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Right now Helm can't play above the third line without being out of his role. Helm can lead the third line as the defensive center, but Kopecky has shown all season that he is capable of playing on the first or second line as the secondary winger in an offensive role, or playing on the third or fourth line in a defensive role. He'll never be a star player, but he has the tools to play on all four lines offensively or defensively and plays a physical game. When he was first competing for a spot on the team, I was one of very few who even supported keeping him around. Kopecky is now a 500k player who can be used in pretty much any spot on any line.

IIRC, league minimum salary is $475k this season, and moves up to $500k next season. As far as Helm vs Kopecky...Helm is a good player, and could potentially have the better career. But Kopecky is the better player right now. And don't forget, Kopecky would have been in the lineup had he been healthy for the playoffs last year and he was playing much better than anything Helm has done in the NHL to this point. Kopecky is a well-rounded player who can play a solid physical game, a decent defensive game, is capable offensively, can play both ways on special teams, and is a capable skater. He also plays all three forward positions capably and is good on faceoffs. Helm is a good faceoff man, a very fast skater, good defensive player and can kill penalties. Kopecky is a better all-around player and better overall player. The advantages Helm brings is that he is a more consistent player defensively and a better skater, so he is a better asset to a penalty killing unit; however Kopecky has been performing well when used in that respect recently. With regards to those who compared Kopecky to Draper/Maltby/McCarty at that age...I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. Those three were being used in a different role than Kopecky is being used in.

That's not even the biggest reason Seattle isn't the best choice for a team; Seattle is not terribly far from Portland, which has a better arena and is further from Vancouver. Portland is a MUCH better choice for expansion or relocation than Seattle would be; There's not even a debate.

Because Grand Rapids is a good-sized city that is halfway between Detroit and Chicago, near the west coast of Michigan, and easily accessible via Amtrak from Detroit and Chicago, as well as being accessible directly via interstate. You'll notice it was well down the list. The ideal number of teams, IMHO, would be 32. That would allow for two 16-team conferences with 8-team divisions. If we assume that we have two new expansion teams, then we'll have teams in Portland and Madison, which I think are probably more suitable than Seattle and Milwaukee, respectively. That adds two teams in what is currently the Western Conference, meaning one team would have to shift East. That team would be either Detroit or Columbus. However, if another team moved, Houston and Kansas City are the next two cities on my list, which would mean Detroit would also move East if the moving team was one of the rumored Eastern Conference team such as Florida, Atlanta, Carolina, or NY Islanders. Florida is the team I have heard the most rumors about, given the fact that the team has typically been bad and Tampa has generally had success. With those "theoretical" moves and Detroit and Columbus moving East, we end up with conferences looking like this: Northwest: Calgary, Chicago, Colorado, Edmonton, Madison, Minnesota, Portland, Vancouver Southwest: Anaheim, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Nashville, St. Louis, San Jose Northeast: Boston, Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Toronto Southeast: Atlanta, Carolina, New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Washington

The top ten cities to consider when moving the Coyotes, or any other potential movers or expansion teams, would be: Seattle, WA/Portland. OR Milwaukee, WI/Madison, WI Houston, TX Kansas City, KS Las Vegas, NV Salt Lake City, UT Oklahoma City, OK Indianapolis, IN Kitchener, ON/Hamilton, ON Grand Rapids, MI That's the list I would work from when considering new cities for NHL franchises. The three times where two cities are mentioned, it is because If more than one franchise were moving/being started, I would only use one of those cities due to proximity to each other. Other cities, such as Oakland/San Francisco, Toledo, Dayton, Cincinnatti, Baltimore, Memphis, Orlando, Ann Arbor, and Cleveland, among others, were not considered due to proximity to existing franchises. All of those cities would be able to support an NHL franchise if not for the proximity rule preventing them from obtaining one.

How about one of these units? Holmstrom/Datsyuk/Hossa Lidstrom/Rafalski Cleary/Zetterberg/Franzen Kronwall/Hudler OR Datsyuk/Zetterberg/Holmstrom Lidstrom/Rafalski Franzen/Hudler/Hossa Kronwall/Stuart

I would put it the other way. Osgood needs to play a few games in a row, or the majority of a few games. He needs to get in a groove. Hell, he was the best goalie on the ice tonight in terms of play both just from looks and in terms of stats. Give Osgood a few more games to get his game back in shape.

