eva unit zero

Hasek has balls! *snicker*

False. No key players for Vancouver were brought in by Burke. The most important players he acquired were Jovanovski and Cloutier. Anaheim was already basically there when Murray left. Burke didn't really improve the team significantly enough that it was the difference between champs and not champs. The Fedorov trade was a salary dump of a player Burke didn't like because of where he was from, and his brother's poor attitude. The Ducks' plethora of young players has NOTHING to do with Burke.

The Ottawa Senators (1920, 1921, 1923, 1927) and Montreal Maroons (1926) won a combined five Stanley Cups after the NHL began play in 1917. Ottawa also won six between 1902 and 1911. Both teams eventually folded.

Rolston signed with Minnesota in the summer of 2004. Since then, he has had the two best seasons of his career. He signed his contract as a 55-60 point player coming off a down year, and delivered an average of 72 points per season. A comparable two-way player who is of similar age(31-year old Chris Drury) just went for a ridiculous amount in free agency...would it be unreasonable to suggest Rolston should make close to what Drury makes, or even HALF of what Drury makes? Last season, he made a third of what Drury signed for...why should he not get a raise?

Fixed it.

Foote was in town first and given the C almost right away; Luke Richardson was the captain, but gave it up to Foote a few months after Foote was signed.

Penner has an excellent chance of reaching the level Bertuzzi was at for most of his career. He probably won't be a 100 point player, but he also probably won't play every shift with a guy like Naslund who would dominate his position for years on end. EDIT: Penner is also coming off a 29-goal, 45-point rookie year. Bertuzzi took six years to beat that number of points and eight years to beat that number of goals. Penner needs to score 193 goals and 488 points over 624 games to match, or an average of 24-37-61 over 78 games per season for 8 seasons. That would put Penner at the same point as far as career stats in ten seasons that Bertuzzi has reached in 13 seasons.

If Asham is as good as people on here suggest he is, why weren't more teams than a depleted New Jersey squad interested, and why did he end up with a pay cut. By pay cut, I don't mean it like some have used, that he makes less than he could have (a la Rafalski), but he makes less than he did last year. My anticipation is one of two reasons: Either Asham has some locker room/team player issue, or he didn't want to leave the NY area but wanted to play for a contender. If the first is true, he's not a better choice than Drake. If the second is true, he wasn't an available choice for Holland.

The solution then is that only the most evolved individuals deserve the label of 'person' and everyone else can be 'animals.' And since anthropologists believe lactose tolerance to be the most recent human evolution, anyone who is lactose intolerant should be thrown into an arena for my amusement, and if they can't win, I'll just strangle them or electrocute them or maybe shoot them since I am a superior being and they are just a soulless meatbag to be used and abused.

That's an interesting slam, considering that most MSU students have that exact major!

The 'winning' pitcher and 'losing' pitcher is just like goalies in hockey; they are determined by when the winning run/goal is scored, who are the pitchers/goalies of record? The score was 6-3 when Robertson left in the top of the 8th, and 6-6 when Grilli left later that inning. Byrdak finished out the inning and was the pitcher of record when the winning run was scored in the bottom of the 8th. Jones came in for the 9th and got the save.

Then I'll rephrase. Given the increase in minutes and the better linemates, Penner should be able to match or beat his 29-45 from last year, if nothing else. Bertuzzi is a huge IF as far as reaching THOSE marks.

I started at 14, and went on to play college. Go to a hockey camp and/or take some power skating classes. If you are in the Ann Arbor area, go to Red Berenson's Hockey Camp at Yost..it's a good one. Steve Knuble (Mike's brother) runs a solid camp as well, also in Ann Arbor.

That is incorrect. He has averaged 60 games per season in his career, including a rookie year when he only saw 25 games and missed a lot of time as a healthy scratch. He as averaged 64 games per season, and his career high is 78; In 2003-04 he played 44 with the Canes and 34 with the Flyers. Over the past three seasons, he has averaged 67 games played. By comparison, Chelios has averaged 74, but has probably played fewer total minutes.

There also used to be a shuttle that goes between the Joe and Hockeytown Cafe on game days, not sure if it still runs or not.

Wow, that's pretty terrible...I've been there are couple times and never had anything but pleasant service. I didn't even know they HAD bouncers!

Nope. Penner is 24 right now. He'll be 29 when his contract ends. If he doesn't make an impact in the first couple seasons, He'll be 26 or 27, and he'll still have tremendous trade value. If need be, Lowe can always swap him for picks or prospects, or another roster player. Assume Penner puts up similar numbers to what he did this year for two more years, you don't think there will be a team out there willing to chance it for a decent prospect and maybe a pick or two, or a veteran winger and a pick? Burke is stuck with Bertuzzi no matter what--nobody is going to trade for him if he doesn't work out, and if he does he won't be traded. The chances that he'll do better than Penner over the next two years are at best 50/50, but Bertuzzi is on the way down and Penner is on the way up. Bertuzzi is the bigger risk, because he is declining and injury-prone, while Penner is entering his prime. If Penner puts up points at the same rate as he did in Anaheim, but with more minutes, he should be in the 50-65 point range with 35-40 goals each year. I don't see Bertuzzi matching those numbers, and that's assuming Penner doesn't get better with experience.

Fewer skaters means more playing time. I once played a game where we only had 8 skaters-myself and one other center, 3 wingers, and 3 D, and our other center spent half the game in the box...so I saw a lot of ice. It was fun, even though we were beaten like 8-1.

Fedorov has been scoring at about a .75 PPG (when at forward) every season for the last ten years except the 02-03 season. Peopl act like the guy is finished because he's not scoring like he did in 02-03 or 93-94....guess what, he USUALLY didn't!

