YoungGuns1340

His point is that we have no fighters on this squad. And no one is going to give anything more than a facewash if it comes down to it. Gary Roberts is as much piss and vinegar as Chelios is, with a knack for a good fight in him still. Any of our guys drops em clean with Roberts and at best we're in for a draw. You know what that does? Energize the Pens. Gary Roberts was a healthy scratch last game. Any player he fights with, hes going to be less important to the Pens going to the box than whatever player he takes with him. Dont give the Pens anything, anything to latch on to. The Granddaddy and assistant captain of your team getting down and dirty with plenty of time left on the clock wouldve gotten that Penguins bench buzzing.

You lose all right to ***** about officiating after you take cheapshots when your team is down and out instead of regrouping and playing harder. The penalties wouldnt have been so lopsided if the Penguins hadnt been so stupid and undisciplined. And lets face it. If they did possession statistics like they do in soccer sometimes, itd show the Wings having a wide edge in possession. And as we all know, its harder to take penalties when you have the puck, then when youre chasing it around all night.

I actually really liked the way Lilja played. He pretty much kept it simple all night, played with composure, and didnt really make any bonehead plays. Hes not a bad #6 to have at all when youre not asking him to do much with the puck. I think now that we have the Stuart and Kronwall pairing, its become pretty apparent to Lilja that we dont need him to go too out of his way to give us a big hit or a tricky outlet pass. He just did his job as a depth Dman. I was pleasantly surprised. And to be honest, Chelios was earning my vote for worst performance in the playoffs with that Dallas series. He was brutal.

No. There won't be any games in Pittsburgh. Wings in 2.

1. IF they were forced to get rid of players, it was because they weren't making enough money. Where does a lot of that money come from? fans. Who were non-existant. I wasn't born yesterday. I've seen many Pens games pre-Crosby, and that arena is a freaking desert with few jerseys spotted in the stands. 2. They're fans continued to show up even when they were horrible? Is that why they couldnt rank higher than 22nd pre-Crosby? 3. Mellon arena is so bad? Youre preaching to the choir. The Joe is also one of the oldest arenas in the NHL, and its more or less a warehouse. Yet you dont see Wings fans using that as an excuse. If Pens fans care so much about the arena that it turns them off from the game, then that says a lot about the fan base. 4. Tell me how many of Columbus, Atlanta, Phoenix, Chicago, and Florida have had a chance at nabbing Crosby with the no-brainer #1 pick? Let me tell you: None. Tell me how many of those teams had a top 2 no-brainer pick in one of the deepest drafts in years and were able to have their choice between Ovechkin and Malkin? Let me tell you: None. Pittsburg has had THE BEST drafting positions for the past five years, bar none. You only get that by sucking. 5. I like how you come up with phantom ideas of other posters to make your idiotic and untrue statements seem realistic. Thankfully, the majority of the posters on this board are smart and informed and have a skill called reading comprehension. Unfortunately for you, you cleary don't. Cause nowhere in my post did I even IMPLY that Pittsburg should suck forever. But becuase youre intellect cant seem to account for itself, I will spell it out for you: Pittsburg sucked so hard and so long that they built up a slew of superstars who were sure-fire winners. THATS how why they're in the finals.

Their team deserves credit for their turnaround?? Uhhhhh....WHAT? There are a lot of teams that deserve credit for improving. Not ones that suck complete and utter you know what for a few years that allow them to get top 5 picks like snickers bars from a vending machine. Take away Crosby and Malkin and they're again, a last place team. Sucking so bad that you get thrown in the draft lottery for the #1 pick year after year is not something you deserve credit for. Pittsburg has TWO First overalls, TWO second overalls, and ONE fifth overall. How do you build up that kind of young talent? Sucking. And for the record, the Pens have more FIRST OVERALL PICKS on their roster than Detroit has first players who were picked by Detroit in the first round.

Eh? Im not sure who that is aimed at. If its in reference to this thread, then I will have you know none of us actually *play* for the Red Wings. Although you may be surprised by this fact, I can assure you its true. In fact, as surprising as it is, our attitude as fans actually has little bearing on what the actual attitude of the current Red Wings squad is. If at any time you would like to request to see some self indentification of mine, I can provide it, in order to verify that I am not, in fact, the devilishly handsome Henrik Zetterberg (although I am equally as dashing) or the smurf-like Jiri Hudler and am therefore not a current Red Wing player galavanting around a forum spouting off in an over-confident manner. As a side-note, you wont find a *less* over-confident team right now than the Red Wings. I know young Pens fans may not know this, but this current Red Wings team features many players who have bother suffered disappointing first and second round exits, as well as having endured long, tough stretches to reach a Stanley Cup. They know the right attitude to have, and the right amount of confidence as well. I'd bet my ass that there are zero players in the Red Wings locker room mulling over how they made Turco look like a sieve or how they all got their little Western Conference Champ hats. This is a veteran squad, and they are well aware that they can be humbled quickly.

