eva unit zero

Probably because he should have stopped it and instead he was beaten clean.

So Howard has now, tonight, given up two goals that were shots he should have stopped which came off of bad rebounds he gave up. Lovin that playoff mojo he has goin.

1) Assuming the reports of a $57.7m cap are true 2) Assuming Jiri Hudler returns to the Wings Then we are looking at a Wings roster starting from a base of seven forwards, five defensemen, and two goaltenders with a combined cap hit of $43,662,876 which means the team needs to sign six more forwards and two more defensemen, plus perhaps one additional skater, and has $14,037,124 in cap space to do it with. Free agent skaters from this year's roster: Forwards: RFA: Abdelkader, Eaves, Helm, Miller, Ritola UFA: Bertuzzi, Holmstrom, Maltby, May, Williams Defense: RFA: Meech UFA: Janik, Lebda, Lidstrom, Lilja Likely, the Wings will sign six forwards and three defensemen, and leave the 23rd roster slot empty. So the situation is, who do you add to the roster? F: Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Franzen, Filppula, Hudler, Cleary, Draper. D: Rafalski, Stuart, Kronwall, Ericsson, Kindl G: Osgood, Howard The Wings need some bottom-six forwards. They also need to re-sign Lidstrom, or sign another top-pairing defenseman to replace him. We'll go with a couple of reasonable assumptions here. 1) Older players with a history of injury who have accomplished major goals and suffered major injury recently often end up retiring. 2) The Wings have recently been looking towards getting younger, while retaining a focus on home-grown players as much as possible. 3) The Wings' playing style focuses on two-way play and puck possession, but with an added element of grit and physicality that is often overlooked because their star players are not as gritty as their support players. So; We'll say that Maltby and Lilja are likely to retire. Holmstrom and Bertuzzi both are possibilities for retirement as well. The Wings will likely re-sign forwards Abdelkader, Eaves, Helm, and Miller, and will probably keep one of Homer or Bert, most likely Homer. Overall, expect a total of $5.5m-$6m spent on these forwards. On defense, Lidstrom is likely to return, and the Wings are unlikely to place either Ericsson or Kindl in a 7th defenseman role; it is more likely they will shake up the defensive pairings and we see less of Lids/Raffi and Kronner/Stuart with Ericsson and Kindl slipping in on shifts with skilled vets. Meech is the most likely defenseman to be signed for the 7th defenseman role, as he has proven effective when called upon, and the Wings are unlikely to sign a defenseman who makes more than Kindl or Ericsson specifically for the 7th defenseman role when for peanuts they can retain a young, home-grown defenseman like Meech who is developing well into a solid all-around defenseman.

The Wings should ice the following forward lineup IMHO: Franzen/Datsyuk/Holmstrom Bertuzzi/Zetterberg/Cleary Miller/Filppula/Abdelkader Draper/Helm/Eaves And that can morph into this for next year, assuming the likely situation that only one of Bertuzzi and Homer return: Franzen/Datsyuk/Holmstrom (Bertuzzi) Hudler/Zetterberg/Cleary Miller/Filppula/Abdelkader Draper/Helm/Eaves

Well, I didn't get to see the whole game (only the first and part of the second) but I thought the Wings were not looking any better than the Yotes from the off. Holmstrom's goal was pretty lucky, and Lidstrom's shot was lucky to make it through the five guys screening and Bryzgalov without being touched. Yandle's shot went off Stuart's leg, but not to the degree where Howard shouldn't have been able to stop it. The Wings were lucky to be up 2-1 at that point and were being outplayed, and while I was expecting them to win I am not stunned that they ended up losing.

Howard has really shown the potential that he was drafted on. Let's see what happens in the playoffs.

Nobody except maybe Hornqvist plays like Homer. Smyth plays much more like Shanahan at 5-on-5, Ciccarelli was a standard up-and-down winger and that's how he got more than half of his goals, and Cleary is NOTHING like Homer 5-on-5, although he can play the net-front presence if needed. Franzen also plays much more like Shanahan than Homer. Shanahan, as a matter of fact, could also play the net-front Homer role, though not as well. With the kind of puck-possession and cycling the Wings have been able to run with two forwards down low and two defensemen on the point, Homer's expert ability to screen the goalie, and turn a shot near the goal into a very dangerous scoring chance is something most teams would consider 'interference' even without entering the crease or making contact.

