Houdini

Hmmm, maybe I should just change my name to Thornton? - Houdini

Am I the only one not scared by the Sharks? Sure, they've beaten us in the regular season, but anyone who has watched the Wings knows that this postseason team is VERY different than the one that played the Sharks in the regular season. And I don't mean just because of a few new players. The whole team is playing fantastic, we have fire, we're hitting everything in sight, and we're scoring! Oh, it'll be a hard fought series, like Calgary, but I don't see this being a 7 game series. Wings will win it in 6. - Houdini

THANK YOU! I'd absolutely LOVE for any Calgary fan to take a look at these pics and still try to convince themselves that it was a low hip check. - Houdini

Good article. And yet, it said that Calgary had a right to be PO'd because of Maltby 'bowling over Kiprusoff'. Seriously have any Calgary fans actually SEEN that play, or were they all listening to it on the radio? How can any person see Maltby get checked directly into the goalie, and still get mad out Maltby? It's mind boggling. We've had players who looked like they ran Hasek, and on replay you can see our player knocked them into Hasek. When I see that I have to grudgingly agree that it wasn't a penalty. How can you NOT??? - Houdini

Huh? I don't suffer concussions. I've never suffered a concussion. I have the ability to suffer concussions, but to this day I still haven't. - Houdini

Ah, and we would have won the Presidents Trophy, as usual. Oh well, perhaps it's cursed and we are better off this way. - Houdini

Na, just using a pretty good 42 year old goaltender as a comparison to show why I don't think winning 48 games in his circumstance is THAT fantastic. As I said, Brodeur is a great goaltender, but considering the number of games he's played you'd almost expect him to win that many. It's like how Hasek has a 2.05 GAA, which sounds fantastic in today's NHL, but if you look at how many shots he gets a game you'll see his save percentage really isn't THAT great. It's a more telling statistic than GAA. - Houdini

Hasek's had a better winning percentage, and his shutout percentage is VERY close to Brodeur's impressive percentage. Hasek's save percentage isn't as good as Brodeur's, though. But overall, yes, Brodeur's had a better season. But Hasek is 42 years old and way past his prime compared to Brodeur's 34 years of age, and yet his percentages are on par with Brodeur's. As for the 20 games less played, I don't think there's a goalie out there that would NOT want to play every game possible. Heck every other player on the team plays back to back. But most teams need to get their backups in some games so they stay sharp if they are needed, whereas New Jersey doesn't seem to care. Heck, there's a lot of players that play every game a season for a number of seasons straight, but that doesn't make them a great player. Just means they don't succumb to injury/sickness like other players. Playing 78 games is impressive in that he can stay injury free playing that many games. But if you take the number of games played into consideration with his shutouts and wins this year, then his stats aren't that impressive. - Houdini

Brodeur is definitely one of the best of his era, no doubt. But going back to his record wins, it's nothing impressive, IMO. Heck, he's played in 78 games this season! That's just a winning percentage of .615%, which is pretty good, but not spectacular. Hasek's winning percentage this year is .678%. Throw in the SO wins as others have mentioned, and it's makes his "record wins" even less impressive. But still, as mentioned above he's a great goaltender. - Houdini

Did I just hear a Firefly reference? - Houdini

Yeah, but then whenever he shoots the puck, he has his weak arm providing all the power. I never understood why so many right handed players play left handed. - Houdini

