haroldsnepsts

Exactly. Legace was a great regular season goalie. The playoffs are a different story. I think it'd be best to keep splitting the workload and hopefully Ozzy will get his game back together in time for the postseason.

Not to beat a dead horse, or at the very least an old horse, but Cheli to me still looks slow as molasses. He was partly to blame for that two-on-none that Conks stopped. And he had a couple icings on missed passes that should've been relatively easy first passes from the zone. I'm amazed he ended up +3 tonight. All in all though, good game. And great to see some 4th liners producing. The Kings have trouble scoring goals, so if you get up on 'em early, it usually doesn't end well for them. And having Doughty out of the lineup sure isn't helping.

True. It's all in how you want to pick your spots and how much people want to rub someone's face in it. We could just as easily dig up threads where people are bitching about Osgood's return, how much he sucks and whatnot, not realizing he would bail out the Wings and backstop them to the Cup last season.

obviously it helps the Wings just a wee bit. But I really do think it would also be good for the league because it promotes home grown talent, which keeps players in a franchise. Hockey is entertainment after all, so having personalities to follow is a big part of it for fans.

This is kind of off topic, but I still think they should have some exception in the CBA only a percentage of a player's salary counts against the cap if he was drafted by that team. It'll help franchises retain players, which helps build an identity for the team and is better for the fans. Can you imagine if Detroit could get a discount on all the talent they've drafted?

I checked through my own posts to see how much crow I had to eat. honestly everything I said was true at the time, but reading this thread it's like we're not even talking about the same player we have now! Will he perform in the playoffs? will he get better defensively? To read me saying things like he's not as good as Z or Draper defensively sounds hilarious now. But at the time it was true. It'd still give Z the slight edge overall, but Datsyuk is light years ahead of Drapes at this point. And 7 years seemed so long at the time for a Wings contract, but now I see how many teams are doing because under this cap you've got to try and lock guys up. Dats is on a crazy hot streak right now, but even if he cools off, just based on his performance last season he's already a bargain. Holland 1 Harold 0

Yes they can. We're talking about pro sports contracts, not two kids splitting a cookie.

To be clear, I wasn't criticizing you. The thread title has been changed, but I think you even had rumor or something like that in the thread. My point was mainly that even if you had "unsubstantiated rumor" in flashing lights at the top of the thread, after 5 posts people would be bitching about how they can't believe Zetterberg would do such a thing and accept it as fact.

Is he really that big of an idiot that he thought one line about Zetterberg rejecting a contract offer would be "kind of a throw away." seems like the translation is "I just kind of made some stuff up and didn't really think people would actually notice or care that I made an unsubstantiated rumor sound like fact."

I think you're underestimating the market for defenseman. Even as a bottom pairing guy, he has good size (even if he doesn't use it as much as he should), plays decent when he keeps it simple, kills penalties, is a fearless shot blocker, and will even drop the gloves and try and fight on occasion. He probably could've gotten more money on the open market. And if I had to keep one or the other, I'd take Lillypads over Lebda in a heartbeat.

Exactly. People keep saying this about how Hank shouldn't make more then Pavel, but honestly Dasyuk should even be making more than he does right now. When he signed the contract it was a risk but has turned into one that's paying off. It really isn't a standard by which they'll determine how much less Z should get. As you mentioned, different caps, but also could be different terms, and several other variables. It's not like a couple years ago when Datsyuk re-signed people should have been saying "no way Dats should get paid more than Zetterberg."

Agreed. But this thread is once again evidence that you don't really need reputable sources to get people to take it as "fact" and get all riled up.

I don't think it is, especially when you weigh in the potential for the puck to end up in your own net. You could make the reasonable argument that less ice time means he can go like hell on the limited shifts he gets.

