haroldsnepsts

can't watch the game tonight but just caught some other highlights. I swear I think I just saw Kovalchuk get a Gordie Howe hat trick AND drop a guy with a good right hand in the fight.

The thing is, the NHL adopted the loser point a few years before they started using the shootout. They switched to 4 on 4 OT and the loser point. So even if that blessed day came that they got rid of the shootout (which won't happen), that doesn't necessarily mean the loser point goes away with it. I can only assume many owners love the loser point because they inflated standings keep more teams in the playoff hunt deeper into the season.

A bunch of players hooking the crap out of Datsyuk after he deked them out of their jockstrap wouldn't have been called 10 years ago either. It was a great hit and a bad call. But lamenting the death of hockey as we know it assumes that these calls (or any other problem we don't like with the game) will continue unchanged until it runs the game into the ground. That's not how it works. Players adjust, refs adjust, the league adjusts. The game adapts. When we came out of the lockout, it felt like you couldn't touch another player without a hooking penalty. After a little while it settled down. With hitting it feels like the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of calling clean hard hits just because the guy had his head down. But I'm hoping they'll figure out some better standards and settle down and adjust. To me the biggest adjustment they need to make to hitting (other than the obvious east west headshots) are the exploding upwards into hit (Sorry Kronner). Go back to old style hitting of skates on the ice, all the energy directed towards the guys body, not leaping up towards his head. Again, great hit by Ramage. He totally read that play. And man am I old because so many of the player's names that I recognize now, it turns out to be their kid. Or the player is now a GM.

Or maybe he's just explaining how the clocks work? It may look shady because the kings scored with so little time left. But that's thinking of it after the fact when we know they scored. If someone did control the clock like that they obviously couldn't know doughty would score. But they had a trick prepared to delay the clock a couple extra tenths of a second just in case? Seems unlikely. It's possible the timekeeper intentionally delayed the clock for a few tenths of a second and doughty scored in that time. If he did, that guy should go play the lotto. He's hot some seriously good luck right now.

This. The league survived for years without the shoot out deciding games. I don't know that I go home any more satisfied when my team loses in a manufactured event like the shoot out than I would've had it been a tie. Actually I do know. I'm much less satisfied. And when the wings win in the shoot out I'm just happy they got the second point. It doesn't feel the same to me as an actual win.

I could see Henrik winning it. I honestly haven't seen him play much this season but his numbers are good, he's been good for several years and a lot of people are mentioning his name for Vezina. Quick deserves to be in the running too. For the Vezina and probably the Hart. He gets no goal support from the Kings. They're dead last in the league in Goals For. If the Kings make the playoffs this year, it will be on the back of Jonathan Quick.

I don't know that anyone knows the details outside of the Wings organization. But you're probably right in that it's some sort of acceptable teams situation.

well said.

Ericsson and Bertuzzi both have modified NTC (I don't know that the details were ever made public) and likely aren't going anywhere, unless they themselves want a change of scenery. Homer has a NTC as well. EDIT: just realized you probably meant "cannot be traded" as in "no way in hell would you want them traded."

If you read back through the thread, it wasn't the pro-fighting crowd who made it about that. And that game is gone?? If the Wings were a physical team that dropped the gloves a lot, everyone here would be fight slappies. Because they dont', many take the position that it's obsolete or stupid. The reigning Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins had 71 fights last season. It's not like fighting has gone the way of the dinosaur. It just has in Detroit.

So your proof of their toughness is 3 regular season games against the Blues? I realize they're first overall in the entire league at the moment. I don't think anyone is saying this teams sucks right now and needs changes to do well in the regular season. It's about going deep in the playoffs. And I'm not talking about getting a guy who plays 4 minutes a night for a half a season and skates off the bench to a staged fight to the penalty box. This isn't about getting a goon, no matter how much you try to make it sound that way.

