Dabura

That's an insult to Thornton. Douglas Murray is a cruel joke, and enough is enough [Eyes on the Prize]

Wait, which situation are you referring to, Gibson over Hiller or Jones over Quick? If the former, the Ducks are an elite team and Gibson is the #1 goalie prospect in the world, so I dunno if we can really relate. (For what it's worth, the Kings had Gibson beat at least twice, but his teammates bailed him out. Specifically, Kopitar's wraparound which Fowler had to stop and that one where Gibson was dead on the ground and Getzlaf - who's become one of my favorite players - stood tall in net.) As for Quick-Jones, my armchair theory is Sutter learned from the Sharks series that if the opposition is causing problems for Quick in his kitchen and he's showing signs that it's throwing off his game, you remove him from the equation right away and then say whatever you have to say in your pressers to convince people that it's not about Quick at all, it's 100% about galvanizing his teammates, who are supposed to be going to war for him in the defensive zone but were, obviously, not getting it done. So, pretty much what Roenick said, except I do think Sutter was protecting Quick and that that was actually the primary motivation. I'm not sure any real parallels can be drawn between all that and our Boston series. I suppose there could've been more to the whole flu thing than we were led to believe.

I love Sutter's pressers.

Awesome though the Kings are, I do often wonder why they have such trouble scoring. Their top six is crazy, they spend a ton of time in the o-zone...

That you can't actually replace Nick Lidstrom is, to me, a straw man. I'm not saying we need another Lidstrom, because there is no other Lidstrom. I'm saying if you lose Lidstrom and Rafalski in the span of two seasons, you go out and you get a very good defenseman who's going to help soften the blow. It's easy for me to say that, but it's also easy to sit on your hands because "There's no one out there and no we don't want that guy and no those guys are all gonna be way too expensive and no those guys are way too old and no we don't actually need anyone our blue line is fine because Smith might be a #4 next season and we have kids who may be really good second-pairing guys in a couple years when Datsyuk is gone so we're gonna contend for the Cup next season because we're gonna be really good unless we don't do too well in which case we're in a transition stage so if you thought we were gonna contend for the Cup that's your own fault for being unrealistic no team wins the Cup every season you're spoiled there's no hockey store it takes two to dance brb trading Jarnkrok + 2nd 4 Legwand hi I'm back so as I was saying being a GM is awesome." Sign and/or trade for a high-end defenseman. I know it's never been done before in the history of professional hockey, but there's a first time for everything!

I dunno, I feel like we say this kind of thing about them every spring and then nothing ever really comes of it. They just keep trucking along, having their way with most of the Eastern Conference. Weren't we predicting their fiery demise, like, five years ago? That they'd only be able to keep, like, four good players and the rest of the team would have to be scrubs and they'd cease to be relevant? I don't worship at the shrine of Shero, but he's managing to ice to an elite team every season, and it's not all being done on the backs of Crosby and Malkin. My impression is they're kind of building a "buy-in" culture like the Wings had and I guess still have. Penguins want to be Penguins, want to stay Penguins, and are willing to take hometown discounts to make it so. It's why I see Niskanen and Orpik re-signing. They could make a killing on the open market, but having Sidney Crosby as your BFF and the Conference Finals as a yearly ritual must be pretty nice. Plus, the Metro is a joke. Playing for the Penguins? A man could certainly do a lot worse. I guess. That seems to be what Babcock is thinking (re: his comment about grass). Maybe he could turn the Leafs around and be treated like a God for the rest of his life. But then, look at what they did to the mighty Brendan Shanahan, NHL Disicpline Czar and Reformed Facepunching Power Forward. He thought extending Randy Carlyle was the right thing to do. Clearly they ate his brain and now he's one of them. A moron. Mike Babcock knows better.

Same. Every team needs a good shutdown centerman. Crosby hates the Glendenings and Dubinskys of the world.

One thing that needs to be said: the Pens are no longer a bad defensive team. Quite the opposite. For this, I credit Jacques Martin and the fact that - seemingly unbeknownst to very many intelligent, informed hockey fans - their blue line has gone from somewhat thin to straight-up sick in the span of a season. Letang Maatta Martin Niskanen Orpik Scuderi Pound for pound, that's one of the better back ends we've seen in the cap era. And I say that as someone who hates the Pens almost as much as I hated the Avs in the '90s.

