Heaton

They've lost pretty much all of their character players. Vancouver and Minnesota scare me more than Calgary.

Calgary just isn't the same team under Playfair, they don't have the same tough element that they used to have and they are focusing more on offense than defense. Kiprusoff, while still having a better year than most goalies, isn't the same goalie who took his team to Game 7 of the finals and then won a Vezina last year. Calgary also has one of the worst road records in the entire league, and if you can't win on the road, being in 8th place, you're not going to do much in the playoffs. The Stars match up with us best, but in my eyes we'll have to beat at least 2 of those teams to advance past the 2nd round anyway.

Hell yes I would. Stastny is the next Captain of the Avalanche, he's going to be a dominate two-way forward in the NHL.

If Babcock didn't "like" Hudler, he would not be playing as many minutes as he is now. You guys need to understand that there's more than one way to keep a person motivated, Babcock gushing over Hudler may not be the best thing for him. Whatever Babcock is doing, it's working since Hudler has played a ton and is producing. It has nothing to do with whether or not Hudler is liked.

"We didn't want the 30th overall pick anyway"

One of my favorites, and who wouldn't? I'd take Phaneuf and Weber over him too, I'm sure there's more young defensemen out there better than Kronwall.

And he still managed to play 19 mins, be a +2, get 2 shots on goal and add an assist.

I say his name like Dracula would say it. And I giggle.

I'd be shocked if he didn't play in the playoffs. Hank seems like the sort of player that as long as playing won't hurt him longterm for his career, he'll be out there.

I love how competitive the games are, but for me, a rivalry isn't born until each team has lost to each other in the playoffs.

Kronwall has to keep the mask on until the doctors tell him to take it off.

So Schneider's poor defensive play is blown out of proportion but Kronwall's isn't? Ignoring figure of speeches, the entire line died off, Lang was a big part of it.

Lebda also has the luxury of playing against the opponents 3rd and 4th line more. Look, I'm not going to convince you of anything, but the best indication of how good Kronwall can be is going back and looking at the games when Schneider was out. Schneider is dragging down Kronwall by being his partner, Lebda has a partner who is the best American player to play in the NHL ever. I'm not sitting here and saying Kronwall has been fantastic this year, because he hasn't, but to say, after 1 year that Kronwall is not smart enough to play in the NHL? It's really hard to take you seriously. When Kronwall first game up he was fantastic, when Kronwall came back from his injury last year he was playing very well, and into the playoffs he played VERY well. This is an off year, obviously, but his first year playing 20+ minutes every night. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

And Lebda has devolved into a reliable #5 defensemen who pretty much will only play 5 on 5 and limited PP time. Nothing wrong with that, but there's a reason why Kronwall plays 6 minutes more every game, and in every situation. He's obviously not reached his peak yet, but he hasn't been awful by any means. The people who believe he's playing horribly are the same ones who bought into the "Nik jr." bulls***. Newsflash, he isn't going to be anything like Lidstrom.

and draper, maltby, holmstrom, lang, hasek, osgood, samuelsson, markov ect.. we have plenty of veteran leadership.

Let's see, 1 year 4m contract for Schneider? No thanks.

-- Franzen and Markov are both out this week. Earliest return for both is the game in Calgary (March 20). -- Zetterberg and Bertuzzi are both out until after the Calgary game. Earliest possible return for both is at home against Columbus, March 22. -- Ozzie starts Tuesday in Nashville. Hasek will go Wednesday in Detroit. -- Cleary started skating on his own Monday.

Considering I never said anything like that I'm not sure how to respond. Having your head down is not an excuse for someone to make it a point to hit them in the head. Injuries are bound to happen, but head injuries should and can be avoided better.

Yeah, the pussification is going to be really evident when someone get paralyzed or killed because of a clean hit like that. And don't shrug it off, it WILL happen. Players can have clean hits without the result of the other player bleeding from their head. I love the fighting and the big hits in the game, but there has been too many head injuries this season for you to justify anything.

It was another headshot, which needs to be stopped.

Next season they're going back to white jerseys at home.

But don't you also agree that passion also comes from competition? We could be a very heavy hitting team and have tough physical games against St. Louis, Columbus and Chicago every time, but if we win 95% of the time and do it easily, I don't think it would make a difference. I don't care if we have the Calgary Flames of 2004 lineup or have the hardest working team in the league, if the other team sucks, you're not going to be as passionate as you would be if the other team were good. I'm also not sure how you could say Wings games are boring, every Preds game has been entertaining but like I said, too many games are too easy for the Wings. Did you think the playoff series last year was boring?

He's taking a very narrow minded look at the Wings games. 1. The Wings have had ZERO competition in the regular season, how the hell are we supposed to have passionate regular season games if almost every single team we play against is a push over? Hell, we routinely take off the first 2 periods just to play hard for 15-20 minutes and get our 2 points. 2) About the Joe having empty seats, like, OMG! Every arena has empty seats these days, the Joe is no exception. 3) It's nothing new that Wings fans have had the mentality of waiting for the playoffs to come around to get passionate, I'm not that way, but I can see why it is. Adding Bertuzzi helps and re-signing him would probably help a little more. 4) Losing guys like Yzerman and Shanahan is going to hurt ANY team, Yzerman was our passion, he was our emotion. It's going to take a few years to adjust.

Don't you just wanna pinch his cheeks and put him in a sailors outfit??!!

I was just painting you with the same brush as everyone else. Not sure if you do it specifically.