datsyukonethree

I'm going to go with Boyd Devereaux.

I've got to say, I'm a little surprised by this thread. I guess I just see things differently. In my opinion, and I watch the team a fair bit, the gung-ho offensive attitude is a product of Boudreau's system more than anything else. You make it sound like the whole team is a bunch of hooligans who have never played a lick of defensive hockey in their lives. That's just not the case. The Caps have some of the hardest working depth forwards in the league in Steckel, Bradley, Laing, Gordon, Chimera, and now Belanger. And the stars' defensive abilities are vastly underrated. Backstrom is great in his own end and Ovechkin, when he senses danger, backchecks as furiously as he does anything in the offensive zone. Yes, Boudreau's system does emphasize offense, but it's not all lackadaisical "oh well, we'll just score another goal" as you make it out to be. The system emphasizes moving the puck forward. The farther away you are from your own goal, the better you limit your opponent's chances. As you've probably noticed, the Caps run a much more aggressive breakout than the Red Wings, and it's not because the players are all goal-hungry, it's because the system mandates a fast breakout that puts defenses on their heels and requires the opposing forwards to expend energy backchecking instead of playing offense. Their 214 GA at the moment is third worst among all playoff-bound teams currently, which is troubling, but they have a +78 goal differential (+28 higher than the second best team) and their 109 points with seven games remaining would seem to indicate that the system is pretty damn effective given the right personnel, which they have. So I guess if you wanna hate, hate the system, not the team. Obviously, nothing's proven until the playoffs are over, and it could wind up that Boudreau's system never sees success in the playoffs and never produces a Cup. But for now, it'd be a shame not to enjoy the most exciting team in the sport.

He's a nice guy in person, even if he does have a hard on for the Penguins.

Always liked Eaves. Thumbs up to this signing.

#13 is taken, so it's not gonna happen.

Mark Cullen, the prospect/depth player. Not Matt Cullen, the speedy Carolina center.

Thankfully not Mikael Samuelsson.

Damn. I thought for sure we'd work it out and he'd be back. I'll miss Hudler, but I still believe we'll be fine without him (and Samuelsson, and Hossa).

At first I was like, "Hell no." But now that I think about it, for $800k or whatever it would probably take to sign him, I'd risk it.

Seriously? Take a look at that and give me one good reason that San Jose should accept that trade.

Abdelkader rules.

In DC they don't have to give out anything to make everyone show up in red. Just sayin'.

Hahaha. This is fantastic. I'm pulling for you.

It seems like the three teams in freefall right now (Ottawa, Pittsburgh, and Dallas) all had locker room issues at the root of their problems (Emery, Therrien, and Avery).

Whatever he does in the confines of the game (Brodeur incident), I'm fine with. This is not part of the game, it's a classless personal attack, and totally out of line.

We should trade Datsyuk for the boneheaded OT giveaway too.

Ah, hilarious. God bless Pavel Datsyuk and Alex Ovechkin, the most quotable Russians since Mogilny.

Fedorov. I remember his amazing skating ability standing out to me even when I was completely new to hockey.

I would have been really tempted to poop in it, but that's probably not worth losing your job over. If I had any Wings gear on I would have donated it to his bag and bought a replacement.

I was a huge fan of Elias-Arnott-Sykora and Konowalchuk-Halpern-Dahlen back in the day. Oh, and York-Lindros-Fleury was freaking amazing while it lasted.

Olie Kolzig's. The old one before he switched to the mecha-Zilla.

Damn straight.

The Penguins.

Yeah, I stopped reading after that sentence. If you don't think Chicago is going to be a very serious contender in the coming years, you don't know jack s*** about hockey.

Well they can't get much worse, so I'm going to go with "about the same."