akustyk

Lang must deliver in playoffs to show Holland and other GM's that he still has it. 2006-07 regular season was not exactlyt the brightest of his career and so far he has not earned his contract. we can put some blame for this on him, or look at his constant line partner Williams anmd his uninspired play, but the fact remains the same: he has not given his agent good arguments to negotiate for big bucks. which is why I hope Langer will show his best in playoffs. he'll have to play like a Conn Smythe winner to justify that bold 3.8 M$ for me, though

that's a wrong thinking. le'ts give Pavel a chance, and Hank a chance, and Nick a chance, and Lang a chance, and ... and we end up with like 35 megabucks in 5 players. with 12 to fill remaining 15 roster spots and some other players in minors to fill lineup holes. which virtually means 5 quality players and a bunch of AHL-ers (since we have few valuable youngsters in the system to play quality hockey and take relatively little money). pretty f*d if you ask me, and it places us on the line with this year's Capitals or Blackhawks. except, they have better youth I don't like the idea of spending big money this way. good thing here is Kenny did it with Hank and Kronwall locked so their agent's are not going to be pain in Holland's ass for some time. but the precedent here is not to my liking anyway. we can't allow putting huge money in just a couple of players

yeah... but this is the part of the risk here. he takes 6 M$ which is big now, and with the cap rising should still be fine for league top players. and if he blossoms to be 100 pt scorer and the cap rises to max 10 M$ player salary - that would be Ken Holland's win. and if Greenstin doesn't like this - f* him then. there's no renegotiation so it's his greedy job to ensure good money now. which is about what he's done, because no way Datyuk is worth those 6 M$ under current salary cap and under his current playoff performance (http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php3?pid=49097) it's Holland's gamble here. there's a fair chance it'll pay off (unless Datsyuk pulls a Yashin, or Buttman finds another "very brillant" idea to down this league even more). the rising salary cap argument makes me a believer, but it's still a risky move from Holland. a move that we'll judge in 2-3 years.

oh, and BTW: this will make Hank agent demand similar money. and it either means we'll have to dump him, or have 12~14 M$ stacked for just 2 players, which means the rest of our forward corps will consist of guys making 1 M$ on average. and that won't be youth, since we barely have some in the system read: we'll have a single quality scoring line (if Holland finds some physical presence for it) and 3 mediocre checking lines. cool... just f* cool...! call me pesimist, but our future doesn't exactly look bright to me. or rather: it looks like s***. hope I'm wrong, though

fu* bulls* they sign him prior to the playoffs for a very long term and for huge bucks... my respect to Holland just dropped a lot. not a very smart move IMHO. if you're looking for another Yashin-story here it is, with quite a likelihood

I'd rather see both off. however, Montreal deserves it more to be off. I can't stand how Carbonneau and his staff ruin yet another career (Samsonov, couple of years ago it was Czerkawski) and put the blame on those. get f* real pricks and start thinking in term of team success not well-being of French-Canadian players

Go Pens! and, unlike most (pressumably) people here, I do believe they stand a good chance. I mean.. against the St Louis Blues of the Eastern Conference... when was the last time they went to conference finals?

there's difference between regular season and playoffs. those 3rd period efforts from regular season are IMHO tactics. I mean: do the least to win it. if you play good level only last 20 minutes this is where you risk the other team bullying it, and you also give your players 40 minutes of "practice" rather than wearing it down. this keeps you fresh through the season. now come playoffs time - you play to win those 4 games. against tough team like Flames we will have to watch out and not push too early to not ask for trouble (unleashing the goons that is). but there's definitely no room for 2 periods of "sleep mode" any more. it's gonna require much more effort I wonder why...

you mean like we sucked badly those 2 games against Canucks at home? and somewhere about period 2 of Game 2 the very Dom was cheered by JLA after making child-easy saves just kidding we started rather slowly back in 2002 and we were lucky enough to face Dan Cloutier who let's goals from the center ice, to rebound. but that initial slow start could as well have cost us that series, so you can't really judge it after who and how rests before playoffs. plus: 2002 was a different era in the NHL. the playing field is much flatter now with salary sombrero

dito what DetroitNativePride says. we don't need Nick against Hawks. we get this single point needed to finish 1st in the West anyway, and it's not worth to expose him right before playoffs

security? I mean like: flushing 20k people through the gates within say 5 minutes is not exactly the same as doing it with 30k. if the only way to achieve the same level of security (gates` throughput in case of massive spectator`s escape) is scaling up the design, then you end up with an area having seats that far from the ice, that the view would be extremely poor. and you most certainly can not compress people more densely(sp?) on the same area as for 20k - in addition to security problem you also have ventilation(?) issue, medical assistance ability to reach certain places quickly etc. there's not a chance you'd get an allowance to build something like that

just like my predecessors indicated: it's not worth to put him against Blackhawks. teams like them or Blues which subsequently suck and miss playoffs tend to be a pain in the ass for playoff contenders (see: Blues fighting Stars like crazy for god knows what reason) and sometimes go as far as taking liberties in the name of "showing'em". classic small dick syndrome, but unfortunately it is to be taken into account Chicago might not be that much willing to go with such crap as St Louis, but I'd still keep my best players off the ice. and most certainly in such meaningless games. Zet is off the ice and returns to Game 1, and it's perfectly fine. we need him fit for playoffs and regular season doesn't really count at this moment.

