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The arguments against Osgood keep going "Well, there are players who deserve it more because they were better and contributed more to the Cup wins" and yet... Zetterberg and Datsyuk have been very close in performance most of their careers, with Datsyuk only reaching same kind of level as Zetterberg because of his significant improvement on the defensive side from his early years. However, as far as Cup contributions, Zetterberg has been FAR more valuable. He obviously has the Smythe, and Z is the one who has been responsible for shutting down the opponent's top offensive players. Z has been, at minimum, the team's best forward every year the past few years. He has been one of the top contributors in the playoffs from his first day with the team. Datsyuk, on the other hand, has shown inconsistency in his playoff performances. Neither has earned the honor yet, and it will take many more years to do so, but to say that Zetterberg is not on course to do so at all but Datsyuk is definitely en route, that's ridiculous. Kind of like suggesting Maltby, Probert, McCarty, Kocur, Draper, or Homer up in the rafters as so many on here have done in the past. Ridiculous.

Hmm, really. Osgood is, as I said before, one of the top five goalies of his generation. He spent, basically, his entire career in Detroit. Now let's review some retired goaltender numbers. Counting Toronto's list of "honored" numbers, the following goaltenders have had their numbers retired by an Original Six team: #1 Glenn Hall (Chicago) #1 Terry Sawchuk (Detroit) #1 Jacques Plante (Montreal) #1 Eddie Giacomin (New York Rangers) #1 Johnny Bower (Toronto) #1 Turk Broda (Toronto) #29 Ken Dryden (Montreal) #33 Patrick Roy (Montreal) #35 Tony Esposito (Chicago) #35 Mike Richter (New York Rangers) Certainly there are names on that list greater than Osgood. But being realistic, if you lump him in with those ten goalies, he falls near the middle. You can argue all you want that he doesn't belong in Detroit's rafters; but using the O6 retired list to do so does not help your argument.

They haven't earned retirement yet...but if you are serious that having a long career in Detroit with great regular seasons and playoffs without Cup wins wouldn't be enough, then that's a little crazy. Cup wins are a team achievement and yes, while great players lead Cup teams, great players need support to win the Cup. Mark Howe was the best defenseman of the 80s after Ray Bourque and Paul Coffey. He was a great player before the 80s and a good player after the 80s. He might have won a few Norrises if he hadn't impaled himself on the spike in the net (remember that, guys?) and yet, he never won a Cup. Speaking of Bourque, he had to be traded to a contender at the deadline in his final season to win a Cup. One of the five best defensemen ever; a First-team or Second-team All-Star seventeen consecutive years from the start of his career. Sid Abel's last year with the Red Wings features five currently retired numbers. Osgood is also a goaltender; goaltenders typically have shorter careers, and quicker dropoffs from their peak. Osgood was a top end goalie in his prime. But comparing Ozzie to Nick is unfair; Nick isn't just an all-time great; he is argued by many, both Wings fans and non-Wings fans, as the best defenseman of all-time. Ozzie was one of the five best goalies of his generation.Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek, Martin Brodeur, Ed Belfour, Chris Osgood. I'd say he's in some pretty good company there. Would you deny any of the other four jersey retirement given the same percentage of seasons played in Detroit as Osgood has? No. But because it's Ozzie, you do. Why? Because as a rookie, after he had stolen the starter role from Tim Cheveldae and then from the newly acquired Bob Essensa during the regular season, he let in long goal due to misplaying the puck and turning it over in the Wings' zone. Big ******* deal. He's fourth all-time in career wins for a single team, only Brodeur, Esposito, and Sawchuk are ahead of him. You didn't watch the 2009 Cup run did you? That's exactly what happened; he carried the team on his back to the finals and all the way to Game 7.

Under what rule was Ryan playing with an illegal stick? He picked up a legal stick off the ice during play, and no other player was without a stick.

Koivu could have been called for holding the stick and/or unsportsmanlike conduct, plus a penalty shot could have been called on the play. All in all, the Ducks could very realistically have come off of that play with 2 goals going into a 2:00 PP.

