eva unit zero

The 94-95 Devils had worse skaters than any team Roy played on except the 94-95 Canadiens.

Fedorov won the Hart finishing second in scoring, with about 20 more goals than the points leader. In addition to winning the Selke, he was also probably the best OFFENSIVE forward in the league that year. People often fail to recognize that the Hart trophy is NOT the trophy for best player. The best player in the league is not necessarily the most valuable player. The reason Wings players never win the Hart is because the Wings have several high end talents. The Wings have three of the top ten players in the league, so the argument that Lids, Z, or dats is more valuable individually to the Wings than a lone superstar like Ovechkin or Iginla is to their team is often shot down by analysts. The Pearson has no such qualification; It is simply for the most outstanding player. Often the two awards go hand in hand, due in part to Hart voters casting their vote as a vote for 'best player' rather than MVP. But many times the more valuable player is not necessarily the better player.

I agree with you, he was phenomenal that year. Had he been healthy, at the pace he scored at, he'd own the single season records for goals and points. My point follows this logic... Mario was just as good offensively in 88-89 as he was in 92-93. His scoring pace was slightly down, due mainly to the fact his linemates were Rob Brown and Dan Quinn, rather than Kevin Stevens and Rick Tocchet. In 1988-89, Steve Yzerman won the Pearson award over Lemieux's career high and league leading 85 goals and 199 points. Ultimately, the Pearson award is the one least influenced by media hype. The 88-89 season is probably the prime example of how Yzerman has been overshadowed by the names Gretzky and Lemieux; it was the only instance where a player was named the Pearson winner as the league's top player and did not appear on the First or Second All-Star team. Given that the previous SEVEN Pearson awards had gone to either Lemieux or Gretzky, and you can see how much Yzerman would have had to do to earn that honor. For further consideration? Yzerman's 1989 Pearson win is the ONLY instance of a forward who finished outside the top 2 in scoring winning the award. That's even more impressive when you consider that he was 44 points behind the leader; any other forward who won without also winning the scoring title was within a few points of the leader, usually with more goals.

My pick for 'best season ever' is Steve Yzerman in 1988-89. If you can name me another player who scored 60+ goals and 90 assists, and had at least one vote for Selke as best defensive forward...then you have named a better performance.

You would SERIOUSLY trade two of the five best players in the league for one guy? I'm speechless.

Kira, I know you feel Dats should win the Selke, Byng, and Hart. But nobody is saying he won't win because his name isn't Sergei Fedorov. We're saying he won't win because he isn't even close to the dominant level of defense Fedorov player in the years he won. Seriously. Fedorov played defense at a level that absolutely controlled the game even when he didn't score. Datsyuk is good defensively...but he's never been THAT good. And ultimately, when you have guys like John Madden and Mike Fisher having solid seasons, and then compare that with Datsyuk, who is seventh on his team among forwards in average time spent on the penalty kill...he won't win it. He's likely not to even be nominated. Pavel Datsyuk is NOT an elite level defensive forward where leaving him out of the Selke nominations would be a travesty. That combined with other factors will lead to a situation where his chances of being nominated are slim, and his chances of winning are practically non-existent. I would be shocked if he is named on more than four or five ballots, and if he receives more than one first-place vote. Not saying he isn't in the running...just that he's not at the top of the list like some people on here would claim based on unreliable statistics.

He did have his body in front of it. His glove swipe was in front of his body, not beside it. The fact is, the puck hopped up, but it also hopped sideways. So while he was completely in front of where it was going, it didn't end up going there.

This season, Datsyuk has been great. That said, he's probably been at best the second or third most important player on the team. So a Hart nomination is pretty much out of the question for him this year.

I'm speaking more of a hard grounder that all of a sudden was knocking my cap off.

It looked like he was going down to block the shot and it popped off the ice and over him. I've had similar experiences playing baseball, so I can understand how difficult it is to react to something like that.

Datsyuk will not win a Hart until after Lidstrom retires, and even then for it to occur it would have to be a year when he is among the league leaders in scoring and Henrik Zetterberg is not. Most people consider either Zetterberg better or the two players to be equal, so it would be difficult for Dats to get enough votes if Hank is posting similar numbers. The same, of course, can be said of Zetterberg...except that Zetterberg is two years younger so likely will rise higher than Datsyuk. The Hart typically goes to the superstar on a weak team that makes the playoffs, or the top scorer in the league who makes the playoffs if nobody fitting the first category can be found. Rarely, it will go to a guy who is not the top scorer among playoff teams, and is on a strong team. This takes cases like 1994, when Sergei Fedorov scored 56 goals and was second in scoring with 120 points, but also won the Selke.

The Wings of the mid 90s also had... Fedorov, Kozlov, Larionov, Konstantinov, Fetisov, Eriksson, Mironov, Holmstrom, Sandstrom, Lidstrom. Basically half the roster was European in those days.

Lots of players are only as good as the team they are on. There are few players in the history of the game that can turn a team in to a champion single handed. Dustin Penner is not in that category. With a supporting cast he can be an important player, but he can't make a team elite. Penner is, sadly, a decent value when his output is compared to a lot of other guys who signed contracts last summer. Chris Drury only has 3 more goals and 4 more assists than Penner with a much more talented group of forwards around him. Ryan Smyth missed some games, but his scoring pace is only slightly higher than Penner's (as I said it would be) and he plays with a more offensively skilled squad also.

