haroldsnepsts

As someone who's watched a lot of Kings hockey this year, my two cents. (This is mostly based on how the Kings have been towards the end of the season and in the playoffs) Kopitar plays a very similar game to Zetterberg. Just imagine if Zetterberg were 24 years old, 6'3" and 225 lbs. Kopitar is huge for someone as talented as he is and he's playing like Z did in his prime. Franzen is more of a goal scorer than Carter seems to be, but Carter is a better two way player (since Franzen has slacked on that part of his game) and more physical. And Penner is often back up on the second line for the Kings because he's played so well this playoffs. He's like a Bertuzzi, but is actually working hard and using his size more than Bert does. The most important distinction is that the top 6 have shown up a lot more than the Wings top six did. Brown especially has been clutch. Signing Parise would certainly help the top six but Brown is a great combination of speed, scoring, hitting, and penalty killing. The Kings bottom six blows away the Wings bottom six. On the Wings they always struggled with an identity and all too often got pinned in their own end for their entire shift. Also, in the playoffs King has often played on the third line with Penner on the second, like last night. So it was King-Stoll-Lewis last night for the third line and they were dominant all night. Then the fourth line of Clifford-Richardson-Nolan can still crash and bang, keep the puck deep and score the occasional goal. And whether he's on the second or third line, Penner has become a completely different player on the Kings under Sutter. He's finally working hard, using his size and living up to his potential. It is a hard comparison because Doughty is an extremely talented player, playing somewhat more like Kronwall but more physical overall. Voynov is more like a young rafalski. But the biggest distinction is that the three stay at home guys. I'd say we're worse there. Mitchell has been awesome this season. Just rock solid night in and out. Greene is like an Ericsson only more physical though not as good of a first pass. And Scuderi has really been solid as well. As a group they're better than Stuart, Ericsson and Quincey for sure. Much more consistent night in and out. Some of that though is do to the help they get from the forwards coming back. And just look at how big their defensive corps is overall. They don't get pushed around by anyone. Jimmy has not played like Quick, but overall I think he's good enough for the Wings to go deep in the playoffs. The team in front of him just hung him out to dry too often. Aside from specific players, the Kings just have a lot more size and speed than the Wings. They're not physically intimidated by anyone. And once Sutter stepped in, they're so calm under an intense forecheck. You can tell they've worked so hard on exiting their zone under pressure. They probably don't have as much offensive skill as the Wings that they can use to get out of their own zone, but they've got a puck support system so ingrained in them that it doesn't matter.

The Kings made some really bold moves towards the end of the season. They fired their head coach. Traded one of their top defensemen Jack Johnson to bring in Jeff Carter. Then called up two rookies from the minors to play alongside Mike Richards. That's some pretty crazy moves to happen in the second half of the season, but they're sure paying off.

Obviously that scenario was a little tongue in cheek, but really my point is that both signings have to be accounted for together no matter what order they happen. It's all part of the larger puzzle that has to fit together. In the situation you proposed, what if Holland gets his star player but only has $4 million left to sign Lidstrom? He can't really go to Lidstrom and say here's the money that's left, take it or leave it. When he's signing the star player he's got to leave room for what he thinks Lids will re-sign for anyway. He can't count on a discount. At this point in Lidstrom's career I'm guessing they all probably have a similar number in their head anyway, plus or minus 500k max. It's one thing when you're signing a young player who shows great potential but is still an unknown, but Lids is a known quantity who'll get a one year contract.

A ton of goalies have. I was more defending the booing than anything else. If a goalie had done that in Detroit, he'd get booed. Especially if that goalie had flopped his way through the playoffs and put a pretty good slash on their captain last game. It wasn't a case of LA fans being idiots. It's that they're savvy enough hockey fans to know when a goalie is stalling. LA underperformed this year, but I'm still shocked at how good they look too. It's crazy. All lines are performing. Based on just the youth of this team and previous playoffs, this season could already be considered a success. But they've looked so dominant that not making it the the Cup finals and at least making it a good series would feel like a disappointment. One of the scary things is last night they put up a list of teams who steamrolled through the playoffs in the past like the Kings have. One of them was the Wings in '95. It's probably why in the back of my mind I'm still afraid the Kings will fall apart.

his skate blade came loose? I've only seen that happen once during a game when Kronwall's blade fell off. Looked to me more like Smith was pretending to have an issue to give his team a rest and try and change momentum. It's not the first time he's done it. Either way, fans in Detroit would be booing just as loud if they thought the goalie was faking something to delay the game.

