DesertWing

That. Plus I don't want to bring him in and pay him more than Lids. Plus I don't want to restrict our ability to sign a top 4 Defenseman.

If I'm the Detroit GM: Absolutely not. Not just for the $7M per season, but more so for his demand to get at least a five-year deal. If I'm the GM of another NHL team: Maybe.

He is looking for at least $35M/5yrs. Pass.

It would leave us with a lot of cap space. Shouldn't be any financial issues preventing us from giving Lids what he's asking for. I'd like to have Rafa back, but not at the salary he's due.

Defense wins championships. I'm not worried about the Wings' offense, but they need a couple young Defensemen to pan out. It would also be nice to see Kenny go after a young top pairing free agent D-Man after Rafa & Lids' contracts come off the books.

How many Stanley Cup rings does Marleau have in his ears?

I'm guessing you've never spent any significant amount of time in Seattle. It's NOT a hockey city. It's a football city (Seahawks/Huskies). I lived in SEA for 3 1/2 years and rarely heard hockey discussed or saw anything about hockey in the newspapers. I don't get why people always seem to mention Seattle as a good desination for an NHL franchise.

A quote from Anthony Perez after a Red Wings-Coyotes game in December 2008: The Red Wings fans have solidified themselves in my book as "hockey's version of Raider fan." Buncha K-Mart lovin', double-wide livn', Little Ceasar's eatin' fools.

I've gotten into a few arguments with him on the CoyotesCorner board due to his anti-Red Wing nonsense. He's a wannabe play-by-play guy (hence the username pxpyote) who writes a blog. No big thing.

Fixed. I've been in Arizona for 7+ years and love that we don't observe DST.

No. That's 3:30pm in Arizona. We're 3 hours behind Eastern time zone until you guys move your clocks back in the fall.

Phoenix is 3 hours behind Eastern Time until fall. We don't change our clocks here, so when you "sprang forward" we didn't.

Okay, but the original post states: "all teams have ABOUT equal travel". Chicago to Los Angeles & Anaheim is approximately 1750 miles Chicago to Phoenix is approximately 1450 miles Chicago to Dallas is approximately 800 miles Detroit to Ottawa is approximately 425 miles Detroit to St. Louis is approximately 455 miles Detroit to Nashville is approximately 470 miles Detroit to Columbus is approximately 165 miles Chicago's average travel to their divisional road games is over 1,400 miles one-way (right now the average is less than 300 miles) Detroit's average travel to their divisional road games is less than 400 miles one-way. Doesn't sound anywhere near equal to me.

Sucks for Les Habs to be traveling so much intra-division (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and San Jose? YIKES!) You're going to separate the Islanders-Rangers-Devils? Doesn't make sense to me. Chicago also gets screwed by having to travel to Anaheim, L.A. and Phoenix for divisional games.

Columbus fans are lazy and they suck.

FALSE. If you're driving from anywhere in the Valley, your drive is an hour MAX. If it's taking you 2 hours to get to the games, you're either A) Driving from Prescott or Tucson or B) Riding your bike. I work in N. Scottsdale, on the other side of town and it takes me about 45 minutes to get the Glendale Arena. Rush hour in Phoenix isn't THAT bad.

We have light rail in Phoenix, but it really doesn't go anywhere (downtown PHX to Tempe). There are proposals to extend it out to Westgate so people can ride it to Cardinals and Coyotes games. I don't know what the cost would be, but I don't see the taxpayers wanting to pony up any more money for this albatross. We need to improve our highway system first.

This news ruined my week.

I called DirecTV last night and got Center Ice for free this season. Just mentioned that I came home from work hoping to watch the Caps-Bruins game. Guy tried to sell me the CI package, but I told him I didn't want to pay anything to watch hockey. He said "let me see what I can do", then came back and said he'd give me the Center Ice package for free this season. Too bad I work till 8pm ET so I'll miss half of most Red Wing games.

Nothing the Coyotes could do in the Wheeler situation. They offered the kid the max money, but he never wanted to play in Phoenix. Too bad the Coyotes wasted the fifth overall pick on him (and a pick that drew a lot of criticism).

The NHL needs to come out and eliminate this so-called rule. If you're not going to enforce it, it becomes a joke.

Then him & LeBron James can console each other. Wings won't be outplayed two games in a row. MA Fleury continues to look shaky. DETROIT 4 PITTSTAIN 1 Red Wing goals by Z, Lids, Hossa and Rafalski

The Red Wings had it happen vs Chicago a while back too.

Actually, they only double the price of tickets for the Red Wings' games.