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The only 'leaked facts' were a statement by Balsillie's camp that Bettman had told Leipold not to sell to him. Hardly worthy of being considered evidence. As for Balsillie as an owner; he has already demonstrated his unwillingness to operate by BoG rules and bylaws. The BoG is an exclusive club; the existing members have to approve you for you to become a member. Balsillie has put himself at odds with the current members; this means he's likely to never get in. Like how a store is likely to not hire someone with an embezzlement conviction on his record to oversee employee loss prevention. He's demonstrated that he won't obey the rules, so why would the BoG feel he should be included?

The Lidstrom video just made me miss Yzerman Mostly the clip of Yzerman walking through the Sharks defense and then passing to Nick for the shot.

Balsillie is the one who never signed a binding agreement. The BoG CAN'T rule on the sale or the relocation until a binding agreement is in place..Balsillie wanted the league to approve the move BEFORE he agreed to buy the team, and when the league told him they wouldn't vote on it until he agreed to purchase, he took his ball and went home. The NHL does NOT need a spolied rich crybaby owner who thinks he should get things his way because that's what he wants.

Fighting is not an essential skill for winning. Last playoff should have been enough proof that you can have success and be physical, and not be outmuscled, all without having an enforcer.

Neutral zone traps were used by Montreal to win Cups in the 70s. The greatest team ever used in the 70s something that is a result of 90s expansion and talent dilution? Don't think so. Have you noticed that Jacques Lemaire is the leading trap coach, and he happened to be a defensively minded center on those Habs teams? Bigger goalie equipment has nothing to do with a diluted talent pool; if it was, the top goalies wouldn't use it. Teams nowadays are much more defense-first than teams were in the 80s, but teams in the 50s and 60s were as low scoring as games today. The 80s are the aberration as far as goal production; this is mainly because of the fact that there were significantly fewer quality players to go around, so when one team got a few quality players together they could wreak havoc on their opposition much moreso than today because the style was more wide open, and the disconnect between the stars and the rest was far greater. Also, someone said it was once not uncommon to have a 30 goal scorer on your third line. The NHL record for number of 30-goal scoring forwards on a team is 6, achieved by the 74-75 Sabres and the 84-85 Jets. The Islanders had 6 30-goal scorers in 77-78, but that included Denis Potvin. The Red Wings have had five 30-goal scorers three times, with Jimmy Carson being the only third liner to score 30, and he played on the second PP unit and led the team in PP goals with 11. Luc Robitaille was able to score 30 from the third line in 2002, but 2002 was hardly a COMMON team. It's obviously not something that has happened very many times, and usually only as a result of teams choosing to spread their offensive talent to three lines rather than having two concentrated offensive lines. The 2002 Wings had a third liner finish fourth on the team with 30 goals, but fifth place was Kris Draper's 15 goals, and the team only scored 251. The 92 Wings had a third liner score 34, but they also had a second liner score 19 and a first liner score 20. And they finished second overall.

Ozzie was an All-Star and Vezina contender in his prime, he should have won the 96 Vezina, and he has never had a losing season. He has won a Stanley Cup as a starter and was the second most valuable player during that run. There are currently nine goaltenders not in the Hall who have more wins than Ozzie does. Among them are Hasek, Belfour, Brodeur, Joseph--four guys who are basically guaranteed to be inducted. All eligible goaltenders with as many or more playoff shutouts as Osgood are in the Hall. Lorne Chabot is the only goaltender eligible for the Hall who has played as many games as Ozzie has won, and has a better career GAA than Osgood...Brodeur, and Hasek complete the list of goaltenders who have a better GAA with that many games. And btw...no goalie in history has posted Hall-worthy numbers without playing on good teams much of their career. Whether you like Ozzie or not, he's Hall-bound.

The major failing with that is if he were 100% healthy, that doesn't mean he would have been twice as effective. More likely he'd have been maybe 20% or 25% more effective...which is still pretty ineffective.

Given that Kronwall is our #3 (and was last season, too) that seems a bit silly to say in support of Lebda. Lebda has an equal chance of moving up to the #4 slot as Kronwall does of moving down to it!!

Yeah, because if the NHL expanded by two teams there would be such a loss of talent for the existing teams. Figure teams get to protect nine forwards, four defensemen, and a goaltender, and players with equal to or less than 120 games (75 games for goaltenders) and three seasons are exempt...that means if it happened this season the Wings could protect Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Holmstrom, Franzen, Draper, Cleary, Maltby, Samuelsson, Drake, Lidstrom, Rafalski, Chelios, Lebda, Hasek. Hudler, Filppula, Grigorenko, Kronwall, Kopecky would be exempt. Meaning the only available players on the roster would be Osgood and Lilja, plus possibly one more defenseman- likely Sopel or Lebda if Sopel makes the team. Ultimately, if every team lost a fourth line forward, a third-pairing defenseman, or a backup goaltender...how does that hurt the overall product? There are many players currently not in the league who are capable of filling those roles without the team missing a beat. The talent difference between 30 and 32 teams is virtually negligible, and the league currently has a higher average talent level than it did in the 80s.

Given that there are third and fourth liners who could have played on a lot of second lines in the 80s? Given that most current starters in the NHL would have been All-Star goaltenders in the 80s? Yes, there is an overabundance of talent in that respect.

Fixed.

