eva unit zero

There was no "might" in what Medvedev said on the topic. He said he will not honor Hudler's KHL contract if the arbitrator decides on a contract and the club accepts. NY Times Article The only question is, how much will Huds be awarded?

The head of the KHL said they would not register Hudler's KHL contract if, after his NHL arbitration, he had an NHL contract. This is in response to the goodwill generated by the NHL refusing to allow Atlanta to sign defenseman Joel Kwiatwoski when he had a valid contract with a KHL club. This means that in a week we should know if Hudler is playing for Detroit this coming season or not.

I still don't understand two things. 1) Why didn't the Islanders keep Joey MacDonald for cheap after the performance he put on last season. He'd be a cheaper backup for Biron than Roloson will be, and he'd perform just as well. Plus he doesn't have the ego built up if Dipietro comes back and someone has to get waived and sent to the minors. Both Roloson and Biron might have problems with that. 2) Do the Flyers REALLY think a tandem of Ray Emery/Brian Boucher is an upgrade over Martin Biron/Antero Niittymaki given that Biron is EASILY the best goaltender out of those four. Emery and Boucher have both shown solid ability, but not nearly consistently enough. But Niittymaki might prove to be better than either this season.

I've always liked both of these guys. The thing is, I expect arbitration to rule in the Wings' favor at $3m next week regarding Hudler, and the Wings to take a 2-year deal. That would only leave room for one of these guys, and that is assuming Lilja is traded or spends the entire season on LTIR. McGrath is probably the better player right now, but Oulahen fits the team's needs more...so it's a hard decision. I think I would have to say take McGrath because he's capable of PKing on a lesser level than Oulahen, while Oulahen is really a defensive specialist who is not capable of scoring the same way. If Hudler ends up gone, take both.

Hudler's not going anywhere until after his arbitration hearing, at which point we'll know what's happening. Hopefully he'll be playing on the second line in Detroit with Franzen, either centering him or as the opposite winger. Assuming the arbitration ends up with a $3m ruling, Hudler should be back in Detroit. Based on that, here's a few different sets of line combinations that could work well: Datsyuk/Zetterberg/Holmstrom Franzen/Filppula/Hudler Cleary/Helm/Leino Maltby/Draper/Oulahen Datsyuk/Zetterberg/Holmstrom Franzen/Hudler/Leino Cleary/Filppula/Helm Maltby/Draper/Oulahen Franzen/Zetterberg/Hudler Leino/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Cleary/Filppula/McGrath Maltby/Draper/Helm

Leino on the 2nd line isn't that far fetched? Leino is not as good as Hudler in any area of offense, and offense is why people are suggesting Leino for the second line. Yet people said Hudler wasn't good enough for the second line. There is no logical reason for this other than people disliking Hudler.

Golf. Suffering a knee injury or a shoulder injury?

Show me some proof of this. Hudler often played with players like Draper and Maltby who did NOT have offensive skill. Hudler typically had to create his own offense at even strength. On the second power play unit, Hudler was an extremely dangerous offensive force as a playmaker and as a scorer; He played a huge part in making that unit work. Perhaps it can be argued that the Wings made Hudler's numbers look better by providing players to finish for him on the power play, but by the same token, the Wings made Hudler's numbers worse by sticking Hudler on the third and fourth lines with guys who aren't scorers instead of on the first or second line with a guy who can score. If Hudler had been centering a line with Naslund and Zherdev, Hudler probably racks up 50 assists and 75-80 points.

I wonder if we'll see Kopecky/Hossa...

So let me get this straight. I can prove that Hudler would be a first liner on certain teams, but that doesn't count because those teams suck and don't have the forward depth Detroit does. Maybe you guys missed it....but THAT WAS THE ******* POINT. Most teams do not have Detroit's forward depth and most teams cannot place guys like Hudler, Filppula, and Samuelsson on the third line. On pretty much every team in the league those three are top six forwards and on a great deal of teams those three play a first line role. You guys are sitting there saying that because Hudler was stuck on Detroit's third line that he's a third liner, even though he scored 23 goals and almost 60 points with barely more than ten minutes per game.

