betterREDthandead

How is that true? There's such a thing as a middle ground between "essential" and "useless." It's nice to have a guy standing in front of the net blocking the view of the goalie, but does every successful team have that like we have Holmstrom? No. It's nice to have a team that can successfully win shootouts, but the Wings didn't win a single shootout last year - 0 for 8 - and nobody calls that essential despite the Wings' success last year. I don't think there's a single one of us on this board who's anti-fighting. As others have said, the difference comes between those who think the Wings must have a fighter to survive, and those who don't think it's absolutely necessary.

Kitna's going to get sacked a lot no matter what. That happened with Martz's offenses in St. Louis too. The Lions attempt more passes than most teams, so they're going to get sacked more than most teams. Martz's offense covers up for it because it's easier to gain 15-20 yards on the next play than in most offenses.

I've always kind of dug the Rockies. Sharp uniforms and cool colors. For some reason they escaped my usual distaste with expansion teams, maybe because they paid their dues by sucking for a while.

Not the tiniest bit concerned at all. People, always, always overreact to line combos and put way too much thought into them. Babcock has shown that he likes to juggle them almost as much as Scotty did. As FnuLaird pointed out, the shots were 42-15 in the Wings favor, so there isn't really much to complain about.

I don't think there was a whole lot of excessive Bertuzzi booing. I noticed he was booed when he lined up for his shootout try, but then again the other two were booed just as heavily.

Friday: Pittsburgh @ Carolina Anaheim @ Columbus NY Islanders @ Buffalo Washington @ Atlanta Boston @ Dallas San Jose @ Vancouver Saturday: Montreal @ Toronto NY Rangers @ Ottawa Buffalo @ NY Islanders Carolina @ Washington New Jersey @ Florida Anaheim @ Pittsburgh Atlanta @ Tampa Bay Philadelphia @ Edmonton Dallas @ Nashville Columbus @ Minnesota Detroit @ Chicago Boston @ Phoenix Vancouver @ Calgary St.Louis @ Los Angeles Sunday: San Jose @ Colorado

Well that narrows it down. I don't know many people who would put a funny name like that on the back of a jersey.

I can barely watch a game between Colorado and Dallas. Still want to barf and throw things when the Avs do anything good. And now they've got those stupid apron strings on their unis.

He's probably hoping you'll take him along with the other ticket

Isn't "Dallas Drake" a cool enough name without having to try and tack a cheesy nickname onto it?

Am I the only one who HATES that camera angle for the shootout? You can't tell where the puck is half the time.

yeah....really "bent him over"

Big enough to knock over the caveman though he'd better frame that moment, it won't happen again.

Judging by the look on the baby's face, I doubt it

Nice! If you need help along the way for one reason or another don't hesitate to ask.

I fully expect a win over Tampa. We have half their old coaching staff. How do you think Arizona managed to beat Pittsburgh?

The problem I have with instant replay is this: It would cut down significantly on the amount of hilarious manager tantrums. There are few spectacles more entertaining in sports than a crotchety old gray-haired guy coming raging out of the dugout screaming at a huge fat guy made even bigger by a chest protector. Watching the umpire and manager bawl each other out, followed by the inevitable emphatic rear-back-and-give-the-old-heave-ho from the umpire is always a treat. There's nothing like a good old fashioned ejection to get the crowd and the team fired up. Jim Leyland, among his myriad other admirable traits, is quite good at this.

Their blue line isn't half bad, although Jovo is a shell of his former self. But with maybe 5 or 6 legitimate NHLers up front that would play on most teams, and three backup goalies competing for the starting job, things look pretty bad in the desert this year. They badly need to trade Doan for some prospects.

I really like that the NHL is eyeing Vegas. I hope they do it before the NBA does. The NHL needs some bold strokes, something that other leagues don't do, and putting a team in Las Vegas would fit that bill perfectly. The city seems antsy to join the ranks of major league sports and doesn't seem to care what sport - they just want somebody. If the NHL is first to put a team in Las Vegas, it will be a nice publicity coup and a boon for the sport. Plus, I think for symmetry's sake, 32 teams is a perfect number, so Las Vegas plus somewhere else (Houston? KC? Seattle?) would be ideal in my own mind.

You have to love the skullduggery these guys pulled in order to get guys like Fedorov, Klima, and Vladdy over here to play. That's right up there with drafting Stevie and hiring Scotty as influences on this great run of success. This is the other thing that stands out to me:

It's time to ditch the notion that the West is "hands down" a better conference. Before Anaheim won this year, the East won the last three Cups - Carolina, Tampa Bay, and New Jersey. Most of the league's biggest and brightest young stars are in the East - Heatley, Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Crosby, Malkin. Of last year's top 10 in scoring, only two played for Western teams, and one of those two (Thornton) is a relative newcomer to the West. And of the top 20, only 5 played out West. Not only that, but last year's President's Trophy winner was an Eastern team. There's just no basis to claim that the West is better than the East.

Wait a sec, it was your game, doesn't that mean you get to decide?

Link?

And look where that season ended up The Lions NEVER EVER EVER win on road trips to Washington. So we'll know by next week if this is for real.

He's got better than good defensive skills. He's likely got the best glove in the league. And I realize you're joking about A-Rod and Renteria, but it's totally pointless to say "GET RID OF THE BUM" without having some actual idea how to replace him. I mean, why stop at those two? Wouldn't it be sweet to have Pujols at first? Holliday at LF? Oh man, the Tigers would be so sweet then! You might notice that this was the worst year Inge has ever had at the plate since making the move from catcher. I guarantee a better average next year. Not only that, but go down the lineups of the rest of the American League. How many of them consistently get the kind of power numbers out of their #9 slot in the lineup as Inge provides?