Do you see the contradiction in the bolded statements? I think the "fight slappies" would be pretty happy with a Wings lineup that dropped the gloves 30 to 50 times a season. At the time, people didn't consider the Wings Cup winning teams in 97 and 98 to be that tough relative to the rest of the league because they didn't fight as much as other teams. But they would beat the snot out of any Wings lineup in the last decade. More importantly, they were a talented lineup that had good size and a lot of players who weren't afraid to mix it up. It's not just about the times you actually drop the gloves, it's about being a big physical team that's hard to play against, and a can dish out punishment as well as take it. The Wings don't have very much of that in their current lineup.

I guess he wanted to see what it looked like to have a competitive NHL team playing in Columbus.

The thing is even if it were true (though it sounds more like Crosby hate than anything legit), Crosby has no leverage to pressure doctors unless the coaching staff and management were backing him up. They're the ones who ultimately employ the team doctors. If it's just him saying "I need to get back out there" but the management trusts and abides by the doctors' opinions, then there's not anything even Sidney Crosby can do to change it. Players are almost always going to want to play. That's why they're supposed to be the ones not making the decision.

For starters, I was looking at more than 50 games this season Mule has played and the 41 Morrow has played. The last two seasons Morrow has put up 56 and 46 points on a Dallas team that wasn't good enough to make the playoffs. I wasn't equating Franzen with Morrow and certainly wasn't implying Morrow is better. My point was to use Mule's contract size as a reference point in saying that Morrow's contract may not be that bad if he were to stay healthy on the Wings. And no matter how many times people use it with Mule GWG is still the most useless stat there is. Guys who score lots of goals are going to have lots of GWG. People like to infer that it somehow means he's clutch, but it means virtually nothing, other than he scores goals. And using +/- for players on two different teams shows absolutely nothing useful as well. No one was suggesting that. Or at least I certainly wasn't. Having a rookie D man in the playoffs worries me more than forwards, though you can add Ericsson to that list of playoff appearances. I'm not saying Smith would be a disaster or anything. I just don't know that the Wings would put themselves in that position.

I posted this in another thread but it's relevant here too. Players with a NMC or NTC: Datysuk Bert Homer Lids (not that it matters) Ericsson

Smith looked promising in his time up with the Wings. But a rookie in the playoffs is always a little scary. Oh. right. I forgot that when we dealt for Gleason he would actually be playing for the Wings. either way, Ericsson has a NMC, so as much joy as it would bring people to see him go, he'd have to agree to it.

So then we go into the playoffs with a bottom pairing of Commodore/Kindl? No thanks. Doesn't Morrow only have another year on his contract? The Wings would get him prorated for this season, then next season at $4.1 mill, which could be overpayment if he's injured or he could stay healthy and flourish in Detroit. His contract is similar to Mule's, and his regular season production could be similar as well. And unlike Franzen, he's physical and a pain in the ass to play against.

Players with a NMC or NTC. Datysuk, Bert, Homer, Lids (not that it matters), Ericsson.

It is kind of funny, especially considering how awful Drake was in the regular season. But he had a good playoffs and also supposedly gave Datsyuk advice on hitting, which has clearly paid off. All in all a net gain, but I think his role on the team is getting a little overblown as the years go by. Still, I'd take Morrow on the Wings in a heartbeat. Even if it costs some prospects, this is the year to go for it. Potentially Lidstrom's last year, but also Dats, Franzen, and Z aren't getting any younger either.

And it's just another reason I don't follow baseball. It would be insane to have the All Star game decide anything like that. And the biggest fear is Bettman is crazy enough to do something like that.

it is just baffling how this team can completely not show up some nights. Yes, every good team loses games, but this was well beyond this. They may as well have iced the Griffins lineup and really taken the night off. The Islanders. Montreal? It's frustrating that they lose to opponents they should be picking up points against.

This game only reinforced what I had suspected. No thank you on Subban. What an immature player. Almost the entire team was garbage tonight, but I think Kindl may have secured his place behind Commie tonight.

Knock it off or take it to PM's. I've been looking for a reason to use my new mod powers and have an itchy trigger finger.

It actually would be pretty hilarious if the Habs scored 6+ goals and Gomez didn't get one.