Wow, it just hit me: Glendening has replaced Cleary in Babs's heart of hearts. All of Babs's talk about the old guys never getting their jobs back, that was his way of saying Cleary broke his heart and now he's never gonna let him in again. This s*** cuts DEEP.

False. Duncan Keith would never say something so off-color.

I've wondered about this, because it does seem to be an issue. So many times this season we looked absolutely gassed halfway through the game, for no good reason. (Wasn't the switch to the Eastern Conference supposed to reduce wear and tear?) My guess is it's our style of play, our systems, our makeup. We preach skill and puck possession. We need to have the puck and force the other team to run around and chase the play. We're not doing that anymore, because we suck, so we end up doing a lot of running around and having to forecheck aggressively and all that physical stuff that the average team lives and breathes and embodies. (Blue collar, white collar.) We don't build our roster that way, we haven't really drafted that way, we don't use those systems. And now all of a sudden we're supposed to be a really tough, gritty, grinding, tight-checking team of "everydayers"? Not with the personnel we have. Not with most of our forwards being 5'11. Then you compound that with our better players all being into their 30s, and our better younger players needing to learn how to pace themselves and such (adrenaline only gets you so far and can, in fact, work against you over the course of a full game), and the game just generally getting bigger, faster, stronger, younger. It's a concern. What is our identity moving forward? Can we face up to the fact that we're no longer ahead of the curve in believing puck possession is everything?

This is great. Any extra miles on Chicago's legs = good, especially with the other series probably going long.

Sucks that someone had to die for the Rangers to get their s*** together, but, um, better late than never?

Roster Abby's basically a superstar on this team. Plus, USA Hockey loves it some grit and toughness and intangibles and truculence and heart-and-soul and blue-collar and grit and toughness and grit and blue-collar. Also, toughness.

Well, firstly, I guess I did contradict myself a little. (If Ericsson's a #4 and DeKeyser's a #3, well...) Basically, I give Ericsson a slight edge because of his experience. I think over the course of the 2014-15 campaign we're going to see DeKeyser become our best defensive defenseman - but, at present, I rate Ericsson a bit higher. We really, really, really, really, really, really, really missed him against the Bruins. The second thing - you say "defensively." Kronwall may not be our best defenseman in the d-zone (debatable), but, all things considered, he's by far our best and most valuable defenseman. He's not an ideal #1, but as things currently stand, he is our blue line. And that's on Ken Holland. You don't lose Lidstrom and Rafalski and then make excuses about how gosh darn hard it is to get a top-end NHL defenseman, sitting on your hands for 3+ years because "The way you win is you build from within." Sure, building from within is essential, but getting a top-end defenseman and building from within don't have to be mutually exclusive. Case in point, we could move two of our top defense prospects for a top-pairing guy and still have two very good defense prospects remaining. Four very good prospects (when we only have room for two, realistically) vs. two very good prospects and a top-pairing NHL defenseman? I'd take the latter. But then, I wouldn't replace Lidstrom and Rafalski with Quincey and Colaiacovo. I guess that's why I'm not an NHL GM. *hangs head in shame* But I digress.[/weekly rant] My perfect offseason brings in two top-four defenseman, one a signing and the other an acquisition. One might call that overkill, but I call it trying to contend for the Cup right now because we're the Red Wings. I like Ouellet, Sproul, Marchenko, and Backman, but I also like John Carlson. The key is, Carlson is a #1 or #2 in this league, whereas there's no guarantee that any of the aformentioned Griffins will ever be that good. And even if we knew one or two of them would be that good, we could add a guy who's that good right now or we could wait a few years and let our core get that much older and then Sproul is that good but Datsyuk is gone and so is Zetterberg's back. Because I know someone's going to say, "But wait, I thought you hate the Jarnkrok deal. What's the difference?" - the difference is that our return for Jarnkrok (and a second-round pick) was 33-year-old rental David Legwand. John Carlson - as you've mentioned - is younger than Brendan Smith and already on Kronwall's level, more or less. Legwand vs. Carlson. Of course, I dunno that any package from any team could get the Caps to move Carlson. But that's not the point. It doesn't have to be Carlson. It could be Yandle, or Byfuglien, or Ehrhoff, or Shattenkirk, or Josi, or Faulk - there are possibilities out there. I believe, with the young assets we have, there are deals that can be made. I don't believe Holland when he says "There really haven't been any options, so there's nothing much I can do about it. No one moves key players anymore."

