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Kopecky spent most of the regular season playing with guys at best even with him - guys like Brower, Eager, etc. while Bertuzzi was typically with any two of Datsyuk, Z, Homer, Flip, or Franzen. Put Kopy on a line with Dats and Homer all season and give him Bert's ice time and I bet he gets at least 30+ points. With bert's ice time, put him on a line with Flip and Z in the playoffs, and on a line with Franzen and Z on a night when Franzen is hotter than the sun, and he probably has at least 7 or 8 points. Bertuzzi's chances at getting points have come much more easily than Kopecky's have. Bert has better raw talent, but Bert himself has for the most part been a passenger when it comes to the points on his stat sheet. Kopecky has been more involved overall in the playoffs in his points, although he has significantly fewer.

So tell me, since you seem to be the type who ******* incessantly about enforcers... Who do you prefer: Someone who stands up for his teammates and fights, but doesn't always win OR Someone who chirps at the opposing team and then skates away.

Yeah, and when the Wings win Game 5, they'll be forced to play game 6 a man down the whole game, with the Sharks getting 5-on-2s at times. Damn that Bettman and his maniacal plots!

Joe Thornton slashed at Zetterberg's leg on the faceoff. He gave a dirty hit to Nick for no reason other than he's Detroit's best defenseman. He hit Holmstrom after the whistle. Thornton pretty much had no intent on that s*** other than to try and injure some of Detroit's best players. And the complaint is that we don't have an enforcer to prevent injuries from situations like this (You know, a deterrent that will magically make opposing players say 'I better not do that') not that the Wings don't themselves hit dirty and bash skulls enough, although there is a small contingent that ******* about that. Thornton should have gotten a game for what he did rather than a 10, but it didn't really matter.

Regular season performance. Same reason Howard, Rask, Bryzgalov, Nabokov, and Theodore, among others, have such high praise.

I really don't think Kopecky would just be ending the first year of a multi-million dollar contract if there were an average of 16+ players per NHL team who could replace him. Seems like a small exaggeration, don't you think? Perhaps 150-200 players could do his job just as well, but that is including maybe 50-75 top-six forwards. So we're left with anywhere from 75-150 players who are better than Kopecky at his job AND are on their team just to do that job. No, swapping out Kopecky with Draper probably wouldn't make much of a difference with the current team. But the fact remains that on most teams in the league, Kopecky would likely have a job in the bottom 6.

Kopecky is better than you credit him for. No, he's not a top-six forward. But he can play like one on good nights and he is a solid third line checking forward. You act like he isn't good enough to be in the NHL, even though he is the #8 forward and receives regular PP time on one of the league's top teams, and he is playing well in the postseason.

New nickname for Luongo: "Captain Colander"

May is done as a Wing. Maltby has probably already played his last minute as a Wing. Just FYI.

Kopecky is a solid all-around player. He's not a superstar. He's not going to be a superstar. He's better than Draper and Maltby. He's probably better than most guys who make his salary, as weird as that might sound to you. But he's a solid third-line forward, so I wouldn't say he's overpaid. I don't know if I'd want him back except maybe on the fourth line in place of Draper, but most teams would be glad to have him.

Yeah, because not every sports journalist in the world was saying stuff like "Chicago and Vancouver don't want to play the Wings in the first round because of how well they have played since the Olympics. Their record is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" Yep, clearly by showing the fact that Kopecky closed out the season very well (after having a very strong Olympics) I am twisting the truth. I definitely said that he was a 30-goal player, rather than simply saying that's the kind of pace he was scoring at over that stretch. As far as Howard, Drake...is this the kind of thing you were talking about? Over his first three games of the season, Osgood played 178:59 and gave up 8 goals on 81 shots, which works out to 27.2 SAPG, .901 sv%, and a 2.68 GAA. He won twice and lost once. Osgood has played an average of 46 games and 2620:53 per season. So let's project those three games over that average time frame. He would have given up 117 goals on 1186 shots, while winning 31 games and losing 15. I know you guys like to joke about my use of stats, but I don't take a sample size of five minutes to project a full year or things like that. A REALISTIC statistical projection is different from saying a player is better than most of your young scorers because he scored a 5 goals in a three-game call-up. Mario Lemieux probably would have broken Wayne Gretzky's scoring records in 1992-93. That much is obvious. But Mario isn't given the record just for having been much more individually dominant offensively and on pace to beat the record.

If you had read my actual post, you'd have seen that I was using the roster posted, and not what I actually expect. I expect to see exactly what you are stating; one but not both of Homer and Bert returning, as well as Miller returning. For one, that's what the cap allows for. Lines based on that exchange, assuming Homer is the returnee, could be as follows: Filppula/Zetterberg/Franzen Holmstrom/Datsyuk/Hudler Cleary/Abdelkader/Miller Draper/Helm/Eaves Ritola Hudler/Zetterberg/Franzen Holmstrom/Datsyuk/Cleary Eaves/Filppula/Miller Draper/Helm/Abdelkader Ritola Filppula/Zetterberg/Cleary Holmstrom/Datsyuk/Eaves Franzen/Hudler/Miller Draper/Helm/Abdelkader Ritola

Yeah, I sure wish the Wings had a 6-3, 203 lb forward capable of playing all three forward positions who is a solid defensive player and can contribute offensively and physically. Someone capable of playing both sides on special teams. For all of you brushing the Kopecky stuff off... Here's his post-Olympic stat line: 16 GP, 6g-3a-9pt, +6, 6PIM Multiply by 5 and you have: 80 GP, 30g-15a-45pt, +30, 30PIM Which is pretty good for a third line center/winger.

