haroldsnepsts

Two games. Pierre LeBrun ‏@Real_ESPNLeBrun Confirming 2 game suspension for Taylor Hall Shanaban explanation: http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=205016&cmpid=nhl-twt

They do so many nutty things to themselves, I'm not sure they can be screwed with. They signed Tim Thomas to take on his cap hit and get up to the floor even though he'll never play for them. That's hard to top. And only three more years on that Yashin contract!

I know what you're saying, but that's essentially what the left wing lock was. The left Wing drops back and becomes a third d-man. To play that formation all the time and with three dmen would probably be an ugly thing to see.

I agree about the penalty thing. I have no problem with him or Ericsson or almost anyone really on the Wings blueline if they take a penalty for crosschecking the spleen out of a guy in the crease. The Wings need more snarl, particularly in front of their own net. And honestly guys like Ericsson, Q and Kindl are going to get called more just because of them being big but lower end D men.

Deleting posts now. If anyone keeps insulting someone or even talking about the insults, they will be getting an unfriendly message from me or one of the other mods followed by a vacation. I'm deleting posts now. Stay on topic.

I understand people are upset at the loss, but let's give it a rest with the personal attacks.

Kindl and Quincey being among the top in +/- only shows how mostly useless the stat is. After the first few games Quincey hasn't been as awful as people make him sound a lot of the time, but he's not been great. Kindl's been slightly more physical but just when I think he's starting to get it together he gets caught well out of position or just turns the puck over by shooting it up the boards in a panic. Kronwall is lowest on the team with a -9. He's clearly been struggling in his new role as a top D man, but he's also asked to do a lot more than Kindl and Quincey. So it's not like that stat shows they're playing better than Kronwall. When Datsyuk beat all the Preds on the ice to score, all the Wings on the ice got a plus 1. Likewise when White's stick broke and he was flailing around on the ice, everyone on the ice got a minus 1. there's just too many random factors for it to mean much of anything. Plus-minus and the secondary assist are the most misleading stats in hockey.

Philly Pens games continue to just be bananas. Crazy goal mouth scramble. Everyone was in the crease but Vokoun.

Simmonds with the Gordie Howe hat trick tonight by the way. 2 goals, 1 assist, 1 fight.

With the Avs only managing 19 SOG. I haven't been watching the game, but ouch. EDIT: scores just as I'm posting that.

Simmonds is awesome. I'd love for him to play on the Wings.

Shanaban's explanation: http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=60&id=203576 Seems fair to me. At best it was a reckless play. He was in no position to really be able to grab the puck. To me it looked like he was initially reaching for the puck, but then took the opportunity to give Hossa a shot. It's hard to tell for sure because there's not a great camera angle of it that I've seen. EDIT: actually, seeing the NHL suspension video I'm more convinced it was an intentional forearm.

I hadn't heard his explanation but I'm not really that surprised. Even with plays that are clearly intentional players don't cop to it. Which makes sense because they don't want to get suspended even longer. I don't think he necessarily wanted to crack Hossa in the back of the head, but it looked like he was trying to give him a shot rather than it being incidental.

This thread has nothing to do with Crosby. Let's stay on topic.

You keep saying "you're telling me" as if I've actually said those things. I haven't. If you really need me to explain to you why a high school hockey player putting the puck in his own net and flipping off his coaches during a game is something that should be punished by the school, then this really is a pointless conversation.

And Fasth? If you're prepared to call a goalie who has started 8 games in the NHL superior to Howard, I don't think there's any point in discussing the issue. You're either arguing just to argue or your opinion of Howard doesn't really have much to do with how he plays relative to other goaltenders in the league.

How could you possibly know that? It was his high school team. He pulled a stupid and embarrassing stunt while playing on his high school team and disrespected school coaches. As for the length of suspension, I don't really know what their standard is. 10 days seems long but the kid basically did get their whole program national if not international attention, and not in a good way. I don't know why it's so hard to understand that the administrators should absolutely be involved when it's the school's hockey team. I have a hard time feeling sorry for the great injustice being perpetrated on this obnoxious kid who saw fit to act that way and even planned it ahead of time. It wasn't a heat of the moment decision.

Based on a whopping total of 9 NHL games in his entire career (only 8 of which are starts), you're ready to declare Fasth superior to Jimmy? And if you don't know "the Sens guy's" name, I'm guessing you haven't seen him play that much. Not to mention he's only had two seasons in his 10 year career where he's actually played more than 33 games. Only one year in colorado and one in Ottawa did he have a starting goaltender workload. You sure you weren't just cherrypicking down the SV % column?

Honestly they're f***ed when there's 4 officials on the ice and that goal still counts.

Wow. That Duchene offsides was ridiculous. Even he looked confused then decided to shoot it anyway. That's the thing, as much complaining as there is about the penalty calls, to me the quality of officiating from the linesmen has gone way down too.

I really don't know what to say then because that video you posted Cooke is leading with his knee, his leg bent and foot mostly straight down until Karlsson hits the boards, then his leg extends and his foot comes forward and contacts Karlsson's ankle. Agree to disagree. Clearly we are seeing things with very different eyes. Like I said, Cooke is a dirtbag and I could care less if he were gone from this league, but when you watch it realtime instead of super slow motion, it looks like a fluke play to me and not some devious plot.

He didn't lead with the skate blade.

Bobby Ryan too. The difference is those were clear stomps. If you watch the Cooke play at full speed instead of slow motion, I'd hardly call it a stomp. His skate comes down right as they run into the boards. Cooke is a POS but if he were this good at disguising his dirty plays, he wouldn't have the reputation he does. You guys are giving him way too much credit for how clever he is.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/22084/assistant-gms-ready-to-take-next-step Obviously it's only Lebrun's opinion but the part about his contract is what makes it sound like there's a legitimate chance Jim Nill could be moving on. He's been a big and often overlooked part of the Red Wings success. With Nil also being a big part of prospect development for the Wings, I have to wonder if Holland's "overly ripe" philosophy was frustrating.

Who did Clutterbuck blow up before the Tatar breakaway? I didn't think the Wings player he hit even had the puck.