betterREDthandead

Ordinarily I don't much care for Yorio-bashing....I think usually it's overdone and I've even actively defended her when people aim misguided criticism at her. But in this case? Bash away. The more the merrier

Definitely agree. I don't think I can name a single cheap shot from the whole series so far. The only thing that comes close is Cleary's hit on Kiprusoff, but it was obviously unintentional. Phaneuf's hit on Datsyuk? Not an elbow by any stretch of the imagination.

Um.....because the screenshot directly above shows Cleary, mid-hit, with his skates on the ice. How you can look at that picture and still think Cleary left his feet for the hit, I don't know.

Well that doesn't leave much margin for error, does it? Actually I think Game 4 is always the most pivotal and important game (besides Game 7 obviously). Barring a sweep, one of two things will happen: Either one team puts their foot on the other's throat, or it becomes a three-game series. The vast majority of series go into Game 4 with one team holding a 2-1 lead, and it's exceedingly rare to come back from down 3-1. By the way, my take: I think if the Wings win this one, it's over. First the Flames hoped they could shut down Z with his back injury and Datsyuk with his playoff slump. We crushed that hope. Then they hoped Regehr would be the difference and return the Flames to their physical play. Crushed that hope too. Now they hope their home ice will get them back on track. If the Wings win Game 3.....crush. The Flames will be out of hopes for Game 4 if they lose Game 3. I don't have a prediction for Game 3 - I never do - but I do have a Game 4 prediction: If the Wings win Game 3, they also win Game 4 - Period.

To me it's this: If you try and focus on the puck, you'll lose it. If you watch the players, you'll always know where the puck is and you don't have to worry about focusing on it. And if you watch enough hockey, watching the players will show you not only where the puck is but where it will be. Then you're set.

Hope it works for ya now.

It's the national anthem, that's why it's disrespectful. I've got little patience for people who don't have the common courtesy to stand still and quiet for two stinkin' minutes out of their whole day to pay homage to their country. /rant

OK, I got the gears in my head working a little bit (so watch out.) We know the NHL wants to try very hard to promote divisional rivalries and has come up with a fairly unpopular scheduling format to do so. The AHL has 7 teams per division (except for the North which has six) and the top four in each division make the playoffs and play each other 1 vs. 4 / 2 vs. 3. Then the division champions play each other for the conference championship and so on. I think the NHL used to do this too for a little while in the '80s. So what's the pros and cons? As I see it.... PROS: Would definitely make for some good rivalry action. Rivalries are produced in the playoffs, everyone says? There ya go. Facing the same teams that often would do the trick for sure. Norfolk/Hershey games (the ones I went to) were NASTY....and also WICKED fun. Would also be able to balance the schedule quite a bit. (The AHL actually has a MORE unbalanced schedule than the NHL, but I don't think that's necessary.) Forcing the division members to meet in the playoffs would allow the league to balance out the schedule since they wouldn't need to use the regular season to promote the rivalries. CONS: Unfair seeding, for sure. This year, for example, Albany (81 points) made the playoffs while two other teams with better records stay home. Plus, Norfolk and WBS are #3 and #4 in the conference, but playing each other. (Then again, with this format, you really could just pretend conferences didn't exist and seed the division champions 1 through 4 once they were done knocking each other off.) And the NHL would need to realign. That's not much of an issue though. If this format were applied to the NHL this year (and we use the divisions that I just invented based on geography....basically, the eight northern and seven southern East teams, and the seven eastern and eight western West teams), the matchups would look like this: Sabres vs. Rangers Devils vs. Senators Penguins vs. Hurricanes Thrashers vs. Lightning Red Wings vs. Wild Predators vs. Stars Ducks vs. Flames Sharks vs. Canucks Definitely a more regional feel to it, I think. Assuming all #1 seeds won, you'd then have Wings-Ducks and Sabres-Penguins, or you could re-seed and have, well, the same thing. So what does everyone think? Myself, I'm kinda torn, which is why I post this in the first place. Kinda want to hear arguments one way or the other. I think over the course of four or five years, we could see some really good exploding rivalries. Right now, nobody is playing a division rival in the opening round, which just about defeats the purpose of trying to promote divisional rivalries in the first place. The biggest complaint I'd have with the idea is the notion that you're rewarded for being in a weak division.

It sounds like the Storm were done one way or another - they wouldn't shut down operations like that if the team wasn't bleeding money. And one benefit of this is that the WORST logo in all of professional sports will finally go away. edit: heh, my 5,000th post.

Rex Hudler was a baseball player for the Expos and Angels (among many other teams) in the '80s and '90s. I don't know how they ended up trying to bring him out of retirement to play hockey for the Wings. Sloppy editing and unfamiliarity with hockey. Maybe they have some computer program.

That's probably a picture of him in an Adirondack uniform.

Hang on, did the Tennessean actually have Clowe saying "it didn't phase me"?? As opposed to, you know, "it didn't faze me"? High school mistake.

Oops. You're right of course. I still think of him as a Duck for some reason.

Nonsense. And nonsense. Beauchemin and O'Donnell are respectable defensemen too. Crap forwards? They have 6 forwards that scored 40+ points this season, which is one better than we can say. Selanne, McDonald, Kunitz, Getzlaf, Penner, and Perry. That's two lines' worth of 40 point scorers and pretty good forwards. Add in Marchant and Pahlsson who are known for their defense and quality face-off men to boot, Brad May and Todd Fedoruk who will knock heads together, as well as a whole host of others I'm leaving off....Anaheim most certainly does not have crap forwards. Nor do they lack depth. Anywhere. They didn't earn the second seed in the West for nothing.

