norrisnick

Yup. Kenny only wants to carry 22 players unless an extra forward forces his hand.

Don't bother trying to understand him. You'll only give yourself a headache.

The reason he won't be playing is because he's not a better player than a single one of the at least 12 forwards in front of him. All he has to do is be the 12th best forward (offensively and/or defensively) and he'd win himself a contract and a roster spot. He's not. So he won't. If Kenny didn't want him to play, he wouldn't have invited him. Kenny gave him a shot. Downey didn't do enough with it.

Whatever. A fighter who can't/won't/shouldn't/etc... play is completely worthless. The Wings are a contending team. A guy like Downey is not going to be playing. If a guy isn't playing, I don't care if he's Rocky on skates. He's useless.

You still don't get it. Desperately clinging to a worthless player (he's averaged 26 games per season in his NHL "career" and there's a reason this is his 6 different team he's gone to for training camp in the last 8 years) because he vaguely resembles the type of player you want on the team isn't going to fix anything. Sure he keeps getting chances, but he never does anything with it to warrant keeping him. He's a borderline 4th liner. Good enough to get a look, but not good enough to stick. If he were at all worth hanging on to, he wouldn't bounce around like that, and he'd have more than 183 career games in 7 seasons. Downey isn't any better than nobody because he can't and won't crack the roster. Like I addressed your bar experiment, it doesn't work because Downey won't be standing there behind anyone. A fighter who can't play is completely worthless.

And Aaron Downey will make the Wings feel like the cock of the walk? Right. And I don't get all these names you're bringing up. They could all PLAY. That's the entire point here. Probert was an all-star, Domi could skate liike a fiend, defend, and chip in offensively, Mac was a 15G 40P guy, Clark Gillies is a flippin' Hall of Famer. As for your hypothetical, having a big tough friend doesn't help if he's not behind you. Downey wouldn't be behind anyone as he wouldn't crack the roster. I doubt there is anyone on these boards that hoped we'd get a bonafide Clark Gillies more than me. Or a prime coked out Probert. Hell, I'd settle for a prime McCarty. Who wouldn't want a legit heavyweight that could play and produce on your top scoring line?

That crosscheck is a play Chelios has made 20 times a game for 20+ years now. It sucks that Z tweaked his back, but that is not something Stuart would have thought twice about. Even if we had a Boogaard out there (not that he would have been on the ice anyway). Four. But it doesn't really change anything. If Igor were lazy would he have fought his way back to even this point? The RSL is a FAR slower, far more defensive, far more deliberate league. Longer slower shifts with more tactical side to side passing than the more north-south NHL game. Here you go balls to the wall for 30-45 seconds then get off the ice. Not so in Russia or most other European leagues. If you've been conditioned to pace yourself, you're gonna look like s*** in a situation where you have to give it 110% for a minute every couple minutes or so. Igor wasn't prepared for it. That's on him. BUT, had the Wings had his visa in order he would have figured that out during the summer rather than during training camp and perhaps this wouldn't be an issue. Unless he really were lazy (which I doubt).

And? If I did, I probably would have been a fighter, so what? That doesn't change the fact that I disagree with hanging on to a player that can't play, but he can fight (sorta). It doesn't help anything. Particularly on a team like the Wings. Downey will not make the Wings the Broadstreet Bullies. Downey will not bring us back to the days when Probert and Joey were prowling around. Nor even the '97 team that featured truly multi-dimensional tough players like Konstantinov, Shanahan, Lapointe, McCarty, Kocur, Pushor, etc... The Wings are and will continue to be for the forseeable future, a skill based, defensively sound, puck possession team. Period. Adding a scrub on the 4th line (or the press box which is where Downey would be anyway), will not change anything. How? As for the Grigorenko part, I'm going to shamelessly steal someone else's sentiments on that. You do not come back from what he came back from by being lazy. He wasn't as prepared as he should have been (likely because he couldn't make it to the conditioning camp during the summer because of visa issues, which are the team's responsibility, not the player's), but it isn't unreasonable to chalk that up to the differences between the RSL and NHL. Two completely different animals even though they both involve ice and puck.

Accident. Right. Dan just didn't want to face another season without an NHL goalie behind him! Get well soon, Dan!

Who sits for Ellis and Downey? Maltby, Drake, or Kopecky? The answer? No one. So if they don't play, they're beyond worthless, so you might as well hang on to Igor and whip him into shape. Losing Grigorenko back to Russia so Aaron F'n Downey can sit in the stands would be monumentally stupid.