Orr does suck at hockey, though. It's been scientifically proven.

Personally, I'm ready for Blashill. He's going to be the next Babcock for us, or he's going to be the next Babcock for someone else. That's the issue here, from the organization's perspective. It's lose Blashill and, soon enough, Babcock, or lose Babcock. I wonder if Franzen responds to a new coach. Maybe "more joy" was a euphemism for "less Babcock."

I was kinda surprised that Kenny wouldn't just come out and call him the best coach in the league. It was like, "Well, I respect what he does and the work he puts in. (I guess.) He's pretty good, y'know. But change is good. I think if you made a list of the best coaches in the league, he would probably be on it. (But then, I haven't really thought about it, so, I dunno.) Certainly he's, like, top-30. Yeah, I like Mike. I guess."

The Hertl goal is impressive, but not as impressive as people seem to think. 97% of the forwards in the league could pull it off (even goons are way more skilled than they're perceived to be), just as 97% of the goalies in the league could hit an empty net at the opposite of the rink. If you had everyone trying "the Hertl," you'd have at least one on NHL Tonight's nightly highlight reel for a couple months straight, and then goalies would catch on and it'd die out and no one would really miss it, cuz it's an unoriginal shootout move (lest we forget, Hertl wasn't the first to do it). If you had every goalie trying "the Brodeur," you'd have at least one on NHL Tonight's nightly highlight reel for a couple months straight, and then the novelty would wear off. Nyquist's goal is something else. How many times have we seen "the Nyquist" before? How many times will we see it again? Sure, it's largely luck, but 1) he earns that luck, and 2) so what? (There's a little bit of "luck" in every goal.) For me, it's just a classic hockey play. Not a nifty little shootout move that, with enough practice, anyone could pull off. Determination, sheer force of will, and then a one-in-a-hundred oh-why-not swing for the fences, since he's battled so hard for it anyway (and that's a hell of a battle, btw) - and he connects, and he knocks it out of the park. And that goalie he beats? One of the best in the league this season. (As we now know, he was the Lightning's season. They're not the same team without him. Just saying.) The other thing about the Hertl goal - the game was already decided. I think it's much easier to pull that off when the opposing team has laid down and died. It's "Good for you, have a cookie" territory. It's awesome that it was his fourth or fifth of the night, but, well, sorta case in point.

Ericsson's actually stepped up his physical game. At the very least, he's our best shutdown guy (though, DeKeyser will be overtaking him soon) and definitely one of our better penalty killers. The big issue with him is we expect him and need him to basically be a 1B to Kronwall's 1A, which is ludicrous, as he's a second-pairing guy, if that. Of course, this is all moot, as - like I said - he's basically untouchable for the time being. If there's one thing Ken Holland loves above all else, it's his loyal homegrown success stories like Ericsson. Hence Ericsson's recent multi-year extension.

Because I said I'd take Ovechkin over Datsyuk and don't care about actually playing hockey.

I'd pay Ovechkin $30M a year just to bomb it from his sweet spot on our power play.

Duncan Keith once saved a little orphan girl from a burning apartment building using only his chin and a pack of smokes and the National Guard.

Heh, sorry. I'd thought I might've said it already, but I couldn't remember. Many reasons. Mainly, we're a middling team in transition that's going to need and expect a great deal more from him than what the Kings (would) need and expect from him. They have Kopitar, Carter, Richards, Brown, Williams, and currently Gaborik. They have Doughty and Quick. They're big and mean and fast and young and pretty much awesome. They won the Cup a couple years ago and bowed out in the Conference Finals last season. They're built for playoff success. They're built to win the Cup. They're not Tortorella's Rangers, a team Gaborik never really clicked with (largely because he was counted on to be one of their very best players every night and he's just not that kind of guy). They don't need him to be a hero. We would need him to be a hero. That's a recipe for issues.

Kenny Alberts and Pierre McGuire. Who decided these two would be good together?