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FHZ has definitely been the Wings' best line all preseason and so far tonight. We'll see if that changes once Dats and Hossa get some working chemistry, but Franzen/Zetterberg/Hudler have really clicked well so far.

No, he realized that he's expendable, and that the team just sent down guys like Helm and Leino when they didn't want to because the team is classy and loyal. So he is doing what he can to prove he deserves that loyalty.

Nice whistle for the frozen puck. He swatted the puck out of Ozzie's trapper...f***in BS.

Datsyuk seems off. Like he can't get the puck to settle down for him.

The goal had more to do with it being a smart move by Kubina than a stupid move by Osgood. Ozzie checked a moment before that and saw only a Red Wing in front; that's why he felt safe clearing the puck that way. Kubina recognized Osgood's check and closed on the net at exactly the right time to intercept the clear. Osgood never knew he was there, so by the time Kubina was there, he had the puck and Osgood was completely off guard. It could have been better on Osgood's part, but give credit to Kubina for the play; he played it perfectly. And if Maltby is injured, it will probably be Helm, not Leino, replacing him. Leino seems to be the better player, but Helm is more capable of replacing Maltby's role. Unless they move Leino to the third line and put Sammy or Cleary on the fourth line, it'll be Helm.

Come on...can't they come up with a better trivia question than THAT?

I don't know about you, but I was calling Kiprusoff the best prospect of the bunch before San Jose traded Hedberg. He oozed with potential and it took way longer than it should have to come together. Not to mention that, but he seems to be falling apart rapidly as well. Kipper should have had a much better career than what he'll end up with.

In future news...

So is Steen on the 3rd 3rd line?

Howard can no longer fall back on 'goalie of the future' to win him the job for next year...because the fact of the matter is, unless he works his ass off, he's NOT the goalie of the future. That's Daniel Larsson, the way things are set up right now. By the time Chris Osgood retires, Larsson will be ready to take over, or darn close to it. Howard at best will have a short window to grab hold of that job. Unless he works his ass off this season and takes the backup job sometime this season or next year and positions himself properly. If Howard is outplayed by Larsson in the AHL this season, the chances of him still being in the organization are pretty slim next season. If management feels he's worth keeping on as a backup, and he's either better than Conklin at that point, or Conklin chooses to leave, that's about the only way Howard sticks around if Larsson outplays him. If he is the defined NHL backup while Larsson is the AHL starter. Much like Ericsson and Meech currently; different developmental roles, one player likely waiting to leapfrog the other's position on the depth chart. The last scenario, with Conklin leaving and Howard taking on the backup job, is what I expect to happen. The Wings have invested a lot of time in Howard and have given up on a few goaltending prospects who had solid potential without giving them a meaningful look because they had Howard, who was drafted as a 'Best Player Available' and not because the team felt it was lacking in quality goaltending propsects; former Swedish Olympian Stefan Liv being the most notable prospect given up in that regard.

1) You're making an assumption based on what you think happened that supports your position. Not a very scientific way to proceed. 2) Ian Laperriere hit and injured Nick Lidstrom with Downey in the lineup. No deterrence. Enforcers can sometimes serve as deterrence, but players who are really gonna go out there and intentionally injure players and throw cheap shots are going to do it regardless of whether there are no enforcers on the other roster, or whether there are a few enforcers on the ice at the moment. It doesn't matter. They know what's coming if they intentionally hurt someone.

Eriksson...that's the kind of guy who I can see getting picked up by a team like LA or Atlanta that could use another veteran defenseman to play on their second or third pairing.

Because voting was for league MVP...Datsyuk was not even close to in the running for that award as he was at best the second most valuable player on his team.

Yzerman, Howe, Lindsay Since we're cloning adults, assumedly we've figured out a way to accelerate the maturation process..so why not clone some of the best forwards ever. We could clone Mark Howe too. And Chelios, and Konstantinov...

Datsyuk wasn't even the best player on his line last year. Hard to argue him as the league's MVP.

I'll break it up into two comparisons. Holland will either go with the one of the kids, or one of the vets. Helm v Leino Helm is noticeably cheaper, Helm has experience with the team, and Helm can be used in a 3rd/4th line checking role whereas Leino is more of a scorer type. Leino is older and the better overall player, and probably more complete in his development. I think the most likely outcome is that if they choose we see a some of each during Chelios' injury, and possibly some of other guys like Abdelkader, then we see Leino or Helm stick on the roster or whoever once they move a defenseman. Meech will also probably cover some time at forward in this scenario. Leino probably sees the most time as he's the top player in the group, older than the rest, and could become a legit scoring line forward soon. Downey v Mac As much sentimentality as there is for Mac...there is just no reason for him to be on the team ahead of Downey. None whatsoever. If they go with one of these two, it absolutely has to be Downey, regardless of the Peters thing. All McCarty has on Downey is time with the club; he has nothing on him in terms of performance, which is what matters. So it might be Downey, it might be a rotating bunch of kids (probably Leino mainly), or it might be nobody other than the 22 players currently on the roster, with Meech serving double-duty as the 13th forward.

