Packer487

I'm pretty sure he only wants to play for the Pistons--at least right now--so he's sitting right now and will re-sign if one of our bigs gets hurt. Whether that changes throughout the season, I don't know. He had some interest from another team out West (I forget who) and had a big offer to go play in Europe, but he passed on both of those.

I'm geeked as well. I'm bummed that Amir Johnson isn't going to play tonight. I was really hoping to see him get some PT finally. Rip is going to miss tonight's game as well due to a family emergency. Arron Afflalo (or "spell check" as some people call him--I love the nickname) is getting the start.

The good thing about signing a guy like Forsberg, though, is that even if he DOES get hurt, which there's a better-than-decent chance of, we wouldn't have to give up anything to get him. We have the cap space to sign him and still acquire someone else at the deadline if we want. It's not like traded for Gumptuzzi, when we had to give up something (even if that something didn't end up being all that much). It's a low-risk, high-reward situation. And if he ends up on IR we can go over the cap for that amount anyway. It's just like when we made the play for Hasek. There was no other goalie on the market (since we decided to not go after Luongo) that had the potential to take us to the Cup. Yes he was an injury risk. But if we signed him and he got hurt, so what? We weren't going anywhere without him anyway. So would Forsberg be a smart pickup? Absolutely. Anything that we could get out of him in the playoffs would be helpful. How would I feel about us getting Forsberg? That I'm not sure of yet...it's one of those things where I'd have to see what my gut reaction was to the news (or to seeing him in a red and white jersey for the first time). I imagine that if I could get used to Bertuzzi and Chelios in Red Wings jerseys, then I could get used to Floppa as well. Just don't get Kariya, Kunitz, or Fronger and I'm fine.

That's SO cool. I've got a pumpkin here that I was thinking of doing something similar with, but my Lions fan gf wouldn't let me get away with that one. Then again she is out of town..... Even if I can't get tickets, I gotta get up to GB for one of these games. If we host a playoff game, I'm driving up there and watching it at The View. I miss GB. It's been less than a year, but I'm getting the urge to get my butt up there! Turkey Day is going to be a good one. The Lions haven't actually been all that good on Thanksgiving in recent years. I think they've lost 4 of 5--of course the win was against us. They've got a much-improved team, and the defense is playing better than I thought it would. I'm surprised they've only scored 8 touchdowns through the air....

Favre is God. Just so everyone is aware of that. But there's probably 20-25 other QBs in the league who would've made that throw.

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that about Randy. When I was growing up, I used to be in the Goalie's Den all the time. I still remember the first autograph signing they had. It was Tim Chevaldae and Paul Ysebaert. Ysebaert got hurt the night before and had to miss it. They're all good guys in there. Hopefully Randy comes through this ok. I don't even want to know how much money I've spent at that store over the years.

That's sketchy as hell, but absolutely brilliant if they can pull it off. Maybe we should go do that with the next up and coming Swede or Jiri.

Michigan teams in the latest USCHO/CSTV poll: Michigan #3 MSU #8 Michigan Tech #14 WMU (8th in "Also receiving votes") Other CCHA Teams: Miami #2 ND #12 tOSU #19 Not that I'm not thrilled about the start Michigan has had, but that's higher than I want them to be in the poll. I loved that they came in 4th in the CCHA, with almost no expectations. I don't want that target on our backs at this point in the season. I still remember 2005-06.... That said, I'm friggin' amazed at what they've done so far this season. The most impressive part has been the team defense. They've only given up like 79 shots on goal through 4 games. And when you've got a shaky goalie, that's the best way to cover it up. Don't give up anything defensively. We can live with giving up 3 goals on most occasions. It's giving up 4+ that kills us. And BC? Get a new ice rink already. There's no excuse to have games canceled due to power outages/fog in 3 straight seasons, including back-to-back years with a game on National TV. That's just embarrassing.

