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You credit Devellano for Osgood, yet don't credit Holland for anyone he drafted? I find that amusing, given that Osgood was heavily scouted, and his selection basically made by none other than KEN HOLLAND. Oh, and if you can credit Devellano for Feds, Nick, or Konstantinov...then you can credit Holland for Z, Dats, and others.

If you had bothered to read any of my comments, I have said Jones should have received between 5-10 games. My argument was that Lemieux deserved significantly more, and the ONLY thing these hits have in common is that they were hits from behind into the boards.

Leclaire gave up 5 goals on 26 shots. Three of his shutouts came on more shots than that. Also, Columbus held San Jose to 17 shots, and Leclaire has averaged 26 shots against to Osgood's 22, so you can't argue that Columbus has been that terrible defensively. I'm not claiming Osgood won't have a bad game the rest of the season. I'm simply saying that I rate Osgood above Leclaire to this point in the young season because Osgood has been great in every game, while Leclaire has had a couple of stinkers. Osgood's worst statistical game was his first game, where he gave up 2 goals on 21 shots and have a .905 save percentage. Leclaire has had two games where he's given up three or more goals and had a save percentage that was .833 or lower. Those were also two of his four LOWEST shot count games. If it were a function of the team having a bad game, he'd have probably seen more shots than normal; he certainly wouldn't have seen less than 20.

Osgood could retire today and he'd be with the Andy Moog/Mike Vernon group of 'maybes' that hang just outside the 'sure thing' range. If Osgood sticks around a couple more years and makes it to 400 wins (which I think he will) there's no way he doesn't get in.

The most recent stats I can find show him as yet to play a game. Maybe he couldn't actually go back until Nov 1st , or this past Thursday.

Consistency counts; Thomas and Osgood have been the ONLY goaltenders who have given up 2 goals or less every game. Leclaire has four shutouts, but he has averaged 2.5 goals against in his other four, including 5 goals against on 26 shots in one game and 3 goals on 18 shots in another. Both of Biron's losses were 4-goal against affairs, albeith both with fairly high shot counts.

I think his roster is based on overall performance with the Wings, rather than being a roster of greats who happened to play for the Wings at some point.

Kronwall would have to be involved. He's the only young player we have whose cap hit is significant enough to clear space for Hossa's incoming salary for the next few years.

And regardless of the past fifteen years, Osgood has outplayed Hasek thus far this season. I would argue that Osgood has been one of the two best goaltenders in the NHL thus far; only he and Boston's Tim Thomas have yet to allow more than two goals in a single game this season.

Bergeron basically cut across in front of Jones right at the goal line; before Bergeron cross the goal line, he was not even in front of Jones. It's not like Jones was trailing him and then rammed him into the boards. And Jones began his hit as Bergeron arrived at the puck. Lemieux's hit was so late that it came after Joe Sakic pulled up off of what was going to be a hit because Draper had dished the puck. Bergeron was in a situation where he knew, or should have known, that he might end up being hit. Draper had no reason to expect that he would be hit at that point. Take a look here:

I would never wear a triple digit number...If there wasn't a double-digit number avilable, I'd go with Pi. Brings a whole new meaning to 'numbers not ending' doesn't it?

Maybe. I prefer to look at it this way. During the period from 95 to 2003, The Devils had comparable regular season successes to the Wings, and Brodeur won three Cups. Counting the 94-95 season as .57 seasons, the Wings averaged 109 points per season to New Jersey's 102. The Wings averaged 237 goals for and 198 goals against per season to New Jersey's 236/189. So it's not like there was a huge difference in goals at either end between Brodeur's ACTUAL team and the Wings teams you wanted him on. Yet Brodeur won three Cups and so did the Wings. That implies that over that period, that the Wings' goaltenders were Brodeur's equal when it came to postseason results. Let's take a look at Roy's Avalanche in the stretch from 96 to 2003. 103 points, 255 goals for, 201 goals against per season. Two Cups. Roy's teams were significantly better offensively than the contemporary Detroit or New Jersey teams, while allowing a comparable number of goals. So Roy had BETTER offensive support than the Wings netminders yet won less in the same span...and having him is supposed to guarantee that we'll have won more, when goaltending wasn't the issue to begin with?

