norrisnick

That, his freakishly mismatched arms, and his long shorts are part of why I can't stand Nadal. But yeah it's mostly the groping himself that I can't stand. Don't play tennis in a thong you dumbass!

As crazy as it sounds we'd have smoked the Avs even without Franzen's 9 goals. And Z did not single-handedly steal the finals. He was the best of our forwards but that was total team effort from top to bottom. Forwards obviously get the glory, but they aren't the deciding factors more than any other position.

A healthy Kopecky keeps Syndrome or Mac off the roster.

Little known fact but Doug Harvey had a cup of coffee with the Wings.

I didn't.... Delvecchio played 22 years and was captain. Great. He was never as good as Fedorov and Sergei served as an alternate behind Yzerman for a while. Can't really hold not wearing the C against him given the circumstances. As for Pavel and Z... Fedorov has the Hart/Pearson season in his favor along with 2 Selkes. And Sergei's 120 points was good for 2nd behind only Wayne Gretzky in '94. Rather than comparing numbers compare rankings. Pavel and Z weren't 2nd to the greatest scorer of all time. And Sergei was robbed of the Conn Smythe in '97. And Fedorov was at worst 2nd or 3rd in '98 and '02 as well. During his Red Wing tenure no NHLer picked up more playoff points. It's very easy to hold the '98 holdout and his departure against him, but you have to remember what he did when he was here. It seems far too many people are forgetting or choosing to ignore it because they hold a grudge.

He's Oz' offseason goalie coach that he hired during the lockout to rebuild his game. The players aren't allowed to formally interact with the official coaching staff before training camp per CBA rules so Chris invited him to help run the informal practices. Bedard is still the goalie coach for the Wings.

Always baffling how someone can wander so far into the depths of the internet to actually log into a forum and post without knowing a damn thing about what the internet is all about. For some reason if the above doesn't work try this. The part where it says Discussing Politics you can change that to Discussing Anything...

There is no way you can justify putting Fedorov behind Zetterberg, Datsyuk, or Delvecchio. No way. Terrible Ted is pushing it, but he at least has a claim by being the 2nd best LW of all time.

Gotta love the RWs being listed on the left... Mine... (wingers out of position at times) Fedorov - Yzerman - Howe Lindsey - Delvecchio - Ullman Datsyuk - Zetterberg - Shanahan Abel - Larionov - Aurie Lidstrom - Kelly Goodfellow - Konstantinov Stewart - Pronovost Sawchuk Osgood Bowman

And Lilly was still significantly better. Led all players in hits through the Conference Finals. He made ONE bad mistake when he was hung out to dry behind the net (he didn't have an open outlet for the puck) and got burned for it, but up to and through that play he was easily our 2nd best defenseman that spring.

If we trade a guy because we need to get under the cap we damn well aren't going to add anyone.

Special teams TOI says hello. Z and Pavel only got 15 minutes or so of ES ice time a night. Balance is possible and it will come about. If we're in situations when we need to ride our horses for all their worth they'll be up over 25 minutes night but odds are we won't need to. They're perfectly fine arguments. Babcock should NEVER look at paychecks to make decisions for him. That line of thinking would have kept Franzen and Cleary buried on the 4th line with their tiny salaries. That's not smart coaching. You play your best players in the roles that suit them the best so your team is the most successful it can be. Contracts are completely irrelevant for coaches. Kenny puts together the active roster and Babcock decides who gets to play and how much they play. Period.

That line only came about after Franzen sprained his knee. It was set to be Franzen - Datsyuk - Holmstrom and Hudler - Zetterberg - Samuelsson wasn't it?

Cleary and Filppula (and Sammy for that matter) are tweeners. Passable 2nd liners in a pinch but great 3rd liners. Their contracts reflect that. If they were bonafide top 6 guys they'd be in the upper $3M to $4M+ range. Once you get to $5M you're getting into top line territory. I'd have preferred shaving half a million of their contracts but over 5 years they should provide solid value. The one and only problem their contracts present is for next season. We're fine this season and 2 years from now, but next year will be tight. I'd have preferred signing Fil to a 2 year deal in the Loui Eriksson range so we could squeeze next year's payraises in and then bump him up to $3M or so when Nick's contract looks to shrink a bit.

