Heroes of Hockeytown

Rafalski doin' what he does.

Ice skater guy with a mullet who lost but then won with Morgan Freeman voiceover, you inspire me.

ITT: All of LGW gets trolled by lidstromboli. Bravo.

Starts at 3PM EST. All the games starting times for someone living in a normal, sane time zone can be found here.

There can be only one.

Looks like a win-win for Detroit.

Whenever the Wings win, the teams around them win. Same for when they lose, too. I don't know how it is every team in the league is on a 60 game winning streak and the Wings are still in it, but there you go. Anyways, last night was a very pleasant, Wings-like win. They still do that every now and again. Now most of their important players are going up north to goof around but at least guys like Howard, Stuart, Ericsson, who have played a ton or have been burnt out lately can rest up for the stretch drive. The Wings just have to worry about their own games on the other side of the break and they'll still control their own destiny.

Goodnight sweet prince.

Would depend on the return, although what that would be I can't begin to speculate.

I haven't got anything against Willy, he seems to be playing okay. But the Wings have too many forward spots filled already and he's being played out of place on the 3rd and 4th lines without other skilled players. I was thinking the Wings might miss him for shootouts and those valuable extra points along the stretch drive, but whether or not he or anyone else scores seems to have no bearing on the Wings' ability to win shootouts anyways.

Stuart was on the PP for a while when everybody was hurt, he wasn't any better.

It wasn't, he was signed in '08, but in any event, he was paid fairly. Defensemen that can play 25 minutes a night and put up 55-60 points make the money Rafalski makes. People just have an unrealistic idea of what a big money Dman is supposed to be from watching Lidstrom all these years.

Holy big line Batman.

Not really a useful statistic anyways when the majority of the players used only participated in a handful of games. But 16 points in 23 games from a third liner is certainly good no matter how you slice it. Although I think he benefited tremendously from often playing with Hossa and Franzen, two top notch goal scorers that are capable of a lot of improvisation and don't really rely on a playmaking center much.

Was a pretty good game, intense at the end. Shame they didn't tie it, would've made for a much more dramatic finish. I'd rank it below Super Bowls 43 and 42, but definitely above 41 and 40.

What a dominating performance from Ovechkin. He's the best player in the NHL and it's not even close.

You're entitled to your opinion, but if you look at salaries across the league, defensmen that can play 25 minutes a night and put up 55-60 points are all in that salary range.

A lot of you guys are unhappy with Rafalski's play and I don't think he's been great either, but his contract is fair. He took a paycut to come here in 2008, let's not forget, and he's given us two great years and one average year. He can bounce back next go around, but even if he doesn't, that he was going to be overpaid at the end of the deal is sort of a given. It would be like complaining about Zetterberg and Franzen not living up to their 4 and 6 million dollar cap hits when they're in their late 30's; that was an understood trade off when the deal was made to get the lowest cap hit possible for the majority of the contract.

They did a pretty good job competing for the last couple years on that. It's sort of the Red Wings' entire philosophy. After playing so well for the first half of the year Stuart has tanked hard lately. The Olympic break can't come soon enough and hopefully he can use the time off to get his head on straight.

Dallas has gotten a head start on Phoenix, which is not what we want, but elsewhere: if the Flames and Preds lose (distinct possibilities) the Wings end up exactly where they started the day. They can't keep wasting chances like this to gain points, and very soon they will be in a position to miss the playoffs for their mistakes, but they aren't done yet.

As awful as that was they didn't exactly fall out of the playoff race in a day. Something has got to get these guys going but let's not all lose our heads at once.

Ol' reliable, good info man.

Stuart and Ericsson got unfairly penalized on Howard's gaffe but a -4 and -3 respectively still tells the tale of the game.

Are you kidding me?

Well, everyone's hurt again and they blew the lead. It's just like the good old times of three weeks ago.