haroldsnepsts

At least it's not Pang and Strader. As much as I generally like Strader and grew up listening to him call Wings games, against the Coyotes it was ridiculous how biased they were. It'd be like having Mick and Ken call nationally televised games with the Wings in the conference finals.

Kings look good so far. I think the real question will be how nervous is Quick. For the first couple games against the Coyotes, he looked a little off his game. He seems to do better when he's battling and involved in the play a lot. Not standing around for long stretches. And Penner needs to take that shot, not make the cute drop pass.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=397224

Great post. I've been watching the Wings long enough to remember when #5 was Darren Veitch, but it's still going to be so strange not to see Lidstrom on the Wings blueline. Whenever some great player comes charging into the Wing's zone, there won't be any sigh of relief when you realize Lidstrom is the defenseman they have to get past.

Well s***. The end of an era for sure. Now I really wish Holland had made a big run at it this year, even if it meant mortgaging the future a bit.

I don't really subscribe to the Corsi thing, but yeah, Carter has been terrible offensively for most of the playoffs. He's good defensively but manages to not score on great opportunities in the same inexplicable ways Flip does. Even his hat trick. One goal was a shot he partially fanned on. I think another was one a shot from Kopitar that deflected off his leg. After his hat trick though, he's been much more noticeable and a force to be reckoned with on the ice, even if his scoring woes have continued. He's going hard to the net, getting quality shots, making good plays. It just took half the playoffs for him to wake up. If anything, his biggest function has been giving the Kings another hypothetical threat that the opponent needs to address, even if he rarely converts. And bringing in Carter also seems to be addition by subtraction by giving up Jack Johnson. He's a talented player but doesn't have it between the ears yet. Maybe he'll get his act together in Columbus.

Privacy of sports stars? The guy couldn't have drawn more attention to himself short of holding a press conference where people watch him get hammered. It's not like someone took pictures from a party in Kane's backyard. He went to the University of Wisconsin (no idea why you go to Wisconsin to celebrate Cinco de Mayo) with custom made t-shirts for the event and made a total ass of himself. When someone pays you $6 mill a year and you're one of the faces of the franchise, like it or not you have to know that the things you do in your personal life will reflect on the organization. It's not like he needs to be going to church 5 days a week. Just don't make such a drunken spectacle of yourself. People in their 20s may not disapprove, but I bet a lot of hockey mom's would think twice about buying their kid a Kane jersey if he keeps this up.

No kidding. It shows the sad state of officiating in the NHL when someone like O'Halloran can make it to the Cup finals. I guess by not being quite as crappy as guys like Auger?

Trading Heatley I was okay with. Something had to be done. They had something like 22 million in payroll tied up in three forwards. The Sharks are an example of what not to do, but then look at the Kings. They traded away two young talented players and gave up a pick last offseason and brought in Richards. Then they fire their head coach and trade away one of their core players in Jack Johnson to bring in Carter. They also called up two rookies in King and Nolan. They couldn't score goals all season but now they're in the Cup finals. Those are a lot of very bold moves for one team in less than a year. Holland isn't in the position to need or want to make that many bold moves. It'd just be nice if he changed up his playbook once in a while.

That was an awful move by the Sharks. They wanted to shore up goaltending so they sign Niemi?? He was an average goaltender at best when the Hawks won the Cup. Enjoy three more years of him Sharks!

If you had told me at the beginning of the season that the Kings would make it to the Cup finals, I would've called it a tremendous success. It still is, but the way they've steamrolled their opponents and being so close, I want it all! Go Kings!

It pretty much is. i know a lot of Wings fans still can't swallow losses like to the Ducks and Sharks, but over the course of a seven game series, the team who is truly better should be able to overcome fluke bounces, injuries, etc. When the Wings won the Cup in 2008, they were fortunate to be healthy, faced some teams with pretty serious injuries, and got some bounces. That's hockey. They were still the better team. A bounce here or there does not decide a series. And if it does, then it's pretty clear there wasn't really a team that was clearly better anyway. Agreed. The stuff people type right after their team has been scored on or lost usually isn't how they actually feel once the incoherent rage has subsided. Forums would be a whole different place if there was like a 15 minute lockout on posting after your team was scored on, and a day lockout after your team lost.

Shhh! Don't give Chelios any ideas.

Good luck on your comeback Dom, just not with Detroit.

Agreed. I know a lot of fans that go back decades. The city in general is pretty oblivious to hockey, but Kings fans are very dedicated. You have to be to follow hockey in Southern California. People here can make condescending wisecracks about bandwagoning, but the reality is the Wings have picked up tons more fans with every Cup they've won. It's been a long time since Detroit was awful like the Kings had been. But when they were, Joe Louis was practically empty. And unlike LA, Detroit is a city with a long hockey history and culture that Los Angeles doesn't have. Detroit is "Hockeytown" as long as the Wings are winning. Everybody loves a winner. What exactly are you basing this on? The reality is that if you see someone walking around LA in Kings gear, they're almost certainly a fan. People will wear Dodgers stuff because they want to represent LA in general, but it's not that way with the hockey team.

