haroldsnepsts

Honestly I think just by the nature of them being in New York, it cranks up the hype factor an extra notch. The Rangers have shown more than a few times that a great team on paper doesn't necessarily translate to the ice. That being said, I hope they do get it together and become a force in the east. I've always kind of liked them after their cup win in 94, and it'd be good for the NHL if they were a strong franchise.

It hasn't been for a while now. It's about how the Wings were clearly the better team but were robbed of the Stanley Cup by the refs and cruel cruel fate.

No they weren't. It was a very well matched series, but the Wings were not the better team through that much time. As I pointed out earlier. The Wings won the first game because of two completely lucky bounces that led to their only goals. They won game one off two complete fluke goals. If Anaheim wins game one and shuts out Detroit in their own building, do you think this series even goes 6 games before the Ducks win?

The Red Wings savior.

For me it comes down to this: The Ducks found a way to win, and the Wings didn't. The series wasn't given to them by the refs, or by a series of fortunate bounces. They found a way to win. Therefore the Ducks were the better team.

Seriously, this whole Downey thing has reached the point of absurdity. People practically falling all over themselves for a marginal NHL player who fights to a draw. All it shows is how desperate we fans are for this team to have some actual toughness. Like I said, Downey did exactly what he was supposed to. I know you know this Gordie, but a lot of people seem to think with players that if they're good at their role at a certain level of minutes, then doubling those minutes will make them twice as good. It's completely untrue. Downey at 3 minutes is where he should be. And people seem to be ignoring the fact that the game winning goal was scored by Ellis, who is one of the guys they were saying Babs should take ice time away from to give to the miracle on ice that is Downey. Kopecky played almost 13 minutes, so apparently Babcock thinks he isn't quite as bad as everyone is making him out to be. Lang is gone though, so someone has to be useless on the Wings. Sammy is out of the lineup and Lilja played ok, hence kopecky. Funny how no one is talking about Hudler, who's been invisible. I appreciate the sentiment Gordie, but that seat is gonna stay empty.

uh, no. But now I want cake.

There is nothing else he can do. Seriously. It's been well established in his career. Downey did exactly what he was supposed to. 3 minutes per game is great.

Sorry. I just can't agree. If winning the Cup were really determined so much by lucky bounces as you guys make it seem, I probably wouldn't watch hockey. It would be too frustrating to watch teams win so randomly.

how's he going to refind that game on the bench? we're 7 games into the season. it's not like he's sucked for 40 games.

I guess once again we'll have to agree to disagree. My perspective is that the season is long. If giving the ice time to Kopecky and Ellis gives them a chance to develop come playoff time, even if they show some growing pains throughout the season, then go for it. They have potential. Downey has none. Hell, Babcock gave ice time to Kopecky in the playoffs, so he must see something in the guy. I doubt he'd throw Downey out there in similar situations. At least I hope he wouldn't.

You think they were a luckier team than we were because you are a Wings fan. That doesn't make it the truth. For every bad bounce or bad call the Wings got, you're ignoring all the breaks they did have that they didn't capitalize on. Or all the bad bounces Anaheim had that they overcame. Detroit won game 1 against Anaheim on two completely fluky goals, both last touched by Beauchemin. Those were two extremely unlucky breaks for Anaheim, because it was the only goals they gave up to Detroit that game. But Wings fans here somehow forget those goals. Or I guess didn't think they were lucky. I'm not sure. The Ducks beat us without Pronger in the lineup in game 4 for chrissakes. The Wings had a golden opportunity to go up 3 games to 1 with one of Anaheim's best defenseman out of the lineup. A guy who plays almost half the game for them. And the Ducks beat us. In game 6 facing possible elimination, the Wings let Anaheim get up 3 unanswered goals in the first two periods before they finally dug in and mounted a comeback that was painfully close to winning. It was a close series and the Wings gave them a better run for their money than most people predicted. But Anaheim was the better team.

I have to say I'm a little surprised at the crackdown in the GDT. I hadn't seen one that got way out of hand lately. Sure there may be a row of posts that say Goal! or something like that, but this reads as a conversation. It's fun to celebrate when the Wings score. Is it okay to say something like "That was a great goal by Zetterberg!" I'm not being sarcastic or nitpicking, I'm just not sure I understand what the issue is. And more on topic, it's great to hear Z and Nick are the lineup. It's hard to imagine beating San Jose without those two in the lineup. I'd make a prediction, but apparently there's some question as to whether those are appropriate or not. (okay, that part was a little sarcastic. sorry)

So were the Wings just lucky to get past St. Louis, and then Colorado in 97? To get past Dallas in 98? Vancouver and Colorado in 02? And once again, using this line of reasoning, then it's safe to say the Sharks were also a couple bad breaks away from winning the Cup.

I can understand it taking a long time to recover from a serious accident like that. 6 years is a pretty long time to do that. It's one thing to not quite have your game back together, but there's NO excuse for showing up to camp out of shape. That has nothing to do with his injury. If he were unable to exercise enough to be in shape because of his injury, then there's obviously no way he could play in the NHL. His lack of fitness is just lack of work ethic or professionalism.