This might be helpful: Northern Michigan has a video feed for all of their home games and some of their road games. It's only one camera, but it's video and I've heard the quality is pretty good. They synch it up with the radio play-by-play. It's $6 a game, but I think you can get the entire NMU season for $50, which isn't half bad. http://www.b2livetv.com/seasonpassselect.asp If I didn't have my own game tonight, I would've purchased the NMU/Michigan game. I'm debating if I'll do it for tomorrow's game since it's opposite Michigan football, the Wings, and the American Le Mans race. Butcher had an assist against Michigan tonight.

You call it being clear to say things like "The better team can lose one game" and then a paragraph later say "To me, if you win, you were the better team"? I understand the point you're trying to make. I'm just telling you that it doesn't make sense. And in Game 1 the Ducks were 0 for 7. So I guess you can't blame that on Beauchemin after all. Here's a quote from Hasek from that same article that you pulled the Babcock quote from: "You have to be a little bit lucky, and [Giguere] was. He won the series for that team." You can't win in the playoffs without some luck. Hasek gets it. And I'm sure he'd be the first to admit that he got some lucky breaks along the way back in 2002. I don't have a problem conceding that. So now you've got a couple lucky goals in Game 1, the tying goal in game 2 which probably shouldn't have counted, a questionable call leading to the tying goal in game 5, a "fluky" GWG in game 5 and that's just off the top of my head. But it was insane of me to say that luck plays a big role in playoff hockey? And it was insane of me to say that maybe, just maybe, the better team didn't win that series? When the two teams are evenly-matched as they were, a bad call, a bad bounce, a post, a hill of snow in front of the net, a broken stick, a rut in the ice...any of that can make the difference. That much is obvious, but it's absolute crap that you just write it off to me being a homer and you being apparently unbiased as the day is long. I don't think Ottawa was remotely a threat, so I have no problem making that statement that we would've won the Cup had we gotten past Anaheim. I would've said the same thing in 1998 or 2002 had we ended up losing in the WCF. The Wings lost two games in the Anaheim series that they dominated, both of which had some pretty fluky stuff happen (and Anaheim lost a game in that series that they dominated). Really? You're going to pull the homer card again? I'm perfectly capable of watching a game and making my own judgments on what happened. Sometimes the better team just doesn't win. I feel that the teams were pretty damn close, but the Red Wings were slightly better and just didn't get a lot of the breaks that Anaheim did--the biggie is obviously the tying goal in game 2. It's not to take anything away from the Ducks because the series before we beat a team that I thought was better than us in San Jose, and I'm sure if we went back through, we had some pretty fortunate stuff happen. But I think we were the better team in that series. It doesn't make me a homer to say that. I'm fine agreeing to disagree on it. You obviously think that Ottawa was a better team than I do, which is fine. If we were on the same wavelength there, I think you'd find that what I said was pretty close to accurate. We were damn close to beating Anaheim. Close enough that a bounce here or a bounce there could--and DID--make the difference. And again, while I'll acknowledge that it's easy for me to argue the point that we would've killed Ottawa since it can't be disproved, they weren't as good as SJ or Anaheim. And as is usually the case, the East sucks.

It wasn't necessary to bring up in the first place. What I said was a throwaway line that had almost nothing to do with the point of the post. And now we're completely off topic because you can't get it through your head that sometimes luck plays a factor in playoff hockey and you seem intent on trying to get me to admit that the Senators posed some kind of a threat. Right. So did the Capitals and Hurricanes. It wasn't a "massive overstatement" no matter how much you want it to be so. If we win that game, we're probably 80% to win the Stanley Cup. Losing it probably dropped us to 20%. Ahh, I see what you did there. As NorrisNick pointed out, if you think Anaheim lost Game 1 on two bad bounces, what's so crazy about me saying that similar bad bounces (or bad calls) played a key role in Anaheim winning the series? But what if the best team doesn't win "one game" on a couple different occasions in a closely contested series. Which is what happened. What's the limit to how many times the best team can lose in a two week span? Is it only allowed to happen once? I think this needs further exploration. Wait, so in your book if you win you're the better team. But above you just admitted that the better team doesn't always win. I'm officially confused. The better team lost, but the worst team got the W so it makes them the better team, but then the better team would always win and therefore the worse team would have lost. It's very strange... I'm not sure what the point in showing the Babcock quote is. I don't think anyone would argue that Anaheim was a good team and that they found a way to get it done. Or that the Wings let some opportunities slip away. All I said was that we were a bad call away from beating the Ducks (and therefore winning the Cup since the Senators sucked, disagree if you want). I could've just as easily said we were a bounce or two away, a post away, a lucky break away...it was a very close series and sometimes a bad bounce, a lucky break, a bad call is all that it takes to swing the series. Say an official in the San Jose series blew a call and said that Lang was offsides before he scored his goal that saved our bacon....would I be allowed to bring it up then? Since I'm apparently not allowed to bring up bad calls that lead to a game-tying power play goal in the last minute or a game-tying third-period goal that shouldn't have counted...... If they disallow that tying goal and we go up 2-0, it's over. No way they beat us 4 of 5 after that. If we go up 3-2 we're probably 80% to win the series. We weren't losing to Ottawa. It's so cute how you keep trying to pretend that they were actually a threat to do something against the Western representative.

