RockyMountainWingGal

Nothing against Lappy, but not sure a 35yo vet is what the Wings need on this team as far as depth or toughness. I'm fine with young guys like Helm filling that role. Too bad for Avs fans he turned that down, they really love him here, and there is not much to like about this team right now. Yet another slap in the face for the Avs fans...

Congrats BewarethePenguin. Enjoy your year with the Cup before we take it back. For the other trolls that cannot seem to be cordial, go celebrate with some of your own fans somewhere - that's what these times are for....

Yes that is totally hilarious. Let's see this makes the Ducks, Hurricanes, and Lightning all dynasties of late too. What does this make Detroit and New Jersey? Super-dynasties for winning multiple Cups? How did the Pens get here? Oh yes they sucked so bad they got top draft picks for a few years. I actually think they need to rotate the top draft pick between conferences since the East will always get it - seems ridiculous the way it is, but a topic for another day....

The East is a much easier road to the Cup. Much less travel, far more bottom feeding teams, no real powerhouses - perhaps Pens and Caps getting there now but the lower seeds in the East are usually pretty weak. If the Wings were in the East, we'd be in the ECF every year, SCF alot more. But we're not, gotta deal with the travel and the schedule, just the facts.

Not quite. Scoring only one goal in games 6 and 7 wasn't going to get it done. As said, this was a team loss.

Well one of those waste of roster space vets scored our only goal in game 6. Yes Draper and Malts are getting up there - they have one more year left on their contracts, then they're done. They are 4th line guys - it's not like they get Hossa's spot (maybe they should have ). Nobody was complaining when we won game 5. Actually if you ask me, Maltby and Draper were two of our better players in Games 6&7. Just didn't work out, had nothing to do with either of them...

Yup this remains the best NHL team site hands down. Always enjoy my time here - even with devastations like last night. Actually it's good to converse with sympathetic ears. It's also nice that other team's fans can come here. That is not true everywhere. Here's to a great board and yes a great season even though the ending was sad. Wings will be back. Wasn't meant to be this year.... Thanks Matt.

Absolutely. Stuart was great in these POs. He especially stepped up when both Raffy and Nick were out for awhile. He is not the reason the Wings lost last night. Might have made a few mistakes, but the way the game was going we weren't going to win anyways....

Well the Wings didn't deserve to win the game last night, the Pens did, so congrats. Would have been tough to lose twice in a row to the same team, cause you never know when or if you will get back. They dug deep and were more focused in games 6&7. Congrats to the Wings too - never like to use it as an excuse - but the toll of going deep 3 years in a row caught up. Couldn't find that extra gear - too many banged up guys. I still love my Wings - hope people realize how special this team is. We got beat fair and square - happens. Enjoy your summer with the Cup Pens fans....

Some of us aren't "bashers". I can only speak for myself but I hope to god Hossa lifts that Cup over his head tomorrow night. Could he be injured? totally possible - many of our guys are playing injured right now. I think many of us expected him to bust through against his old team in the SCF and are disappointed more than anything. I hope and wish the guy has his one big game of the series tomorrow night. The money doesn;t matter this year - he fit under the cap. The money will matter next year when it will be near impossible to get all our players resigned under the cap.... But let's not worry about that now - let's just win the Cup tomorrow night and then the Hossa talk can resume come July 1....

Actually he's right. Guys like Huds and Homer might not be producing as much as they could/should, but Huds is making a mere fraction of what Hossa is, and is not on the top lines. Homer has done his part for the Wings in the POs for a dozen years and helped bring us 4 Cups - he doesn't make as much dough as Hossa either and his time is near an end - that's why guys like Franzen and Cleary are taking over in front of the net. Flip makes less than half of Hossa's salary and imo, is outperforming him by quite a bit. The reason Hossa is being singled out is that he chose to come here to try to win a Cup for one year - he chose to put that pressure on himself, knowing he would be expected to have a monster PO run. So far he has not. Actually he was better in the first 3 series and has really fallen far off the mark in the SCF just when the Wings needed him most. I think everyone wants the guy to succeed, esp as long as he's a Wing we need to support him, but really it's baffling at how he has just disappeared in the finals. Still hope for the last game, maybe he's saving it, who knows. Likely his last one in a Wings uniform, hope he digs deep and shines in his moment....

