eva unit zero

This just proves Dater doesn't watch the Wings much. One, Zetterberg plays the center role more than Datsyuk when the two are together. Two, if he is using "they play together some time" to kick Zetterberg of the list then you have to remove Crosby or Malkin, because about 20% of their even-strength time last season was spent together. How about putting Zetterberg at #1 on this list where he belongs instead of developing a convoluted reason why he's not on the list.

Zubov at his best was like a Russian Lidstrom., with maybe a little more emphasis on speed. He was more important to Dallas' defensive game than Hatcher was, and the team's best defensive defenseman was neither of the two; it was Richard Matvichuk.

So you're saying that loyalty and leadership is nullified if you sign with another team? Guess that rules out the leadership abilities of Gretzky, Messier, Sakic, and a long list of other guys.

Hatcher was always so overrated and overpaid. He was a good defensive defenseman, but he was never a top notch defenseman and never worthy of Norris consideration. Definitely rode Zubov's coattails in Dallas.

But the thing is that LW was using regular season stats to support his arguments. So Hossa's regular season performance counts. It still doesn't answer the Franzen vs Sharp, Hudler vs Hossa question.

At grinding in the corners, digging in front of the net, and playing defense? Kariya barely even does any of those things. The Wings already have a bunch of scoring forwards. Kariya's purpose is offense. Last season he scored 43 points playing on the Blues' top line with Oshie and Backes. What line will he play on in Detroit, and what line will he play on? Will it be Kariya/Filppula/Franzen on the second line? Or perhaps it will be Kariya/Datsyuk/Holmstrom? I guess I'm finding difficulty seeing where adding Kariya in those situations makes an improvement to the roster all-around.

I have a friend who can't have a twitter, facebook, myspace, anything because of her job, which is not unusual. So for Bissonnette to have been forced to take his down twitter would not be unusual, although it might be unfortunate.

And Kariya serves what role? He's a liability defensively, he's not physical. He's a good passer and has a decent shot, but always looks to pass first. So if Kariya is signed, then what? Where does he play that doesn't make him redundant? The Wings already have twelve forwards signed, plus two who will be signed. If you want a quick skating winger with a hard, accurate shot, there's Patrick Eaves.

Right there. When I heard about that trade I cursed Bryan Murray for beign so stupid. When you trade a goaltender for another, equal goaltender, you don't give away a great young forward!! Especially if neither goaltender is as good as the guy currently in your net anyway.

Filppula has had consistent stretches of either missing games or playing through injury and his play suffering because of it. Bolland has one instance of injury.

Toews was actually 4th in Selke voting last season. This I find odd. Hossa is clearly better than Sharp. He's faster, a better shooter, a better playmaker, a better defender. The general agreement on the board is that Franzen>Hudler, and I would especially expect that from you, LW. So I don't understand it unless you're slotting them as a homer to get 1-1 rather than saying Hossa is better than Franzen, and Sharp is better than Hudler.

No, I don't dislike them; They're for the most part equal contributors offensively at this point, but Cleary is very injury prone and Flip somewhat. Bolland is also the best defensive player of the three. Bolland has had his own injury issues, but if I have to choose one or the other, I'm picking the healthy young guy right?

And a healthy Lemieux would have made up for that difference and then some. You forget that Lemieux played through MORE THAN HALF of his career suffering from cancer. Let's take all of the seasons in the second half of his career starting with 1992-93 when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, and project them to a full season. What kind of numbers does Lemieux put up? He would have gotten at the very least damn close to Gretzky's career scoring numbers. He almost certainly would own the goal scoring record with what, 1000 goals? 1100 goals? 1300? And Lemieux's 1992-93 might have been the single best season of hockey performed by an individual. Gretzky never put up that kind of scoring pace over a full season, and Gretzky had better teammates and didn't have cancer.

I would trade Flip or Cleary for Bolland in a flat second.

Osgood was the Wings' best player until he went down with the flu. He had started twelve games at this point to Howard's three, and it was November 7th. Osgood would start nine more games over the remaining 67, while Howard would see 58. By December 31st, 2009, Howard had already started more games than Osgood would all season. As for "Battling in December" I would say the team was playing better hockey in December than it was in October or November. The reason Osgood didn't play is the same reason Boucher wasn't Philadelphia's goalie in the Cup finals; Osgood was out sick (Boucher was injured partway into the playoffs for Philly) the replacement played very well, so even after the starter returned, the replacement held on to the job. Babcock went a little overboard with Howard, but it's the same thought process.

