Heaton

The Blues didn't become the worst team in the league because Osgood wasn't re-signed.

The PP had issues during the regular season and could've been better during the playoffs, but even with that said, the Wings had the best PP% during the playoffs in the Western Conference. People can rag on Samuelsson at the point all they want, but he did his job and did it about as well as you could expect. He wasn't there because he was a great option he was there because of injuries. The right handed shot helped it and the PP actually got better when he took over for Schneider. During the regular season there were stretches where the PP was lights out and almost automatic, I refuse to believe that when it was working like a well oiled machine Babcock demanded to go back to screen and shoot. I believe there is a basic strategy that they employ, but Lidstrom, Schneider, Datsyuk and Zetterberg had free reign to do whatever they wanted on the PP. While Babcock is for sure accountable when things are going bad, the players need to be as well.

True, but now it is Zetterberg and Datsyuk with a bunch of 3rd liners.

Nah, as long as the Devils still have Brodeur, Elias, Gionta, Parise, Zajac and Lagenbrunner they'll be able to compete. Losing Rafalski was a bigger blow than losing Gomez IMO.

bored enough to copy and paste from a blog.

Games By Team: Colorado - 8 Detroit - 8 NY Rangers - 8 Philadelphia - 8 Pittsburgh - 8 Buffalo - 7 Boston - 6 Carolina - 5 Montreal - 5 NY Islanders - 5 Anaheim - 4 Atlanta - 4 Dallas - 4 Washington - 4 Minnesota - 3 New Jersey - 3 St. Louis - 3 Toronto - 3 Chicago - 2 San Jose - 2 Tampa Bay - 2 Vancouver - 2 Calgary - 1 Columbus - 1 Edmonton - 1 Florida - 1 Los Angeles - 1 Nashville - 1 Ottawa - 1 Phoenix - 1

Nice photoshop NN, stop drinking the kool-aid.

Please stop being so defensive, I wasn't implying you thought he was a good player, I was just making a statement.

Big name, little talent left.

That's it, I'm done with hockey.

Which Western Conference team had a better powerplay in the playoffs? Here's a hint: none.

http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/hock..._york_islander/

And also according to whoever was in this poll only 1% think winning is important.

That's fine and all but Sutton isn't really that physical either, I just think some people are infatuated with him being 6'6.

Fairly sure Lilja's re-emergence came because of his stellar defensive and physical play throughout the post season and less because he fought Travis Moen.

Lilja isn't that far behind Sutton in ability.

3 years 3m/yr. No need for Sutton or Markov we have enough capable defensemen. Also, Andy Sutton isn't even that great defensively nor that great physically. Hell, the fan favorite Andreas Lilja has more hits than Sutton the past 2 seasons and most importantly of course, _ONE_ less fight! We have a logjam at defense anyway, Lidstrom, Kronwall, Rafalski, Chelios, Lilja, Lebda, Meech, Quincey - from my perspective, Markov has a take it or leave it offer not because of what he did here but because he's really not needed. He didn't really do much while he was here, he had a few decent hits but I don't remember being anything special when not paired with Lidstrom.

I wonder if the fans said the same thing the other FOURTEEN times the Red Wings jersey has changed.

Just not as cheap.

If he were inexpensive he wouldn't still be waiting by the phone.

Nill's contract prevents him from going.

Yzerman's first move will be to trade Nik Antropov for Henrik Zetterberg.

It's a very pessimistic view at the Wings cap.

Interesting why? I thought signing him to his contract pretty much showed what they thought of him.

I haven't really heard Lou's full opinion on Burke, but it seems that he believes Burke is some how on another level in terms of being a better GM than Holland. In his sig he basically dashes all Holland's accomplishments since he became GM, so let's look at what Burke has done: Burke inherited a team that already had his core of young players, he inherited a team with Rob Niedermayer who basically was a magnet for his brother Scott, so not really any effort there, no other teams really had a chance. Prior to that he traded Fedorov, well, not surprising since Burke really is almost a carbon copy of Don Cherry in that he hates Euros. So he gets praised for trading him to a team that desperately needed a player to try and validate their francise. Obviously it hasn't worked that well, but Fedorov wasn't going to propel either team to the next level at his age. Then Burke got Pronger, decent trade, but not necessarily a hard one. Who else was seriously in discussion to get him other than the Ducks? Really easy to make the trade when your stable is stocked full and no one else could really compete with it. After that he lost one of his good young players because he decided to go "Ken Holland" and sign an older, familiar player to a large contract. I understand people don't like Holland and I understand that people don't agree with the players that Holland has added or not added. But it's not just blind and ignorant people all around the NHL who actually believe that Holland is one of the best GM's in the league, because he is. I'm not going to go as far to say in Holland I trust, but there's few other GM's in the league who I'd want running this team. We have a team in Detroit not in cap hell, without players making more than they really should to the extent that they're hampering the team or not able to be traded. We're in great position in the future and have a vision that is working. We have a great coach who is getting this team to play a style that works in the playoffs. Holland is not impervious to criticism but to discount everything he's doing just because we're not icing a team that is some people's ideal is for lack of a better word, lame and it's hard not to dismiss their arguments because of that fact. This organization has more than just one man running the show and because of that I find it very hard to believe that if people like Jimmy D, Jim Nill, Steve Yzerman, Scotty Bowman and Mike Babcock truely thought that the makeup of the team was incapable of winning the cup it would be different, but at this point without sounding like I'm too blindly following them, I'll trust them. That doesn't mean I won't be critical if they do something I don't agree with, but it does mean that I'm not going to look down my nose at every move they make.