haroldsnepsts

A lot of the deals you guys are talking about go beyond the ten year limit. in that case, worst decision ever is the adam oates bernie federko debacle. I'm still bitter.

Man I hope that franchise finally turns it around and becomes a force in the West. Having a major market original six team be competitive again will be great for the NHL. Plus I can't wait to hate those b*stards again.

I'm usually not a grammar nazi, but resign means the exact opposite of what you're intending. Plus it used to scare the hell out of me when people would post threads like "Yzerman resigns." Z should be captain. I know this is an affront to Datsyuk fans, but Zetterberg just seems more fitting and more like a leader type. It's not an insult to Dats. The captain doesn't even have to be the best player on the team. Gordie Howe was only captain of the Red Wings for a season. From a marketing standpoint, I think it makes more sense to have Zetterberg too.

I'm not usually as vehement about my arguments here, but I know I'm right on this one like I know how to pronounce Steve Yzerman's name. A team does not win the Cup by lucky bounces. Of course there are key breaks and momentum shifts and lucky bounces that affect the game. But through four best-of-seven series, the team that wins is the one that overcomes that adversity and capitalizes on the chances they do have. They're more resilient in every sense of the word than their opponent. The Wings did not lose because of a couple tough bounces. They lost because the Ducks capitalized on their chances and beat them.

And that's why this dicussion is pointless. Because it's not about what actually happened on the ice, you're just tired of hearing a small group of people talk about how great the Ducks are. That they're big and physical, and can score. The skill versus grit debate. For the record, I hate the Ducks. I hate Pronger. I hate their a-hole GM. I wouldn't want the Wings to be just like the Ducks. But I'd love for them to have a few more guys like the Ducks lineup. To have Z and Dats and Homer, but also have some big physical defenseman who can grind the opposition down. Or a big physical foward who can also pot a few goals. And a handful of guys who will drop the gloves and stick up for their teammates. The Ducks weren't impossible to knock off, the Wings just weren't capable of doing it. Hence, Ducks were the better team.

Well, you've answered virtually none of my questions. So with Lucky luc's unluck bounce, you're seems to be saying that yes, the Wings psyche was so fragile that not winning that game caused them to lose the next three. If that's true, then it seems clear to me then that they were not equipped to win that series. You also seem to be saying then that if those earlier bounces go the Ducks way, that would have had an impact on them winnign the series. So those two bounces in game one should be a whole lot bigger than the ones that came later, shouldn't it? Again, I'm not an expert in these fictional outcome scenarios, but you seem to see it pretty clearly. The Sharks had the Wings on the ropes but couldn't close it out. as for the cosmic law about bounces. Think of the massive probabilities involved. Take a coin flip for an example of a bad bounce. The Wings are heads, the Ducks are tails. Statistically there's a 50 percent chance of it being heads. Filp a coin ten times, and you may end up with 7 heads, 3 tails. Behold! The laws of the universe are all cattywompus! Not really, it's just a small sample. flip that coin 100 times and you'll come out a lot closer to 50 percent. a thousand times you're even closer. Take one bad bounce and it could lead to a goal. But those bounces taken over 360+ minutes of hockey (plus overtime) and they're bound to be fairly even. They only look skewed one way when a team doesn't capitalize on the opportunities they do have, so a bad break ends up looking like it cost them the series. I will say this for the thousandth time since no one cares to acknowledge or address it. The Detroit Red Wings were 0 for 7 on the power play in the game they lost on the "bad" call against Dats and then the bad play by Lilja, including a power play in the Overtime. But I guess it was those couple bad bounces that killed them, not their complete inability to make anaheim pay for taking penalties. Not to mention as the series wore on, the Wings were getting more and more pushed to the perimeter. That's hilarious! I'm the one sticking my head in the sand because I won't admit that the Wings, who lost in the conference finals in game 6, are better than the Ducks, who won the Stanley Cup?? Am I in the f-ing bizarro world? Let's change the teams around a little. When the Wings won the Cup, a Colorado fan comes up to you and claims that in spite of losing to the Wings, they were the better team and if not for a few bad bounces, the Cup is theirs. Still a reasonable argument? Why even hold the playoffs then? It's clearly an inadequate system if a team as good as the Wings can lose to the inferior Ducks. If a few bad bounces allow an inferior team to win. If four best of seven series do not decide what team is best in the NHL, if the team that wins the Stanley Cup is not the best team in the league, then isn't the whole playoff system and sport flawed?

Is square one playing in the NHL??