It's that there is a limited amount of ice time to give. And as I've said, Downey has no real upside. It's not like I'm a huge fan of Kopecky or Ellis, but I'd rather see those guys get the time so they can either develop into 3rd line role players, or the Wings can see for certain that it's just not going to happen for those two and be done with it. And my main point about MAy is that the he's no dynamo, but the guy has the skills and qualities to make a career in the NHL. He's better than Downey in every department. And I'm not sure I even agree that Downey doesn't hurt us out there. I haven't seen a glaring error by him so far, but if you add a couple minutes to ice time, I bet we would.

Brad May is 2 years older than Downey, but has played in the NHL for well over ten years, has 123 goals and 276 points AND is a better fighter than Downey in my opinion. So yes, he does bring more to the table than Downey. And Parros doesn't bring much to more to the table, which is probably why he's currently getting about 40 seconds more icetime than Downey. (May plays 6 minutes) I'm not opposed to giving more ice time to that type of player. I'm opposed to giving it to Downey.

Saying a better team would've overcome it is nonsense?? I happen to think it's true. There are bad calls and bad breaks in any playoff series. the better teams overcome that adversity. I don't want to get into dissecting your post or what I think are large leaps in logic. Mainly, my post wasn't directed only at you. I wasn't trying to pin you down on semantics here. My post was directed at the group of people here who offhandedly say things like the Wings just got a bad break and otherwise would've won the Cup, because it's so far from the truth. Even if the bad break cost them that OT game, Anaheim still beat them in game six and won the series 4 games to 2. It didn't even make it to 7 games. And all the claims of momentum and one line teams is pure conjecture. Could the Wings have won the Cup? maybe. But so could San Jose. Following the logic people have used, maybe if San Jose had gotten a bounce or two their way against the Wings, they would've defeated us. If not for that late Lang goal, San Jose wins the game and goes up 3 games to 1, which is almost never come back from. So the Sharks likely would've closed out the series against Detroit. Then they probably would match up better against Anaheim than Detroit did, plus they're a familiar opponent an in the same time zone. So they could've beat the Ducks since the Wings almost did, and Detroit only got by San Jose because of a couple lucky bounces. Then on to Ottawa, who is a one line team...

Oh my f-ing god. Has this become a Downey thread as well? It seriously is spreading like an infection.

I am definitely one of those desperate for the Wings to get tougher and (yes, I'll say it) grittier. My signature has said as much for a while now. Downey just isn't the answer. And I don't think Kopecky is in that department either, but he at least has a chance at being a decent role player. Chipping in a few goals and being defensively responsible. If anything I've seen more from Ellis in terms of digging at pucks and going to the net and getting his nose dirty. So overall, I'm with ya. But Downey is a lost cause.

In his illustrious NHL career, only one season did Downey average over 5 minutes a game. Every other year his average ice time was under that. Why do you think that is? Exactly how is increasing Downey's minutes going to help win games? As I and others have tried to point out to counteract the irrational Downey obsession that's going on, Downey is a known quantity. He has no offensive or defensive skills, but will hit and drop the gloves and isn't particularly great at either of those. Kopecky has only played 34 NHL games, and missed the end of last season when he broke his collar bone. But he still may develop in to a solid role player at this level. He needs to get the ice time and opportunities for that to happen. You would rather the Wings put out a dead end player on the ice just because he may pick a fight, versus them potentially developing a 3rd line player who is 25 years old?

Exactly! Because the better team would have been able to overcome the alleged bad bounce or call. Or beyond that, they would've been able to put the game away so that bad break wouldn't cost them the game. It's funny to me how we beat San Jose soundly. No bad breaks for that team. We were just better and showed them. But when basically the same thing happens to us against the Ducks, then it's that we had a couple bad bounces that cost us the series we would've otherwise won. And it's ridiculous that people are outright dismissing Ottawa, for a couple reasons. First, everyone says how they're a one line team. Just shut down that line and you beat them. Yet the majority of people here think our one line team has a good shot at winning the Cup this year! But beyond that, Ottawa was beaten soundly by the Ducks. So maybe it's easy to think that the Wings would beat them too. Only the Wings couldn't manage to beat the Ducks either. It's ridiculous. The Wings had a great run, but they were not robbed of the Cup. they were not the better team that caught a bad break. They lost to the better team.

I agree that at that point, it's not presumptious to believe we had a team good enough to win the Cup. That's different than saying we were basically one bad bounce away from winning the Stanley Cup. It all looks good on paper, but you gotta play the game on the ice.

as for the unfounded part, the basic point is that you can't know what would've happened. that's why you play the games. There have been several years where Detroit looked like the team to roll easily to the Conference Finals, if not the Cup. But it didn't exactly pan out. Hopefully dom will get pissed and come back on fire, like he does after he gets chased from the net. I'm pretty sure he's got some crazy number of shutouts the game after he's been pulled. But if Ozzy plays well, then that's a great problem to have.

It's way too early to give up on Grigorenko, with as much potential as he has. But I will say this, he sure did start off on the wrong foot.