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Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Messier, Sakic, Francis are all centers whose entire career is eligible and are top-ten all-time in scoring. Oates, Gilmour, Hawerchuk, Savard, Turgeon, and Stastny are all also ahead of Sundin in scoring. He would have a tough time making a top ten CENTERS since 1980 list, let alone top ten players. Gilmour was only among the league's elite players for about a season and a half. He was a good first line center muchof his career, but not consistently a top player like the five centers who are being put on most lists (Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Yzerman, Sakic) Leetch is Coffey-lite. Include Leetch and you must include Coffey, MacInnis, Murphy, and Housley as well. That's an awful lot of space to spend on defensemen before even mentioning Lidstrom, Chelios, and Bourque. I would put Richter behind Roy, Brodeur, Hasek, Belfour, Joseph, Osgood, Fuhr, Moog, Vanbiesbrouck, and Barrasso. That moves him out of contention without even considering skaters. He has never even come close to the Norris. There are several guys who don't make this list who have come closer more often--Al MacInnis, Paul Coffey, Chris Chelios, and Brian Leetch as the notables. Roy, Hasek, Brodeur are really the only goalies in the discussion. Everyone else is second tier or below. He didn't play long enough as an elite player to really warrant consideration. If we're talking about the ten best single seasons, Vladdie might get into the discussion. But with his career being cut short, it takes him out of contention. Chelios and Stevens are comparable players who are ahead of Pronger and still miss out.

Cam Neely should not even be in this discussion. He was good, but rarely great. Some RWs I would consider ahead of him include Brett Hull, Jari Kurri, Glenn Anderson, Mike Bossy, Dino Ciccarelli, and Mike Gartner. EDIT: Just to clarify my point...Cam Neely was best known as a goal scorer. Since 1980, he is not even in the top 50 in total goals scored. If you include Neely as a physical winger who was a skilled goal scorer, you must also include Shanahan, Tocchet, Tkachuk, Anderson who all had seasons as good or better than Neely's best season and had more career goals. Verbeek, Ciccarelli, and Andreychuk are also in the discussion, albeit less physically imposing than the first group.

I left off Soviets because although you included them, everyone else was sticking to an 'in the NHL' qualifier. That said, including Soviets, I would replace Jagr and Sakic with Fetisov and Makarov.

Starting with the 79-80 season, here are the top ten scoring forwards and defensemen: 1. Wayne Gretzky, C 2. Mark Messier, C/LW 3. Ron Francis, C 4. Steve Yzerman, C 5. Mario Lemieux, C 6. Joe Sakic, C 7. Jaromir Jagr, RW 8. Adam Oates, C 9. Doug Gilmour, C 10. Dale Hawerchuk, C 1. Ray Bourque, D 2. Paul Coffey, D 3. Al MacInnis, D 4. Phil Housley, D 5. Larry Murphy, D 6. Brian Leetch, D 7. Chris Chelios, D 8. Scott Stevens, D 9. Nicklas Lidstrom, D 10. Gary Suter, D We'll start by assembling a 'top ten players' list from those lists. You have to include Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, and Bourque right off the bat. Chelios and Lidstrom have been too good too often to be left off, and Messier 's career speaks for itself. That leaves us three more to pick. We'll go with, for now, Sakic, Jagr, and Stevens. Now we must consider goaltenders. Roy, Brodeur, Hasek are the only ones that really stand out as potential choices--beyond those three, you get into the second tier realm with guys like Belfour, Osgood, Vernon, Barrasso, Fuhr, Joseph, Moog, Smith as well as the 'good but not enough yet' young guys like Kiprusoff, Luongo and Miller. So we have narrowed it down to a list of 13 players who are being considered. I will add Modano and Stastny as well since they have played all or most of their career and have offensive numbers not far off the number ten forward spot, and are already in the discussion. We need to shave off five players from the list of: Forwards; Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Messier, Sakic, Jagr, Modano, Stastny Defensemen: Bourque, Lidstrom, Chelios, Stevens Goaltenders: Roy, Hasek, Brodeur The first step to eliminate players will be 'was he ever the best at his position?' (First team forward or Norris winner) This step eliminates Stastny, Modano, and Stevens, leaving us with: Forwards; Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Messier, Sakic, Jagr Defensemen: Bourque, Lidstrom, Chelios Goaltenders: Roy, Hasek, Brodeur Now we must consider 'was he ever the best skater in the league?' (Hart, Smythe, or Pearson) Chelios and Brodeur are eliminated at this point. Conclusion: Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Bourque, Messier, Lidstrom, Jagr, Roy, Hasek, Sakic are the top ten players (in no order) since 1980.

