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Because fighting is a five minute major!! Stupid instigator rule!

In the time he played against Nashville, Chris Osgood allowed one goal on 54 shots. That's pretty good. It's a better save percentage than Dan Ellis had in the minutes both played, too. But your hate-on for Osgood won't let you see that the team didn't win in spite of him in 1998. You don't finish second in Smythe voting if your team wins in spite of you. It just doesn't happen. The Hasek trade had more to do with the fact that Hasek was basically going to go one of two places; Detroit or St. Louis. Osgood was a good goalie coming off a down year, and the Wings as a team had had a disappointing playoff. The thought process was that Hasek was the best goalie in the league, so their options, as the thought process went, were upgrade over a very good goalie to a guy capable of carrying a bad team to the finals, or let that guy go to their most thretening division rival. Holland has to make that trade. He improves his team and prevents an opponent from getting better. It wasn't about Osgood not being a good goalie; it was about Hasek being the best goalie in the world and coming to Detroit for a (relatively) cheap trade. It's like Detroit trading for Schneider. They didn't really NEED to upgrade their defense at that point; they had entered the season with two First-team All-Stars from the previous year. But they did. Why? Because it was a relatively cheap trade; the roster players given up were not being considered in future plans, so it was basically picks for Schneider, whose skill set fit the Wings extremely well. In fact, Schneider can be used again as a decent move by the Ducks and Brian Burke, as Schneider was Anaheim's best defenseman most of the season due largely to Niedermayer's absence and Pronger's off year. If not for Ken Holland being the best GM in the league and replacing Schneider with a better fit in Rafalski, it would have been taking away a core player from your biggest rival and adding him to your team, which is a huge move. Sometimes trades and FA signings are not about 'which players do we need to replace' and more about the names coming in. It's like the Hossa signing. Wings signed Hossa! Great! Who sits? Who cares, it's HOSSA! That's the kind of move Hasek was. Not only did he not go to one of our rivals, but he came here. Get it?

Essensa was traded to Edmonton after the 1994-95 season, not Winnipeg.

No; I asked why Andreychuk is a lock but Recchi is not to make the Hall even though in their primes, which occurred at the same time, Recchi was generally considered the better player most years. I pointed out that Andreychuk was never considered the best at his position, and that argument was used against Osgood in this very thread with the 'He doesn't even have a Vezina' comments. I didn't say Andreychuk shouldn't make it, I was just questioning his 'lock' status while Recchi is placed on the 'maybe' list. Seemed odd. Kind of like placing Zubov as a lock and then sticking Scott Stevens on your 'maybe' list. Nothing wrong with including both as a yes answer, but one should clearly be ahead of the other.

Recchi was recognized on the postseason All-Star team. So was Osgood, for that matter. And Neely, and Anderson, and Oates. Andreychuk never received that honor. He was never considered that good relative to his peers. That was my point.

Andreychuk was never a postseason All-Star. Not once. People in this very thread are saying that Osgood doesn't get into the Hall because he doesn't have a Vezina, yet Andreychuk was never even the SECOND best player at his position, historically the weakest position among the five, certainly considered 'weak' during Andreychuk's prime, is a lock for the Hall? Osgood has far more impressive stats, and has also been a more important player to Cup teams more often than Andreychuk. Andreychuk was a supporting player on one Cup team; Osgood was a core player on two. I guess I don't see how Andreychuk makes it into the Hall as a 'lock' but a guy like Mark Recchi, who was typically considered a much better player during their primes, which occurred at the same time, would be on the maybe list despite having been able to perform at a higher level for longer. Read the next three words carefully everybody. Goals. Aren't. Everything.

So why even mention it... Yes. My point was that Hudler is the fourth most offensively talented forward on the team and should be combined with (at least) one of Hossa, Datsyuk, or Zetterberg. It's expected that ZDH will stay intact, so that leaves Hossa. Hudler played mostly center in Grand Rapids, actually. He wasn't converted to the wing until he came to Detroit, and that was due to the fact the Wings had Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lang, Williams, and Draper all starting the 2006-07 season ahead of him on the depth chart as far as centers go. If we're splitting Dats and Z up and having them each center a line, here's how I'd like to see it done: Holmstrom/Zetterberg/Hossa Hudler/Datsyuk/Franzen Cleary/Filppula/Samuelsson Maltby/Draper/Kopecky Teaching a player how to take faceoffs is not rocket science. Hudler has proven he will work hard and improve his game. So assuming he can improve his faceoffs to "adequate" for a second line center, what else about a Cleary/Hudler/Hossa line don't you like? I think it would work rather well as a second line.

Ok...so Andreychuk is a sure thing but Mark Recchi is a maybe? WTF?