Incorrect. Sawchuk has more wins as a Wing in the regular season. Osgood is only the Wings' winningest PLAYOFF goalie.

Volchenkov is the mistake, not Kovalchuk. Have you noticed that Volchenkov has been performing far worse than he did last year, and as far as ice time goes he's New Jersey's FIFTH defenseman? I don't know about you, but I don't think I would be interested in signing a #5 defenseman for $4.25m/year for 6 years. At least Kovalchuk is among the team leaders in scoring. His 0.5 PPG also matches that of Parise, who everyone seems to give a pass to for not scoring.

It couldn't be because he produced the same kind of offensive numbers as Gretzky and was an literally an unstoppable force, yet he played for a team that did not have any of the support that Gretzky did. He was bigger, stronger, faster, and better defensively than Gretzky while showing the same kind of offensive dominance. He also battled cancer his entire career yet still remained one of the league's best at all times. Going by your last statement, Ozzie is a lock. As for the Fedorov/Shanahan comparison; something that appears to be a requirement for the wings to retire your number is that you begin your career with the team. Out goes Shanny, who was already a star when he joined the Wings. Fedorov had a massive contract dispute which allegedly involved broken promises by the Wings, and he left the team for less than he was reportedly offered by Holland. Had he stayed, he's a lock, but with that departure there's almost no chance. Osgood was elite at his position and contributed greatly to deep Cup runs and wins just as much or more than Shanny, and arguably as much/more than Fedorov. Ozzie was robbed of the Vezina in 96, and should have been at least a finalist in 08. He was one of the league's top 5 goalies throughout the 90s, and 2008-09 was the first time in his career he had a losing record in the regular season. He has 314 wins as a Wing, enough to place him 19th on the All-Time career list. Only three goalies have won more for a single team. Sawchuk won 351 in 734 for the Wings; Ozzie has 314 in 559. Let him play another 175 games and let's see if he wins 37 of them. More Red Wing goaltending records belong to Osgood than to Sawchuk. Thought you should know.

Osgood is currently tied at 314 with Jacques Plante for fourth all-time for most wins with a single team. The goalies ahead? Martin Brodeur, Tony Esposito, and Terry Sawchuk. He is one of only nine goaltenders to win 300 games with a single team, something that was not done by the following, among others: Patrick Roy Dominik Hasek Glenn Hall Grant Fuhr Gump Worsley Osgood's win total with the Wings alone would place him 19th on the All-time list instead of his current #10 ranking. Osgood was one of the five best goaltenders in the world in his prime. Competing with, among others, three goaltenders who all are argued as the best ever. This isn't Holmstrom or Draper we're talking about. Osgood for a long period was a top notch goaltender in the NHL. He deserves his jersey number to be retired. And as for you who say no HHOF? Are you ******* serious? A 400-win goalie and model citizen is not getting into the HHOF? Dino eventually got in even though he was blackballed by Bowman. He was good but not as good as Osgood.

You're saying that when awarding a trophy, you should ignore the criteria on which it is intended to be judged upon? Great, let's give the Art Ross trophy to Jonathan Ericsson, and the Maurice Richard trophy to Jakub Kindl! The Vezina can go to Ozzie since he deserved to win it in at least one of 1996 and 2008.

An even better example of this is the 1993-94 Red Wings. Yzerman went down with a neck injury early in the year, and most experts felt the Wings would suffer. Instead, Fedorov exploded onto the scene and won the Hart and Selke, and finished second in scoring with 120 points.

Thomas has two losses, an overtime loss, and he played the first 40 minutes of a 5-3 loss to Washington which ended up being credited as a loss for Tuukka Rask. In the four Bruin losses Thomas has played in, the Bruins have scored three or more goals three times, and were shut out once. Rask has been in net during seven Bruin losses. The Bruins scored two goals twice, three goals during the Washington game, and one goal in each of the four other losses. Thomas is having a great season, but so is Rask. They are playing for the same team; why are their win/loss records so wildly different? The answer: because the offense has not shown up for Rask. Rask's only win was a 4-0 shutout where he made 41 saves, but Boston's second goal didn't come until there were only five minutes left to play. Thomas is very valuable, but Boston is not in a situation where Thomas is carrying a team that would otherwise not be winning to a bunch of wins. Boston averages 3.93 GF/G in Thomas' wins. Both of his regulation losses were the Bruins being shut out. His OTL was a shootout loss to break a 3-3 tie. So as you can see, The Bruins' ability to win rests on their offense, not their goaltending. The offense has simply had more 'off' nights for Rask than Thomas, which has led to Rask's poor W/L record.