Luc's shot goes in off the crossbar and we win that game. Who knows what happens and how that affects the other games. Maybe the Wings lose in 5. Because last time I checked Nick, the Ducks had to win three more games against the Wings because it's a best of seven series. I thought you knew that by now. Are you saying that if Luc makes that one goal, it not only changes the result of that game, but the three games after it? That the Wings were such a fragile team that they couldn't overcome that one unlucky bounce? One bad bounce somehow broke their spirit and they couldn't manage to come back from it? Because that makes makes they would've lost the series anyway. Good teams overcome those tough breaks and capitalize on the good ones. But if what you say is true, then my earlier statement also holds true. The Ducks had the first big bad bounces of the series with those two own-goals. Those don't happen, they win game one and shut the Wings out in their own building. Yet somehow that doesn't lead to them going on to win the series? Do these series-changing bounces only work when it comes to the Wings? It doesn't make any sense. If the Wings bad bounce later in the series cost them the series, then doesn't the Ducks bad bounces in game one win them the series back? how does this fictional fate stuff work exactly? And Marleau and Guerin didn't get their heads out of their asses and got outplayed by the Wings. Funny how that works. Luck isn't even, bounces aren't even, though over the course of 7 games, the bounces are generally pretty close. You and a couple of the others who claim it was all about bounces have never even really addressed the bad bounces I brought up that the Ducks had. You're picking and choosing your bounces. I also don't hear a lot about the Wings not capitalizing on their plentiful power play chances. Maybe because it's easier to pretend they were the better team than to admit they got outplayed by a physical team that everyone here hates. You want to believe that the Wings were somehow the team of destiny that fate cruelly robbed, go for it. You apparently can can see the inevitable results of events that never happened, and I unfortunately don't have that superpower.

You're welcome to snipe all you want. I just don't want to rehash the entire argument. The bad bounce thing is just such unbelievable homerism, which is an accusation I rarely throw around, that I can't believe people seriously think that's why the Wings lost. Since you're picking and choosing, one bounce goes the Ducks way in game one and the Wings get swept.

I'm not going to get into this argument again here in this thread. If you want to review my thoughts on the matter, you can see the thread about Osgood starting. http://www.letsgowings.com/forums/index.ph...t&p=1170909

Actually Cleary had the same kind of attitude early in his career. There were pretty big expectations of his offensive potential, but he never quite lived up to it and had a questionable work ethic. It's only been recently that he's turned things around. An appropriate quote about Cleary early in his career. Someone should've translated it and sent it to Grigs. http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/stor...&id=2730635

Wow. I knew they were small, but when you put it like that, it's just sad. As much as people still complain about the Hatcher trade and how bad he was here, I still understand why management did it. EDIT: and you can talk about skill all you want, but when you're a defenseman trying to move a big guy from out in front of the net or keep him from cycling the puck in the corners, it's harder to do when you're giving up 20-40 pounds.

So you want an honest answer about who we think is best, except we can't pick players from 4 teams, we can't pick one of the absolute best players in the league, we can't pick goalies, and if we pick someone on our team, we also have to pick someone else?? Under those conditions I respectfully abstain.

You're crazy Gordie. We lost because the refs made a bunch of bad calls against us and the Wings got most of the bad bounces, that's all. It had nothing to do with the superior size and skill of the Ducks. /sarcasm

It wasn't so much a Williams for Calder deal. It was a move to get rid of Williams salary. By making the trade the Wings had the option to dump Calder and were no longer on the hook for Williams $1.6 million this season.

I've heard things about Lang's questionable work ethic, but never read or seen or heard anything about a fragile soccer style ego. Ever. Where are you getting this from? Not to mention he was the 2nd line center here, that's not exactly 4th or 5th fiddle. It's not like he was a 4th line player. Lang is playing about two more minutes per game and so far is benefitting from the ice time. As for the rest of his transformation, I think it's now that he's not wearing a Red Wings sweater people can actually stop bashing him for a second and get a more objective take on how he plays.

And out of nowhere, Kopecky jumps to the lead as being the new whipping boy. I haven't seen him make any major mistakes, but apparently he just doesn't make enough great plays and falls down too much, and isn't the hero Downey has become. It'll be interesting to see if he remains the new Lazy and Sucksâ„¢ player when Sammy returns to the lineup.

Against the Coyotes. And with Drake out of the lineup. He basically got some (but not all) of Drake's minutes. Kopecky and Ellis do look like they're starting to get something going, which is nice to see.

