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I think 32 teams in 4 8-team divisions is a good match. BUT: Florida, Nashville, Phoenix, Washington are the teams I would consider moving. Move them to Kitchener (since that looks like a reality for Nashville), Portland, Houston, Kansas City, Vegas, and perhaps Madison, WI. That spaces the teams more evenly, in large markets that in most cases already have hockey doing well at the junior or AHL level. Add two expansion clubs to those markets as well. Pacific Division: Anaheim, Calgary, Edmonton, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Portland, San Jose, Vancouver Central Division: Chicago, Colorado, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Madison, Minnesota, St. Louis Northeast Division; Boston, Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit, Kitchener, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto Atlantic Division: Atlanta, Carolina, New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay

Heatley and Hossa are pretty close in ability, with the nod going to Hossa. [/font] Straight up, it might be a fair trade. But Ottawa also gave up solid defenseman Greg DeVries, who many Wings fans have been falling over themselves about as a UFA this season. Ottawa would probably have been better off with Hossa and DeVries than they are with Heatley. That said, there is no guarantee Hossa would have worked as well with Spezza as Heatley seems to.

Enough about 'the old way' of naming divisions. [/font] You do realize that the 'traditional' way of naming conferences and divisions was only in place from 1975 to 1993? Before that, there were *gasp* Eastern and Western conferences. The NHL has been divided into conferences and divisions since 1967-68. The MAJORITY of that time has been spent using a geographical name. As for contracting teams...as I said before, that is NOT the solution to making the NHL more popular.

The Wings seemed to miss Schneider when he was down more than the Ducks missed Pronger. The key to the Ducks this year was the young guys like McDonald, Kunitz, Perry, Getzlaf, Beauchemin who played very well, as well as vets like Selanne and Niedermayer playing at a high level.

Contract the league to 8 teams? Not even looking at the up-front cost of contraction (which is monumental) you'd be looking at a loss of most of the media markets the NHL is in. You'd have the Original Six, as well as assumedly Edmonton and Calgary--the two Canadian teams with the most history. That would be the NHL. You'd have nothing south or west of Chicago in the US. The playing level would be higher, but that wouldn't really be noticeable by casual fans or non-fans, who are also the ones who would be losing their teams and therefore angry with the league for that. Contraction, especially on the large scale, is NOT the answer to making the league more popular.

Kolzig has spent 20 years with the Caps, and is about to retire. He also is pricey and not that good. Why the f*** would you even think about wanting him?

If we had picked up Luongo, that would have likely meant no Markov or Datsyuk--Markov would never have been signed, and Datsyuk would have been traded. Would you rather that than having Hasek with Dats and Markov?

I thought it was borderline. For one, Datsyuk DIDN'T bump him. Datsyuk turned around awkwardly, and it looked like he might have been trying to impede the Duck player, or he could have just been losing his balance. Given that the Ducks player-I think it was McDonald-was NOT actually impeded by Datsyuk, and it was questionable as to whether it was an interference attempt at all, I probably would not have called an interference penalty.

The Wings will only owe about 163k in bonuses from this season that will hit next season's cap.

The Wings very nearly won a couple of the games they lost as it was. The number one reason the Wings lost was the failure of the PP to score. Are you suggesting Samuelsson is just as good as Schneider in that respect? Because if that's what you're saying...coke-bottle glasses might be a good near-future investment.

Other than being totally wrong about the fact that Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver are easy examples to find--that's four of six NHL cities--you also fail to notice one simple thing: I never said Americans hadn't done it. Simply that Canadians had, and that fact totally disproved the sweeping generalization of "Canada=100% classy and good and not making noise during the anthem" that IceMunkee was making. HUGE difference between saying 'that's not true' and 'Americans have never done this classless thing many Canadians did.' I said the former, you assumed the latter.

Except Alfredsson was Ottawa's MVP, not Emery.