Ah, an obvious attempt to ignore my question. Nice try though. Um did you even WATCH the incident? Bertuzzi was behind Moore but he reached around and punched Moore in the SIDE of the head. He NEVER hit him in the back of the head. How do you know the fall didn't do it? I've seen people all sorts of injuries from their head hitting the ice. I'm also saying that I believe there's good chance that 2 or 3 200 pound guys jumping onto Moore's back/neck could have caused the injury, too. Why's that so hard to believe? Gee, let's see, if Bertuzzi is 245 pounds, and the 2 or 3 other people landing on top of Bertuzzi are, say, an average of 200 pounds, then, yeah, that would be about 650 lbs of pressure on a guys back/neck. I'd say that can do some major damage, sure. This from the person who thought Bertuzzi punched Moore in the back of the head? Look at the replay. Bertuzzi lands on his back, with his forearms about on the back of Moore's neck. Then people pile on and you can see what is happening. Yes, I think they could have piled and on put some major pressure on Berts arms which were on Moore's neck. Wait, what was it you said? Nobody is talking about a boxer hitting someone. Nice try though. Seriously, if you at least looked at the video it sure doesn't look like Bertuzzi punched him as hard as he could. Look at his feet, his weight was on the same side foot as the arm that punched. I don't know about you, but I can hit a lot harder if I position my weight on the right foot than transfer the weight to the left as I swing. I'm sure Bertuzzi's just the same. But I guess that's not as exciting as "he hit him as hard as he could", now is it? It has to do with the fact that people have been comdeming Bertuzzi for that hit, but didn't seem to care when McCarty or Fedorov does the same. The side of the face is still the face. So if Bertuzzi was at the side of Moore when he punched him in the side of the face, then it would be OK? I don't understand why that would make a difference Ahh no, the weakest response is when someone takes what I said and turns it into something completely different. WHERE did I say you didn't know hockey or the player? All I said was that you need to look at those incidents involving Wings players with the same objectivity as you do other players (or vice versa). But thanks for turning this into something it's not. Erm, now I'm ***? Let's keep this discussion civil, please. I can't stand Vancouver... but I remember when the Bertuzzi incident happened, and everyone was up in arms about it. I was too, because I hated Bertuzzi (mostly because he was such a pain to the Wings). But once I started looking at the incident more objectively, I saw the major simularities between his hit and McCarty's. But obviously to you it's completely different. I can see that nobody is going to change your mind about it. - Houdini

LOL. So you're saying that the end result is what makes the actual HIT worse? So you're saying that if I get mad and push someone and they end up falling breaking their neck, that my push is WORSE than if I took my stick and swung it baseball style full across the face but didn't cause any major damage? That's just plain dumb. Sure the incident of someone breaking their neck is worse, but not the actual PUSH. Or perhaps you're saying that Bertuzzi's punch to the face broke Moore's neck? Then that must have been one hell of a punch. Looks to me that falling to the ice, or having everyone pile on top of his head would have cause more damage to his neck. Oh, yeah, a bunch of guys landing on your neck can't possible cause any damage. As for the football analogy... that's like me saying Bertuzzi falling on Moore couldn't cause the broken neck, or everyone in football would have broken necks. And the punch couldn't have cause the broken neck or everyone in boxing would have broken necks. A blindsided puch to the face from behind isn't a gloved punch to the face? Ok, if you want to get technical then Fedorov didn't cross check that player in the face, instead he blindsidedly crosschecked him to the face from the side. I'm not sure how that makes my point any different, but there ya go. Seriously, McCarty's blindsided punch to Lemeiux and Fedorov's crosscheck to the face was every bit as bad as what Bertuzzi did, but unfortunately for Bert his guy got hurt badly from the incident. Anyone who thinks differently needs to take their Red Wing tinted glasses off and look a the replays a little closer. - Houdini

LMAO. You think a punch to the face with a glove on is as bad/worse than a cross check to the face??? Um... ok... - Houdini

To all those who don't like Bert because of the Moore incident... I remind you of the Fedorov hit that was actually much more vicious than the Bert hit, but didn't result in any injury thus most people forgot about it: I don't believe many people hated Sergei because of this incident when he was here. Just something to think about... - Houdini

Actually McCarty came up from the side, Lemieux was never facing him. But the end result was that neither saw the punch until it was too late. Let's face it. Had Moore never gotten hurt nobody would even remember that hit. - Houdini

Eh, I never understand so many Wings would say this... when it's just about the same thing McCarty did to Lemeiux in '97. In both plays McCarty/Bert punched the other guy in the face when he wasn't looking, in retaliation for a previous hit by that person. It's just that in one instance the guy came out all bloody, and in the other the guy was seriously hurt. - Houdini

Exactly. Some people just will never admit Holland is a good GM. Holland hasn't done anything in the last few years? Wait, didn't he recently resign Zetterberg to a multi-year contract making WAY WAY below what other teams would have paid him? Na, not Hollands doing, Zetter and his agent just didn't want to be greedy. He signed Datsyuk for less than Pavel demanded, even when he threatened to play in Russia? Not a good deal because he paid Pavel more than Zetterberg! - Houdini

I've always thought Yzerman's 400th goal was great... my favorite goal of all time. - Houdini

Well, if Manny is no #1, then what does that make Osgood since Manny has played much better this season than Ozzy? I can't believe everyone's blaming the goaltender because Nashville scored two breakaways one two great dekes. Manny had a couple of fantastic saves, had a .929% save percentage, and didn't let in one soft goal. But yeah, it's Manny's fault.