You rule! Yes, I absolutely am. I want to get to at least one game this year and the prices on the usual websites (stubhub, ebay) are absurd. I don't mind paying above face, but I can't go $300 apiece for seats at the top of the stadium. I'm not positive I could make the Packers/Lions game (haven't figured out the holiday plans yet) but I could do any of the other three home games. Even if you could just find a single, I'd come up there on my own...I know at least one other person who wants to get up there though. Depending on people's schedules, I could probably use up to 4. But even 1-2 would be WONDERFUL. Thanks so much! If it works out that I can get tickets and get to a game, I'll totally buy you a beer or three when I'm up there!

It was about Osgood until you picked one throwaway line out of a pretty long post about Osgood and flipped out about it. Pretty great sport we've got where the better team always ends up winning. It truly is amazing that you can't wrap your head around the idea that sometimes things happen over the course of a series. That sometimes the puck bounces your way and sometimes it doesn't. That the perfect setup hits a rut in the ice and bounces over your stick. That you get the short end of the stick on bad calls. I can appreciate the point that the Ducks found a way to win that series. Even with the BS penalty on Datsyuk, they still had to convert on that PP and still win in OT. Even with the BS tying goal that they were given, they still had to win that game in OT. But I 100% disagree that they were the better team in that series. And there's a lot more that goes into it than "They won. They're better." Brendan Morrison said it best: "Sometimes the best team doesn't always win."

I really think Babcock was playing a hunch tonight. Osgood's gotten off to a great start, Dom hasn't (which isn't a shocker). We saw it last year when Osgood got the start in that third Nashville game during the stretch run because he had done so well in the other two games. Hasek is going to be the starter on this team, and he's their guy in the playoffs barring injury. We're fortunate to have a backup goalie who has been really solid in 2007, but he's not unseating the best goalie in the history of the game just because Dom had a couple of bad games. It's nothing against Osgood, but they didn't bring Dom back to put him on the bench after 5 games. All this means is that Babcock has the confidence to throw him in there against good teams (rather than just the Columbuses of the world like the start of last year) and that Osgood will probably get rewarded with some more games. The plan was to only play Dom what? 50-55 games anyway? Might as well get Ozzie some additional work while he's hot.

Much better (and much more credible ) Though, I reserve the right to put an end date on there if he starts sucking again! Couldn't be happier with the way he's playing right now though. Criminey, even Kronwall managed to not suck tonight. We need more of this.

Tinted visor. Nuff said.

How bout ME saying "He's been really solid since last January". That's more meaningful praise, and from a better source

Frankly, I'm shocked that he didn't find a way to bring race into his praise of Osgood somehow.

Reem, Ozzie's been really solid since last January, but you GOTTA find a better quote for your signature than Rob Parker.

And without the talent.

What's the problem with that? All he can do is fight.

Drake got hurt in the first period.

Hey Brent, when you're not doing s*** at work tomorrow, make me a Hasek signature for this board.

Ken Daniels said it was "After he got his bell rung" but I'm not sure if he was basing that on any information he had been given. Sure looked more like the shoulder to me...

They said they're holding him out for the rest of the game as a precaution.