eva unit zero

If Z pulls that off, and is in the running for the Selke...he'll have had the greatest single season performance ever.

From now until April 2009, maybe.

Yes, the Wings scored two goals and San Jose none after the fight. But the Ellis goal was a fluke dump on the net, and THAT is the play that deflated the Sharks. Dats' goal was a few minutes later on a 5-on-3...neither goal had anything to do with Downey's fight and it's only the anti-skill crowd that thinks so.

Filppula has averaged 16 minutes. Hudler has averaged 13. Kopecky has averaged less than 8. Ellis has averaged under 5. Downey has averaged 3. But let's look at even strength ice time, since that's where Downey's minutes would be. Filppula gets 13 at ES, Hudler 11, and Kopecky 7, Ellis 4, and Downey 3. Downey is not a better player than Kopecky or Ellis, and their minutes are already close. Filppula has been fairly ineffective so far yet is third among healthy forwards in ES ice time; he gets more than even Homer does. Yes, Kopecky has played more recently, but that is a result of two of our top line wingers being injured. And BTW....ten players, including Flip and Kopay, have taken more than one faceoff for the Wings this season. Flip is the only one who hasn't won at least 50%.

Maybe not. But my argument was not 'Anaheim was the only team that had any fortune in the series' it was 'without this singular lucky bounce, Detroit wins the series.'

The Wings had been the better team through four games and 55 minutes. Then, a lucky bounce allowed Anaheim to avoid going down 3-2 in the series. Do you think Anaheim, who had never led the series until that point, would have won games 6 and 7 facing elimination? I don't.

I find the Kopecky bashing hilarious. Why? Because Kopecky has one point to Filppula's none, and Filppula is not getting bashed one bit. But Kopecky has been horrible and shouldn't be in the lineup, while Filppula should be our second line center.

Asham was never coming to Detroit. He had a solid year last year, yet took a pay cut when he signed with the Devils. Why? One of two reasons: He's a cancer in the locker room and the Devils' bid was the highest offered, or he wanted to stay in the New York area but move to a team that had a real shot at winning. Neither of those scenarios gives him much chance of coming to Detroit.

I think Downey's shift early in the second was a snapshot of him as a player. He hopped on the ice, received a pass, proceeded to pass it to the tape of a San Jose defenseman who was nowhere near any Wings or the net, and then raced across the ice to lay a hit that didn't have any bearing on the play. Yes, he did fight McLaren. That alone doesn't make him more deserving of ice time than Kopecky or Ellis as some have suggested.

The point was that Grigorenko's accident was a huge setback that caused him to spend most of the past few years getting back where he was, and had it not happened he'd likely already be a star on the team. But he couldn't focus on being a star, because he instead had to be concerned with things like survival and then would he ever play hockey again.

Which is why it's being rumored. Not for any kind of accuracy...simply because it's comical. Not saying it won't happen...but the rumor is based mainly in the 'this would be hilarious, and just like ol Mike to do it!' thought process.

Grigs being out of shape had more to do with not knowing what kind of shape he needed to be in. Had the accident never occurred, Grigs would have come over in 2003 or 2004, possibly made the team right away or perhaps spent some time in the minors or an extra year in Russia. But he'd have long since been over and on the team without the accident is the point I was making. Let's look at it another way. Say you are a chef. You are making a special wedding cake for a friend, a type of cake you've never made. However, about halfway through the baking process, your oven stops working, and the cake is ruined. You still have the recipe, the pan and the decorations, but the actual cake is ruined. So you start from scratch putting a new cake together. Since you just did this, you have an idea how to do it and the process goes much quicker, but you end up having the cake finished much later than you were expecting. Because you threw it together hastily so that it would get finished, it's not quite as perfect as you wanted, but it's baked and ready. Understand my point?

Actually, our second line at that point was Hudler/Lang/Calder.

It's quite the opposite. Kopecky was doing very well until he was hurt last season. He has been disappointing so far this year, and I think giving him a shot on Dats' wing and saying 'we want you to be a physical force and score some points on our second line' and if he can't step up and at least play a physical game (like he did in his last season in GR and the early going last season) then we know what we have and what we don't. I'm of the opinion that he will be able to step up...you aren't. Neither of us knows if we're right yet.

I hear he was Shel shocked.