Ahh yes. If only he dropped the gloves, then he would suddenly rocket from terrible to the most beloved player on this forum. Kopecky hasn't shown much so far this year, but he hasn't hurt us either (which seems to be a common reason why Downey should get more minutes). Hopefully he'll get more on his game. But as I said, Babcock must see something other than him just being tall or he wouldn't be giving him so much time. Lang was pretty tall and big, but Babcock wasn't exactly his biggest fan. Kopecky isn't terrible. He just has shown much yet. Though honestly none of the forwards really have other than the top line and Draper.

Even if it's not for Grigs, it's pretty clear that when everybody's healthy, Downey may be out of the lineup. As for Grigorenko, they'll likely give him a shot whether he deserves it or not just to see what the kid can do. But to stay on the roster he's going to have to earn it. Holland and co. sounded underwhelmed by him showing up to camp out of shape. Kopecky played nearly 13 minutes last game, and has played over 10 minutes the last three games. Obviously injuries are a factor there, but stil, Babcock is giving him the time. Seems like he's seeing something all the Kopecky bashers are not.

Well said. I'm glad we've got some guys that are actually sticking up for their teammates instead of letting "the powerplay be the enforcer." But Kopecky looked pretty decent last year before his injury, and while he hasn't been that noticeable, he also hasn't been as bad as everyone makes him out to be. And as I've already said 50 times I think, Downey is fulfilling his role perfectly right now. He doesn't need and doesn't warrant more ice time.

It's crazy to suggest that enough of those bounces only went one way, to the Ducks, to decide the series. When clearly the bounces and bad calls were going both ways. So another way to say it is I don't think you can realistically pick and choose which bounces kept them from the Cup in a series like that one while ignoring all the fortunate bounces that kept them in the series. sorry if you're unable to follow my point. I think I've been fairly clear throughout the pages we've beat this topic to death. I notice you also didn't address what I thought were valid points, like the Wings power play was 0-7 in the game that had the bad call on Dats and the bad Lilja play. If their powerplay were working at all, neither of those moments are an issue. And Anaheim did lose game 1 on two completely fluke plays, both redirected off Beauchemin. If you won't even concede that, then this has been a totally pointless discussion as you're apparently on crack. At this point it's becoming semantics. And as I tried to point out once again (and to make it less about semantics) my original statement wasn't so much about who was "better" but about saying a few bounces kept the Wings from winning the Cup. But this has been covered over and over and over. Apparently I don't see that series at all the same way you did. *putting on my homer glasses* oh wait. Now I see it! This thread has gone completely off the rails and it was my post that started it all. I'm sorry for that. I'm done beating this to death and the posts are getting less and less civil. Feel free to make any last words or parting shots on the topic.

Because he's not among the best of the best. He's a very good player and a lot of the heart of this team. He works hard and was a big part of their championships. He's just not in that top top tier, which is where you need to be to have your number retired in Detroit.

If they didn't retire Lidstrom's number, I can't imagine what more a player would have to do to deserve the honor. 3 cups (so far), 5 norris trophies (so far), gold medal, captain. They'd never retire a number again.

Okay Captain Hyperbole, here's my first post on this topic. Care to show me where I flipped out? Was it the one exclamation point? It is truly amazing to me that you only seem to recognize the bad breaks Detroit got but don't acknowledge the ones Anaheim had. Like I said, they lost game one of the series on two bad bounces. Imagine if Detroit lost that way. People would still be talking about it. Yet because it happens to the Ducks, no one mentions it when they talk about the series. It's like it never happened. or they forget how Detroit went 0 for 7 on the powerplay in game 5. They only remember the "bad" penalty on Datsyuk and the bad play by Lilja. Sometimes the best team doesn't always win one game. Over the course of a seven game series, they do. And beyond that, the really good teams find ways to win the game even when they've been outplayed. In my book if you're being outplayed or playing poorly and still figure out a way to come away with the W, you're the better team. Since we're playing the quote game, I think Chelios summed it up well after the Ducks evened the series at 2 game a piece. "We had breakdowns defensively. We've got one of the best goalies in the league, if not the best. But we somehow found a way to make him look bad, and we've got to find a way to correct that. You can say it was bounces or deflections or screens, but you make your own breaks. They worked hard, they were in position and made some plays." or Babcock after the Wings lost the series. "Games 4 and 5 where we played at every opportunity to win and let them slip away, that in the end cost us. You have to tip your hat to Anaheim. They've got a good team and they found a way to get it done, and they are going to play a good Ottawa team." EDIT: And back to my original point, which wasn't really about Anaheim being the better team. It was that the Red Wings were not merely a bounce or two away from the Stanley Cup. Better or not, they still had to win another game against a very good team in the Ducks. And then they would've had to beat another good team in the Senators. They were not a couple bad breaks away from the Cup. EDIT: And apologies to all for my dragging this thread WAY off topic.