Biggest game of his life and Hossa was brutal. He is getting worse as the POs go on. He's played OK w alot of hits etc in a few games, but honestly does he play any better than our 4th line guys? Well only one more game left as a Red Wing. Hope he makes it count, but I'll be counting on other guys to step it up....

That's funny! I don't really want to see many more awards right now. Possibly Orr, but I think you cannot have current/recently retired players all getting awards named after them. Now if they want to have their own "Messier" type award and support it themself that's fine. I heard a called on NHL live the other day ask if the league should retire certain numbers league-wide. They used Gretzky, Orr, and Lemieux as examples. I think no way - teams' fanbases don't want to see other teams' jerseys in the rafters, or have their numbers retired. Imagine Roy's number retired league-wide - why should the Wings or other teams abide by that. Anyhow, a bit off topic, but I don't think every outstanding player needs an award. I like how most of them are named after the pioneers of the NHL...

"You ask if we have a Stanley Cup? We've already got one! In fact we have 11. You Penguish Pigdog!"

We're all having fun picking on him because he is the opposition, and well, it's easy to do the way he is acting. However, he is very young - Hank is what about 6-7 years older than him? You'd think Sid might actually be as mature as Hank in 6-7 years (will he ever grow Hank's beard though, I doubt it ). Remember the Wings groom their players very well, Crosby was just tossed onto a very very bad team at the time right out of the gate and expected to save the franchise. No wonder he acts like he does....

On a side note, I was just reading the article about Datsyuk on NHL.com and I didn't know both his parents passed away quite young. I want to just give him a big hug.....

Did you clone the Mule? If so that would be cool....

^^ You're entertaining - stick around. At least you have the cajones to come in here after your team loses and post.

Keeping in the spirit of the earlier Count photo...

Yes Maltby is a great diver. Sid should take some lessons from him. However, I expect 4th line guys to try to take some dives and draw some penalties - Malts is good at that. Having your star players dive like that is embarrassing. I hope Hank never does that. Forsberg was a pro at it - maybe Sid is watching some Floppa videos....

The officiating has always been inconsistent and that's what fans don't like. In these tight games that decide the outcome of who wins the Cup you can always go back and find instances when something was or wasn't called. Each team can then make their case for why the officiating tilted the outcome of the game against their team. That's never going to end. The BJs still think they should be playing in OT vs. us, the Ducks think Cleary's goal shouldn't have counted, had the Wings lost that series, it would have surely been because Hossa's good game-tying goal got whistled dead, etc. Oh and Quenneville had the worst call in the history of sports vs him ( omg). Wings had to overcome some questionable officiating last year too to win the Cup. Will have to do that this year as well, as always. How about our PK get a little better just in case.... ?

All teams have their slew of excuses for losing, esp in playoff games. Like someone above said, series expected to be 2-2 at this point, not the scenario I figured, but yet here we are. Dats coming back will not get rid of excuses anyways - new ones will suddenly pop up...

Datsyuk was the team MVP during the regular season. The Wings can overcome a team like the Hawks sans Datsyuk. But to state the obvious, going through a whole SCF without him is taking its toll. Wings and Datsyuk need to figure out a way to get him on the ice for game 5, even for limited minutes, even at 50% - he would be a huge momentum lifter no matter how effective... Imagine the Pens sans Malkin for the first 4 games - series would be over......

Kind of looks like Sammy . Although ironically, Sammy is actually netting more of those.....

I have far more confidence that Datsyuk will show up in the POs than Hossa. Datsuk has been out for the last 6 games, he can't contribute. Hossa is on the ice and needs to step up his game in Pavel's absence - I'm not seeing it. Pavel certainly had some bumps in his postseason appearances early on. But he has improved remarkably. This year he wasn't racking up points in the POs true, but he was showing his Selke nomination skills. Hossa is OK defensively but no Selke nominee, and really he is paid the big bucks to net them, and has not been doing do. There is still time however. It's not too late for Hossa to show his stuff in games 5 and 6 (and 7?) and get er done. We'll see...