. The Wings have 14-20 million dollars in cap space depending on LTIR and potential buyouts, and only 2 RFA's are going to get any real money and both of them will still likely be less than 3 a season.

Of the 2 I'd probably go with Osgood, but if the option was there I'd have voted neither. I can't see Fedorov getting his # retired given the offer sheet he signed with Carolina and given the way he left for Anaheim right after they eliminated the Wings from the playoffs.

Nyquist is up vs Price now, who decimated Zetterberg last round. Time for revenge, and we're down by a bunch already. Vote now, and vote often. Here is the code to use for Nyquist in this round, instructions and the link for the program to use with it are posted in the thread. (function vLoop (i) {setTimeout(function () {$(".right-play > .vote-button").click();if (--i) vLoop(i);else alert('done');},8000)})(88)

So Zetterberg is gone and Nyquist is down already to Eberle. Here is a better voting script. (function vLoop (i) {setTimeout(function () {$(".left-play > .vote-button").click();if (--i) vLoop(i);else alert('done');},8000)})(88); It's set to vote only 88 times before giving you a "Done" message, which is the maximum # of votes you can cast before the site stops recording them. If you're using Hola like I posted earier in the thread, change your location after each time you receive the done message then start the script again.

The last report we got on him wasn't good. He didn't even feel confident himself, that he'd ever play again. He was having trouble just living a daily life without the crippling effects of the concussion. I think he's more focused on getting healthy enough to live a normal life, I'm not sure he'd risk getting another concussion if he does recover from this one.

Looks like Z is making a bit of a comeback. Down to only 16k votes and only 6.7%. It was over 30k votes earlier today, but Z has been steadily climbing. Still 1 day left so get voting.

Yeah, I'm not giving up, but it seems pretty hopeless at this point. He's almost 20k votes behind. The % is getting closer, but the vote totals are so far apart that its next to impossible to close the gap. Then again Jake Allen had an even bigger lead a few years ago and we pulled Datsyuk ahead by half of a percentage point in the final hours of voting. spread the word as best you can.

According to Drum our votes will time-out after a certain number cast so I suggest downloading this add-on to chrome. Hola: Better Internet It allows you to change your location to continue having your votes count and as an added bonus it will allow you to get around most sites that geo block you, like Netflix, TSN, Hulu etc... Every hour or so just select a new country to vote from and re-start the script.

Here is the script to use to vote for Z in this round setInterval(function(){$("#page-wrapper > div > div > section.plays > div.match-play.ng-scope.left-play > button").click()},6000)

I don't really see the Blues as being in cap trouble, unless they have an internal cap that prevents them from going to the actual cap. They have over 12 million in cap space left to retain Tarasenko, Allen and for room to call up a few entry level contracts. It doesn't look like they'll be buyers in Free Agency this off-season, but I don't seem them being at risk of having to cut players unless ownership wants them to get costs down.

Spots on the Wings need to be earned or its a slap in the face to the guys like Athanasiou, Callahan, Ferraro, Pulkkinen etc.. who all had to prove they were NHL calibre players before even getting a sniff of the NHL team. If Larkin comes in and blows them all away with his talent, then maybe he earns his spot quicker than they did, but nothing should be given to a prospect based on what he did in College/Juniors. Lets see how he does in this upcoming playoff series, then lets see how much he improves between the playoffs and next seasons training camp. If all goes well then to that point maybe we can talk about him joining the Wings.

I think all the assistants will go with Babcock. They probably see coaching with him as a springboard to an NHL job.

Players are, not sure about coaches. Taxes are also higher here.

Buffalo will certainly have a lot of pull with Babcock considering their GM is the man who gave Babcock his first NHL job.

2 years in a row its been all Red Wings in the finals. (That's probably why both Wings are on one side of the bracket this year) Datsyuk vs Datsyuk, then Nyquist vs Tatar After the Oshie shenanigans last year I really hope that we get to knock Tarasenko's goal out of the competition this year. Even though I think his goal was the goal of the year, its just too much fun watching Blues fans lose their minds over getting outvoted by us every year. (Jake Allen, TJ Oshie, and hopefully now Taresenko)

Last year there was a massive contingent of Slovakian voters who helped propel Tatar to the TSN Play of the year title. In one match-up vs TJ Oshie, Tatar edged him out with a massive comeback where both guys had millions of votes. I believe that is the reason our votes were timing out after a certain # cast. A lot of Blues fans were complaining we were cheating...(we were)

I actually heard today that there is some talk that Quenneville might be done in Chicago after this season. Possibly a mutual parting of ways like McLennan in San Jose. I could definitely see Babcock taking the Chicago coaching position. Hard to believe Coach Q would leave though, he's in a pretty good position.