It's called hyperbole. The 4 refers to the number of full seasons Recchi spent in a Flyers uniform where he performed better than .99 points per game, which is his career average. That would be a neat trick, as the Wings didn't win from 2003 through 2007.

If Balsille had played by the rules, he'd have his team and would be well on his way to being able to move the team. If you're upset the team isn't moving, blame Balsillie's egotistical need to have things his way.

Nonis dealt for Luongo in the first place, to solidify a goaltending position Burke never seemed to understand; Kevin Weekes, Felix Potvin, and Dan Cloutier were all 'the next great Canucks goaltender' to Burke. Nonis seems to have a good head on his shoulders and a decent core of young players. He also seems to have a lot of leeway from ownership as far as time to build a team. So what I expect to happen is he shaves off aging veterans, either cutting them loose when they outlive usefulness, or trading them for younger players.

I generally reserve the #3 category for guys who don't just make bad mistakes, but they make a lot of them. Gonchar doesn't generally make a lot of mistakes...his failures just tend to be spectacular in nature.

Hmm... In which years of 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, or 2001 did the Red Wings lose because the starting goaltending played poorly while the team played well enough to win? Hmm...not once? The only argument can be made for 1999, and that was an injury situation where Osgood's knee was injured after dominating the Ducks, and came into the Avs series well before he was recovered to try and rescue the team after Ranford blew monkey nuts in Games 3 and 4.

Gonchar is much better defensively than Souray or McCabe. While Gonchar is certainly not on the level of a guy like Lidstrom, or even in the range of a Zubov or Kaberle, he's not the kind of close your eyes and pray defender that McCabe and Souray are. I've found there to be three basic kinds of scoring defensemen: 1) The kind who are capable of scoring but play defense well also. Lidstrom, Kaberle, Zubov, Pronger, Niedermayer, Rafalski, are a few examples of this kind of defenseman. 2) The kind who think offense first, but are average defensively. This would include guys like Schneider, Gonchar, Timonen, Blake are some examples of this kind of player. 3) The guy whose only purpose is to score points, who is a total defensive liability and often harms the team more than he helps, despite significant offensive contribution. This would be your Souray, McCabe, Ozolinsh, Tverdovsky. Any guy capable of playing the power play that on an average defensive team wouldn't also be seeing some PK time should be here.

If Forsberg is healthy enough to play hockey, he is worth picking up as a playoff rental. If he is not healthy enough to play hockey, he won't be signing a contract.

And yet, often players on the actual All-Star teams are decided based on statistics, regardless of actual quality of play.

Why not just keep Ellis in the lineup another few games? The way Ellis and Downey were playing, it doesn't make sense to bring back Franzen and Drake if they aren't in top shape...if we can give the Franz a little more time to rest (assuming that's the reason he's at center) why not do it?

Lawsuit filed against Reggie Bush that could hurt USC big time. Linky

Removing the goals the players themselves have scored, Crosby's teammates have scored 29, while Z's teammates have scored 35. Both players have twelve assists on a comparable number of goals; Crosby assists on about 41%of teammate's goals to Z's 34% mark. By the same token, though, Z has scored 22.2% of his team's goals, compared to Crosby's 14.7%. If we reverse the amount of teammate goals and adjust their assist numbers based on the above percentages, their stats look like this: Crosby: 5-14-19 Zetterberg: 10-10-20 Those numbers suggest Z would still be leading the league in points with the kind of help Crosby has had.

So why is Franzen centering? He's the only guy on the line who's not a natural center.

Zetterberg and Datsyuk will be more effective individually if they are placed on a line together. This much has not been argued. However, the Red Wings will have more success with the two apart, as evidenced by last spring when the DZH line had limited success on the road (as has been mentioned over and over) due to the ability of teams to use the home ice advantage to match their best shutdown line against the Wings' top line consistently. Obviously, if the line of Hudler/Filppula/Samuelsson develops chemistry and starts scoring like we know they are capable of, that becomes a non-issue. But it would probably be better for the team's depth and general success to swap one of Z or Dats with one of Huds or Flip, providing a little more punch to the second line and making the Wings deeper by evening out the scoring.