you have to put it into a perspective. and that would be that Burke was most likely to cook another trade involving some of his toughness for .... . it didn't go through for some reason, but Burke was IMHO buying May for some other reason than just adding muscle having said that - Burke is a good GM. he works to improve his team every way he can. he did not have the ultimate success, but this may change soon. his Duckies are capable of making it this year

the difference is this is not a single game but the best-of-seven. and they're most certainly capable of wearing us down, not to mention to hunt down our top scorers. and Kipper, if not on a bubble, is still one hell of a goalie

my point was that at his retirement ceremony Stevie mentioned Probbie and Kocur right at the begining of all acknowledgments. not guys like Larionov, Nick, Dom, Shanny, but very much these tough guys in first order. mine (but also of several other people here) impression was that he was pressuring Holland to "get the f* something done"

you don't need a very tough team to be able to compete against physical teams like Ducks or Flames for instance. you just have to be able to continue playing your game despite other team's gooning it up. and you don't need to be as physicall as them. prior to deadline Wings were able to stick to their gameplan even with other teams being pain in the ass. I'm not saying they were able to play on their level of toughness, but still managed to force their game. but this is just a single game and playoffs are obviously a different song addition of Bertuzzi and Calder gives as additional muscle and makes the team better against physical teams. is this enough to survive best of seven against tougher and dirtier teams - we'll have to see the game, the refs (how they swallow whistles), etc. I can see some chance here. IMHO, better than before trade deadline

thanks for correction. didn't even know and the "German" sound of Heineken made me think it's from the land of Wurst and Polizei

- hey, Matty, take your wife and kids to Wallmart tonight, we'll make it without you! - thanks coach. wanna me to fetch a 6-pack of some German beer? - sure, Matty. Heineken will do good for me. - no problem, coach. will bring you them for tomorrow practice. - sure. now move! - aye!

I did. before the season started I saw Wings battling around this 6th spot. this was supposed to be a transition year before we start with youth (like our ex-Wings Joey Mac for example) but it turned out to work good. I got a lot of respect to Kenny at this recent trade deadline. I love how he played hardball and waited for those most expensive guys to flush, and then picked up two strong trades, making his Wings better and not sacrificing any of our future. that's great in my book. and I think he finally listened to the people around him (and I most certainly mean Steve Yzerman praising Probbie and Kocur in first place at his retirement ceremony ) and got some very much needed toughness - at a very good price and without shaking team chemistry nor Babcock's "schema".

I really can't pick. I don't like Flames. we can win a fair series against them, but when a Canadian team gets to playoffs refs forget about fair whistling I don't like any Californian team for the similar reason. the league wants their success so badly, that all questionable calls will go their way and I most certainly don't think Minnesota is the easiest team to face. they are playoff inexperienced, but their goalie and tight defense can make this team a hell to beat. thanks a lot, I skip on that

those 3 together? oh no...

Larry Robinson was a coach who knew what he was doing. is Lou one like that? Lamiorello is a very serious guy and what he does - does make sense. but this time... I'll have to wait to judge. that's a very bad signal to the team right before playoffs

you can hate this prick and his attitude, but that's one hell of an accomplishment and if you see a photo at TSN featuring him beating the very Darcy F*cker... you can't just not acknowledge his strong game. just when his team is fighting for a good playoff spot... still don't like you, punk, but you had a great game! and you bang Elisha :/

Hull's been Pavel linemate for some time and I could believe this rumour has some essence as Brett can IMHO know something more than it's being said in public. whether Datsyuk does want to leave Wings because of Babcock is another question. I don't see him having a superstar attitude and I think he's well aware that Detroit gives him a good chance to play a great game and enjoy hockey and earn good money, while leaving to another city could make some of this factor(s) worse. my biggest concern for now is how Datyuk will perform in playoffs and what his greedy Meehan(?) will ask Holland to pay. if I'm correct Meehan already raped Smyth and pretty much made the trade to Islanders. I hope Datsyuk is more aware of the "hockey world beyond money and ego" and he's reasonable with this issue. I don't want him to leave just to get more money but loose fun of playing game and compete at high level. he's better than this

Go Wild! according to my calculations, Wild win officially eliminates Dives from playoffs. I just can't wait for this moment...