This is true, but this is the finals - the finals for a guy that was having it all go easy for him when he went down. Hockey isnt frustrating for this guy right now. The only thing frustrating for Franzen is probably the fact that hes been without headaches for a week and has nothing else wrong with him other than a Doctors call as to when he can come back. I think Franzen is going to be raring to go when the puck drops, and we could see his timing come back even in the course of his first game back. Although I expect conditioning to be a little rough for him the first game, but it shouldnt be a problem after that.

I agree. The irony of this whole "defenses are equal" series is that Pitts best Dman may not even be better than our 2nd Dman. Gonchar is having a great season, but Lidstrom is all-star, Rafalski is still easily top 10, and Kronwall has been...honestly, I'm speechless for how this kid has played. Hes been INCREDIBLE. And we havent even started talking about Stuart and his chemistry with Kronwall. From the games Ive seen, Id say our 2nd pairing is AS GOOD AS Pittsburgs #1.

I gotta agree with NFM on this one. IMO, Turco was set on getting that win at the Joe. Call me crazy, but I think Turco was a man possessed because he had finally gotten sick of hearing how hes never won at the Joe. Playing for U of M, it probably hit close to home for him. That drive, coupled with it being a playoff game, made it his best performance of the entire series. He was going to get that win no matter what. I dont care if Crosby and Malkin were our 3rd and 4th line centers to Datsyuk and Zetterberg in that game. We weren't going to win it. If we became unmotivated, it was only because Turco killed our spirit.

Dont wanna play captain obvious here, but its a lot easier to get your game back when youre overcoming HEADACHES as opposed to KNEE INJURIES. He hasnt had to make concessions in his skating or his workouts to alleviate pressure on a specific body part. Timing and Legs are all he needs to get back, and those sort of things can be rectified in a few games, rather than a few weeks when you have an actual limb injury you are contending with.

As long as Mule comes back for game 3, then Im happy. Hank - Dats - Homer Flip - Franzen - Cleary Those are TWO GREAT shutdown lines that are going to be very much needed with the first change.

Yeah I saw this on the news today and I was pissed, especially since Im on vacation right now. Could've done, but didnt hear a word about this til it was over.

Does anyone remember when Kronwall had to play with the cage after the nose injury? He maintained the entire time that it was really hard to see the puck when it was on his stick or around his feet. I remember his game improved a lot after he got the cage off (before going down with the sacrum injury). Im betting the same thing will happen with Cleary. It was pretty obvious how much trouble he was having with the puck in close.

A little update guys. I've spent the last few weeks making a move from South America back to the States, so I haven't had a lot of time on my hands to spend on this boards. I assumed anyways that with the way the playoffs have been going, wed just wait til the playoffs are over to get this thing started back up, just like other people stated. Also, for those of you who have PMed me, sorry for taking so long in getting back to you.

Dallas had some good pressure there, but Detroit did a great job of keeping the Stars to the outside. In fact, the stars havent had ANYTHING in front of the net all night. Edit: oops.

Why are the Versus announcers acting like Dallas is taking it to the Wings physically? Wings are in this thing big time and are at the very least matching the Stars, if not winning the physical battle.

Or Babcock gave Cheli and Lebda a few extra minutes.

Yeah I love that. Well, Dallas only had a 4 day rest. Im going to start using that one for work. "Yeah, sorry boss. I need more than th4 days to recover from this hangover. Cant come in today."

Jesus how many excuses are they going to come up with for Dallas. "Well, Detroit is only winning because they've scored on their PPs and Dallas hasn't"

Homer is having a monster game. Cheli is a PK specialist. It pains me to see him 5 on 5. Zetterberg needs to stop trying to take on the world. Chris Osgood is taking this team to the promised land.

Brian Engblom "I thought Holmstroms goal was goaltender interference". I can guarantee if there were another name on the back of Homers jersey, no one would be uttering goaltender interference.

Is it just me or do the Versus guys have excuses for everything Dallas does. And then they dont point out how Dallas only scored because of the lucky bounce?

He got traded from San Jose as a key part in the Joe Thornton trade. He was a valuable piece then. Boston wanted him in the deal. Then Boston traded him to a playoff bound team as a UFA. Then he didnt re-sign with Calgary cause he didnt play very well and wasnt a good fit for the squad, plus he wanted to head to Cali where his girlfriend was. Then he got traded again from LA as an upcoming UFA to another playoff-bound team. There isnt really an underlying issue with this guy. Just gets caught on the end of trades he doesnt particularly like it seems. And can you blame the guy? When he was stuck in Boston, LA...those teams were/are going nowhere. I think Stuarts liking his time with Detroit. "Oh, so this is what it feels like to win..."

For those debating the ¨points¨issues of agents, there are NO points for Agents and they are not ranked. It would be incredibly subjective and complicated to rank agents, but if someone wants to add that part to the game, go for it. But the way I saw it in the beginning, there were no rankings for GMs. They simply play their role as they would in the real NHL.