All three players you mentioned are known almost exclusively for their offense. Hudler has scored 6 points in 23 games playing 12:19 per game. Leino scored 7 points in 42 games playing 13:12 per game. Williams scored 15 points in 44 games playing 13:31 per game. Offensively, Hudler has already basically matched Leino, with 19 games to spare. Defensively, Hudler is the only one of the three who has ever made an effort. Your statement fails.

As I have said before, if Lidstrom retires at the end of the year, I want Pitkanen. He's two years older than Weber, but he brings more offense while still being very good defensively. Weber is perhaps the better player, but Weber makes more than Pitkanen does now. Both are free agents at the end of the year, but Pitkanen is a UFA and Weber is an RFA. So the Wings would have to give up some hefty assets to pry Weber away from Nashville, while they would simply have to win a bidding war for Pitkanen's services. If the Predators are looking to shed salary, the Wings might be able to pull off a swap that involves Stuart, a prospect, and perhaps a high pick for Weber. This would lock in a solid two-way veteran defenseman for the Predators for next season while reducing the amount of cap hit. That trade would likely require one of Kindl, Smith, or Ericsson to be included.

Beaten clean over the glove by a wrist shot from 40 feet out with 1:33 to go, no deflections or screens. That's definitely no good. He needs whatever is not working, be it mind or body, working.

Not true, our top four, so far, is shaping up like: Kindl/Lashoff Fournier/Smith Hmm....

Easy; it's Zetterberg. And see that... THE HART TROPHY IS NOT THE "BEST PLAYER" AWARD. QUIT WHINING. While the Hart has many times been awarded to a player who was far from the most valuable player, arguing the fact that Dats, Lids, or anyone else should get it because they're a better player, a better 'all-around' player, or anything else other than more valuable to their team is irrelevant to this discussion. If the Hart trophy were awarded based on the award's actual criteria, Wayne Gretzky would have won perhaps 4 of the 9 he actually won, and Steve Yzerman would have come away with at least one for 1989, and could have been argued as the most deserving Hart winner in 1988 over Lemieux, 1991 over Hull, and 1992 over Messier. 1993 could also be added to the list, however Ray Bourque and Ed Belfour might have arguments to the contrary. It's not about who the best player is. It's about who is the most needed by his team. Which one key player was more necessary for his team to win than any other player in the league? Right now it's Crosby. I don't know if I would argue Dats has ever been Hart worthy; he plays on a team with Z, Lids, etc. Take Dats out and the Wings still win games. I would probably say he's not even the Wings' MVP. Lidstrom is.

Kindl hasn't played a game in a month. The NHL's minimum requirement for placing a player on LTIR (a player has to stay out this long if he's on LTIR, even if he's ready to come back beforehand) is 10 games or 24 calendar days without playing, whichever is longer. So it seems perfectly reasonable for Kindl to play a conditioning stint in Grand Rapids, given that he's been out more than long enough to be considered LTIR had he been injured. From what I can tell, the only difference between Kindl's situation and a typical conditioning stint is that Kindl is not injured, so no LTIR and no cap relief. Other than that, everything should work out the same, regarding 23-man roster, cap hit, etc.