Fixed.

The top five most overrated players in the League at each position: Forwards: Scott Gomez Thomas Vanek Sean Avery Rick Nash Corey Perry Defensemen: Sheldon Souray Mike Green Ed Jovanovski Dion Phaneuf Barret Jackman Goaltenders: Roberto Luongo M.A. Fleury Jonathan Quick J.S. Giguere Cam Ward Don't know how Horcoff and Redden made that top-five overall list. Horcoff is a good second line center playing on a first line, possibly a bottom-tier first line center, and that's exactly what people think of him. Redden was a solid top-end two-way defenseman, and still has those kinds of skills but for some reason is only playing at the level of a 2nd/3rd defenseman. Still, if Nick were to retire and he were a UFA this coming summer, I wouldn't mind picking him up if he'd take $4m or less. However, he's signed through 2014 at a $6.5m hit. Now if the Rangers were to buy him out...that would be ideal; they would pay him basically $2m per season to go away, and the Wings could sign him at a much lower number than he makes now.

Souray is a second-pairing level defenseman. Even considering his big 81 game, 26-goal, 64 point season in 2006-07 and his 81 game, 24 goal, 54 point year in 2008-09, think about this: Souray is an offensive defenseman who plays extremely poor defense. That makes sense, looking at the past couple seasons, right? Let's project his career numbers down to that 81 games his two career years came in, shall we? 81 games, 12 goals, 33 points. Not very impressive for a offensive defenseman who is a defensive liability and makes over $5m. But to further the discussion, let's take a look at something. How has Souray performed outside of those two seasons? Well, his average career stats are: 81 games, 8 goals, 24 points. And his third best season is (offensively): 2003-04 Montreal 63 games, 15 goals, 35 points. (works to 81 games, 19 goals, 45 points) So really, over his career, Souray is not a 50-point defenseman and he is a defensive liability. By comparison, Brian Rafalski, while not great, has always been a solid defensive defenseman. He has also been a 40+ point scorer every season of his career except two, one being his rookie year and the other being a season he missed 13 games and still scored 36 points (pace for 40+) and Rafalski has scored 50 points 4 times and 49 one other, and has been on pace for 50+ one more. LGW has clamored to dump Rafalski, yet in this thread, many of those same members are saying they wouldn't mind having Souray, who costs nearly as much and isn't even close to as good? A better comparison; Brad Stuart, who is very solid defensively, averages about 7 goals and 29 points every 81 games, comparable to what Souray has done aside from his two seasons that are well outside the standard deviation. Considering Souray would probably be taking Stuart's place with the Wings, would you swap Stuart for Souray? I wouldn't. Stuart is better and cheaper.

The top ten guys will probably be IMHO, in alphabetical order: Datsyuk, Kesler, M.Koivu, Lehtinen, Madden, Pahlsson, M.Richards, Staal, Toews, Zetterberg

Souray isn't worth Thomas, and he isn't worth the Leafs' 1st. Furthermore, the Oil won't trade for Thomas when they already have Khabibulin. Sorry, this is just a ridiculous trade idea. Maybe if it were Thomas from two seasons ago and the Leafs' 2nd pick, then I could see it.

For those saying "Howard was saved by the posts" I have a little information for you: Shots that go off the posts are not going in the net. The goalie could be up on the concourse ordering a Hot & Ready and the shot would STILL not go in. The only time the goalie could ever be considered to be "saved" by the post is if the shot went off the goalie's back and then bounced off the post back into the goalie again, slid towards the goal line, and then the goalie was able to stop it before it was knocked in. That or something similar is about the only situation you could consider the goalie saved by the post. Bouncing off the outside of the post and away from the net is not the goalie being saved by the post.

I am still imagining what kinds of numbers Grigorenko would be posting had he never been injured. At the time of his accident, he was considered to be the same level of prospect as Ovechkin, and was slated to come over that fall. A Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Grigorenko line would have just been...incredible.

Ever? How about in the last 20 years? Scotty Bowman 1995 Finals; Lost to NJ 1996 WC Finals, Lost to Colorado 1997 Finals; Won Cup 1998 Finals; Won Cup 1999 2nd round; Lost to Colorado (Osgood injured, Ranford sucked) Pay attention or something.

