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That is a load of bulls***. Both of those teams were among the league's best in the regular season. Those were also the only two seasons in his career Roy's regular season GAA was above 3. The Canadiens were among the best teams in the league DESPITE the fact that it was Roy's worst seasons. Roy won the Conn Smythe because he had a good playoff after a bad regular season in both instances, and him playing poorly or like his normal self was the difference between a very good team or a Cup-winning team. Roy NEVER carried his team to the Cup any more than Brodeur, Hasek, Vernon, Osgood, or Barrasso did. The one goalie I can think of who truly carried his team to the Cup was Bill Ranford, in his Conn Smythe season of 1990. And outside of that single performance, Ranford was an utterly mediocre goaltender. What?? There are several ACTIVE players who I didn't mention who rank easily above those guys. Why would you pick an aging, Norris-less Chara who was great maybe for two seasons over perennial contenders Pronger, Niedermayer, Zubov or likely future contenders in Phaneuf and Bouwmeester? Luongo has accomplished far too little to merit a mention over other guys as an 'in the making top 5 all-time goalie' or even close.

But Shane Doan is Canadian AND might occasionally play physical! Datsyuk is a Lady Byng winning puss! /sarcasm

I think moreover it's that people are making lists of the best European NHLers. A list of the best Europeans would include (at the very least) Tretiak and Fetisov above Larionov.

The pioneer of the butterfly style was Glenn Hall, not Roy. Dryden won the Conn Smythe before he won the Calder; Dryden won a whole bunch of Cups and probably deserved the Smythe more than once. Sawchuk would have won the award had it existed, as would Durnan and Plante. That's like saying Dryden can't have been the best rookie goaltender because he wasn't named to the all-rookie team, even though it didn't exist yet. Roy had a couple great years, but the top four guys were almost ALWAYS the best goalie in the league, AND Cup champions. As I said..it's like combining Hasek's regular season dominance with Roy's playoff performance to get those four guys. Hasek was often the best goaltender in the regular season, Roy was often the best in the postseason...neither consistently translated that success across to the other season, which Sawchuk, Plante, Durnan, and Plante did. I rank Brodeur ahead of Roy because he has about 100 more wins than Roy did at the same point in his career, including six 40-win seasons to Roy's one, and Brodeur missed a year in his prime due to the lockout. Brodeur has only three times in a full season had a GAA above 2.4, and has posted 92 shutouts, as well as leading the league in wins eight of the last nine seasons, posting 38 in the single season it didn't happen. Brodeur has been more consistently dominant than Roy was in his prime. Brodeur's 34-win 95-96 campaign (in which his team missed the playoffs) was the start of what is currently an NHL-record 11-season streak of 30-win seasons, which would be 12 had the 2005 lockout not occurred. Even more notably? Brodeur's playoff stats are better than his regular season numbers to a greater degree than Roy's postseason stats are to his regular season stats. That suggests that not only was Brodeur more dominant in the regular season, he more consistently stepped up his game to a higher level than Roy in the playoffs as well. In eleven playoff seasons, Brodeur's GAA has been below his regular season GAA eight times in eleven seasons. Roy accomplishes the feat eight times in seventeen playoff seasons; meaning Roy was actually more likely to give up MORE goals per game in the postseason, while Brodeur has almost always given up fewer. Roy is like Ron Francis...he was a really good player who played a long time and had a few great years, but ultimately his gaudy numbers are more a result of being a good player for a long time than being a truly great player.

Sawchuk, Plante, Durnan, and Dryden were all the best goaltender in the league every year for a period of several seasons; similar to what Hasek did in Buffalo. But those guys also won SEVERAL Cups and were the backbone of their team in doing so. With Durnan, he played seven seasons before abruptly retiring. he was named to the First Team and won the Vezina SIX times in his seven seasons. Plante won five Cups in a row and seven of eight Vezinas. In fact, the next guy on my list after Brodeur isn't even Roy; it's Glenn Hall. Roy comes in somewhere between 7 and 10, as does Dominik Hasek. Just because Roy played a long time and amassed a bunch of cumulative stats doesn't mean he was better than guys that chose to leave early whie still the best in the game (Dryden, Durnan) or guys who dominated the league every year for most of their career (Sawchuk, Plante).