As far as goal scoring, yes, Bure was better. But not by as much as the numbers might suggest; Fedorov often gave the puck to a teammate with a better opportunity even when he probably could have scored himself. As for speed..you do realize that the second fastest time ever posted in a fastest skater competition at the NHL level- All-Star or otherwise- was posted by Sergei Fedorov, right? He did it in 1996. He tied Mike Gartner's then-record. Gartner would step onto the ice for the next heat and break it. Nobody else has even come close to those marks since. Not Bure, Niedermayer, Bondra, Kapanen, Guerin, or anyone else.

When I say best puckhandler at speed, I am speaking strictly in the sense of being able to carry the puck and not lose speed off your stride. Bure couldn't do that...Courtnall did. Bure had better moves than Courtnall, but he couldn't carry the puck at his top skating speed. Maybe a handful of guys in history have been able to do that and skate extremely quick..and Courtnall is one of them.

I don't know about others, but my opinion on Luongo is: No, he's not the best goalie in hockey. Yes, he is top five. Ultimately, Luongo will not be stealing the series for Vancouver. Detroit's problem in the playoffs the past few years with regard to scoring has been much more about our offense being shut down by the opposing defense, and the goaltender stopping what did get through. Vancouver has one of the most porous defenses in the league, and Detroit showed last season that they can score in the playoffs. Vancouver will NOT be a problem.

I think Sergei was just as good at full speed as Bure was. Maybe better. But as far as ability to handle the puck at top speed, combined with a true top gear...the best guy I've ever seen in that regard was Russ Courtnall. Most guys lose a step off their top gear when they have the puck, Fedorov and Bure included. Courtnall didn't.

But Datsyuk doesn't have Fedorov's warp speed. I tried to pick two guys who had similar speed to each other as Fedorov and Bure did, and other similarities to the situation rather than the two fastest guys I could find. Gaborik's speed is a huge advantage over Dats in that comparison. That's not something Bure had over Fedorov.

Odd thing about that article? Somehow Larry Wigge failed to notice that Bryan Murray was Wings GM from 1990-91 to 1993-94, and Scotty Bowman was GM from 1994-95 to 1996-97.

We're only close to the cap in that scenario because you are overpaying Filppula by 750k per season and you have three players too many. Ericsson won't be an NHL regular next year due to waiver rules. One of Lilja, Stuart, Quincey, Meech, and Lebda will NOT be here next year. Hartigan won't be on the roster. If we sign Rolston (or any other FA forward), we lose another forward (likely Downey or McCarty) or another defenseman of the five I mentioned earlier.

Gaborik's stat spread is typically close to 50-50. Boyes is the only guy among the goal scoring leaders who offers defense that is average at best, is quick, no significant physical game, and whose scoring spread has far more goals than assists. Putting all those respects together, he's the most 'Bure-like' player in the league today. Gaborik is a much more evenly distributed scoring talent than Boyes or Bure are, in that he is just as much of a threat to set up a goal as he is to score one. Bure had more goals than assists in all but three seasons. In those three seasons, he scored a combined 65 goals in 163 games...basically 33 goal pace. He played 40+ games in nine seasons including those three. Of the six remaining seasons, only in his rookie year, when he scored 34, did Bure fail to score 50 goals. Only once did he top 50 assists in his career, and only one other time did he top 40. That's five 50-goal seasons with only two 40-assist seasons. Gaborik has had more assists four times in his seven year career.

As I said...the difference is entirely in the fact that Simon had complete control of his body at all times, while Pronger's stomp came at the end of being knocked off balance and ultimately, Kesler's leg lock was an intentional attempt to keep Pronger out of the play. It also looked like Pronger's skate may actually still have been caught on Kesler's sock, as it took more work to free after the actual stomp. Simon's blatant and unprovoked stomp on the top of Ruutu's skate. One other difference in the suspension length may have been the fact that Simon had just come off a 25 gamer for using the stick as a weapon.

Last time the Wings were full of big, strong Canadians who would fight and hit...was the 1980s. I'd rather have a team that played solid, gritty hockey at a high level and had maybe one or two guys who were really capable of fighting than a team full of fighters that only had marginal talent. Just as you can have too many finesse players, you can have too many enforcers. I think this year's Wings are pretty close to the right mix. Maybe a tweak here and there, but nothing major.

Shanny was more of a heavy than McCarty was. The problem is Shanny was also a star player, while McCarty was a career third liner at best. I doubt you recall this, but when Shanny broke into the league he did so with his fists. He was fighting guys like Kevin Stevens, Jeff Odgers, and Mark Tinordi. In Shanahan's first season in Detroit, he fought Marty McSorley and Bob Probert. Shanny and McCarty's fight cards have a lot of the same names coming up, also. Guys like Ron Stern, Kris King, Paul Kruse and other second tier guys ended up against both players many times.

The suspension wasn't going to be as long as Simon's. WHY? Because Simon was at no point ever losing his balance. Pronger was off balance, so even if it was just as intentional, the NHL has to accept that there is a decent chance of it being to some degree more a function of carelessness than malice. It's like the difference between sticking a guy in the face accidentally as you try to go around him, and skating up to him and cross-checking him in the face. One is a minor penalty for high sticking, the other will get you tossed.