Feldmarschall

The hell was the point of this thread? Go back to lurking, pal.

Have faith. As it stands, Lilja won't be dressing. As long as he's riding seats in the press box for the playoffs, we have a chance. Really, though, I can see where you're coming from. We don't have traditional marquee players, only a couple guys on our back end with recognizable big-ticket names for the rest of the league. But even our "anonymous" guys are solid - Lebda and Kronwall are stepping in big and proving themselves to be capable hockey players in the here and now. Keep in mind that Carolina did it all last year with a defense that had no one hugely important player but a whole batch of steady guys that could perform in any role and share icetime amongst themselves.

Grigorenko will NOT step straight onto the first line of the Detroit Red Wings in his first pro season in North America. That's like all these people dreaming that Liv would challenge for our #2 spot right off the plane. It's a pipe dream, people. Let it go. For what it's worth, here's my pointless conjecture on the topic. I figure Hudler's future in the organization depends on a few factors: 1) Whether or not we re-sign Calder/Bertuzzi past the end of this year. 2) How Cleary and Sammy produce for the remainder of this season and into the next. 3) What the organization decides to do with Johan Franzen, to leave him as a grinder or turn him into a scorer. If we drop a winger or two, and Sammy/Cleary show an inability to produce offensively, Huds may have a spot as a second-line forward, depending on if we leave Z and Pavel together. The likelihood of the Wings front office letting the offense get that depleted is pretty low, though, so he'll most likely end up dealt or released. He can't muck around on our lower lines because he's got enough skill that he deserves better, but he's too one-dimensional to serve full-time as a top six forward on an elite team, so he's really in limbo. Personally, I like the guy. He's feisty and a good shooter. I'd like to see him develop quicker feet and a better defensive consciousness, and mature into a legitimate top-six guy. He'll never lay people out or manage a point-per-game pace, but I bet he makes somebody happy as a 35-50 point guy somewhere down the road.

We'll be back on ESPN in no time.

Now I can actually watch those Todd Bertuzzi highlight videos on YouTube and not feel BAD about it. This is wonderful.

Berard's got the ability to put up crazy points for a defenseman. He'll make somebody happy once he's back into game shape, but probably not any of us.

It's a risky bit of business. Can't argue that Calder is playing terrible this season, but the entire Philly roster has been doing the same thing. Last year, however, given good ice time and playing with such established legends as Tyler Arnason, Mark Bell, and Patrick Sharp, he put up 59 points in 79 games, respectable second-line production. He's just not what I'd call consistent. Well, better than Williams, but not an exciting move, really.

Uhmm... What?

Don't play retarded and pull the semantics card, you're smart enough that you can see what he meant. A lot of people around here think an enforcer and a gritty guy can change the entire team while playing five minutes per night and bringing nothing to the table aside from the occasional fight. Point being made is that it's not at all about one-dimensional toughness in one guy combined with one-dimensional finesse in another, blended ad nauseum. We formerly had a good combination of players that had both attributes, and they were major contributors in our cup runs. Players like that are uncommon in the league at any given time, and we're totally lacking in them right now.

I just knew those guys would do better without Carter in the lineup.

GMs must really not have any faith whatsoever in this upcoming draft, people are tossing picks around like candy.

Jason Blake does not know how to slack off. I periodically watch Islanders games, and he's consistently among the most impressive players on their roster. Paired with half-way respectable linemates, he could turn our #2 unit into something good.

To his credit, he was once the fastest skater in the league, and he is defensively sound. But really, Marco freakin' Sturm isn't worth 3.5 a year. That's stupid.

Got a point there. I've gone to school at Ferris and Oakland Universities, not at all huge campuses, and never attended a game at one of the bigger schools. The only time I was ever in Ann Arbor, for example, was when I played youth hockey and our division finals were down there. The crowd was... rather small, as you can imagine. I don't really pay attention to college sports. There were nights, however, when the FSU crowd outdid the Joe at their hockey games. It's just too bad that when I was out there, they played goon hockey that'd have made Philly green with envy. I think they had twice as many checking-from-behind penalties that year as any other team in the CCHA. I still say there's nothing like an entire million+ metropolis going s***-wild over a soccer game, though. The chaos was so great, my tour bus never made it to our pickup and we had to miss out on Neuschwannstein. I didn't even know what the hell was going on and I enjoyed myself. They were so drunk I probably could've gotten them doing Wings chants.

I didn't think it was much of a rivalry until I gave some guy crap for wearing a Preds jersey (in good humor, of course) at a local restaurant. I still find myself reluctant to consider the Preds "rivals," in the truest sense, but that's because I just don't like to admit that they've got a good enough team to take the greater half of these remaining games, if they work hard. We need more playoff series against each other to fully cement the thing.

There's one major concern I'd have with moving Schneider. Williams will get more time on the point. That's pretty scary.

I fully agree about the atmosphere in a soccer game. I was in Munich the morning of a game between FC Bayern-Muenchen and some big out of town rival. It was right around Easter. Nine in the morning and cops were hauling away people in the central train station for excessive noise and intoxication. It was pretty insane, totally unlike anything I've seen in American sports.

I get frustrated. I've been to two games this year. The Toronto one was decent overall, but mostly because the Leafs fans made it that way. Hometown fans were so quiet that the Leafs contingent (all standing-room, of course) practically ran the show for most of the game, and when we were banging in goals, nowhere near enough people stood up. Then I caught a Blues game that was worse by magnitudes. I didn't hear a single respectable Let's Go Red Wings chant that whole night. Nobody around me stood up and celebrated, nobody was vocal, nothin'. Geezers and kids and unenthusiastic fans. It was a joke.

Khabibulin and Lalime both give up four goals on a combined total of 22 shots. After the second intermission, Marty Lapointe appears in Bulin's equipment and camps out in the net, stopping all seventeen shots in the third period. Shortly after the game, he's traded to Detroit with Jim Vandermeer for Williams and Lilja, causing LGW fans to launch into wild celebration as Marty takes over MacDonald's spot as the #3 goaltender.

If he gets healthy and they lure him back over, he seems like he'd be the type of guy to really thrive with the new rules. He's produced very well in Russia.

Well, he'd be better than Lilja. But I'd rather not.

Nashville had their LA. We have our Flyers. It happens.

I love the look on that guy's face. You can practically see him yelling "HAMMER FIST!" I bet he wished that cup was glass so he could bust it on that poor fool's face. For the record, I do NOT condone this behavior.

Are we seriously going to hand them the game after having a 6-1 lead? Time for Babcock to do his thing.

I hope the disciplinarian takes a look at that play and Stuart's blatant attempt to injure another player. Nothing accidental about that.