I'm confused. Why aren't there multiple posts with diagram's and angles about Franzen's borderline high stick? My new Anaheim Duck ****** ranking (hang on a sec while I get out my ******-o-meter) 1. Corey Perry, the undisputed king and still champion. 2. the darkhorse but definite tool Brendan Morrison. Anytime anyone touched him he'd hack, slash, try and punch. what a *****. 3. Pronger, of course. other random thoughts: Ozzy was overplaying the puck a lot tonight. It costs a couple goals and he got bailed out tonight. Giggy was too but he had three teammates covering the rest of the net most of the time. Lilja is a badass. dropping down to his knees and takes a point blank shot to the chest. Fearless. Festerling wishes he could sack up like Lilja. I thought Scott Niedermayer had a bad game, not that any announcer would ever say it. They're busy oozing about his smoooooooth skating. Listening to the Ducks announcers wanted to make me jab my eardrums out.

Mainly I just think the second line has never really had a lot of chemistry this season. Babs has started shifting things around a bit finally, but I still haven't seen anything click like that top line. Even for not clicking though, they're still pretty damn good. As for Hudler, has anyone ever considered the possibility that Babcock is using Hudler exactly right and that's why he's so damn productive relative to his ice time? I'd be willing to try him on the 2nd line because he's got great playmaking sense, but it's quite possible that he's best where he is. Most arguments for Hudler involve the bad assumption that more ice time = more points.

I seriously wish Fail, Epic Fail and any variation of the phrase would be a bannable offense. While I disagree with the original poster's idea, he's trying to illicit a discussion. After all, this is a discussion board. If people feel the need to respond to the thread, it'd be nice if they bothered to actually string a sentence or two together about why they disagree instead of just posting EPIC FAIL. /rant On topic, as others mentioned I just don't think it's practical to expect guys to unlatch their shields before fighting. But worse than that would be the possibility of the visor coming unlatched during normal play when it's supposed to be protecting the guys face. There's so many instances that it gets hit with someone's glove, or a stick, or pressed into the glass, or even hit by a puck. I don't know how they'd construct one that would stay on through all that, but be easy enough to detach before a fight.

no worries! I wasn't criticizing you. I just think it's hilarious he's on there. I voted for him too. He can be the Rory Fitzpatrick of Vezina voting.

A little funny? It's ridiculous that his name is on the poll. Don't get me wrong, Conklin's been playing well, but there's several other names that should've been included before putting him on there. Do the people who run NHL.com even watch hockey? It's like they saw him in the Winter Classic or something and decided to include him.

The problem is (as it has been all season) cap room. I'm not up on the contract status of all of them, but I'm pretty sure they can't rotate those guys in without having to put someone on waivers.

one loss after a 6 game win streak is all it took to get this place back to normal.

I guess you haven't seen the clip I've posted of Cheli's flying elbow on Propp from his Montreal days. I would agree that one thing that has changed is the league and its discipline on such cheapshots. I still don't think Cheli and Pronger were that different. And honestly Pronger isn't much of a fighter, but I haven't seen him walk away from a battle. One of my favorite Cheli stories is him challenging Keith Jones to a postgame fight in the runway to the lockerroom because Cheli thought Jones threw a dirty hit on him during the game. He then called Jones a coward for going to the press instead of taking the fight.

Hopefully Vinny can get the hell out of there. That place is a mess. It's unfortunate he's wasting his prime years in that hole.

It's hard to say.. his prime was so damn long ago. my memory is that he wasn't as different from Pronger as some people here like to think.

You know Lidstrom's still on the team, right? I'd take Pronger over everyone but Lidstrom in his prime. Lids isn't as scary to play against physically, but for my money I'll take the best defenseman in the league who plays 28 minutes a game 80+ games a year.

Lebda gets a B, while Kronwall gets a C+?? I'll agree that Kronner has had some consistency problems, but it's not like he got sat because he was sucking so bad. He's not exactly using the same standard here. If you take into account the whole season, those grades should be switched. Yes Lebda has improved, but you can't ignore how awful he was.