Not enough to validate the existence of a fighter that can't play the game of hockey. Now if a guy can take a regular shift, not be a defensive nightmare, and not be afraid of the puck by all means sign and use the guy. Provided of course he's a better hockey player than at least one of the other 18 skaters we've got slated for the active roster.

You beg to differ, but you clearly didn't understand what I wrote. And really, the quotes you laid out there don't really counter what I wrote either. Enforcers don't prevent anything (apart from maybe goal scoring by their own line). They can only react. And reacting won't matter either, because as I stated in my post the types of guys that go out there running anyone and everyone and don't care whether they do so within the bounds of the rule book, also don't care whether there is an enforcer on the other side. A question for you. A couple days ago we played the Wild. Boogaard took a massive run at Downey well behind the play and had he caught him flush likely would have taken his head off (luckily Booger is a tad slow and even Downey is quicker). What pray tell would it take to keep Boogaard honest? Giving Cheli a concealed carry license so he can take his shifts packing a .45? Boogaard obviously doesn't care who is out there. The only thing a fight would do is keep him off the ice for 5 minutes, but as it stands his own coach would do that anyway as he only takes 2 shifts a period or so. Or Avery? He doesn't care. Ruutu? Doesn't care. Tootoo? Doesn't care. Marchment never cared. Lemieux never cared. Ulf never cared. Etc... The guys that teams need to worry about, either don't mind fighting or will duck fights anyway.

Over Sopel? Gladly. They'll both make mistakes, but with Meechie you've got a shot that he'll learn from it. Sopel is beyond developing into a steady defenseman. Easy money is on Lebda. Bernie gets trainwrecked like it's going out of style. ps: We could have a 4th line consisting of Boogaard, Laraque, and McGrattan and cheap hits would still happen. Why you ask? Because the kinds of guys that dish out cheap hits don't give a s*** whether you're carrying a goon or not. They never have and never will.

If it were one of those "if someone holds a gun to your head..." situations, I think I'd take the bullet.

The same reason Lidstrom, Z, Hudler, Rafalski, Kronwall, etc... aren't playing. The team got cut in half. One of the top 2 lines and bottom 2 lines played today, as well as a handful of likely defensemen, and I'm guessing the other set play next. No need to fret. Just a little tightness in the groin, if you know what I mean... They won't. People worry about it every year, but every year they're back to the regular curved style.

Neither is Boogaard anymore.

With Cherevpovets in '06, I believe, he was playing at around 215lbs. And the RSL is a FAR slower, more deliberate, defensive league. Longer slower shifts.

Easy there, Nancy. I was merely correcting your info. No need to get all offended.

Jack MF Johnson is a King. Eric not-MF Johnson is a Blue and he should be much better than Kronner.

I'd say Kindl has a very good shot at becoming a better NHLer than Kronwall. He has all the necessary tools. Now he just needs to put it all together.

He's an elite skater. That's about it. And rather than concerning himself with Kronwall, he'd be best served keeping an eye on the guys coming up behind him (Kindl, Ericsson, Quincey, and Meech). Any one or all of them could pass him in a hurry.

Luckily it sounds like Babcock hasn't turned his back on Igor just yet.  Igor Grigorenko has had problems of late. He impresses with his puck skills, but his skating and conditioning are question marks. “The big thing with Igor is every time he touches the puck something good happens,†Babcock said. “In saying that, in order to touch the puck, you’ve got to be able to skate. Conditioning is a huge part of that.†Babcock said the Wings will need to be patient. “It’s his first time over (in North America) and Pavel (Datsyuk) is explaining everything to him out there,†Babcok said. “It’s a process mentally and physically and it is going to take him some time.†From RWC.

He might get a seat in the pressbox if he's exceedingly lucky if Igor gets sent to GR for a couple week conditioning stint, but I highly doubt he'd play in any games. Who is Babcock going to sit for him? Drake? Maltby? Kopecky (his pet project)? Not a chance. If Downey suits up for the Wings on opening night, something went horribly wrong at training camp.

And completely ignore the two months just prior...

Think he'll be good to great for a long while. He'll never get to the point of where Lidstrom is now, but he should be a solid #1/#2 type guy on a good team. Considering we've got another #1/#2 type guy coming down the pipe in Kindl (as well as a trio of #3/#4 guys in Ericsson, Quincey, Meech), I'm not worried about our future defense (barring further catastrophic injuries).