You have a flawed understanding of the term MVP if you believe the MVP award should be awarded to the best player no matter who his teammates are or how well his team would have done without him. There is a fundamental difference between best player and MVP. Best player is simply the player who performed the best. MVP is the player whose individual impact made the greatest tangible difference in his team's results over what they would have accomplished without him. Typically, this means players on stacked teams (teams with several players in the 'best player' conversation) and players on bottom feeders are much less likely to win the Hart, because their individual impact on their team's result is reduced either through the team being terrible with them being present, or the team being great in their absence. Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and likely Sidney Crosby in the future are the only players I can think of offhand who will win Hart trophies despite playing with other elite level talent over players who had arguably better seasons on weaker teams. The reason the Hart trophy is typically awarded to a forward is because the NHL doesn't have an award like the Norris or Vezina for forwards. We would see better representation from those two positions if there was a 'most outstanding forward' award created.

The Hart goes to the player who was judged to be the most valuable player to his team. Generally, non-playoff teams are excluded as regardless of what a player may individually have done, he probably was not the most valuable player in the league (under most circumstances) if his team would have achieved the same fate, missing the playoffs, whether he was completely healthy all year or injured all season. So we've cut it down to 16 teams. This means that we can now begin to judge which players had the most individual impact on getting their teams where they are at the start of the playoffs. Obviously, a President's trophy winning team with three potential Hart candidates is much less likely to see a winner than an 8th-seeded team with the Art Ross and Richard winner starring and a bunch of depth players backing him up. Lidstrom was the best player last season in the regular season...but Ovechkin was the MVP. A better question to be asked than 'why hasn't Lidstrom won a Hart' is 'Why didn't Steve Yzerman ever win a Hart?' Hell...Steve Yzerman won a Pearson over Mario Lemieux's career high 199 points. Yzerman led the Wings in scoring by 62 points that season...SIXTY-TWO!! Only three of his teammates even scored that many points; two of which were on his line. And he received Selke votes, including first place mention, for the second consecutive season. How does he not win the Hart that year? The only other player to score 100 points that season without a linemate scoring 100 points was Joe Mullen. Mullen played with 50-goal scorer Joe Nieuwendyk; Yzerman's linemates scored 39 and 36 goals.

The Hart trophy is award to the MVP. In other words, it's awarded to the player whose team needed him the most. This is not the same as the best player; If one team has three of the league's ten best players, the chances that any of them are the league's most valuable player greatly diminishes compared to the rest of the top ten if the remainder are all by themselves on teams. Lidstrom is the league's best player, but Ovechkin is pretty clearly the most valuable. Ovechkin could be argued as anywhere from the best player to the 4th or 5th best player...but he is pretty clearly the most valuable player because the other players in the argument are all teammates with another player either in the argument or not far from it. Ovechkin is not. Ovechkin is the only guy in the discussion for best player where his team could lose him for the season, and the team's season would simply be over, no hope for recovery, while other teams with players in that discussion have other guys who could step up and take some of the load.

My dad loves to talk about how poor a coach Lloyd Carr was. He was also very excited to get Rodriguez, although he would have preferred Les Miles (and blames not having Miles on Lloyd Carr). So I asked him why this year's team with Rich Rodriquez was doing so poorly. He said part of the problem was that it was Lloyd Carr's crappy players. Yeah...because we never saw a Lloyd Carr team do well when it had Lloyd Carr's players.

I feel Konstantinov should have won the Norris in 1995-96 and 1996-97. I know that makes me sound like a homer...but Konstantinov was by far the best defensive player in the league at the time, and could play well offensively and was dominant physically. Lidstrom was not Mr. Perfect in the mid 90s...but he was still the best defenseman in the NHL in 1998, 1999, and 2000. He outscored Rob Blake in 1998 and was better defensively. MacInnis beat Lidstrom by a couple points, but Lidstrom was still considerably better defensively. Pronger outplayed Lidstrom defensively by a small margin in 2000, but Lidstrom outscored him by a considerable margin. Obviously, Blake is the most glaring error, with Pronger seeming to be a 'good 'ol Canadian' sort of feel to it as was mentioned earlier in the thread; Pronger was a defenseman who was playing alongside the previous year's Norris winner and in front of a Vezina finalist, yet received the Hart trophy as league MVP, something Lidstrom has rarely been considered for even when he has clearly been far more valuable to the Wings than Pronger could ever have hoped to have been to the Blues that season. I am not claiming Lidstrom should have won three or four Harts...there are many players who are more valuable to their teams; this is due largely to the fact that Lidstrom has played on a team that is much more capable of playing through his absence due to depth and good management. I am merely backing up the idea that Lidstrom has received less consideration than some others have in part due to his nationality. Pronger's Blues team was quite talented, and in fact won the President's trophy.

Chelios' broken leg buys the Wings some time in the form of cap relief. His injury allows them to exceed the cap by up to $750k in total cap hit so long as they get beneath it before he returns. Chelios getting injured may have simply extended the window for Holland to make the trade decision, as he now can carry everyone into the season until Chelios returns if he chooses as Meech, Quincey, or even Lebda could be designated as an 'injury replacement' for Chelios.

The Wings likely wouldn't have traded for Chelios if Konstantinov were still on the team.

Fischer was better at 22 than Lilja has ever been. You may not recall this, but I considered Fischer to potentially be a dominant two-way defenseman and Norris contender long before the cardiac incident, and gave solid examples of how his progression and potential showed that he could be on that track.

IMHO, Lidstrom has deserved to win the Norris every season since 1997-98, with the exception of 2003-04. The first three Norrises he should have won, he lost because he was a European. 1998 was especially obvious as he had outplayed Blake in every respect that season except for the fact that Blake had a nice goal-scoring streak towards the end of the season. As Lidstrom had also outplayed every other defenseman, the voters needed to find someone who had SOMETHING on Lidstrom...so Blake got the Norris.