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It's that prankster Osgood dulling everyone's skates before the game.

Osgood's stats last year fit right in with his first time around with Detroit.

I blame Thomas Patrick Gorman. It's clearly his fault that NHL players are falling down.

So was there a rule change that tripping is no longer a penalty against the home team?

Kopecky has had wonderful chemistry with all three of Hudler, Hossa, and Zetterberg during the times he has played with them. He has the skills to be a scorer and the chemistry with the second liners on my roster.

You should check out the Fedorov vs. Mogilny Puckhandling/Skating/Shooting commercial...Sergei DESTROYS Alex so hard it's not even funny. In the Sergei vs Pavel commercial, the times are a joke, considering that Fedorov's best time in the All-Star Game Skills Competition is like 3.5 seconds faster.

The matchup of the Filppula vs the Cammalleri line...worked out great for Calgary. Chalk up the victory to coaching if Calgary holds the lead. If Babcock learns his ******* lesson and mixes up his lines so that matchup can't be made, perhaps the Wings will pull it out.

Speaking of Liv, I was saying the other day that I wouldn't mind seeing him get a training camp invite after seeing Howard's performance.

The best I can say is...all questions have already been answered.

Mario was NEVER better defensively than Yzerman. Yzerman is the only player to ever score 150+ points and receive even a single first-place vote for the Selke in the same season. Yzerman only scored 150+ points once, while Mario scored 150+ points many times, as did Gretzky. Yzerman was a Selke nominee multiple times and actually won the trophy. Defensive ability was not even close to comparable. Yzerman was a FAR better all-around player than either Lemieux or Gretzky.

Starting goaltenders the Wings have drafted: Jim Rutherford, Greg Stefan, Tim Cheveldae, Chris Osgood Osgood is the only one who has managed to be among the league's better goaltenders for most of his career.

How about an early summer trade? Stuart for a couple mid-round picks and the rights to Staffan Kronwall?

A NTC just means you have to ask the guy if it's ok to make the deal. If the player OKs the deal, there's nothing wrong with it and it won't hurt you for the future. Players with NTCs get traded all the time. What it kills you to do is what Brian Burke and Doug MacLean did with Todd Marchant in the Sergei Fedorov deal. Columbus traded Tyler Wright and Francois Beauchemin to Anaheim for Fedorov. The same day, Todd Marchant had a NTC at the time. He was placed on waivers and Anaheim had the first pick at the time and claimed him. Basically, they worked around his NTC and got him to Anaheim anyway. That was basically against the rules.

Conklin is going out of Detroit for quite a bit more cash than you realize. He's not going to stick around as a backup, which is what he would be if he stayed. He's going to a team where he's the #1 or #1a goaltender and will make at least $2m...that's well over what the Wings can pay him.

I've already gone into great detail about how this can work. No, Chelios and Conklin are not coming back. Conklin is going to sign for minimum $2m, possibly $3.5 or $4m somewhere else. The Wings have far too many defense prospects who they need to move into the NHL coming in the next few years to keep Chelios around. Franzen will likely be signing for the biggest salary he can find. Sorry, that's the way it's going to be. He'll probably cost upwards of $4m, possibly $5m or $5.5m per year and he isn't worth even close to that. So he's out of town after this season. The ideal move is to trade Brad Stuart, if an acceptable trade can be found. That opens up enough cap space to re-sign all the players the Wings will be retaining, assuming reasonable numbers, and allows for permanent promotion of Leino, Helm, Ericsson, and Howard to fill gaps. The Wings would work with 13 forwards, 7 defensemen, and 2 goalies. Maltby would be the spare forward, Meech and Lebda would split time as the sixth defenseman unless someone really showed they were better. This leaves about $200k in free cap space for next year if the cap remains the same. Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Kopecky/Hudler/Hossa Leino/Filppula/Samuelsson Cleary/Draper/Helm Maltby Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Ericsson Meech/Lilja Lebda Osgood Howard If the Stuart trade wasn't possible, the Wings would have to trade Valtteri Filppula and Brett Lebda, either together or separately. Leino, Helm, Ericsson, and Howard all see promotion. Derek Meech would serve double-duty as the spare forward and spare defenseman. This leaves about $100k in free cap space for next year if the cap remains the same. Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Kopecky/Hudler/Hossa Cleary/Leino/Samuelsson Maltby/Draper/Helm Meech Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Ericsson Stuart/Lilja Meech Osgood Howard If you want to actually retain Franzen while signing Hossa, you have a few options. Franzen would likely stay with the Wings for around $3.5m if he were to end up staying, so we need to find a way to open that space. So the way to keep Franzen would be to trade Stuart, Filppula, and Lebda, and promote Ericsson, Leino, Howard, and Kindl. You would also have to promote Abdelkader instead of re-signing Samuelsson. So the Wings would lose Filppula, Stuart, and Samuelsson to keep Franzen...is that worth it? Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Franzen/Hudler/Hossa Cleary/Kopecky/Leino Abdelkader/Draper/Helm Maltby Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Ericsson Kindl/Lilja Meech Osgood Howard I definitely favor the Stuart option, but any of those rosters could win the Cup.