Hudler had 23 goals, 34 assists, and 57 points in 82 games. The Rangers' leaders were: Markus Naslund, 24 goals Nikolai Zherdev, 35 assists Nikolai Zherdev and Scott Gomez, 58 points Zherdev also scored 23 goals; meaning he scored nearly identical numbers to Hudler with much greater ice time. Zherdev is also a weaker defensive player than Hudler. Zherdev is considered a first-line caliber player. But Hudler is clearly the better player, as he scored comparably in far less time and is better defensively. That's just one example.

Rafalski has a no-trade clause, so unless he wants to go play for Ottawa the deal won't happen. So you can count this as no deal. Especially since the Sens take on more salary than they lose in this situation.

Fixed.

Heatley makes almost twice what Hudler is asking for. To fit Heatley into the Wings' salary structure, you either have to trade one of: Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Rafalski Or you have to trade two of: Franzen, Stuart, Filppula, Kronwall, Cleary And that's with Heatley as the only player coming back. Who's in?

Hilarious video:

Do laundry. It's something I need to do anyway. Neil Armstrong or John Glenn?

I consider Messier one of the 15 best centers ever. That is giving the guy respect. Not considering him one of the five best centers ever is NOT disrespecting a player. Sorry. You lose. Now let's get back to the topic at hand.

Personally, I don't think there's much difference between Canadian "beer" and American "beer" so Canadian beer may well be better. But acting like one is the nectar of the gods and the other is horse piss IS ARROGANCE. As far as which population is nicer? I didn't say Americans were nicer. I haven't met every American nor every Canadian, and have met real asses and very nice people from both sides of the border. I simply said that stating Canadians were nicer as a fact IS ARROGANCE. Do you follow? Anyway, I think Team Russia has a good shot at the gold. Probably using a TT-33 Tokarev.

Aaron Downey didn't even play first line in Grand Rapids. Nor would he play first line if he played for the Toledo Walleye.

I don't care about his opinion on whether Canada produces better hockey players. But stating "nicer people" and "better beer" as facts that make Canada better is simple arrogance, not truth.

You don't think he'd play first line in Atlanta? On the Rangers? The Islanders? Columbus? Nashville? Phoenix? St. Louis?

Locker room antics?

Dionne won the Lester B. Pearson twice. He won the Art Ross once and was top three five times. Challenged for the Hart several times. And for reference, Brian Leetch and Mike Richter carried the Rangers to the 94 Cup, not Messier. If Dionne had a Brian Leetch and a Mike Richter in 79-80, he would have won the Division playoffs in 1982 and challenged for the Cup. Messier had 6 Cup rings over 11 seasons. You know who else had a bunch of Cup rings? Jiri Hrdina. He scored 130 points in 250 games over 6 seasons, and 7 points in 46 playoff games. Hrdina only played 4 seasons where he saw more than 20 games. He ended up with 3 Cup rings. How great was Hrdina? Messier won the Conn Smythe in 83-84...but I don't think he was the Oilers' best player that playoff as he was worse at both ends than Kurri and was far behind Gretzky in scoring, plus Fuhr's performance in net was impressive. Regardless, that's the only playoff he's even arguable for that honor. So we can agree that neither player was arguable as the team's best player for most if not all of their Cup wins. Does that mean Jiri Hrdina's Cup winning seasons time in the league was as good as Mark Messier's? Hrdina also won these three Cups in 6 seasons after the age of 30; how many more would he have won had he come over sooner? Cups are definitely an important accomplishment...but winning Cups or not are not the ONLY thing in determining whether or not a player was great, especially if he played as a supporting player on what many consider the greatest team of all time.

The St. Louis goal, he totally strips Gretzky and breaks up ice full speed. Yzerman is faster than Gretzky and going the other direction, so it's not like Gretzky really had a chance to get the puck back. Yzerman sniping the top corner from just inside the blue line and Casey not being able to stop it was great. Maybe not his greatest, but deserving of being on the list.

Yeah...but man does Kiprusoff need to work on his lateral movement. The only reason he needed to even make the kind of acrobatic saves he did is because he kept flying back and forth like some kind of transcontinental jet. That's actually probably why his stats have taken such a nosedive the past couple of years.