The Wings could fight ten times a night, and lose, and I would be less entertained than I would be if they won without fighting. Guess what? The majority agrees with me. The Wings have been hockey's most popular team for quite some time using the formula of Win>Fight rather than the previous formula of Fight>Win which resulted in having some great fighters and some terrible teams.

Franzen is not a natural center; he only ever played center in Sweden because he is good defensively and has size. He was converted from wing to play center. He has always been a terrible faceoff man and has a long way to go if the Wings ever hope to use him in the middle. Filppula is not significantly bigger than Hudler that you can say "Well, Filppula has size so that makes him a second line center." Especially given that I would argue that when compared to Hudler, you can't really say that Flip takes advantage of the size difference. Faceoffs are an obvious thing, but the argument here is that Hudler has never really been given an opportunity to center a line at the NHL level. So we can't say "He's no good at faceoffs" other than that he's had a very limited sample size. Hudler, however, has displayed considerably better playmaking ability than Filppula has. Right now. So do you want to teach Hudler to take faceoffs, and make him your second line center, or would you rather have Flip center that line and lose considerable playmaking ability from the primary playmaker for your top sniper?

All of this speculation about a '24 team league' is pretty silly. The NHL had laid out plans to expand to 30 teams before Gretzky was ever traded. Some of the cities might be different, but ultimately I don't think so and here's why: Expansion in the 90s moved in phases, and the most suitable cities were chosen each time around. Rarely was a northern market passed over; the only instances where this occurred were situations where arena plans or other fundamental details were not suitable or non-existant. Hamilton and Portland are two major examples; both markets would have gotten teams with better arenas; there is no "maybe" about it. If those two expansion bids had included solid public or private funding for a new arena, or the areas had a more suitable NHL-size arena, both of those metropolitan areas would have NHL teams. However, of the teams you mentioned that moved? Minnesota was receiving terrible attendance and mediocre corporate support and the move in 1993 was the second attempt to move the franchise. The first in 1990 was blocked and then resulted in the dissolution of the Cleveland Barons/Minnesota North Stars merger and through a dispersal draft and expansion draft gave us the San Jose Sharks, and then the remaining owner eventually decided that his old partner was correct and in 1993 moved the remaning franchise to Dallas. Winnipeg has always been one of the worst NHL markets as far as corporate support, and as far as straight attendance goes they never once averaged better than 14,000 for a season. Not once. During the 'Dead Wings' era when the Wings were having some of their worst seasons ever, they still drew better than 16k. In fact, the Wings haven't averaged less than 18k attendance in over 20 seasons. Hartford? Hartford should never have had an NHL team. Hartford is a small city. Ann Arbor is better equipped to support an NHL team than Hartford is. Wayne Gretzky staying in Edmonton wouldn't have kept the Whalers in Hartford. Gretzky getting traded to Hartford might have, but that's about it. As far as Disney? They got involved when the Stars were still in Minnesota. Remember? Mike Modano and Basil McRae? "I thought you were a farmer?" and all that stuff? Anaheim had a team because that's where Disney was based. It had NOTHING to do with interest in hockey; rather, it had to do with interest in money. The NHL was skyrocketing because popular teams with large national fan bases (Such as Montreal, NY Rangers, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston) were doing well in the regular season and/or playoffs in the years leading up to the 1993 expansion. This meant there was a rise in TV viewership, and therefore ad revenue. Disney likes money. They saw an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with the NHL looking to increase its presence in the southern US. Disney likely bids for a team either way. Whether the Ducks stay in Anaheim long term without the Gretzky trade? That's different. But they would have been there either way. No. We'd see an NHL with 30 teams. If the average team payroll was about $40m, the top-end salary would be around $10m or $11m. That's what the average team and top-end player salaries were pre-lockout, so why would spending habits be any different, right? As far as the "nostalgia" for the Campbell and Wales conference names...grow up. Those names were only around for 15 years. They are not "the old' names unless you have no grasp of the history and tradition of the NHL, or are just looking for a reason to bash the current leadership of the league. The NHL spent 11 years with "Western" and "Eastern" before it saw a single season with "Campbell" and "Wales" naming the conferences. So please stop with the bitching about conference names. And no, Gretzky staying in Edmonton would NOT have kept Campbell and Wales as the conference names. Grow the f*** up.