He is under contract, but suspended so he doesn't get paid or count against the cap. Personally I think this is all Burke's doing; It's completely out of character for Niedermayer to be doing something like this, while Burke has a history of gamesmanship.

Wow...that list is so far off. Mogilny and Bure above Fedorov, Sundin, and Selanne? How about this list: 1) Nicklas Lidstrom 2) Dominik Hasek 3) Jaromir Jagr 4) Sergei Fedorov 5) Teemu Selanne 6) Peter Stastny 7) Mats Sundin 8) Jari Kurri 9) Pavel Bure 10) Peter Forsberg

Fine. Glenn Anderson or Teemu Selanne?

Maybe?

Cote wasn't feeling as Downie as Steve, though.

Is Sandis Ozolinsh a greater defenseman than Phil Housley? I don't think so, but your argument would suggest he is.

1) Orr 2) Harvey 3) Bourque 4) Lidstrom 5) Shore 6) Potvin 7) Kelly 8) Robinson 9) Chelios 10) Park

Because he grew up in Canada, and generally 'European player' is taken to mean 'European TRAINED player'. Otherwise, you'd have to include Dany Heatley, Steve Thomas and Owen Nolan as Euros, but could not include Olaf Kolzig.

Murphy helped us to two, Olausson to one. And in case you haven't forgotten, Uwe Krupp and Derian Hatcher failed miserably on the Wings after excelling elsewhere. Krupp is probably the most similar to Blake of any of those four players.

The Wings had the opportunity to acquire Blake 7 years ago.

Apparently I did...for whatever reason I thought it had been after Oregon. Regardless, I maintained it was 'possible' up until the Wisconsin loss, albeit unlikely.

Fun with stats: Chris Osgood is currently the only starting goaltender who is averaging below 2 goals against in games allowing a minimum of one goal. If he keeps this up all year, he wins the Vezina; and if that happens, it shouldn't even be close.

I don't think it's so crazy. Michigan was ranked 12th in the BCS heading into Wisconsin. They win that game, they move up to 11th the next week, still right behind VT. Then they beat OSU, and that moves them up to 9th, ranked just behind Oregon, who had lost. LSU, Oregon, Arizona State and Kansas lost the next week, which would likely move Michigan to 6th...still right behind VT. Missouri and West Virginia lost, moving Michigan up two more spots to 4th. Michigan might move up more, also; as a conference champion, Michigan probably gets moved ahead of idle Georgia (OU and LSU managed this feat). So ultimately, it depends on whether Michigan slides ahead of VT at some point during that run, which would have been entirely possible. LSU vs Michigan in the title game? Carr vs Miles? That would have been a HUGE game for storylines.

Did anyone else see the refs blow the call on the final play in the Arizona/Cleveland game? Absolutely unbelievable.

Blake was NEVER sound defensively. He was average in the back end at his very best. Pilote is a multiple Norris winner who used to play for Chicago. One of the better defensemen of all-time.

I said that if Michigan wins out, they could play for the title from the day after Oregon until the week of Wisconsin and people called me crazy the whole way through.

