eva unit zero

No. It makes YOU wonder. Not me. Detroit doesn't have anywhere near the depth or star quality of any of those teams you compared to them. That and all of those teams' best prospects are currently in the NHL because that's where good prospects go. HF ranked them including players like Crosby, Ovechkin, Eminger, Fleury, Seabrook, Perezhogin, etc... Had injuries not delayed Grigorenko and Kronwall we'd be awfully thin. peace Ok, let's take a look at the changes for Washington specifically, if you add the guys who are in the league. In: Ovechkin 9.0A; Fleischmann 7.0C, Eminger 7.5B; Morrison 7.0B; Green 7.0C Out: Johansson 6.5B, Aulin 7.0C, Pokuluk 6.0B, Finley 6.0C, Lepisto 6.0B Ovechkin is the only guy who makes a difference in comparison to Detroit. Detroit F: Grigorenko 8.5C, Hudler 7.5B, Filppula 7.5B, McGrath 7.0C, Jamtin 6.5B, Ellis 6.0B D: Kronwall 8.5B, Kindl 7.0C, Quincey 7.0C, Blatak 7.0C G: Howard 7.5B Washington F: Ovechkin 9.0A, Semin 8.5A, Fehr 7.5B, Klepis 7.0C, Fleischmann 7.0C, Bourque 7.0C D: Eminger 7.5B; Morrison 7.0B; Green 7.0C, Schultz 6.5B G: Daigneault 6.5B Detroit still compares to Washington very well. Ovechkin is the only advantage for Washington...Detroit has a significant advantage on defense and in goal. If you compare Ovechkin to Kronwall and Eminger to Hudler, The quality of the systems are virtually even.

Hasek tried to not win the Cup in 2002? handing away two games to Vancouver, handing away games 4 and 5 to Colorado? If that team had not been so RIDICULOUSLY dominant, the Wings probably would have lost in the first round the way Hasek played.

The Penn State game was a highly doubted Michigan team vs a then-undefeated Penn State team that was to that point one of the best i nthe nation. Michigan was the better team, and pulled it out when they had to make the plays. That game was about toughness, execution under pressure.

How can you say Ohio State has been stumbling thru their wins the closest game that the buckeyes won was by 11 pts against michigan state. Michigan has had much more closer wins against iowa, penn state and michigan state....all those games by 3 or less. As far as Michigan has been better in their loses, its a wash in that ohio state has lost by 7 and 3 points...michigan has lost by 7 and 3 points twice. The difference to me as far as the schedule has been that Ohio State has played Texas. Michigan hasn't played a top team like Texas all year. The rest of your post is all . Michigan has as much on the line as Ohio State. Edge goes to Ohio State. GO BUCKEYES!! I meant Michigan has been the better team on the FIELD in their losses. The Notre Dame loss only happened because the officials missed a touchdown towards the end (the next play after the missed TD call was a turnover) Against Wisconsin Michigan controlled the game and just made a couple errors towards the end. Against Minnesota it was again just a few unlucky moments that turned the game around. Michigan also played the most difficult section of their schedule without Mike Hart, one of the top backs in the nation and Michigan's best player. Hart will be healthy against the Buckeyes, and it's been well documented this season that Michigan is a MUCH better team with Hart in the lineup. Had Hart not gotten injured early against ND...Michigan might be undefeated right now. talk about someone whom doesnt even know they are drinking the kool aid. bad ref calls and injuries are all a part of the college football season. Quit making it an excuse. I am not making an excuse. I was pointing out that Michigan would likely be undefeated had Hart not been injured. And a healthy Mike Hart is something they will have vs OSU.

It doesn't matter why..it matters that it happened. We got to see what I have been saying all along. Harrington has good skills, just gets into trouble when the line folds the way it has in Detroit for 20+ years.

Franzie: Eh!

