C-TownWing

Nice pull. With all due respect to Z, I felt like he should've had a Conn Smythe too. I for one am f-ing sick of those who say that Ozzie is a beneficiary of the team in front of him. What all-time great goalie--hell, what all-time great player--DIDN'T have a great team in front of him? * Sawchuk during his best years had the Production Line, Red Kelly, etc. * Brodeur had the inventors of the trap. * Plante had the only team to ever win 5 Cups in a row. Richard, Beliveau and tons more HOFers. * Dryden? More of the same. LaFleur, Shutt, Robinson... * Roy spent half of his career with the stacked Avs team that battled us for league domination from the mid-90s until 2002. He gets a lot of deserved credit for elevating the Habs before that, but still, those guys weren't exactly chopped liver either. * Hasek...well, there's a reason I think he's the best ever. He's pretty much the exception. Ozzie's HOF. End of discussion.

Agree...I was pretty much on the fence until this series, but it's our depth that makes us great, not necessarily the stars. Hossa's awesome, but he's not better than 3-4 very good players put together. Every team, even the crappy ones, have 1-2 high end players. The difference is secondary (and tertiary) scoring.

My thoughts as well...good on him for being class if true (I didn't see the thing with Lids and was too busy puking to notice the handshake line).

I agree with this, but I think Boston would give US more issues too. They're more Ducks-ish than any of the teams left. Not the dirty part, just a tough, physical team that plays awesome in their zone. Definitely rooting for the Canes all the way in the East, but they might be out of gas after their first two series. We'll see.

Hilarious that it was Walker, since most think he should've been suspended for this game...

GO WHALERS!

If I was putting together a team of my favorite non-Wings, he'd be the goalie for sure. I don't remember seeing this many close calls in an OT without one going in. Great action for me, stroke-inducing if you're a Bs or Whalercanes fan.

To be honest, I'd settle for one that doesn't pre-empt hockey for golf (see game 5 of our series). Every weekend during the season (not just starting New Year's and not taking every third weekend off) and two every weekend during the playoffs would make me happy. Any takers? Semi-related...I put ESPN2 on for the hell of it (I usually don't watch ESPN except for the games), and in the last 10 minutes they had Matthew Barnaby talking about the game 7s tonight (the Wings got more play than the other 3 teams in that segment), and they're interviewing Jordan Staal right now. WTF is going on here?

While I'm glad we won this one, anyone else think it's a complete joke that for anyone in the US outside of NESN/FS-Carolinas territory, you need to have Center Ice to watch Bruins-Canes? It's game 7, there aren't many teams left, the NHL needs to find a way to deliver its product to the masses. Versus does an ok enough job IMO, but it's just one channel. Us hardcore fans know where to find the other games, but it seems strange to me that we try so hard to grab the casual US fan in some ways, but not in the most important way.

Just a word of friendly advice: get ready to get dogpiled hardcore any time you say something remotely approaching nice about the Pens. To answer the question, yes, I think they're in good shape. There was a point last year, where I thought they'd become the Sens or Lightning in cap hell, but since then they've made some smart moves. Crosby and Malkin are in at reasonable cap numbers for a while. So is Fleury. Staal too for that matter. Basically, they have their stars in and still have the flexibility to keep trying to upgrade their team. They're going to be one of the better teams in the league for about the next 4-5 years, after which this might catch up with them. That said, conference finals every year is asking kind of a lot. Even the Wings, as good as we've been since 1997, have only made the conference finals 5 of 11 seasons. Hopefully 6 of 12 after tomorrow, but that's still only half the time.

Completely ridiculous. Right or wrong, most seven-gamers are defined by how the game 7 goes, and obviously we can't answer that one until late tonight. I was actually surprised to see our 2002 Colorado series as a choice (and coming in 2nd) for that very reason. My non-homer vote goes to 1994 NYR-NJD though.

Agree...the Ducks only have 14 goals in the series (2.33 per game). In 4 of the 6 games, they've only scored 1 or 2. The problem as I see it is that they won two of those games. Shutting down Getzlaf or anyone else ain't the issue here.

Sorry, couldn't resist:

Think the Kings will be able to close out their playoff series?

Nice work NN--this seems to be the point everyone's missing. None of these tough guys would've been on the ice last night, since we were trying to tie it up at the time the horn sounded. The Ducks are stupid, but they're not Carcillo-level stupid. We wouldn't get the chance to beat one of them down tomorrow either.

I hate Carlyle with a passion, but I have to give it to him, he's done a masterful job with matchups--he's gotten his best defensive players on the ice against our top two lines, and it's worked beautifully in their home games. Looking forward to getting last change on Thursday.

There's your silver lining--the Wings-Hawks threads are now buried, at least until Thursday night, maybe forever if we lose. I'll admit guilt for participating, mistake on my part. Karma gave us a nice ***** slap tonight for those.

lol Selanne is the Joe Sakic of the Ducks. The one guy Wings fans don't mind or even like, in spite of the rest of the team.

Damn right. Pissed, hopeful, optimist, pessimist, whatever, doesn't matter. As long as you're there for the team, that's all that matters. The people who bailed after the 2nd on the other hand...

Yes, the championships thing. Actually, that's precisely WHY he's overrated. If simply gravy-training championships made you great, Kirk Maltby is a first-ballot HOF. He's been the best defenseman on his own team maybe three seasons out of his entire career, when Scott Stevens was slowing down, then the one year he was in Anaheim before Pronger showed up.

Good luck getting this skilled giant who can throw at the end of the first round.

+1. Since they actually made it out of the first round this year, he might need to take a couple months off next season. Most overrated player in NHL history.

On a side note, Getzlaf IS a *****. So Datsyuk wins.

Yeah, that whole "your best players have to be your best players" thing isn't exactly our mantra right now. Franzen is the f-ing man though.

Yeah, Avs in 02. Swept in 03, then we had like 7 six-game series in a row from 04 first round until we swept the Avs last year. Two more six-gamers, another sweep, and here we are.