I'll outline the at-large bids for you: With an OSU/LSU title game, the Rose, Fiesta, and Orange each will have one at-large bid. The Sugar will have two. Teams already lined up for bowls via conference affiliations would be: Rose: USC Fiesta: Oklahoma Orange: Virginia Tech That leaves us with four at-large selections. Kansas and Florida are currently top-ten teams but will be unavailable as neither is the top-ranked non-champion in their league and therefore they are not BCS eligible. Missouri or Kansas (whichever Big 12 team finishes ranked higher), Georgia, Boston College, Hawaii, Arizona State, and Illinois are the top six BCS at-large teams as currently ranked, competing for four selections. The Rose is likely to select Illinois, as they are an eligible Big Ten team and beat Ohio State. The Sugar is likely to select Georgia to replace LSU. Boston College is likely to drop to the back of that group. This leaves us selections for the Fiesta Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, and the Orange Bowl, and Big East champ West Virginia will get one of those selections as well. The list of teams competing for the final two at-large spots is Missouri/Kansas, Hawaii, Arizona State, and Boston College. Missouri/Kansas will likely be selected; as a Big 12 team they won't be Oklahoma's opponent in the Fiesta. West Virginia is likely to be tabbed to play local rival Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl, forcing Missouri/Kansas into the Sugar Bowl against Georgia. This means the Fiesta Bowl will pick from Hawaii and Arizona State. These two teams are pretty close; the tie breaker will be the fact that Arizona State used to host the bowl, is a local team, and would be a much better draw for the game than Hawaii. Hawaii has a shot to play in only one circumstance; the Rose decides to take the best available team (likely Missouri/Kansas or Georgia) rather than an available Big Ten team, and the bowl losing a team under my scenario opts to take Hawaii instead of similarly ranked Illinois.

Boston College ended up there because I had forgotten their loss when I was filling out my expected teams. Hawaii and Arizona State will be competing for tha Fiesta spot, however; The Rose Bowl will take Illinois as they should move up a couple spots, and the Rose prefers to match up Big 10 and Pac-10 when possible. I'm adjusting slightly to correct the BC pick thought.

Bourque was an elite defenseman his entire career, and was a postseason All-Star in each of his first seventeen seasons, and was selected in 19 of 22 seasons. Lidstrom has been named a postseason All-Star eight of the past nine seasons, and eight times in thirteen seasons overall. So while it's possible for Lidstrom to finish with a better career than Bourque, he doesn't have it yet.

The conference champions break down as follows, with current BCS ranking in parenthesis. (2) West Virginia (3) OSU (6) Virginia Tech (7) LSU (8) USC (9) Oklahoma It will be from those six teams that we can pick our top two; (4) Georgia and (10) Florida won't be selected over SEC champ LSU, nor will (5)Kansas be selected over (1)Missouri, who in turn wil not be selected over Oklahoma, who won the Big 12 title today. Teams in the top ten that did not lose today: (3) OSU (4) Georgia (5) Kansas (6) Virginia Tech (7) LSU (8) USC (9) Oklahoma (10) Florida Missouri and West Virginia will drop to somewhere between 4th and 10th. LSU is likely to move ahead of Virginia Tech, given the aforementioned 48-7 rout. Ohio State and Kansas are the only one-loss teams left in major conferences. Kansas lost to Missouri, who failed to win the Big 12 title game. History says Kansas would be a controversial pick at best, as they didn't do well enough play for their conference title. Georgia falls into the same boat. Missouri failed to beat Oklahoma for the Big 12, so they are in that group of 'elite runners-up' as well. West Virginia is a conference champ, but one that just lost 13-9 to a team that was 4-7. Virginia Tech is a conference champ, but was destroyed by another conference champ, LSU. USC is a conference champ, but also lost to a team they were expected to beat by 40 points. Oklahoma is a conference champ, but they don't stand a real chance at the title game with idle and winning teams ahead of them. Florida is the third-ranked team from the SEC, and did not even get a sniff of the conference championship. My BCS Bowl Picks: Title Game: OSU v LSU Rose Bowl: Illinois v USC Sugar Bowl: Georgia v Missouri Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma v Arizona State Orange Bowl: Virginia Tech v West Virginia It was pretty easy to make my picks actually...assuming those are the ten teams picked, that's the only logical bowl formation given the OSU/LSU game; Rose picks Illinois (available Big Ten team) and Sugar picks Missouri (best available at-large pick). That leaves the Orange Bowl and Fiesta Bowl with BC and WV. Arizona State used to host the Fiesta Bowl, and are a no-brainer for the at-large pick there, which in turn forces the selection of West Virginia to the Orange Bowl.