I am a fan of wining Cups. That's why I don't want a goalie who did his best the last time he was i nthe playoffs to NOT win the Cup. At least now we have one guy who has won it and was a big part of that team's win, and another guy who has the talent (remains to be seen if he can stand the pressure)

Hueslius is much more of a one-dimensional player than Zetterberg. That said, I would take him if Babcock could get his work ethic going. But that is unlikely, as Keenan would have already done it if it's something Babcock was capable of.

If you love HF ratings sooo much, really, then where does HF rank the Wings as an organizaiton? Let me tell you: 25th. Problem with comparing the Wings top guys with other teams top guys is that each writer interprets the ratings a bit different. And not every writer has the same ability to cast aside the home team biases. 25th sounds about right, given when this thing was writtem// But we've seen lots of good things out of Grigorenko, Hudler, Helm, May and others since this was written. And the other five teams I mentioned were ranked 1,2,3,4,5 by HF. Yet according to HF's own player ratings, Detroit stacks up very wll to them. Makes you wonder if Detroit is not ranked low just because they were just used to ranking the Wings low?

How can you say Ohio State has been stumbling thru their wins the closest game that the buckeyes won was by 11 pts against michigan state. Michigan has had much more closer wins against iowa, penn state and michigan state....all those games by 3 or less. As far as Michigan has been better in their loses, its a wash in that ohio state has lost by 7 and 3 points...michigan has lost by 7 and 3 points twice. The difference to me as far as the schedule has been that Ohio State has played Texas. Michigan hasn't played a top team like Texas all year. The rest of your post is all . Michigan has as much on the line as Ohio State. Edge goes to Ohio State. GO BUCKEYES!! I meant Michigan has been the better team on the FIELD in their losses. The Notre Dame loss only happened because the officials missed a touchdown towards the end (the next play after the missed TD call was a turnover) Against Wisconsin Michigan controlled the game and just made a couple errors towards the end. Against Minnesota it was again just a few unlucky moments that turned the game around. Michigan also played the most difficult section of their schedule without Mike Hart, one of the top backs in the nation and Michigan's best player. Hart will be healthy against the Buckeyes, and it's been well documented this season that Michigan is a MUCH better team with Hart in the lineup. Had Hart not gotten injured early against ND...Michigan might be undefeated right now.

Michigan will win. Ohio State has been stumbling through their wins...Michigan has been the better team in their losses. Michigan also hasn't lost in four straight because ever ygame has been must-win. Michigan would also like nothing more than to spoil OSU's season if they can't win it themselves (i.e. Penn State wins) OSU has more on the line (a win guarantees a share of the championship) and has not been playing as well as often as Michigan.

The number is the player's maximum potential, and the letter represents his chance of reaching said potential. A means a lock, B means they could drrop to 90% of the number, C 80%, D 70%, and F means potentially a total bust.

Maybe they had their top receiver actually in the lineup for the first time in weeks? Maybe the line offered a little bit of protection for Harrington for once?

I'm more impressed by the way they handled PSU and Northwestern.

At this point I would trade Lilja for Anders Eriksson or Jason York, or any other guy the Wings threw out in the past ten years.