If you're talking about the embellishment on the crosscheck, honestly that's the kind of Maltby stuff I can live with. Or at least don't hate as much as his flat out dives. He threw a clean hard hit on Ekman-Larsson, who wasn't happy about it so he crosschecks Brown. Brown went down awful easy for sure. But don't be such a wuss about getting hit and it's not a problem. I love Doan complaining about his penalty. He's bodyslammed three different players this series. Apparently he doesn't like it when he's on the other end of a take down. I'd probably like Doan if he were on the Wings in the same way I'd take Pronger. But man is Doan a dirty player.

Yzerman was declining as a player in the years he took a discount. Lidstrom took a 1.25 million pay cut in 2011 and went on to win a Norris trophy. His 7th. If your job was incredibly physically taxing, required extensive year round training, had a high risk of injury, took you away from your family for three-quarters of the year, AND you were one of the best to ever do it, no matter how much you made previously it wouldn't be that easy to decide to do it another year and make a lot less than guys who aren't nearly as good as you are. All in hopes that your boss spends the money you gave up wisely, rather than pissing it away or having it end up in the owner's pocket. It's not like Nick can say "I'll take $4 million and you use the money you saved to get Suter." All he can do is take the major pay cut. Then there's still a good chance Holland comes back with "well, the market was tough. We didn't want to give up good prospects. We like the team we have." So Lidstrom will have committed to another year (I can't see him retiring mid-season short of injury) at much less than he's worth on a team that's not any better. It's Holland's job to deal with cap space, not Lidstrom's. Agreed. I think Kronwall's role will keep increasing and hopefully other guys can share some of the load. The reality is though when the team struggles they end up leaning heavier on Nick every time. That salary range would be great for Lidstrom though.

Agreed. He sometimes acts as if fans and players are an inconvenience to running a hockey league.

Right. Basically if he's okay with being grossly underpaid for his role on the ice. Even at his age, Lidstrom is a defenseman who can play 20+ high quality minutes a night. To pay him less than Kronner's $4.75 would be a steal. As I've said before, it's not Lidstrom's responsibility to manage the cap and take a paycut so the team can be a contender. It's Holland's job to manage payroll. I know it's easy to think about all the money he's already made, but it's also easy to give away a couple million dollars when it's not yours. Lidstrom will probably take another hometown discount like he has before. I just don't expect it to be less then $4.75 mill but who knows.

Just to clarify, remember Lidstrom was injured in the playoffs. That's why he wasn't on the PK. In the regular season he still led all defensemen in TOI per game and did still kill penalties, though he was #5 among dmen in SHTOI/G. That being said if he does come back I'd expect him to shift to more of a #2 role and hopefully his minutes will come down a bit. I don't know that they'd be able to re-sign him for cheaper than Kronwall's current contract though.

He still has a job because he was pretty much brought in to implement a cap. He lost us a season and a half of hockey, but he got the owners what they wanted. If there's another lockout, that pretty much solidifies it for me that Bettman needs to go and has done more damage than good to the NHL. In theory now that they have the cap, it shouldn't be nearly as contentious. But Bettman has the diplomacy skills of a sledgehammer. He's already used the realignment proposal to make the NHLPA look bad and set a very divisive tone, so it's hard for me to be hopeful. My prediction is that now that they have the cap, they're going to try and notch down the percentages to make it even more profitable for the owners. To me it was still a massive concession for the players to have their salaries tied to league revenues. They have zero control over increasing revenue for the NHL. They don't market the game. They don't choose the cities that get franchises. They're the talent. My understanding is that on top of that they have a portion of their paycheck's put in a slush fund all year, then it's given back to them at the end if the league meets it's projections. Otherwise it goes to the league. The owners have a pretty sweet deal with the cap, and we've still seen that some of them can't help themselves from giving awful contracts to players. In terms of profitability of the league and franchises, player salaries aren't the biggest factor anymore.

that's about the only way I could get excited about him. I'm not really a grit slappy, but I am getting weary of the Wings being excited about a player, then seeing that he's under 6' and 185 lbs. That being said, it looks like he has a great shot and isn't afraid to use it. The Wings could use more of that. But they can also use players who are big, strong, and willing to go to the tough areas of the ice and score ugly goals.

