Dabura

Weak.

Wow, Benn just got his.

I love that the Finns play such a physical game. Goes to show you don't have to be especially big or strong or mean to be a gritty, physical, hard-hitting team.

Pretty good penetration there and it was blocked by flaccid.

Actually, in all honesty, he kinda sucks now. But I like that he plays with an edge, sticks his nose in the dirty areas, can be a good net-front guy (see: his goal just now). I think he could sort of be what we wanted Cleary/Samuelsson/Bertuzzi/Tootoo to be: a gritty bottom-sixer with some scoring upside. And he's rumored to be on the trade block. Only issue: cap hit. (Something like 4.5.) Hurricanes would have to eat some salary, maybe take on Quincey. Failing that, we could trade for Crosby. He's also pretty good.

Momentum shift.

I was just about to say I wouldn't mind Ruutu on the Wings for ultra cheap.

RUUTU

Finns looking slow, gassed. C'mon! I want an upset!

Edzo made a good point: you can't really forecheck with two forwards on this big ice.

Finns are really missing their wounded.

wrong thread

Talking about how Crosby has no room and it's really tough for him to do anything. I feel like that's kinda weak, because as soon as he scores, it'll be a never-ending chorus of "How do you stop Crosby? You pray. Really, that's all you can do. He's so skilled, so talented, he sees the ice so well..."

He'd be a shot-blocking machine!

What about Sheahan? Datsyuk, Zetterberg/Weiss, Weiss/Sheahan, Sheahan/Andersson/Glendening/Ott? And, I mean, it's not like we have absolutely no idea if we can win anything without Helm and with a weak-link second-line center. Look at what we did last season, in the playoffs. Helm wasn't even playing, Flip had already checked out, Andersson was centering Nyquist and Brunner ...and we knocked off the Ducks and took the Blackhawks to a Game 7 OT. And that Andersson line? It was actually pretty good. And all that was without Sheahan, who's already making a case that he can be about as good as Helm defensively and even better offensively. Bottom line: I think we could bear the loss of our third-line center if it means getting a very good top-four defenseman. (Assuming Weiss pans out.) As for the future of our blue line - it looks bright, but I'm not really keen on the idea that if we just wait three years we'll have an awesome blue line. We don't know if Smith is ever going to pan out. Kronwall's our one big gun on the blue line and he's into his 30s. Ericsson is likely the best he's ever going to be right now (defensemen tend to peak at around 28. He's 29.) Ouellet, Sproul, Marchenko - maybe one or two or even all three of them pan out, but, even then, I wouldn't expect any of them to be guys we can really truly lean on three years from now. And, again, that's with Kronwall and Ericsson in decline. And that's waiting three whole years! For kids! And, plus, if we're going to look to the future, we could argue that Jarnkrok should be at least a third-line center three years from now. Again, I'm not necessarily keen on trading Helm. This is largely just me arguing for the sake of arguing, or, to put it euphemistically, "playing devil's advocate." And yet, like you've said many times, kip: to get something good, we're going to have to give up something good. The issue there, of course, is that most if not all of our really good roster players are totally untouchable. Datsyuk won't be moved. Zetterberg won't be moved. Franzen very likely won't be moved. Nyquist won't be moved. Tatar very likely won't be moved. Weiss won't be moved unless he absolutely bombs, at full-strength (i.e. while not battling an inury) - and even then, it'd be a very short list of GMs who might be willing to take him on. (Needless to say, we probably wouldn't be getting a top-six forward or top-four defenseman in return.) That's pretty much our entire top six. On the back end, Kronwall is a Wing for life, Ericsson wants to be a Wing for life, DeKeyser chose the Wings over every other team, and I don't imagine Smith's trade value is very high right now. All of which is to say: if we're really serious about a big trade target, and that target's GM is really serious about getting at least one key roster player in return...doesn't that key roster player sort of have to be Darren Helm?

I guess it doesn't make any sense to even consider moving Helm until we have a better idea of what we really have in Weiss. But let's assume Weiss pans out.

How do we feel about Darren Helm? OK, stupid question. Let me rephrase it: Do we still consider Darren Helm untouchable? I was thinking of ways we might get Edler. I thought about the sorry state of the Canucks. How Torts thinks the team looks old and slow and crappy. How they want a quality center. How they might be looking at a rebuild/retool. And I realized they'd probably love to have Darren Helm. And I realized every team would probably love to have Darren Helm. What do you suppose his trade value might be? Obviously it would differ from team to team, but y'know what I'm saying. Maybe use Edler as a general measure? Helm + [?] (+ [?]2) = Edler. Note: It's not that I necessarily want to trade Helm. Or that even if I did, I'd feel really, really good about it. No. I just feel like this whole if-you-want-to-acquire-a-really-good-roster-player-you're-probably-going-to-have-to-give-up-a-really-good-roster-player thing really does not look favorably upon us, so any good roster player we have who we might be willing to part with...that player might very well be what gets That Big Trade done for us. Anyone can offer picks. Anyone can offer good prospects. Not everyone can offer Darren Helm.

Or we could just play Brendan on the wing and refer to him as "Reilly." BABCOCK: Hey, that puck's gotta go deep, Reilly! B. SMITH: I'm not my brother! BABCOCK: I've noticed!

Y'know who's pretty good? Brendan Smith...'s younger brother. Last I checked, he's on pace for around 25 goals. And he's only 22 years old.

I hear ya. I guess my thinking - if we want to go the conspiracy route - is that we don't even necessarily need the ref(s) to be biased for the whole thing to be suspicious. It could just be that Quick is an evil genius. (If I'm a goalie in the Olympics, I'd quite like playing with an ever-so-slightly dislodged net. It'd be a wonderful safety cushion; even if the opposition scores, they don't score. And they're not going to make you play the past minute or two or however much time has transpired all over again. Sweet, right? JUST SAYIN'. )

+1

Swiss just scored. I'm rooting for them.

Thanks, I'd guessed that was what was up. Good on Disco Dan. Not a fan of the no-goal. Cheapened the whole thing for me a bit, even if it was the right call. I dunno if it can be pinned on one of the refs being American, though. (Then again...)

Just to be clear, what are the exact rules re: the shootout? Like, did Bylsma have to keep going to Oshie? Or does Bylsma just have a wicked sixth sense for these things? (See also: that time he said Jussi Jokinen was gonna score on the next play, and Jussi Jokinen scored on the next play. I also vaguely remember him saying something about Max Talbot prior to The Game That Shall Not Be Named.)

I only wish that could've been the gold medal game.