Woah, I have to defend Manny here. His stats over the last 4 games are NOT good. However, if you look at the shots that have gone in, almost every single one was tipped. Tipped shots are near impossible to save, and Manny has been absolutely shelled with tipped shots. Two games ago, against the Avs, all 3 goals were tipped. Last game 1 goal was awarded before the even game started, one goal tipped, and one goal on a breakaway. You can't really blame him for the breakaway goal, yet we DID need him to come up with a big save, and he didn't. Manny was not soft any of these last 4 games. Yet at the same time, Ozzy wasn't getting tipped shots on him, and played well last game. I say switch goalies and try to change things up a bit. I'll be surprised if Babcock sticks with Manny on back to back games.

Nobody's saying it's ALL Osgood's fault (that I see anyways). And of course goalies play badly from time to time. But how many time this year can Ozzie apologists keep saying "Well, all goalies have a bad game now and then"? Look at his stats this season. Manny has a .922 save percentage compared to Ozzie's .888%. I could go on and list every other category (goals against, wins/loses, overtime record, shutouts, penalties, etc) and it would be the same thing. The only stat of Ozzie's that I think Ozzie MAY have a better record in is assists. But my point being, is that Ozzie is not having a good year. The Ozzie apologists can say "other goalies have bad games too" or "goalie x is a good goalie and his stats are bad this year", but it doesn't change the fact that Ozzie is not playing well (overall not playing well, obviously he has great games now and then). Did Osgood have a good December? Sure he did, but he certainly wasn't great (except for one game). Manny's goals against and save percentage for the entire SEASON is better than Osgood's GA and save percentage in December. The other thing Ozzie apologists bring up is the fact that Osgood doesn't seem to play well after sitting. Well, if that's true, it doesn't bode well for Ozzie. Babcock isn't going to sit a better playing goalie in hopes that SOMETIME down the line Osgood will start playing better. If you play well you play, if you don't you sit. Osgood's going to have to find a way to play better when coming in cold or he's in trouble. Look, I used to be a HUGE Ozzie fan. And I'll always have a warm spot in my heart for Ozzie. But I still remember quite clearly his last year in Detroit where Manny played half the season because Osgood kept having bad games. I truely feel bad for Osgood. I had hoped he would have a great season, because I know he loves Detroit, and Ozzie HAS won a cup for us. It's just not happening, yet. Maybe he'll turn things around the second half of the season, and I certainly hope so. But everytime Osgood has a bad game and people complain about him, please remember that it's not JUST that he had one bad game, but how many he's had this entire season so far. I hope Osgood picks it up, but Manny's my favorite goalie, and he's played like the better goalie this year... so GO MANNY!

true, but osgood wasnt exactly all on his own seeming how he only had 23 shots to face the whole game. 6 goals in 23 shots is just really sad no matter who you are. and he faced 18 of those shots in a 28:44 minute span from the start of the second until he was pulled. That's a rate of 38 shots per 60 minutes. The Wings only had eleven shots during that same span, which projects to a measly 23 shots. You tell me why the Wings gave up so many goals. Couldn't have been that the defense just fell apart and there was no offensive pressure to keep the Stars from attacking? Yes, but how many times have the Red Wings put on 18 shots in the first period? I can remember this happening quite a few times, actually. But the score certainly was NEVER 6-0 after that first period. Wings defense didn't play well, nobody's denying that. And Ozzie had a lot of shots on him before he was pulled, but he played BADLY to let in 6 goals on 23 shots. Hopefully Manny can keep up his stellar play and the Wings can start winning again. Ozzie will get his chance to redeem himself. My only worry is that Ozzie has had a record (at least this year) of not playing well his first few games back after resting a few. That's not going to bode well for him if Manny stays healthy and Babcock wants to play the hot goaltender...