I'd rather a left-handed shot on the right point personally. That's actually more of a shooting threat. If Williams is on the point as a shooting threat, he should be on the LEFT point. It puts his shot straighter on the net, but still allows him to pass down low. Sending a pass across to the other D is not difficult unless he's under heavy pressure. Which further proves the point that handedness is far less important than having people who know what the hell they are doing in the right spots. Stuart and Ericsson, for example, are not passers. But they can definitely shoot. And guess what? They're left handed. And we're talking about needing a shooter for the right point to replace Williams. How convenient. Although next season I wouldn't mind seeing them try out Hudler in that spot. He's run a PP very effectively from the point before, and it would definitely be worth a look to see how it would work out if Babcock is intent on having a forward on the point. It would also allow them to have Dats/Franzen/Homer/Z/Flip/Bert or whatever up front on the PP if all of those guys are back.

I think it should be like this: There are 30 teams in the league. There are 16 teams that make the playoffs. There are 6 division winners. Due to travel, I am not certain whether I prefer the conference system or not, but I do support this: The division winners are guaranteed a playoff spot, but nothing more. Regardless of whether you use conferences or not, it is theoretically possible for as few as four divisions to produce playoff teams. Given how close Nashville was last season, and the fact that the Atlantic division could produce five playoff teams as long as Philly and NYR each gain at least one more point than Boston over the remaining games, it's not an unreasonable situation for one or more division to achieve that goal.

Orr being the best of all time is questionable, and here's why: Orr put up huge offensive numbers, yes. But he was not dominant defensively like Lidstrom is. He was good defensively, but not dominant. He played, to basically say it, like a star offensive forward who was good defensively. Very few defensemen have EVER been able to put up the kind of offensive performances Orr did, and none of them were as consistently dominant offensively, nor as good defensively. However, Lidstrom has been extremely dominant offensively in his own right, while being one of if not the League's best defensive player over his entire career. Other defensemen who could make a valid argument towards that position are Raymond Bourque and Doug Harvey. Bourque was a First-team or Second-Team All-Star for seventeen consecutive years from the start of his career. That's an unbelievable achievement. He was incredible offensively, and was very good defensively. Harvey was the dominant defenseman of his era as well, and was also extremely good at both ends. I would have included Brad Park, but he always ended up second to Orr, so it would be hard to argue him as the best ahead of Orr. But ultimately, we all know it that it really comes down to Orr or Lidstrom. Orr has a lot of flashy, memorable offensive plays such as the 'Superman' goal where he scores and then basically jumps into the air as he is tripped, but how many times did anyone here see him make amazing defensive plays like we have seen Lidstrom do over and over and over again? Not terribly often. Good defensively, not great.

Meech is more likely to return than Janik. Kindl will be up, this has already been decided. The only questions are who the last two defensemen will be, as we have five signed. If Lidstrom returns, it's a decision between signing Lilja and rotating Ericsson/Lilja/Kindl, or signing Meech and rotating Ericsson/Kindl and occasionally tossing in Meech on D or up front. And this is all assuming Lilja doesn't retire.

Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Yzerman Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Osgood Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Vernon Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Konstantinov Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Fedorov Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Murphy Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Shanahan Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Kozlov Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Larionov Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Fetisov Detroit didn't win until after they acquired Bowman Nick is possibly the greatest defenseman of all-time. Just sayin you can't basically imply "the Wings had no chance at winning the Cup without Nick" because as good as he has been, it's not true.

Well, it was a 1 in 720 chance that a player traded every summer during a 6 year while all O6 teams were around would have played for them. By contrast, it's a 1 in 427,518,000 chance that it happens now to a player who plays six years now and is traded each summer during a six year career.

Who would you rather have? Who was the majority of the board preferring at the beginning of the season? Who would the majority of the board prefer now?

Hmm.... I could be evil and pull up all the quotes from all of you guys saying how Leino would make up for (and then some) the scoring we lost with Hudler leaving. That worked out well, huh?

Howard and Myers is a pretty close race. On another, unrelated note... 5 Red Wings at the time, and 11 more future Red Wings, have been named to the NHL All-Rookie Team in the 26 years it has existed.

Hmm. I can't help but notice how you are arguing that we SHOULDN'T bring Hudler back because he won't help the team, using the fact that his absence this season noticeably hurt the Wings as a reason to keep Hudler out. You are possibly the most logic-deprived member of this forum.