Asham's deal does make me wonder; Last year he made 925k...now he accepts a deal for 700k? Is there some reason he was on the market for so long, and the nended up with a pay cut, even though he's a versatile, physical player who puts up decent numbers for a bottom-six forward? Maybe there's a reason nobody was interested.

The Wings' 1st was traded to Phoenix for two 2nd picks, which were used on Cory Emmerton and Shawn Matthias. Emmerton is generally regarded as a pretty good bet to be a top-six scoring forward. Matthias was traded for Bertuzzi. Drake and Asham are pretty similar players signed for pretty similar salaries. Asham at this point would likely provide a little bit more offense, while Drake brings better defense and strong faceoff abilities. Drake also brings tons of experience and leadership, which is a major reason he was acquired; If Kopecky develops into another Drake because of Drake's presence, that's better than signing Asham. Norton was signed for Grand Rapids, and was Babcock's first pick to fill out the roster when they had injuries going into the season. He was never INTENDED to be an enforcer on the Wings. Fighting is not crucial to winning. Toughness is crucial to winning. But toughness and fighting are NOT the same thing. Asham over Drake or Maltby wouldn't have made a significant difference. They all would have played fourth line anyway. If you think swapping out Drake or Maltby for Asham significantly alters our chances to win this year or in the future, you are nuts.

Nobody Holland has let 'run out' has had NEAR the trade value Coffey did as a recent Norris winner. Lang? Hull? Robitaille? All coming off unusually bad years, and only Lang was within five years of being a top player. Arnott has been better in the last three seasons than he ever was in New Jersey. Burke didn't trade Fedorov because he was declining. He traded him because he doesn't like European players. Fedorov's 65 point season in Anaheim was not abnormal production for him to that point--he had been in the 60s five of the prior seven seasons, and scoring at that pace in the 97-98 season as well. He was only just shy of that pace the year he was traded, and maintained that same pace during his 60 games at forward this year. Fedorov has declined slightly, mostly as a result of losing a step in his stride as he gets older. That's different from Coffey, who, when Bowman traded him, was basically done--he won the 95 Norris, was sixt h in voting for the 96 Norris, was traded to Hartford in the beginning of the 96-97 season and he was the number four defenseman in Philly by the end of the year.[/font] Bowman recognized he had an aging vet in Chiasson, and two up and coming stars in Lidstrom and Konstantinov. He also recognized that his goaltending options were Osgood, who had just come off his rookie year, Essensa, a veteran who was outperformed by Ozzie, and a host of secondary options. Or he could trade Chiasson, a guy on the way down in a defense filled with promising youth, for a goalie who has played in six of the previous eight All-Star games. Bryan Murray likely didn't have that trade option. Calgary needed Vernon for the playoffs that year. In the summer, they decided to deal Vernon, and go with Kidd for the 94-95. Vernon would finish 4th in Vezina voting that season, and Kidd would finish 6th and lead the league in starts. Essensa was just a couple years removed from a Vezina nomination, and could be had along with 'promising young defenseman' Sergei Bautin for 'only' Tim Cheveldae and Dallas Drake. The fact that the Wings gave up the two best players in the deal escaped Murray, and he was fired for it. Holland may not make bold strokes...but he also does not make many mistakes, and he only makes minor ones--trading Rivers in preparation for a Witt deal, then having to turn aroudn and add Cory Cross at a high price is a better mistake to make than overpaying an ineffective former star power forward and losing a potential star PF who is better right now for the same price.

For all the Markov haters...I have a statement. When was the last time you remember Markov's name being mentioned in a game? It only happened when he had the puck, or when he made a big hit. Markov was out least error-prone defenseman after Lidstrom. He rarely if ever made any major mistakes defensively, and this was playing in a primary shutdown role. Lilja impressed towards the end of the season, but I would take Markov over Lilja, Meech, or Quincey ten out of ten times for this year's roster. That said, Markov realistically should get between 3m and 3.5m...not as high as he wants, but he played damn well last year and certainly earned a raise. The Wings' have to find out if Hudler, Filppula, and Grigorenko can be top six forwards, so blowing their remaining cap space (about 5m after bonuses are accounted for) on one of the leftovers is unlikely. Realistically, one deadline acquisition could make at MOST maybe 3m, and that kind of guy would cost too much in assets to acquire. So we sign Markov for 3, and leave 2m for the deadline.

Primeau was 26, and still a 'could become dominant' type of player. Shanahan was 28, and had been the best power forward in the world since the age of 25. Give up a guy who one day could be dominant, to get a guy of similar age who has BEEN dominant and IS CURRENTLY dominant? That's not bold. That's fish in a barrel. [/font] Also, just an interesting side note...but if Rod Brind'Amour ever gets traded, watch for the player going to Carolina to be named captain. Shanahan (captain) was traded for Primeau, who later became captain (Kevin Dineen between them), and was then traded for Brind'Amour, who is now captain (Ron Francis between them).

And yet, Lamoirello has failed miserably in the cap situation while Holland has excelled. If moving up to grab Parise was so brilliant, what about Holland swapping a first for two seconds, and then drafting first-round rated Cory Emmerton as well as big center Shawn Matthias with the picks acquired? Brilliant at the draft is more like being Don Waddell at the 2002 draft. Florida moved from 1st to 3rd, with Columbus wanting to secure Rick Nash. Atlanta received picks from both Columbus and Florida guaranteeing that they would not draft Bouwmeester, whom they never planned to draft in the first place. Columbus and Florida both gave up picks to Atlanta and received the same player they would have had no trade taken place (Florida intended to take Bouwmeester first overall, and Atlanta already had Kovalchuk and Heatley, but had no franchise-type goalie like Lehtonen)