And the only goaltender since Roger Crozier in 1965 to be the league's best netminder in a given season while wearing the Wings jersey.

No. It's an argument that while there are other guys over the past couple years who have made comparable to Schneider that some Wings fans would prefer because they are young and physical, Schneider is one of the league's best at what he does and isn't paid nearly what he COULD be. To be sitting here saying 'I wouldn't pay Schneider 3.3m' when other guys who contribute less are making TWICE that is awfully ignorant.

If Hasek is capable of being credited with stealing games because he made some easy saves and the Wings scored 7 goals, he certainly can be faulted when they lose by one as a DIRECT result of his stupid mistake. As a Hasek supporter, I would assume this is a road you don't want to go down.

If the other team throws at your guy intentionally, it's acceptable to throw back at one of their guys. But it's never acceptable to throw at a guy's head. The batter in baseball is in a unique position in all of the major sports in that he is pretty much unprotected and in the path of an object that could cause him serious harm. Catchers and hockey players all have a ton of padding on and are protected. Beaning a guy because the other team threw at one of your guys is not acceptable. To use the hockey analogy: Imagine if Bertuzzi had had time to get up after smashin Moore into the ice before any Avs player showed up. The comparable situation to a 'realiation beaning' would be if an Avs player came over and pulled a Simon on Bertuzzi.

Edmonton supported their team. Winnipeg did not. Winnipeg's best season for attendance was a measly 13,800 per game. This would rank behind New Jersey for 27th in the league. Remember, this was Winnipeg's BEST mark. Often Winnipeg would draw less than 12,000...which would rank dead last. Phoenix, by comparison, has consistently posted numbers above 14k, and currently has attendance numbers that would be just shy of averaging a sellout in Winnipeg's new arena--something Winnipeg never even came close to in their old one. It's even more telling that on top of having a small arena, Winnipeg's BEST percentage of capacity (89%) still would be one of the worst marks in the league even with how small the arena was.

Osgood has let in what, three long goals in the playoffs in his career, and all in one run? He also happend to win the Cup that season. Roy, Brodeur, Belfour, Hasek have all given up embarrassing long goals in the playoffs. The 'Ozzie gives up long goals zomg lolz!' thing was played out years ago.

Schneider is really underappreciated. He makes 3.3m, and has been just a cut below the elite defensemen in the league. Other offense-oriented guys who are equal to or worse than Schneider, and make as much or more: Bryan McCabe, 7.15m Ed Jovanovski, 7m Rob Blake, 6m Pavel Kubina, 5m Sergei Gonchar, 4.5m Brian Rafalski, 4.2m Kim Johnsson, 4.05m Adrian Aucoin, 4m Derek Morris, 3.9m Dan Boyle, 3.625m Alexei Zhitnik, 3.5m Schneider is 6th among defensemen in points per game. Gonchar is the only guy on that list ahead of him in that department--by .02--and Schneider is a huge upgrade over Gonchar defensively and physically. Zhitnik is the only guy on that list who is noticably better than Schneider defensively, but not better enough to turn his offensive disadvantage around. Ultimately, Schneider is the 28th highest paid defenseman (27th if you exclude Malakhov) but in reality is one of the ten or fifteen best defensemen in the league. You know what that means? Schneider=underpaid.

