eva unit zero

Filppula was even. So was Helm. Hudler must be the best defensive player of the three, right?

Hmm... Sundin became a Leaf at 23. Potvin was drafted by the Leafs. So was Mironov. Kaberle too. And Modin. Kubina signed with the Leafs at 29, in his prime when he was one of the better defensemen in the league. Allison and Nolan both joined the Leafs at 30, Yushkevich at 24, and Sullivan at 21. Of note; Mironov was traded to Pittsburgh for Larry Murphy.

Pssst....plus-minus is a worthless statistic and always has been. I'm not saying Hudler is having a good year compared to his cap hit or his previous play, but he has played well and a hell of a lot better than he's getting credit for. But please, enough with the plus-minus because it means nothing in relation to actual performance.

The waiver rule doesn't apply to Nabokov; his KHL contract was terminated and he is a free agent.

Who's betting on Sharp taking out the other in Raleigh?

That's because Scott Stevens never laid on hard hits, hurt anybody with a blindside hit, or got his elbows up...

I want to see a beard-off between Zetterberg and Kirk Gibson...

Not only does Lebda look like trash in that clip, but Giguere's attempt at a save is pretty s***ty.

Isn't he a firefighter now?

Gretzky had Semenko...and Messier, and Anderson, and Huddy, and Hunter, and McLelland, and MacTavish, and McSorley, and Fogolin, and Smith...

You are on crack. Alfredsson might be worth ONE of those assets to Detroit. He sure as hell isn't worth all of them. If we're trading with the 2000 Sens to get a 28-year old Alfie and a 21-year old Hossa, then I'm all for it.

I wouldn't so much call it a huge hip check honestly. Doughty basically got in his way and Hall skated full speed into him with his head down. big collision, but mostly from Hall's speed where Doughty basically was more or less in the way and turned it into a hit because Hall wasn't looking. Watch it again. Doughty is there WAY before Hall; Hall could easily have cut inside or passed or dumped the puck had he known Doughty was standing there.

Four goalies in my lifetime have had winning playoff records with the Red Wings. Three retired as Wings, and the other plans to. Dominik Hasek, Chris Osgood, Mike Vernon, and Glen Hanlon. One of these things is not like the others...

3-0. Hudler hatty. Third goal Hudler will skate right through Fleury's fivehole.

Doc, he's a fourth liner because he's a small player who's only an average skater, haven't you learned how the haters think? Doesn't matter if he scores 1 points or 100 points. Sure, he hasn't played up to his skill this year offensively, but he has been decent defensively (and gotten NO CREDIT) and has worked harder and been much more present in the corners and in front of the net than the haters give him credit for. When I see Hudler as the first Wing, or at least Wing forward, on the backcheck, that tells me he's working hard on defense and in general. And I've seen it quite a few times. Hudler is one of the slowest forwards on the team, yet has managed to be one of if not the first player back on the backcheck as often as anyone he plays with. But people ignore that, and instead simply say "Hudler is a slacker, he sucks, he'll never work hard or play defense" just because the points aren't coming his way. If Hudler was on a 20-game scoring streak with 35-40 points in that span right now, you wouldn't hear a peep about him sucking.

Yeah; we're gonna see Joe Kocur paired up with Chun-Li to fight Ryu and Wolverine in the next Marvel vs. Capcom game.

That's not accurate. The Leafs have been able to sign, draft, and trade for plenty of good players in the past ten to fifteen years. Here's a sample: Mats Sundin, Felix Potvin, Dmitri Mironov, Tomas Kaberle, Gary Roberts, Alexander Mogilny, Pavel Kubina, Jason Allison, Joe Nieuwendyk, Owen Nolan, Ed Belfour, Dmitri Yushkevich, Cory Cross, Curtis Joseph, Steve Sullivan, Freddy Modin, Mathieu Schneider. The Leafs have been terrible for the past few years, ever since Pat Quinn dropped the GM job. Burkie won't fix it either.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0045FEEAS/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

Maybe Kenny will suit up?

Did his sleeve tear off when you shook his hand?

You can use Photoshop to make your captions and save a step.

Z and Dats spend the first 33 games of this season scoring at basically the same pace. Then Datsyuk went down with injury, and Z not only kept up pace but improved upon it. Dats historically has produced more points, largely due to the fact that he is - as I said before - the one who is put in the role of scoring center. If you switched the two, Z would be the Hart finalist and Selke winner, and everyone would talk about how Dats and Z used to be similar skill range, but then Z just ran off with it. This is the whole thing. People on here were complaining about Hank's offensive performance this season while talking about how Datsyuk might be having his best year; and at the time Z was leading the team in scoring. But being able to deke a guy out of his pants and then deke another guy into the first guy's pants all is worthless if you don't follow through and score, right? Just like Modano using his 100 mph slapshot almost immediately about half the times he gained the zone. Great ability, but worthless if you are just giving the puck up to the goalie when you shoot.

Stuart is normally a very good defensive defenseman. But, and it may be a mental product of playing with Lidstrom, he has been simply ghastly in his own zone this year. As far as Weber, he's pretty good defensively but he's always been an offensive defenseman. Chara is on the list at 10th, right behind Johnny Boychuk, who Chara has spent a great deal of the season paired with. This writer even states he is fully aware that his "system" will pull defensive pairings if they spend a lot of time together; Weber and Suter are a prime example. A rating system where the league's best defensive defenseman could have a wonderful individual season and still finish last due to the team surrounding him shows just how flawed it is; and it's merely a variation of plus-minus trying to account for the defensive side only.

I've been complaining about plus-minus as loudly and as long as anyone here, and I have never sat around drooling about a player's plus-minus because it has less bearing on the player's performance than assists do on the player's ability to score goals.

"Oh man, even though it's constantly discussed on here I STILL don't understand how LTIR relief works. But it's ok, because we'll be able to cover raises for our fourth liners once that dickhead Lidstrom retires!"