betterREDthandead

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

Minny is more than twice the market size that Nashville is. Minneapolis-St. Paul is the 15th largest metro area in the country at 3.5 million. Nashville is the 36th largest at 1.5 million.

I like that they have the rule that every team must be represented. It gives fans in every city a reason to watch. I certainly didn't mind that MLB had to select a Detroit Tiger every year despite the Tigers being the dregs of the league. Anyway.....woohoo Ozzie! Wings hogging all the All-Star spots.

Sunday finally begins the ACC season! (At least for UVA.) It's my contention that there isn't a better conference, in any sport, in the whole country. SEC football be damned. It's not unusual to see 10 or even 11 ACC teams make the postseason, either in the Big Dance or the NIT. The two months of ACC basketball is the best competition you'll ever see in the sport.

I think my first piece of Wings stuff was the collector posters they had in the Detroit News once upon a time. Right around the first two Cups they were. They're still up on my wall on my old room at home and the crazy thing is, most of the guys on the cards are still with the team. Shanny, Fedorov, and Stevie are gone, but there's still Holmstrom, Maltby, Draper, Ozzie. It's either those or a commemorative puck that I got for my birthday once. Don't remember which birthday. It's not a game-used one, nothing fancy. Favorite piece of Wings stuff? It'd definitely be the Champions DVD set. But the autographed pic of Ozzie that I bought on eBay is up there too.

How about we not interrupt a fantastic run with silly experimenting? Bad enough that the ASG is gonna spoil our groove a bit. Resting your players near the end of the season in preparation for the playoffs is smart. Resting them in the middle when the race is still on is arrogant.

Pleh. The dunk competition is DUMB. Everyone tries these stupid dunks that never work. The skills competition is better than any other leagues' pre-game festivities. If they really are "judging" the shootout competition, here's one hockey fan that will not be watching ANY of the skills comp.

You are the world's biggest jinx the Pistons looked awful for about half of that first half. Walter Herrmann was a beast defending Dirk though. Dirk was having his way tll Walter threw him off his game. Could be a useful Dirk-stopper should we end up in the Finals against the Mavs.

Like what? Losing? For now. That's temporary. In case you haven't noticed, Michigan is an extremely young team learning a whole new system. There's nothing going on now that we didn't see coming a mile away. The team starts two freshmen and two sophomores. In the nine-man rotation, there is one senior and six underclassmen. Next year, those freshmen and sophomores are sophomores and juniors. Pryor can jump right into the starting spot vacated by Ron Coleman. He'd be perfect. And with his talent, you think he can't make a difference?

I am a f***tard. Hey now, I said to myself. This clown C-Town, WTF does he know? Who's he to question my research skills? I added this up my damn self and came up with the right numbers. But I decided to double check before I came out all Turns out I added up the points column when I was trying to count games. But only for Chicago. Hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Anyway, my original point was, and remains, this: Screw the Blackhawks.

Count me among the exceedingly pleased. There are all kinds of intangibles to the deal besides three years of quality goaltending at a bargain price. We have a fantastic mentor for Franchise Boy Jimmy. If Jimmy turns out to be as good as advertised, we have a veteran backup who would rather be a backup for the Wings than a starter anywhere else. (That kind of loyalty to the Wings and the city deserves our loyalty in return, fivefold.) If Jimmy is a bust, we have a goalie for the transition years between now and the next Franchise Boy (Larsson?). Peace of mind in net never comes this cheap. Man, who'd'a thunk that the kid who was the "goat" of the '94 playoffs would turn around and still be a Red Wing in 2011?

On the contrary. He could start as a freshman on both teams. Might be riding the pine at OSU while their basketball team makes another deep run and Boeckman finishes up his eligibility.

Yes, Sergei was manning the blue line during that game. Watched it in full (again) couple weeks ago and the announcers make mention of it. But his Selke seasons came before then. Won in '94 and '96. I think '97 was the first year of the Fedorov-as-defenseman experiment.

I don't think the Avs were taking any more liberties than any other teams take. And why would it be "cheap" to go after a player who's back from injury? If you're back, you're back and ready to play a game of hockey, not you're back and ready to skate around a bit but shouldn't really take chances and try to shy away from contact. There's no code that says you don't hit a guy coming back from injury. If this were the playoffs they'd have gone after him twice as much. I agree thought, it looked a little bit choppy with new players out there. But the Avs were playing excellent defense. Always in the right place at the right time. It looked a little bit like Minnesota Wild hockey.

You won't. And I don't.

The amazing thing about Chelios: The Wings acquired him at age 37, and sometime earlier this season he reached the point where he's now played more games for the Wings than either the Habs or Hawks.

I've pretty much resigned myself to the idea that Tram isn't going. Which is ridiculous. If Luis Aparicio is a HoFer, Trammell sure as hell is. I do think one day Jack Morris has a shot. The only thing that bugs me is that he is always portrayed as a Minnesota Twin, having spent all of one season there.

One of these days, NHL GMs will figure out the art of trading for cap space like they do in the NBA. Replacing a longer contract with an expiring one is how rebuilding teams rebuild. Then again, I think Lilja is one of the best 3rd-pair defensemen in the league, so I wouldn't want to use him as trade bait.

That was an extremely necessary comment that has added a much-needed element to the conversation. Or not. Swooping into the thread to pick on one particular poster is not going to happen. Especially if you've been warned in the past to knock it off with the GDT sniping.

You want the Wings' best candidate for Selke? Cleary. As with Draper, it (paradoxically) takes an offensive outburst to be considered. Cleary's having a career year offensively, and besides being excellent on defense 5-on-5, is an absolute PK machine.

The question as to whether or not to platoon the two in the playoffs is one for another thread. But are they the greatest tandem in history? You'd probably have to narrow down a definition of tandem. Marty Brodeur used to have some phenomenal seasons playing 70-75 games, so combining his stats and those of his extremely bored backup wouldn't make for a good comparison. And I suspect you'd have a tough time finding many situations where two goalies, neither of which were hurt, split so much time. So Dom and Ozzie (sounds like a crappy morning show on the radio) just might qualify as The Best Tandem Ever. But they're missing one very important piece, which you have to have before you christen anything the greatest ever:

I knew that was gonna get your dander up when they did that.

On the plus side, Colorado's played a pretty competitive game. They've been excellent on defense and haven't taken many penalties. If the Wings hang on, I figure, the Avs gotta feel like they played the best game they could and still couldn't get past the Wings. Always a nice psychological edge.

No blame for Sammy on that 2 on 1. Theodore made a very nice save after the defenseman failed to prevent the pass. Full marks to Jose.

4rd underway?? Hey, I drive a 4rd! I hope it's not being stolen.....