Let's take a look at this. Take a team's prospects list (from HF, for example) and remove any players who are on the roster right now. For the sake of using a neutral evaluator, I'll use the Hockeysfuture rankings for player and team. Let's compare the HF 'top five' teams by their top six forwards, four defensemen, and goaltender according to their 'overall' list using the prospect guideline I laid down. Detroit F: Grigorenko 8.5C, Hudler 7.5B, Filppula 7.5B, McGrath 7.0C, Jamtin 6.5B, Ellis 6.0B D: Kronwall 8.5B, Kindl 7.0C, Quincey 7.0C, Blatak 7.0C G: Howard 7.5B Washington F: Semin 8.5A, Fehr 7.5B, Klepis 7.0C, Bourque 7.0C, Johansson 6.5C, Aulin 7.0C D: Schultz 6.5B, Pokuluk 6.0B, Finley 6.0C, Lepisto 6.0B G: Daigneault 6.5B Pittsburgh F: Malkin 9.0C, Armstrong 6.0A, Salmonsson 7.5C, Anshakov 7.0B, Ouellet 7.0B, Stone 6.5C D: Whitney 8.0B, Welch 7.0B, Goglioski 7.0C, Bissonette 7.0C G: Chiodo 6.5B Chicago F: Yakubov 7.0D, Keith 6.5C, Nordqvist 6.0C, Fraser 6.0C, Bickell 6.0C, Sindel 7.0D D: Barker 8.0B, Babchuk 8.0C, Barinka 6.0B, Wiesniewski 6.5C G: Crawford 8.0B Montreal F: Kostitsyn 8.5B, Latendresse 7.5D, Chipchura 6.5B, Locke 7.0D, Mikus 6.5C, Grabovsky 7.0C D: O'Byrne 6.5B, Korpikari 6.5B, Korneev 6.5C, Archer 5.5B G: Price 8.0C Nashville F:Radulov 8.0C, Glazachev 7.0B, Shishkanov 7.0C, Setzinger 6.0B, Soin 6.0C, Shafigulin 6.0C D:Weber 8.0B, Klein 7.0A, Kulyash 7.0B, Sulzer 6.0C G:Lassila 7.0B Detroit CLEARLY outclasses Nashville and Washington. Montreal is extremely weak on defense and worse up front than Detroit, Chicago is thin up front and has nothing on D past the top two, neither of which are as good as Kronwall. Outside of Malkin, Pens don't beat Detroit at anything. Is Malkin really that good? Are Babchuk and Barker enough to offset Grigorenko, Kronwall, Hudler, Filppula? Is Carey Price good enough to offset what Montreal lacks in skaters? Nashville has no advantages over Detroit and Washington has Semin and Fehr up front and almost nothing after that ANYWHERE. These teams were ranked by hockeysfuture as the top five teams for prospects. Yet Detroit stacks up very nicely to all of them.

I like this statement. Ozzie was an unknown before he won the cup. Now it seems like a lot of Ozzie supporters use the fact that he's won it once before as the base of their arguement. Manny will be an unknown too, until he wins the cup. It's time to give him that chance. No, Ozzie supporters use the fact that he HAS won to debunk claims that he CAN'T win. Osgood was also not an unknown before he won it...Osgood was a three-time All-Star with 132 wins and 20 shutouts. He also had a Second Team selection that should have been a First Team, as well as being runner-up up for the Vezina (should have won it) He had also led the league in wins and GAA. Osgood was SIGNIFICANTLY more accomplished in 98 than Legace is now. Hell, after 95-96 Osgood had done more in his career than Legace has done with another ten years.

No thanks, once was more than enough.

I started this thread so those who were interested could discuss the quality of our prospects. I like the hockeysfuture rating scale, so I thought I would give MY OPINION (it's in the thread title!) of what they should be rated, to help AVOID CONFUSION of whether saying a guy will be a 'good player' means he'll be the next Steve Yzerman or the next Peter Zezel. As for professional experience, yeah I have that. Not currently working in journalism, but I have a few years of experience as a reporter, columnist, and editor.

That's great!!

I got one: Khabibulin and Daze to the Blues. Lalime and Tkachuk to the Hawks. None of those guys have been too impressive this season, a change of scenery would probably help all of them. And the salary number is fairly close...Blues end up taking on a little more, but their payroll is only around 30 I think.

Deeper pizza=better pizza!

Per FSN: Garcia gor beaten up so bad against Chicago that he hasn't been able to practice. The Lions are going to be starting Harrington this weekend.

I sure hope so. Back when we were discussing which two of Kopecky/Booter/Robinson/Groulx to keep, I said Kopecky definitely and called him for a huge year this season and a leap to the NHL by 07...hope he proves me right