I really think I must be the only person in the world who didn't mind the glowpuck. It's absolute crap to say "oh, it's a black object on a white surface, only an idiot would miss that." Bulls**t. That's all well and good when the puck is sliding lazily down the ice after clearing the zone. Sometimes it goes behind the boards and sometimes it's on players' sticks and sometimes it's in the air. Let's face it, hockey is the only sport you have to learn how to watch. When the puck is flying 95 mph through the air off a slapshot, you will not see it until it's either in the net or in the corner somewhere. I guess I just don't see why the NHL and Fox get all kinds of crap for the glowpuck. Having that comet tail on the end, you could ALWAYS follow a slapshot, which is the hardest thing to see. If you don't know how to watch the players, you will not know what's going on - period. It was an innovative way to help newbies to the sport keep up with the action, and it's not like it RUINED THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE - it was a TV gimmick for crying out loud, it had no bearing whatsoever on the game itself. Personally, I don't think we ever needed the little blue or white glow, but I kinda miss the comet tail, because then you can keep track of the puck through every inch of the slapshot til it stops moving so fast and bouncing around so you can see it with your eyes again.

Is Mike Haynes writing for the Tennessean these days? "AND A RIGHT BY TOOTOO! AND ANOTHER RIGHT BY TOOTOO! AND ANOTHER AND ANOTHER RIGHT BY TOOTOO!"

Even the Oilers?

I think you guys mean Scott Thornton. Shawn plays for the Ducks. And I'd have been pissed if it really was Shawn, because Shawn Thornton is one of my favorite non-Wings. If they hadn't been sold out when I went to go get one, I'd have his #55 Norfolk Admirals jersey.

Having a guy down between the benches is GREAT. Maybe had Pierre McGuire been there for Marc Crawford's infamous tirade, he could have just held the microphone up and let the whole world hear what pearls of wisdom Crawford had for Scotty that night As for the angle behind the net on the PP.....I'm still torn. It takes some getting used to, and it's more easily blocked by fans or the cotton candy guy. But when the puck goes in, you can see it right away. You also get a really good perspective on how the play develops and where the skaters are supposed to go at certain times.

Actually Draper has usually been one of the fastest players in the league though age has kind of slowed him down, in his prime he could go step for step with Fedorov. (I know you're joking....I'm just sayin'.) Anyway, second point: I don't think there's any possible way to justify criticizing Draper for that hit. First, it was practically in slow motion. Second, Draper is 5'10", 190 and Regehr is 6'3", 225. If anyone on the Wings were to "go after" Regehr, it certainly wouldn't be Drapes. Third, if that little nudge was all it took to re-injure Regehr's knee, then he maybe shouldn't have been out there at all, and he was really just a ticking time bomb. A gamble the Flames took, and lost. Fourth, and most importantly, what's Draper supposed to do, dive out of the way of an imminent collision just because the guy's playing hurt? Give the guy leeway? I guarantee you the Flames won't miss a chance to hit Bertuzzi. If he's healthy enough to play, he's healthy enough to get hit, and if he gets hurt in the course of regular play like Regehr did, that's on the Flames for putting him out there, not the Wings. I agree that it's pretty crude to give someone extra attention on the ice and go out of your way to re-injure him. None of us liked it when Pronger was trying to do that to Stevie in 2002. But there's no way you can make the case that Draper or the Wings were trying to do that to Regehr.

Strangely enough, the series would still be 2-0.

Haha thanks. Besides, I can outwrite Rob Parker so bad. Dude's a hack. I see the point though. No, I'm not trying to be a Drew (Downer) Sharp or a Rob (Hater) Parker. But I sure don't want to see any sweep talk right now either. Let's at the very least wait til the Wings are actually in position to do it. Hey, I'd be the first to bring a Wings flag on a broomstick to the Saddledome if the Wings win Game 3 (and if I were anywhere near Calgary.) Just don't want people to get ahead of themselves.

Rex + Calder would look good, especially if Bertuzzi was with them. (But Lang would suck the energy out of Franzen and Flip.) I've never bought into the Lang Is Lazy And He Sucks theory, because I think neither is true. It's just that....Lang has a way of never making his presence felt on the ice. You don't ever see him unless he's scoring a goal or turning it over. And Rex is too itty bitty to pair up with him....it'd be a disaster. So unless Cleary gets shuffled around, it looks like Bert, Calder, and Lang if Sammy sits. Cause Draper and Maltby aren't getting split up, and neither are Z/Dats/Homer. And this has been said by others but it needs repeating: Calgary's last best hope for this series is to come out flying and use the home ice advantage to knock the Wings around early and often on Tuesday. Bert in the lineup goes a long way toward nullifying that. You got a guy who at one time was THE preeminent skull-crushing power forward in the league. He might not skate as well as he used to but damned if he isn't still 245 pounds of muscle who likes to hit things. Why on earth would you not use him?

Update from me: Haven't started s**t yet. OK, that's not quite true. Got me an iPod finally. Ooooo, big effin' deal, BRTD, you got your toys while everyone else is dieting and hitting the weights. Lemme tell ya something: No working out gets done if I don't have the music. It's awful. I hate all forms of cardio workout, and there's only one thing that makes it even remotely tolerable, the music. So I got my iPod, and I got my armband, and I got my music. So now I'm set. The weight loss plan officially begins May 4, because that is when I deploy with my ship. (We have a fairly respectable gym.) I can't help what I eat, because the ship serves what it serves, so I'll just have to watch how much I eat. I'm at 195 now (yuck), and it's a 19-week cruise, so the goal is 176. One pound a week.

I actually do think Franzen, Filppula, and Bertuzzi would make a NASTY line. I really wish that idea could be a reality. But then you'd have to either let Calder/Lang/Sammy keep going, which is easily the least impressive line so far (it's like the spare parts line, they just don't look good together), or have it be Calder/Lang/Rex, which would be a mistake and a half.