Hasek was trying to draw a penalty instea of trying to stop a shot. It resulted in the game winning goal, a goal that should not have been scored. Hasek's fault. Hasek can not be faulted for the fact the Wings only scored once. But Hasek can be faulted for the fact that his bad decision to attempt to draw a penalty while the opposing team as attacking in a 1-1 game resulted directly in the game winning goal of a 2-1 game. It's not unreasonable to suggest that the Wings could have won in OT or the shootout had Hasek not screwed up.

Escanaba.

It's probably just a matter of Liv's agent covering all bases after seeing the Wings drop two goaltending prospects in less than a year. Liv is, in all likelihood, not the goalie of the future in Detroit. Liv's agent probably wants to be prepared for the worst-case scenario situation where Detroit does not offer Liv a new contract after this season.

This outcome is not a cause for concern, and I'll tell you why. Calgary's only goals came on the PP, one of which was a result of Hasek trying to draw a penalty. The Wings were short Zetterberg. Hasek was trying to draw a penalty because up until the middle of the third (ten minutes after that goal) there were zero penalties called on the Flames, while Huselius' goal was scored on Calgary's FIFTH power play. If anyone seriously believes the Wings committed five penalties that should have been called, and then can turn around straight faced and say that Calgary only committed one that should have been called.... Anyway, hopefully the officiating will straighten out by the postseason.

I think he's been right on track for where I figured him in... Peak potential: Gritty support scoring, versatile, solid all-around player with no remarkable strengths or weaknesses. Comparable player projection: Gerard Gallant or Trevor Linden. Kopecky will likely never be the core player of an NHL team, but he has all the tools to succeed in any role, which makes him a valuable piece to have.

I was a copy editor and a sports editor.

Ann Arbor, MI. Seriously though, my top eight realistic sites: Houston, TX Kansas City, MO Portland, OR Seattle, WA Oklahoma City, OK Quebec City, PQ Madison/Milwaukee, WI Salt Lake City, UT

For those of you whose decoder ring didn't work... "no wai how culd hollend no trde 4 lango yzermen gm plz" translates to "No way! How could Holland not trade for Luongo? Yzerman for GM, please."

F1 drivers are farmore talented than NASCAR drivers. Tougher courses, faster cars, and less wrecking. And Sting; Monaco is about the ONLY course where getting to Turn 1 puts you in the lead all race. Pretty much every other course is set up for passing opportunities. Monaco, because it's a street course, can't have that setup. Much like when the US Grand Prix was in Detroit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Circuit_Detroit.png

Fixed it for you...

Brodeur has good reflexes, but his are far fro mthe best. He plays a hybrid style and his game is primarily about being in the right position. I have always felt John Vanbiesbrouck and Kirk McLean had the fastest reflexes I've ever seen in a goalie.

Giguere is the only viable option on that list for a starter ahead of Ozzie. Others are either not as good as Ozzie, or not realistically available. That said, being the best goalie on the market makes him a hot commodity and makes him expensive, on top of his already bloated salary. As far as the others on that list, not many would come to Detroit for under 1m, which is what a backup would be making. So barring a trade, and assuming Hasek retires, Osgood looks to be the starter next season. McLennan is probably the best combination of ability and price of the guys who I would consider as backup, in that he'd make barely over the minimum and provide quality backup services. The question is, will Calgary let him go? Not having a quality backup in 05-06 hurt them a ton whenever Kipper didn't play. If not McLennan, Garon might be the next best option. Assuming both guys are not available, Stefan Liv or Jimmy Howard would be the guy to go to.

Yzerman is the 5th best player ever, behind Howe, Orr, Gretzky, Lemieux. He is also the greatest two-way player ever, and had the single greatest two-way season (1988-89, when he scored 155 points and was a Selke contender) However, If I were building a team of all-time all-stars to play in a tournament with other like teams, Yzerman would be my first choice. Offense is plentiful no matter where you pick. Yzerman's combination of offense, defense, and intangibles was rarely ever seen in any era.

There were a couple nights Kopecky was the team's best player. And that combined with the fact that I was pretty much alone on this board in wanting to keep the guy over Nate Robinson a couple years back, I think I might be the only person on here who even had enough expectations of him to BE disappointed with Tomas.