I would love to maybe swap Brad Stuart and Daniel Larsson for Ian White and Greg Nemisz. Throw in a 2nd or 3rd rounder on one side or the other if necessary. White should get in the range of probably $2.5m-$3.5m for maybe 2-3 years, so that deal would work out nicely for the cap.

Raffi's stick could have been positioned better. To be fair, it can be argued that Rafalski thought Thornton was going to try to hit Marleau down low and was trying to block that lane while the trailers caught up. Had Howard not set up a lawn chair outside the crease, he'd have probably stopped the shot. Although some blame falls on Raffi, it's mainly on Howard.

1) I realize your lines were auto-completed based on salaries, but here are two realistic suggestions for forward lines: Franzen/Zetterberg/Hudler Holmstrom/Datsyuk/Bertuzzi Cleary/Filppula/Eaves Draper/Helm/Abdelkader Ritola Filppula/Zetterberg/Franzen Holmstrom/Datsyuk/Eaves Cleary/Hudler/Bertuzzi Draper/Helm/Abdelkader Ritola 2) If the Wings keep one of their current defensemen at the league minimum to be the 7th d-man, it's almost a certainty that it will be Meech. Lebda is out at the end of the postseason, Janik is only in the system as a fill-in. Lilja could get 4x that amount from a lot of teams and possibly a top-four spot on some. I have wanted White on the Wings since he was fighting for a third-pair spot in Toronto. Too bad he's an RFA, so we'd have to trade for him, and he would actually cost what he's worth in cap space now.

Seriously? I used to get Swedish league games when I lived at my parents' house. I could tell Z was going to be a great player before he was even drafted. I was absolutely STUNNED when he dropped so far in his draft year and I was ecstatic when the Wings ended up getting him. I am surprised to hear someone talking about being underwhelmed about Z's level of play on first sight; he wasn't projected as a superstar and he came into the league playing pretty well from the off.

Call Guinness, and order me a case or two!

Come on, you can't really expect Howard to stop a shot from 25-30 feet away that he has a complete and total view of and has cut off quite a bit of the angle already? Seriously, you don't HONESTLY expect any goaltender to stop a shot like that right? He had about 1/4 second to react, which is basically what a shortstop has to react on a line drive on your average high school team or a decent beer league team. Hopefully Howie plays catcher or outfield on his ball team, right? Well, Howard HAS given up three or four like that so far this run, so clearly it must be pretty damn hard to stop.

Hopefully it's: Lidstrom-Rafalski Kronwall-Meech Ericsson-Lilja But likely we see Lebda fill in with something like: Lidstrom-Rafalski Kronwall-Lilja Ericsson-Lebda With the third pair seeing little duty, but Ericsson rotating onto the other two now and then to get additional time and provide rest.

Yep, if it wasn't for Howard the game would probably be tied 2-2 right now. Actually, at least with the 6-0 lead we can survive all the softies Howard is going to give up in the third, so we'll win 6-3 or 6-4. /sarcasm

If the Wings are to take Ericsson out to put in a new partner for Lilja on the third pairing, Meech is the best choice, followed by Kindl. Why, you ask? A) They're the best defenseman who are not in Babs' top six. B) Meech is the only defenseman with more than a handful of NHL games who has any shot at returning next season, and Kindl is the only black ace guaranteed to return next year.

The Couture goal went fivehole on Howard and went off his right knee and just inside the post when it would have otherwise missed the net completely. Unless you're saying he intended to bank it off his knee, that was a damn lucky shot and deflection. Had Howard dropped his left leg instead, that's not a goal. You don't get credit for a "very accurate shot" if it's just a dump on net from the corner that happens to go in, which is all it was. The too many men thing? That wasn't a penalty. The play was down by the Wings' net and by the time the refs would have even noticed the penalty, the puck would already have been in the net. It's not reviewable IIRC, so it didn't matter if the whole team was jumping over the bench at that point. Game over in less than a tenth of a second, the two extra players were 75 feet away.

Couture scored one of the weakest goals of the past two or three years at one of the worst possible times. On the OT goal, Howard was severely overcommitting to one side on the play and therefore had no chance to stop the shot. Howard was primarly, if not solely responsible for losing the lead and then the game. Saying "Yeah, but he made some nice saves" doesn't mean s*** if he is 100% responsible for the goals that caused the team to drop the lead and then lose in OT. People bash Ozzie for the Jamie Baker play in 94; there were 2 or 3 other Wings who could have stopped that from happening and didn't.

No go. Bonuses are only allowed in entry level contracts, and can only be performance-based. You can't just have random bonuses like "If you win 20 divisional games in regulation time while posting 4 division shutouts, a .920 division sv% or better and 1.5 division GAA or lower then you get $3m" on a contract like you used to be able to. That's basically 3 goals every 40 shots over a span of at least 20 games, more likely 25-30; assuming the goaltender were to be played in that many (as the goalie approaches 26 wins, unless the playoffs are locked in, the backup likely gets the weak division opponents to kill the bonus chance if it's looking possible) As I said, only certain types of bonuses are allowed, and even then teams often try to avoid them (such as goaltender wins/shutouts/games played) if possible. When the team is fighting for a playoff spot and the team has no choice but to play a player who is closing in on a bonus, they have to accept it if that player hits the bonus (although the other team keying on that player if he's a forward does help the team's other skaters.) But trying to get Backstrom with an offer sheet is a no-go as I said. The Wings won't give up the compensation, and Washington will match anything Holland is willing to pay.