Samuelsson is more proven than Filppula is. Just because Flip has a lot of potential and scored a highlight reel goal doesn't mean he has proven more or that he even had a better season than Samuelsson (he didn't btw) so please don't act like Filppula is some kind of proven player and Samuelsson is dragging down everyone around him. Franzen also; he only started scoring when he was put in Holmstrom's role on the first line towards the end of the year, he was given scoring line opportunities at other times WITHOUT SAMUELSSON and couldn't convert. Why is it unfair for Franzen to be a question mark? What else would he be? He's certainly not a sure thing as far as scoring is concerned. He scored damn well at the end of last year, but that was after a long stretch of almost nothing which included time on the top two lines, so do we know which Franzen will be showing up? He is absolutely a question mark. The fact that you try to suggest Franzen can be counted on for consistent production is even more laughable, as he was the LEAST consistent Red Wing last season, scoring 28 goals in a span of 29 games at one point? Over that span, sure, he was consistent production...but you can't use the term to describe Franzen going into the year. It's just completely inaccurate. Hossa should be playing with Hudler and Cleary. Hudler is the team's most offensively skilled player not on the first line and not named Hossa, so he should play with Hossa. Cleary has good all around skill, speed, and good finishing skills. Putting him opposite Hossa with Hudler in the middle gives the line two wingers who can play solid defense and who can score goals, as well as a center capable of feeding them, scoring goals himself, or playing adequate defense. A Cleary/Hudler/Hossa line would be better than many teams' top lines offensively, and quite good defensively as well. It allows the Franzen/Filppula/Samuelsson line which displayed such wonderful chemistry to remain intact as the third line, against weaker defense. A strong two-way line, it can be used as a checking line if necessary, but it has quite a bit of scoring punch as well.

The biggest reason the Ducks won the Cup in 07? He was offered Chris Pronger via trade for fairly cheap, and he was in put in charge of the only team Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne were even interested in signing with after they had already decided they wanted to play there. Bryan Murray built a contender. Burke retooled that contender, got lucky when he was offered the Pronger trade, and got really lucky when Niedermayer and Selanne fell in his lap. He dumped some salary by getting rid of Fedorov, a player he didn't like, for basically nothing; Beauchemin has proven nothing but that he can look good playing next to Scott Niedermayer, which is something I could do. So Burke started with a contender, and added two elite level players nobody else had access to via free agency. If Murray is still in town for the 06-07 season, they still have the same strong chance of winning the Cup.

I think this topic is pretty silly. Datsyuk was clearly an important player as far as the Wings' Cup win this spring...but I wouldn't put him in the top three for the CS. Osgood, Zetterberg, and Lidstrom in whatever order you see fit. There is absolutely no reasonable argument for any other player in the top three aside from those three. Z was the team's top forward at both ends of the ice, Lidstrom was the captain and best defenseman, and Ozzie was the goaltender and provided some SERIOUS clutch goaltending. Datsyuk could reasonably be argued to have been anywhere from the 4th to the 7th most important player in the 2008 Cup run, competing for position with Franzen, Kronwall, and Rafalski.

For a frame of reference on this point... Mats Sundin is approximately 3 years and 8 months older than Paul Kariya. In terms of playing eligibility, he was drafted four years earlier. Do you think Kariya can average 100-point seasons over the four-year gap that separates them?

That's like saying that one of your top-five Datsyuk memories was him fighting Roberts. Nice highlight, but has NOTHING to do with his performance. You must have a really poor memory, because there was no 'Osgood yanked' there. In fact, Osgood has never lost the starting position during a playoff run in the manner that Hasek did this spring. Never; not once. He's stolen it a couple times from other guys, though. What happened the next game? Oh, right....Osgood shut out the Stars, who out-shot the Wings that game, to win the series. This is #2? Two questions. How do you get "Another" when this would have been the first center ice goal (the others you are referencing came four years later) and the fact that it came from the high slot on a failed clearing attempt means it was not, in fact, a center ice goal at all. Chris Osgood will finish his career with over 400 wins, two Stanley Cups as a starter where he was top-three in Smythe voting, and a boatload of other HOF-caliber stats. He was a Vezina contender during the overlapping primes of three goaltenders who are considered by many to be the best ever (Hasek, Brodeur, Roy) and is still a Vezina contender now. If you can find me another goaltender who has achieved as much as Osgood will have, regular season and playoffs, by the time he retires and DIDN'T make the Hall, then you can say he's not a HOF goalie. As there are not many goaltenders who have achieved that level of stats and accomplishments, it might be a difficult task for you.

Nieuwendyk started full-time in the NHL in 1987-88. He retired from the NHL after the 2006-07 season. In that time frame, he received three second-place votes and two third-place votes for the postseason all-star team, all in the 97-98 season. That total was good enough to get him fifth place that season. So he was, in one season, considered a top five center because all of the first-place votes, and most of the second and third place votes, went to the top four centers. Of the vote-getters who finished behind Nieuwendyk that season, the combined total vote was 0-7-5. Compared to a total vote of 53-43-45 for the four guys who finished ahead of Nieuwendyk that season, and the fact that Nieuwendyk is the only top-five center without a first-place vote, I would say that Joey Nieuwendyk failed to separate himself from the pack as I said. Recchi was a top-5 RW in All-Star voting four consecutive seasons from 1990-91 through 1993-94. He also garnered a second-team selection in that time period. He had one more top-5 selection later in his career as well. Recchi is certainly a yes ahead of Nieuwendyk if it comes down to that decision.

