C-TownWing

Great post. This is a huge reason why I'm not as worried about the Ducks as most of you--their big shutdown line (R. Niedermayer-Pahlsson-Moen) was so key for them in '07, and it no longer exists. They also don't have quite the same depth on the blueline as they did then, IMO. I might be inviting trouble/bad karma with this, but even as well as Hiller's playing, I'd rather face him than the Giguere of 2003 or 2007. I also have 100% confidence that the Wings win a best-on-best matchup with any team in the league.

Regardless of Wings opponents, you have to love watching these guys gag yet again. Absolutely no heart on that team. But I'm sure they'll be the consensus Cup pick next year even if they lose this series.

Geez, don't the Canucks play into this at all? I'm not too keen on facing Luongo and a team that looks like they'll be coming off a short series.

For completely selfish reasons, good luck to your Ducks! I'm looking forward to Nucks-Blues, just because Vancouver's looking like the likely next-round opponent, unless Anaheim pulls the upset. Luongo looks almost Ozzie-like right now, so I'm hoping the Blues can crawl back into it at home. I wouldn't mind seeing Philly make it a series either.

The part where he said Ozzie hasn't been challenged was a head-scratcher, since he pretty much bailed us out early in game 1, and also had some big-time stops last night. You can tell they thought they were on our level based on the season series, but didn't realize that we had another gear. Now they've resorted to saying Osgood sucks, except in a mainstream-journalism-acceptable way. They're desperate and grasping at straws.

This is it right here. There's not a single thing in the game of hockey that Datsyuk doesn't do at the highest level, and that includes hitting. Hell, it might include fighting too, can't wait to find out. Anyone who says the Wings are boring to watch clearly doesn't understand how amazing this guy is.

As long as I'm in here, I might as well tell the OP that I like his take on the Penguins story. Sucking your way into a bunch of high draft picks and not screwing it up is being cleverly disguised as organizational genius by Bettman. Congrats to them for being smart enough to be the worst team in the league and winning the lottery in Crosby's year, then knowing how to count their money when the success-starved fans there came back (and watched on TV) in droves. Like I said in the thread we had about it, Garth Snow will be called a great GM and Charles Wang a great owner within 5 years if Tavares lives up the hype. It'll be no more true then than it is now, but winning tends to get people overrated in a big way.

Ok, I give up, I was trying to do a side-by-side on the old and new NFL logos, but it's not that big of a deal. Basically, they changed the font of the NFL letters, reduced the number of stars, changed the angle of the football at the top and streamlined the shield shape. For the NHL, I actually like the current one better. Silver and black is sharp and works for hockey.

The only problem I see is that Commodore wasn't wearing it in the infamous money picture.

Yeah, you're right...I came to that horrible realization last night when I couldn't watch the game on Versus. Here's hoping this series is way closer to 4 games than 7.

After thinking about it a little, I think it's always the newer markets that go over the top with the homerishness. Why? Because they're trying to sell the team in an area still deciding whether they want to buy. I had this epiphany during the 3rd period, when all those guys said was basically: 1. The Jackets took it to the Wings early. 2. Hitch is a great coach and will make adjustments. 3. All we need is a split in Detroit and we'll have done what we need to do. 4. Rinse and repeat about 17 times. The translation to all that is "please, please, please tune in on Saturday...and buy tickets for games 3 and 4 while you're at it." More established teams do stuff like that too, but the newer ones take it to another level.

Well, I went 4/4 on my rooting interests tonight. Sweet. I have to get up in like 3.5 hours so I gotta bail...work oughta be a blast tomorrow...hoping I can earn LNC cred for the effort.

I just had this exact thought before refreshing this thread. The national people shouldn't use local telecasts. Mooch CBC and TSN to save money, fine by me.

YEEEEEAH BOOOOOYYYY!!!!

I actually thought it was the Crawford way forever, and the "Na-baw-kawv" people drove me crazy. In fact, now that I think about it, it maybe have been one of those infamous pronounciation changes...I'm pretty sure it was "Nab-uh-kawv" back when he was with the Cleveland Lumberjacks (cheap plug for local defunct minor league team there).

Well said...it's unfortunate that we as a sports society can't think in varying shades of gray anymore. It's always someone lazy and sucking or someone OWNZ YOU!!!11!! No room for anything between. My attitude is that Ozzie's earned the benefit of the doubt based on the past, so when he said he'd be there in the playoffs, I believed him. But at the same time, that doesn't mean I wasn't pooping my pants fearing more of what we saw in the regular season. Tonight was an expected unexpected surprise for me, which I realize makes zero sense.

Anaheim definitely made the right call in net...still trying to figure out why most of you wanted to avoid these guys though. Sure there's the travel, but if you finish your series a week early, that doesn't make that much difference.

Yeah, the Hawks were pretty much all over them for the last 10 and OT. I want to catch the replay again to look at the interference, I missed it before...

So much for that lol... Props to Bill Patrick...he said "keep an eye on Havlat" right before going back to the game.

OT it up! Flames are damn lucky periods aren't 25 minutes or they'd be done. Now they get the intermission to get their legs back.

Kiprusoff with a game-saver on Kane just now on a 2-on-1.

Starting to look like it with 4:30 left...

Nice effort by Havlat...

How does that even work? Who are they yelling it at? Seems kind of hard to put your finger on it when the game hasn't even started yet. Kiprusoff with a couple great saves back in Chicago. Just about 8 left.

Right. Kick out ourselves, the Jackets (obviously) and the Sharks (can't have 1 vs. 2 in the 2nd round). It's also impossible for us to play the Blues. If we win and the Blues win, the only possibilities for the advancing seeds are 1, 2, 4/5, 6 or 2, 4/5, 6, 8. In the first scenario, we play Calgary/Chicago, in the 2nd we play Anaheim.