Yeah, but the fact remains is they will likely either lose Giguere this summer, or be forced to give up a significant amount of depth to preserve the remainder. They only beat the Wings this year because the Wings were missing two of their top three defensemen. Had the Wings had Schneider for the conference finals, the Wings are the Cup champions because their power play would have been much more potent. Anaheim also stayed basically injury-free through the playoffs. The Wings had some seasons where the Cup was a very real possibility if not for key injuries; this season, 1999, and 2001 come to mind as notable examples where an injury free playoff would have resulted in the Wings with a very strong chance at the Cup.

Considering most of the Canadian NHL cities have had a situation in the past few years where a large number of fans in attendance booed the US anthem, your sweeping generalization doesn't work.

Giguere was good, but he was far from MVP material. [/font] I would have picked Niedermayer, Selanne, or McDonald ahead of Giguere for MVP.

You mean when he went to the Islanders and was the team's MVP? When he was the most important player in turning the last place team in the NHL the prior year into a team that lost a tough division by a point? [/font] And how does Legace's performance in St. Louis have anything to do with Osgood? Osgood was on some pretty good Wings teams, this is true. But Osgood is far from the only goaltender to ever play on good teams. Grant Fuhr is the prime example of a mediocre goalie who had success on great teams. One remarkable thing Fuhr did Osgood never did: Had a losing record within a season of winning the Cup, for the same team. In fact, Osgood has never had a losing season. The thing that somehow always gets left out of it is....yes, the mid 90s Wings were great teams. But a huge, and often underrated reason those teams were great, is the fact they had a goalie like Osgood.

The Ducks currently have 11 players (7F, 3D, and 1G) signed for next season to the tune of 28m. Giguere can expect 6m, Selanne will command another 4m-5m when bonuses are factored in (hit the cap for 6 this year), and Penner and Moen will combine for around 2m. That's 40m, 41m when you add in Bobby Ryan, spent on 11F, 3D, and 2G. They may be able to bring back most of their squad next season, but in the sumer of 2008 Getzlaf and Perry hit RFA, and Kunitz and Bryzgalov hit UFA. That's probably an increase over current salaries ranging from 5-7m between all of those players, possibly more. In other words, the Ducks willl ikely stay mostly togethr short term, but in a couple years we'll see some pretty significant moves to avoid cap issues.

You said "should of" instead of "should have" or "should've" in your title.

Bzzt, wrong. [/font] There was an initial 5/50 offer, but Fedorov asked for more time to deal with some personal issues he has going through. Rather than allow him more time, the Wings pulled the 5th year, and only offered a 4-year, 40 million deal after that point. Fedorov left for Anaheim because of the 5th year the Wings refused to put back on the deal.

George and Gordon Gund owned the California Golden Seals, which later became the Cleveland Barons. This team then merged with the Minnesota North Stars. The Gunds became the owners of the merged franchise through a buyout process overseen by NHL President John Ziegler. In 1990, the Gunds wanted to move the North Stars to the San Francisco Bay Area. Their move request was denied. Instead, Ziegler allowed them to sell the franchise and awarded them a new one, the Sharks. The Stars would protect 14 skaters and 2 goalies, and the Sharks would then select the same from the organization's remaining player pool. The two teams then took turns selecting players until the Sharks roster reached 30 players. After this, an expansion draft was held in which each team drafted ten players. Simply put, the Gunds merged their franchise with Minnesota throug ha buyout, and then split off again from the North Stars, selling off the Minnesota franchise they had acquired in the process. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_NHL_Disp...xpansion_Drafts

Belfour is not as good as Osgood and would cost two or three times as much. If we don't keep Hasek, the ONLY reasonable answer is to find a cheap, effective backup or to go with one of the kids in that role.

