Dabura

I like Ozzie as a person and (former) player. But as a color guy? Not so much.

Franzen is a big fan of freeze shots. (Weak shots that the goalie's meant to save, offensive zone faceoff.) Monohan looks 16.

OMG, what is going on with the feeds? They do. I'm not a big fan of 'em.

The Flames feed is good now.

Oh, sorry, should've read first.

Are both Gamecenter feeds absolute crap for anyone else?

I'm a little surprised it's only four years.

Holland? Buy out Franzen? Does anyone really believe that'd ever happen? I mean, sure, maybe if he finishes a season with, like, ten points.

I might start by taking a chance on Keaton Ellerby.

I played with someone who played under Hartley for a bit. I remember him saying, "He talks really weird. 'Get your balls out of your mouth, eh.'" Obviously, the way he said it doesn't come through here, but I assure you it was hilarious. Still makes me laugh when I think about it.

The Sedins re-signed

And fast as hell. (We are, generally, slow as hell.)

Mrazek may start? EDIT: Sorry, misread something.

BTW - Subban is tied for the league lead among defensemen with 11 points. He's a point producer, and, again, exactly what we need, IMHO.

Our offense has always started with our blue line. That hasn't really been happening ever since we lost Rafalski and Lidstrom. Right now it's barely happening at all, and I believe that has everything to do with our crappy output. Who on our blue line is really capable of running the offense, consistently making that excellent first pass, moving the puck like a true pro? We have Kronwall and...Smith? Kindl? Ericsson has been good for us, and so has DeKeyser - but they're defensive defensemen, as is Lashoff. (Not sure what Quincey is. And yes, I mean that in a mean way.) A guy like Subban (i.e. a gifted offensive defenseman) would do wonders for our offense, IMHO. Not that I wouldn't love a scoring winger. But I think the biggest problem with our offense is our defense, mostly the "offensive" side of it.

I like this idea, but I think if we're going to go the it-wasn't-an-injury route, "personal matters" might be a slightly more plausible explanation. Why? Because, as far we know, he didn't travel with the team to Vancouver and wasn't at the game. Isn't it sort of expected that healthy scratches will be there at the game, hanging around the team? Unless they just really wanted to keep this hush-hush and therefore didn't want a healthy-looking Franzen roaming around Rogers Arena, or something like that.

Should be Fedorov or Kronwall or Hasek or Ozzie or Howard. Or Hudler.

Stajan! He's another key player's who's out for them, right? Or has he returned?

This is definitely another one of those if-we-lose-we-are-garbage games. Giordano's out. Stempniak is out. The only things they have going for them: they're great at home, Monohan's on fire (lol pun), they're young (which means fast, which means much faster than us), they're going to want to make a statement, and they swept last season's series. Oh, and Cammalleri has 22 points in 22 games against us. And Hudler knows us. And Hartley sort of knows us. So, actually, they've got a few things going for them.

Our offense has dried up so much that I actually kinda sorta miss Hudler.

Could've had Hossa.

Maybe's he's not lazy. Maybe he's just dumb.

Yes, this. This, this, this. Datsyuk and Zetterberg are, right now, about as good as they're going to be from here on out. Alfredsson is here and he's awesome and ludicrously motivated. Howard is in fine form. Ericsson is good enough that he can play top-pairing minutes or drop down to the second pairing and be really, really good - so, point being, it's not like adding a high-end defenseman would give us only two really good defensemen (which, I admit, probably wouldn't be worth it). It'd give us three studs plus DeKeyser, and that's a potentially Cup-winning top four, unlike what we have now (yeah, we're gonna win it all with Smith-Quincey getting pretty big minutes. Excuse me while I barf.) Or, if we wanna go for a scoring forward - go for it, Ken! We need all the scoring help we can get! Do it! This team is nowhere good enough to be a legitimate Cup contender. I'm starting to feel bad for Alfie. Do you see us beating the Pens in a best-of-seven? Boston? I think even the Leafs would thump us, and, ick, that's a new and extremely unpleasant notion. Or, let's say we come out of the East. Do we beat the 'hawks or Sharks or even the Avs? OK, maybe the Avs. But it'd probably be close, and Mule would have to be the real Mule, which we can't really count on. "Well, two things, Robert." Go ahead. "First, we took the Blackhawks to seven games last season." I think we got a bit...well, I don't want to say lucky. I'll put it this way: I don't see us doing that again. We were just obscenely incredible for that three-game stretch, and the 'hawks were not themselves during that time. They got their crap together, Brendan Smith existed, and we ended that series on an incredibly terrible, madly disappointing, searingly sour note. "OK, fair enough. But, the second thing is, we're in the middle of a big transition phase; we should be satisfied with just making the playoffs." Booooooo!!! We're the Red Wings. It's Cup or bust every season, no excuses. And Daniel Alfredsson, who some believe is God Himself, chose the Wings over the Bruins for His final push. So, win the Cup or go to Hell. (No pressure.) /weekly rant

I like your thinking, jimmy. Also, it just occurred to me that Lidstrom - Pronger would have resulted in a dozen Cups. I am very sad that this never happened, even if Pronger is a godforsaken ****** (and he is) and a sworn eternal enemy (and he is).

We suck against the Flames. Let's change that tonight.