haroldsnepsts

But other than that, I think he brings a lot to the table. I know it wouldn't happen, but at this point I'd love to see Ericsson in Lebda's spot. How much worse could the kid do?

For the record, I was saying it was a clean hit and don't fault Weight at all.

That's ok. It's your prerogative to be wrong if you want to. I agree that there's a lot of times you can let up on a check. My point is more about how Sutter reaches out right before he's getting hit. Weight could've let up, but it just would've been for the hell of it, because he didn't have time to recognize Sutter putting himself in an awkward decision and try and let up before impact. Sutter reaches out maybe a half second before Weight hits him, at most.

If you watch it realtime, I don't see how Weight could possibly be expected to let up. When he lined Sutter up, Sutter was skating upright and even with his head up (on the replay it looks as if he glances right in Weight's direction) but must not have thought Weight was coming for him, because at the last second Sutter leans down and reaches for the puck. I agree it's no fun to see a young guy go down like that. Weight didn't look particularly happy about it himself. But there's no way he had time to see the kid leaning out and react in time to let up.

I am the one who did what? wtf are you talking about?

Considering most of the posts on this page were political discussions and had nothing to do with Palin dropping the puck, can we move this to the political forum now? Pretty please?

So they're basically the 1926-27 Detroit Cougars jersey? Pretty cool. I certainly like the look of the Detroit one better than the Blackhawk jersey.

I didn't get to see the game either, just the highlights. A few things: Datsyuk's goal was awesome. He is so calm around the net making those moves, it almost looks nonchalant. How did Sammy miss the wide open net on the goal that Hudler scored? Was he actually trying to pass that puck?? I just saw on the stats that Maltby was a healthy scratch? Interesting...

Exactly. Which is the same reason I don't want any campaigning politician dropping the puck at a hockey game.

Did you read the link? From the article: And I don't think anyone's going nuts. But if the idea is to create more offensive opportunities, this rule change would be a pretty roundabout and complicated way of trying to generate them.

I know what you're saying, but it's just not in the NHL's interest to have a guy get brained on the ice during a game, which could very easily happen without a helmet. As for the shot block rule, it seems like a major clusterf*ck to try and enforce. Definitely a bad idea. By going down to block a shot you're sacrificing yourself and giving up your defensive position. It's up to the offense to exploit that.

Of course she was there as a politician. Seriously. Do you think she'd be there if she weren't campaigning right now? And forget what I said, after seeing what happened to St. Louis, I hope Palin drops the puck at every Wings away game.

Obama bought airtime so of course he gets to say everything he wants to, it's just that it happens to conflict with Fox's coverage of the World Series. Not the same as Sarah Palin being invited to drop the puck. There is a big difference there. I won't watch either. I just prefer politicians don't use sporting events as photo ops, and that the leagues, particularly the NHL, don't invite them.

I know it was a while back, but I don't know if I can ever muster any respect for the guy after this.

Like I said in my post, it'd be nice to keep this campaign crap out of some corner of my life, particularly something I watch for entertainment. If I cared about the World series, I guess I'd be annoyed. But it's not the same as if he were throwing out the first pitch. Then I'd be REALLY annoyed. Though doesn't it delay the start something like a whopping 8 minutes? It practically takes longer than that for players to get out of the dugout and trot to the outfield.

I think when Burke sees a player on the market that's 6'2" 210+ lbs, he just can't help himself. It's like an impulse purchase.

Actually then #81 would be "Assoh."

Or at least should work. Especially when the shirt came from the NHL store. If someone was going to get it right you'd hope it would be them.

Agreed. I'm not voting for McCain/Palin, but I'd be equally disgusted if Obama or Biden were there dropping the puck. I'd like to keep at least something in my life of all this political b.s.

Counting down until this has to get moved to the political forum... It's one thing to have an acting political official drop the puck for some event, but generally the NHL shouldn't let either side use its games as a photo op on the campaign trail.

Just to fuel the fire. Feel free to combine if this seems like too close to the pre-existing fight threads... Buccigross's article Some excerpts:

Edited because I'm a dick.

"This kid" is 32 years old. Conklin did a great job for the Pens last year and is keeping it up here, it looks like. I don't know about #1 though. He could either be a potential starter or a Manny Legace in the making.

See the link in my last post. Selke voting has more to do than being "noticed" by the league because you're new. Yzerman, Sakic, Fedorov, Madden, Brindamour have all fluctuated wildly in Selke voting over a short number of years. And those are well established players in the league. Their defensive play did not fluctuate wildly from season to season. Selke voting is as much about the hype as it is about defensively ability. Draper has been great defensively since he's been with the Wings and was a well established player, but didn't win one until he scored 24 goals. Do you have a link to voting totals over the years? I'd be curious to see the totals for guys from season to season.

Obviously selke voting has something to do with defensive ability. Do I really need to say that? And no, I'm not nuts. I stand by what I said. It looks like you're trying to use the number of votes received and equate that as somehow as a comparitive measure between players' defensive ability. Obviously if you get a ton of votes, you're probably good defensively. Yes Datsyuk won the Selke this past season. how many votes did he get the season before that? Does that mean his defensive game had improved that much between the two years? Because I think Datsyuk was just as good the previous season. He just didn't get that much notice. Ovechkin was ranked 29th in Selke voting last year. Kris Draper and Hossa were 33rd, and 35th, respectively. AO was higher in voting over those two, and also guys like Modano, Flip, and Iginla. So by your reasoning Ovechkin must be better defensively than those players? I mean, otherwise why would anyone have voted that way? http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/1663...NHL-Awards.html I'd be curious to see the Selke voting for several seasons in a row, because I bet it would have players moving extremely far up and down the list, which shows there's a lot more going on than just that player's level of defensive ability. Are you saying Lecavalier isn't a good two-way forward? I found this article/blog that talks about exactly that issue of Selke voting. http://www.hockeyzoneplus.com/puck021.htm A couple examples: Edited for clarity (hopefully)