Yandle was crying about the refs too. Smith went on to say the refs have been against them all season. I've never heard players whining so much in interviews after being eliminated. It's not like they're the first team to suffer a loss under tough circumstances. I guess they really are the Phoenix Cryotes.

Apparently Vermette was jawing with Penner in the handshake line as well. About something that happened in game 2. I love Pancake's response though. http://lakingsinsider.com/2012/05/24/a-bruised-and-some-bruised-feelings/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

I typically think of a power forward as a top two line guy, someone like Lucic. But I figured that's what you meant. Bert doesn't have a NTC, but the Wings just re-signed him in February. Not saying it couldn't happen but Holland usually doesn't get rid of a player that soon after offering him another contract.

I'm guessing you're using the term power forward very loosely here. Because the Wings would never be able to get three true power forwards for 6 mill a year. That would get maybe one. But they could potentially get some tough, big grinders who are sound defensively and may score a few goals. Either way, both Bert and Cleary are under contract, so I don't think you'll get your wish there.

It's not surprising. Luongo played fine this postseason and still got yanked for Schneider. I know the excuse was to change momentum, but you really only do that during the course of a game. You don't yank your starting goaltender during a series. At least not if you think he gives you the best chance to win. Vigneault can say what he wants about Luongo getting too much hate for his performance (which may be true) but he hasn't exactly shown a ton of faith in him since then. If anyone will take on that contract, it's probably best for both teams if Luongo moves on. Plus Vancouver games will get slightly less annoying not having to hear "Loooouuuuuu" anytime Luongo makes a routine save. It'll be interesting to see how Schneider does as the number 1. He's been very good, but as we've seen before there's a big difference between looking great for 30 games as the backup, and having the pressure of being the number one guy and playing 50+ games a season. Some goalies rise to the challenge, some start playing puckered.

For those of you on twitter, the LA Kings twitter feed has been pretty awesome all year. And now that they're in the Finals is getting some attention. This is not your bland corporate twitter feed, to say the least. Though they seemed to have toned it down a bit after getting so much attention for taunting Vancouver fans. http://twitter.com/#!/lakings After the local media butchered several players' names and one used the Sacramento Kings graphic, I thought this was pretty funny for them to release as "news" too. http://kings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=632297 I'm sure there's bandwagon fans now that the Kings are doing well, but you also have to appreciate how dedicated a fan you have to be for a hockey team no one else cares about in the city. Being a Kings fan in LA is practically like being in a secret society. You'll see someone wearing a Kings hat, then you start talking to them about the team and no one around you has any idea what you're talking about.

Agreed. Kindl has now played 106 games in the NHL. And Ericsson is a converted defenseman taken dead last in the draft. Taken 19th overall, I think Kindl is the highest pick the Wings have had since drafting Marty Lapointe. I had higher hopes for him but he couldn't even hold a spot over Commie and didn't see a lick of ice time in the playoffs. And he's not exactly that young either. People can bag on Quincey for how he plays, but he's only a year older than Kindl. He's just been playing big minutes for several seasons. Kindl is also an inch taller and 10 lbs heavier than Q, but you'd never know it from how he plays. There's still hope he'll turn into something, but when the Wings picked him in 2005, I'm guessing they were hoping they'd have an NHL ready defenseman by now.

A Stanley Cup? I hope so.

What's funny is Milbury seems most upset about it being after the whistle. But if he had watched the clip again it's clearly almost simultaneous with the whistle. I think the only real debate is if it was worthy of a kneeing penalty or not.

They were terrible all game. The delay of game on Doughty in the 1st was a joke, and there were three pretty obvious penalties agains the Coyotes that they didn't call in the 2nd period. Phoenix scored the tying goal when they should've been on the PK. They overcalled in the first, then swallowed their whistles for most of the rest of the game. Just a poorly officiated game overall. and these are supposed to be the good refs. I know everyone blames the refs, but when you get down to the conference finals and it's still this bad, that says something. The NHL is really hurting from a lack of experienced refs that know how to manage a game. McCreary was the last one who could really do that well. I feel like the last couple seasons I've noticed the linesmen a lot more, in a bad way. blown offsides calls, waving off icings that shouldnt be. Players not being able to tell if a play is an icing or not. Honestly on the Voynov play it looked like it could've been a delay of game, but more than that I was confused as to why it wasn't an icing. I half wonder if the reason they didn't call a penalty was because of a botched icing call, because Voynov sure seemed to think it was going to be.