And all of the key players on Weis' good teams who have since graduated were recruited by and spent their first year or two under? The program has more Weis recuirts playing regularly now than Willingham recruits. Given that this is the first year such a statement holds true, doesn't that mean Weis is the one with the recruiting issue? Yeah, aside from quite a few guys with the talent to be All-Americans over the past couple years, Willingham's recruits haven't made an impact for a school he hasn't been recruiting for in FOUR YEARS. Weis is playing with his guys now. Only three offensive starters, plus the third string quarterback and fourth string tailback are seniors. Weis is playing mostly underclassmen on offense. Yes, he has seven seniors on his defense, but the main problem for Notre Dame has been the lack of any sort of offense. Which is doubly troubling for Weis, as he's supposed to be some sort of offensive genius.

Osgood will retire with close to or over 400 wins. That alone will get him into the HHOF. As far as Ullman, nobody will wear his number ever again, as he wore the 16 and the 7 in his time in Detroit. And finally...Howe, Delvecchio, and Yzerman are the only numbers that were retired soon after the player retired...Abel, Sawchuk, and Lindsay's numbers were hoisted to the rafters in the 1990s, decades after they had retired. So while it's unlikely but possible Fedorov's number goes up, if it happens, it's likely not to happen for quite a while.

Seattle and Kansas City should bet the cities selected from that group. Vegas is an iffy decision, and Winnipeg, despite popular misconception, is the only city on that list that does NOT have an arena suitable for the NHL, nor did they ever support the Jets when they were there. Change the format to eight four-team divisions as follows: WESTERN CONFERENCE -Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose -Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Vancouver -Chicago, Columbus, Minnesota, Nashville -Colorado, Dallas, Kansas City, St. Louis EASTERN CONFERENCE -Atlanta, Carolina, Florida, Tampa Bay -Boston, Montreal, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh -Buffalo, Detroit, Ottawa, Toronto -New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Washington Each team could play six per team within the division (18), four per team within the conference (48) and one outside of the conference (16) for a total of 82 games.

And yet the total combined NHL goal scoring for all three at Hudler's age: 103 GP, 22g. Hudler's career stats: 92 GP, 16g. Gionta, Sullivan, and St. Louis all saw 13-15 minutes per game in their early years; so let's add 30% to Hudler's statistics to reflect the ice time difference. That would make Hudler at 21; now adjust for games played and we project Hudler to 24. So Hudler is a better goal scorer than the other three were at the same point.

Like how the guy in the mob who only takes part in racketeering and protection schemes, but doesn't do any of the actual whackings isn't really guilty of any wrongdoing?

Kopecky centered Filppula in Grand Rapids, just for reference.

Draper and Drake are both established faceoff men. Which is exactly why they are being pu on the Wing with a center who was a rookie last season. Z and Dats can take faceoffs at the NHL level...Flip and Kopecky still need to work on that, so why not pair them up with vets who are really good at it?

Hmm....and what is right next to the 6 on the keyboard?

I would hope NFL traning camps are bigger than 67 players, as the NFL roster is 53 players compared to 23 for NHL. Oh, and the first cut in the NFL is down to 75 players; if they aren't using 67 players or more, who the hell is getting cut? EDIT: Typo correction

The Sharks lost Hannan and did not replace him; the Wings did the same with Markov. However, the Wings also upgraded on Schneider with Rafalski, and dumped off dead weight in Lang, Bertuzzi, and Calder. The Sharks replaced Mark Bell with Jeremy Roenick, which is probably a wash. So while the Wings were better than San Jose last year, the Wings have if anything widened that gap in the offseason. The Ducks, OTOH, have swapped Penner for Bertuzzi, possibly lost Niedermayer or Schneider, and may not be bringing Selanne back. Assuming Nieds and Selanne do not return; the Ducks are SIGNIFICANTLY worse than last year, as compared to an improved Wings team that nearly beat them last year.

Hudler has scored 15 goals in limited time. At that age St Louis had not even made the league, and was not as good defensively as Hudler.

You have that relationship backwards. Cheechoo's success or failure is so directly and unavoidably a result of how Thornton is playing it's not funny. The Sharks need a better defense to compete with the Ducks and Wings; the Sharks are the only team of the three that doesn't have a playoff-proven veteran goaltender behind a very solid defense. Yes, they have a nasty top six....but so did the Wings in the early 90s, when their goaltender was Cheveldae and the best defensive defenseman on the team was Steve Chiasson.

Because LaFontaine played significantly fewer games and had trouble staying healthy his whole career. It's like who's more deserving of the Hall; Dino Ciccarelli or Pavel Bure? Bure was the greater player with the higher ceiling and was one of the league's top players for several seasons in a row. Yet Dino is the one you hear about 'he should be in the Hall!!' and Bure is just on the maybes list. Or Eric Lindros vs Dale Hawerchuk. Lindros was consideredone of the top five players for most of the second half of the 90s...Hawerchuk was never anywhere near the top 5 players in the league, as he was a primarily offensive player whose best seasons were barely over 100 points in the 80s. Hawerchuk is in, Lindros is a maybe. Lindros has a Hart, a few more nominations and tied for the scoring title, Hawerchuk has nothing whatsoever. Realistically the most apt comparison is Hawerchuk to Turgeon...and honestly I have to say Turgeon is more deserving than Dale.

The sad part is that it was obvious from the first 'I might not be retiring' that this was what was going on. I personally hope the Ducks spend most of the cap space made available by the suspension, and then fail to make the playoffs because of shoddy defense. Because that's what Burke and the Ducks deserve for this BS.