Hanzal suspended 1 game. http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=631886 Honestly I think that's probably the right length, but I strongly disagree with how heavily the league weighs injury into length of punishment. If Brown turns his head a certain way or just by bad luck gets a severe concussion, that doesn't change the act of the hit. Only the result. If you want to protect players you have to try to eliminate dangerous acts before they happen. Not just punish them severely after a guy gets seriously hurt. Like I said, this time I think the length is ok, but their thinking on weighing injury so heavily in the decision is deeply flawed.

NBC basically ignored it in their broadcast. It's about 9 seconds in. To me this is so much worse than what Doan did. The league doesn't really crack down on kneeing relative to other hits. It's going to take someone's career getting ended again before they step up punishment for dirty plays like this one.

yup. He was usually listed as 6'2" and between 205-210 lbs as I remember it. So he was a player the same size as Quincey, only with great speed and so strong on his skates.

Even among goalies, Smith stands out for his awful flops.

Agreed. I was glad they at least got Yandle for the suckerpunch uppercut during the scrum. Doan maybe deserved two. Even if Lewis hadn't turned he was far enough from the boards that it probably wouldn't have ended well, but Lewis put himself in a vulnerable position at the last second. Because Doan is often such a dirty player though, it's hard for me to shed a tear. They had a highlight reel of his WWE style takedowns as they were going to commercial. And the call on Brown was reputation. He embellishes, so things like that are gonna happen. Though it seemed legit for a whack like that.

Every time I see international hockey it makes me wish NHL rinks were a couple of feet wider. The players have just gotten so big and fast, I think even that little bit would make a big difference and allow guys like Datsyuk more room to operate.

anyone feel like going to the game tonight in Phoenix? Stubhub has plenty of tickets available in the $22-$35 range. If you're flush with cash there's a lot of seats available in the lower bowl for tonight too.

It definitely is something the Wings missed. I made the joke in an earlier thread how they didn't even need to Zamboni that part of the ice when the Wings played. Zetterberg is about the only guy who does it on a regular basis. Datsyuk does it in his own crazy way by slowing things down, deking guys and then getting off a shot from a good scoring position. A few other players do it but don't have the greatest finishing skills, like Cleary. Flip was doing it in the regular season, but seemed to wither in the playoffs. And Franzen does it if he feels like it. Typically if he scores a goal in a game he remembers how nice it is to score, so works harder to score more that game and goes to the tougher areas of the ice.

I'm not sure what they meant by "opposite of relative" but I think he's pointing out that with every other win, you had the winning team on the left. So you'd expect it to read Nor-Ger 12-4.

Right. And my point was that since 2005 the Wings have had almost few picks close to 19th or 20th, with the exception of Kindl. 2006 41st overall - emmerton 2007 21st overall - Smith 2008 30th overall - McCollum 2009 32nd overall - Ferrarro 2010 21st overall - Sheahan 2011 35th overall - Jurco It's not like they missed Del Zotto, Kreider and Stall those years. they never had a shot at them. The closest picks to those guys are Smith and Sheehan. Smith will be on the Wings next season and hopefully will impress. Sheahan remains to be seen. But overall I agree, the Rangers have done a very good job with their picks.

Tortorella is a jackass, but otherwise there's a lot to like about this Rangers team.

A lot of people are saying Semin has turned it around in terms of his work ethic, but I'd worried that he'd get a long term deal and he and Franzen would take turns seeing who could put in the least effort on a shift.

The Rangers have done a very good job drafting, though it's worth mentioning that a few of the picks on your list are lower than any Detroit has had during that time span. The Wings earliest picks since 2005 are Kindl who was 19th overall, and admittedly has been a disappointment for that draft slot. Sheahan was 21st overall. Smith who's 21st overall, and McCollum who's 30th overall. 4 first round picks since 2005, and McCollum was the very last pick of the first round. Kreider, Del Zotto and Staal are all very good players but were also earlier picks than the Wings have had (except Kindl and Kreider both being #19), so I don't really consider those as gems the Wings missed. Kreider has played 13 games in the NHL and is doing well, but I think it's a bit premature to call him a future all star. But overall, I agree. The Rangers have done a helluva job with their picks. In terms of the Wings drafting, it gets sketchier and sketchier the deeper you go in the draft and they have just not had early picks. And I think the days of finding late round gems in Europe may be gone, or at least harder to come by. The Wings were at the forefront of that, but other franchises have caught up. It's why Kindl is such a disappointment to me. He's the best pick they've had in a long time and at 25 years old barely looks NHL ready. Wow. I never realized Henrik was drafted that late. With their third pick that year the Wings took Stefan Liv. Talk about drafting the wrong Swedish goaltender. Ouch.