Datsyuk/Zetterberg/Holmstrom Cleary/Hudler/Hossa Franzen/Filppula/Samuelsson Maltby/Draper/Kopecky McCarty Lidstrom/Rafalski Kronwall/Stuart Lilja/Lebda/Meech/Chelios/Quincey Osgood Conklin Yes, I listed 24 players. Lilja, Lebda, Meech, Chelios, and Quincey will compete at camp for the final two spots. As Kopecky will most likely not be healthy for the start of the regular season, Meech will be playing in his spot to open the season. Most likely, whichever of Lebda, Lilja, Meech, and Quincey performs the worst will be voted off the island. However, it is possible that, especially if it is Meech and he is outperforming other forwards during Kopecky's absence, that Meech could simply be converted to forward full-time and someone else, Maltby or McCarty perhaps, would be the departing player.

You do realize that Kariya is 400 points behind Sundin, and only rarely has been the top offensive player on his team? Sundin, OTOH, has USUALLY been his team's offensive leader, often but not always with no offensive support to speak of. Kariya certainly could match Sundin's numbers, if he remains as healthy as Sundin has (keyword if) but he would need to score 173 goals and 390 points in 402 games to match Sundin. Kariya has scored 139 goals and 400 points in 461 games over the past six seasons, so that kind of production from Kariya seems unlikely given his recent decline and the fact that his game is far more speed-based than Sundin's ever was. Think Cliff Ronning and what he looked like at the end of his career when he went from one of the most versatile second-line scoring centers whose blazing speed was a threat and turned into a slow, defensively and physically weak liability whose only purpose was, well...experience. Like a Chelios without good positioning.

He had no support...but posted comparable stats, or in some cases better stats and achievements than players who are being considered for the Hall who played their best years with elite level players in their best years. That suggests his stats and achievements are good enough to get him into the Hall, does it not?

The scary thing that most people don't realize? Sergei Fedorov is not that much smaller than Joe Thornton, and Mats Sundin (another top stickhandler) is actually LARGER than Joe Thornton. Kind of puts the 'for a big man' tag on Thornton into perspective, when those other guys don't need it to get into this discussion.

213 forwards have higher cap numbers that Mikael Samuelsson's $1.2m. That makes him paid like a #8 forward. He produces like a top-6 forward. He also plays strong defense; the kind that would make him a top-unit PKer on many teams and garnered him a few Selke votes last season. For reference, Samuelsson took 249 shots on goal last season. According to NHL.com, he only had 64 'missed' shots. By comparison, Pavel Datsyuk had 264 shots on goal, and 97 'missed' shots. Johan Franzen had 70 'missed' shots and only 199 shots on goal. Samuelsson is doing a better job of getting the puck on net than either of those two scoring machines. You know who else he's doing a better job of getting the puck on net than? Someone with 111 missed shots and 358 shots on goal; Henrik Zetterberg. Yes, Samuelsson's shooting percentage is atrocious. Why? BECAUSE HE'S ON THE ******* POINT, AND HIS SHOTS GET THROUGH TO THE NET MOST OF THE TIME. IF HIS SHOTS WERE MISSING THE NET OR HITTING SHINPADS ALL THE DAMN TIME LIKE EVERYONE LOVES TO CLAIM, HIS SHOOTING PERCENTAGE WOULD BE BETTER.

In terms of a combination of strength, speed, and moves? Kovalev and Fedorov are my top two. Sick moves, great strength, and great speed. In terms of the ability to move at high speed while controlling the puck and not losing speed off the top end? Russ Courtnall. Amazing speed, and very few players could control the puck at full speed like he could; one of the few players I can think of who was capable of skating very quickly AND not losing significant amounts of speed while carrying the puck. Because that's really the goal of stickhandling, right?

Blake was good offensively. He was a good hitter. He was NEVER good defensively. EVER. People just gave him credit for it because he occasionally laid down a good hit in his own zone. Same reason people said Kasparaitis was good defensively, even though he might have been the single worst defenseman playing in an NHL team's top four in terms of defensive skill. That could possibly even extend to top six.

Most people would. But Neely was injured and didn't have a HOF career, despite what the man-crush voters decided. Would'ves should not be the deciding factor. If Joe Sakic was traded from Quebec, Mats Sundin would've won a bunch of Cups as Captain in Colorado. There, he's a HOFer. If Richard Gnida wasn't a drunken ******, Vladimir Konstantinov wouldn't have had his career ended and the Wings would have won like 5 more in a row, all with Ozzie in net. Ozzie would have won a couple Vezinas too, and Vladdie and Nick would be the first teamers every year. HOFers, all.