And Hudler will be signing a bigger contract some time before July 1st as well. Either way, paychecks should never be making coaching decisions. If they fit under the cap and are on the roster, Babcock should ignore paystubs completely. It's what they do on the ice that matters.

Cleary and Fil both have bigger cap hits than Zetterberg. Guess Z is a 3rd liner? Paychecks should never make coaching decisions.

Defense 1 - 12 times 2 - 4 times 3 - 3 times 4 - 3 times 5 - 2 times 6 - 2 times 7 - 5 times 8 - 3 times 9 - 1 time 10+ - 5 times Places 8-10+ are Edmonton's Cups, Pittsburgh's Cups (Mario's teams were horrific on defense bottom 3-4 both years), Tampa's win, and Carolina's win.

Top 20 and climbing.

And you don't think that has anything to do with Pavel being a world class hockey player with elite hockey sense? He can pick up on things relatively quickly when others might not? There are FAR too many blueliners that don't know a damn thing about shot-blocking out there for it to be easy to pick up. It's like open ice hitting. You've got to have a knack for it. Timing, willingness to sacrifice the body, and the ability to see likely shooting lanes and how to get there before the shot gets taken. And again Lilly was a soccer goalie. The need/drive to get any available body part in front of something flying at him is something he's done for most of his life. It's second nature. I'm sure Pavel has worked on his stick handling since he was on double runners. Expecting a guy like Lebda who has shown zero shot-blocking aptitude or Quincey who is almost completely untested at the NHL level to surpass Lilly in shotblocking in half a season is foolhardy to say the very least, hence the Downey/Datsyuk-hands comment. But if it will ease your mind feel free to chalk it up to hyperbole to make a point and move on.

That's a very unfair system you've got there. 1. You should compare primary focuses of the player ie compare AO's offense to Nick's defense and vice versa AO's defense to Nick's offense. Primary focus is a toss up but Nick's offense is decidedly better than AO's defense. 2. Age is completely irrelevant. We're not ranking them for the next 10 years but right here and now. 3. If you toss in speed, physicality, and strengh you may as well toss in positioning, poke-checking, and endurance which Nick would easily win. 4. How about hockey sense? Lidstrom is the smartest player currently in the NHL and IMO 2nd only to Gretzky all time. My reasoning for this? He doesn't have any of the physical attributes you'd expect from an all time great. Physically Nick is decidedly average with the exception of endurance and hand-eye coordination. So what makes him speical? The stuff between the ears. If you're going to compare completely different players you need to take into account their differences and find a way to achieve an honest comparison.

He should have been doing that s*** when he was 13, 14, 15, etc... It's a bit late to try and add a basic skill set like that in your early to mid 20s. Otherwise guys like Downey can hop on youtube and look up Datsyuk highlights and work on stickhandling til they're blue in the face. You either have an aptitude for it or you don't. Q might have it, but you find that s*** out BEFORE you trade away a guy like Lilly.

Stick-handling is a learned talent every bit as much as shot-blocking. Some can do it. Some can't. Players don't just pick up a stick and have Datsyuk/Kovalev hands. They work on that s*** morning, noon, and night. The same goes for any other skill. Homer doesn't have magic tipping/screening skills. He practices non-stop. Some players are incapable or unwilling to pick up said skill.

Not necessarily. Guys like Shawn Horcoff and Sergei Samsonov have taken part in these pre-training camp practices with the Wings.

My argument is that Lilly is our 2nd best PK defenseman and best shot blocker by a considerable margin. For anyone to argue that our depth guys that aren't even remotely close to being as good or tested at the NHL level to eclipse Lilly's abilities within half a season is insanity. Embrace it.