The rules state that if the ref loses sight of the puck, he should immediately blow the whistle. Maybe this will change in the future, but this is the rule right now. Whether the replay shows it was in or not, if the whistle was blown it's not a goal. Same as in football, if the replay doesn't clearly show what happened, and the ref had ruled that the defense recovered a fumble, then the defense gets the ball. Even if the linebacker ripped the ball out of the halfback's hands at the bottom of the pile. Rules are rules, you follow them as they are until they change to new ones or are removed. As for Hudler, yes he was slow to get back. But at least he was actually trying to get back, unlike Franzen the other night. And the final score was 5-2, so that goal had far less impact that the overtime goal where Franzen f***ed up his backcheck. Hudler HAS been effective on the point so far, he is not perfect. Yes he screwed up, but even Lidstrom screws up. See the goals in the LA game for examples.

From the NHL CBA: So basically it counts as if the player never actually goes down, save for the ability to fill his roster spot if necessary. Waivers would alter a two-way player's salary, and both one-way and two-way players would not necessarily receive all the same benefits.

Forwards who will likely not be returning: Mike Modano, $1.75m Kris Draper, $1.583m TOTAL: 3.338m for 2 forwards Forwards who will likely be retuning: Patrick Eaves, $750k Drew Miller, $650k TOTAL: Defenseman who will likely be returning: Jonathan Ericsson, 900k Goaltender who will likely be returning: Jimmy Howard, $717k Defensemen whose return is questionable: Nicklas Lidstrom, $6.2m Ruslan Salei, $1.1m TOTAL: 7.3m for two defensemen Goaltender whose return is questionable: Chris Osgood, $1.417m So we have a returning cap hit of $44.558m for ten forwards and four defensemen. Figure three forwards, three defensemen, and two goaltenders to be added to that. Eaves and Miller, maybe $1.25m each. Ericsson perhaps $1.5m. Howard, we'll say $2.25m. This leaves one forward, two defensemen, and one goaltender to acquire with 10.49m. Say Lidstrom returns for $5.5m. This drops the remaining space to $5.49m for 1-1-1. If you retain Salei and Osgood (or replacements) for their positions combined at their current hits it totals to $2.517m, dropping available space to $2.973m. The roster would then have twelve forwards, being (by current cap hit) Dats, Z, Franzen, Flip, Hudler, Cleary, Bertuzzi, Holmstrom, Helm, Abdelkader, Eaves, Miller. The defense and goaltenders would be the same. This could of course bring in a strong forward, or leave cap space for call ups and deadline deals. Another consideration is, of course, what if Lidstrom leaves? That opens up one spot on defense and $5.5m in cap space, raising the total to $8.473m to fill out one forward and one defense position. The total space available would be The ideal situation, looking at UFAs due up next year, would be Joni Pitkanen. Highly skilled 27-year-old two-way defenseman, big and strong, with a good physical game. His current hit is $4m and his salary $4.5m, the end of a three year, $12m contract. He would cost closer to $6.5m-$7m if he comes available on the market. So figure $1.473m for another forward. Whether it's a cheap veteran with scoring ability like Modano, a fourth liner, or a spare forward, that's enough to fill out the roster with Hudler on it with or without Lidstrom. That leaves $14.84m under the current cap. Add your estimate of $2m, and that's 16.84m.

Howso?

Yeah, the fact that the puck was coming at 90mph and was about 10 feet away from him by the time he could possibly be in front of it makes it a weak goal. I mean he had so much reaction time. He should have just KNOWN. Of the three goals on Ozzie, the first was a bad turnover by Stuart and missed coverage by LIDSTROM, allowing for a deflected shot. The second was practically Helm scoring the goal. The third was a bad pass by Lidstrom in the offensive zone and piss-poor effort by the team on the backcheck, allowing for a 3-on-2 chance. Ozzie made a bunch of big saves throughout the game, and the score could have been much worse. If the team played at all well tonight, it's a win.

Maybe a better thing to notice would be the fact that he was the second Wing and first forward back on defense, and covering his man perfectly in front of the net? No hustle and no defense my ass.

But Wayne Fontes was a terrible coach! He only let the team to three playoff appearances, two division titles and one conference championship game in his eight year tenure. That's unthinkable compared to the zero playoff appearances and only two winning seasons in the 14 finished seasons since he left, including the winless season, three seasons with two wins, two seasons with three wins, and only two playoff appearances.