No, Osgood's not perfect. No, that goal shouldn't have gone in. But I'm going to take this opportunity to mention that Osgood is still the best goaltender playing in the game. The fact that the Wings' have not been keeping a very good eye on Coyote players in their own zone, leading directly to a couple goals? That's not the goaltender. Osgood has made a couple huge saves also.

If I were to see a situation that would call for a trade that would bring in Mathieu Schneider, it would be something like this: Brian Rafalski or Niklas Kronwall is injured close to the trade deadline to such a state that he may be out for the season. The Wings would be looking to replace that power-play quarterback if something like that happened. But that's not currently the situation. Burnside is where this rumor comes from, so he might be looking at Brad Stuart on the injured list and trying to start a rumor. Scott Burnside has, IMHO, never been very good with rumors involving the Red Wings organization, so regardless of whether it's on Spector's site or not, it's crap.

Fedorov is still one of the five fastest guys in the league, but he's noticeably slower than he used to be...and he wasn't as fast as Mike Gartner, who set the record in fastest skater by a hair ahead of Sergei, in 1996. Fedorov had just minutes earlier tied Gartner's record, which was set three years before in 1993 and was only a hair faster than Fedorov's winning time in 1994. Superskills stuff

Because nobody forgot Liv. And as far as Johnson, yes it's "the guy from the Preds"; most of us remembered he had been a Wing when he was a Pred, let alone when he returned to the Wings.

We are. Zero games scheduled, zero games missed.

How could anyone forget Gerard Gallant? That's worse that forgetting Burr, Ogrodnick, or Ysebaert. Here's another for you that I didn't think of last night; Kevin Miller.

I figured when people started putting down All-Stars like Coffey, Chiasson and Cheveldae, as well as long-term career Wings like Burr, then including guys like Ogrodnick who simply hadn't been mentioned and thus were just forgotten was alright.

Mark Howe, John Ogrodnick, Jamie Pushor, Bob Errey, Micah Aivazoff, Andrew McKim, Mark Ferner, Bob Halkidis, Mark Major

We have someone who, when on his game, plays as well as Giguere does when he's on his game. The difference is that Giguere has been on his game more this year.

How about RW/D Gord Kruppke? Who remembers him? G Mark Lamothe? G Mark LaForest? Anybody?

Krupp was voted to start the All-Star game for the World Team as a Red Wing one year, although if I recall correctly he missed the game injured.

I would trade Franzen+Filppula+Kronwall+1st pick+(Larsson or Howard or McCollum)+(Ericsson or Kindl) for just Ovechkin if that's what it took. Especially if this trade is coming after successfully retaining all of those players and Hossa. Just imagine the following lineup for next season... Ovechkin/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Hudler/Zetterberg/Hossa Cleary/Leino/Samuelsson Maltby/Draper/Kopecky Lidstrom/Lilja Ericsson(Kindl)/Rafalski Meech/Stuart Osgood Larsson(Howard) Frightening thought, isn't it?

I believe the "Half" rule is that the yearly variation cannot change by half the overall cap hit from any one year to the next year, or by half of any single year to the next year. So the year-to-year limit would be just over $3m, which makes Z's contract perfectly valid.

Says the messenger who has been a consistent Ozzie-basher.

Fixed.

Let's compare how the defense played for both goaltenders in the same game. Osgood started the game against Dallas, played 20 minutes, and gave up 3 goals on 12 shots. Conklin started the second period, played 39 minutes, and allowed one goal on 11 shots. Now tell me that the defense played just as well for Osgood as it did for Conklin. Osgood faced 0.6 shots per minute, compared to Conklin facing 0.28. Less that HALF what Osgood faced. Tell me how it's completely Osgood's fault. Especially as Osgood is still just recovering from injury. I'm not claiming Osgood to be perfect...but those who are saying Conklin is aren't paying attention.

That should read "You'd be pissy if another team had beaten your team every time they had ever met in a playoff series, even when your team had a 3-1 series lead."

Bettman answers to the NHL's Board of Governors, who think he has been doing quite well.