Heroes of Hockeytown

Yeah, he's ended up lying on the ice more than I'd like lately... As for the period itself, not a lot going on there til the end. Funny that Stuart was the one to finally just load up and shoot it, and also amusing that the fact that Homer swung and missed let it go in the net.

Not a full blown fight, but good on Big Rig.

To protect the cut on his face, I guess.

That's a f***in' load. Because it's Holmstrom, they won't get the call. Seriously, has Homer had one call go his way all year? Two?

Hope you like that pine Cheli, you're gonna be real familiar with it when Rafalski gets healthy.

Haven't really seen either team have too much success with extended possession yet.

All those qualifications Engblom made about Chara can also be made about Lidstrom, and Lidstrom's numbers are better across the board. So pfffffbbbbttt to him.

"Bork bork bork bork bork."

Franzen is clearly bleeding and was high sticked. No call, naturally...

They were easily the best watch in the league until they were demolished by free agency.

Two S's, as those Swedes are wont to do. He got it pretty good from Afinogenov even though he made the pokecheck, so it was good to see him give it back.

I'd like to seem them pull out a late, one goal win.

Tell me about it. Like someone shook him out a nice nap and he realized he had somewhere to be.

Oz with his best Backstrom impression.

Lebda is mediocrity personified and Meech is just plain bad, I'd pass on both. Chelios hasn't looked very good in limited action. Ericsson is raw, he makes mistakes, but he's got better ability than any of the others. I'd roll with Train-Rig if he's good to go. They can get by with Lebda otherwise, as they have done hundreds of times in the past.

Pavel's goal was very nice, but Hagman's was by far the most impressive.

And now it's snowing as we speak. Good game, the Wings were better from top to bottom for 60 minutes. It was frustrating, in a familiar kind of way, when they couldn't get that go ahead goal to save their lives while outplaying the Wild badly. Thankfully Hossa came through at the end. Killer shot. As for all of the nonsense that's going on in this thread: I think it's safe to say that both Oz and the Wings, defensively, have had a very bad season in stretches this year and more importantly by their own high standards, and probably both are below average compared to what the league average is. Probably the only guys that have played up to par this year are Nick, Train, Hank, and Pavel. You still end up with 50 wins, which speaks to the Wings unparalleled goal scoring ability that has been on for the majority of the season, when a lot of other stuff's been off.

You poor bastards on the West Coast. Well, on the bright side, it snowed here like a week ago, so at least you don't have to put up with that bulls***.

That Bobby Ryan character is pretty damn impressive for being a rookie. Thirty goals, and that even though they had him sit out 20 games in the minors.

Hoo boy, wait til you get a load of this goal Sam Gagner just notched.

They wouldn't have signed any other goalie after the 2008 playoffs.

Yeah, I don't know what that's about, considering he's scored as much as he has playing most of the year with guys like Pascal Dupuis, Miro Satan, and Matt Cooke. Billy Guerin and Chris Kunitz aren't exactly world-beaters either.

Without regard to this issue at hand, this was funny. Ovechkin also takes more shots from farther away and worse angles, because his disposition is to shoot from everywhere. The guys you've mentioned are more likely only to shoot when they have higher percentage shot. You can argue about the merits of Ovechkin's shot selection for sure, but you can't argue that those players would score more than Ovechkin if they shot more if that's you're only basis for comparison.

Should it? Players get hot, players cool off. I trust one can make a reasonable argument for one player or the other that doesn't include "He outscored the other during a certain stretch of games."

There was a story on this the other day, about the BJs pulling Filatov out of their AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, to just sit in the pressbox and absorb the experience of a team making a run for the playoffs, while the Crunch are clawing and scraping their way into the playoff picture. He was one of if not the best player for the Crunch during the year and their stretch run. The big league teams don't care.