Bettman should be more concerned about the Southern markets that haven't had generations of exposure. Bettman's job is to work to make sure all teams are fiancially stable. There are 26 teams that existed pre-Bettman, Six are in Canada, four more are American O6 teams, and then you have established teams like Philadelphia, St.Louis, Colorado, Dallas, NY Islanders, San Jose, New Jersey, as well as newcomers Columbus and Minnesota doing well. That's 19 teams right there, leaving the two other California teams, the Southeast division, Nashville, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo as teams for Bettman to worry about. Buffalo has started having solid support, so scratch them off the list. Pittsburgh has Crosby; if they can't survive with the game's most marketable star, they can't survive period. Meaning that Nashville is the northernmost team that Bettman needs to be concerned with the viability of.

Grigorenko was nearly killed in a severe auto accident in May 2003. Doctors only gave him a ten percent chance of SURVIVAL. He worked hard to get back in shape, and played in Russia's third-tier league in December. He had another surgery that January, and played three playoff games in the top Russian league. So we're talking about basically a year off from hockey before he got back in MINIMUM game shape...and we're now talking Spring 2004. Grigorenko has been working the pats three and a half years to just get back to where he was before the accident. The suggestion that because he's not in perfect form means he's lazy and has no work ethic is totally disproven by how hard he has worked the past few years to make it back. Sorry, but you fail.

There is only one person suitable for the position... Michael Chiklis.

Given that you opened with: I think my response is justified.

I would rather get Kopecky on Das wing and give him every chance to show he can be a support scorer with a physical edge. Cleary played phenomenally with Drapes and Malts last postseason, so there's no reason not to play that unit together. Although it looks like Sammy is going to be back and Z will be out, so maybe change the top two lines to be: Filppula/Datsyuk/Kopecky Holmstrom/Hudler/Samuelsson

Downey and Drake didn't play much because other players contribute more to the team than they do. Pretty simple. And the argument leveled all offseason was that having an enforcer ON THE ROSTER would deter other teams from taking liberties. My argument of 'an enforcer who doesn't have skill won't play much, and won't deter anything' was labeled as ignorant and dismissed. Yet here we are, with an enforcer who doesn't have skill, therefore he doesn't play much, and as a result provides no deterrent. I will restate what I have said before; I am not against fighting or toughness, I just think it's a waste of a roster spot to play a guy whose only asset are his fists, meaning he's not good enough to actually put on the ice for more than a token appearance. A true deterrent is the Bob Probert/Darren McCarty type guy. A guy who will be on the ice regularly and has the fighting ability to make other players think twice about stuff. A guy like Downey does nothing.

Hmm...people were bitching all summer that having an enforcer would prevent our players from getting injured because of big meanies like Anaheim. Myself and a few others blasted that statement as 'ridiculous' because an enforcer wouldn't be on the ice enough and were shouted down. So when I bring up the fact that I WAS RIGHT I get slammed as being an ass and get the 'Downey didn't play much' as the excuse? I ******* CALLED that he wouldn't play enough to be a deterrent!!

The penalty on Dats was iffy. Not because it was a questionable situation, but because borderline situations like that had been let go all game. If that call is let go, consistent with many other situations throughout the game, the Wings win game 5, instead of going to OT on a fluky PP goal. That means they have all the momentum and the advantage going into a decisive Game 6. Without the call on Dats, they have to win 5 more games, and have significantly more momentum and confidence.

As far as the Beezer thing...it's not Clarke's fault Joseph had his two best seasons as a Leaf. And Beezer never posted a GAA over 2.2 in Philly--a number Joseph has never reached in any season--so it's not like Beezer played poorly. Sign a guy who has been a Vezina contender several times and just carried his team to the Finals, or sign a guy who has never made it past the second round and is considered (at the time) playoff choker? The answer seems pretty obvious, and it's not Cujo.

And Clarke, who was a notoriously dirty player, and espoused those 'virtues' as a GM as well, is the guy to eliminate this? The main focus of the commissioner is the business side of the game. The office of the President was basically split into two separate positions; commissioner, who deals primarily with the business side, and the Director of Hockey Operations, whose primary duty is to oversee player discipline, and ensure the quality of the product on the ice. I don't think many out there would argue Colin Campbell is not a 'hockey guy' or that he doesn't understand the game.