Signing Smyth means no Bertuzzi. We don't have the room at forward or under the salary cap to sign both guys. That and they basically offer the same skill set--which means that, like a Homer/Bert or Homer/Smyth combo, they wouldn't work well on the same line. Which means Bert, Homer, or Smyth on the third line. The range we would likely be looking at if they sign in Detroit: Smyth 4.5-5.5m Bertuzzi: 3.5m-4.5m Schneider: 3.5m-4m Markov: 2.75m-3.25m The Wings have eleven forwards already signed for next year's roster, including current players signed and Grigorenko. Hudler is still RFA. That makes twelve. The Wings have tended to run with 13 forwards the past few years, which means only one forward spot is left open. This post details the Wings' current situation, as well as some hypothetical numbers for players we need to sign. Granted I used the bottom end of the scale for Schneider and Markov..but even if you use the top end, we still have almost 7m left under the 48m cap. Also, from looking at nhlnumbers.com, it looks like the bonuses for Chelios and Hasek mostly counted against THIS YEAR--they only would have put the Wings over by 163k, not the 1.4m that people have been posting. Remember, Yzerman's 05-06 bonus was around 750k, yet only 358k carried over. So figure around 6.5m left to sign a forward and a goalie. Certainly Smyth seems more likely if Hasek doesn't come back--Howard or another backup would cost about 1m to 1.5m less than Dom will, which means instead of having about 4.5m to spend on Smyth and max the cap out, Holland would have 5.5m-6m to spend on Smyth, and he could leave 1m or so for wiggle room. Schneider and Markov's contracts also could be a factor--Hasek returning but Schneider and Markov signing towards the bottom of my expected range would also allow for Smyth and wiggle room.

For those who are still paying attention, here are all possible outcomes: Top five if Anaheim wins Game 5: 1) zetterisbetter 89 2) Lidstrom5 D-Man 88 3) GoWings1905 87 4) Dano33 86 5) eva unit zero 85 Top five if Anaheim wins Game 6: 1) zetterisbetter 90 2) Lidstrom5 D-Man 87 2) GoWings1905 87 4) Dano33 86 4) eva unit zero 86 Top five if Anaheim wins Game 7: 1) zetterisbetter 89 2) GoWings1905 87 3) Lidstrom5 D-Man 86 3) Dano33 86 5) eva unit zero 85 Top five if Ottawa wins Game 7: 1) GoWings1905 94 2) Dano33 91 3) Detroit #1 Fan 90 3) Firehawk 90 5) wingsgirl 001 84

The Wings have enough cap space to spend 7 or 7.5 on Schneider/Markov or replacements. Schneider is one of the best defensemen in the league, but likely will end up costing somewhere between 3.5m-4m due to his age. When you compare him to other (especially offensively-minded) guys in that range, Schneider is a BARGAIN. I've assembled a list of guys with 2007-08 cap numbers 3m and up who are generally similar players to Schneider--offensive minded guys who are average defensively. Ed Jovanovski 6.5m Rob Blake 6m Bryan McCabe 5.75m Pavel Kubina 5m Sergei Gonchar 5m Adrian Aucoin 4m Derek Morris 3.9m Marek Zidlicky 3.35m Dan Boyle 3.33m Filip Kuba 3m The average salary here is about 4.6m. I would argue that Schneider is better than any player on this list, let alone better than the average player on this list. Conclusion: Schneider=bargain. EDIT: And besides...Markov/Numminen would have cost more than 5m this year. Markov's salary is expected to increase, Numinen's likely as well since he seems to be so sought after. How do you propose to fit them both under 5m? Sutton and one of Markov/Numminen would only barely have fit under 5m this year, and all are UFAs expecting raises. Explain that math please?

I've always thought McCreary does a pretty good job of calling the game consisently by the book, consistently from period to period and game to game, as well as consistently between the teams. One of the better refs in the league. The NHL seems to agree on those points, as he's doing the Cup finals and those are the points they have been stressing to all refs. If he's calling more penalties on the Sens than other refs, there's a good chance either he's calling more penalties on everybody, or other refs are letting stuff slide when the Sens play.