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Sure we can; it's just not included in Cleary's contract.

Ignorant article. Foster implies that the NHL is the reason whats-his-nuts is being charged $500 for violating the city ordinance. Bettman and the NHL do not run the Wings, operate the JLA, decide on or enforce Detroit city ordinaces. All the NHL can do is say "Don't throw stuff." And yet, Foster lays all of the blame at Bettman's feet. Is it Bettman's fault the next time the same city ordinance

I guess I took your post to mean you had no issues with the action; rather than the call.

It was a legit hook by Abdelkader. Just because a penalty was called on the Wings does NOT make it a "The refs are out to get us waaaah" so please stop acting like it.

Abby, Abby...don't get your stick up waist level and horizontal. They'll ALWAYS call that a hook. Every single time.

As Mickey said, Bryz had no way of making the save because his defenseman got tangled up with him. Regardless, great work by Hudler on the draw and setting up the play, good shot by Flip and nice to see him charge the net on that play. He'll get a lot more goals if he keeps that up.

This.

Kesler at Helm's age was a 5 year NHL veteran (4 year if you don't count 2003-04, when Kesler was 19 and played 28 games in Vancouver and 33 in Vancouver) and scored 59 points and challenged for the Selke. Kesler is only 29 months older than Helm; one is in that vague area between second liners and third liners in ability, and plays on the fourth line. The other is a genuine first liner playing on the second line. Helm's offensive capability will more closely mirror Filppula; I wouldn't be surprised to see Helm actually outperform Filppula in terms of career as well as in the next few years. If Flip has really peaked at 40-50 points per season, and if his 35 points in 55 games in 09-10 is his best effort, then if he's given any real time Helm will definitely outdo him. The same can be said of Hudler if the 08-09 season was his best. Hmm...gives me an idea for a new line; Helm/Filppula/Hudler. And finally...dekes look great, and can get you goals, but ultimately being the best deker ever or not deking at all doesn't make much of a difference in total goals scored. A goalie is just as prepared for a deke as he is for a shot or a pass. Timing is the important part, not having a handful of fancy dekes.

Hudler has been effective away from the puck and scored a big goal on a primarily individual effort. Only one word in that sentence applies to how Modano has played this season; individual.

I think the context was more of a recognition that he wasn't American due to his accent than a disparaging statement, which is how you are making it to be. I could be wrong. And Valtteri Filppula could finally break out in one of his many breakout years.

"Floating and being a cherry picker who hangs his teammates out to dry will help you set all kinds of scoring records." -Wayne Gretzky

Awesome venture. However, the Toronto Star is not awesome. The fifth and sixth sentences: We have here a comma splice, a parenthetical statement enclosed within a quote, and the word "of" in place of the word "have". It's pathetic, and I hope they go out and hire a copy editor.

Rosival and Aucoin are two guys who have been consistently underrated their entire careers. In his prime Aucoin was one of the league's best defensemen. The best part is that when he played with Jovo in Vancouver and Rover-novski got all the praise (and hype suggesting he should be in the Norris running) for being a speedy, physical defenseman who could score, Jovo was actually the third best defenseman on the team behind Aucoin and Mattias Ohlund. Rosival has flown mostly under the radar his entire career. He plays a style that's not flashy, so he has never really gotten the credit he deserves as a player; kind of like it took forever for Lidstrom to be given credit for his performance.

Making a profit of 2500%? Terrible investment. Susie did better with her lemonade stand.

Given his injury, I don't want to see him back before game 4. Worst case is that the Wings are down a game and Z has only had two weeks to recover. Best case is that the Wings are up 3 games, in which case he can sit for game 4 also. I'd rather he be in now, but he's injured... so that's not happening. Knee injuries will kill your career, and the Wings are deep enough to beat Phoenix missing one (or even two) of Lidstrom, Zetterberg, Datsyuk so long as the team on the ice plays hard.

The problem with man games lost is this. A team could play their #7 defenseman in the third game of the season, he could snap his femur, and bang; that's 79 man games lost. Even though he wouldn't have played in most of them anyway. It's a stat that you can't look at and say "this team lost more games to injury" because there's no way of verifying the accuracy of that, even if the player is injured. If a team with three goalies has their #3 goalie get injured, how do you count that? That guy isn't going to play many games unless the guys in front of him get injured; and at that point you can still only claim 164 man games lost (minus games those guys dressed for) across all three.

Nah, Grant is the one who would best fit in between the benches. Plus, who would you rather look at during intermissions?

I actually had the game paused while I was chasing my kids; just saw the goal a few moments ago.

Stuart's failure to push the initial rush to the outside led to the setup. Mule is primarily at fault, though; he just stood there and did nothing.

Pretty sure the Wings had a line of Ysebaert/Carson/Garpenlov at one point. That line makes Modano look downright mean.

I've got another one. Adam Savage - play-by-play Jamie Hyneman - color Grant Imahara - ice level Kari Byron and Tory Belleci - studio

I said Modano was a huge success compared to Hatcher, which is true. Hatcher was worthless to the Wings, while Modano had a good stretch early on. That said, I was never in favor of either signing. Modano because the Wings were already overloaded at forward and Modano didn't provide anything, and Hatcher because while it's nice to add him in theory, he was way too slow (pre-injury) for the Wings' system and didn't have the puck skills. If it were Kevin Hatcher at 31 (Derian Hatcher's age at the time of the signing) it would have been a great signing - Kevin was among the league's top offensive defensemen and had a big shot, was a huge physical force, a strong defensive presence, and one of the ten best defensemen in the league when he was 31. Add that to the Wings in 2003 instead of Derian and it's a whole different dynamic.

Hey, don't even compare the two. LeftWinger would want to scratch Huds for Game four of the Finals, even if he had 45 goals in the playoffs on a Wings team that had gone 15-0, winning games on nothing but Hudler goals. I admit when he's not playing well, I just argue against the ridiculous hatred, and support the player and the positives I have seen from him.

Modano scored 15 points in 40 games; he scored 6 of those points in 7 games between Nov 3rd and Nov 17th. By comparison, Hudler scored 6 points in his first 30 games, when this board near unanimously considered him the worst player under contract to the Wings. He has since scored 31 points in 43 games. Before you start with the "But, Datsyuk!" stuff you should know that Hudler only played 11 games with Datsyuk. Hudler has also outperformed Modano defensively. Modano was brought to the team for his experience and to provide secondary scoring. The Wings have more than enough experience without him in the lineup, and as for the scoring? Modano would place tenth among Wings forwards based on his PPG across 82 games despite getting tons of PP time with the team's best scorers. Miller, Eaves, and Draper all had better seasons for goal scoring; which is sad because Modano's shot is the only real talent he has left aside from his speed. At least when Maltby was basically forced into retirement, he wasn't sitting there and crying to the media about how he couldn't hack it.