Dabura

No call? Seriously?! I caught that on a recap and assumed he was flagged for it. Bulls***.

Sounds like the GMs were hip to his scheme. Good for them.

Good thing "the days of the enforcer are long gone." Oh, wait....

I don't like Havlat's injury problems. Marleau's not what we need. We won't get Kaberle. Hurray for deadline month!

Oh give me a break. We're all Wings fans here -- some of us just choose to be vocal about the team's perceived shortcomings. And it's not like there's no basis for doing so. How many times over the last 10+ years have we seen a strong yet flawed Wings team destroy the opposition in the regular season only to be upset in the postseason because its supposedly inconsequential weaknesses are exposed and taken advantage of? Learning from past mistakes does not make someone an "anti Wings fan." Seriously, what a crock.

Hossa + Stuart would suit me just fine. Half our roster is trade bait at this point.

At what point do I deserve to be axed?

The big thing for me is depth. This slide shows we don't have it -- at least, not enough for us to go deep in the playoffs should we lose one or two important players. As hard as it is for this team to win with a depleted roster in the regular season, it's going to be twice as hard in the postseason. A healthy Ducks team with Blake on its blue line would eat this roster alive.

Then it would seem you and I have a fundamental disagreement on the nature of slumps like this one. I don't believe in anomalous streaks that just come and go regardless of how well or poorly a team is playing. There are always discernable causes. The teams that realize this and address said causes are the teams that tend to go deep into the postseason. Sweeping things under the rug and saying, "Let's just forget we ever had this slide. We're great and that's all that matters," is a terrible way of handling something that should ultimately be viewed as didactic.

No one is saying those things. People need to take off the homer goggles and realize that citing a team's weaknesses is not tantamount to giving up on a team, calling it the worst in the league, etc. I can assure you that Babs is not saying to the team, "Oh, it's OK, guys. We've had losing streaks before." Losing streaks should be taken seriously, as they're indicative of bad play and weaknesses. And those things don't just fix themselves.

With all due respect, What are you smoking?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!!1

Good news. Someone said on the last page that he's more or less Markov, but better. I'd have to agree with that.

Wouldn't mind Stuart.

And you're taking liberties with the facts to make this argument. I didn't say we have a total lack of big, physical guys -- I said we have a "near-total" lack: As for the names you listed: 1. Lilja - Liability. 2. Franzen - Liability, is not consistently physical, and even when he is physical, he's more of a scrappy grinder than a big bruiser. 3. Kopecky - Liability. Often times completely useless in every area of the game. 4. Ellis - 5. Holmstrom - Physical, but it's not the kind of physicality I'm calling for. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But I'll tell you what: it's better than not having someone on the ice who's ready to take off Pronger's head at a moment's notice. For the record, though, I'd ideally want this enforcer to be more than an enforcer. In other words, someone who can pound people but also play the game of hockey at a high level. Basically, someone the Wings will never have on their team ever again. But this has gotten tangential. My point was that often times these anti-whining rants are just as inane as the things they're railing against.

No, the reputation of those names is based on those players being consistently good players who know how to win. Like it or not, many of those players hoisted the Cup last year, whereas the Wings haven't done so since 2002 -- and the Wings of 2008 are far removed from that team, so really, this team as we know it has not delivered the goods yet and people need to stop acting like they have. Adding Blake will only make a sick blue line even sicker. The knee-jerk reaction is to say, "Ha! He's old! A lotta good that'll do," but he's been playing pretty damn good hockey of late -- and it's exactly the kind of hockey the Ducks love to play. So barring an act of divine intervention, this would be a monstrous pickup for the Ducks and a big blow to this undersized, scoring-challenged Wings team. Which is exactly why Burke is probably first in line for Blake right now. But it's OK. We almost beat them last year and and and we're first in the league and and and we've gotta think about the FUTURE!!1

This is the big reason for the fine, I'm sure. Screwing with broadcasts is a no-no.

Flip has the makings of a great playmaker. He made a big statement this past postseason. Guys like him are more valuable than the Jiri Hudlers of the world, especially to an organization like this one, which has absolutely no difficulty finding smallish, one-dimensional "goal-scorer" types. But like I said, they can both go on the block if it means getting Hossa.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they get him. In fact, I'm expecting it. I even called it about a week ago. Rest assured: Burke doesn't share Kenny's reservations about the future.

That's because that's all he has -- his "puck wizard" skills. If you're going to have a player like that on your team, he needs to be putting the puck in the net. Otherwise, like you said, there's nothing else going for him. Certainly not his physical package or two-way play. At this point, I see no reason why Kenny shouldn't be going full-tilt for Hossa. Hudler, Flip, Sammy -- all fair game.

People aren't just randomly saying, "Hey, I like big guys. We should have some big guys!" There's a reason -- two, actually. 1. Our near-total lack of big, physical players who can -- and here's the really important part -- log a lot of minutes. 2. Our near-total lack of people who will make the opposition think twice before taking liberties with our stars. It's the first one, though, that is the real concern, as it is a legitimate weakness. It's especially obvious along our undersized and not-so-physical blue line. Or top 4 or 5 sorely needs a big, crease-clearing defensive defenseman, someone who can step up to the likes of Getzlaf -- who, like him or not, has made a hobby of singlehandedly assraping our d-zone while our defenders just stand there and watch like deer caught in headlights. I'll say it until I'm blue in the face and type it until my fingers fall off: This is not '97. This is not '98. This is not '02. This is '08. People need to start thinking like it. No more of this "Oh they'll be fine because they're the Wings, and even if they lose, the Leafs haven't won it all in decades, so there."

I'm glad people are seeing the Light. I'd part with Hudler much sooner than I would Flip, but right now, they're both playing like trade bait. I've got to think Hudler is gone. And Sammy. If they're both on the roster come the playoffs, I'm going to scream.

As long as we have Ozzie, we'll be OK in net. It's the O and D that need tweaking.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it it!!!11one