I was simply disputing the use of "easily" in the earlier post. Easily is certainly inaccurate. He may well be top 5...but I wouldn't say he gets there easily, as there are many players who can argue for that ranking.

Easily one of the top 5? Let's see. Ovechkin, Malkin, Lidstrom, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Chara all have strong arguments to be ahead of Crosby. I can think of a few other players who could be placed ahead of Crosby as well, but I think I've made my point, by listing more than five players who could definitely be considered better than Crosby.

I don't know about other people, but my opinion of Fisch's ability hasn't changed since his injury.

I can see him heading to the Rangers. They have a bunch of UFAs on their blueline and he wants to play for an Original Six team. They could use a veteran like Chelios who would come cheap while providing decent third pairing (or better) play given the number of UFAs and RFAs they have. Boston as a depth defenseman is also a possibility, although it depends on which free agent defensemen, if any, Boston retains. Montreal has quite a few UFA defensemen, and Chelios could replace several of them.

He was faster than Lebda, had as hard a shot as anyone in the league, was one of the league's best defensive defensemen, good passer, he was a good hitter for his size and could fight well. He also had yet to enter his prime. The guy was gonna win a Norris or two, or more.

I think it's slightly off to say he won't retire until he gets 0 offers. He won't retire until he gets 0 offers that involve playing a large number of games in the top six. He's not going to sign to be a spare defenseman who doesn't play more than a game or two on a bad team; basically a locker room coach. If he's only getting offers like that, he'll look into coaching and things like that.

Former future multiple Norris winner. Right there.

ON THE ROSTER Marian Hossa $6m Jiri Hudler $1.8m Mikael Samuelsson $1.35m Ville Leino $1m Tomas Kopecky $575k Darren Helm $599k Jonathan Ericsson $900k Jimmy Howard $717k LEAVING AS UFA Johan Franzen Chris Chelios Ty Conklin TRADED FOR PICKS/PROSPECTS Brad Stuart (if possible) AND/OR both of Valtteri Filppula and Brett Lebda I have made some rosters which are entirely from players already in the organization; It's possible a roster player or two could return if all three players are traded. Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Kopecky/Hossa Leino/Filppula/Samuelsson Cleary/Draper/Helm Maltby Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Ericsson Meech/Lilja Lebda Osgood Howard OR Holmstrom/Datsyuk/Hossa Hudler/Zetterberg/Kopecky Cleary/Leino/Samuelsson Maltby/Draper/Helm Meech Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Ericsson Stuart/Lilja Meech Osgood Howard OR Holmstrom/Datsyuk/Hossa Hudler/Zetterberg/Kopecky Cleary/Leino/Samuelsson Abdelkader/Draper/Helm Maltby Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Ericsson Kindl/Lilja Meech Osgood Howard Pick whichever roster you would prefer. I take the first one.

Rask definitely did NOT make the poke check. The puck continued moving towards the goal line the whole time; had the check been made, it moves back towards the blue line. And the skater's only backwards movement was to turn around and shoot the puck, which can be argued as a deke. At best, Rask has a case that the play should be reviewed. Not sure on what the AHL rules are on shootout reviews. The crossbar goal, Rask HEARD it hit the post or crossbar, and the ref was clearly and immediately in an argument with him saying it went off the back bar. That would suggest that the ref SAW it go off the back bar, which means that the ref saw the shot the whole way, in and out. So I'm going against the grain and saying the ref got it right here.

Isn't "What? I wasn't aware of that!" how Pronger responds to everything?