Lemieux?

Yes.

Osgood was the Wings' best player until he went out with the flu in like November. After that, he played like 5 games. Howard was playing great, but one major reason the Wings lost in the playoffs is because Howie was so tired. If Babs had played Ozzie more, Howie wouldn't have been as tired, so if he DID falter, Babs would have been more comfortable going to Ozzie, who would have been in game shape. Babs is a good coach, but he mismanaged his goalies last year.

Sharp was already signed for $3.9m coming into the summer. It's looking more and more like they'll trade Niemi and either sign a cheap vet like a Turco/Theodore for under $1.5m or just go with a tandem of Crawford/Toivonen.

Lemieux was on pace to break Gretzky's 92 and 215 by a wide margin in 1992-93 but had a bout with cancer that caused him to only play 60 games, so he scored 69 goals and 91 assists - pace for 97-127-224 - plus he probably would have scored at a higher rate without the cancer and the missed games. 110 goals and 260 points? 120 goals and 280 points? Who knows...he was just ridiculous that season. Regardless, the most unbreakable records are probably the consecutive games streaks. When you first consider that a player has to play twelve or more consecutive seasons, which means he has to be good enough to not only earn a regular spot but a spot regular enough to not be in danger of being rotated out of the lineup, this means he'll be playing 15-25 minutes per game, plus playoff games. That's a crazy amount of games and minuts per game without missing a game. And then you look at the goaltender consecutive games streak? That's more than six complete seasons, plus playoffs. Fewer than 60 goaltenders in the history of the league have even played that many games in their career, let alone in a row. Gretzky's career records will fall before that one does.

Gretzky would have never touched the goal scoring records had Joe Malone played ~80 game seasons. 44 goals in 20 games, 22 game season? Now that's an untouchable mark. 2.2 GPG over a full season. Also 2.2 PPG because assists were not calculated, which ALSO beats any of Gretzky's marks. If you assume that he had equal assists to goals, which is common for top-end offensive players, that's 88 points in 20 games over a full 22 game season, total 164-164-328 in 75 of 82 games. Absolutely sick. Gretzky would never have been viewed the same. Warren Beatty has 'em all beat....combined. Hell, add Tiger, Stilt, Heff, and everyone else up and Beatty's probably hit all of those girls too.

He wasn't injury prone when he signed the deal.

No they don't. Rick DiPietro had just finished his second full season, in 123 games played he had 55 career wins, 47 losses, 7 ties, and 6 shutouts. Dipietro makes $4.5m per season through 2021. Dipietro has played only 13 games over the past two seasons due to injuries. So far he has been paid $18m and only played two seasons of more than 8 games played. That kind of cash would make him the highest paid goalie in the NHL. Kovalchuk has in 8 seasons, 338 goals, 304 assists, 642 points in 621 games, with one 50 goal season and three more 40-goal seasons. Kovalchuk signed up for $5.88m through 2027. One of the players was signed entirely on potential, one was signed based entirely on performance.

The Lightning will definitely make the playoffs. They have one of the NHL's best top-six forward groups (Stamkos, St.Louis, Lecavalier, Gagne, Malone, Downie), a very good top-four D (Kubina, Ohlund, Hedman, Clark), and a good goaltending tandem (Smith/Ellis). If either Ellis or Smith shows up as the kind of top end goaltender that those guys were 'supposed' to be and have shown flashes of being, and Hedman has a breakout season, the Bolts could be extremely dangerous in the East.

TBH, I don't have a problem with Kovalchuk's contract. Yes, it's ridiculously long, and no, he probably won't play to the end of it. But it fits within league contract rules, and Ilya is really the first player on the UFA market to have multiple suitors for such a deal. Hossa didn't have multiple teams offering him long-term deals like the one Chicago did. Perhaps restraining long term contracts to rules such as "ten years or less" or ruling that if a player retires with 5 or more years remaining on his contract after he has passed the age of 30, his cap hit will remain. The second statement would of course have an injury provision. But I don't see a "need" to stop these deals. Yeah, maybe it reduces some of the excitement on July 1st. But think of it this way. Teams will retain star players. Fans will get to know the team's stars. NHL markets with fans who say "who?" when you name half the team because there is so much turnover on the roster will have teams with identifiable players who the fans know and love.